Creation Myths

The creation story of En(ma Elish--named for the first words of the story, "When above" or "When on high"-- predates the Genesis version of creation by an estimated 500 years, having been dated at 1950 BC. The earliest written Semitic sources, which survive as fragments of various Old Testament books, have been dated at the fourteenth century BC (Babylonia). According to Senior (RG2-3), Genesis was composed around 1000 BC and gives an account of events and personalities flourishing from a period roughly equivalent to the time of the Envma Elish, 1850 to 1250 BC, the estimated period of the narrative events. However, the written Hebrew record corresponds to a strong and highly consistent oral tradition among the Hebrew generations (Senior RG6).

Envma Elish is the creation story that came out of the empire of Babylonia in Mesopotamia. It is an account of the Babylonian theogony, of the shape of the cosmos in general, and of the world of human experience as understood by the Babylonians in particular. Envma Elish should also be understood in cultural terms, as part of the cultural construct that also includes (1) the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, which is the Babylonian account of the great flood, commonly identified as a source for the

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. Its natural regulation--calendar, tides, moon, sun, and the like--is also created by Marduk. Fox (178) characterizes this as Marduk's putting the cosmos in order, which can be associated with Weber's idea of religion as a rationalist human response to the found universe. It is also consistent with the notion that the creation of the universe is very much a heroic act. It can be attributed to bravery, power, an expression of magnificence. Finally Marduk amasses Kingu's blood (Matthews 27), in order to create man as a servant of the gods, who are assigned each in his or her turn to various aspects of human and nature experience, or in Campbell's terminology, the gods' "various cosmic mansions" (84). Man, which Marduk originally intends to create out of the residue of Tiamat's vanquished allies, is after Apsu's destruction created solely out of the bloody residue of Kingu, Tiamat's son (and consort and chief of the lesser gods). The inferiority of mankind to the divinity in both physical and moral contexts is thus explained. The gods of the cosmic mansions, for their part, propose to Marduk the plan of constructing a sanctuary and throne, or temple (Matthews 27) for Marduk; this, says Marduk, will be Babylon (Campbell 85). The cycl
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Approximate Word count = 3958
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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