This research will compare and contrast the creation myths of Babylonia (Envma Elish) and the Judeo-Christian tradition (Genesis) through a discussion of the pattern of ideas in each creation myth and how they relate historically to each religion.
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 Noah's Ark story in Genesis, and (2) the Code of Hammurabi, the set of laws associated with the Babylonian ruler of that name, who lived about 1700 BC, the height of Babylonian power in Mesopotamia. Envma Elish as the myth of origin is meant to be the oldest of the three records of Babylonia, though Campbell, who has a well-developed comparison between the Babylonian and Hebrew creation myths, suggests (75) that the text was composed "either in, or shortly fo...