2. The only cuneiform document which admits of close and continuous
comparison with Gn. 1 is the great Creation Epos just referred
to. Since the publication, in 1876, of the first fragments, many lacunæ
have been filled up from subsequent discoveries, and several duplicates
have been brought to light; and the series is seen to have consisted of
seven Tablets, entitled, from the opening phrase, Enuma eliš (= 'When
above').[1] The actual tablets discovered are not of earlier date than
the 7th cent. B.C., but there are strong reasons to believe that the
originals of which these are copies are of much greater antiquity, and
may go back to 2000 B.C., while the myth itself probably existed in
writing in other forms centuries before that. Moreover, they represent
the theory of creation on which the statements of Berossus and
Damascius are based, and they have every claim to be regarded as the
authorised version of the Babylonian cosmogony. It is here, therefore,
if anywhere, that we must look for traces of Babylonian influences on
the Hebrew conception of the origin of the world. The following outline
of the contents of the tablets is based on King's analysis of the
epic into five originally distinct parts (CT, p. lxvii).
i. The Theogony.—The first twenty-one lines of Tab. I. contain a description of the primæval chaos and the evolution of successive generations of deities:
When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not bear a name,
And the primæval Apsu,[2] who begat them,
And chaos, Ti'āmat,[3] the mother of them both,—
Their waters were mingled together,
. . . .
Then were created the gods in the midst of (heaven), etc.
First Laḥmu and Laḥamu,[4] then Ansar and Kisar,[5] and lastly (as we learn from Damascius, whose report is in accord with this part of the tablet, and may safely be used to make up a slight defect) the supreme triad of the Bab. pantheon, Anu, Bel, and Ea.[6]
- ↑ The best collection and translation of the relevant texts in English is given in L. W. King's Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. i. (1902); with which should be compared Jen. Mythen und Epen, in KIB, vi. 1 (1900), and now (1909) Gressmann, Altorient. Texte und Bilder z. AT., i. 4 ff. See also Jen. Kosmologie (1890), 268-301; Gu. Schöpf. (1894) 401-420, and the summaries in KAT3, 492 ff.; Lukas, Grundbegriffe in d. Kosm. d. alt. Völker (1893), 2 ff.; Jast. Rel. of Bab. and Ass. (1898) 410 ff.; Jer. ATLO2, 132 ff.; EB, art. Creation.
- ↑ Damascius, Ἀπασων.
- ↑ Dam. Ταυθε, Ber. Θαμτε (em., see above).]
- ↑ Dam. Λαχη and Λαχος (em.).
- ↑ Ασσωορος and Κισσαρη.
- ↑ Ἀνος, Ἰλλινος (In-lil = Bel), and, Ἀος.
KAT3, 488 ff.; G. Smith, Chaldean Genesis (ed. Sayce), pp. 34 ff., 43 f. (from Cory, Ancient Fragments); Gu. Schöpf. 17 ff.; Nikel, Gen. u. Keilschr. 24 f., 28.
