Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/148

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theogony must have originally stood between vv.2 and 3 of Gn. 1 (Gu.) is more than can be safely affirmed. Gu. thinks it is the necessary sequel to the idea of the world-egg in the end of v.2. But he himself regards that idea as foreign to the main narrative; and if in the original source something must have come out of the egg, it is more likely to have been the world itself (as in the Phœnician and Indian cosmogonies) than a series of divine emanations.—(3) Both accounts assume, but in very different ways, the existence of light before the creation of the heavenly bodies. In the Bab. legend the assumption is disguised by the imagery of the myth: the fact that Marduk, the god of light, is himself the demiurge, explains the omission of light from the category of created things. In the biblical account that motive no longer operates, and accordingly light takes its place as the first creation of the Almighty.—(4) A very important parallel is the conception of heaven as formed by a separation of the waters of the primæval chaos. In Enuma eliš the septum is formed from the body of Tiamat; in Gen. it is simply a rākî'a—a solid structure fashioned for the purpose. But the common idea is one that could hardly have been suggested except by the climatic conditions under which the Bab. myth is thought to have originated. Jen. has shown, to the satisfaction of a great many writers, how the imagery of the Bab. myth can be explained from the changes that pass over the face of nature in the lower Euphrates valley about the time of the vernal equinox (see Kosm. 307 ff.; cf. Gu. Schöpf. 24 ff.; Gordon). Chaos is an idealisation of the Babylonian winter, when the heavy rains and the overflow of the rivers have made the vast plain like a sea, when thick mists obscure the light, and the distinction between heaven and sea seems to be effaced. Marduk represents the spring sun, whose rays pierce the darkness and divide the waters, sending them partly upwards as clouds, and partly downwards to the sea, so that the dry land appears. The 'hurricane,' which plays so important a part in the destruction of the chaos-monster, is the spring winds that roll away the dense masses of vapour from the surface of the earth. If this be the natural basis of the myth of Marduk and Tiamat, it is evident that it must have originated in a marshy alluvial region, subject to annual inundations, like the Euphrates valley.—(5) There is, again, a close correspondence between the accounts of the creation of the heavenly bodies (see p. 21 f.). The Babylonian is much fuller, and more saturated with mythology: it mentions not only the moon but the signs of the Zodiac, the planet Jupiter, and the stars. But in the idea that the function of the luminaries is to regulate time, and in the destination of the moon to rule the night, we must recognise a striking resemblance between the two cosmogonies.—(6) The last definite point of contact is the creation of man (p. 30 f.). Here, however, the resemblance is slight, though the deliberative 1st pers. pl. in Gn. 126 is probably a reminiscence of a dialogue like that between Marduk and Ea in the Enuma eliš narrative.—(7) With regard to the order of the works, it is evident that there cannot have been complete parallelism between the two accounts. In the tablets the creation of heaven is followed