It is very common to be able to relate stories from the Hebrew Bible with stories from ancient societies such as Mesopotamia and Egypt. Creation is a topic that humankind cannot be certain of, and with uncertainty comes stories from different cultures and societies. Two creation epics that I would like to compare are Enuma Elish and the first creation story of Genesis in the Old Testament. These two stories share several similarities, and one could think that there might be a relationship between the two epics. But on the other hand, the stories truly spin off in opposite directions leading one to believe that it may just be a coincidence.
A Babylonian epic myth, Enuma Elish, was approximately written in the sixteenth century B.C.E., although groups of others think otherwise. Enuma Elish is a story of creation through warfare and violence, and was written on seven clay tablets. The main focus of this epic is on the origin and hierarchy of the gods. Before any creation, there were two vast bodies of water, Apsu ? the freshwater ocean, and Tiamat ? the saltwater ocean. Through the fusion of these two bodies of water came of the creation of the gods. Marduk, who becomes the king of all gods by defeating Tiamat, becomes the creator of the heavens and of earth by using Tiamat's body. Through reading this epic you learn the worldview of the Babylonian society at this time frame, which shows the importance of their gods and mankind servicing these gods.
The creation story in Genesis chapter one of the Hebrew Bible is today known to be from the P source, which are the authors from the priestly tradition. This story explains the creation of Earth and humankind, which was completed by Elohim in ...