3.1 Creation in the ANE
BOT612: Old Testament Backgrounds
Introduction
• "The historian of religion C. H. Long . . .
Distinguishes six basic types according to
structure: creation from nothing, creation
from chaos, creation from a cosmic egg,
world-parent myths (e.g. separation of heaven
and earth in Sumerian mythology), emergence
myths (e.g., earth as mother, gestation or birth
with little attention to the father), and earth-
diver myths (e.g., someone dives into the deep
for a piece of earth)."
Introduction
• "The biblicist Claus Westermann
distinguishes four types according to the
type of action: creation by birth or
succession of births, creation as the
result of struggle or victory, creation by
an action or activity (e.g., separation,
formation of human beings), and
creation through a word."
History of Research
• Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient
Near East.
– Creativity: Humans & Cosmos
• Westermann, Genesis.
– Undifferentiated mythologies
– "As we survey the creation stories through the
world we can draw some clear lines of distinction
between the creation of the one and the creation of
the whole. There are many more stories of the
creation of the one, so that we can say in general
that the creation of the one is an earlier type,
and that the creation of the whole belongs to a
later stage."
History of Research
• Differentiation between Modern and
Ancient Concepts of Creation:
– The Process
– The Product
– The Manner of Reporting
– The Criterion of Truth
Sumerian Creation Stories
• The Nippur Cosmic System
– "In the Nippur tradition creation takes place in
the cosmic marriage between Heaven (An) and
Earth (Ki): An brings Ki to flower by raining
upon her. As earth blooms, the human race
emerge from the soil loosened by the hoe, emersio
in van Dijk’s terminology. The marriage act took
place at Dur-an-ki (“bonding of heaven and
earth”), a site in the temple of Nippur. Nippur was
the city of Enlil, the god of earth, who first
separated the cosmic pair. The Nippur system
included a pre-creation phase-an embryonic
period of father and mother gods."
Sumerian Creation Stories
• Eridu Chthonic System:
– "In the other system, that of Eridu, the water god
Enki creates by bringing up the underground
waters via rivers and canals to fertilize the earth.
The act was imagined in sexual terms: the
fertilizing water was the semen of Enki the bull.
The act included implicitly human beings, for
cities came into being along the river banks. A
separate creation of man is narrated in the poem
Enki and Ninmah: Enki, with the help of the
mother goddess, creates human beings from clay,
fomatio according to van Dijk."
Mesopotamian Creation Stories
• Minor Cosmogonies:
– "Cosmogonies in the Akkadian language range in
date from the second to the mid-first millennia.
Most of the fifteen or so examples are brief and
narrowly functional, i.e., tied to a single operation,
e.g., to cure an ailment, to dedicate a temple, to
provide background for a literary debate between
newly created beings, to show heavenly bodies are
divine signs for the human race. A good example
is the well-known incantation against a toothache
in which the magician narrates the creation of the
world, telling how the worm was assigned to eat
fruit. The worm has deviated from that task to
Mesopotamian Creation Stories
gnaw at human gums and so the magician prays
the god to make the worm leave the sufferer’s
mouth and return to its original purpose of eating
fruit."
• The Anthological Cosmogonies:
–Atrahasis
–Enuma Elish
Atrahasis
Atrahasis Genesis
A. Creation (I.1-351) A. Creation (1.1-2.3)
•Summary of gods •Summary of God's
work work
•Creation of humans •Creation of humans
B. First Threat (I.352- B. First Threat (2.4-
415) 3.24)
•Human's numerical •Genealogy of Heaven
increase & Earth
•Plague, Enki's help •Adam & Eve
C. Second Threat (II.i.1- C. Second Threat (4.1-26)
v.21) Humankinds Cain & Abel
Numerical Increase: •Cain & Abel, genealogy
•Drought, numerical •Lamech's taunt (in
increase genealogy)
•Intensified drought,
Enki's help
D. Final Threat (II.v.22- D. Final Threat (5.1-9.29)
III.vi.4) •Genealogy
•Numerical Increase •Noah's flood, Salvation in
•Atrahasis' flood, ark
Salvation in boat
Atrahasis
E. Resolution (II.vi.5- E. Resolution (10.1-
viii.18) 11.32)
•Numerical Increase •Genealogy
•Compromise between •Tower of Babel and
Enlil and Enki: "Birth Dispersion
Control" •Genealogy, Abram
leaves Ur
Enuma Elish
I.1-20. Theogony: the rise of the gods from
Apsu-Tiamat culminating in Anu and Ea
(Nudimmud).
I.21-78. The first confrontation, between
Apsu and Ea, and its resolution by Ea’s
victory over Apsu and his building of his
shrine.
I.79-VI.121. The second confrontation,
between Marduk the son of Ea and Tiamat
the spouse of Apsu, and its resolution.
Enuma Elish
VI.122-VII.144. The gods acclaim
Marduk supreme by ascribing to him
fifty names.
VII.145-162. Epilogue: exhortation to
study the names and to honor Marduk.
Egyptian Creation Stories
• Elements Common to all
Cosmogonies:
–The Period before Creation
–The Creator God
–The Primordial Mound
–Modes of Manifestation of the
Creator God
Egyptian Creation Stories
–The Process of Creation
• "One was the creator’s generation of the divine
couple Shu and Tefnut from the semen
produced by masturbation or, in a variant
tradition, from his spittle.
• "The second type was creation by uttering a
word. Ptah conceived in his heart the things he
intended to create and gave them existence by
means of his tongue."
• "The third type was modeled on the artisan’s
activity of building and fashioning."
Egyptian Creation Stories
• Local Systems
– The Cosmogony of Heliopolis
• Atum generated the cosmic pair Shu &
Tefnut by masturbating or spitting
– The Cosmogony of Memphis
• Ptah creates by teeth & lips (word)
– The Cosmogony of Hermopolis
• Amun & transcendence
Egyptian Creation Stories
• Egyptian Cosmogonies & the Bible:
"In Egypt cosmogonies everything is
contained within the inert monad, even the
creator god. The creation process is sometimes
depicted as a self-development from within
Nun, at other times the creator is independent
of his creation; these depictions may represent
two sides of the same coin. In Genesis 1 the
creator is unequivocally distinct from the
material, the distinction being underlined by
repetition of the divine name and by the
variety of the verbs of creating. The manner
Egyptian Creation Stories
of creating in Genesis – speaking a word to
darkness and waters – may have been at the
inspiration of the Memphite Theology, but the
assumptions behind each text are quite
different."
Creation in Ugaritic Texts
• Epithets of El and Asherah
• The Baal Cycle