Hebrew Myths Read Free Page B

and Heaven, God caused a mist to moisten the dry land so that grasses and herbs could spring up. Next, He made a garden in Eden, also a man named Adam to be its overseer, and planted it with trees. He then created all beasts, birds, creeping things; and lastly woman. 2
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    1.
For many centuries, Jewish and Christian theologians agreed that the accounts of the world’s origin given in
Genesis
were not only inspired by God, but owed nothing to any other scriptures. This extreme view has now been abandoned by all but fundamentalists. Since 1876, several versions of Akkadian (that is, Babylonian and Assyrian) Creation Epics have been excavated and published. The longest of these, known as
Enuma Elish
from its initial two words—which mean ‘when on high’—is assumed to have been written in the early part of the second millennium B.C. It has survived almost complete on seven cuneiform tablets containing an averageof 156 lines apiece. The discovery did not altogether astonish scholars familiar with Berossus’s summary of Creation myths, quoted by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea; for Berossus, born in the fourth century B.C. , had been a priest of Bel at Babylon.
    2.
Another version of the same Epic, written both in Babylonian and Sumerian as a prologue to an incantation for purifying a temple, was discovered at Sippar on a tablet dated from the sixth century B.C. It runs in part as follows:
    The holy house, the house of the gods, in a holy place had not yet been made;
    No reed had sprung up, no tree had been created;
    No brick had been laid, no building had been erected;
    No house had been constructed, no city had been built;
    No city had been made, no creature had been brought into being;
    Nippur had not been made, Ekur had not been built;
    Erech had not been made, Eana had not been built;
    The Deep had not been made, Eridu had not been built;
    Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been made;
    All lands were sea.
    Then there was a movement in the midst of the sea;
    At that time Eridu was made, and Essagil was built,
    Essagil, where in the midst of the deep the god Lugal-du-kuda dwells;
    The city of Babylon was built, and Essagil was finished.
    The gods, the spirits of the earth, Marduk made at the same time,
    The holy city, the dwelling of their hearts’ desire, they proclaimed supreme.
    Marduk laid a reed on the face of the waters,
    He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed;
    That he might cause the gods to dwell in the dwelling of their hearts’ desire,
    He formed mankind.
    With him the goddess Aruru created the seed of mankind.
    The beasts of the field and living things in the field he formed.
    The Tigris and Euphrates he created and established them in their place;
    Their name he proclaimed in goodly manner.
    The grass, the rush of the marsh, the reed and the forest he created,
    The green herb of the field he created,
    The lands, the marshes and the swamps;
    The wild cow and her young, the wild calf, the ewe and her young, the lamb of the fold.
    Orchards and forests;
    The he-goat and the mountain goat…
    The Lord Marduk built a dam beside the sea.
    Reeds he formed, trees he created;
    Bricks he laid, buildings he erected;
    Houses he made, cities he built;
    Cities he made, creatures he brought into being.
    Nippur he made, Ekur he built;
    Erech he made, Eana he built.
    3
. The longer Creation Epic begins by telling how ‘when on high the heavens had not been named’, Apsu the Begetter and Mother Tiamat mingled chaotically and produced a brood of dragon-like monsters. Several ages passed before a younger generation of gods arose. One of these, Ea god of Wisdom, challenged and killed Apsu. Tiamat thereupon married her own son Kingu, bred monsters from him, and prepared to take vengeance on Ea.
    The only god who now dared oppose Tiamat was Ea’s son Marduk. Tiamat’s allies were her eleven monsters. Marduk relied upon the seven winds, his bow and arrow and storm-chariot, and a terrible