Hebrew V. Babylonian Creation Stories
Hebrew vs. Babylonian Creation Stories Throughout history, different societies have sought to explain how the world and humanity were created. Many cultures have developed their own unique creation stories that attempt to explain how these concepts came into place. Each individual creation story gives us insight on how these ancient people viewed themselves and the world. At first glance, the Babylonian and Hebrew creation stories took very different routes to describe how mankind came to be. Over time, people began to notice that there were suspicious similarities between the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, and the Hebrew creation story, Genesis. Some people postulated that parts of Genesis were borrowed or derived from Enuma Elish, discrediting Genesis as the true creation story. While there are many common ideas that are shared between the two, the courses that the Babylonian and Hebrew stories take show they were not likely related despite speculation. After the discovery of the Enuma Elish, scholars saw that it shared some similar concepts with Genesis on the creation of Earth itself. In both stories, creation begins out of darkness and what is commonly referred to as “primeval chaos” (Wellman). Although both beginnings are commonly referred to as “chaos”, the beginning of Genesis is not nearly as chaotic as the beginning of Enuma Elish. In Genesis, “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Brians). Many people interpret these waters as the same “primeval chaos” as in other early creation stories such as Enuma Elish, but in Enuma Elish, the chaos comes from a war between two gods of the water, which would be considered to be much more “chaotic”. Out of this chaos comes all of the creations in both stories. The order of the creations in Genesis and Enuma Elish are oddly similar, which is another reason that some people believe parts of Genesis may be
Cited: Paul, Brians. Reading About the World. Vol. 1. Harcourt Brace Custom. Print. Speiser, E.A. Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Princeton, 1950. Print. Wellman, Jared. "Genesis Creation Account." CARM. Web. 13 Sept. 2014.