According to biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine, a professor at Vanderbilt, the ancient Babylonian creation myth Enûma Eliš probably inspired the first creation story in the Book of Genesis. (There are two creation stories in Genesis, and the second one with Adam and Eve is probably the oldest, and apparently was influenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh.) The first Genesis creation story might have been written during the Babylonian captivity after the destruction of the first temple. Taking the Babylonian myth and standing it on its head and making it their own might have been a way for ancient Israelites to maintain their separate identity.
This is an English translation of the beginning of Enûma Eliš:
When the sky above was not named
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being.
Most know the English translation of the opening line of Genesis: “In the beginning…” Levine claims that a more accurate translation of the Hebrew would be “When in the beginning…”
In Enûma Eliš, seven wind gods assist Marduk in creating the earth. In the English translation of Genesis, we have the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. According to Levine, the Hebrew word that is usually translated as “spirit” can also mean “wind.”
I think it’s interesting that these Babylonian wind gods from Enûma Eliš could be the origin of the third part of the orthodox Christian Trinity.
When the sky above was not named
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being.
Most know the English translation of the opening line of Genesis: “In the beginning…” Levine claims that a more accurate translation of the Hebrew would be “When in the beginning…”
In Enûma Eliš, seven wind gods assist Marduk in creating the earth. In the English translation of Genesis, we have the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. According to Levine, the Hebrew word that is usually translated as “spirit” can also mean “wind.”
I think it’s interesting that these Babylonian wind gods from Enûma Eliš could be the origin of the third part of the orthodox Christian Trinity.
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