CREATION, BABYLONIAN ACCOUNTS: Until
1875 knowledge of the Babylonian conception of creation had come only through Berosus (a Babylonian priest of Marduk, c. 300 b.c), whose narrative was transmitted by Alexander Polyhistor, from whose book probably it was taken by Eusebius into his Chronicon (book i. ). This account tells of
a primeval darkness in which beings Account combining parts of the form of man, of Berosus. beast, and bird inhabited a watery
waste along with reptiles, fishes, and monsters, all under the rule of Thamte (Tiamat; see below). Marduk came, cut Thamte in two, of one
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Cranston. Creation
half creating the heaven and of the other the earth, and destroyed or shut up the monsters whom she had ruled. This, however, left an uninhabited earth which was peopled by the device of cutting off Marduk's head (at his direction), when the blood which fell was mixed with earth by the gods, men and animals being formed from the mixture. Marduk created also the heavenly bodies.
In 1875 George Smith discovered a tablet from the Ubrary of Asshurbanipal which ran in part parallel with the account of Berosus. This he translated, in great part correctly, but made mistakes which misled many. From time to time other fragments were found and trans- Cuneiform lated, in some of which rightly and in Accounts, others mistakenly parts of the creation narrative were seen. Thus the socalled " Cuthsean account " is now shown not to refer to creation but to the story of a king of Cutha. It soon became evident from the diversities that there were several accounts current in early times and that creation was attributed in different centers to different deities.
The creation account of Babylonia which finally became current, to which Mr. Smith's tablet belonged, has finally by L. W King of the British Museum been shown to have been written on a series of seven tablets as a narrative poem in 994 lines, of which more than half are now fully recovered, and so much of the rest that three-quarters of the whole text are now in hand. The tablets carried from 138 to 146 lines each, and in some cases there are at least four copies of parts of the inscription, Mr. King's reconstruction involving the use of forty-nine separate tablets. These are of different periods, none older than the Assyrian period and some as late as the Persian, a few being the exercise studies of Babylonian students.
The epic was known to Babylonians from the opening words as the " When above " series. This account is in part at least a theogony as well as a cosmogony, this part having its closest parallel in the Japanese theogony. The primal existences are said to have been Apsu, " the deep," Mummu, " confusion " (?), and Tiamat (Hebr. Content of Tehom), "Chaos" — watery existences the Latter, which in darkness mingled their floods.
No gods then existed. In the course of time appeared the primal gods Lahmu and Lahamu; then Anshar and Kishar, while Anu's name is read in a much mutilated section. After a long gap in the text it appears that in consequence of the existence of the gods an orderliness was coming into bemg because of which Apsu and Mummu precipitated a conflict with the gods in which Ea by his wisdom defeated the opponents of order. A second conflict was forced by Tiamat, a monster so forbidding that the gods could not stand before her until Marduk stood forth as their champion on condition that he be recognized as supreme among them. After a banquet of the gods at which the terms were accepted Marduk overcame the monster and with nets captured and imprisoned or slew her and her hosts. With the fourth tablet the narrative of creative work begins. Marduk cleft in two the body of Tiamat, and out of one half made the firma-
ment restraining the upper waters, created heaven, and appointed to their statioas Anu, Bel, and Ea. He marked out the years, months, and days, appointing for this ofRce the heavenly bodies. Probably the fifth tablet told of the creation of trees and plants, since in the closing ode of praise Marduk is hailed as lord and giver of vegetation. The sixth tablet tells of the creation of man, caused by the plaint of the gods that there was no one to minister to them. To this end Marduk's blood was used as in the account of Berosus.
"A variant is found in a tablet according to which originally there was no heaven, earth, vegetation, house, or city, only a watery waste. Marduk laid a reed on the water, poured on it dust which he created, made a habitation for the gods, and then with the help of the goddess Amaru created man and beast, then the rivers of Babylonia, and dammed out the sea and erected houses and cities. Still other texts, one in Sumerian and a parallel in Semitic, give a variant account of the creation of sun and moon.
The analysis of the principal myth pieced out by Mr. King reveals a complex narrative evidently built up after Marduk became chief deity and in his honor, the composite showing traces of diverse origin of the components in centers where other deities than Marduk were honored. The double contest, the conception of the victory by Ea in the first battle, suggestions of participation by En-lil, and the synonymity of the names of
Composite the three prime\-al existences be- Origin. speak separate myths of diverse origin, which were combined into the narrative which became dominant. This conclusion is corroborated by references in isolated texts to the creative work of Ea, En-lil, Ishtar, and other deities. While none of the extant texts are earlier than the time of Asshurbanipal, the essential facts are referred to as early as the third pre-Christian millennium. The most likely time for the construction of the epic is the age of Hammurabi.
The points of contact with the Hebrew narrative have been overrated through the influence of George Smith. The Babylonian text is still too fragmentary to afford a satisfactory basis of comparison. The similarities are (1) the original watery chaos, (2) the creation of the firmament (a common ethnic notion), (3) the creation of the heavenly bodies as rulers of time, (4) the crowning of creative operations by the production of man (in one case by the blood of deity, in the other by his breath), and (5) the coincidence of Tiamat and Tehom (Gen. i. 2) and of izsimu and ezem, "bone" (Gen. ii. 23), in the two narratives.
Geo. W Gilmore.
Bibliography: The most important book is L. W. King, Seven Tablets of Creation, 2 vols., London, 1902. Consult: George Smith, Chaldcean . . Genesis, New York, 1876 (the epoch-making work); P. Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890; idem, Mythen und Epen. Berlin, 1900; H. Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, Gottingen, 1895 (traces relationship of Hebrew and Babylonian literature); F. Delitzsch, Die babylonische Weltschopfungslehre, Leipsic, 1896; C. J. Ball, Light from the East, London, 1899; H. Radan, in Monist, xii. 604 sqq., xiv. 81-87; Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, ed. R. F. Harper, pp. 282-303, New York, 1901.
Creation and Preservation