3.1 Creation in the ANE

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3.1 Creation in the ANE

• BOT612 Old Testament Backgrounds

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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)."

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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."

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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."

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History of Research

• Differentiation between Modern and Ancient
  Concepts of Creation
• The Process
• The Product
• The Manner of Reporting
• The Criterion of Truth

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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 Dijks
  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."

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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."

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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

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Mesopotamian Creation Stories

• gnaw at human gums and so the magician prays the
  god to make the worm leave the sufferers mouth
  and return to its original purpose of eating
  fruit."
• The Anthological Cosmogonies
• Atrahasis
• Enuma Elish

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Atrahasis
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Atrahasis
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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 Eas 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.

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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.

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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

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Egyptian Creation Stories

• The Process of Creation
• "One was the creators 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 artisans
  activity of building and fashioning."

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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

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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

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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."

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Creation in Ugaritic Texts

• Epithets of El and Asherah
• The Baal Cycle