  ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION FOUND AT BABYLON.[364] Text of the Account. Comparison of it with Genesis 2. 1. Text of the Account. 1. A holy house, a house of the gods, in a holy place had not been made; 2. No reed had sprung up, no tree had been created. 3. No brick had been made, no foundation had been built, 4. No house had been constructed, no city had been built; 5. No city had been built, thrones had not been established; 6. Nippur had not been constructed, Ekur had not been built; 7. Erech had not been constructed, Eanna had not been built; 8. The deep had not been formed, Eridu had not been built; 9. The holy house, the house of the gods, the dwelling had not been made,— 10. All lands were sea,— 11. Then in the midst of the sea was a water-course; 12. In those days Eridu was constructed, Esagila was built, 13. Esagila where, in the midst of the deep, the god Lugal-dul-azaga abode, 14. (Babylon was made, Esagila was completed). 15. The gods and the Anunaki he made at one time. 16. (The holy city, the dwelling of their hearts’ desire, they named as first), 17. Marduk bound a structure of reeds upon the face of the waters, 18. He formed dust, he poured it out beside the reed-structure. 19. To cause the gods to dwell in the habitation of their hearts’ desire, 20. He formed mankind. 21. The goddess Aruru with him created mankind, 22. Cattle of the field, in whom is breath of life, he created. 23. He formed the Tigris and Euphrates and set them in their places, 24. Their names he did well declare. 25. The grass, marsh-grass, the reed and brushwood (?) he created, 26. The green grass of the field he created, 27. The land, the marshes, and the swamps; 28. The wild cow and her young, the wild calf; the ewe and her young, the lamb of the fold; 29. Gardens and forests; 30. The wild goat, the mountain goat, (who) cares for himself (?). 31. The lord Marduk filled a terrace by the seaside, 32. ............ a marsh, reeds he set, 33. .................. he caused to exist. 34. [Reeds he creat]ed; trees he created; 35. In their ........... in their place he made; 37. [Houses he made], a city he built; 38. [A city he built, a throne] he established; 39. [Nuppur he constructed], Ekur he built; 40. [Erech he constructed], Eanna he built. (At this point the tablet is broken. When it again becomes legible, it is in the midst of an incantation.) 2. Comparison with Genesis 2. This account of the creation has sometimes been compared with Genesis 2:4, ff., which describes a time when there was no grass or vegetation on the earth, and then goes on to describe the creation of man and animals, speaking of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In this account of the creation it is stated (line 21) that the goddess Aruru with Marduk created mankind. In another Babylonian poem, the Gilgamesh epic, which contains the Babylonian story of the flood, there is an account of the creation of man which accords much more closely with Gen. 2:7 than that which we are considering. It runs: The goddess Aruru, when she heard this, Here is clearly a tradition, similar to Genesis, that God formed man from the dust of the ground. The allusion to Aruru indicates that this formed a part of the early Babylonian tradition. There is considerable evidence that in an earlier form of the Babylonian account Marduk had no place. He was introduced into it later by the priests of Babylon. Aruru was in that earlier form the creator of man, and probably was said to have formed him from clay, as in the Gilgamesh epic. While these points of likeness are evident, there are great differences between the two narratives. The Babylonian account speaks not only of grass and reeds as non-existent, but of cities and temples also, which, it tells us, were created later. It has no picture of Eden; its thought centers in well-known Babylonian cities. While Marduk appears as supreme in the Babylonian poem, the gods and Anunaki, or spirits of earth, are recognized, so that the polytheistic view is not entirely absent. In the Biblical picture, on the other (For a new Babylonian account of the creation of man, see Appendix.) |
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