CHAPTER II

THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY AND THE DAYS

OF CREATION

THE subjects of discussion in the present chapter are the relation of the Hebrew to the Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony, and the interpretation of the Days of Creation. It would be impossible to compress an adequate treatment of topics of such magnitude within the narrow limits to which I must confine myself. Completeness is out of the question. My aim is only to present, with as much clearness as possible, the line of interpretation which results from the principles laid down in the previous chapter.

I.-The Assyro-Babylonian Cosmogony

We might easily be beguiled into a path that would lead us far away from our immediate purpose, if we attempted to examine the relationship of the Hebrew narrative of the Creation to the similar

narratives preserved in the religious literature of other races. To the student of Comparative Re

ligion the task involved in such an inquiry is one of peculiar fascination. The field of research is wide and constantly widening. The workers in it are as yet few; the work itself has only in recent years been set on foot. To the Biblical student such investigations cannot fail to be helpful and suggestive. They serve to gather together into a focus those gleams, whether of the true perception or of the surviving recollection, of The Light, which seem to be the common heritage of all races, and which help to remind us that God left not Himself without a witness among the nations of the world. In spite of this, however, the results of a comparative study of the cosmogonies of the races would only indirectly assist us in the interpretation of Gen. i.-ii. 4. It will, therefore, suffice to be reminded, at this point, of the endless variety of picture in which the problem of the origin of the universe has received a solution from the religious conceptions and from the poetical imaginations of races so varied as Indians and Etruscans, Germans and Egyptians, Norsemen, Mexicans, and Greeks.

But in the religious literature of Assyria and Babylonia we find a cosmogony which, in some respects, stands in a different category from those of the races just mentioned. From whatever point of view it is approached, its direct

bearing upon the narrative of Gen. i. must be admitted, and account taken of it. It offers us another representation of the story of the Creation, preserved in the literature of another branch of the same great Semitic family from which the people of Israel sprang. The points of resemblance between the Assyro-Babylonian and the Hebrew narratives force themselves upon our notice: and, it must also be allowed, the points of their dissimilarity are not less obvious. Whatever estimate be formed of the Assyro-Babylonian tradition as a whole, its Semitic origin, the antiquity of its documentary history, the degree of its approximation to the Genesis narrative in some points, of its divergency from it in others, constitute reasons that cannot be overlooked for including a notice of its chief characteristics in any careful interpretation of this passage of Scripture.

Until quite recently our knowledge of the Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony was derived from the fragments of Berosus, the Babylonian historian (circ. 250 B.C.), which are preserved in the writings of Josephus, Syncellus, and Eusebius; and from allusions that are made to it in the works of the Neo-Platonist Damascius (circ. 530 A.D.). Into these representations of a Babylonian cosmogony it used to be thought probable that a good deal of a comparatively recent, exotic, and, in particular, Hellenic, growth had been grafted.

But the success of the late eminent Assyriologist, George Smith, in deciphering the cuneiform inscription on the mutilated fragments of what are now sometimes called the Creation Tablets, threw an unexpected light upon the Babylonian legend. These precious fragments had been brought to the British Museum along with other treasures of the famous library of Assurbanipal (668-626 B.C.), excavated at Kouyunjik. The date of Assurbanipal is, comparatively speaking, late. But the contents of his library probably reproduced the traditions of a very much earlier time. There is good reason to suppose that, even if the tablets themselves were inscribed so late as in Assurbanipal's reign, the narrative which they contain has been derived, if not actually transcribed, from the Babylonian religious literature of a vastly more ancient period.

The form in which it was committed to these tablets was that of a great epic poem. Its contents are now widely known through the pages of such works as Sayce's Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament (translated by Prof. O. C. Whitehouse), and Records of the Past (edited by Sayce), 2nd series, vol. i. pp. 122-153. About one-third of the poem is still missing, but the general outline of the narrative is unmistakable. It describes the Creation as taking place in seven creative acts. These are recorded

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in seven books or tablets, of which the second and sixth are wanting. From the first tablet we learn that in the beginning there existed only "watery chaos" (Tiamat), out of which sprang the primal, gods, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, then Ansar and Kisar, the upper and lower firmament, and then the Assyrian gods, Anu, god of the sky, Bel, or Illil, god of the spirit-world; and Ea, god of waters. The third and fourth tablets record the creation of light, which was represented in the victory of Merodach, son of Ea, god of light, over Tiamat, while out of the skin of the slaughtered Tiamat was constructed the wide expanse of the heavens, the dwelling-place of the Assyrian gods. The fifth tablet tells how the sun and moon and stars were implanted in the sky, and received divine command to regulate the succession of times and seasons, of days and years. The sixth tablet, which has not yet been found, must have recorded the formation of the earth and the creation of the vegetable world, of birds and fishes. The seventh and last tablet tells how the cattle and the larger beasts, and all creeping things, were made. Unfortunately the latter part is much mutilated, and the description of the formation of man has not survived.

In spite of the wholly different setting which is here given to the story of the Creation, "the Assyrian epic," to quote Professor's Sayce's own