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Loading...In my previous post I cited some parallels to the story of Noah and the Flood, immortalized by none other than Russell Crowe (OK, I have to admit, I never saw the film) (but I did see Gladiator – on opening day! I had a student who was writing a dissertation that had a chapter on gladiators…) – stories of the flood in the myths of the Ancient Near East. There were also numerous parallels in different areas around the Mediterranean to the Genesis account of creation. Here I cite the most famous one.
I should say there is a rather large point to be made about these parallels, and it applies not only to the myths and legends of Genesis but also to the stories about Jesus in the New Testament (to forestall a question I’m sure to be asked, I use the term “myth” in reference to stories that focus on God’s actions in the pre- or non-historical past, such as the creation and the flood, and “legend” in reference to human stories of figures that may have been historical even though the stories themselves are not, such as the stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).
But here’s my point: both the accounts in Genesis and the stories of Jesus in the NT are being told in terms that people in their own day would have been familiar with. They had many similarities with stories told of other people at the time. That doesn’t make them either true (as Christian apologist and Narnia author C. S. Lewis claimed) or false (as many a biblical critic has claimed). Their historicity has to be determined on other grounds. But whether you think they really happened or not, it is safe to say they have been told in ways that would have made sense to ancient listeners, because there were lots of similar stories in broad circulation at the time.
In any event, here is the account of creation known now as the Enuma Elish, as I describe it in my textbook on the Bible.
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Enuma Elish
Between 1848 and 1876 seven clay tablets were discovered in excavations…
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You say you haven’t seen the Russell Crowe film of “Noah”?
So I guess you missed the phalanx of giant Ent-like creatures who defend the Ark from the attack by the army led by Jubal-Cain (who manages to sneak aboard the Ark and causes all sorts of havoc); or Noah ordering Ham to abandon his wife during the final boarding, resulting in her drowning in the flood; and maybe it’s best to skip over Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Lamech; or… well you get the idea.
In short, I’d just say this: If you thought Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” was silly…
Love this topic, Dr. Ehrman. I read Enuma Elish either last year or the year before. Marduk slaying Tiamat and forming heaven and Earth each with half of her body. Of course, people with a certain frame of mind will rather prefer to suggest that the Assyrians and Babylonians borrowed from Jewish mythology rather than vice versa, nevermind evidence for the reverse chronology of appearances of the respective works. I explain to my fundamentalist parents that one of my biggest reservations about fundamentalist Christianity is its need to mold historical and scientific facts to conform not to Biblical accounts, but to ITS INTERPRETATION of Biblical accounts. Fortunately, I have parents who are fairly reasonable, and my dad tends to agree with my arguments. I try to show that my approach is not a threat to theism or to Biblical authority, but actually shows greater respect for God (if one is a believer) and the authority of the Bible. It says “Okay, I had this belief about the scientific inerrancy of these chapters. I believe the Bible is somehow inspired. I am now confronted with these scientific facts, which contradict my a priori beliefs. So, the hermeneutic I’m applying must be wrong, and either God or the author(s) must have been writing these things in a form or for a reason other than one which conforms to my interpretation. So, what is He or are they wanting to convey?” I am not a theist, but I think both you and Peter Enns have helped me think in these terms, and it seems a very reasonable approach. Any perspective you want to add?
Interesting reflections! On very complicated (and emotional!) issues….
Is this considered literary influence?
Yes, probably.
Isn’t the story of Lucifer much the same as the story of the battle that made Marduk head God.
I”m not sure which story of Lucifer you’re referring to? (There isn’t a story in the Bible; but there is in Milton!)
Dr. Ehrman, do you think it’s telling that the actual name of God — YHWH — is never used in the first chapter of the Genesis creation? That is to say, the word used for God in “In the beginning God created…” is, instead, Elohim, which just means god, not the name of a specific god (Elohim is itself the plural of El/Eloh, which just means a god, not only in Hebrew but in most Semitic languages). To me that strongly suggests that this is a borrowed cosmogonic myth (either from the Chaldeans [Babylonians], or from the Assyrians).
And there are other clues. For instance, the expression “unformed and void” in the Hebrew is tohu wavohu — תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ — which in Hebrew is practically meaningless (they might be related to the Hebrew words for wonder or amazement). It’s almost like the English expression “nice and wrecked”; that is, it’s a hendiadys. The words in Hebrew themselves — tohu and vohu — are pretty much redundant; they both mean something akin to confused or chaotic. Indeed, it seems that the only reason we even know what tohu wavohu is supposed to mean is from the translation in the LXX (tohu–>ἦν ἀόρατος, “void”; vohu–>ἀκατασκεύαστος, “unformed”) where the pithy hendiadys of “tohu wavohu” is completely lost. All this suggests to me that the expression tohu wavohu was something borrowed into the Hebrew, possibly from Assyrian or Chaldean.
The names were one of the first things that made scholars realize there were different sources behind the creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2. But my sense is that there could be borrowing with or without standard names of the divinity (just change your Marduk to El … or to YHWH, depending on your preferneces). I’m not sure why a hendiadys suggests a source in itself, since it is a common grammatical construction in lots of languages, no?
It’s not the hendiadys structure specifically that’s suspicious. It’s that the words tohu and vohu don’t “feel” native to Hebrew. They feel borrowed, kind of like how a loanword like ‘camouflage’ doesn’t “feel” like an English word (because it’s borrowed from French). The only other instance of the word tohu in the Pentateuch, that I’m aware of, is in (funny enough) Deuteronomy (MT 32:10), where it is usually translated as “wasteland” (the context has it set between the more familiar Hebrew words midbar and yishimon, both words for desert or wilderness). And then tohu doesn’t show up again until Samuel 12:21(MT), where it is translated as “vain thing”, i.e. profitless. The sense I get is that tohu didn’t have a specific meaning in the Hebrew, but expressed more of an idea — like a slang word. I think of it like how the word “cool” expresses more of a sense of something (that it’s “cool”) than it does a definite meaning (try explaining to someone what it means for something to be “cool”). I think tohu was used that way by the author(s) of the Hebrew Bible and that strongly suggests to me that tohu was a borrowed expression, not a standard Hebrew word.
Yeah, my sense is that it is hard to have a feel for a source from a particular period in biblical Hebrew when there is not abundant literature from just that period to give one a sense of what feels natural and what doesn’t. The problem is that with that reasoning, all the hapax legomena of the entire Hebrew Bible could be considered borrowed.
Fair enough. Alas, one of the problems with the Hebrew Bible is that we only know what certain words (esp. hapax legomena) and passages mean from their LXX translation.
That and cognates. I was a research grunt for the NRSV Bible translation committee back when I was a graduate student. The Hebrew Bible translators were amazing for their command of Ugaritic, Akkadian, and sundry related languages. The erudition some people have defies belief….
Why do people treat El/Elohim as a proper name like YHWH? As far as i remember, El/Elohim was what he was rather than a proper name. As far as i know, there werent any verses that stated that his name was Elohim, but rather that he was Elohim. There are even verses with both words saying things like “YHWH is the our Elohim” etc.
I guess it’s not clear to me that if someone says “God created the world,” they are meaning *either* that “the entity we call God created the world” or “the entity that has the name God created the world.” So I’m not clear what you’re saying when you say that people treat Elohim as a proper name. Are you saying that you know of people who say “God” is his “name”?
I know someone who insisted that “God” was God’s name. Even if it is not God’s name,
Elohim could be capitalized in English as a title.
Isn’t the argument for the claim that the proper name “Satan” never appears in the Tanakh that it always appears as “ha-satan”….viz. with the definite article preceding it? The Jewish JPS tranlation uses The Adversary as a title instead of Satan while the Jewish Koren translation (Jerusalem) doesn’t even capitalize it.
The main thing with the satan is that when he does appear in the Hebrew Bible, he is not “the Devil,” so it’s misleading to say he is “Satan” (since that’s how people normally understand the term)
I would recommend checking out the Russel Crowe film. It is pretty good. It is not meant to be merely a regurgitation of the Biblical account, but a use of the Biblical narrative in the service of a more contemporary theme like environmentalism. The filmmakers also seem to have a little bit of knowledge about 1 Enoch, which I thought was fun. There is no attempt to proselytize anyone with that film, and I found it to have more in common with science-fiction/fantasy. I’d expect the more conservative elements within Christianity to bristle at the artistic license taken in the film, but in my opinion artistic license is exactly what the Biblical writers took with regard to many other Ancient Near Eastern literary compositions.
What intrigues me is how similar some elements of the Biblical account are with Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. Assuming we are talking about an oral culture, it surprises me that there seems to have been enough stability (as opposed to variation) in the oral performance of the Babylonian compositions that the written form has so many close ties to the Biblical text. I’d have thought the similarities would be a bit more vague.
Russell Crowe in Gladiators–oh yeah! Russell Crowe in Noah–not so much. He was sullen, angry, and hateful.
Russell Crowe as John Nash – wonderful performance!
Thanks for clarifying the distinction between “myth” and “legend.”
I would say this is one good way of distinguishing “myth” and “legend”, but not the only one. Myth is a word that is so corrupted by modern usage, that a careful definition of it at the beginning of any discussion is absolutely essential. Personally, I define a myth as a very important, and usually sacred, story that teaches us something about the nature of the divine. Therefor, I include the stories about Abraham, Issac, and Jacob under the “myth” umbrella. I view Robin Hood and King Arthur as legends.
Great explanation
Is it right to say that, in general, the Torah (specifically its accounts of the creation and the flood) is the Israelites’ monotheistic response to earlier polytheistic beliefs?
Related question. In your view, was the monotheistic Pharaoh before or after the God of Israel was first promoted? Who was the first monotheistic deity? Did one influence the other (as seems to be the case in Genesis’ creation and flood accounts) or were these independent monotheists?
I would say that might be *one* reason for the Torah, but not the principle one.
It is not clear where or when the first monotheistic faith came into being, in part because it is hard to know where the Hebrews’ own views came from or when!
Thanks. I should have worded it better. Forget the Torah. Are just its creation accts and flood acct monotheistic responses to earlier polytheistic creation and flood accts. You seem to be saying that (as others also say). I just want to be sure I’m understanding your point.
Again, I would say they are partially that. They are also attempts to explain the events of primeval history that make sense of why the world is the way it is.
I think that last sentence gets right to the point. The author of Genesis knew the story of Enuma Elish, and so did the audience. The similarities show the influence, the differences show the purpose of the story. There is only one god, not many. And that God is good (everything he makes he sees is good). There was no fight, whatever God says is what happens. And humans weren’t made as slaves to the gods, humans special creations with domination over the animals. Don’t listen to those Babylonians!
It’s like the beginning of more rational thinking.
I wouldn’t say that… could you elaborate?
I just meant that the Genesis story is more developed and thoughtful than previous creation accounts even though it may not be true.
Agreed. A peaceful creation story, now that’s something different! From a literary perspective it’s much more advanced. I don’t think that makes it more rational though.
“That doesn’t make them either true (as apologist C. S. Lewis claimed)” – I’ve read a lot of Lewis but I don’t think he ever claimed that. He certainly thought that older myths somehow prefigured the Gospel, but for him the Jesus story was true because it was historical, not because it had similarities to other stories. For him the Gospel was the myth that actually happened, which made it true. That’s at least what I undestood from his writings.
Yes, he certainly thought that the story of Jesus was historical and was true, but one of the reasons you can see that it is true and now fully manifest is the appearance of truth in incomplete forms in earlier prefigurations. Truth becomes known, and eventually comes to be embodied in Jesus Christ. At least that’s how I’m reading him, as borrowing the Logos doctrine from early apologists such as Justin Martyr.
Thanks for your response. You’re right, what he’s saying is sometimes very similar to Justin Martyr. Lewis even said that one could be saved by following the partial revelation, the incomplete truth. I wonder what Justin and other early Christians thought of the matter. They rarely mention the final fate of those pagans who honestly seek the truth. This might be a good topic for a future post related to the doctrine of hell.
Justin thought of Socrates as a kind of pre-Christian Christian. He understood the teaching of the Logos before it became flesh.
Movies? For another take, ancient and modern, on the Jesus story, recommend “Hail Caesar.”
Dear professor Ehrman,
I’m a dutch follower of your Blog. There is a Dutch professor: Ellen van Wolde who specialises in the book of Job and Genesis. She has done a thourough textual study of the first three verses of Genesis and has come to the conclusion that Genesis does not describe a “creatio ex nihilis” but that the hebrew word “bara” should be translated as to divide. See has all sorts of textual reasons for that.
According to professor van Wolde the first 3 verses of Genesis should be translated (my translation into English):
“In the beginning when god separated the heaven and the earth
And the earth was unfounded and without fundament
And darkness lay over the deep
And gods breath hovered over the waters,
God said: Let there be light”
Are you familiar with the discussion: that the creation account is an act of separation rather than creation?
Yes, this is a common opinion among scholars. You’ll note that this is the way the NRSV translates Genesis 1:1.
I had once heard a Minister say that the beginning does not say the world was formless and void, but was made or became formless an void, He also stated that some of the Babalonian scribes were with those who returned to Jersalem when captives were released to rebuild the Temple and that was how the old testament was polluted, as he put it. He gave names of those but I can not recall . I think he said this were set apart from the head count of family members. Isn`t there an old testament profit that says much the same? That profit is often quoted by UFO buffs I think.
I’m afraid this minister either had a vivid imagination or was reading the book of someone else who did.
Dear Dr. Earhman
I recently got to know about Mesopotamian myths (including creation story and lots of incredible similarity with Genesis) and got shocked. After spending lots of googling and Wiki, I’ve concluded that Genesis is a ‘creative’ copy of Mesopotamian myths by P authors to make people to serve Yahweh only, by changing story and eliminating polytheism. Most of story in Genesis, including creation story, Eden, Eve, tree of life, Babel, flood, Moses’ ten commands, etc. seem like from the Mesopotamian source.
Also, I was focusing on a conception of Gods (El, YHWH…). I found in wiki that the El is from Enlil in Mesopotamian myth, Elyon is ‘most high’ god and had 70 sons, including Baal(Bel in Sumer). And his wife is Ashera. They are derived from Sumer/Akard/Babylonian myth but Yahweh is not from the Mesopotamian myth (maybe from Egypt). Later Yahweh is worshipped with Baal officially in Israel by 900 BCE and replaced with El and considers and creator of Universe. Later, as you mentioned Jesus as apocalyptic prophet, in Jesus time, people thought God has enemy, Devil. Now God is far away. I am not sure the God in Roman was same as the El-Yahweh in Israel. It feels like more human hero god in Roman. Now I am considering God moved to more conceptual being with development of theology. I want to search more about how people think about God in history with this base premise for just personal interest.
Are there some introductory books or references except wiki or google I can take a look?
You might start with Heidel’s The Babylonian Genesis.