I am finding this so compelling, I just have to share it. It’s just a clip.
“You can read more of the Enuma Elish, in a translation by the Assyriologist W. G. Lambert, on the Etana (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives) website. It begins this way:
1~When the heavens above did not exist,
2~And earth beneath had not come into being—
3~There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
4~And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all
V. 1 of our Genesis story, like the Enuma Elish, begins when the heavens “did not exist” and the earth “had not come into being.” When our story opens with “darkness over Deep [tehom],” it hints to those who knew these earlier stories that creation is indeed the result of a battle that has already taken place, while leaving everyone else – including the Bible’s many readers during the centuries when the Babylonian stories were not known – none the wiser.
Genesis is not interested in telling us the story of creation in that way, but it does leave open the possibility that the ultimate tale of creation (if we could indeed know it) did involve such a battle of gods. Remember that the curtain rose on our story to reveal a world of tohu-bohu and a main character, God, already in place. In fact the creation story of Genesis 1 will allude to the idea of creation as the outcome of a battle again on Day Five.
The stories of a battle fought by God in order to create the world are referred to quite openly in biblical poetry, suggesting that such stories were well known to at least some Israelites. Genesis 1, however, is intent on presenting God as alone when he created the world. Are we seeing creation begin during the calm after the storm? Referring to “darkness over of Deep” suggests that we are.
But wait! Where – and who – is Apsu? According to the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, apsu is a loanword in Akkadian from Sumerian AB.ZU, “subterranean waters.” The actual name of Tiamat is hinted at broadly in Gen 1:2, but Apsu, if he is indeed there, is hinted at much more subtly, in the “water” of the phrase we’ll look at on Thursday.
A note for those who are interested in the languages: Unlike Akkadian, Sumerian is not related to any known language, but some of its words did enter Akkadian and, via Akkadian, even into Hebrew. (You can learn more about . . .”
The stories of a battle fought by God in order to create the world are referred to quite openly in biblical poetry, suggesting that such stories were well known to at least some Israelites. Genesis 1, however, is intent on presenting God as alone when he created the world. Are we seeing creation begin during the calm after the storm? Referring to “darkness over of Deep” suggests that we are.
But wait! Where – and who – is Apsu? According to the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, apsu is a loanword in Akkadian from Sumerian AB.ZU, “subterranean waters.” The actual name of Tiamat is hinted at broadly in Gen 1:2, but Apsu, if he is indeed there, is hinted at much more subtly, in the “water” of the phrase we’ll look at on Thursday.
A note for those who are interested in the languages: Unlike Akkadian, Sumerian is not related to any known language, but some of its words did enter Akkadian and, via Akkadian, even into Hebrew. (You can learn more about Sumer and Akkad and the relationship between them in this post on my older Bible Guy blog.) One originally Sumerian word that is very well known to those who know Hebrew is הֵיכָל heikhal ‘palace, temple’. It comes from the Sumerian words E.GAL, meaning “big house.” If you’ve been to Jerusalem, you may well have walked past Heichal Shlomo, on King George St.”
Jill, very cool stuff.
It seems as if ancient folks had no conception of creation out of “nothing”. There was always the primordial chaos before everything. Creation consisted of shaping this “deep and darkness” into form. Interesting how modern physics has arrived at the conclusion that on a quantum level, “nothing”, defined as a lack of anything at all, probably cannot exist. In the “empty space” around us particles are continually appearing and disappearing. Spooky.
Funny you post this. I just watched a ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by “Inquisitive Bible Reader” (who I believe is the same person who runs the “Is that in the Bible” blog) discussing how the Leviathan (found several places in the OT, aside from Job) is actually a reference to such a creation struggle.
He attempts to reconstruct the stages of development in Old Testament conceptualization of creation. I can’t say how well he represents the scholarship, but as an amateur, I found the video well worth the time it took to watch.
The video I linked to tries to trace the myth back to the bronze age. He suggests that the earliest creation myths (featuring the battle of a storm god and a sea dragon) were originally concerned with an ongoing struggle between primordial forces of order and chaos, and a continuous process of recreation (rather than some single, past event of creation), celebrated annually at harvest–in Judaism, the feast of booths.
From that origin, he suggests that in the Wisdom literature (e.g. Ps. 104), we see a transition: the serpent–still a symbol of chaos–ceases to be a primordial force out of which the world is created and comes to be himself portrayed as a creature, often taken as a symbol of the enemies of Israel.
From that, he suggests, we get the priestly view seen in Gen. 1. At this point, creation is fully historicized, a particular historical process that took place in the past, rather than an ongoing struggle.
Porphyry, I do like the parallels the video shares between Ps 104 and Gn 1. Psalm 104 precedes Gen 1, but Gen 1 becomes the first book of the five. I’m just now looking at a description of Plato’s dialog Timeaus where order is imposed by an anthropomorhic intellect on a pre-existent chaos. This makes me even more wonder about Hellenic influence. I think the documentary hypothesis does place the redactor of the five books plus the history with/around the time of King Josiah? Not sure where that puts the Hellenists. I’ve always thought that Genesis 1 was a kind of polemic or contradiction of its contemporary/earlier mythologies.
God creating out of darkness is summarized as the first day: “And there was evening (עֶרֶב), then there was morning, Day One.”
עֶרֶב (‘ereb) Evening/darkness = Ἔρεβος (Érebos) darkness/gloom
In a literary sense, I find it interesting to note here that the Hebrew words yom ahad do mean day one, and ahad with the root alef-het-dalet does mean one, but to quote Michael Carasik, “the Hebrew word for first does not come from the numerical system”. The word for first or Hebrew reshon comes from the root resh-alef-shin, meaning head. It’s elusive. But this does demonstrate that in this case of Genesis creation story “in the beginning” really means ” the first day after the end”; or maybe “the first day in the middle”.
As I’ve stated before I’m a huge Robert Alter fan. Here is his version of the opening of Genesis-
When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was
water and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering
over the waters, God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light
from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He
called Night. And it was evening and it was morning, first day.
Interesting. I like Robert Alter too. His is a wonderful translation and commentary. He does comment that the one here is a cardinal number. Can we think that Genesis 1 is a wisdom text and “day one” is expressing the beginning of time. And are we counting time?
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
Okay, I get it. It’s probably painfully obvious to some — a day, as in one day — is being defined here.
These comments are helpful:
from Ronald Hendel (Genesis 1-11)
one day This noun phrase has a dual sense. The alternation of light and darkness constitutes “one day” as a complete unit of time, a twenty-four-hour day. However, the cardinal number ‛ehad (one) can also be used as an ordinal number (“first”), as in 2:11 “The name of the first (ha ’ehad) river”. Hence the phrase yom ‘ehad (“one/first day”) has a fruitful ambiguity, both as the culmination of the first work of creation and as the first in a series of seven days. At this point the narrative, this ambiguity creates a note of hesitation about the possibility of more days to come.
from Mark Smith (The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1)
It has largely gone unnoticed that the expression “day one” also appears in one of the Ugaritic ritual texts. As we will see, the comparison offers some help in understanding Genesis 1. The ritual has four sections. The first names the king as the officiant who is to offer sacrifices in a temple. The other sections present shorter sets of instructions. The fourth and final section, which is the one germane to our discussion, is very brief: “And (an offering of a turtle dove for QLH (on) day one (ym ‛ahd).” Dennis Pardee comments on this usage:
The formula is attested only here, and its precise signification is unclear. The interpretation of “day one” (of a longer sequence) appears to be belied by the word ‛id at the beginning of the text, which already indicates that this rite is part of a longer series; in such a context “day one” could only mean “this is the end of cultic activity on day one; proceed to the following cultic act as appropriately designated chronologically.” Interpreted as “one day,” the essential function is the same, but the day in question is not defined as the first.
As these comments suggest, there are some differences in how “day one” is used here and in Genesis 1:5. Despite some considerable dissimilarities, the comparison is helpful, as it suggests that the usage of “day one” does not mark Genesis 1:1-5 as the beginning of time in any sort of absolute way. It suggests that the events on “day one” in Genesis express what God did first when beginning to create the universe. It is important to mention as well that this Ugaritic parallel comes from the sacrificial, ritual world of the priesthood. Loren Fisher points to the ritual sensibility in both the Ugaritic parallel and Genesis 1:5, suggesting something of the priestly world that the expression “day one” seems to reflect in Genesis 1:5. This sense also fits with the several priestly texts of the Bible that attest to “one” (‛ehad) for reckoning the first day in a month.
This parallel and others within the Bible are suggestive of the ritual world of Genesis I. In its concepts, it is a narrative infused with a temple and ritual sensibility. This ritual sensibility perhaps contributed also to Genesis I’s literary style, with its repetition over the course of the seven days.. . .
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