An ancient mytheme is the chaoskampf, the emergence of order from the primal chaos, which appears in the guise of the serpent-slaying myth.
Again and again this myth rears its head from the waters of history as Tarhunt and Illuyanka, Indra and Vrtra, Fereydun and Zahhak, Zeus and Typhoios, Herakles and the Hydra, Apollo and the Python, Thor and Jörmungandr, Sigurd and Fafnir, Dian Cecht and Meichi, Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi, Vahakn and Vishap, Marduk and Tiamat – the names change, but the story remains somewhat the same.
In the Mesopotamian and Canaanite world, we have Enuma Elish, in which Marduk, most probably derived from earlier deities whose succession in previous phases of history is now lost, fights the old gods (who have become annoyed with the new gods) on behalf of his immediate family, on the condition that they accept his cosmic supremacy forever afterwards, and the text ends with the construction of his temple in Babylon.
Echoes of Enūma Eliš are heard in passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. Genesis 1 carries the major beats of Enuma Elish are repeated, but the tale is also overcome.
Like in Enuma Elish, Genesis 1 opens onto an abyss, a vast watery chaos prior to creation (tehom in Hebrew is etymologically cognate with Tiamat); like Enuma Elish, the deity must form a heaven and earth; like Enuma Elish, the deity must separate the waters, and make a firmament; like Enuma Elish, creation is completed in a seven cycle (seven days of Genesis, seven tablets of Enuma Elish).
The differences are, of course, there, and they are significant. The polytheist personification in Enuma Elish is starkly contrasted by the God of Genesis, even if the term elohim is plural, the plural form is always set in a singular context. (Jahweh is not present in this account.)
Regarding the creation of man, there are similarities in the use of dust or clay, but in Genesis, Adam is given more agency, room for failure is introduced, and indeed occurs. The long battles in which Marduk engages monsters is missing. Instead we have a brief dialogue with the snake and the first sin.
As to the seven tablets and seven days, the numbered itineraries do not closely match, but there are some commonalities in the order of the creation events: first darkness, then light, firmament, dry land, and finally man, followed by a period of rest.
The broken Enūma Eliš tablet seems to refer to a concept of sabbath. A contextual restoration contains the rarely attested Sapattum or Sabattum as the full moon, cognate or merged with Hebrew Shabbat (cf. Genesis 2:2–3), but monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of Sumerian sa-bat ("mid-rest"), attested in Akkadian as um nuh libbi ("day of mid-repose"). The reconstructed text reads: "[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly."
But unlike Enuma Elish, where humans are created as a divine afterthought to do work, in Genesis 1 they are the imago Dei. From the very beginning, of both creation and Scripture (the two books by which we might come to know God), this made in the image of the deity implies that humanity, and by extension the whole of creation, is the dwelling place of God, an idea that might have been lost or forgotten, but explicitly reaffirmed by St Paul and the Gospels.
The whole creation takes place in six days, and God rests on the seventh: the Creator then takes up residence in His creation.
Yet if monsters are absent from this story, an echo of chaoskampf is there:
"For God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength:
thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,
and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness."
(Psalm 74:12-14)
In Exodus, there is a confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, which ends up a confrontation between the God of Moses and the Gods of the Egyptians. In Exodus 7, Aaron is instructed to 'cast down his rod', a phrase rich in ritual and cultic significance. It turns into a serpent, and the priests of Egypt, at Pharaoh's bidding do likewise, and Aaron's serpent devours those of the Egyptian priesthood – the one devouring the many, the triumph of monotheism over polytheism.
An exegesis of the ten plagues relates each plague to an Egyptian deity. In a sense, Moses and Aaron plunge Egypt back into a chaos from which it emerged.
And finally, Exodus begins with a divine parting of the waters, dry land appears on which the Israelites escape, and an enemy of God is slain in the process. The dragon of the original myth is metaphorically, and implicitly, graphed onto the pagan king.
The characters are different, but the song remains the same.
Again and again this myth rears its head from the waters of history as Tarhunt and Illuyanka, Indra and Vrtra, Fereydun and Zahhak, Zeus and Typhoios, Herakles and the Hydra, Apollo and the Python, Thor and Jörmungandr, Sigurd and Fafnir, Dian Cecht and Meichi, Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi, Vahakn and Vishap, Marduk and Tiamat – the names change, but the story remains somewhat the same.
In the Mesopotamian and Canaanite world, we have Enuma Elish, in which Marduk, most probably derived from earlier deities whose succession in previous phases of history is now lost, fights the old gods (who have become annoyed with the new gods) on behalf of his immediate family, on the condition that they accept his cosmic supremacy forever afterwards, and the text ends with the construction of his temple in Babylon.
Echoes of Enūma Eliš are heard in passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. Genesis 1 carries the major beats of Enuma Elish are repeated, but the tale is also overcome.
Like in Enuma Elish, Genesis 1 opens onto an abyss, a vast watery chaos prior to creation (tehom in Hebrew is etymologically cognate with Tiamat); like Enuma Elish, the deity must form a heaven and earth; like Enuma Elish, the deity must separate the waters, and make a firmament; like Enuma Elish, creation is completed in a seven cycle (seven days of Genesis, seven tablets of Enuma Elish).
The differences are, of course, there, and they are significant. The polytheist personification in Enuma Elish is starkly contrasted by the God of Genesis, even if the term elohim is plural, the plural form is always set in a singular context. (Jahweh is not present in this account.)
Regarding the creation of man, there are similarities in the use of dust or clay, but in Genesis, Adam is given more agency, room for failure is introduced, and indeed occurs. The long battles in which Marduk engages monsters is missing. Instead we have a brief dialogue with the snake and the first sin.
As to the seven tablets and seven days, the numbered itineraries do not closely match, but there are some commonalities in the order of the creation events: first darkness, then light, firmament, dry land, and finally man, followed by a period of rest.
The broken Enūma Eliš tablet seems to refer to a concept of sabbath. A contextual restoration contains the rarely attested Sapattum or Sabattum as the full moon, cognate or merged with Hebrew Shabbat (cf. Genesis 2:2–3), but monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of Sumerian sa-bat ("mid-rest"), attested in Akkadian as um nuh libbi ("day of mid-repose"). The reconstructed text reads: "[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly."
But unlike Enuma Elish, where humans are created as a divine afterthought to do work, in Genesis 1 they are the imago Dei. From the very beginning, of both creation and Scripture (the two books by which we might come to know God), this made in the image of the deity implies that humanity, and by extension the whole of creation, is the dwelling place of God, an idea that might have been lost or forgotten, but explicitly reaffirmed by St Paul and the Gospels.
The whole creation takes place in six days, and God rests on the seventh: the Creator then takes up residence in His creation.
Yet if monsters are absent from this story, an echo of chaoskampf is there:
"For God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength:
thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,
and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness."
(Psalm 74:12-14)
In Exodus, there is a confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, which ends up a confrontation between the God of Moses and the Gods of the Egyptians. In Exodus 7, Aaron is instructed to 'cast down his rod', a phrase rich in ritual and cultic significance. It turns into a serpent, and the priests of Egypt, at Pharaoh's bidding do likewise, and Aaron's serpent devours those of the Egyptian priesthood – the one devouring the many, the triumph of monotheism over polytheism.
An exegesis of the ten plagues relates each plague to an Egyptian deity. In a sense, Moses and Aaron plunge Egypt back into a chaos from which it emerged.
And finally, Exodus begins with a divine parting of the waters, dry land appears on which the Israelites escape, and an enemy of God is slain in the process. The dragon of the original myth is metaphorically, and implicitly, graphed onto the pagan king.
The characters are different, but the song remains the same.
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