Genesis 1 and Ancient
Egyptian Creation Myths
The relationship between Genesis 1 and Mesopotamia
• etymological connection between the name tiâmat, "Tiamat," and the
Hebrew noun têhôm, "watery deep," remains a matter of debate.
• more significantly there is no hint of divine conflict between God and
the primordial waters in Genesis l.
The reason of failures of connecting Egyptian and Genesis 1
• failure to take seriously the biblical tradition of Hebrew origins in the
land of Egypt; and (d) general lack of familiarity with the Egyptian
language and literature dealing with creation
(some parts of his criticism cannot be acceptable like the arguments that the
previous scholars for Egyptology had general lack of familiarity, because the author
did not reveal the exemplary reasons to support his criticism but used some part of
their research for his own argument)
• Each version followed the basic storyline: (1) the original
undifferentiated monad evolved into primeval waters (Nun); (2) out
of these waters (Nun) emerged Atum, the demiurge creator-god,
who was generated/self-generated in the waters; (3) his generation
in the waters was manifested by a sudden appearance of
supernatural light; (4) at the dawn of time Atum the creator-god
appeared on the primordial hill when the waters receded; (5) Atum
generated the Ennead, manifest in the creation of the material
world;
• 1. Pre-creation condition: lifeless chaotic watery
deep
• 2. Breath/wind (Amun) moves on the waters
• 3. Thought and word ofPtah creates Atum (light)
• 4. Emergence of primordial hill "in midst of Nun"
• 5. Procreation of sky (Shu) when Nun was raised
over earth
• 6. Formation of heavenly ocean (Nut) by
separation
• 7. Formation of dry ground (Geb) by separation
• 8. Sun created to rule the world as the image of
Re
• 9. Earth sprouts plants, fish, birds, reptiles,
animals
• 10. Creation of gods'statues, cult sites, food
offerings
• 11. Ptah completes activity and "rests" in
satisfaction
• 1. Pre-creation condition: lifeless chaotic watery
deep
• 2. Breath/wind of Elohim moves on the waters
• 3. Word of God creates light
• 4. Creation of firmament "in midst of the waters"
• 5. Creation of sky when waters were raised above
the firmament
• 6. Formation of heavenly ocean when waters
were separated
• 7. Formation of dry ground when waters were
gathered
• 8. Creation of plants ... later fish, birds, reptiles,
animals
• 9. Sun and moon created to rule day and night
• 10. Creation of man as divine image, food to eat,
dominion
• 11. God completes activity and "rests" (in
satisfaction)
The similarities in detail and structure are too close to be accidental.
since the author did not look for the exegetical comparison
between two story clearly, as a reader, I could not deeply accept his argument.
• 1. "empty formlessness" (töhu wävöhu) is similar to Egyptian "boundless
undifferentiation" (Hehu)
• 2. "darkness" (höSek) parallels Egyptian "infinite obscurity" (Keku)
• 3. "watery deep," "primeval abyss" (têhôm) is like the "primordial water"
(Nun)
• 4. "Spirit/Wind of God" (rûâh >ëlohîm) parallels "divine wind/soul" of
the creator-god (Amun).22
• There were significant differences even in the storyline like the birth of
gods, weeping of gods and significantly different creational behavior of
gods in detail. But, here, the author did not try to look for the meaning of
the clear differences like the concept of mother-father gods, but ignored
those significant differences by saying just that the Egyptian were
polytheistic culture.
• Can we say the skeleton storyline was the most important parts that other
culture wanted to protect?
STRIKING SIMILARITIES AND DRAMATIC
DIFFERENCES
• Atwell remarks, "The conclusion is stark and compelling: ancient
Egypt provided the foundation tradition which was shaped and
handed on by successive priestly [sic] generations."40 Hoffmeier and
Currid, two evangelical Egyptologists, also suggest that these
Egyptian creation myths influenced the way the Israelite author
thought and talked about creation; however, they suggest he recast
this inherited tradition to make it acceptable within orthodox
Yahwism
Conclusion
• This suggests that Genesis 1 was originally composed, not as a scientific
treatise, but as a theological polemic against the ancient Egyptian models
of creation which competed against Yah-wism for the loyalty of the ancient
Israelites.
• By overemphasis on the theological differences between two culture, the
author justified the assumption that the ancient Israel transformed the
story of Egyptian. Here, I would like to look into the detailed differences
between two stories which affected to the main skeleton storyline here.
And it definitely revealed the different implication like primordial hill and
creation of firmament. And I think the complicated creation myth cannot
be higher than Genesis’s form, context, and theology.
• However, the more complicated mythical Egyptian story gave me the
strong doubts about the possibility of manipulation in their history.
THE BABYLONIAN AND BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS
OF CREATION
• The presupposition of this article is fairly balanced with a reasonable
mind
• the years 1848 and 1876 as a result of excavations at Nineveh, the
ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, Austen H. Layard, Hormuzd
Rassam, and George Smith recovered from the library of Ashurbanipal
(668–626 B.C.) the first tablets and fragments of tablets of the great
creation epic current among the Babylonians and Assyrians.
• its two opening words Enuma elish (“When above”).
• It was at this time Babylon rose to political supremacy and Marduk,
the hero of Enuma elish, became the national god.
• Tablet I presents in the opening scene the primitive age when only
living uncreated world-matter existed, personified by two mythical
beings—Apsu (male), representing the primeval fresh-water ocean
and Tiamat (female), the primeval salt-water ocean.2 This original pair
became the parents of the gods. 2 Anton Deimel, Enuma Elish und
Hexaemeron (Rome, 1934), p. 22.
• Tablets II and II recount how Marduk was chosen as champion to fight
against the raging Tiamat by his father Ea, and how the gods
assembled at a banquet for the council of war to accoutre and
commission him for battle.
• In Tablet IV Marduk is elevated to supremacy among the gods, the power to
destroy and create being made the basis of his exaltation. He destroys and
creates a garment. He is declared king and goes to battle against Tiamat with bow,
arrow and club. The formal defeat of chaos and the victory of order is described
graphically
• 95. The lord spread out his net and enmeshed her,
• The evil wind, following after, he let loose in her face.
• When Tiamat opened her mouth to devour him,
• He drove in the evil wind, so that she could not close her lips.
• As the raging winds filled her belly,
• we can see the concept of the wind or the work of the wind can be a common
terminology in the ancient countries.
• Isn’t there possibility that the work of the wind has been described differently
between two cultures?
• In Tablet V, which is fragmentary, Marduk sets up the constellations,
marking the days and months of the year, and causes the moon to
shine forth in its various phases to mark the principal time unit of
Babylonia.
• Tablet VI is important in that it describes the creation of man. Marduk
declares:
• “Blood I will form and cause bone to be;
• Then I will set up lullu,3 ‘Man’ shall be his name,
• Yes, I will create lullu: Man!
• (Upon him) shall the service of the gods be imposed that they may
rest …” 3 Sumerian word for ‘man’.
COMPARISON OF THE BIBLICAL AND THE BABYLONIAN
ACCOUNTS
• It is commonly recognized by scholars that there are numerous
interesting parallels between the account of creation given in
Babylonian literature, particularly Enuma elish, and that in Genesis
1:1–2:3. Although these similarities are genuine, they are commonly
exaggerated and erroneous conclusions are frequently drawn from
them.
The Resemblances:
• Both accounts know a time when the earth was waste and void
• Both accounts have a similar order of events in creation
• Both accounts show a predilection for the number seven (In Genesis,
however, creative activity took place on all of the first six days, while the
seventh is devoted to God’s rest.)
• The similarities between Enuma elish and the Genesis account of creation
are in some respects striking. But in the over-all picture the likenesses
serve to accentuate the differences, which are much more radical and
significant.
• Here, I had question that if Moses knew the resemblances of these
creation myths, why did he not eliminate it in Generation?
The Differences:
• (1) One account is intensely polytheistic, the other strictly
monotheistic
• (2) One account confounds spirit and matter, the other carefully
distinguishes between these two concepts.
EXPLANATION OF THE BIBLICAL PARALLELS
• (1) The Genesis account is drawn from the Babylonian tradition
• the complexity and crudity of the Babylonian version offer weighty reasons against it
• In either case inspiration was just as necessary whether to purge the crude account and to
refine it to fit the mold of monotheism, or to give the original authentic story without oral or
written sources.
• The employment of a poetical form or a certain type of metre as the vehicle for the expression
of spiritual truth,
• (2) The Babylonian is drawn from the Genesis narrative
• Enuma elish antedates Genesis by almost four centuries, since the epic in the days of Hammurabi of Babylon (1728–
1686 B.C.)
• (3) These traditions arose spontaneously.
• It simply refuses to account for the facts in a rational way.
• (4) The two accounts go back to a common source.
• Their common elements point to a time when the human race occupied a common home
and held a common faith. Their likenesses are due to a common inheritance, each race of
men handing on from age to age records, oral and written, of the primeval history of the race.
Evaluation
• The author positioned himself as neutral actors to find out the facts
and fair answers. One thing that I can find out as cons from this
article is that since the author was focusing on the fair balance for the
certain possible answers, the readers could not have enough
opportunity to look for the original text itself comparing each
storyline.
The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3
• Moses’ revelation of God, given through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration,
conflicted diametrically with the concepts of the gods and goddesses
found in the nations all around him. Moses differed with the pagan
religions precisely in the conceptualization of the relationship of God
to the creation.
• is it conceivable that Moses should have left the new nation under
God without an accurate account of the origin of the creation?
(However, still we have question that if the ancient mysterious creation
story were not true, why did not God give us more accurate
explanation about creation?)
• The only satisfying solution is to grant Mosaic authorship to the
narrative of Genesis 1. Once that is clear, the theological function of
the chapter is also clear.
• Moses, the founder of the new nation, intended this introductory
chapter to have both a negative and a positive function. Negatively, it
serves as a polemic against the myths of Israel’s environment;
positively, it teaches man about the nature of God.
• Here, i would like to ask that what the author Moses did to cover the
effect of the Negative impact to other cultures?
THE POLEMICAL FUNCTION OF GENESIS 1
• The evidence of the continuity. First, there is a literary continuity. begin
with circumstantial clauses followed by the main account of the creation.
‘when not yet’ sentences.
• for Israel belonged physically to the peoples of the ancient Near East.
• Second, there are points of similarity in their content. Both accounts
present a primeval, dark,7 watery, and formless8 state prior to creation,
and neither account attributes this state to the Creator/creator. Two
accounts agree about the order of the creation. almost certain that many
of these ancient Near Eastern myths antedate Moses
• The question is that Isnt there possibility of the same order of creation was
protected by something else?
• The most common explanation of those scholars who regard the world as a
closed system without divine intervention is that Israel borrowed these
mythologies, demythologized them, purged them of their gross and base
polytheism, and gradually adopted them to their own developing and
higher theology
• It is certain that Israel knew these myths and it is also possible that having
borrowed them they demythologized them.14 Moreover, the biblical writers
elsewhere tell us that they did use sources.15 In spite of these facts, this
explanation does not satisfy because it offers no explanation for Israel’s
higher theology. Where did Israel get this higher theology? 14 In this
connection also see R. N. Whybray, The Heavenly Counsellor in Isaiah xl 13–
14 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1971), pp. 62–77.
The question: With what basis, did the author evaluate Israel’s culture
superior?
• this religion did not arise from Israel itself
• it is a revelation from God. This is the only answer that satisfies both the mind
and spirit of man
• Genesis 1 is unlike the sources of pagan religions in that it contains information
unknowable to any man. Certainly ancient chroniclers could record events of
their days and the inspired prophet-historians could use them for theological
reasons. But what human author could know the historical details of the creation?
It is concluded, therefore, that the explanation that Israel borrowed the material
is wrong.
• The only satisfying answer is that proposed by Ira M. Price of the University of
Chicago. He suggested that these versions sprang from a common source of some
kind. He attributed the common elements to a common inheritance of man going
back to “a time when the human race occupied a common home and held a
common faith.”
THE DISCONTINUITY
• They are nature deities. The pagan mind did not distinguish spirit from
matter.
• The second element of the darkened pagan view of the universe is
summarized in the catchwords “myth” and “ritual. It did not serve primarily
to satisfy man’s intellectual curiosity about the origin of the world
• the first chapter of Genesis is evident. Not that the tone is polemical;
precisely the opposite.
• Here there is no theogony
• As von Rad said, Genesis 1 is not a demythologized narrative but a
distinctly antimythical narrative
But here the question is that if the storyline was not true then,
why was the tone or the expression of Generation more
scientific and objective?
THE THEOLOGY OF GOD ACCORDING TO GENESIS 1
GOD AS THE CREATOR
The word for “create” used by Melchizedek in Genesis 14:19, 22 is
different from the word used in Genesis 1:1. The verb translated
“create” in Genesis 14 is used only four other times in the Old
Testament in the sense “to create,” but it seems to have been more
frequent in the Canaanite world.
Many words, in fact, are used to designate the creative activity of God.
In addition to ‫ ברא‬found in Genesis 1:1, there are ‫יצר‬, “to form”; ‫עׂשה‬,
“to make”; ‫“ יסד‬to found”; ‫ילד‬, “to beget”; and others.
‫ברּא‬, however, distinguishes itself from these other words by being
used exclusively with God as the subject.
• As Julian Morgenstern pointed out, it “never takes the accusative of the
material from which a thing is made, as do other verbs of making, but
uses the accusative to designate only the thing made.
• Since it is used exclusively of God and never takes the accusative of the
material, some have suggested that the word must mean “to create out
of nothing.”
• But this distinction cannot be maintained for at least four reasons: (1)
usage shows that ‫ ברא‬does not necessarily mean “to create out of
nothing”; (2) it is used synonymously with other words for “making”; (3)
other words for “making” may imply that the thing made did not
originate out of preexisting material; and (4) the ancient versions did
not see this meaning in the word.
• Moreover, ‫ ברא‬is used with a double accusative to define the
production of a new mental state; for example, in Isaiah 65:18, the Lord
declares, “for behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing, and her people
for gladness.” Gruenthaner observed: “Evidently, Jerusalem and the
people are represented as being prior to the state into which they are
converted.”
• ‫ ברא‬in Genesis 1:1 does not include the bringing into existence of the
negative state described in verse 2. Rather, it means that God
utilized it as a part of His creation. In this sense He
created it.
• Anderson set forth similar comparisons in the use of these words in
Isaiah 40–66 and found that ‫ברא‬, ‫עׂשה‬, and ‫ יצר‬are all used
synonymously
• Moreover, it is clear that ‫ עׂשה‬and the other verbs may designate
creation by fiat. Light was created when God spoke the words
•there is not the slightest hint that it sprang
from chaos
• The way the verb ‫ ברא‬is variously rendered in the Septuagint shows
that the translators did not know the popularly alleged distinction.
The question is that why the writer used the specific words without
knowing the distinction?
• The verb ‫ ברא‬serves to call attention to His marvelous acts
• But what about the uncreated or unformed state, the darkness and
the deep of Genesis 1:2? Here a great mystery is encountered, for the
Bible never says that God brought these into existence by His word.
What, then, can be said about them?
• First, it can be said that the Book of Genesis does not inform us
concerning the origin of that which is contrary to the nature of God,
neither in the cosmos nor in the world of the spirit
•The Bible provides no information regarding
that which is dark and devoid of form.
• Second, the situation described in verse 2 was not outside the control
of God, for the circumstantial clause adds, “and the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.”
• The biblicist faces a dilemma when considering the origin of those
things which are contrary to God. A good God characterized by light
could not, in consistency with His nature, create evil, disorder, and
darkness. On the other hand, it cannot be eternally outside of Him for
that would limit His sovereignty. The Bible resolves the problem not
by explaining its origin but by assuring man that it was under the
dominion of the Spirit of God.
GOD AS THE SAVIOR
• God who called her to be His instrument for the salvation of the
world was the Creator transcendent above and not immanent in the
creation, but also that this same God was Himself a triumphant Savior.
• The situation of verse 2 is not called good. Moreover, that state of
darkness, confusion, and lifelessness is contrary to the nature of God
in whom there is no darkness
• As Israel reflected on this account of creation, then, it may be
concluded that she was reminded that her God was a triumphant
Savior,
• the ultimate establishment of God’s universal rule over the world
which He had created in the first place.
GOD AS THE RULER
• In the “creation myths” of the pagans, the god responsible for the creation emerged as
the ruler after his victory. So also God’s story about creation revealed that He is the
supreme ruler, sovereignly exercising His lordship in and over all the creation.
• The essence of the creative process is the will of God expressed through His word.
Announcement: And God said …
Command: “let there be … let it be gathered … let it bring forth …”
Report: And it was so
Evaluation: And God saw that it was good.
Temporal framework: And there was evening, and there was morning, the … day
• This analysis readily exposes the fact that the essential feature of the creative process
was the command of God
• The world and its fulness do not find their unity and inner coherence
in a cosmological first principle, such as the Ionian natural
philosophers tried to discover but in the completely personal will of
Yahweh their creator
• Moreover, to show His sovereign dominion over His creation, God
gave names to the light, to the darkness, to the firmament, to the dry
land, and to the gathered waters.
• To understand the significance of this act of naming the parts of the
creation it must be realized that in the Semitic world the naming of
something or someone was the token of lordship.
• God, who is Ruler of all, then delegated His authority to others. To the
sun and the moon He gave the rule over the day and the night (Gen.
1:16), but to man He gave the rule over the earth (1:26).
• The question is that although the initial darkness revealed these
characteristics of God, can it eliminate the existence of the initial
darkness?