GENESIS AND ANCIENT MYTHS OF THE NEAR EAST

The story of Enuma Elish are inscribed on 7 cuneiform tablets which was recovered by a collector named AH Layard in Iraq. This story has some parallel tales told in the Old Testament such as Genesis, Exodus and the Psalms. In Enuma Elish presented to the father and mother as Apsu and Tiamat represented as saltwater and freshwater and were present before the creation of the universe. The epic begins this way: 'When on high ... No heaven HAD Been named, called earth No, not Annunaki ... There was nothing ... nothing but Old Father Apsu and Mummu-Tiamat, Mother of All Living". This describes a series of Gods that were created and later gained wisdom leading to a similarity to Genesis presenting the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and so says: Increasing in wisdom, in understanding and in ...strength. Apsu planned to destroy the gods to form a universe of order in a chaotic world. Ea is another god who kills Apsu to prevent what he had planned. Genesis also describes a world full of chaos and God decided to give skills to everyone in order to bring a new order. In Enuma Elish, Ea joins Damkina and has a divine and perfect son whom they call Marduk. In the tablet fragments, phrases were recited found in the Bible, such as "Divine the womb That bore him" (Luke 11:27), "My beloved is! My son, who is my Sun, Sun for all the Heavens "(Matt 3:17). Within the epic Kingu mate Tiamat which motivated to make monsters to kill the other gods. Tiamat think monsters including a

When the modern person ponders the formation of human beings, our mind automatically goes to Adam and Eve, whom were the first man and woman created by God according to the Book of Genesis. Before there was Adam and Eve, diverse cultures came up with myths about the construction of humans. These myths included: “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, An African Creation Tale, From the Popol Vuh, and A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” Each one of these legends gives a diverse perspective on the creation of human beings.

The two creation stores both contain similar use of the water and divine beings timeline resembling a family tree. They differed in the creation of the human beings. The Egyptian creation myth told of how the humans were descendants of the children of the Ennead, whereas in the Enuma Elish, humans were created from the blood. These two difference in the creation of men are likely due to the different areas and different ways the two areas viewed humans. The similarities between creation myths show similarities between the two areas of people despite their different location. It shows how much humans are alike and how important a certain idea is to humans as a race and not just one

    The Enuma Elish, often known as The Creation Epic, is often considered the primary source of Mesopotamian cosmology. However, to view the Enuma Elish as a cosmological myth obscures the true intent of the epicís author. The cosmological elements of the Enuma Elish are secondary to the authorís effort to explain the supremacy of Marduk, to justify absolute oriental monarchy, and to defend Babylon as the axis mundi.

Evolutions of civilizations can occur because of differences in people’s religion, culture, or geographic setting of the settlement. The relationship between the world of the gods and that of men was perceived differently by the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Hebrew ancient civilizations. This is demonstrated by the way each group viewed the process of creation. They had different thoughts on the creation of their gods, the universe and of man. This essay will discuss the relationship between humans and their gods in three different ancient civilizations: Sumerian, Egyptian and Hebrew.

The presence of fundamental storytelling methods across the globe establishes a universal connection between societies. Contrasting cultures influence variation among symbolism and moral values, however collective literary essentials exist. For instance, an abundance of flood stories that expand across the world verifies a connection among the traditions of mankind. The strong resemblance between the flood accounts in the ancient Mesopotamian myth The Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical narrative of Noah’s Ark in The Genesis propose a closer relationship that encourages further analysis. The major plot points are echoed in both texts despite differentiation of detail, however the crucial distinctions are observed through the contrasting religious themes. In contrast to Gilgamesh, the Genesis is a religious narrative that promotes monotheistic ideals. Both texts articulate nearly identical scenarios, however the Genesis adaptation provides a Christian perspective by offering moral interpretation. Further exploration of both assists in the determination of significance between the differences.

People have been trying to explain the existence of humans and the origins of our world since ancient times. There are many different theories and myths that attempt to describe the earliest beginnings of our present world. In the Ancient Near East one of the most popular creation myths was the Babylonian creation myth also known as Enuma Elish. Hebrew nomads like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David lived in tents while traveling to different locations in search of water and pastures for their livestock. Nomads were constantly moving and searching for other places which would have allowed them to hear many different creation myths throughout the Ancient Near East. These nomads would have been

Both tales contain a single, omnipotent, all-powerful deity that keeps himself entirely separate from the humans, and requires their worship of his greatness. In this version, the almighty created humans to bear the burden of the gods (Norton Anthology, 158.) The Enuma Elish addresses the omnipotence of the gods by labeling divine knowledge as “the entirety of all of everything” (Norton Anthology, 24).

The relationship between the creator and creation differs in books with monotheistic and polytheistic traditions. Although these relationships between the creations and their god(s) have proven some similarities. The relationships the creation has with their creator have been seen to have guidance to a task. In the monotheistic relationship between “god” and creation have lessons of man and their journeys of hardships with the help of gods guidance. The polytheistic traditions have been proven as well that the gods have had helped them through their hardships by being guided and being favored by them. These relationships have represented how much contact the gods or god have with the creation; man.

Most creation myths are mostly stories about the creation of the world. Also a lot of these creation stories are engraved and written within the paramids making them “Pyramid Texts.” Lastly, These Myths involves some type of god or gods that created the earth and what it is today. These two are similar to Enuma Elish because they both have something to do with the creation of the world and how the world has come to be as we know it.

The Enuma Elish is the Babylonian Creation Myth. Written on seven stone tablets, the poem describes the beginning of the universe as a separating of water from Chaos. Essentially, the universe begins in a chaos of swirling waters until, with time, the waters separate into Apsu and Tiamat. In response to this myth, the first book of Genesis was written during the Babylonian Exile. Genesis 1 introduces how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. In addition to this creation story, there were another one written centuries before and it was written in Genesis two and three. This story, famously described as "The Fall of Man" shows how God created the creatures of the earth and humans that have dominion over them. It

While attempting to achieve the same goals of revealing the natural world and the nature of man, the two traditions show drastically different perspectives on the nature of the divine. While the creation myth found in Genesis stressed the ordered creation of the world, the Greek tradition is inherently chaotic. The myth begins with the god Chaos, himself, living for centuries alone in the void until he “grew tired of living alone” and created the goddess Earth and the underworld of Tartarus (Stephanides). Through this segment alone, it is clear the divergence of perspective within the traditions. Whereas in the Biblical myth, God creates only what is good and evilness comes later through only corruption of God’s creation, in the Greek tradition there is a clear understanding of good and evil being a direct duality of each other.

A. The Babylonian account of creation text relates how a minor god, Marduk, rose to preeminence by fighting against and killing the goddess Tiamat. From her dismembered parts, Marduk created the world. The story is of mythological personality and has a limited to this small area for a reason as its purpose. Resemblances to the biblical account are then adapted to support Babylon's claim to superiority. The myth is called Enuma Elish. Scholars

in the beginning was no time, no god and no people but where the sea met the land a white mare made of sea foam was born and called Eiocha. Eventually she gave birth to the god Cernunnos, and together they then created more gods, Maponos the god of youth, Tauranis the god of thunder, Teutates the protector and the fertility goddesses Epona. But when the gods of the goddesses were grown up, Eiocha left the land to return to her life as a sea mare and became known as Tethra goddesses of the deep. The god and goddesses then created a man, a woman and the animals from bark from the oak tree that grew on the land. But this provoked the sea giants who fought war with the gods. The paradise they had created was destroyed but eventually the sea giants

This essay requires the analysis of the different creation myths in the Hebrew Bible. Before proceeding, I will first define the key term- ‘Creation’ and fit it into a biblical context. According to the Oxford dictionary, creation is the “action or process of bringing something into existence. In a biblical context, the role of a divine being is involved, and creation usually refers to the divine making of the physical world and the universe through his divine power, wisdom and/or presence (Fortresspress, 2014). Another important term I would like to define is “myth”. In the context of this essay, myth does not pertain to the notion “false” or “fictitious” story that are often attributed to it. With relevance to ancient times, myths shall refer to traditional tales that expresses people’s perceived reality in relation to gods, their relationship with men and their role in the universe (Sarna, 1966).