Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Thanks for your post, Rolf. You wrote:

>In my Accadian class we have read Enuma Elish... The similarities between 
>these accounts and the first chapters of Genesis are so numerous and so 
>specific that it is impossible that they have different origins. The usual 
>view is that the account in the Bible borrows from the Babylonian or 
>Sumerian accounts - tablets with these accounts are at least 800 years 
>older than Hebrew manuscripts. 

Though the Enuma Elish originates many hundreds of years before the biblical
creation account, it did have a very long life, as it seems to have been
used by Berossus in his Babyloniaca written during the Seleucid period.

>However, if we compare the quality of the 
>Hebrew and Babylonian/Sumerian accounts we find the greatest difference. 

I'm intrigued by the use of the term "quality" here. But I guess I get the
idea from the following:

>While the
>biblical account is sublime and differentiate between the valuable
>attributes of one God in contrast with the imperfections of mankind, the
>Babylonian/Sumerian accounts speak of many gods who are just as degraded as
>mankind. 

I would like to point out that the first Genesis creation account is the
work of a number of generations of development. It is not of the
"unchanging" tradition that comes from the centuries of text maintenance as
found in Mesopotamia. It has been worked and rework numerous times and the
end result is a highly wrought beautiful piece of poetry -- and I'm speaking
specifically of Gen 1:1 - 2:4a. The second creation account (immediately
following) is a much less profound affair which shows different theological
and sociological interests. God is a former of the world here whereas in the
first account he is a creator.

>Therefore, I  see no problem with a view that both accounts stem
>from a common source, with the difference in quality due to the different
>religions, or even less likely, that the Sumerians borrowed from a "Hebrew"
>original.  

I do have problems with the view that they stem from a common source, if
that implies that the first biblical account was preserved through the
cultural prehistory of the Hebrews. The second account is clearly prior to
the first, being less theologically laden, having a much simpler view of God
physically involved in the creation of the world and not the universal
creator of the first account. The second account is strongly based in a dry
world (as is found in Palestine) in which the creation couldn't start until
moisture came out of the earth. The first account is set in the danger of
watery chaos (a clearly Mesopotamian environment) and God has complete
control over the creation. The first account is a much later production than
the second, so it was not a part of the cultural prehistory of the Hebrews,
but reflects a Mesopotamian world, suggesting its dependence on Mesopotamian
literature. This does not of course mean that the borrowers of the Enuma
Elish material were restricted in their use of that material.

>C. Westerman (1974) "Genesis 1-11 A Commentary", page 105 says:
>"It is impossible phonetically and grammatically to derive TEHOM from the
>Babylonian Tiamat."

I have blithely gone on thinking that Tiamat and tehom were cognates (ie
both derived from the same source) and that Tiamat merely had a feminine
ending as the Babylonian version of the word developed, though I have seen
indications that some people want to derive tehom from hwm. This may be so,
but there are numerous people much more qualified than I to comment on the
matter on this list, so I'll leave it to them. (I would not of course argue
that tehom was derived from tiamat, but that tehom would be the obvious
choice to use in place of tiamat.)

>Because I work with linguistics rather than with theology I can look at the
>criticisms of the Bible from some distance. I am in no way impressed! For
>instance, how many of the students who have been taught about "The
>Deuteronomistic historical work" and take it as absolute truth that a great
>part of the OT was compiled very late, have at the same time been drilled
>in "the problem of induction" or Duhem's problem? In fact, there is a great
>need for researchers and students to be more critical toward their own
>hypotheses and presuppositions than toward the texts thew work with. I do
>not suggest that you are not a critical scholar, but all of us have to
>build on information accumulated by others, and much of this information -
>some of it being presented almost as truth - is questionable indeed.
>Several of the arguments you use for a late date of Genesis are fine but in
>no way conclusive. 

Conclusive of what though? The text has -- for example -- a patently
unhistorical understanding of the Philistines that cannot have been derived
from any direct experience from the purported times narrated about. The
Hellenic Philistines were given a pedigree deriving from Ham showing a
Hebrew understanding of the Philistines being some kind of autochthonous
population when we know that they arrived on the Levantine coast after
leaving a trail of destruction across the Mediterranean coast and were
withheld by Ramses III. This Hebrew understanding of the Philistines is
coherent with the presentation of them in the Gerar story. These are
different strands of Genesis and represent a pervasive view that is
unhistorical. The best way to derive such a position is through posterior
speculation. Can you give any other sufficient explanation?


Ian

>Honestly speaking, pushing all the unfounded hypotheses
>away, I am not aware of one single datum which *explicitly* shows that
>Genesis cannot have been written in the 14th century BCE, which is the date
>we arrive at, given the dates of the Bible itself. (NB: I am neither
>arguing for nor against a 14th century date, I am just calling for hard
>data and pointing to the problem of induction.)