Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Irene Riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>]

> But wasn't the point of Genesis chapter one to offer a refutation of that
> Babylonian world view? I agree with you that the author was well
> acquainted with Enuma Elish and similar documents of Babylonian or other
> Mesopotamian world-views, but his point was to systematically refute
> those documents at each point.

Yes and no.  I don't know what "each point" is.  Gen 1 "refuted" the Babylonian world view but that does not mean it adopted a totally opposite point of view.
 
    [By the way I don't think Genesis 1 "refuted" the Babylonian point of view since this suggests some kind of logical argumentation.  Rather it sets up an alternative mythology using many of the same elements as the EE.]

It posits one god in the place of many and formlessness in the place of  chaos, but whether Marduk's creation is any less purposeful than elohim's, I don't know.  Marduk's creation is more detailed and culturally specific to Mesopotamia than the Gen 1 account.  Gen1 is more universal since it is the creation of categores rather than things.  In fact in Genesis, the creation of culture is specifically a human endeavor and not a gift of the gods.  But none of these differences preclude the existence of a material substratum for the creative act.
    Whether the substratum is described as chaos or formlessness, it implies the existence of something prior to the formation of the world we know.

i riegner