Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

> Ian, thanks for sharing the passage from Enuma Elish which makes clear
> how irrelevant this is. There is a lot in it which is clearly not in
> Genesis, and apparently vice versa. So why can they not differ also on
> "in the beginning"?

In addition, I have never bought the whole Tiamat/Tehom parallel 
and all that.  In any such situation, one can look at the similarities 
and assume they are derived from each other, one can look at the 
differences and assume they have no connection, or one can look at 
the whole picture and assume it's not that simple in either direction.  
I recently reread Enuma Elish just because of this discussion, and it 
resembles the biblical story like a duck resembles an airplane.  The 
whole comparative-religions school notwithstanding, there is no 
evidence that the biblical story is derived from Babylonian 
mythology.  In reality, both probably descend from a common 
ancestor somewhere, but once we go beyond "they have some 
superficial similarities" we are in the realm of pure speculation that 
gets us nowhere, as this discussion has shown.
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do 
with it.
                  -Emerson