Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Joel wrote:
Well the waters in Genesis are separated and one half of them is
placed above the heavens and the other half below the heavens just
like Tiamat.  I am pretty sure these two are the only two creation
texts where water is split in half like this making a pretty strong
link.
END QUOTE

 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let 
it separate the waters from the waters.”

JCR: As you can see, there is no mention of halves in 
the biblical account.
The babylonian 'creation account' makes constant 
explicit reference to precreated things. It is much, 
much longer to the point where you get bored of reading 
it. It is filled with mythical references such as 

'She set up vipers and dragons, and the monster Lahamu,
And hurricanes, and raging hounds, and scorpion-men,
And mighty tempests, and fish-men, and rams;
They bore cruel weapons, without fear of the fight.
Her commands were mighty, none could resist them'

While there may be hints of acts of creation in there 
the creation theme is definitely secondary to the whole 
war theme that is going on that is built up so much to 
point where you take a big yawn and say 'Just hurry up 
and kill each other, already. I want to read the 
creation bit.' While it is possible, at a stretch of 
the imagination, to find parallels they are greatly 
outnumbered by the massive differences.

Just out of interest what date is attributed to Enuma 
Elish and how do we arrive at that date?

Joel wrote:
I am not sure what "postBabel" would be. The Babel incident is
unverifiable and difficult to even date with certainty.
END QUOTE

JCR:
When I say postBabel I mean according to dates derived 
from biblical chronology which for the sake of argument 
would be about 2269-2030 BCE (during Peleg's lifetime).

Anyway, more important than dates is content. When I 
said postBabel, I was really referring to epics that 
recount stories that should have taken place after the 
Babel account. Creation and flood epics are to be
expected to be part of both hebrew and Babylonian
history as up until Babel all would have had a common
history.


James C. Read
UK








ey are greatly
outnumbered by the massive differences.

Just out of interest what date is attributed to Enuma
Elish and how do we arrive at that date?

Joel wrote:
I am not sure what "postBabel" would be. The Babel incident is
unverifiable and difficult to even date with certainty.
END QUOTE

JCR:
When I say postBabel I mean according to dates derived
from biblical chronology which for the sake of argument
would be about