Biblical Hebrew Forum

[TedBro AT aol.com]

I'm familiar with Enuma Elish but not with Westermann's comment. Apparently 
 his book came out right about the time I wrote my paper in college!! I do 
not  read Akkadian and was dependent on Heidel's Babylonian Genesis. 
 
As I previously wrote and as you state, the parallels between Gen 1 and  
Enuma Elish are often overdrawn. I do / did feel the tehom and Tiamat were  
related, not only phonologically, but also in motif. (Other scholars, before 
and  after disagree with Westermann, but I'm willing to look at his 
arguments). 
 
Both tehom and Tiamat represent primordial waters that are split into  
oceans and vapors. That similarity, in and of itself shows some that the two  
creation traditions are at least distantly related. However EE is theogenic  
(story of the creation of the gods) while Gen 1 is cosmogenic (story of the  
creation of the physical world).
 
Peace,
Ted
 
 
In a message dated 9/5/2012 4:13:22 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
ishinan AT comcast.net writes:


Dear  Ted,

You are right when you say that metaphorical and mythical elements  do 
occur in narratives, and by and large I agree with your words below. There  
is 
one exception, though, that THWM most likely is a derivative of Tiamat. I  do 
not have the book at hand, but I remember that Claus Westermann in his  
"Genesis A Commentary" (1982) in detail shows that Hebrew and Akkadian  
Phonetics and orthography makes it impossible that there is a relationship  
between 
the two words.

When I, in a previous post mentioned that I have  a list of 23 parallels 
between Atrahasis/Gilgamesh and Genesis, all of these,  except one, related 
to 
the flood in the days of Noah and not to the creation  account in Genesis 1 
and 2. I do not know your background, but it is my  experience that most 
people who who think there are parallels between the  Babylonian creation 
accounts and Genesis 1 and 2, have not made a detailed  study themselves. But 
they build on other persons whose assumption is that any  ancient 
cosmological 
account is  mythical.  I therefore invite the  listmembers who are 
interested to make a careful comparison between Enuma  Elish and Genesis 1 
and 2, 
and then inform us which real parallels they have  found.


Best regards,


Rolf  Furuli
Stavern