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
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