Of one half of the corpse of Tiamat he formed the earth, and of the other half, the heavens. He then proceded to furnish the heavens and the earth with their respective equipments; the details of this work occupying apparently the fifth, sixth, and seventh tablets of the series.
Under ordinary circumstances such a legend as the foregoing would not have attracted much attention. It is as barbarous and unintelligent as any myth of Zulu or Fijian. Strictly speaking, it is not a Creation myth at all. Tiamat and her serpent-brood and the gods are all existent before Merodach commences his work, and all that the god effects is a reconstruction of the world. The method of this reconstruction possesses no features superior to those of the Creation myths of other barbarous nations. Our own Scandinavian ancestors had a similar one, the setting of which was certainly not inferior to the grotesque battle of Merodach with Tiamat. The prose Edda tells us that the first man, Bur, was the father of Bör, who was in turn the father of Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve. These sons of Bör slew Ymir, the old frost giant.
"They dragged the body of Ymir into the middle of Ginnungagap, and of it formed the earth. From Ymir's blood they made the sea and waters; from his flesh, the land; from his bones, the mountains; and his teeth and jaws, together with some bits of broken bones, served them to make the stones and pebbles."
It will be seen that there is a remarkable likeness between the Babylonian and Scandinavian myths in the central and essential feature of each, viz. the way in which the world is supposed to have been built up by the gods from the fragments of the anatomy of a huge primæval monster. Yet it is not urged that there is any direct genetic connection between the two; that the Babylonians either taught their legend to the Scandinavians or learnt it from them.
Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly have occurred to any one to try to derive the monotheistic narrative of Gen. i. from either of these pagan myths, crowded as they are with uncouth and barbarous details. But it happened that Mr. George Smith, who brought to light the Assyrian Creation tablets, brought also to light a Babylonian account of the Flood, which had a large number of features in common with the narrative of Gen. vi.-ix. The actual resemblance between the two Deluge narratives has caused a resemblance to be imagined between the two Creation narratives. It has been well brought out in some of the later comments of Assyriologists that, so far from there being any resemblance in the Babylonian legend to the narrative in Genesis, the two accounts differ in toto. Mr. T. G. Pinches, for example, points out that in the Babylonian account there is—
"No direct statement of the creation of the heavens and the earth;
"No systematic division of the things created into groups and classes, such as is found in Genesis;
"No reference to the Days of Creation;
"No appearance of the Deity as the first and only cause of the existence of things."[30:1]
Indeed, in the Babylonian account, "the heavens and the earth are represented as existing, though in a chaotic form, from the first."
