The Babylonian account, then, contained somewhere the story of the creation of the animals, though, like the other parts of the Babylonian account, its order and atmosphere differ widely from the Biblical narrative.
Some of these resemblances are of no great significance. The fact that the two accounts are arranged by sevens may be due simply to the fact that that number was sacred among both peoples. It is thought by some scholars that its use in Genesis was consciously adopted in order to lead up to the sabbath and glorify it. This might be true, even if the writer of the chapter knew of the Babylonian arrangement by sevens.
The features of the two narratives, which have convinced some scholars of all shades of opinion that there is a real kinship between the two accounts, are their agreement as to the nature of primeval chaos, and the division of the primeval ocean by a firmament for the creation of the heavens and the earth. Both writers had, so to speak, the same raw material of objective conceptions.
The differences between the accounts are, however, most marked. To speak first of that which is least important, the Hebrew order is in many respects different from the Babylonian. In the Babylonian the gods are generated in the first tablet, the world is not created till the fourth, and the creation of all other things is told in tablets four, five, and six. In other words, creation is divided into two parts, each of which is told in three tablets. The first three tablets deal with gods, the second three with the world and living things.
This twofold division is found in the first chapter of Genesis. Here the creative process is divided into two stages, each embracing four works, and occupying three days. The distribution of these works is strikingly different from the Babylonian. On the first day, light and darkness were created; on the second, the firmament; on the third, the earth and vegetation; on the fourth, the heavenly bodies; on the fifth, fishes and birds; on the sixth, animals and men. The first series of three days prepared the heavens and the earth; the second series studded the sky with orbs and the earth with living beings. There is a striking parallelism between the two series. The first begins with the creation of light; the second, with light-giving bodies. To the third and sixth days two creative acts each are assigned. On the second day the seas are isolated; on the fifth they are stocked with fishes. On the third day dry land emerges, on the sixth terrestrial animals are made. On the third also herbs began to grow; on the sixth they are assigned to animals and men for food. The classification of the acts of creation in Genesis is clear and consistent, and thoroughly independent of that in the Babylonian account.
A more important difference lies in the religious conceptions of the two. The Babylonian poem is mythological and polytheistic. Its conception of deity is by no means exalted. Its gods love and hate, they scheme and plot, fight and destroy. Marduk, the champion, conquers only after a fierce struggle, which taxes his powers to the utmost. Genesis, on the other hand, reflects the most exalted monotheism. God is so thoroughly the master of all the elements of the universe, that they obey his slightest word. He controls all without effort. He speaks and it is done. Granting, as most scholars do, that there is a connection between the two narratives, there is no better measure of the inspiration of the Biblical account than to put it side by side with the Babylonian. As we read the chapter in Genesis today, it still reveals to us the majesty and power of the one God, and creates in the modern man, as it did in the ancient Hebrew, a worshipful attitude toward the Creator.
3. The Babylonian Creation Epic and Other Parts of the Bible.
The Babylonian poem, crude though it seems to us, had a powerful fascination for the imagination. With more or less distinctness parts of it seem to have been known to various Hebrew writers, who, attributing to their own God, Jehovah, the rôle ascribed in the epic to Marduk, used these stories as poetic illustrations. At least this is the view of a considerable group of scholars. Some object that, if this were true, it would degrade Jehovah to the level of Marduk, but the objection does not seem well founded. The Hebrews might well have been such ardent monotheists as to believe that each and every mighty manifestation of power had been the work of Jehovah, without in any way lowering Jehovah to the level of a heathen god. The most important parallels which have been cited are here given, so that the reader may judge for himself as to which view is the more probable.
In Job 9:13, 14 we read:
God will not withdraw his anger;
The helpers of Rahab do stoop under him.
How much less shall I answer him,
And choose out my words to reason with him?