“17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
“18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
“19. And the evening and morning were the fourth day.”
The fragment of the first tablet of the Creation series was introductory, and dealt with the generation of the gods rather than the creation of the universe, and when we remember that the fifth tablet contains the Creation given in Genesis under the fourth day, while a subsequent tablet, probably the seventh, gives the creation of the animals which, according to Genesis, took place on the sixth day, it would seem that the events of each of the days of Genesis were recorded on a separate tablet, and that the numbers of the tablets generally followed in the same order as the days of Creation in Genesis, thus:
Genesis, Chap. I.
- V. 1 & 2 agree with Tablet 1.
- V. 3 to 5 1st day probably with tablet 2.
- V. 6 to 8 2nd day probably with tablet 3.
- V. 9 to 13 3rd day probably with tablet 4.
- V. 14 to 19 4th day agree with tablet 5.
- V. 20 to 23 5th day probably with tablet 6.
- V. 24 & 25 6th day probably with tablet 7.
- V. 26 and following, 6th and 7th day, probably with tablet 8.
The assertion with which the fifth tablet begins may be compared with the oft-repeated statement of Genesis, after each act of creative power, that “God saw that it was good.” In fact, the difference between the expressions used by the Hebrew and Assyrian writers seems greater than it really is, since the word rendered “to make suitable” comes from a root which signifies “pleasant” or “agreeable.” It may be noted that the word yuaddi “he arranged” or “appointed” in the third line has the same root as the Hebrew môădhim, which is used in the same connection Gen. i. 14 in the sense of “seasons.”
We next come to the creation of the heavenly orbs, and just as the book of Genesis says they were set for signs and seasons, for days and years, so the inscription describes that the stars were set in courses to define the year. The twelve constellations or signs of the zodiac, and two other bands of constellations are referred to, corresponding with the two sets of twelve stars, one to the north and the other to the south of the zodiac, which according to Diodorus Siculus played a prominent part in Babylonian astronomy.
The god Nibiru appears in the astronomical tablets as one of the stars. Here, however, in the account of the Creation, he seems to be the deity who specially presided over the signs of the zodiac and the course of the year, and in a hymn to the Creator, which will be translated further on, he takes the place of the classical Fate, and determines the laws of the universe generally, and of the stars in particular. It is evident, from the opening of the inscription on the first tablet of the great Chaldean work on astrology and astronomy, that the functions of the stars were according to the Babylonians to act not only as regulators of the seasons and the year, but to be also used as signs, as in Genesis i. 14, for in those ages it was generally believed that the heavenly bodies gave, by their appearance and positions, signs of events which were coming on the earth.
The passage given in the eighth line of the inscription, to the effect that the God who created the stars fixed places or habitations for Bel and Hea with himself in the heavens, points to the fact that Anu, god of the heavens, was considered to be the creator of the heavenly hosts; for it is he who shares with Bel and Hea the divisions of the face of the sky, which was divided into three zones. Summer was the season of Bel, autumn of Anu, and winter of Hea, the season of spring not being recognized by the Babylonians. The new moon also was called Anu for the first five days, Hea for the next five, and Bel for the third.