Ofer Inbar

HUM1 20a



Essay #1: Mesopotamian, Greek, and Biblical accounts of creation.



	When compared to the Greek and Mesopotamian accounts, the Bible

stands in stark contrast.  Although the Greek and Mesopotamian stories are

definitely quite different from each other, their differences pale in

comparison with their differences from the Bible.  Yet I think it can be

shown that there was some common thread, a common base of creation myths from

which all three accounts have drawn.

	I will try to present some of the parallels between Biblical stories

and their Greek and Mesopotamian counterparts.  I will show both that they

drew from a common base, and that these stories are told differently as a

result of the different culture's views of the gods.  This will become

clearer as I go on.  For the purposes of this paper, I will treat the Greek

and Mesopotamian myths as one group.



	The first common thread that is easily visible is the fact that in

all three cases, Man was a relative latecomer.  The rest of the world, and

the gods or God, already existed before the human race came to be.  In the

Bible, Man was created on the sixth day of the creation week; only the Shabat

came later.  In Enumah Elish, men were created to free the gods from working

on the canals; clearly, the gods as well as the world which made canals

necessary had to exist before.  In Hesiod, the story of men is told in Works

and Days, almost an addendum to the Theogony which tells in which eras of the

gods the different races of men lived.

	But in this parallel, we can also see the contrast of attitudes that

I mentioned.  In the Enumah Elish and Hesiod, the human race seems to be an

afterthought.  But in the Bible, God says to man, 





	"Fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea,

	the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth."

	"I give you every seed-bearing plant ...

	and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours

	for food." [Genesis:1:28-29]



	God brings up two points: First, that Man is meant to rule over the

earth.  Second, He seems to imply that the plants (and perhaps also the

animals) were created for Man, to serve him.  This indicates that in the

Bible, Man was not an afterthought but rather the culmination of God's

creation effort; the final and most important creation, which all other

things were leading up to.



	In all three myths, men are presented as being in some way similar to

the deities.  In the Greek and Mesopotamian myths, the gods do many 'people-like' things.  They eat, drink, work, argue and fight.  For example:



	"For all who were born from Gaia and Ouranos were the most terrible

	of children, and their father hated them from the first;  when any

	of them first would be born, he would hide them all away, ...

	the evil deed pleased Ouranos." [Theogony 154-159]



	"did the major gods oversee work, while the minor gods were

	shouldering the menial labor." [Birth of Man:9]



	Here we see, among talk about the gods, many things taken from the

world of people.  Hate and evil, strife, mother & father, pleasure, work,

overseers & laborers, etc.  In the Bible, God is not very anthropomorphic

except in some very rare instances such as when He feels threatened at the

Tower of Babel.




	However, the writers of the Bible did not abandon the similarity

between man and deity; they simply worked from the other direction.  While

the Greeks and Mesopotamians invented gods that were very much like people,

the writers of the Bible postulated that "God created man in His image"

[Genesis 1:27].  Later, the Bible tells stories of extremely pious men, in a

way trying to make man imitate God.



	Yet another striking parallel between these various myths is the

recurrent theme of the younger son becoming the heir.  In both the Bible and

Theogony, this repeats itself in the following way: the leader's son becomes

his heir, and then his son becomes his heir.  In both cases, the mother helps

the youger son.

	Once again, however, the stories are different and show a different

perspective on religion.  In Theogony, as well as Enumah Elish, the strife

deals with gods.  In the Bible, as we have seen, God has been idealized. 

Thus, in the Bible these succession stories are about people and not deities. 

Another difference between the two accounts is that in the Bible, the son

does not kill his father to take his place.  Indeed, it is the father who

passes "the blessing" on to his son in both the case of Jacob and Joseph.



	From these examples and others, we see that there was probably some

common mythological base from which all three ancient civilizations were have

discussed drew their stories.  However, we also see a big difference in

perspective on these stories between the Bible and the polytheistic myths of

Mesopotamia and Greece.



	In the Bible, God is idealized, and the result is a much more

coherent "scheme of things."  Man is planned from the beginning, but God

first creates a world, in an orderly fashion, for men to live in.  God then

creates people "in His image," and the people try to conform to his

standards.

	In the other myths, no such attempt to idealize is made, and the

creation of man and much of the world as well is presented as an

afterthought, or the result of coincidental interactions between gods.  Also,

there is strife between gods that many times runs parallel to stories which

in the Bible are told about men.



P.S.

	However, there is one theme which seems to me similar in all three

cases.  Problems come to the world of people through a woman, with the

complicity of the gods.  In Enumah Elish, the woman who brings problems is

herself a God - it is Ninmah, who creates the various physical diabilities.

	In the Bible and the Greek myths, trouble is given by the gods to

people along with a warning.  Both in the case of Pandora's box and the Apple

of Knowledge of good and bad, it is a woman who does not heed the warning.