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.=