The Chaldean account of Genesis : $b Containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchsSmith, George
Religion
The Chaldean account of Genesis : $b Containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchs
The Assyrian word _Mummu_ is probably connected with the Hebrew
_mĕhûmâh_, confusion, its Accadian equivalent being _Umun_. Besides
the name of the chaotic deep called _tĕhôm_ in Genesis, which is, as
has been said, evidently the Tiamat of the Creation text, we have in
Genesis the word _tohû_, waste, desolate, or formless, applied to
this chaos. The correspondence between the inscription and Genesis is
complete, since both state that a watery chaos preceded the creation,
and formed, in fact, the origin and groundwork of the universe. We have
here not only an agreement in sense, but, what is rarer, the same word
used in both narratives as the name of this chaos, and given also in
the account of Damascius.
Next we have in the inscription the creation of the gods Lakhmu and
Lakhamu; these are male and female personifications of motion and
production, and correspond to the Dache and Dachus of Damascius, and
the moving _rûakh_, the wind, or spirit of Genesis. The next stage
in the creation was the production of Sar and Kisar, representing
the upper expanse and the lower expanse, and corresponding with the
Assorus and Kissare of Damascius. The resemblance in these names is
probably even closer than is here represented, since Sar is generally
read Assur as a deity in later times, being an ordinary symbol for the
supreme god of the Assyrians.
So far as can be made out from the mutilated text, the next step in the
creation of the universe was (as in Damascius) the generation of the
three great gods, Anu, Elum, and Hea, the Anus, Illinus, and Aus of
that writer. Anu here symbolizes the heaven, Elum the earth, and Hea
the sea.
It is probable that the inscription went on to relate the generation of
the other gods, and then passed to the successive acts of creation by
which the world was fashioned.
The successive forms Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Sar and Kisar, are represented
in some of the lists of the gods as names or manifestations of Anu and
Anatu. These lists were compiled at a time when a school of monotheists
had risen in Chaldea, and an attempt was made on the part of its
adherents to resolve the various deities of the popular creed into
forms of “the one god” Anu. In each case there appears to be a male
and female principle, which principles combine in the formation of the
universe.
As has been already remarked, the conception of a male and female
principle was due to the Semites. Hence it is clear that the system of
cosmology embodied in these Creation tablets was of Semitic and not
Accadian origin.
The resemblance between the extract from Damascius and the account
in the Creation tablet as to the successive stages or forms of the
Creation, is striking, and leaves no doubt about the source of the
quotation from the Greek writer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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