Michael’s Blog Post
The bible’s Genesis text and the Babylonian creation Epic show us two distinct ways in which the creation story is being told to its readers. While every religion shares their own distinct explanations of how the universe and humans were created, it is interesting to see what these creation myths have in common, what themes and concepts are highlighted—albeit with nuanced differences—in order to describe how the world came into being. One notion that is particularly intriguing is how “male” and “female” was discussed in both texts. While in Genesis, God is being introduced in the very first sentence, as he creates heaven and earth, humans, and thus the male and female component of humankind, are not discussed until the end of Genesis 1. Here the Genesis story rests on God and his decision to create the earth, flora and fauna, and lastly humans. One can argue that Genesis is thus established as a “gender-less” story in the beginning, not discussing the differences of male and female until the creation of the human. The Babylonian creation Epic differs from Genesis, as Tablet 1 refers to a male and female distinction: Tiamat, the salt mother ocean, and Apsu, the fresh water male counterpart—the union of these two entities gave birth to younger Gods. Hence, the binding of male and female is the first important occurrence in this creation story. Finally, one could argue that the Babylonian Epic thus places more emphasis on the need to see male and female as equal, since they both contributed to the creation of the gods, as compared to Genesis, where God did not specifically introduce male and female until the creation of humans.
Nevertheless, now that you’ve read different texts on creation, have your convictions or beliefs changed on how the world and humans came into being?