The Creation of Humanity

This post is going to be a comparative study of the creation of man and the fall of man to other ancient near eastern sources on the subject. This again broaches the subject of 'fact or fiction'. I tend to look at these early chapters in Genesis more as myth (for lack of a better term) designed to tell us about God's nature, and to show humanity what their role is in the world. Most of us know the Biblical story of the creation of man fairly well, so I will not be putting too many quotes in here.

In Genesis 2:7, we see God forming man from the dust of the ground, and breathing life into him. There are two prominent creation stories from the Ancient Near East which also tell of the creation of humanity. The oldest of these, the Sumerian version, is somewhat similar to the Genesis version, in that man is created from the clay of the earth, and is fashioned in the image of the gods.

Mix the heart of the clay that is over the abyss, The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay, You, [Nammu] do you bring the limbs into existence; Ninmah [earth-mother or birth goddess] will work above you, The goddesses [of birth] . . . will stand by you at your fashioning; O my mother, decree its [the newborn's] fate, Ninmah will bind upon it the image (?) of the gods, It is man . . . . (Kramer, History Begins 109)

In this poem, often referred to as the Poem of the Super Sage (or Atrahasis), humanity is created so as to become the servants of the gods. The gods were tired of toiling themselves, so humanity was created to take that job.

"In the days of yore, did the gods for whom they baked their food portions and set their tables, did the major gods oversee work, while the minor gods were shouldering the menial labor.The gods were dredging the rivers,were piling up their silt on projecting bends-and the gods lugging the clay began complaining about the corvee."

"My son, rise from your bed,and when you with your ingenuity have searched out the required skill, and you have fashioned a fill-in worker for the gods, may they get loose of their digging!"

So, mankind became the slaves of the gods, to do their toiling for them. To the Sumerians, this was an explanation as to why they had to work so hard, and toil. In Genesis chapter 1, we see the role of mankind as given by God.

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
29Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

In this instance, man is given rule over the dominion of the earth. Quite a bit different than being the slaves of the gods. However, in the end, the creation story does give the same explanation as to why we must toil and work so hard.

To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
17Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

The purpose of the two stories is the same, the Genesis version simply takes a different route to get there.

The second Creation Myth that we will look at is a very famous Babylonian work called Enuma Elish. You can find the full poem here. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/enuma.html

This one goes into great detail about a great battle between Tiamat and Marduk. After Marduk defeats Tiamat, he then uses her body to create the world. And then Mankind is created, once again, for the purpose of serving the gods.

When Marduk hears the words of the gods, His heart prompts (him) to fashion artful works. Opening his mouth he addresses EA To impart the plan he addresses EA To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart: "Blood I will mass and cause boned to be. I will establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name. Verily, savage man I will create. He shall be charged with the service of the gods That they might be at ease! The ways of the gods I will artfully alter. Though alike revered, into two (groups) they shall be divided."

Mankind is then formed from the blood of one of the gods who started the war.

So, at the risk of beating a dead rhino here, I want to say again that I do not believe that this story in Genesis is meant to be a literal portrayal of how and when God created Adam and Eve. If we read the other accounts of the creation posted here, one would not for one second entertain the idea that these things ever happened. Rather, we would say that these stories/myths reveal to us the ancient person's searching and longing for an explanation as to why they toil the way they do. Why is life so bad for us?

It also gives the Ancient person their role to play in this world. Why then, do we attribute the Genesis story with fact, but not the other Ancient Near Eastern accounts? Generally, the answer stems from the fact that for a long time, the Bible was the most ancient text we had in our posession which told us of the creation of the world. We had nothing else to compare it to. It stood alone in its scope and message. But now, in the last 100 years or so, other texts have been unearthed (a picture of the tablet of the sumerian poem of atrahasis is pictured at the top of this post) and we can now see that the same themes presented in the Genesis Creation story, were prevalant throughout the Ancient Near Eastern Culture.

Now, one could say that the Sumerians and Babylonians borrowed their creation stories from the Israelites. However, if one looks objectively, the Babylonians and Sumerians were the dominant cultures of their respective time periods. Is it really likely that these peoples were going to little Israel to find inspiration for their writings? I would think not. Any syncretism is likely to go the other way; Israel borrowing from the Babylonians/Sumerians. Another thing to consider is that the tablet pictured above is dated around 1700B.C., predating the Genesis account by at least 1000 years.

Thus, it is my belief that the creation of humanity in Genesis is not meant to tell us a literal history of humanity. Rather, just like fables, it is designed to show humanity its role in this world, and give an explanation as to why suffering and toil happen.