Enuma Elish And Genesis Similarities

The origin of the earth is something that people have and always will be curious about. It is full of all these amazing creatures and things that we have no idea how they came to be. The Enuma Elish and Genesis are stories of creation. These stories are almost complete opposites of each other. They have very few similarities but many differences. This essay focuses on the natural world, view of humans, and the cosmos of each story. You will be able to see how a polytheistic and monotheistic world differ. Not to mention the views each story has in general. The Enuma Elish is the gorier and violent story while Genesis is a calmer and more orderly take on the creation of the world. The Enuma Elish “…tells us the story of the birth of the gods,

The main similarity is that they are both stories of creation. Another similarity is the order in which things are created. “…both accounts start with either water or chaos at the beginning, followed by the creation of the firmament, of dry land, of the heavenly bodies and of people in that order.” (Murray & Wilkinson 4) The God(s) also take a rest on a Sabbath (seventh) day. The opening of the stories is also about the same. “When on high, when God began creating"; we have a wind that sweeps over chaotic waters, just like the wind of Marduk released into the face of Tiamat…” As you can see the set up for telling the stories and some aspects of the story are similar. The differences are much more prominent than the similarities. Enuma Elish is polytheistic and Genesis is monotheistic. The polytheism contributed to all of the conflict that was going on in Enuma Elish and the monotheism is what limited the conflict in Genesis. Another huge difference is the mythological aspect. Enuma Elish is a clear mythological story while genesis is de-mythologized. Genesis is “…non mythological because there is no biography of God in here. God simply is. There's no theogony, no account of his birth.” (Hayes 6) It is clear that Enuma Elish is a mythological story because “…the gods themselves are created and they're not even created first, actually; the first generation of beings creates these odd demons and monsters, and gods only are created after several generations and the god of creation, Marduk, is actually kind of a latecomer in the picture.”(Hayes 6) Genesis was primarily a story of the creation of the world. In Enuma Elish it seems that creation wasn’t the primary focus at all. The focus was on the god Marduk. It was a story that went on about how great and important he was. The creation of the world was very violent and essentially a bloodbath in Enuma Elish. In Genesis creation