Creation Rediscovered by Jeffery M. Leonard

Author:Jeffery M. Leonard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: biblical studies;exegesis;creation story;creation stories;genesis;genesis creation;jeffery leonard;bibles creation stories;science and faith;religion and science;science and christianity;Christian evolution;Christian scientists;creation vs evolution;faith and reason;evolution theology;book about science and faith;Christian book about science;hebrew bible;ancient near east
ISBN: 9781683073208
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Published: 2020-04-23T16:16:23+00:00

Creation as Separation

As echoes of the Canaanite and Babylonian creation accounts accumulate in Genesis 1, evidence for connections in less prominent features of the text grows as well. One example of such a potential connection lies in the fact that in Genesis 1 God is said to create through the act of splitting or separating: on five different occasions, the text describes God’s creative labors as acts of separating (Hebrew hiḇdîl) one thing from another (cf. vv. 4, 6, 7, 14, and 18). On Day One, the text tells us, “God separated the light from the darkness” (v. 4). This separation is reinforced on Day Four as God sets lights in the heavens “to separate the day from the night” (v. 14) and later “to separate the light from the darkness” (v. 18).[16]

Most significant of all, though, is the echo of Enuma Elish in Genesis 1’s account of God’s separating the waters below from the waters above on Day Two (vv. 6–7). In the closing lines of Enuma Elish Tablet IV, we read:

Bēl [the Lord] rested, examining her carcass,

so as to divide the monster and create clever things.

He split her in two like a fish for drying.

Half of her he set up and stretched out as the heavens.

He pulled tight the skin and stationed guards.

He commanded them not to let her waters escape.

(IV.135–140)

Marduk’s act of splitting Tiamat in two and spreading out her hide as a cover that forms the heavens and holds back the waters above is remarkably similar to the description of God’s work on Day Two of creation:[17]

And God said, “Let there be a firmament[18] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the firmament and separated the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament. And it was so. God called the firmament “heaven.” And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

(Gen 1:6–8)

While a fuller discussion of the dynamics of vv. 6–8 must be put on hold for a moment, it is important to note the parallel between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 in their descriptions of separating the waters to form the heavens.[19]

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