30 January 2025
Next, Walton discussed the Egyptian creation mythology.
As with Mesopotamian literature, the Egyptian is more about theogony than cosmogony. The cosmos was created incidentally when the gods were. While it is still by the spoken word, the Egyptian emphasizes the nature of things rather than the organization of it.
An important parallel with Genesis is that Egyptian concept of watery chaos and cyclical re-creation after things collapse. This was a major point in Pageau's book on the language of Genesis. And Ptah doesn't fashion the cosmos from a corpse as Marduk did, but gathers the essence of all things into himself and creates by his own power. This is the original concept of ex nihilo. However, animal life is depicted more as evolution from a separate source (a primordial falcon egg) and plants came from a primordial lotus.
By contrast, other Egyptian mythologies look to the four couples representing elemental forces of nature, but they are not clearly identified except by their mythological names: Nun, Keku, Hehu, and Amun. It's not obvious what they represent. It is this alternate account that contains the only mention of the creation of humans. A separate deity wept and the tears generated people. Walton notes the image is play on words in the Egyptian language. There is at least one other variation that sees only the first human generated by tears, while the rest came off a pottery wheel. Finally, Walton mentions one major parallel with Scripture, in that a deity breathed life into humans.
Walton then moves on to the issue of alleged borrowing, primarily between the Babylonian mythology and the Bible. He notes how this is the primary difference between "liberal" and "conservative" biblical scholars.
He explains that there is way too little in common between the documents themselves to make any case for borrowing either way. Indeed, Babylonian literature hardly gives attention to creation, whereas it's a major element in the Bible. Rather, about the only common ground that can be clearly demonstrated is a common cultural expression regarding the human situation. The most significant common concepts can be noted in that Tiamat is the source of water for the Babylonians, and her body was divided to create life sustaining conditions. The Hebrew word for water (tehom) is etymologically related to the name Tiamat.
There are several other thin parallels, but they are all very weak. Walton notes that a lot of discussion simply presumes Moses did not write the Pentateuch in the first place, dating it around the Exile. He spends several pages rehearsing what is commonly discussed among scholars and most of it is not friendly to any conservative notions. But his point is that any linkage that assumes borrowing in either direction is not based on specifics, but on broad generalities of common cultural roots regarding Creation.
However, the Flood stories are another matter. It says a lot that there are multiple accounts across all the civilizations in Mesopotamian history that we know anything about. A major point is the release of the birds, which is entirely tangential to the main story in any of the Babylonian myths. And almost nobody in the academic field would entertain for even a moment that the biblical account is the original source for the others.
A few brave souls promote the idea of both traditions arising from some common oral source. The differences between the two traditions are quite substantial, so borrowing between them is simply unlikely. Walton goes on to mention that it is virtually impossible to find common ground between those who have faith in inspiration of the Scriptures versus those who lack such faith. However, the elephant in the room is that both traditions point to a very real historical event.
The chapter finishes with a quick glance at how the first 11 chapters of Genesis share a pattern of primary events with Babylonian Atrahasis accounts:
There is a couple of pages of sources for further reading.
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