ABSTRACT
Such demythologization is a particular feature of the Biblical narratives. According to modern scholarship, the priestly editors composed a creation account (Genesis 1-2:4) markedly different from the Babylonian narrative. In the Enuma Elish – a reworking of old Sumerian themes – the primordial powers Tiamat (salt water) and Apsu (sweet water) gave birth to a pair of forces which engendered other gods such as Anu (the god of heaven) and Ea (the god of running waters). Later Tiamat with her second husband and an army of gods and monsters attack the younger gods. Marduk, the god of Babylonia, however slaughters
Tiamat and from her corpse fashions the cosmos and from the blood of her consort Ea makes man.
