cosmogonic affinities in genesis 1

8/2/2019 Cosmogonic Affinities in Genesis 1

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Cosmogonic Affinities in Genesis 1:2Author(s): Leroy WatermanReviewed work(s):Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Apr.,1927), pp. 177-184Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/528596 .

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The American Journal ofSEMITIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

Volume XLIII APRIL 1927 Number 3

COSMOGONIC AFFINITIES IN GENESIS 1:2BY LEROY WATERMANUniversity of Michigan

The creation account of the Priestly narrative is too closely articu-lated with the Babylonian cosmogony to permit any serious claim fora basic origin of Genesis 1 other than Babylonia. With almost equalunanimity, it is agreed that the Babylonian source materials nowimbedded in Genesis 1 had traveled far and long before theyreached the Priestly writer's hands, and this too in spite of the factthat the possibility has to be reckoned with that the writer of the Pdocument may have come into direct contact with the Babylonianmyth in its native form and setting.When therefore we inquire about the cosmogonic affinities ofGen. 1:2 (and this verse supplies all the basic materials and the de-terminative ideas of the cosmology of the chapter) we are here pri-marily concerned only with those modifications of the Babyloniancosmogony that have come about through contact with distinctly dif-ferent cosmogonic ideas. Put in another way, when we have made dueallowance for the changes from the Babylonian conception which aredirectly traceable to the Priestly writer's fundamental monotheism,what is there left whether in vocabulary, thought form, or figure thatcan be traced to a different racial source, how much can be identifiedwith known Semitic tradition, and what items can be specificallyattributed directly to Hebrew influence including the Priestly writerhimself?

177


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178 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SEMITICLANGUAGESThe effort has recently been made by Albright' to show not onlythat the cosmology of P has not been derived from Babylonia at first

hand, but that it is directly drawn from the highly syncretistic milieuof the Eastern Mediterranean cosmogonies preserved for us in Hesiodand Sanchuniathon.The matter reduces itself to a philological discussion of .i i --tand the original force of r'72 'b5N'~ 1 . The author finds hisfirst and only direct point of contact with outside cosmogonies in

jaav, the consort of liveyos, "wind," who together constitute the sec-ond pair in the Phoenician cosmogony fragment reported by Philo.3aav s plausibly the Greek equivalent of -M" . Here, then, is a rela-tionship, but whether from above or below remains to be determined.A considerablesyncretism lies between the two; in which direction didit develop? This may be more suitably taken up in connection withthe philological discussion of t1 ~ .The meaning of .i- is fairly certain apart from the Arabic cog-nates, and conveys the idea of emptiness. Assyrian bubutu,"hunger,"may well be a reduplicated form from ba'u, "to seek, long for,"2henceexpressing "emptiness" on the physical plane of lack of food. Theprimary force of .MI is much more uncertain, although its more fre-quent occurrence makes its meaning in Hebrew usage at the time ofthe Priestly writer even better assured.To suggest from the proximity of .M'-Land -Vi , as Albright does,that therefore E-l must be a blend between -M" and tr'i , isstartling not to say disconcerting. Blend formations doubtless occurin language as they do in the elements of nature; and if one wereresponsible for the creation of such a blend, the term might be usedscientifically, but to apply it to an otherwise unknown quantity andthen to seek to determine its primary elements by splitting the blendequally between two of its neighbors with which it happened toform an assonance might, if we only had some means of knowing, oc-casionally discover the truth; but to rely upon it alone as an inde-pendent aid would seem to be taking unnecessary risks with thelimited knowledge we now possess.At any rate, the usage of the word offers not the slightest inti-

1"Contributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology: 1. Chaos and the Origin ofLight in Genesis 1," JBL, XLIII, 363-69.2 Cf. Streck, Ashurbanipal, p. 453.


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COSMOGONIC AFFINITIES IN GENESIS 1:2 179mation of its kinship with =,tn-, "watery chaos." It is used of atrackless howling wilderness, a synonym of 1 and T~ ;1ofa ruined city;2 of a thing of naught, a synonym of 0'1 and DNR;3of empty space;4 n a figurative sense of what is unreal, used of idols;5of groundless arguments ; of moral unreality, falsehood,7equivalent towords of emptiness, RT '1; or worthlessness, synonym of Zrl ,8and a thing without purpose.9Its simplest physical meaning is thus that of a trackless desert,conforming to the meaning of the Arabic cognate root and readilybecoming a symbol for emptiness, space, unreality, but with never ahint etymologically or otherwise of water or an abyss. is thusseen to be a many-sided .11, and hence the natural use of thetwo together to enhance one idea. But the Priestly writer is not re-sponsible for the idiom. It was already at hand and in a form whosemeaning is unmistakable. In Jer. 4:23 the identical expression pic-tures the ruined earth not as a process nor as a primal element but asthe statement of a condition; and even if we confine ourselves to theLXX reading, omitting .INM, the use of -IM for "ruin," "chaos,"still remains, and is supported further by the same word in the figureof the ruined towns (Isa. 24:10), and again by both words togetherdescriptive of devastated, obliterated Babylon (Isa. 34:11).Under these circumstances any attempt to make .. personal,whether male or female, or the consort of anything eliminates itselffrom the thought of P by the background of his figure in previousliterary idioms. In other words, the pairing of Anemos-Baau, i.e.,ruah-bohu, cannot be naturally accounted for before P in Israel.It follows that this will have taken place later, as the Phoenicianmight lead us to expect.We may turn, then, from the Phoenician Anemos-Baau to theHebrew '1"l "wind" or "breath of god." Is this originally a windfrom the east or the west? Can we discover its primary function, andcan we trace the variations of that function until it appears in Genesis,chapter 1?

1 Deut. 32:6, Jer. 26:12, Ps. 107:40. 6 Isa. 29:21.2Isa. 24:10. 1 Isa. 59:4.3Isa. 40:17. 8Isa. 49:4.4Job 26 ?7. 9 Isa. 45:19.SI Sam. 12:2; Isa. 41:29; 44:9.


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180 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGESIn the first place, wind appears in the Babylonian myth and thereit is the four winds of east, west, north, and south, storm and hurri-cane plus the evil wind, making in all the seven winds, and so sym-

bolically including all possible winds. These are the chief manifesta-tions of Marduk's power in his conflict with Tiamat, and they are thesole weapons by which the myth describes in detail the destruction ofthe monster.The "storm" is his mighty weapon, he drives the evil wind intoher mouth, the terrible winds inflate her stomach, her mouth opens

wider, the god seizes the storm spear and rams it down her throat intoher entrails and her inwards are severed, i.e., she is burst asunder,and the raw materials are ready for making heaven and earth.Was Israel fully cognizant of the Babylonian myth in this form?Variousreferencesshow that not only was this true but that the Israel-ites thought it through in terms of their own religion. In Ps. 89:6 ff.Yahweh plays the r6le of Marduk as the triumphant champion of thegods, by overcoming the sea personified as a monster, here calledRahab, together with her allies (cf. Job 38:7-11), and thereafter cre-ates heaven and earth and all that in them is.

In Ps. 74:12 God cleaves the sea by his strength, shatters theheads of the sea monsters in the waters, symbolized here as "levia-than," and thereafter proceeds with his creative activity.These and similar references in Psalms and Job point to an earlyusage in Israel, as the writings in which they are found are too latefor them to have been taken over contemporaneously, with Yahwehso deeply involved in mythological relations.We may now turn to the winds of Marduk in the Babylonian epic.Their function is in fact lost sight of in an overpicturesqueness ofmythological representation. The winds that burst Tiamat asunderare indeed the weapons of Marduk, functioning in a hyperbolic formthat calls for comparisonwith the storm scenes in the epics of Homerand Virgil, where the winds lift the waves to the sky, on the one hand,and, on the other, with even more fearful effect open up the engulfingbillows until the very sea-bottom appears below-T~hom truly cleftin twain. Finally, when we turn the highly mythological language ofthe Babylonian epic into the actual physical conditions of the landthat gave it birth with flooded land below, mingling with waters


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COSMOGONIcAFFINITIES IN GENESIS 1:2 181falling from above and forming as it were one vast tehom,and thenwatch the sun Marduk "struggle through," finally piercing the mon-ster and out of its dismembered parts re-creating the clear sky aboveand dry land below, the tempestuous winds of the storm and the clear-ing winds thereafter are more explicitly seen to be in the highest sensefunctional in the epic, as they were in nature the only observable in-strumentalities of cleaving the sea or clearing the sky. And our ownMarch winds are not too remote an analogy.Hebrew thought, though lacking the same geographical and cli-matic setting, did not miss nor forget the function of the wind in thecreation which was of course God's wind. In a description of creationin Job 26:12-13 we read: "Through his power the sea was stilled"(i.e., the sea monster). "And by his skill he smote through Rahab"(exactly as in the Babylonian, but parallel to the line above). "Byhis wind the skies were cleared, his hand slew the fleeing serpent."In this fourfold highly figurative form wind is thus recognized asthe one physical instrument of God in the creation.

It is not surprising,therefore, that C R1~7-1' ppears in Genesis,chapter 1; it might well have been considered strange if it had not.But before considering its function there prefigured in r, , oneother consideration deserves emphasis. The Hebrew's interest in theBabylonian cosmogony began with Marduk and ended with his work.There is not the least hint or echo in their literature that the back-ground of the myth, from "Enuma Elish" to Marduk's appearance onthe scene, made the slightest appeal to the Hebrew imagination. ButMarduk's activities constitute a straightforward battle that ends intriumph and this tallies, without a dissenting figure, with Yahweh'screative activity, as preserved in Israel's early poetic thought. Thecreation was thus for Babylonia and early Israel a celebration ofvictory.We may venture to say that Genesis, chapter 1, with its almostcompletely depersonalized nature forces is by contrast a triumphantwork of creative art. We may now turn to the examination of 1i'1in Gen. 1:2. Its juxtaposition with waters suggests that the properrendering is "breath" or "wind," and not "spirit." It should be notedalso that this is the only possible instrument for creating that is men-tioned. Even this was not used because the writer felt obliged to have


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182 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SEMITICLANGUAGESthe creation done by fiat, in view of his impersonal materials. It re-.mains only to note the mechanical action that was nevertheless in-volved in dealing with the tehom. It still had to be split and separated.This is now supposed to be covered in a dignified manner by orderinga metal rakiac to be let down into the tehom. The result is howeversomewhat disappointing. Such an instrumentality could conceivablyform a partitioning wall between the waters that were on either sideof it, but it does not account for the space cleared of water beneath thedome, wherein the real creation was to be placed. The writer is con-scious of this difficulty and is obliged to add a special fiat to offset it:"And God said let the waters under the heavens be gathered togetherunto one place," but even this is only partly satisfactory for it stilldoes not explain the space cleared of the waters. That is, the seasdrawn off to one place do not account for the waters that filled thedome beneath, indeed the seas have not enough water even to sub-merge the land again, as the flood sagas clearly show. The wholedifficulty arose from the fact that the Priestly writer felt that with hisdepersonalized tehom he had no materials at hand out of which tocreate the dome of heaven. In a word, it was of no use to cleave thewaters by any means whatsoever (by the only method observablewhether in sea or sky, viz., by the winds) if there was not at hand somemeans of keeping the inert waters apart; but having provided this inthe artificial rakciac,he is reduced to a static, unimaginative, and onlypartially adequate description of how the rakliacfunctioned. In otherwords, once cut off from the dynamic forces of nature that operatedthrough the older myth the writer's mechanics are less adequate thanthe earlier mythology.But although the Priestly writer did not make use of the wind ofGod in the creation, he knew of its function in the creative process,and he shows that he would have undoubtedly used it if he could haveseen how his celestial mechanics permitted it, for in the Priestlynarrative of the flood when the conditions of a watery chaos had beencompletely restored so far as life on the earth was concerned, "Godmade a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were assuaged"(Gen. 8:lb). This is the one fresh creative act of God that bringsabout a restoration of order after the flood.

How, then, does this Babylonian and Israelitish and even Priestly


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COSMOGONIC AFFINITIES IN GENESIS 1:2 183use of the wind comport with 1V7'W in Gen. 1:2? The root is ofuncertain meaning. The Syriac cognate throws no light on it, the kaloccurs once and is translated "shake," "'Myheart within me is broken,all my bones shake" (Jer. 23:9), which is decidedly against an inten-sive force "to brood."

The Piel as here occurs but once and is the only guide we have forits use, viz., in Deut. 32:11, and this has been sadly misunderstood."As a vulture rouses up its nest yerahhefover its young, spreads itswings, takes them, lifts them on its pinions"-the meaning foryerahhef is certainly not to brood over, on the contrary it is almostprecisely the opposite, as Peters has pointed out.'The verse is concerned with a single accomplishment, viz., that ofdriving the young birds from the nest in order to teach them to fly. Ameaning such as "wheel about over," "dash at," "rush upon," allwith the fundamental idea of breaking up the nest, alone meets therequirements of the verse, and this is supported by the LXX (4RE-404pEro). Consequently, Gunkel's world-egg theory2 unquestionablyfalls to the ground, not only because of the figure in Deut. 32:11 butalso because the whole of the Genesis account lies beyond that pointin the myth where a fertilization motive could find any natural place.On the other hand, the form of rahaf as determined by Deuteronomyis equally opposed to a figure of fertilization, but, what is more, thisparticular force of the word supplies precisely the meaning that weshould have expected the Priestly writer to use if he had taken overthe Babylonian function of the wind of God, viz., "rush upon," "dashat," since he is seen to have appreciated this motive and used it inGenesis, chapter 8. There is no ground, therefore, to deny it to himin Genesis, chapter 1, where it is most in order (although he was un-able to use it there).It will follow that the Phoenician pairing of Anemos with Baaucan have had nothing to do with the Priestly narrative or its back-ground, but the influence must have been due to a later syncretismcoming in the opposite direction. And there will accordingly be noevidence for any milieu between the Babylonian myth and Israelitishusage in Genesis, chapter 1.

1 Cf. Encyc. of Relig. and Ethics, IV, 154.2 Cf. Schtpfung und Chaos.


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184 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGESModifications there were, but none of them call for extra-Israel-itish influence. One such was the introduction of darkness and the

creation of light. This arose directly from the fact that Yahweh wasnot a sun-god so that his presence did not as with Marduk bring thelight with him. Darkness was therefore a veritable part of uncreatedchaos, and light had to be fresh created. But here again the Priestlywriter was setting no new precedent or blazing no new path. It hadalready been said in Israel in the grand style in immortal words: "Iform the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I amYahweh that doeth all these things." In Isa. 45:7 there is accordinglynot the slightest indication in the narrative, or ground for supposing,that the contact of '7l and 1MVn roduced the light. There wasmore background for supposing them to produce rakiac, but if a waycould have been found, which there was not, it would at any ratenot have been by a process of generation.

cosmogonic affinities in genesis 1

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