CREATION. Since the outbreak of the great War, new material has been published in America which throws light ou the earliest conceptions of creation. The bulk of this new material, according to L. W. King (Legends of Babylon and Egypt in relation to Hebrew Tradition, 1918), is furnished by some early texts, written towards the close of the third millennium B.C. " They incorporate traditions which extend in unbroken outline from their own period into the remote ages of the past, and claim to trace the history of man back to his creation. They represent the early national trad itions of the Sumerian people, who preceded the Semites as the ruling race in Babylonia; and incidentally they necessitate a revision of current views with regard to the cradle of Babylonian civilization. The most remark able of the new documents Is one which relates in poeti cal narrative an account of the Creation, of Antediluvian history, and of the Deluge. It thus exhibits a close resemblance in structure to the corresponding Hebrew traditions, a resemblance that is not shared by the Semitic-Babylonian Versions at present known. But In matter the Sumerian tradition is more primitive than any of the Semitic versions. In spite of the fact that the text appears to have reached us in a magical setting. and to some extent in epitomized form, this early docu ment enables us to tap the stream of tradition at a point far above any at which approach has hitherto been pos sible " (King, p. iii.). As regards the Old Testament. narratives, it Is now common knowledge that they pre sent two versions of the story of creation—a primitive version (Gen. ii. 4b-25, Jehovistic) and a later version (Gen. I. 1-11. 4a, Priestly). " In spite of the obvious differences, the two accounts have important features in common. Both show the influence of the ancient trad ition by beginning with a scene of waste desolation; and the Influence of Inspired teaching by the omission of all polytheistic ideas. On the other hand the differences are also important : the Priestly account is cosmic; It deals with earth and heaven and all their hosts, with the dry land, and the firmament, and the waters above and below the firmament; the Primitive account is local, and is only concerned with a garden and its inhabitants. and the streams that water it. In the Priestly account anthropomorphic language is used as little as possible; but in di. 4b-25 Yahweh is frankly spoken of as a man might be; He moulds a man out of dust, plants a gardeu, and takes a rib out of the man and builds it up into a woman. So far as the creation of the same beings is concerned the order is different: especially in ch. ii. the woman is formed last, as a kind of afterthought, to be the man's companion, and we are not told that God breathed into her the breath of life; whereas in Ch. i. man and woman are formed by the same creative act in the likeness of God " (W. H. Bennett, Genesis in the " Century Bible "). In the Sumerian Version, according to L. W. King, the account of Creation is not given in full. Only such episodes are included as were directly related to the Deluge story. " No doubt the selection of men and animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood " (p. 113). No attempt is made
to explain how the universe itself had come into being. No less than four deities, including a goddess. are repre sented as taking part in the Creation, and when the deities (Ann, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga) undertake to create man, the existence of the earth is pre-supposed. Dr. King points out that the idea of a goddess taking part in creation is not a new feature in Babylonian mythology. " Thus the goddess Arum, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the creation of the human race, as she might also be pictured creating on her own initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic " (p. 111). And, although in the Sumerian text Ninkharsagga, the " Lady of the Mount ains," appears for the first time lu the character of creatress, " some of the titles we know she enjoyed, under her synonyms in the great God List of Babylonia, already reflected her cosmic activities" (ibid.). Turn ing to the ancient Egyptians, there is an interesting series of sculptures on the walls of the famous Queen Hatshepsut's temple at Deis el-Bahari in which she seeks to record her divine origin. " The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present connection, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot, and on the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the baby princess and her double.' It was always Hatshepsurs desire to be represented as a man, and so both the children are boys. As yet they are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their nostrils by Ileqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies birth and fertility " (King, p. 106). Brinton points out (R.P.P., p. 123) that this con ception of the Creator as a moulder or manufacturer underlies many Creation myths. " Thus the Australians called him Baiame, the cutter-out,' as one cuts out a sandal from a skin, or a figure from bark. The Maya Indians used the term Patol, from the verb pat, to mould, as a potter his clay, Bitol, which has the same meaning, and Tzacol, the builder, as of a house. With the Dyaks of Borneo, the Creator is Tupa, the forger, as one forges a spear-blade: and so on." Frazer has shown (Folk-lore in the 0.T., vol. I.) that the legend of the creation of men out of clay is found among the Greeks, the Maoris, the Tahitians, the Melanesians, and others. Other con ceptions are equally widespread. " The conception of the cosmic egg from which the universe is hatched, the heaven-born twins, the fecund mother of humanity who falls from heaven, are found not only in the older mythologies of India and China, Egypt and Babylon, but also in Scandinavian creation-story, Persian cosmogony, and the many world-legends of North and South America " (Edwardes and Spence, Diet., p. 29). This is regarded as " a striking testimony to the world-wide similarity of the workings of the barbarian human mind." But it might also be said to be a remarkable demonstration of the diffusion of culture from a common centre.