Enūma Eliš and Hesiod (1)

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The Babylonian Creation Epic is not a genealogy of the gods, as is Hesiod’s Theogony - it gives only the ancestry of Marduk, and how he came to power, and Marduk’s creation and organization of the cosmos. There are still some similarities between the two works:
1. The both stories begin with a pair of primeval, elemental parents in close union. In Enūma Eliš they are the cosmic waters, Apsu and Tiamat; in Hesiod they are Heaven and Earth, though in the Homeric theogony this position is occupied by Oceanus and Tethys, who make a closer match for the Babylonian couple.
2. The primeval parents have many children, who remain inside their mother and cause her distress. The father hates them and wishes to suppress them, but the mother opposes them.
3. The young gods are struck dumb with fear, but then one of them (Ea, Kronos) takes bold action to overcome and disable the oppressive father. The castration motif which is shared by Hesiod with the Hurro-Hittite Song of Kumarbi is absent from the Babylonian - Apsu is made impotent in a more comprehensive sense and by other means.
4. The winner in this encounter is the son of the personified Sky and becomes the father of the eventual king: Ea is the son of Anu and father of Marduk, as Kronos is the son of Ouranos and father of Zeus. There is a further point of correspondence between Ea and Kronos in that Ea is noted for wisdom and clever ideas, while Kronos has the fomulaic epithet agkylomētēs, certainly understood by Hesiod to mean ‘crooked-planning, sly’.
5. Although Marduk has no conflict with his father, he must, like Zeus, encounter and defeat in battle a huge and terrifying opponent before establishing his rule. Again like Zeus, he uses fierce winds and lightning bolts as his weapons in the fight.
6. Following this victory, both Marduk and Zeus are acclaimed by the gods as their king.

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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