This is an extract from the chapter 'Creation' in The Sacred History of Being, published November 2, 2015. The discussion of the Babylonian idea of the Creation in this chapter emphasises that there are several philosophical concepts present in the story we are told. Almost all scholars of Mesopotamian civilisation however, accept the conventional narrative which states that philosophical thought was the creation of the Greeks in the middle of the 1st Millennium B.C.E, and so the presence of philosophical concepts in texts from a much earlier time, and in another place (as here) is not noticed, and is not discussed. Instead of clear and cogent thought, scholars believe that the authors of the Babylonian creation were dealing with loose notions about the cosmos and the world. This is false. The later writings of the Greeks echo earlier ideas from Mesopotamia, and often very closely, as The Sacred History of Being uncovers.
Thomas Yaeger, February 22, 2018
Thomas Yaeger, February 22, 2018
In Babylonia and Assyria, plenitude could be represented by the waters of
ocean. Before ordered generation arose from these waters, there was a primal
chaos, which Mesopotamian scholars understood in terms of undifferentiated
possibility. The Babylonian priest Berossus, who lived and wrote in Greek most
probably during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, describes this primal chaos
in terms which emphasise that it is a plenitude (this passage was preserved by
Alexander Polyhistor):
There was a time in which there was nothing but
darkness and an abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were
produced of a two-fold principle. Men appeared with two wings, some with four
wings, and two faces. They had one body, but two heads the one of a man, the
other of a woman. They were likewise, in their several organs, both male and
female. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of goats.
Some had horses' feet; others had the limbs of a horse behind, but before were
fashioned like men, resembling hippocentaurs. Bulls, likewise, bred there with
the heads of men; and dogs, with fourfold bodies, and the tails of fishes. Also
horses, with the heads of dogs: men, too, and other animals, with the heads and
bodies of horses and the tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures with
the limbs of every species of animals. Add to these fishes, reptiles, serpents,
with other wonderful animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance.
Of all these were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon.
The person, who was supposed to have presided over
them, was a woman named Omoroca; which in the Chaldee language is Thalatth;
which in Greek is interpreted Thalassa, the sea: but, according to the most
true computation, it is equivalent to Selene, the moon. All things being in
this situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder: and, out of one half of
her, he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens; and at the same
time he destroyed the animals in the abyss. All this (he says) was an
allegorical description of nature. For the whole universe consisting of
moisture, and animals being continually generated therein; the deity (Belus),
above-mentioned, cut off his own head; upon which the other gods mixed the
blood, as it gushed out, with the earth; and from thence men were formed. On
this account it is that men are rational, and partake of divine knowledge. This
Belus, whom men call Dis, (or Pluto,) divided the darkness, and separated the
heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order. But the animals so
recently created, not being able to bear the prevalence of light, died.
Alexander Heidel points out that thalatth
in the foregoing passage, “... is obviously a scribal error.” [i] He says
that the form thamte corresponds to
the Babylonian tamtu, denoting the
sea, the ocean, or Tiamat, which is
the personification of the primordial sea or ocean. Heidel notes that Omoroka is a title of Tiamat [ii] – Heidel also observes that the emended form
of Omoroka in the Greek text is Omorka, which has the same numerical value
(by gematria) as ‘Selene’ (the moon). [iii]
Belus upon this, seeing a vast space quite
uninhabited, though by nature very fruitful, ordered one of the gods to take
off his head; and when it was taken off, they were to mix the blood with the
soil of the earth, and from thence to form other men and animals, which should
be capable of bearing the light. Belus also formed the stars, and the sun and
the moon, together with the five planets.
It is interesting to compare again Plato’s account of the creation of the
universe:
When He (Theos) took over all that was visible,
seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and
disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the
former state is in all ways better than the latter. For Him who is most good it
neither was nor is permissible to perform any action save what is fair. As He
reflected, therefore, He perceived that of such creatures as are by nature
visible, none that is irrational will be fairer, comparing wholes with wholes,
than the rational; and further, that reason cannot possibly belong to any apart
from Soul. So because of this reflection He constructed reason within soul and
soul within body as He fashioned the All, that so the work He was executing
might be of its nature most fair and most good. [iv]
These accounts are essentially consonant, in that they relate an initial
state of discord in creation, as we read already in the text of Berossus:
... there were creatures with the limbs of every species
of animals. Add to these fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other wonderful
animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance.
These were not to be tolerated as part of the creation, though they were
implicit in the ground of Being. They do not make sense in terms of a rational
creation. Note the sentence: “add to these fishes, reptiles, serpents, with
other wonderful animals, which assumed
each other's shape and countenance.” in the Babylonian account (my
emphasis). This makes it clear that these animals are the product of a
plenitude, a totality, in which all possible combinations are, at the least,
potential and latent. But they are to be destroyed in favour of a rational
creation. This might be taken to imply that they possess the same degree of
reality as the rational creatures which are to succeed them. Though they can
have no practical existence. By contrast
the creation of men is due to the intervention of a god, who thereby made men
rational. Berossus further connects this rationality with the ability to
understand the workings of the divine....
[End of extract]
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