The Old Testament is a compilation, and like every compilation it has a
wide variety of contributors who, in turn, have their individual influence
upon the final work. It is no surprise, then, that there exist certain
parallels between the Enuma Elish, the cosmogony of the Babylonians, and
the Book of Genesis, the first part of the Pentateuch section of the Bible.
In fact, arguments may be made that other Near Eastern texts, particularly
Sumerian, have had their influences in Biblical texts. The extent of this
'borrowing', as it were, is not limited to the Bible; the Enuma Elish has
its own roots in Sumerian mythology, predating the Enuma Elish by nearly a
thousand years. A superficial examination of this evidence would
erroneously lead one to believe that the Bible is somewhat a collection of
older mythology re-written specifically for the Semites. In fact, what
develops is that the writers have addressed each myth as a separate issue,
and what the writers say is......
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