ho caused the green
herb to spring up." (5) The fifth act of creation is the making of the
heavenly bodies (Gen. 1. 14-19). With this the Babylonian parallel
shows close similarities, for it states that Marduk

Made the stations for the great gods,
The stars, their images, as the constellations he fixed,
He ordained the year, marked off its divisions.[30]

{205}

(6) The sixth and seventh acts of creation were the creation of fishes
and birds and of land animals (Gen. 1. 20-25): the Babylonian parallels
in _Enuma elish_ are wanting at present; but Berosus hints that they
were created at the same time as man, so that it is probable that the
account of these acts of creation appeared somewhere in the lost
portions of the fifth or sixth tablet. From allusions in other
writings we learn that Marduk was looked upon as the creator of the
animals and other living creatures of the field. (7) The eighth act of
creation, that of man (Gen. 1. 26-31), finds its parallel upon the
sixth tablet:

When Marduk heard the word of the gods
His heart moved him and he devised a cunning plan.
He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spoke,
That which he had conceived in his heart he made known unto him.
"My blood will I take and bone will I fashion,
I shall make man that man may ...
I shall create man, who shall inhabit the earth,
That the service of the gods may be established and that
their shrines may be built."[31]

In order to estimate rightly the relations between the Babylonian and
Hebrew accounts the differences between the two must also be noted. To
begin with, the order of the separate acts of creation is not quite the
same. For example, in the Babylonian account, the creation of the
heavenly bodies follows immediately upon the {206} making of the
firmament, while in the Hebrew story it follows the making of the earth
and the springing up of vegetation. Certainly, this difference is of
no special significance, and the change may easily be explained as due
to the desire of the Hebrew writer to crowd the creative acts into the
six working days of the week. The real difference is more fundamental
and appears especially in the conception of the nature and character of
Deity. The Babylonian story opens with these words:

When above the heaven was not named
And beneath the earth bore no name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And Mummu-Tiamat, the mother of them all--
Their water