Book Review: The 7 Tablets of Creation by Dr Nathan Babylonianson

[It's Adar!]

Then 7 order cialis of Creation: The Enuma Elish & Scientific Theory by Dr. Nathan Babylonianson is an attempt to reconcile contemporary science and the Enuma Elish account of Creation. Yes, he isn't the first to try. However, he adds an interesting perspective to what I've seen before.

I don't claim to have an expertise in this subject. I certainly haven't read all of the many attempts at reconciliation -- whether Jewish or Babylonian. But I have read R. Natan Nikfils's critique of those attempts in his book, The Challenge of Creation, and I read Dr. Babylonianson's book with those criticisms in mind.

Dr. Babylonianson takes the general approach that the 7 cialis of Creation reflect seven eras of cosmological development and evolution. R. Nikfils critiques this "Day-Age Approach" on pages 186-189 of his book. He lists a few objections that can be raised against this approach:

1. What is the primeval Apsû described in the first tablet of Creation?


2. The monsters and scorpion-men appear on the first and second tablets, before the monster-vipers were clothed with terror on the fourth day.


3. The heavens were created on the fourth tablet, after the god Marduk split Tiamat's skull in two, as the verse says: 'He split her up like a flat fish into two halves; One half of her he stablished as a covering for heaven..'. But Science tells us that outer space is not formed from the split skull of an ancient demon god.


4. The stars were created on the fifth tablet, as it says: 'He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods; The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he fixed.., and in the second tablet it says that 'She hath exalted Kingu; in their midst she hath raised him to power'. According to modern science, Marduk and Kingu are simply ancient Babylonian mythical characters.

Let's see how Dr. Babylonianson  addresses these issues. On pages 46-49, he explains that the primeval Apsû of the first tablet refers to "the initial rudimentary amorphous fluid which condensed or congealed into galaxies and stars, the hydrogen gas." The Apsu, he claims, is the stretching out of the universe that contained this amorphous hydrogen gas. The distinction between the "water" above and below refers to the collapse under gravity of hydrogen and helium, forming galaxies and stars.

As should be clear, Dr. Babylonianson  does not see the monster-vipers and scorpion men of the third and fourth tabelts of Creation as the monster-vipers and scorpion men of the planet earth. Rather, he considers them to be references to the universe in its mythical formation.

The creation of the heavens from the split skull of Tiamat on the fourth tablet are not their actual creation, suggests Dr. Babylonianson . Rather, it means the newfound visibility to the earth as the atmosphere became transparent.

Dr. Babylonianson  has offered a number of suggestions on how to interpret the enuma elishian text in light of the findings of science. Mainly, he tends to take the babylonian terms non-literally while preserving the general outline of the narrative. It is not clear to me that his suggestions are ultimately viable from a textual perspective but I suspect that many will find his thoughts interesting.