-12.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE COSMOLOGY OF THE BABYLONIANS.

Various traditions were current in Babylonia regarding the manner in
which the universe came into existence. The labors of the theologians to
systematize these traditions did not succeed in bringing about their
unification. Somewhat like in the Book of Genesis, where two versions of
the creation story have been combined by some editor,[680] so portions
of what were clearly two independent versions have been found among the
remains of Babylonian literature. But whereas in the Old Testament the
two versions are presented in combination so as to form a harmonic
whole, the two Babylonian versions continued to exist side by side.
There is no reason to suppose that the versions were limited to two. In
fact, a variant to an important episode in the creation story has been
discovered which points to a third version.[681]

The suggestion has been thrown out that these various versions arose in
the various religious centers of the Euphrates Valley. So far as the
editing of the versions is concerned, the suggestion is worthy of
consideration, for it is hardly reasonable to suppose that the
theological schools of one and the same place should have developed more
than one cosmological system. The traditions themselves, however, apart
from the literary form which they eventually assumed, need not have been
limited to certain districts nor have been peculiar to the place where
the systematization took place. Nothing is more common than the
interchange of myths and popular traditions. They travel from one place
to the other, and contradictory accounts of one and the same event may
be circulated, and find credence in one and the same place.

The two distinct Babylonian versions of the creation of the world that
have up to the present time been found, have come to us in a fragmentary
form. Of the one, indeed, only some forty lines exist, and these are
introduced incidentally in an incantation text;[682] of the other
version, portions of six tablets[683] have been recovered; while of two
fragments it is doubtful[684] whether they belong to this same version
or represent a third version, as does certainly a fragment containing a
variant account of the episode described in the fourth tablet of the
larger group. The fragments of the longer version--in all 23--enable us
to form a tolerably complete picture of the Babylonian cosmology, and
with the help of numerous allusions i