ule of night.' A
distinction between the Biblical and the cuneiform cosmology at this
point is no less significant. While according to Babylonian ideas, the
moon alone, or at most the moon with the stars, regulates the days, the
Hebrew version makes the moon and sun together the basis for the
regulation of the 'days and years.' The sun according to Babylonian
notions does not properly belong to the heavens, since it passes daily
beyond the limits of the latter. The sun, therefore, plays an
insignificant part in the calendrical system in comparison with the
moon.

Marduk addresses the moon, specifying its duties, what position it is to
occupy towards the sun at certain periods during the monthly course, and
the like. The tablet at this point becomes defective, and before the
address comes to an end, we are left entirely in the lurch. To speculate
as to the further contents of the fifth tablet and of the sixth (of
which nothing has as yet been found) seems idle. Zimmern supposes that
after the heavenly phenomena had been disposed of, the formation of the
dry land and of the seas was taken up, and Delitzsch is of the opinion
that in the sixth tablet the creation of plants and trees and animals
was also recounted. I venture to question whether the creation of the
'dry land and seas' was specifically mentioned. Esharra, the earth, is
in existence and the Apsu appears to include all waters, but that the
epic treated of the creation of plant and animal life and then of the
creation of man is eminently likely. We have indeed a fragment of a
tablet[755] in which the creation of the 'cattle of the field, beasts of
the field, and creeping things of the field' is referred to; but since
it is the 'gods who in unison' are there represented as having created
the animal kingdom, it is hardly likely that the fragment forms part of
our 'epic' in which all deeds are ascribed to Marduk. It belongs in all
probability to a different cosmological version, but so much can be
concluded from it, that the Babylonians ascribed the creation of animals
to some divine power or powers; and that therefore our 'epic' must have
contained a section in which this act was assigned to Marduk.

A similar variation exists with reference to the tradition of the
creation of mankind. There are distinct traces that the belief was
current in parts of Babylonia which made Ea the creation of
mankind.[756] Ea, it will be recalled, is the 'god of humanity' _par
excel