It is in Babylonia that the
thought would naturally arise of making the world begin with the close
of the storms and rains in the spring. The Terahites must therefore have
brought these cosmological traditions with them upon migrating from the
Euphrates Valley to the Jordan district.

The traditions retained their hold through all the vicissitudes that the
people underwent. The intercourse, political and commercial, between
Palestine and Mesopotamia was uninterrupted, as we now know, from at
least the fifteenth century before our era down to the taking of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and this constant intercourse was no doubt
an important factor in maintaining the life of the old traditions that
bound the two peoples together. The so-called Babylonian exile brought
Hebrews and Babylonians once more side by side. Under the stimulus of
this direct contact, the final shape was given by Hebrew writers to
their cosmological speculations. Yahwe is assigned the role of
Bel-Marduk, the division of the work of creation into six days is
definitely made,[806] and some further modifications introduced. While,
as emphasized, this final shape is due to the independent elaboration of
the common traditions, and, what is even more to the point, shows an
independent _interpretation_ of the traditions, it is by no means
impossible, but on the contrary quite probable, that the final compilers
of the Hebrew versions had before them the cuneiform tablets, embodying
the literary form given to the traditions by Babylonian writers.[807]
Such a circumstance, while not implying direct borrowing, would account
for the close parallels existing between the two Hebrew and the two
Babylonian versions, and would also furnish a motive to the Hebrew
writers for embodying _two_ versions in their narrative.

FOOTNOTES:

[680] The so-called Elohistic version, Gen. i. 1-ii. 4; the Yahwistic
version, Gen. ii. 5-24. Traces have been found in various portions of
the Old Testament of other popular versions regarding creation. See
Gunkel, _Schoepfung und Chaos_, pp. 29-114, 119-121.

[681] Gunkel, _ib._ pp. 28, 29. What Sayce (_e.g._, _Rec. of the Past_,
N. S., I. 147, 148) calls the 'Cuthaean legend of the creation'
contains, similarly, a variant description of Tiamat and her brood.

[682] Published by Pinches, _Journal Royal Asiat. Soc._, 1891, pp.
393-408.

[683] Complete publication by Delitzsch, _Das Babylonische
Weltschoepfungsepos_ (Leipzig, 1896)