d Jeremiah xviii.
2f.

When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting
ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious
centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian
mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks
to the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a
dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in which
so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis have long
been recognized, especially in the succession of creative acts and their
relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the creation of the
world is represented as the result of conflict, the emergence of order
out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the personal triumph
of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not appear in the more
primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered. It will be remembered
that in the second lecture I gave some account of the myth, which occurs
in an epitomized form as an introduction to the Sumerian Version of
the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded in the same document and
connected with one another by a description of the Antediluvian cities.
We there saw that Creation is ascribed to the three greatest gods of
the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the goddess
Ninkharsagga.

It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four deities
are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we may see
some indication of the period to which its composition must be assigned.
Their association in the text suggests that the claims of local gods
had already begun to compete with one another as a result of political
combination between the cities of their cults. To the same general
period we must also assign the compilation of the Sumerian Dynastic
record, for that presupposes the existence of a supreme ruler among
the Sumerian city-states. This form of political constitution must
undoubtedly have been the result of a long process of development,
and the fact that its existence should be regarded as dating from the
Creation of the world indicates a comparatively developed stage of the
tradition. But behind the combination of cities and their gods we may
conjecturally trace anterior stages of development, when each local
deity and his human representative seemed to their own adherents the
sole objects for worship and alle