Similarity between Ea and El
Creator of Creatures
Ea has the title bānû nabnīt
“creator of creatures,” similar to El’s epithet bny nnwt “creator of
creatures,” in a text that reads:
Ea
. . . bānû nabnīt pātiq kullat mimma šumšu
Ea, who creates creatures, who forms everything. (CAD N/1 28)
This title is used only with the
god Ea in Akkadian. Another title of Ea, bān binûtu, which is the exact
counterpart of Ugaritic bny bnwt, appears in the expression [dNi]nšiku
mummu bān binûtu (PSBA 20 158:14). Ea is also called “creator of
everything” (bān kala) with the title mummu, which is usually
used with him (and Marduk). Anu and Enlil, the other two gods of the triad of
the great gods, were also called bānû kalāma “creator of everything,”
but neither these great gods nor Marduk, the “creator”-god, were called bān
binûtu or bānû nabnīt.
Creator of the Cosmos
Ea, like El, is also the creator
of the cosmos. Ea created “land and sea” (šadî u tâmāti) and is called mummu
bān šamê erṣeti “the mummu, creator of heaven and earth” (LKA 77 I
29-30). A similar title, “creatress of heaven and earth” (bānât šamê u erṣti),
is used with Nammu, the mother of Enki, in whose chamber Ea (Enki) dwells. Ea
is also called pātiq šamê u erṣeti “creator of heaven and earth” and bān
kullati “creator of everything,” and as a creator god his name as Nudimmud.
Ea is called zārû māti “progenitor (or father) of the land.” Thus, as
the water god, Ea was the creator of cosmos par excellence, though Marduk and šamaš were also called “creator” (bān[û])
of “heaven and earth” (šamê u erṣesti). (Davis Tsumura, Creation and
Destruction: A Reappraisal of the Chaoskampf Theory in the Old Testament
[Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005], 132-33)
Notice that there is no hint as “ex nihilo” in these phrases and
concepts. This shows that one can be called “creator” of creatures/heaven/earth/the
cosmos without it necessitating creation ex nihilo.
Further Reading:
