Saturday, December 10, 2022

Davis Tsumura on Ea and El as "Creator of Creatures" and "Creator of the Cosmos"

  

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:

 

 Listing of Resources on Creation Ex Nihilo vs. Ex Materia

Blog Archive