And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. Gen. 1:3-5
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Compare Gen. 1:3-5 with this account from the annals of Babylon:
According to ancient Babylonian mythology, the earth began with a battle between Tiamat, goddess of the ocean, and the children she produced by sweet-water Apsu, god of rivers. One great-grandson of this line was Marduk (see Jeremiah 50:2), god of the four winds and a hell-raiser from birth.
So, one day Marduk was approached by his father Ea and grandfather Anu to lead an army against Tiamat, who had been busily mating with monsters in order to produce a race of giant snakes, raging bull-men, etc. Her plan was apparently to wipe out her progeny by Apsu.
Coldly blinking all four eyes, Marduk was unmoved by the possible fate of his father and grandfather. But he agreed to take the job, on one condition: that all the deities of Mesopotamia declare him to be their chief. What was in it for him?
My own utterance shall fix fate instead of you—
Whatever I create shall never be altered!
The decree of my lips shall never be revoked, never changed.
Ea called a counsel of the gods, which degenerated into an all-night drinking party. The carousing deities built a throne for Marduk and granted him all the powers his little ol’ heart desired. Also: May your utterance be law, your word never falsified.
Equipped with these bona fides, a formidable war-chariot, and his own mighty presence, Marduk set out
at the head of his army, and the mere sight of him shocked the assembled monster-sons of Tiamat. Marduk plowed right past them to get to his great-grandmother, whom he challenged to single combat.
She accepted. Big mistake.
It was hardly a contest; after pinning her down with his net, Marduk blew her up with the four winds and sent an arrow into her belly, then split her down the middle and defeated the rest of the enemy gods while standing on her corpse.
The body turned out to be incredibly useful:
He sliced her in half like a fish for drying:
Half of her he put up to roof the sky,
Drew a bolt across and made a guard to hold it.
Her waters he arranged so they could not escape.
East and west originated from two of her ribs, and her liver served as the pole star for the remaining gods. Her spittle became rain and fog, and from her eyes sprang the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates.
The gods were impressed—Marduk earned that throne and crown! What next?
Blood I will mass and cause bones to be. I will establish a savage, ‘Man’ shall be his name.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods that they might be at ease.
The raw material for this slave-race called “Man” came from the body of Kingu, Tiamat’s hybrid son, whose blood seeded the first humans and passed down through the generations. Rebellion is thus in humanity’s blood, from that day to this, but their fate is fixed to serve the gods forever.
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Almost all the ancient mythical traditions place the creation story in a setting of conflict. The recurring themes—father against son, clan against clan, chaos resisting order—indicates something very unstable about the human psyche, but I can only give it a sidelong glance for now, while marveling how peaceful the Genesis story is in comparison. God is not in conflict with anyone as he goes about calling forth. On the first day, with the creation of light, all the raw material is in place: the direction of time, the periodic table of elements, the two basic forces of gravity and nuclear energy. Particles are quivering, atoms are dancing, molecules are awaiting form.
We expect an explosion, but on the second day not much appears to happen. In fact it’s hard to get a grip on what actually is happening, as you will soon discover if you try to explain it to young children. When they get older they will come to understand “atmosphere” and water vapor, and water being held in a canopy (one meaning of the word expanse) until the time of the flood. This is both good theology and good natural history, but as it relates to creativity, and creation itself, there may be something equally significant happening on Day Two.
First God pours out energy. Then he begins to arrange it, which starts with making distinctions.
To the ancients, no property was more basic than water. They were on to something: Water comprises about 80% of earth’s surface and 80% of our bodies, and even in the driest desert there is no life without it. The oldest civilizations saw water as a given. No one made it; it was just there. Apsu and Tiamat, the primeval deities of Mesopotamia, were the sweet and salty blend of waters that gave rise to the Fertile Crescent.
Water nourished; it also destroyed. All ancient cultures passed around flood stories, as though a memory of watery devastation was burned into their collective consciousness. No life exists without water, but for life to exist it must separate itself from water and establish itself on the banks—that’s why so many creation accounts are a record of struggle. Water was the elemental force which must be overcome. Water was the primeval chaos, which must be escaped.
Even in the Bible, throughout the Old Testament “the sea” is a threat to order, an elemental force that must be contained: This far may you come, and no farther (Job 38:11). The visions of Revelation return to that image, for where does the beast of chapter 13 emerge but the sea? And most intriguing of all, when the heavens and earth of Genesis 1:1 are cleared away for the new heaven and earth of Revelation 21, “the sea was no more.”
What does Day Two say about creativity? The verb may be more important than the nouns: God separates. He makes distinctions: heaven and earth, here and there. The Hebrew word usually translated “Heavens” has no precise English equivalent; it’s used to refer both to sky and to everything that appears in the sky, including clouds, stars, and common sparrows. But it directs our attention. Look up, look down, look left and right. Here we have opposites, here we have direction and location. Just as “in the beginning” signals rudimentary time, separating waters from waters gives form to rudimentary space.
Imagine God as the primeval real-estate agent: “Location, location, location.” Every work starts not only sometime but somewhere. The second day turns out to be as vital, thrilling, and potent as the first, for in cleaving the restless water He establishes length, height and breadth. The four-cornered canvas of darkness receives its first brushes of paint, and we now know left from right, here from there.
Creation, Day Three – The Story Takes Root
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- Look up other ancient creation stories (such as Mayan, Greek, Norse) and compare with the Babylonian and Genesis stories.
- If you have to live in only two dimensions, which would you choose? Height-width, heigh-depth, depth, width? (See Edwin Abbott’s classic novel Flatland for an idea what you can do with two dimensions. Actually, not much.)
- How important is it to make proper distinctions in politics, relationships, and art? For example, what’s wrong with these statements:
- Love is love.
- Advocates for border security are anti-immigrant.
- Modern art is ugly.