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For all we know they both descended from a common source, and that's why they're so similar, and its the Babylonians that turned the myth to fit their culture better, while the Hebrews retained a myth that stayed closer to its source.


The Enuma Elish was written on tables in 1200 BC in Babylon, and is therefore the oldest written creation myth we know. Back then, the Hebrews were still nomadic tribes and had yet to invent writing. Their version (Genesis 1) was written 700 years later in the Babylonian Exile. Sure, both versions obviously have a common source, but which version was derived from which one?

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What's interesting to me is that its incredibly reliable when it comes to historical, geographical facts. With the exception of scientific facts on the age of the earth, and the origin of humanity.


Some geographical and historical facts in the bible are correct, some are wrong.

Genesis 2: "A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."

If you look this up in a map, you'll find that the Tigris indeed runs along the east side of Assur - correct so far. But the Tigris and Euphrates don't spring from a common river - which would have been be a geographical curiosity anyway, as rivers normally only separate in a river delta. And the land of Cush (Sudan) lies on an entirely different continent.

3 facts, 2 of them plain wrong - hardly "incredibly reliable", won't you agree?

For all we know, Genesis 2 was written between 900 - 1000 BC by an author dubbed "Jahwist" by historians. The location of Tigris, Euphrates and Cush were known at that time. So we can assume that either Jahwist was not very educated, or he intentionally mixed up geography to describe Eden as a mythological place that could have been anywhere. In that case the text does not contain mistakes. It only becomes wrong when misunderstood as a geography book - and then causes the typical funny apologetic explanations that I've read, such as "the land Cush was washed from Asia to Africa by Noah's flood..."