Hey, this is John at Bible Project and welcome to our second episode in a new series on ancient

cosmology, how the creation stories in Genesis are in conversation with other ancient

Near Eastern creation stories.

Genesis 1 begins with the image of what we call nothingness, but Genesis calls a dark

abyss, in other words, a deep, unruly chaotic ocean.

And while we don't think of nothingness like a chaotic ocean, it turns out this was

a very common image of the pre-creation state in the ancient Near East.

So this is an inscription written on the coffin of a royal Egyptian official.

It's a creation narrative.

There's two voices that speak.

So first a voice speaks who says, I am the waters unique without second.

Creation begins with waters.

The waters personified and speaking.

Another voice speaks up.

That is where I evolved or developed.

So the waters spoke and then another voice speaks that says, hey, I evolved out of the

waters on the great occasion of my floating that happened to me.

I, atum, the creator, am the one who once evolved.

The chaotic waters are also in the Babylonian creation story called Enuma Elish.

Enuma Elish is important because it honors the most ancient cosmologies of everything

emerging out of the waters to establish a first world order.

But then it's about chaos descending on our world and who rescued us from the chaos

...