Jim wrote,
<< You seem to be big on ANE, Loren. I challenge you to show me another
creation account that gets the sequence of events correct. >>
I don't know why you think creating the sun on the fourth day is a correct
sequence of events.
But, to answer your question: The Babylonian account of creation, Enuma
Elish, has virtually the same sequence of events as Genesis 1. As Merrill
Unger, past professor of archaeology at Dallas Theological Seminary [which
was at the time (1954) and still is an ultra-conservative school] wrote in
his book Archaeology and the Old Testament (pp. 31, 31):
"Both narratives also begin with a watery chaos and end with the gods or the
Lord at rest. In the sequence of creative acts there is a remarkable
similarity between the two narratives, although light is separately created
in Genesis and merely emanates from the gods in the Babylonian version. The
creation by Marduk of the firmament, the dry land, the celestial luminaries
and man follows the identical order of creation by God in Genesis."
Enuma Elish also mentions splitting the primordial waters and placing half
above and half below the firmament. And very close to the beginning of the
account it mentions day and night occurring before the sun is put into
operation.
Paul
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