Sources for the Three Creation Myths in the Hebrew Bible (Basically the Christian Old Testament) (10/6/26)

I have written on Jewish midrash before. Jewish midrash, in my mind, are marvelous additions to the bare text written over 2,000 years ago. Some of the midrash is quite meaningful in telling the story of the Israelites. (Christians do some of that, but in my experience with less discipline.)

This Torah.com offering is titled “Five Ancient Near Eastern Myths Behind the Bible’s Three Creation Accounts.” You can read the discussion here: https://www.thetorah.com/article/five-ancient-near-eastern-myths-behind-the-bibles-three-creation-accounts

I particularly like this offering because it plays into my history preferences and is consistent with what I have otherwise learned about the history of the Hebrew Bible and its sources from stories told long before the Hebrew Bible (or any portion) was committed to writing.

In this case, the author develops the pre-Hebrew Bible sources of the Bible’s creation myths. The first thing that attracted me was that there are three creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible. I was aware of the first two in Genesis 1 & 2 which are covered in most Torah Study (including this weeks Torah portion). I was not aware of the third. Always learn new stuff by reading. But I was more interested in the ancient origins of the creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible (and Christian Old Testament).

First to loop back to the common midrash issue in Ancient Near Eastern Literature, here is a copy and paste

The Bible as Midrash on ANE Literature

Reading Genesis 1–3 without the ancient Near Eastern background is a bit like reading a midrash without the verse it is commenting on. You can follow the story the midrash is telling, but you lose the question it is answering and the interpretive move it is making. The point of a midrash is always partly what it does with its source. The same is true here—except the sources the biblical authors were working with are the older traditions of their world—stories that in some cases predate the Torah by well over a thousand years.

The parallels between these texts and Genesis are striking. But it is the differences—the deliberate departures, the inversions, the polemical reframings—that are most revealing. The biblical authors borrowed a shared vocabulary of primordial waters, wisdom, immortality, serpents, and divine combat; and then they used it to make arguments. Understanding what those arguments were requires knowing what they were arguing against.

Great read. Highly recommended because not only is this important for Jews, but it is also important for Christians who tend to read the Hebrew Bible (mostly the same as the Christian Old Testament) without the diligence that Jews give it.