proceeds 'an egg.' More striking is the expression of the idea in
Mochos. Here the union of (
Greek characters) and (Greek characters) produces (Greek characters) ((Hebrew characters)), from
which proceed (Greek characters), 'the first opener,' and then 'an egg.' It is
afterwards explained that the egg is the heaven, and that when it is split
in two (? by (Greek characters)) the one half forms the heaven and the other the
earth. It may introduce consistency into these representations if we
suppose that in the process of evolution the primæval chaos (which is
coextensive with the future heaven and earth) assumes the shape of an
egg, and that this is afterwards divided into two parts, corresponding
to the heaven and the earth. The function of (Greek characters) is thus analogous
to the act of Marduk in cleaving the body of Tiamat in two. But
obviously all this throws remarkably little light on Gn. 12.—Another
supposed point of contact is the resemblance between the name (Greek characters)
and the Heb. (Hebrew characters). In Sanchuniathon (Greek characters) is explained as night, and
is said to be the wife of the Kolpia-wind, and mother of (Greek characters) and
(Greek characters), the first pair of mortals. It is evident that there is much
confusion in this part of the extract; and it is not unreasonably conjectured
that (Greek characters) and (Greek characters) were really the first pair of emanations,
and Kolpia and Baau the chaotic principles from which they spring;
so that they may be the cosmological equivalents of T[o=]hû and B[o=]hû
in Gn. There is a strong probability that the name (Greek characters) is connected
with Bau, a Babylonian mother-goddess (see ATLO2, 161); but the
evidence is too slight to enable us to say that specifically Phœnician
influences are traceable in Gn. 12.
5. A division of creation into six stages, in an order similar to that of
Gn. 1, appears in the late book of the Bundehesh (the Parsee Genesis),
where the periods are connected with the six annual festivals called
Gahanbars, so as to form a creative year, parallel to the week of Gn. 1.
The order is: 1. Heaven; 2. Water; 3. Earth; 4. Plants; 5. Animals;
6. Men. We miss from the enumeration: Light, which in Zoroastrianism
is an uncreated element; and the Heavenly bodies, which are said
to belong to an earlier creation (Tiele, Gesch. d. Rel. im Altert., ii. 296).
The late date of the Bundehesh leaves room, of course, for the suspicion
of biblical influence; but it is thought by some that the same order can
be traced in a passage of the younger Avesta, and that it may belong
to ancient Iranian tradition (Tiele, l.c., and ARW, vi. 244 ff.; Caland,
ThT, xxiii. 179 ff.).—The most remarkable of all known parallels to the
six days' scheme of Gn. is found in a cosmogony attributed to the
ancient Etruscans by Suidas (Lexicon, s.v. (Greek characters)). Here the creation
is said to have been accomplished in six periods of 1000 years, in the
following order: 1. Heaven and Earth; 2. the Firmament; 3. Sea and
Water; 4. Sun and Moon; 5. Souls of Animals; 6. Man (see K. O. Müller,
Die Etrusker, ii. 38; ATLO2, 154 f.). Suidas, however, lived not earlier
than the 10th cent. A.D., and though his information may have been
derived from ancient sources, we cannot be sure that his account is not
coloured by knowledge of the Hebrew cosmogony.
