The Babylonian Creation Epic · "When On High" · Approximately 1100 BCE
"When on high the heavens were not yet named, and below the earth had not yet been called by name..."
This is how it begins. Before creation, there were only two things: Apsu, the primordial freshwater, and Tiamat, the salt sea. They mingled. And from their mingling, the first gods were born.
The younger gods were noisy. They disturbed Apsu's rest. He plotted to destroy them. Enki killed him first and built his temple on Apsu's sleeping body.
Tiamat — insulted, grieving, furious — raised an army of monsters and prepared to destroy the gods who had killed her consort. The older gods trembled. One by one they failed to face her.
Marduk stepped forward. He demanded supreme power over all the gods as the price of his service. They agreed. He defeated Tiamat, split her body in two — made heaven from the upper half, earth from the lower. Made human beings from the blood of Kingu, the rebel god who had led Tiamat's army, so that the gods would not have to labor.
The Enuma Elish was recited at the Babylonian New Year festival — the Akitu — as an annual cosmic reset. The king would be symbolically stripped of power and restored. The story of creation would be told to remind the world why the world was the way it was.
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