Whether this oldest poetical material belongs to the Semitic Babylonians or to a non-Semitic (Sumerian-Accadian) people is a question not yet definitely decided.  The material which comes into consideration for the solution of this problem is mainly linguistic.  Along with the inscriptions, which are obviously in the Semitic-Babylonian language, are found others composed of words apparently strange.  These are held by some scholars to represent a priestly, cryptographic writing, by others to be true Semitic words in slightly altered form, and by others still to belong to a non-Semitic tongue.  This last view supposes that the ancient poetry comes, in substance at any rate, from a non-Semitic people who spoke this tongue; while on the other hand, it is maintained that this poetry is so interwoven into Semitic life that it is impossible to regard it as of foreign origin.  The majority of Semitic scholars are now of the opinion that the origin of this early literature is foreign.  However this may be, it comes to us in Babylonian dress, it has been elaborated by Babylonian hands, has thence found its way into the literature of other Semitic peoples, and for our purposes may be accepted as Babylonian.  In any case it carries us back to very early religious conceptions.

The cosmogonic poetry is in its outlines not unlike that of Hesiod, but develops the ruder ideas at greater length.  In the shortest (but probably not the earliest) form of the cosmogony, the beginning of all things is found in the watery abyss.  Two abysmal powers (Tiamat and Apsu), represented as female and male, mingle their waters, and from them proceed the gods.  The list of deities (as in the Greek cosmogony) seems to represent several dynasties, a conception which may embody the belief in the gradual organization of the world.  After two less-known gods, called Lahmu and Lahamu, come the more familiar figures of later Babylonian writing, Anu and Ea.  At this point the list unfortunately breaks off, and the creative function which may have been assigned to the gods is lost, or has not yet been discovered.  The general similarity between this account and that of Gen. i. is obvious:  both begin with the abysmal chaos.  Other agreements between the two cosmogonies will be pointed out below.  The most interesting figure in this fragment is that of Tiamat.  We shall presently see her in the character of the enemy of the gods.  The two conceptions of her do not agree together perfectly, and the priority in time must be assigned to the latter.  The idea that the world of gods and men and material things issued out of the womb of the abyss is a philosophic generalization that is more naturally assigned to a period of reflection.

In the second cosmogonic poem the account is more similar to that of the second chapter of Genesis, and its present form originated in or near Babylon.  Here we have nothing of the primeval deep, but are told how the gods made a beautiful land, with rivers and trees; how Babylon was built and Marduk created man, and the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the beasts and cities and temples.  This also must be looked on as a comparatively late form of the myth, since its hero is Marduk, god of Babylon.  As in the Bible account, men are created before beasts, and the region of their first abode seems to be the same as the Eden of Genesis.