From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of four deities in the Sumerian Creation.  In fact the new text illustrates a well-known principle in the development of myth, the reconciliation of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once isolated, had been brought from political causes into contact with each other.  In this aspect myth is the medium through which a working pantheon is evolved.  Naturally all the deities concerned cannot continue to play their original parts in detail.  In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, where a single deity, and not a very prominent one, was to be raised to pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough.  He could retain his own qualities and achievements while borrowing those of any former rival.  In the Sumerian text we have the result of a far more delicate process of adjustment, and it is possible that the brevity of the text is here not entirely due to compression of a longer narrative, but may in part be regarded as evidence of early combination.  As a result of the association of several competing deities in the work of creation, a tendency may be traced to avoid discrimination between rival claims.  Thus it is that the assembled gods, the pantheon as a whole, are regarded as collectively responsible for the creation of the universe.  It may be added that this use of ilani, “the gods”, forms an interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title Elohim.

It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were directly related to the Deluge story.  No doubt the selection of men and animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood; and emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the niggilma because of the part it played in securing mankind’s survival.  Even so, we noted one striking parallel between the Sumerian Version and that of the Semitic Babylonians, in the reason both give for man’s creation.  But in the former there is no attempt to explain how the universe itself had come into being, and the existence of the earth is presupposed at the moment when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man.  The Semitic-Babylonian Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied with events that led up to the acts of creation, and it concerns our problem to inquire how far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of Sumerian origin.  A further question arises as to whether some strands of the narrative may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form independently of the Creation myth.