Who came first....God or Tiamat?

It's all opinion, some more educated opinions than others. Naturally I consider my opinion more educated while others who disagree consider theirs more educated.  
  
The "biblical" story is not the oldest, but like any other it seeks to describe "the beginning" from the perspective of the culture in question from myths and legends dating to some antiquity of which there is no actual record.  
  
For all we know there was an entirely literate civilization which predated "the beginning" and if we asssume one we might as well assume a dozen or more. In the Ancient Near East were dozens of cultures trading with one another handing down traditional narratives that one would suppose should attempt to some degree to harmonize into a cultural syncretism which become obvious by the time of Alexander where the various local deities begin to be described as the local description of previously known gods.  
  
We see this to this day in the attempted syncretism of Islam, Judaism and Christianity as the same, but oddly dissimilar "God".  
  
Tiamat is Chaos, simplistically speaking and is what "God" overcomes in the "creation" in the Bible/ancient Hebrew tradition.  
  
Chaos is the natural, unguided force which ancients supposed was overcome by the simple act of decision. Elohyim, the term used for "God" in the OT is actually applicable to even human judges, and could as easily be translated as "decider".  
  
In this way of thinking, "Tiamat" is the innate disorder in the universe which prevailed before the Elohyim, perhaps experimentally chose to separate Earth and Sky, Water and Air.  
  
This is reasonably consonant with a culture which had survived immense natural catastrophe with the remnant explaining their emergence from this terrible state according to essentially disinterested divine intervention.  
  
It really depends on the reading you give the texts, but in Genesis 5 it states: "Male and female created he them; and called their name Adam" Which indicates an idea that everything was without order including the division of males and females which is not out of line with the earlier creation texts of the bible.  
  
Eve is created FROM Adam. The world we know was created FROM a world of chaos which was literally chosen and which the decider "saw it was good" after the fact.  
  
Now, as to primacy. Both clearly DO exist at the same time, but the decider acts within a universe in which the Chaos/Tiamat hold's sway.  
  
In some sense you could say this is "God's" resume.  
  
Later on in Exodus 14 we're introduced to Melchizedek, priest of the "most high" to whom Abram gives a tithe.  
  
The general supposition is this figure is simply a highly respected priest of Yahweh, which actually doesn't make much sense in the story setting up Abram/Abraham as the point of origin for the Hebrew's of the day when it was written.  
  
Zadok is associated with Jupiter, the god who consumes his own children which is also reflected possibly in the sacrifice of Christ to God as late as the common era.  
  
Not entirely sure why, but it feels appropriate to point out that when "the rich man" is in the afterlife he appeals to Abraham to be able to return to his family from beyond the grave to warn them of the fate which awaits them.  
  
Abraham, despite his obvious position of power expresses the inability to do so, regardless of the potential such could be done by the higher powers.

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braven · 1/25/2026, 9:41:54 PM · permalink

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