I have provided comments to the following list of students:
1. Shandrell Briscoe
2. Candice Claiborne
3. Britney Dooley
4. Zachary Scott
5. Christine Hamilton
6 .John Paul Ogbuokiri
7. Carlos Jenkins
8. Lauren Williamson
9. Allen Rochelle
10. Cong Tran
All of the creation myths that we have studied have different things that relate them to one another. In all of the stories there is a prevailing person who begins the steps of creation. In the Mesopotamian creation myth, Enuma Elish, Apsu is the god of fresh water and Tiamat, wife of Apsu, is the goddess of the sea, salt water. Tiamat gives birth to Anshar and Kishar, gods who represented the boundary between the earth and sky (the horizon). Then Anshar and Kishar produce Anu, god of sky. This cycle just keeps on repeating. In the Creation by Atum, Atum creates Shu(air) and Tefnut(moisture). These two give birth to the earth and sky, which then give birth to Osiris, Horis and Seth. “From one womb, one after the other they gave multitude in this world.” The Theology of Memphis explains that Ptah created Atum through the heart and the tongue, who then gave life to all of the gods. In the Bible, God also creates the world from his speech. There are also several similarities between these creation myths and the events that take place in the Bible. One of the first things that I noticed was the similarity between the seven tablets that the Enuma Elish creation story was written out on and the seven days of creation in the Bible. All of the creation stories also had a theme of rebellious humans. In the Bible, God opens the “floodgates of heaven” and the “springs of the deep,” to destroy his creation because of the wickedness of humankind. In Enuma Elish Apsu wants to kill all of his children because they are loud and reckless and he can’t get any rest.
Humans write creation stories to try an explain things. Humans have a keen sense of curiosity and need to know a why about every situation. They also use creation stories to validate the present social and political order. Many kings would refer to creation stories to help back up there motives and judgments of the kingdom. I personally enjoyed Enuma Elish the most out of all of the creation stories that we covered. It was easy to follow and gave a very good explanation of its events. Its story was believable, and quite entertaining. The story was plotted on a creation caused by a war between the gods. Apsu and Tiamat who represent fresh and salt water, create the gods of the horizon and their linage traces down to all of the gods, such as the god of the sky. The war begins when one of the children, Ea, finds out his father is planning on killing all of them and he then kills him instead. The gods are angry with Tiamat because she has not sought justice for the fall of her husband. The war takes place and the grandson, Marduk, kills Tiamat and uses her body to form the arc of the sky, waters, the moon, the stars and even the months. They use this one death as an etiology for so many things. Kingu is the god who aided Tiamat in the war so he will have to be sacrificed in order to create humans. His arteries are severed and from his blood, dirt and bones Marduk creates humans to serve the gods. This also shows a comparison to the Bible in that God creates Adam out of dirt in Genesis 2. In both of the stories humans are created in the divine image. I thought that this one was the most interesting and personally I thought the other ones were a little off the wall.
Halpern’s The Tiglath-Pileser Principle is a story that exaggerates the victory of an Assyrian King who defeated the Muskaryans for not paying tribute to his Lord Ashur. He thought of himself as a natural philosopher and often bragged about himself. Kings in antiquity brag a lot and they are not objective. They exaggerate tremendously. They make their enemies more furious and make the tasks they accomplished greater. It is said that he fought an army of over 20,000 men and he killed all but 6,000 of them who he enslaved. In reality it was probably only and army of 500 men and he killed maybe 200 and enslaved 100 or so. You have to decipher what really happened. Historians and various scholars have to look at the amount of people armys would have consisted of in this time period and determine just how valid the story is. As Dr. Homan said you have to divide it by the mumps and BS factor! This principle can be applied to the Bible as well because many biblical stories are most probably exaggerated to make it more interesting and to boost the story that they are telling. One example in the Bible is that of Hezekiah rebelled against the King of Assyria and would not serve him. This doesn’t necessarily mean he was committing an awful act of treason; it was most likely something minor like not paying taxes to the king. Bible scholars also have to do some deciphering to find out what most likely happened in these stories.
The biggest similarity between the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh is the destruction of creation by a flood. In the Bible, God chooses Noah and his family to be saved because he is the righteous in his generation. Everyone knows the story: God instructs Noah to build an ark, he brings his family and some animals aboard, after the flood he offers God a sacrifice, etc. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is a Mesopotamian tale of a calamitous flood story, the gods decide to wipe out humankind because they are making too much noise and they can not rest. Utnapishtim, who is the Noah of this story, is warned by the Gods and he is instructed to build a box. According to Bible for Dummies, other similarities between this story and that of Noah are the sending out of birds to see if there’s dry land, landing on a mountain, and offering a sacrifice to the gods. Utnapishtim not only brings his family and the animals onto the “box” with him, he also brings artist, musicians so that human culture would not perish with the flood.
There are several etiologies in Genesis. Snakes have to crawl on their bellies because of the snake that tricked Eve. Women will have pain in child birth and their desire shall be for their husband and he shall rule over you, because of Eve’s sin. Humans will die, and suffer and men have to work for food because of Adam’s sin. We have foreign language because of Noah’s descendents and the building of the Tower of Babel.
The reason why Xavier students have to take a theology course is because it is a catholic university and it will help fulfill the mission of its students which is to promote a more just and humane society.

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