Enuma Elish I

The Seven Tablets of Creation
Ancient Near East

The Son, the Sun-god, the Sun-god of the gods.' He was clothed with the aura of the Ten Gods, so exalted was his strength, The Fifty Dreads were loaded upon him. Anu formed and gave birth to the four winds, He delivered them to him, 'My son, let them whirl!' He formed dust and set a hurricane to drive it, He made a wave to bring consternation on Tia-mat. Tia-mat was confounded; day and night she was frantic. The gods took no rest, they . . . . . . . In their minds they plotted evil, And addressed their mother Tia-mat, 'When Apsû, your spouse, was killed, You did not go at his side, but sat quietly.

Daniel 7:2

Hebrew Bible

1 In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream filled with visions while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. 2 Daniel explained: “I was watching in my vision during the night as the four winds of the sky were stirring up the great sea. 3 Then four large beasts came up from the sea; they were different from one another. 4 “The first one was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off, and it was lifted up from the ground. It was made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind was given to it.

 Notes and References

"... A search of Mesopotamia texts proved more fruitful in the search for a forerunner to the mythic pattern of Daniel 7:2-14. It is my contention that Gunkel's thesis in 1895 of a correspondence between the Enuma Elish and Daniel has been undervalued. This is likely to have happened for two reasons: firstly, Gunkel's treatment does not refer in a sufficiently precise way to all the similarities and secondly, the discoveries at Ugarit drew scholarly attention away from the Enuma Elish ... Several aspects of the correspondence strongly suggest that the author of Daniel was aware of the Enuma Elish ..."

Gardner, Anne E. Daniel 7,2-14: Another Look at its Mythic Pattern (pp. 244-252) Biblica, Vol. 82, No. 2, 2001

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