Let's go over the creation of plants and animals in order to show the contrast between the competing cosmogonies.
Genesis:
"Then God said 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed,
and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the earth';
and it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed
after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seed in them, after thier kind;
and God saw that it was good.1"
"Then God said 'Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures,
and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.' And God created
the great sea monsters, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters
swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying 'Be friutful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,
and let birds multiply on the earth.'
Then God said 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind'; and it was so. And God
made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything
that creeps on the ground after its kind; And God saw that it was good.2"
The Sumerians:
The Sumerians did not seem to place a great emphasis on the creation of vegetation and animal life, since they only mention it in passing or in very brief descriptions.
In "Enki and Ninhursag", Enki, the god of water, impregnates the goddess Uttu who then gives birth to eight different plants, which Enki then eats. Vegetation had already been created by the time that this myth takes place. Still, it may show how plant life was imagined to have come about, as the lines below may show3.
In "The Disputation between the Tree and the Reed", An (heaven) mates with Ki (earth) who then gives birth to plant life. Again, we have a sexual act by the gods being required in order to create4.
Lastly, we have the intro to "Enki and Eridu", which says:
"After the name abundance , born in heaven
Like plant and herb had clothed the land.5"
This doesn't say who created or how, but the line "born in heaven" implies An.
There are other myths that state such things as Enki (or Enlil) caused the seeds to sprout forth crops, etc. This is in a capacity as a vegetation/fertility god and not as a creator god. The early Sumerians worshipped the forces of nature, which led to their deification and from non-human forms to human fiorms. At first, nearly all gods were fertility gods:
"[with out Enlil] the fish of the sea would lay no eggs in the canebrake,
The birds of the sky would not spread their nests over the wide earth [line damaged]
The cow would not drop its calf in the stall,
The ewe would not bring forth the suckling lamb in its sheepfold,
Mankind, the teeming multitude, would not lie down in their bed-chambers.6"
And from "Enki and the world Order":
"When father Enki comes out into the seeded land, it brings forth fecund seed,
When Nudimmud [Enki] comes out of my fecund ewe, it gives birth to the lamb...7"
Enki, the god of water and wisdom, was also the god of amniotic fluid and semen. This shows clearly not the creation of plants and animals, but instead the fertility rites associated with the gods.
To the Sumerians, either a sexual act, or a joint effort by numerous gods, was needed to create. The Hebrew's conceived of an omnipotent deity that only had to speak and it was done. The Bible is different.
The Babylonians:
The Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish does not mention the creation of plant or animal life. Enuma Elish was their most sacred text. It is significant that there is no mention of this in the myth. The Babylonians, like the Sumerians before them, must have considered it unimportant. Instead, it was mentioned in other, lesser, and sometimes contradictory myths.
In a myth from Nippur (a Babylonianized Sumerian tale):
"When Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag
Had created mankind,
The [line damaged] of the earth they caused the earth to produce;
The animals, the four-legged creatures of the field, they ingeniously brought into being.8"
Here we have the team that created man also responsible for the creation of vegetation and animal life. How, we do not know. The animals almost certainly from clay like man. The vegetation possibly by mating as the Sumerians supposed. The Bible says that the animals were created from the earth, but by God alone.
In the "Eridu Genesis" (6th century BC), it states:
"He [Marduk] created the beasts of Sumuqan [god of cattle] and the living things of the steppe;
He created the grass, the rush of the marsh, the reed, and the woods;
He created the green herb of the field;
The lands, the marshes, the canebrake;
The cow and her young, the calf; the ewe and her lamb, the sheep of the fold;
The orchard and the forest;
The wild sheep, the wool sheep...9"
The myth fails to say how this was accomplished, just that Marduk did it. The tale also states that "Marduk created mankind". Now we know from Enuma Elish that Marduk had to employ numerous gods for the creation of mankind. So the statement "Marduk created..." does not mean that he created alone. He needed the help of other gods to create living things, including animals and plants, as the following tale shows.
The "Creation of Living Creatures" (a very fragmentary and defective tablet):
"When the gods in their assembly had created everything,
Had established the sky, had formed the earth,
Had brought forth living creatures [line damaged]
Had created the cattle of the field, the beasts of the feild, and the creatures of the city,
After they had [line damaged] unto the living creatures [line damaged]10"
This myth clearly states that the gods created the universe. It was a joint effort.
From Enuma Elish:
[Marduk is] "The creator of grain and legumes, who causes the green herb to spring up.11"
This is not in the epic itself, but from the last tablet which is a list of the 52 names of Marduk, many of which were taken from other deities. This title could have originally been Anu's or Enlil's.
And Berossus, a Babylonian priest from the Seleucid period (circa 250 BC) says that Marduk formed "animals capable of bearing the air.12" Again, the myths do not say how.
Conclusions:
The Hebrew's considered the creation of plant and animal life very important and included it in Genesis. It was the work of the One Omnipotent God, and so was to be glorified. Their neighbors, on the other hand, did not. It seems that the inclusion of flora and fauna was almost an after thought. It is sometimes mentioned, but with little or no explanation. When it is explained, it again needs the work of two or more gods. The Bible has only one God and includes it in the creation story. Genesis is different.
1) Genesis 1:11-12 All Biblical quotes are taken from the Thompson NASB Bible (Indianapolis, 1979).
2) Genesis 1:20-25
3) Sumerian Mythology, Samuel N. Kramer (Philadelphia, 1972) pg.57
4) Sumerian Mythology, pg. xxii
5) Sumerian Mythology, pg. 62
6) Sumerian Mythology, pg. xvi
7) The Sumerians, Samuel N. Kramer (Chicago, 1971) pg.174
8) The Babylonian Genesis, Alexander Heidel (Chicago, 1951) pg.72
9) Babylonian Genesis, pg.63
10) Babylonian Genesis, pg.64
11) Babylonian Genesis, pg.53 [Enuma Elish tablet VII, line 2]
12) Babylonian Genesis, pg.118
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