Chapter I

from Ashurbanipal’s library.

Of this Nippurian version of the creation story we have in this tablet only the small fragments preserved in Columns I and II. It is, however, probable that the Nippurian version of the creation was in its main features similar to that preserved in the library at Nineveh, only more brief.

If this be so, the conquest of the dragon Tiâmat is here attributed to Enlil of Nippur, as in the other version it is attributed to Marduk of Babylon, and as in Psa. 74:13, 14, it is attributed to Jehovah. This older account from Nippur agrees in one respect more nearly with the Biblical account than the one from the library at Nineveh does, for it represents Ziugiddu as a very pious man, who was apparently saved from destruction on account of his piety, and in blessing him God removed the curse as Jehovah did in Gen. 8:21.

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