Note 557 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian Genesis as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the “Lateres Coctiles.” There, also, we find Anu, the passive deity or En-Soph, Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence water itself, and Hea the Universal Soul or wisdom of the three combined.
The first eight verses read thus:
1. When above, were not raised the heavens;
2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but
6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them;
8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.
This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.