1 T he Da y s of Creation Read Genesis ı:ı–2:4 God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Genesis ı:3
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he first chapters of Genesis tell of God creating the heavens and the earth; filling the earth with plant, animal, and human life; and proclaiming it all good. The story was written when the Jewish people lived in the city of Babylon between the years 597 BC and 539 BC. Babylonian armies had invaded Judah and had captured and deported the leading Jewish families. Jewish aristocrats now farmed to feed themselves. They knew that they had failed God. In Babylon, stories about the Babylonian gods tempted the Jewish people. The Babylonian story of creation is filled with violent images. It says that humans were created from the bad blood of a bad god to be slaves to the gods. In spite of its violence, this story was attractive to the Jewish people in exile. They had lost the land that God had given them. To the rest of the world, this meant that their God had lost. Were the Babylonian deities more powerful?
