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Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/Bridgeman Art Library

Hovering above the newly created earth, God fixes the “two great lights”—the golden sun and the silver moon—in the heavens (Genesis 1:14–19). Since the discovery in the 19th century of a Babylonian Creation myth with striking parallels to the Genesis account, scholars have declared that the biblical tale of Seven Days of Creation has its roots in Babylonian mythology. But, as Victor Hurowitz explains in the accompanying article, the parallels between the Babylonian myth, called Enūma Eliš after its first two words (“When above”), and Genesis 1 are limited. According to Hurowitz, Genesis 1 should not be dismissed as a borrowed tale, but celebrated as a deliberate and skillful rewriting of earlier accounts of how a Creator God goes about his buisiness.