I.
Imagined Beginnings:
The Poetics and Politics of Cosmogonic Discourse in the Ancient World
Guest Editors:
Christopher A. Faraone and Bruce Lincoln
Introduction
Christopher Faraone and Bruce Lincoln
Modern scholarly interest in cosmogonic myth effectively dates from the discovery (1849), translation and first publication of the Babylonian Enuma Elisˇ (1876), whose similarities to the narrative of Genesis 1–2 made clear to all but the most theologically committed that the latter text could no longer be regarded as the account of creation, since the new evidence revealed it to be only one such account and what is more, a relatively recent one that had been influenced by older, more prestigious others.1 Tracing the connections of the Biblical narrative to its antecedents and counterparts in the eastern Mediterranean and ancient Near East gave rise to new problematics and new styles of research, including those that took shape in the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule[1] of Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932),[2] Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920),[3] Hugo Gressmann (1877–1927),[4] Richard Reitzenstein (1861–1931)6 and others, as
1 George Smith, The Chaldaean Account of Genesis, containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchs, and Nimrod: Babylonian fables, and legends of the gods; from the cuneiform inscriptions (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1876).
well as the Pan-Babylonian school7 of Friedrich Delitzsch (1850–1922),[5] Hugo Winckler (1863–1913),[6] Alfred Jeremias (1864–1935),[7] and Heinrich
Zimmern (1862–1931).[8] Real and important differences separated these
Religion (Berlin: K. Curtius, 1909), Israels Spruchweisheit im Zusammung der Weltliteratur (Berlin: K. Curtius, 1925), Die orientalischen Religionen im hellenistischrçmischen Zeitalter. Eine Vortragsreihe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1930).
- Richard Reitzenstein, Poimandres. Studien zur griechisch-gyptischen und frhchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1904), Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen: ihre Grundgedanken und Wirkungen (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1910). On Reitzenstein, see Suzanne Marchand, “From liberalism to neoromanticism: Albrecht Dieterich, Richard Reitzenstein, and the religious turn in fin-de-sicle German classical studies,” in Ingo Gildenhard and Martin Ruehl, eds., Out of Arcadia: Classics and Politics in Germany in the age of Burckhardt, Nietzsche and Wilamowitz (London: Institute of Classical Study, University of London, 2003), pp. 129–160.
- On Panbabylonianism and the “Babel und Bibel” controversy, see Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” Journal of Biblical Literature 81 (1962): 1–13, Herbert Huffman, “Babel und Bibel: The Encounter between Babylon and the Bible,” Michigan Quarterly Review 22 (1983): 309–20, Klaus Johanning, Der Bibel-Babel-Streit. Eine Forschungsgeschichtliche Studie (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988), Reinhard Lehmann, Friedrich Delitzsch und der Babel-Bibel-Streit (Freiburg: Universittsverlag, 1994), Suzanne Marchand, “Philhellenism and the Furor Orientalis,” Modern Intellectual History 1 (2004): 331–58, Simo Parpola, “Back to Delitzsch and Jeremias: The Relevance of the Pan-Babylonian School to the MELAMMU Project,” in Antonio Panaino and Andrea Piras, eds., Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography (2004), pp. 237–48, and Gary D. Thompson, “The Development, Heyday, and Demise of Panbabylonism,” http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page9e.html.
groups from each other and from others who began studying cosmogonies without involvement in any particular school.12 Still, in varying fashions and to varying extents, all deployed comparative evidence to justify treating that which had traditionally claimed the status of Holy Writ as an object of historic and philological research, i.e. a human product that took shape in a specific time, place, and cultural context, subject to – and part of – a longer process of development and diffusion.[9]
Having noted the common ground shared by these authors, it is also important to differentiate three aspects of (and motives for) the project they collectively advanced. In specific works and authors these tendencies often blur and commingle, but for heuristic purposes one can disarticulate the following distinct projects:
schichte (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1901), Zum Streit um die “Christusmythe.” Das babylonische Material in seinen Hauptpunkten dargestellt (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1910), Akkadische Fremdwçrter als Beweis fr babylonischen Kultureinfluss (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1915), Das babylonische Neujahrsfest (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1926).
12 Note, inter alia, Bourchier Wrey Savile, Heathen Cosmogonies compared with the Hebrew (London: Hardwicke & Bogue, 1876), Friedrich Pfaff, Schçpfungsgeschichte, mit besonderer Bercksichtigung des biblischen Schçpfungsberichtes (Frankfurt: Heyder & Zimmer, 1877), Peter Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier. Studien und Materialien, mit einen mythogischen Anhang und 3 Karten (Strassburg: Karl Trbner, 1890), Franz Lukas, Die Grundbegriffe in den Kosmogonien der alten Vçlker (Leipzig: W. Friedrich, 1893), Gnther Thiele, Kosmogonie und Religion (Berlin: Skopnik, 1898), Robert M.A. Shaw, Phoenician Cosmogonies (St. Louis: Becktold & Co., 1898), Hugo Radau, The Creation-story of Genesis 1: A Sumerian Theogony and Cosmogony (Chicago: Open Court, 1902), August Wnsche, Schçpfung und Sndenfall des ersten Menschenpaares im jdischen und moslemischen Sagenkreise (Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer, 1906), Aloys Kirchner, Die babylonische Kosmogonie und der biblische Schçpfungsbericht. Ein Beitrag zur Apologie des biblischen Gçttesbegriffes (Mnster: Aschendorff, 1908), L.W. King, Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition (London: H. Milford, 1918).
- A critical intervention – ultimately deriving from iconoclastic tendencies of the Enlightenment – designed to deprivilege religion in general by showing Scripture to be a human product existing in a complex web of historic influences and relations.
- A generous desire – that of a cultural relativism rooted in Herderian romanticism – to mitigate the Bible’s claim to monopoly on religious truth by showing the dignity, profundity, and interest of creation stories told by other peoples.
- An aggressive determination – that of anti-Semitic racism connected to vçlkisch nationalism and Christian resentment – to deprivilege the Hebrew Bible by challenging its account of creation and representation of the Jews as God’s chosen people.
All three tendencies persisted until the First World War and in some cases a bit longer.14 One can observe a shift of emphasis, however, such that after 1918 the first project became less common and important, while the last one gained in strength. Sometimes this manifested itself subtextually or obliquely, as with heightened interest in Germanic,[10] Greek,[11] Iranian,17 and other “Aryan”
14 Pan-Babylonianism was a spent force well before the war, having been subjected to fierce criticism in the course of the “Babel und Bibel” debate. The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule continued its work and recruited new adherents, as in the case of Carl Clemen (1865–1940), Die Reste der primitiven Religion im ltesten Christentum (Giessen: Alfred Tçpelmann, 1916), Otto Eissfeldt (1887–1973), Baal Zaphon, Zeus Kasios und der Durchzug der Israeliten durchs Meer (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1932), Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebrischen, und das Ende des Gottes Moloch (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1935), Philister und Phçnizier (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1936), and Ras Schamra und Sanchunjaton (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1939), Die Genesis der Genesis: vom Werdegang des ersten Buches der Bibel (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1958), and others.
cosmogonies,18 or in the production of pseudo-scientific creation stories involving vçlkisch-irrationalist reinterpretations of ancient myths. Particularly noteworthy along these lines were the Welteislehre of Hans Hçrbiger (1890– 1931), which Hitler and Himmler embraced as an echt-Deutsch cosmological alternative to the “Jewish science” of Einstein’s relativity,19 and the theories of Ludwig Klages (1872–1956),[12] Alfred Schuler (1865–1923)21 and others of
- Richard Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlçsungsmysterium: Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Bonn: A. Marcus & E. Weber, 1921), Albrecht Gçtze, “Persische Weisheit in griechischem Gewande,” Zeitschrift fr Indologie und Iranistik 2 (1923): 60–98, 167– 77, Richard Reitzenstein and H.H. Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1926), H.S. Nyberg, Questions de cosmogonie et de cosmologie mazdennes (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1929).
- Herman Gntert, Der arische Weltkçnig und Heiland. Bedeutungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur indo-iranischen Religionsgeschichte und Altertumskunde (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1923), Gçtze, “Persische Weisheit in griechischem Gewande,” Dyroff, “Zur griechischen und germanischen Kosmogonie,” Stanislas Schayer, “A Note on the Old Russian Variant of the Purushasukta,” Archiv Orientalni 7 (1935): 319–23.
- Hans Hçrbiger and Philipp Fauth, Glacial-Kosmogonie (Kaiserslautern: Kayser, 1913), Heinrich Vogt, Eis, ein Weltenbaustoff (Berlin: H. Paetel, 1920), Hans Fischer and Hans Hçrbiger, Wunder des Welteises (Berlin: H. Paetel, 1927), Hans Hçrbiger, Der Weg zum einheitlichen deutschen Weltbild (Berlin: Luken & Luken, 1933), Philipp Fauth, Mondesschicksal: wie er ward und untergeht, eine glazialkosmogonische Studie (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1925), Hans Fischer, Rhythmus des kosmischen Lebens. Das Buch vom Pulsschlag der Welt (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1925), idem, Weltwenden. Die großen Fluten in Sage und Wirklichkeit (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1925), Hans Wolfgang Behm, Welteis und Weltentwicklung. Gemeinverstndliche Einfhrung in die Grundlagen der Welteislehre (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1926), Georg Hinzpeter, Urwissen von Kosmos und Erde. Die Grundlagen der Mythologie im Licht der Welteislehre (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1928), Heinrich Voigt, Welteislehre und Wissenschaft (Leipzig: R. Voigtlnder, 1930), Wilhelm Asendorpf, Die Edda als Welteislehre (Krefeld: Hohns, 1933), Georg Hinzpeter, Der Sieg der Welteislehre (Ohlau: Hermann Eschenhagen, 1936), Robert Henseling, Umstrittenes Weltbild: Astrologie/Welteislehre/Um Erdgestalt und Weltmitte (Leipzig: Philip Reclam, 1936), Die neue deutsche Erdgeschichte (Ohlau: Hermann Eschenhagen, 1937), Hans Wolfgang Behm, Hçrbigers Welteislehre. Ein wahrhaft revolutionres Weltbild (Leipzig: von Hase & Koehler, 1938). On Hçrbiger and his theory, see Robert Bowen, Universal Ice: Science and Ideology in the Nazi State (London: Belhaven Press, 1993) and Brigitte Nagel, Die Welteislehre: ihre Geschichte und ihre Rolle im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Stuttgart: Verlag fr Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, 1991).
their[13] kosmischer Kreis, who drew on Bachofen, Nietzsche, Greek, and what they took to be pre-Greek (“Pelasgian”) myths to describe how a primordial era of vitalistic energies, rapturous inspiration and joy, erotic freedom and ecological consciousness succumbed to the rationalizing, patriarchal constraints of Judaism first and then Christianity.
The end of the Second World War brought a second, still more dramatic change in approach as the full revelation of Nazi horrors made even a hint of anti-Semitic discourse unacceptable in a reputable scholarly text. At the same time, the center of research activity shifted from Germany to England, France and above all to the US, where cultural relativism – previously the weakest of the three tendencies we identified – came to predominate as the new hegemon of the post-war era sought to project a friendly face while familiarizing itself with the world’s diverse peoples. The result was a set of wide-ranging, but mostly uncritical works where comparison served to celebrate diversity, not to show the dependence of one cosmogony on another, still less to suggest the superiority of one tradition, perspective, or people to any other. Publications of this sort were often collectively authored, including influential volumes on The Intellectual Adventure of ancient Man[14] and La cration du monde.[15] Other works
Review 23 (2006): 23–39, Raymond Furness, Zarathustra’s Children: A Study of a Lost Generation of German Writers (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000), pp. 99–124, and Richard Hinton Thomas, “Nietzsche in Weimar Germany – and the Case of Ludwig Klages,” in Anthony Phelan, ed., The Weimar Dilemma: Intellectuals in the Weimar Republic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), pp. 71–91.
served to introduce one exotic cosmogony or another, always with deep respect.24 When an individual scholar moved beyond individual cases to discuss creation myth as a genre, it was usually a general historian of religions who did so, drawing on a disciplinary ethos sympathetic to all religious phenomena, as witness the cases of Raffaele Pettazzoni (1883–1959),[16] E.O. James (1888– 1972),[17] S.G.F. Brandon (1907–71),[18] Philip Freund (1909–2007),[19] MarieLouise von Franz (1915–98),[20] Cornelius Loew (1916–98),[21]a Ugo Bianchi (1922–95),[22] and Charles Long (1926- ).[23] The most extreme expressions of the new trend, however, were anthologies celebrating the wisdom, beauty and
24 Hasteen Klah, Navajo Creation Myth. The Story of the Emergence (Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, 1942), Martha Warren Beckwith, The Kumulipo: A Hawaiian Creation Chant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), Arundell del Re, Creation Myths of the Formosan Natives (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1951), Carl Hentze, Tod, Auferstehung, Weltordnung. Das Mythische Bild im ltesten China, in den grossasiatischen und zirkumpazifischen Kulturen (Zrich: Origo Verlag, 1955), W.K.C. Guthrie, In the Beginning: Some Greek Views on the Origins of Life and the Early State of Man (London: Methuen, 1957), Robert Ambelain, La notion gnostique du demiurge dans les critures et les traditions judo-chrtiennes (Paris: ditions Adyar, 1959), Mykhailo Petrovych Drahomaniv, Notes on the Slavic Religio-Ethical Legends: The Dualistic Creation of the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961), Marijan Mol, Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans l’Iran ancien (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), Marcel Griaule, Conversations with OgotemmÞli (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), Ulli Beier, ed., The Origin of Life and Death. African Creation Myths (London: Wm. Heinemann, 1966), Sheila Moon, A Magic Dwells. A Poetic and Psychological Study of the Navaho Emergence Myth (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970), Clara B. Wilpert, Kosmogonische Mythen der australischen Eingeborenen (Munich: Renner, 1970). An important exception for its continued interest in issues of history, influence, and cultural diffusion is Hans Gterbock, Kumarbi: Mythen vom churritischen Kronos, aus den hethitischen Fragmenten (Zrich: Europaverlag, 1946).
wonder of all the world’s myths, which they made available for children and others in aestheticized, worshipful, and saccharine retellings.32
Most of these works were generous and eirenic, devoid of harsh judgments, rough edges, or memories of bitter disputes. The chief exception, however, was also the most influential post-war book on the topic, Mircea Eliade’s (1907–86) Myth of the Eternal Return.33 Begun in the same month as V-E Day (May 1945)[24] and first published in 1949, this volume drew on Eliade’s pre-war researches,[25] incorporating attitudes and conclusions he took from the panBabylonian theorists (as Jonathan Z. Smith has repeatedly noted)[26] and – more
- Inter alia, Louise Raymond, The Oldest Story in the World (Boston: Little, Brown, 1941), Maria Leach, The Beginning: Creation Myths around the World (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1956), Edward Lavitt, compiler, In the beginning… Creation Stories for Young People (New York: Odarkal Books, 1973), Barbara C. Sproul, Primal Myths: Creation Myths around the World (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991), David Adams Leeming and Margaret Adams Leeming, Encyclopedia of Creation Myths (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
- The book was first published in French translation as Le Mythe de l’ternel retour. Archtypes et rptition, trad. from the original Rumanian by Jean Gouillard and Jacques Soucasses (Paris: Gallimard, 1949). The first translations reflected the same title: El mito del eterno retorno. Arquetipos y repeticin (Buenos Aires: Emec, 1952), Der Mythos der ewigen Wiederkehr (Dsseldorf: Diederichs, 1953), The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Bollingen Series, Pantheon Books, 1954). A German edition introduced a new title, however – Kosmos und Geschichte: der Mythos der ewigen Wiederkehr (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1953) – which subsequent English editions listed as an alternate title: The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History (London: Arkana, 1954 and Princeton: Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, 1954). Later, in an edition where it was elevated to the main title – Cosmos and History. The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper and Row, 1959) – Eliade added a preface in which he explained that this had been his initial title, which he later changed to “Archetypes and Repetition,” then accepting his French publisher’s suggestion to call the book by the name under which it first appeared. For good measure, the Foreword that appears in all editions lists one more alternate title that Eliade entertained but suppressed, lest he be accused of grandiosity: “Introduction to a Philosophy of History.”
importantly – those of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, the kosmischer Kreis, and right-wing mystics like Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877–1947),37 Rn Gunon (1886–1951),[27] and Julius Evola (1898–1974),[28] who styled themselves Traditionalists and devotees of Philosophia perennis.[29]
Consistent with the mood of the post-war era, much of Eliade’s book celebrates the genius of “the archaic,” a term he used to encompass virtually all humanity until the Enlightenment, plus peasants and “primitives” in the years since. Said genius was particularly manifest in the myths of creation through which archaic homines religiosi endowed their lives with meaning, the rituals through which they reentered mythic time and encountered sacred reality, as well as their principled disinterest in the petty processes of temporal change that we spiritually-impoverished moderns privilege as “progress,” “dynamism,” or “history.” As this last point suggests, Eliade’s celebration of “the archaic” was coupled with a fierce denunciation of contemporary society and its values. Consistent with the intellectual and political allegiances he exhibited through 1945, he was not shy in identifying the culprits responsible for the catastrophic fall into a modernity stripped of authenticity, sacrality, and meaning. Prime
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. xvii-xviii.
37 Ananda Coomaraswamy, Vçlusp (Kandy: Kandy Industrial School, 1905), Myths and Legends: Hindus and Buddhists (Boston: D.D. Nickerson, 1910), The Rg Veda as Landnma-bk (London: Luzac & Co., 1935), The Darker Side of Dawn (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1935), The Inverted Tree (Bangalore: Bangalore Press, 1938), Collected Essays on the Traditional or “Normal” View of Art (London: Luzac, 1946), Time and Eternity (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1947).
among the accused were Hegel and Marx.[30] Of equal importance, however, were the Jews, their prophets and the Hebrew Bible, who abandoned cycles of mythic repetition in favor of linear time and the idea that they could perceive God working in history.[31] Here one finds vestiges of the older anti-Semitic project coexisting with a renewed project of cultural relativism. The former would disappear from the books Eliade produced in his American period (1956–86), although it is not clear whether his new context produced a deep and genuine change of heart or a more superficial shift in what he found prudent to say.[32]
Regardless of how it actually took shape, the revised, sanitized, Americanized version of Eliadean theory became the dominant view of cosmogonic myth – i.e. the master narrative about master narrative – from the late 1950s onward. Accordingly, scholars who followed in Eliade’s wake treated cosmogony as a privileged genre: not only a culturally salient topos, but one that consistently reveals the very ground of being and the awesome reality of sacred creative power.
Reacting to that position, we are inclined to view cosmogonic accounts as acts of discourse and not revelation. This is to say they are instruments and records of distinctly human speech and imagination, not vehicles for the selfdisclosure of sacred reality, meaning, and power. From this simple – and we hope non-controversial – proposition, there follow several consequences. First, any serious study will have to take account of poetics, i.e. the way those who tell and re-tell the story give it form, shape, grace, and style, the words and phrases they choose to employ, the nuances these convey, the sources and traditions they draw on, and the ways they innovate. Second, it will have to consider politics, i.e. the ends toward which these tales are told, the interests they advance, the patrons who secure their composition and circulation, the audiences they engage, the persuasive projects they undertake, and the ways their reception helps reproduce – or modify – the extant social, political, and economic order.
To address these questions productively demands close reading of the relevant texts, careful analysis of the differences among all variants, and close attention to the cultural and historic contexts in which any given variant emerged and gained influence. Clearly, the demands of such research are daunting and it lies beyond the competence of even the most gifted scholars to master more than a relatively small number of the potentially relevant data. Theoretical advances, however, derive from and depend on the ability to generalize from diverse comparanda after these have been subjected to analysis from qualified experts who, in addition to their specialized knowledge, are also attuned to broad thematic questions. The meetings held at the University of Chicago 8–10 April 2011 under the auspices of that institution’s Center for the Study of Ancient Religions were meant to assemble such a group and to provide them with the opportunity to share materials, insights, and perspectives on the category of cosmogony in general. Nineteen papers were presented in all, eight of which are published here, while seven others will shortly appear in a special issue of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.[33]
Among the more surprising results of this conference was our recognition that the attempt to theorize and comprehend the world by narrating its origins is neither ubiquitous, nor universal. Rather, certain kinds of actors, stories, and speakers are more inclined than others to deploy cosmogonies and typically do so to consolidate their own position, while advancing a view of cosmic order consistent with their interests. To judge from the papers presented, kings and priests are most given to this habit, while others – magicians, poets, or magistrates, to cite some relevant examples – have recourse to origin stories (of a city or a metrical form, e.g.) that are more finely tuned to their specific interests and concerns. Here, the papers of Kevin Wanner, Maurizio Bettini, Gideon Bohak, and Will Sayers are particularly revealing. More research is needed along these lines to explore who does – and who does not – delight in narrating creation, also when, where, and why such tales come to be told. In all cases, however, we would think it productive to focus on questions of human agency – politics and poetics – rather than those of cultural influence, dependency, relative primacy and prestige that initially prompted interest in cosmogony, or the post-war concern to find sacred depth and transcendent meaning in the creation stories supposedly told everywhere by everyone. Both those agendas have run their course. It is time to look elsewhere.
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[1] On the school as a whole, see Carsten Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule. Darstellung und Kritik ihres Bildes vom gnostischen Erlçsermythus (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), Gerd Ldemann and Martin Schrçder, Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in Gçttingen: eine Dokumentation (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), Gerd Ldemann, Die “Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.” Facetten eines theologischen Umbruchs (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1996), and Gerald Seelig, Religionsgeschichtliche Methode in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Studien zur Geschichte und Methode des religionsgeschichtlichen Vergleichs in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2001).
[2] Hermann Gunkel, Schçpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895), Genesis (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901), Israel und Babylonien: Der Einfluss Babyloniens auf die israelitische Religion (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), Elias, Jahve und Baal (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1906), Das Mrchen im Alten Testament (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1921). On Gunkel, see Werner Klatt, Hermann Gunkel. Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtlichen Methode (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969).
[3] Wilhelm Bousset, Die jdische Apokalyptik: ihre religionsgeschichtliche Herkunft und ihre Bedeutung fr das Neue Testament (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1903), Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907).
[4] Hugo Gressmann, Der Ursprung der israelitisch-jdischen Eschatologie (Gçttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1905), Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testamente in Verbindung (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1909), Palstinas Erdgeruch in der israelitischen
[5] Friedrich Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? Eine Biblisch-Assyriologische Studie (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich, 1881), Das babylonische Weltschçpfungsepos (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1896), Babel und Bibel: ein Vortrag (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902), Zweiter Vortrag ber Babel und Bibel (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1904), Babel und Bibel. Dritter (Schluss-)Vortrag (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1905). On Delitzsch, see Lehmann, Friedrich Delitzsch und der Babel-Bibel-Streit (prev. note).
[6] Hugo Winckler, Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen (Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer, 1892), Die babylonische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zur unsrigen. Ein Vortrag (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902), Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier als Grundlage der Weltanschauung und Mythologie aller Vçlker (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1903), Abraham als Babylonier, Joseph als gypter. Der Weltgeschichtliche Hintergrund der biblischen Vtergeschichten auf Grund der Keilsinschriften (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich, 1903), Die babylonische Weltschçpfung (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1906), Die babylonische Geisteskultur, in ihren Beziehungen zur Kulturentwicklung der Menschheit (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1907).
[7] Alfred Jeremias, Die babylonisch-assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode, nach den Quellen mit Bercksichtigung der alttestamentlichen Parallelen (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1887), Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients. Handbuch zur biblischorientalischen Altertumskunde (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1904), Babylonisches im Neuen Testament (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1905).
[8] Heinrich Zimmern, Die Assyriologie als Hlfswissenschaft fr das Studium des alten Testaments und das klassischen Altertums (Kçnigsberg: W. Koch, 1889), Vater, Sohn und Frsprecher in der babylonischen Gottesvorstellung. Ein Problem fr die vergleichende Religionswissenschaft (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1896), Biblische und babylonische Urge-
[9] Discussions of the Biblical and related cosmogonies also stimulated some research on myths of creation from other peoples who had no connection to Israel and the Ancient Near East. The last decades of the 19th century saw the publication of many such works, including Maurice Phillips, The Cosmogony of the Vedas (Madras: R. Hill, 1880), Adolf Bastian, Die heilige Sage der Polynesier: Kosmogonie und Theogonie (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1881), John Gregory Bourke, Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mojave Indians of the Rio Colorado, Arizona (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1889), Elard Hugo Meyer, Die eddische Kosmogonie: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kosmogonie des Altertums und des Mittelalters (Freiburg: J.C.B. Mohr, 1891), P.D. Chantepie de la
Saussaye, “Germaansche Kosmogonie,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde 3/7 (1892): 336–64, Julien Darwin Hayne, Na-kupuna: the Hawaiian Legend of Creation (San Francisco: W. Doxey, 1896), Liliuokalani, An Account of the Creation of the World according to Hawaiian Tradition (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1897), Charles Hill-Tout, Notes on the Cosmogony and History of the Squamish Indians of British Columbia (Ottawa: J. Durie, 1897).
[10] Franz Rolf Schrçder, “Germanische-Schçpfungsmythen,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 19 (1931): 1–26, 81–99, idem, “Germanische Urmythen,” Archiv fr Religionswissenschaft 35 (1938): 201–36, Ernst Noth, Weltanfang und Weltende in der deutschen Volkssage (Frankfurt: Moritz Deiesterweg, 1932), Arno Schmieder, Beim Urweisen Ymir. Eine Erzhlung von der Urheimat der Menschen (Leipzig: Adolf Klein, 1932), Adolf Dyroff, “Zur griechischen und germanischen Kosmogonie (Anaximandros, Pherekydes und Vçlusp),” Archiv fr Religionswissenschaft 31 (1934): 112–23, Franz Bçtzler, “Ymir: Ein Beitrag zu den eddischen Weltschçpfungsvorstellungen,” Archiv fr
Religionswissenschaft 33 (1936): 230–45, August Heyting, Yggdrasil of wereldbouw: een Germaanse cosmogonie (The Hague: Trifos, 1940).
[11] Vincenzo Lapiccirella, Studio sulla Teogonia di Esiodo (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1930), Dyroff, “Zur griechischen und germanischen Kosmogonie,” Kurt Sternberg, Das Problem des Ursprungs in der Philosophie des Altertums (Breslau: M. & H. Marcus, 1935), Paula Philippson, Genealogie als mythische Form: Studien zur Theogonie des Hesiod (Oslo: A.W. Brøgger, 1936), Eckard Peterich, Die Theologie der Hellenen (Leipzig: Hegner, 1938), Willibald Staudacher, Die Trennung von Himmel und Erde: ein vorgriechischer Schçpfungsmythus bei Hesiod und den Orphikern (Tbingen: Bçtzle, 1942).
[12] Ludwig Klages, Vom kosmogonischen Eros (Munich: G. Mller, 1922), ibid., 2d (“erweiterte”) ed. (Jena: Eugen Diderich, 1926), Mensch und Erde (Jena: Eugen Diederich, 1926), Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (Munich: J.A. Barth, 1929–37), Bachofen als Erneuerer des symbolischen Denkens (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1937). Klages was a great favorite of right-wing mystics and early Nazis until he ran afoul of Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg. On Klages, see Peter Davies, Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity: Johann Jakob Bachofen in German Culture, 1860–1945 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 191–96 et passim, Nitzan Lebovic, “The Beauty and Terror of Lebensphilosophie: Ludwig Klages, Walter Benjamin, and Alfred Baeumler,” South Central
[13] Schuler published almost nothing during his lifetime, but gained considerable influence through his lectures, public appearances, and legends that grew up around him. His work was first published under the editorship of Klages as Alfred Schuler, Fragmente und Vortrge aus dem Nachlass, mit Einfhrung von Ludwig Klages (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1940). A fuller collection was assembled under the editorship of Baal Mller and published as Alfred Schuler, Cosmogonische Augen: Gesammelte Schriften (Paderborn: Igel, 1997). On Schuler, see Baal Mller, Alfred Schuler der letzte Rçmer. Neue Beitrge zur Mnchner Kosmik (Amsterdam: Castrum-Peregrini Presse, 2000), Furness, Zarathustra’s Children, pp. 75–98, Gerhard Plumpe, Alfred Schuler: Chaos und Neubeginn: zur Funktion des Mythos in der Moderne (Berlin: Agora Verlag, 1978).
[14] H. and H. A. Frankfort, John A. Wilson, Thorkild Jacobsen and William A. Irwin, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946). This volume was also republished under the title Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1949).
[15] Anne-Marie Esnoul, et al., Sources orientales: La naissance du monde (Paris: ditions du Seuil, 1959). See also Olga Frçbe-Kapteyn, ed., Der Mensch und das Schçpferische (Zrich: Rhein-Verlag, 1957 [Eranos Jahrbuch, vol. 25]), Mark Mnzel, ed., Ursprung: Vortragszyklus 1986/87 ber die Entstehung des Menschen und der Welt in den Mythen der Vçlker (Frankfurt: Museum fr Vçlkerkunde, 1987), P. Beauchamp et al., La cration dans l’Orient ancien (Paris: Cerf, 1987), Bernhard Mensen, ed., Die Schçpfung in den Religionen (Nettetal: Steyler, 1990).
[16] Raffaele Pettazzoni, Miti e leggende, 4 vols. (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1948–63), “Der babylonische Ritus des Aktu und das Gedicht der Weltschçpfung,” Eranos-Jahrbuch 19 (1950): 403–30, “Mythes des origins et mythes de la cration,” Proceedings of the 7th Congress for the History of Religions (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1951), pp. 67–78.
[17] E.O. James, Creation and Cosmology. A Historical and Comparative Inquiry (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969).
[18] S.G.F. Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1963).
[19] Phillip Freund, Myths of Creation (London: W.H. Allen, 1964).
[20] Marie-Louise von Franz, Patterns of Creativity Mirrored in Creation Myths (Dallas: Spring Publications: 1972).
[21] a Cornelius Loew, Myth, Sacred History, and Philosophy: The Pre-Christian Religious Heritage of the West (New York: Harcourt, Brace World, 1967).
[22] Ugo Bianchi, Teogonie e cosmogonie (Rome: Editrice Studium, 1960).
[23] Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation (New York: George Braziller, 1963).
[24] The date is supplied in Eliade’s Preface to the 1959 edition. If correct, this would place its inception in the month the war in Europe ended and some months after the death of his first wife. At that moment he was located in Lisbon, in the diplomatic service of a now-defeated fascist Rumania.
[25] Eliade cited his earlier volumes Yoga. Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936), Cosmologie ¸si alchimie babilonianaˇ (Bucharest: Vremea, 1937), and Comentarii la legenda Me¸sterului Manole (Bucharest: Publicom, 1943). Also relevant are Mitul reintegrarii (Bucharest: Vremea, 1939) and some of the essays in Fragmentarium (Bucharest: Vremea, 1939). The latter volume is available in French translation (ditions de l’Herne, 1989) and one should consult the chapters titled “A propos d’un certain “sacrifice”,” (pp. 9–12), “Le sicle de l’histoire” (pp. 105–7), “Critique et raciologie” (pp. 109–10).
[26] Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 26–29, idem, “Introduction to the 2005 Edition” of
[27] Rn Gunon, La crise du monde moderne (Paris: Bossard, 1924), Orient et Occident (Paris: Payot, 1924), Le roi du monde (Paris: Boese, 1927), Autorit spirituelle et pouvoir temporel (Paris: J. Vrin, 1929).
[28] Julius Evola, L’individuo e il divenire del mondo (Rome: Libreria di scienze e lettere, 1926), Imperialismo pagano. Il fascismo dinanzi al pericolo euro-christiano (Rome: Atanor, 1928), Rivolto contro il mondo moderno (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1934), Tre aspetti del problema ebraico: nel mondo spirituale, nel mondo culturale, nel mondo economico-sociale (Rome: Edizioni mediterranee, 1936).
[29] On the school of traditionalists in general, see Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). On Eliade’s relation to the group, see Enrico Montanari, “Eliade e Gunon,” Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 61 (1995): 131–49, Paola Pisi, “I ‘tradizionalisti’ e la formazione del pensiero di Eliade,” in Luciano Arcella, et al., eds., Confronto con Mircea Eliade (Milan: Jaca Book, 1998), pp. 43–133, Natale Spineto, “Mircea Eliade and Traditionalism,” Aries: The Journal for the Study of Esotericism 1 (2001): 62–87, Marcello de Martino, Mircea Eliade Esoterico (Rome: Edizioni Settimo Sigillo, 2007), and Antoine Faivre, “Modern Western Esoteric Currents in Eliade,” in Christian Wedemeyer and Wendy Doniger, eds., Hermeneutics, Politics, and the History of Religions: The Contested Legacies of Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 147–58.
[30] Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return (1954), pp. ix, 90–91, 141, 147–50, 156n.
[31] Ibid., pp. 102–12, 131–32, 148, 159–62.
[32] Mircea Eliade, Mythes, rÞves et myst res (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), Das Heilige und das Profane (Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1957), Mphistophl s et l’Androgyne (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), Myth and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), “Cosmogonic Myth and ‘Sacred History’,” Religious Studies 2 (1967): 171–83.
[33] Several authors had already committed their papers elsewhere. A full list of the proceedings is available at http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/csar/conferences/imaginedbeginnings/.