Genesis 1

 have discussed Genesis 1 before, in the context of rejecting the literalist interpretation of both this creation account and the one that follows it in Chapter 2, since from a literalist perspective they are irreconcilable with one another, and contradict. Rather, I believe that they are intended to reveal God's general nature and man's place in his created Order.  

Instead now I would like to look at similar accounts from the Babylonians the Hebrews lived among during the period many scholars believe this passage was conceived. 

I here copy a summary of the Babylonian creation myth taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh, courtesy of CliffNotes:

Everything originated with water. From the mixture of sweet water, the female Apsu, with salt water, the female Tiamat, the gods arose. Apsu and Tiamat gave birth to Mummu, the tumult of the waves, and to Lakhmu and Lakhamu, a pair of gigantic serpents. In turn these serpents produced Anshar, the heavens, and Kishar, the earthly world. And from these two came the great gods, Anu, Enlil, and Ea, as well as the other gods of the sky, earth, and the underworld. 

Many of these new gods were noisy, which upset Apsu and Tiamat, since they could not rest. These primordial goddesses then discussed whether they should annihilate their progeny. 

When Ea, the all-knowing, learned of Apsu's plan to destroy the gods he used his magic to capture her and Mummu. Tiamat was furious and created a monstrous army of gods and freak creatures to punish Ea and his cohorts. 

Ea went to his father Anshar, and Anshar advised him to send Anu to fight Tiamat. But both Anu and Ea were afraid of the goddess and her army. Then Ea called Marduk forth. Marduk promised to conquer Tiamat if he were given supreme authority over the gods. The gods agreed that he was to have lordship and feasted in his honor. Marduk was invested with the scepter, the throne, and an invincible weapon. 

Armed with bow and arrows, lightning, the winds, a hurricane, and a special net, Marduk rode forth to meet Tiamat in his chariot, which was a tempest, drawn by four fearsome steeds. They clashed and Marduk caught Tiamat in his net. When she opened her mouth to swallow him, Marduk let loose the hurricane, which filled her jaws and belly, thereby stunning her. Then Marduk shot an arrow into her belly and killed her. Tiamat's army fled in confusion at her downfall, but Marduk caught them in his net, chained them, and cast them into the underworld. 

As he was cutting up Tiamat's body, Marduk conceived a plan. From one half of her body he made the dome of the heavens, and with the other half he made the earth. He established the dwelling of the gods, fixed the positions of the stars, ordered the movements of the heavenly bodies, and set the length of the year. Then to gladden the hearts of the gods Marduk created men from the blood of Kingu, the general of Tiamat's army. Finally, he made rivers, vegetation, and animals, which completed the creation. In recognition of his triumphs the gods bestowed all of their titles and powers on Marduk, making him the God of Gods.

There are several similarities between Genesis 1 and the Babylonian creation myth, particularly the deep waters that are the first specific created thing mentioned in Genesis, and that also begin the Babylonian account. Also similar is the mention of the vault of the sky in both accounts, created by a divine king (God speaks in the royal "We" in the Genesis account, though some believe this is an indication of His Trinitarian Nature). But it is in the differences between the accounts that we may learn what separates the Hebrews' God from the deities of the Babylonians who ruled over them after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

Two interesting differences between the passages help to highlight the difference between the Hebrew conception  (the correct one, for Catholic Christians) of God, and the conception of the creation held by the Babylonians. 

First, from the Babylonian perspective, the natural order is established through violence and the conquest of Marduk over Tiamat. On the contrary, with God Almighty, there is no conquest, or even contest. God simply is in complete control throughout the entire narrative. There is no divine war explicitly described. 

True, Saint Augustine of Hippo believed that God's separating the darkness from the light is code-language or symbolic for the separation of Saint Michael and the good angels from Lucifer and the Fallen host, a rebellion precipitated according to some Catholic mystics by God revealing the Incarnation and the fact that he would elevate Mary above every other created being, even the glorious Seraph Lucifer, Son of the Morning. Yet even if we accept Augustine's interpretation, the war in heaven is part of God's Plan, nor does anything happen which God does not ultimately turn to Good. Ultimately, God does the separating, casts the fallen out, though he might use his creatures to participate in that expulsion, as Saint Michael the Archangel thrust Satan out of Heaven. Everything God makes, he makes as "Good", or in the case of humanity, "Very Good". 

Whereas in the Babylonian myth, Mankind comes to exist out of bloodshed and death, for the Hebrews, God imparted his own life to the dust to create mankind with no diminution of himself through the act. It is only through the death of Tiamat and Kingu that mankind, made from their blood, may exist, according to the Babylonians. But for the Hebrews, the divine life is a generative gift, a "gift that keeps on giving," and God forms man in his own image. Life is not a zero-sum game, nor is Death necessary that Life may exist. Also interesting is the mention of both man and woman in Genesis, so that there may be no misunderstanding of the fact that woman too shares in the divine likeness and is therefore of an equal dignity with the male sex, a totally alien idea to the ancient world, in which most women had a dignity on a par with livestock.

The second interesting distinction I notice is in the purpose of mankind according to each of the two myths. (I speak of myth in the sense of C.S. Lewis, who makes clear that just because a story has the form of a myth, does not mean the story is false.) In the Babylonian myth, man was created by Marduk "to delight the gods". Yet in the Hebrew myth, God's purpose in creating mankind is left a mystery. His reasons for creating the natural world are never explicitly told to the audience. It seems to me that this omission is not by accident, and what we have here is an implicit admission that God's purposes and reasons for doing things as he does are hidden from man, nor can man assume he knows. 

As God says to Job, "My ways are not your ways." While mankind might indeed delight God, from the standpoint of Catholic theology, we know that God did not create so that his creation might delight him. On the contrary, God is pure Delight, Happiness and Fulfillment in Himself. Rather, the Creation is an act of pure love, the desire to give of Himself, and to allow other beings like Himself, made in his image, his children, to partake in His Divine Life.