The Enuma elish (“When in the heights”), was the most hallowed, religious-political-scientific text of Babylon, the direct cultural descendant of ancient Sumer. The Sumerian Epic was read as a central part of the New Year rituals, often portrayed in the Babylonian equivalent of a Passion Play. Texts found in the library of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, in Nineveh (a city of biblical renown) recorded a tale of creation that matches, in some parts word for word, the tale of Genesis.

And yet the Sumerian version was written well over a thousand years before Genesis was cast in its present framework. In The Seven Tablets of Creation (the Enuma elish, by yet another name), the 7th tablet is entirely devoted to the exaltation of “the Lord” -- Marduk, Ashur (Assyrian), or what-have-you. The tablets, in effect, devoted six pages to the handiwork of the Lord, and the seventh to a day of rest, when everyone could glorify the Lord. Sound familiar?

The Sumerian Epic of Creation, thoroughly beat to death, has the wonderful quality of being colorful, poetic, detailed, and internally self-consistent. The question that might arise, however, at least from those more inquiring minds (those who read the National Enquirer, for example), is whether or not the description is externally consistent, i.e. does it agree with other sources -- sources ranging from the Bible to the observations of modern day science.

The biblical tale of Genesis was originally written down for the first time circa 600 B.C.E while the Hebrews were being held captive in Babylon, but with access to early Sumerian texts. The resulting first chapter of the Bible is considered by many scholars as an extremely brief, executive summary of the Sumerian texts.

Genesis, of course, reports only upon the creation of the Earth and “Heaven”. The latter is, according to the Sumerians, the “firmament”, also known as the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt -- aka Heaven -- is thus the veil between the inner, terrestrial planets and the outer planets...