It would be very difficult. In addition to the normal tendency of things to get garbled over time, some people who repeat the tale may want to shoehorn some of their own agenda into it. Maybe they want to make one of their ancestors interact with the characters to enhance their prestige for example.
Was the creation account in Genesis chapter one a "polemic" against Egyptian or Ancient Near Eastern cosmology? Or was it an original version that was later corrupted or merged with other ideas in neighboring cultures? Many scholars believe the former. Of course, you can point to elements of early Genesis that "correct the record" of things in these other accounts. But is that really because Genesis was written to correct the record, or is it because it was the correct record?
The answer won't be found by examining differences in the text so much as determining which came first. What you conclude about the differences in the text will depend on your assumptions about which came first. If you think the ANE texts came first, then you will assume Genesis is a response to them. If you assume the accounts Moses used to compile early Genesis came first, the logical conclusion is that it wasn't a polemic, but the correct original record. It does set the record straight, but not because it was written to do that, but because its the original.
Right now, most scholars assume the other ANE creation accounts came first because creation accounts have been found with some similar elements before the life of Moses would have occurred, around 1400 BC. But this reasoning presumes that Moses wasn't working from older original documents. In other words, the family history of his people was in Mesopotamia, and they had their own version of these same things. The "Tablet Theory" has been dismissed, but I think that's wrong. A modified version of the theory addresses the legitimate concerns of the critics, and so far as I know has never been evaluated.
The use of "toledoth" ("these are the generations of") phrases throughout the part of early Genesis that was set in Mesopotamia (and the first generation born in what is now Israel) indicates that whatever early Genesis is, the writers intended it to be viewed as a series of ancient accounts strung together. Aren't the scholars always urging us to view the text through the lens of those who lived when it was written? Well, early Genesis was written as a series of ancient accounts that were edited together into a single great story which unfolded over time.
If I write an anthology of ancient Greek stories it would be wrong to say that accounts from the last days of Rome were older than the accounts in my book just because my book was compiled long after Rome. The book may not be as old as Rome, but the stories in them are older. This I think is the relationship between Genesis, the accounts used to compile Genesis, and the ANE texts which came in between.
I am going to make the argument that the ANE accounts are garbled versions of the creation account, and following accounts, from early Genesis. In some ways, those in Mesopotamia were more derived than those from elsewhere because they were more politicized. The government-controlled priestly class kept writing the king's ancestors or the gods from some city they were trying to assimilate into the story.
To do this, it is needful to understand how the Christ-centered model views the "days" of Genesis chapter one. We must know what is being garbled to see if what they are saying sounds like a confusion of the original. My contention is that both the Jews and most of Christianity today (the eastern Orthodox excepted) has it garbled too. So, though it is far beyond my meager powers of explanation, I give you the one-paragraph version of the days of Genesis one.
The days in Genesis chapter one have nothing to do with solar days, at least until day six. In the Genesis Creation account, the "light" which is what "day" is (verse 5) is the Logos of God entering creation. Which is another way of saying God entering creation, for the Logos is the second person of God. Each time God speaks, that is, God's Word enter's creation, it produces light, and that is the morning which signifies a new day. The evenings have nothing to do with the day, they are just the condition which precedes it- separation from the illumination of His word produces increasing darkness over time. When God speaks, the Logos enters some aspect of creation. He brings order, fruitfulness and illumination each time. The seventh time the Logos entered His creation was of course the Advent, as described in chapter one of the Gospel of John.
Now let's look at the Egyptian Ogdoad, a set of eight primordial deities- four male-female pairs. They had somewhat different roles in each of the main Egyptian religious centers who had their own complimentary takes on their creation accounts. A recurring concept is that the Ogdoad proceed from a more distant Supreme God to order some aspect of creation. This sounds a lot like the Christ-centered take on the creation account in Genesis. It has the second Person of the Godhead enter creation six times. It ends in Him being made Male and Female in the timeless heavenly realm which is Christ and the Church. The Egyptian creation accounts have the same general theme, they just don't get that it is one Person of God entering creation six times, not a new deity being manifested for each function.
The Egyptian myths are more focused on the steps from the first two or three days of the account in Genesis, and indeed it is unclear what exact function each of the pairs in the Ogdoad have. The first pair seems to stand for sky and water. Another for darkness and a cessation of work. Although the Egyptian stories overall have a lot of detail, details about the work of the Ogdoad are varying and mysterious.
The Jews actually went farther than the text to contrast that there is only one God who created everything. The New Testament clarifies what the Old Testament really teaches- that God exists in three persons, and that all that has been made was made by the second person. In other words, it goes back a half-step in the direction of the Ogdoad. And it fits in perfectly with the Old Testament text, when seen through the lens of Christ. See also "Two Powers Theology" to understand that this was always a minority voice in Judaism. Something written as a polemic should not be able to do that. It should be written as a stark contrast, with no wiggle room. After all that's the point of a polemic. But if the Egyptian stuff was a garbled version of the original creation account, then it makes sense.
But here is the real kicker: A Mayan Creation Myth from the Popol Vuh sounds a lot more like Genesis chapter one than any of the Egyptian or ANE versions! You could use the exact same reasoning they use to claim Genesis is a polemic against ANE or Egyptian Mythology to say that Genesis chapter one was written as a polemic against the Mayan Creation Myth! Or you could argue that the Mayan myth was a polemic against the Egyptian ones. No one would do that, because it would be ridiculous given the separation of those cultures. But this should open reasonable eyes to see that proximity alone should not lead you to jump to conclusions which otherwise look groundless when proximity is absent.
Here is a short video on the Mayan Creation myth, or you can skip below while I give a list view of the parallels.
The account says that at the start there was no light, no sound, no motion, no land. Just water. Obviously it doesn't point to Creation of everything from nothing (or the unseen) as Genesis does, but that is a hard concept for ancient folks to get. The initial conditions they describe sound a lot like those described in Genesis 1:1-2.
Then it describes six "deities" in the waters who help "Heart of Sky" shape the cosmos. This reminds me of the six creation "days" which according to the Christ-centered model for early Genesis, are not light from the sun at all, but rather the Word of God entering creation when God speaks. The light is the "day" and He is the Light. They have six deities while Genesis has God the Logos entering creation six times. Other versions have two deities, one in the sky and one over the seas (Plumed Serpent and Hurricane) together shape the world.
The Maya speak of plants being made before the sun, just like Genesis says the sun wasn't "appointed" or "set in position" until after plants are made. In the Maya account animals are also made but the story says they could not worship. So the deities formed humans from mud, but they couldn't worship either, so were destroyed in a flood! Do you see how the same elements are getting scrambled? They then say another attempt was made with humans derived from wood, but they too could not worship and had to be destroyed, except for those who became monkeys. This leads me to a rabbit trail, the idea of "Others" from the past who were near-human but still not like us. Both science and many ancient traditions tell us that such beings existed.
Finally the gods make a human out of Maize (corn) and get it right. This has shades of Adam, the man made to "tend the garden and to keep it". The idea of man coming along and doing things right is connected to agriculture and thus civilization. Shades of man inside and outside of the garden? Near-humans? Something else?
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It is unlikely that the Mayans had contact with ANE cultures and got this story from them, and as I say, their version sounds even more like early Genesis than those of the ANE cultures. I conclude that the creation account in Genesis chapter one is very old. The story may be older than Adam (who isn't the father of all of humanity in the Christ-centered model, but rather formed to be the father of the line of Messiah). The evidence that Genesis was a "polemic" against the other ANE creation myths only fits if you begin with that assumption in the first place. Circular reasoning in an echo chamber is no way to find truth!
PS- I do to my hat to RC Kunst who goaded me into finally putting this in writing.
Get the book.
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