No, Mesopotamian mythology is derived from the Genesis of creation.
Scholarship is 100% on this. I posted some Yale Divinity Lectures with timestamps and college text addressing that. There are many many more.
Flood Myths Older Than The Bible - Dr. Joshua Bowen
Assyriologist who specialized in Sumerian literary and liturgical compositions
1:25
OT scholars will say Genesis is using a Mesopotamian background and apologist will say
“Well no, there is no literary evidence that shows it borrowed, we cannot show literal evidence”…”it was in the air”….”how do you know it wasn’t true”…….somehow downplaying the Mesopotamian background…
2:57 Dr Josh Bowen - there is no question as far as Biblical scholars and Assyriologists are concerned that the Biblical text is much later than Mesopotamian text and it’s borrowing directly or subtly from Mesopotamia.
References monograph - Subtle Citation, Allusion and Translation in the Hebrew Bible by Z. Zevit. Explains intertexuality and what Hebrew Bible is doing. Not seen as plagiarism in the ancient world.
21:00
Enuma Elish, Babylonian creation myth Genesis 1 borrows from, is recited every year at the New Years festival. Exiled Israelite kings were in captivity in Babylonia. Genesis was written after the Exile.
Genesis demythicizes the Babylonian stories.
23:22
“(Well we don’t know which came first), is nonsense, we do know. The textual tradition for the flood story is much much earlier than the Biblical text. Israel is NOT EVEN A Nation”
No, this is more of personal interpretations
No all Old Testament PhD scholars know this.
A reading from Dr Joel Baden's Composition of the Pentateuch
NARRATIVE PROBLEMS
During the Reformation, when the challenging of authoritative claims, re- ligious and otherwise, was the order of the day, scholars began to insist on a close reading of the pentateuchal narrative on its own terms, as a history of Israel from the creation of the world until the death of Moses. Under these circumstances, it was not long before the literary problems of the text became undeniable.9 The hallmark of a unified composition, one created by a single author, is internal consistency: consistency of language and style, consistency of theme and thought, and, above all, consistency of story. Every narrative makes certain claims about the way events transpired—who, what, when, where, how, and why. When these elements are uniform throughout a text, there is no press- ing need to inquire as to its unity. In the Pentateuch, however, historical claims made in one passage are undermined or contradicted outright in another. The problems identified by the Reformation scholars are the same as those we strug- gle with today and can be classified in three major overlapping groups: contra- dictions, doublets, and discontinuities.
Contradictions in the pentateuchal narrative come in a variety of forms, from the smallest of details to the most important of historical claims. On the minor end are ostensibly simple disagreements about the names of people and places. Is Moses’s father-in-law named Reuel (Exod 2:18) or Jethro (Exod 3:1)? Is the mountain in the wilderness where Yahweh appeared to the people called Sinai (Exod 19:11) or Horeb (Exod 3:1; Deut 1:6)? Of somewhat more significance are disagreements about where, when, and even why an event took place. In Numbers 20:23–29, Aaron dies on Mount Hor; according to Deuteronomy 10:6, however, he dies in Moserah. In Numbers 3–4, after Moses has descended from the mountain and is receiving the laws, the Levites are assigned their cultic re- sponsibilities; but according to Deuteronomy 10:8, the Levites were set apart at a site in the wilderness called Jotbath.10 In Numbers 20:2–13, Moses is forbidden from crossing the Jordan because of his actions at the waters of Meribah, when he brought forth water from the rock; but then according to his own words in Deuteronomy 1:37–38, Moses was prohibited from entering the promised land not because of anything he did, but because of the sins of the people in the epi- sode of the spies. Major contradictions, with important historiographical and theological ramifications, are also present in the text. The premier example of these is the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2: in what order was the world cre- ated? was it originally watery or dry? were male and female created together, or was woman made from man’s rib? is man the culmination of creation, or the beginning? Other examples are equally problematic. For the cult: was the Tent of Meeting in the center of the Israelite camp (Num 2–3) and did Yahweh dwell there constantly (Exod 40:34–38), or was it situated well outside the camp (Exod 33:7), and does Yahweh descend to it only to speak with Moses (Exod 33:8–11)? For prophecy: could there be other prophets like Moses after his death (Deut 18:15), or not (Deut 34:10–12)? These contradictions, from minor to major, are difficult, and frequently impossible, to reconcile.
The second category of narrative inconsistency is doublets: stories that are told twice. In order to qualify as a literarily problematic repetition, two passages must not only tell a similar story, but do so in a way that renders them mutually exclusive: they must be events that could not possibly happen more than once. Thus one of the most often cited doublets in the Pentateuch, the patriarch pass- ing off his wife as his sister in a foreign land (Gen 12:10–20; 20; 26:6–11)—which is actually a triplet—does not count. As hard as it is to believe that Abraham would pull the same trick twice, and that Isaac would do the same a generation later, there is nothing in these stories that prohibits such a reading. The two stories about Abraham and Sarah are set in different regions (Egypt and Gerar), with different characters (Pharaoh and Abimelech), while the story about Isaac and Rebekah, although set in Gerar with Abimelech, obviously features differ- ent protagonists at a different time. On the grounds of narrative alone, all three stories could well belong to a single author.
There are truly problematic doublets, however. The city of Luz is renamed Bethel by Jacob in Genesis 28:19, as he is on his way from his father’s house to stay with his uncle Laban. The city of Luz is again renamed Bethel by Jacob in Genesis 35:15, on his way from his uncle Laban’s house to rejoin his father in Canaan. (Not to mention that Abraham had already built an altar at Bethel, already not called Luz, in Gen 12:8.) Similarly, the site of Beersheba is given its name on the basis of the oath sworn (nišba ̄ ‘) between Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis 21:31. It is named again by Isaac in Genesis 26:33, on the basis of the oath sworn between him and Abimelech. Jacob’s own name is changed to Israel when he wrestles with the divine being in Genesis 32:29. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel again by God at Bethel in Genesis 35:10. These doublets are mutually exclusive: in each case, the naming or renaming is recounted as if it is happening for the first and only time.
More striking are the narratives relating the thirst of the Israelites in the wil- derness. In Exodus 17:1–7, just after they have crossed the sea and before they arrive at the mountain in the wilderness, the people complain that they have no water to drink; Yahweh responds by telling Moses to strike a rock, from which water will come forth. Moses strikes the rock, the water comes forth, and the place is named Massah and Meribah. In Numbers 20:2–13, well after the Isra- elites have left the mountain, in the midst of their wilderness wandering, the people complain that they have no water to drink; Yahweh responds by telling Moses to speak to a rock, from which water will come forth. Moses strikes the rock, the water comes forth, and the place is named “the waters of Meribah.” In these stories not only is the same name given to two different places, and for the same reason, but the stories themselves are remarkably similar.
In fact, all of these doublets, and others not discussed here, overlap with the previous group, that is, narrative contradictions. For the double telling of a single event entails two competing historical claims about, at the very least, when that event happened. As we have seen, not only when, but also the char- acteristics of where, who, how, and why may vary from passage to passage, even when the central “what” remains the same.
Contradictions and doublets can be found both across pentateuchal texts, as described above, and within individual pericopes; that is, the same problems exist on both the macro level and the micro level. The standard example of this is the beginning of the flood story, in Genesis 6:17–7:5. In 6:17–22, God tells Noah that he is going to bring a flood and instructs him to bring into the ark two of each kind of animal; we are then told that “Noah did so; just as God had commanded him, so he did” (v. 22). In 7:1–5, Yahweh tells Noah that he is go- ing to bring a flood and instructs him to bring into the ark two of each unclean animal and seven pairs of every clean animal; we are then told that “Noah did just as Yahweh commanded him” (v. 5). The story thus presents the same events happening twice—God’s announcement of the flood, instructions about the animals, and the fulfillment of those instructions by Noah—which marks it as a doublet. The story also tells us that on the one hand, Noah is to bring two of every animal (and he does so), and on the other, that he is to bring two of every unclean and seven of every clean animal (and he does so)—a glaring contradiction.
Similarly, in Numbers 14, after the episode of the spies, Yahweh tells Moses that the first generation of the Exodus will die before reaching the promised land, all except for Caleb (Num 14:21–24). Immediately thereafter, he speaks again and says almost the same thing: the first generation of the Exodus will die before reaching the promised land, all except for Caleb and Joshua (vv. 29–35). Virtually the same message is delivered twice in a row—it is a doublet—but there is a significant distinction in the content, a disparity in precisely who is to survive—and it therefore also entails a contradiction.
The third category of narrative problems may be called discontinuities. In these cases, the natural course of events of a story is interrupted by what appears to be an unrelated narrative. In Exodus 24:1–2, Yahweh commands Moses to go up the mountain with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the Israelite elders. They do so—but not until 24:9. In between, in vv. 3–8, Moses performs a cov- enant ceremony with the people on the basis of the laws in Exodus 20:19–23:33 that Yahweh gave to Moses on the mountain—the same mountain that Moses is told to go up in 24:1 before he has even come back down (in v. 3). In vv. 9–11, Moses and the others go up the mountain, as instructed in vv. 1–2; in v. 12, however, Moses is again instructed to ascend the mountain, even though he is already there.
