Apsu

The name does not actually appear in the Tanach, but is included here because of the description of the pre-Creational state of the universe in Genesis 1:2. This reflects the portrait of Apsu the Begetter (sometimes written as Absu or Abzu) found in Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Subarian and later Persian myths, all of which are known to have influenced the Yisra-Eli; and clearly this is so with Apsu, for the Yehudit word Ephes (אֶפֶס) means "nothing, nothingness, zero", and specifically in the sense of the nothingness that preceded original Creation. The word is not used as such in the Genesis Creation story, but that of his consort Tiamat is; she appears there as Tohu, the pre-Creational void. Apsu is also "the House in the depths of the Abyss at the city of Eridu in Sumer", where the Sumerian god Enki, "Lord-Earth", sits on his throne (click here for a fuller account of this). The English word "abyss" comes from his name.

At what stage did it enter Yehudit and thereby influence the telling of the Yisra-Eli Creation myth? This is unknowable, but probably very early, most likely a Yehuditisation of the Sumerian form of the name, which was ABZU: the imaginary sweet-water abyss from which Enki emerged. Apsu's coition with Tiamat, the salty waters of the oceans, was the source of creation in Babylonian mythology, all life, including all gods, being born from it. This is reflected in the marriage of Tehom (a variant of Tiamat) with the waters of Genesis 1:2. The name is also significant in the Marduk and Ishtar version of Creation, which became, in a reduced form, the Yisra-Eli Purim tale of Mordechai and Esther.

In the Mesopotamian myths, Apsu was killed by his son, Ea, which provoked the war of the gods with Tiamat. The story of Absu is told in the "Enuma Elish", though he is depicted there as rather more ethereal than physical.

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