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bookc. 1100 BCE

Enuma Elish

Disciplines:
mythology
religion/ancient near eastern religion
mythology/cosmogony

Summary

Ancient Babylonian creation myth in which the god Marduk slays the chaos dragon Tiamat and creates the world from her body — the archetypal mythological narrative of cosmos emerging from chaos that Peterson reads as a map of the human psychic condition.

Core Contribution

Provides the oldest textual source for the mythological pattern Peterson identifies as fundamental: the hero-god who confronts primordial chaos, defeats it, and creates ordered meaning from the encounter — the deep narrative structure he claims underlies all religious myth.

Historical Influences

No recorded historical influences.

Intellectual Lineage

Ancient Mesopotamian MythologyAncient Near Eastern Cosmogony

Allied Works

Epic of Gilgamesh The TheogonyBook of Genesis

Contemporaries & Peers

Epic of Gilgamesh Book of Genesis

Minds Influenced

Mircea Eliade Jordan B. Peterson

Intellectual Posterity

Chaos-Order myth archetypeTiamat as chaos archetypeMarduk as hero archetype

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