제사장 문서에 ‘혼돈과의 전쟁’ 모티프가 있는가? — 창세기 1:2; 8:1; 출애굽기 14:21을 중심으로 —

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This study argues that it is hard to read the Combat Myth in the creation, the flood, and the Re(e)d Sea stories in the Priestly source (especially, Gen 1:2; 8:1; Exo 14:21). Yahweh is never particularly a storm-god in the Priestly source. The waters are never demonized and are not even personified. The Priestly author does not draw an analogy between Yahweh and Marduk in Enuma Elish or Baal in the Baal Cycle who are both warrior-like deities. Many previous studies regarded the differences in the Priestly narrative from Mesopotamian and Canaanite myths, especially the ones in Enuma Elish and the Baal Cycle, as the former’s response to the latter. Yet there is no clear evidence that the allegedly reinterpreted or revised motif of the ancient Near Eastern literature is present in the Priestly source, nor that the Priestly source responds to the foreign religions, institutions, or literature even if the motif is really present. It is unfair to read an entire mythic episode or plot into the Priestly text because of any tenuous correspondence, as if the biblical author could not compose a narrative without making use of an existing mythical structure. Some old traditional motifs could be there and knowing them may help decode incomprehensible literary conventions that now escape us. But the mythological motifs, if any, were developed and transformed within the larger context of the Priestly style and plot. The Priestly story cannot be defined merely as a historicized myth. The Priestly historical narrative is a different genre, whose complexity and uniqueness deserve an independent analysis from the alleged mythical paradigm.