Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

by John H. Walton

The birth of the sun god is coterminous with the origin of the sun (neither functions/exists without the other), thus explaining the oft-mentioned correspondence between theogony and cosmogony. Though the god is the controlling party in the functioning partnership, the god has no existence separate from, outside, or above the sun. The sun is the manifestation of the god and the expression of the god’s attributes. The god is the power behind the sun. Because of this, we might also conclude that our categories of cosmogony (origins of the cosmos) and cosmology (operations of the cosmos) are artificially distinguished with regard to the ancient world (similarly theogony and theology), where origins are inseparable from operations.