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If this explanation of the facts is right, then we can expect that Yahweh's victory at the sea will be followed in P's narrative, as in Enuma Elish, by an account of the construction of Yahweh's holy dwelling-and that is precisely what we have in Exodus. But the comparative repercussions of P's tabernacle narrative go well beyond this. Although the narrative location of P's tabernacle account parallels very closely the narrative structure of Enuma Elish, the conceptual details of that tabernacle plan point in the direction of other Mesopotamian exemplars. One implication is that P's mimetic project depended not on a single myth but on a wider variety of Mesopotamian sources tiffany engagement rings on sale traditions.

The second half of P's Exodus is composed of ritual prescriptions and descriptions relating to the construction of the tabernacle and its furnishings. This narrative account of the tabernacle's creation is conceptually similar to the logos creation of the Tiffany Money Clips sale in Ps seven-day creation week, since here as well God speaks seven words of prescription to Moses that,42 when carried out in seven distinct acts,43 result in a place for God to dwell, just as the creation of the cosmos provided a home for humanity.44 As Joseph Blenkinsopp has expressed it, "What P seems to have done is emphasize the building of the sanctuary... as the climax of creation."45 Although these septenary structures surely reflect the uniqueness of P, the patterns in his temple narrative are perhaps not Israelite only. As I have pointed out already, the Priestly link between creation and the tabernacle parallels very closely the narrative links in Enuma Elish, a text that P seems to have known and in which Marduk's creation was followed immediately by the construction of his temple. Further evidence for foreign influence on P's tabernacle narrative has been adduced by Victor Hurowitz, who has demonstrated convincingly that P's account follows a five-step pattern that appears in many Near Eastern temple construction narratives.46 Taken together, this evidence generally supports my thesis that P intended the tabernacle account to mimic the contours of a Mesopotamian pattern-and there is yet more evidence to consider.

According to Mesopotamian tradition, divine cult Tiffany Necklaces sale could be ritually fashioned only if one possessed their divinely revealed plans. This caused a great deal of trouble when the Sutians destroyed the cultic image of Sham ash during the eleventh century.47 For two hundred years afterwards, an image of a sun-disk was used in lieu of the statue. Fortunately, during the ninth-century reign of Nabu-apaliddina of Babylon, priests of Shamash discovered a copy of the long-lost divine image along the bank of the Euphrates. Here we should probably place "discovered" in quotation marks, as it is very likely that the providential find was a pious fraud, proffered by priests who longed to restore the cultic image of their god.48 At any rate, it is clear enough that ancient Mesopotamians ostensibly required divinely revealed blueprints for the preparation of cultic images.

Mesopotamian scholars were interested not only in the divine statue but also in the accoutrements of the temple and its cult, sacred features that they explored in a genre that modern scholars call topography.49 The bulk of the texts are not geographical exercises so much as theological and cosmological explorations of various cult shrines. Temples are listed along with their furnishings and features, and these are in turn provided Tiffany Pendants sale theological interpretations. Some of the topographies are metrological, providing detailed measurements of temples and dieir floor plans. One such text, from the Neo-Assyrian period, carefully lays out the dimensions of Marduk's temple in Babylon (Esagil), beginning with a north-south cross section, followed by an east-west cross section and ending with the temple's overall dimensions and circumference.50 Why were these detailed metrics so important? The ancients believed that sacred dwellings were suitable for the gods only if their designs-like the designs of their cult statues-were divinely revealed. For this reason, when Esarhaddon restored Esagil (Marduk's temple in Babylon), he claims to have consulted written blueprints that preserved its ancient design.51 Says Esarhaddon: "According to the word of the plans I laid its foundation platform"... "I laid its foundation platform directly on top of its ancient footings, according to its original plan: I did not Tiffany Rings sale short by one cubit, nor did I overshoot by half a cubit."52 As we can see, architectural details that might appear mundane and pedantic to us could be theologically significant facts for the Mesopotamians.