The Irony of Creation
In the Enuma Elish, the world is created essentially on accident, when the two parent gods, Abzu and Tiamat, accidentally conceive beings with their own wills. Eventually, it is the accidental creation of Marduk which leads to the creation of the world, although it is not clear whether Marduk intentionally created the world, or whether it was just an elemental demonstration of his heavenly force. In either case, the world exists because somehow, chaos gave birth to life, which is as interesting to the Sumerians as it is to modern biologists.
The Irony of the Elements
In nature, fire is put out by water, but in the Enuma Elish, the world is created when fire destroys the waters of the goddess Tiamat. This irony is valuable, because it encapsulates the irony of creation, that order could be born from disorder.
The Irony of Tiamat's Will
It was Tiamat who decided that Abzu should fail in killing the other gods, so she warned Ea of the impending attack. But then, when Abzu fell, she held the other gods in contempt and created an army to fight against them. This irony could be seen as a depiction of the capriciousness of the gods, or perhaps there is a more complex issue relating to Tiamat's relationship to the heavenly realm. Maybe she was devising a way to get closer to the throne.
The Irony of the Depiction of the Gods
In the Enuma Elish, the gods are familial. Some are created, some are married, some serve certain roles, like Mummu who served as an advisor to the throne. This is ironic because the gods are supposed to be above all earthly systems by definition, but they are subject to human types of emotion. This is less ironic if you are an ancient Sumerian who believes that our being is an extension of the types of gods who created us, but as it stands, the way the gods interact is ironic, because they are sometimes petty, sometimes fickle, and sometimes overly emotional. (This is what makes the texts 'epic and dramatic,' but the point stands).
The Irony of Reality
For the ancient Sumerians, the Enuma Elish does not explain where matter came from or why the gods exist. It merely assumes that matter has always existed. So, to call this text a 'Creation myth,' although technically correct, is ironic, because the text doesn't explain how anything was actually created, but rather, how creation became organized. To be fair, this is the common form for that region of the world at that time, and this irony also exists in the Hebrew account, where God's creation of the earth presupposes that there are waters that have always existed.
