Marduk is the Babylonian storm-god — originally a minor city deity, elevated to supreme god of Babylon during the late second millennium BCE as the city itself rose to political dominance. He is most famous as the volunteer-warrior of the Enuma Elish: when the older gods are paralyzed with fear before Tiamat, Marduk steps forward to fight her, but only on the condition that he be made king of all the gods. He slays her in single combat, splits her body to form heaven and earth, and creates humanity from the blood of her consort Kingu. The fifty-name hymn that closes the epic (Tablet VII) is an extended celebration of his supremacy — his ascendancy in the text mirroring Babylon's ascendancy in the world.
Babylonian chaos-goddess of the salt waters — the antagonist Marduk slays in the Enuma Elish.
The Babylonian creation epic in which Marduk slays Tiamat and forms the cosmos from her body.
The broader ancient Near Eastern combat motif Marduk vs. Tiamat is the paradigm case of.
Reading Genesis 1 slowly, with the Babylonian background — Marduk and Tiamat — intact.