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This last point is confirmed in Book 1 of the Babyloniaca, where Berossos establishes his credentials as a Chaldaean sage and conveyor of barbarian wisdom. As I have argued elsewhere, Berossos turns his account of Babylonian cosmogony in Babyloniaca Book 1 into a piece of Greek philosophical speculation (Haubold 2013a: 148–153, 2013b). In his paraphrase, the standard Babylonian creation account reads strikingly like contemporary Greek physics, with Tiamat playing the part of passive and malleable matter that is pervaded and shaped by a creator god. In order to develop this reading of his source text, Berossos makes use of allegory as a popular tool in Greek philosophy.

Almost equally telling for Berossos’s self-portrayal as a barbarian sage is his account of human creation. The relevant passage of the Babyloniaca has suffered corruption, but we can say with some confidence that here too Berossos changed the emphasis of his source text. This is what the Epic of Creation had to say (VI.7–8 (Lambert)):