“Of the relation between the Israelitish story, whether in its older or in its more recent form, and Egyptian myths not much need here be said. In very early and probably pre - Israelitish times Egypt may have had considerable religious influence on the land of Canaan or Palestine, and it would be easy to indicate points of affinity between the Egyptian cosmogony and that in Genesis. The conception of the primeval watery envelope of all things, also that of creation by a word, also the story of the conflict between Re or Ra the sun god and the gigantic dragon Apepi or Apopi, remind us forcibly of the Babylonian and in a wide sense of the Hebrew cosmogony. But while fully admitting the combination of influences to which the Israelites were exposed, I do not think that the influence of Egypt upon the Israelites can be reckoned as at all comparable to that of Babylonia.”

— Thomas Cheyne (1907), Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel [1]