Citizendia

Fertile Crescent
myth series
Mark of the Palm
Mesopotamian
Levantine
Arabian
Mesopotamia
Primordial beings
7 gods who decree
The great gods
Demigods & heroes
Spirits & monsters
Tales from Babylon 

Enûma Eliš
Atra-Hasis
Marduk & Sarpanit
Nabu, Nintu
Agasaya, Bel
Qingu

The Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian or Mesopotamian creation epic. Ancient Semitic religion spans the Polytheistic religions of the Semitic speaking peoples of the Ancient Near East. The word mythology (from the Greek grc μυθολογία mythología, meaning "a story-telling a legendary lore" Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian Akkadian Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris In the Levantine pantheon the Elohim are the sons of El the ancient of days (olam assembled on the divine holy place Mount Zephon ( Jebel This is a sub-article to Pre-Islamic Arabia Arabian mythology comprises the ancient Pre-Islamic beliefs of the Arabs Prior to the Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding In Sumerian mythology and later for Assyrians and Babylonians Anu (also An; (from Sumerian *An = sky heaven was a sky-god The Anunna are the fifty great gods of Sumerian mythology. Some of them are associated with specific cities while others bear a strong resemblance to the functions of patron The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Ancient Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literary fiction. In Sumerian mythology, the utukku were a type of Spirit or Demon that could be either benevolent or evil Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, Heroes and Mythological creatures While these stories The 18th century BCE Akkadian Atra-Hasis epic, named after its human hero Marduk ( Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMARUTU 𒀫 𒌓 "solar calf" perhaps from MERI In Babylonian mythology, Sarpanit (alternately Zarpanit, Zarpandit, Zerpanitum, Zerbanitu, or Zirbanit) is a Nabu is the Babylonian god of Wisdom and Writing, worshipped by Babylonians as the son of Marduk and his consort Sarpanitum, Mami is a Goddess in the Babylonian epic Atra-Hasis and in other creation legends Agasaya, "The Shrieker" was a Semitic war goddess who was merged into Ishtar in her identity as warrior of the sky Bel (beɪl from Akkadian bēlu) signifying "lord" or "master" is a Title rather than a genuine name applied to various gods Kingu, also spelled Qingu meaning unskilled laborer was a god in Babylonian mythology and — after the murder of his father — the consort of the goddess Tiamat Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, Heroes and Mythological creatures While these stories Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding It was first discovered by modern scholars (in fragmentary form) in the ruined library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), recovered by Henry Layard in 1849 and published by George Smith in 1876. Ashurbanipal ( Akkadian: Aššur-bāni-apli, " Ashur has made a son" or "Ashur created an heir" (b Nineveh ( Akkadian: Ninua; Aramaic: ܢܝܢܘܐ Hebrew נינוה Nīnewē; Arabic نينوى Naīnuwa) For the village in Azerbaijan see Mosul Azerbaijan. Mosul (الموصل Al Mūṣul, Kurdish: Mosul/Ninawa, Musul For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. The Right Honourable Sir Austen Henry Layard (ˈɔːstɪn ˈhɛnriː lɛəd 5 March, 1817 – 5 July, 1894) was a [1]

The Enuma Elish has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Akkadian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of text. The majority of Tablet V has never been recovered, but aside from this lacuna the text is almost complete. A duplicate copy of Tablet V has been found in Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina, located near the modern town of Şanlıurfa in Turkey. The ancient temple-complex perhaps of Huzirina, now represented by the Tell of Sultantepe, is a Late Assyrian archeological site at the edge of the The ancient temple-complex perhaps of Huzirina, now represented by the Tell of Sultantepe, is a Late Assyrian archeological site at the edge of the Şanlıurfa (often simply known as Urfa in daily language formerly cited as Edessa or in Kurdish; Riha or Urhāy Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches

This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the existence of mankind for the service of the gods. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Marduk ( Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMARUTU 𒀫 𒌓 "solar calf" perhaps from MERI Dingir is the Sumerian for " Deity " It is written as an Ideogram in the Cuneiform script (Borger 2003 nr Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony, but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective Babylon was a City-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq

The Enûma Elish has existed in various versions and copies from Babylonia as well as from Assyria. The version from Ashurbanipal's library dates to the 7th century BC. The story itself probably dates to the 18th century BC, the time when the god Marduk seemed to have a prominent status. Some scholars give it a later date (14th to 12th centuries BC. )

Contents

Summary

The title, meaning "when on high" is the incipit. The incipit of a text such as a Poem, Song, or Book, is its first few words or opening line The first tablet begins:

e-nu-ma e-liš la na-bu-ú šá-ma-mu
šap-lish am-ma-tum šu-ma la zak-rat
ZU. AB-ma reš-tu-ú za-ru-šu-un
mu-um-mu ti-amat mu-al-li-da-at gim-ri-šú-un
A. MEŠ-šú-nu iš-te-niš i-ḫi-qu-ú-šú-un
gi-pa-ra la ki-is-su-ru su-sa-a la she-'u-ú
e-nu-ma DINGIR. DINGIR la šu-pu-u ma-na-ma
When on high heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being

The epic names two primeval gods: Apsu, the fresh water, and Tiamat, the salt water. In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is the sea personified as a Goddess, and a monstrous embodiment of Primordial chaos. Several other gods are created (Ea and his brothers) who reside in Tiamat's vast body. They make so much noise that it annoys Tiamat and Apsu greatly. Apsu wishes to kill the young gods, but Tiamat disagrees. The vizier, Mummu, agrees with Apsu's plan to destroy them. Tiamat, to stop this from occurring, tells Ea (Nudimmud), at the time the most powerful of the gods, who, using magic, puts Apsu into a coma and kills him, and shuts Mummu out. Enki ( Sumerian: dENKI(G 𒂗𒆠 was a Deity in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Babylonian mythology Ea then becomes the chief god, and along with his consort Damkina, has a son, Marduk, greater still than himself. Marduk ( Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMARUTU 𒀫 𒌓 "solar calf" perhaps from MERI Marduk is given wind to play with and he uses it to make dust storms and tornadoes. This disrupts Tiamat's great body and causes the gods still residing inside her to be unable to sleep.

They persuade Tiamat to take revenge for the death of her husband. Her power grows, and some of the gods join her. She creates 11 monsters to help her win the battle and elevates Kingu, her new husband, to "supreme dominion. Kingu, also spelled Qingu meaning unskilled laborer was a god in Babylonian mythology and — after the murder of his father — the consort of the goddess Tiamat " A lengthy description of the other gods' inability to deal with the threat follows. Ultimately, Marduk is selected as their champion against Tiamat, and becomes very powerful. He defeats and kills Tiamat, and forms the world from her corpse. The subsequent hundred lines or so constitute the lost section of Tablet V.

The gods who sided with Tiamat are initially forced to labor in the service of the other gods. They are freed from their servitude when Marduk decides to slay Kingu and create mankind from his blood. Babylon is established as the residence of the chief gods. Finally, the gods confer kingship on Marduk, hailing him with fifty names. Most noteworthy is Marduk's symbolic elevation over Enlil, who was seen by earlier Mesopotamian civilizations as the king of the gods. Enlil ( EN = Lord + LIL = Loft "Lord of the Open" or "Lord of the Wind" was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in ancient Sumerian

Relationship with the Tanakh

While the Hebrew bible is not based directly on the Enuma Elish, "the dependence of at least some biblical creation texts on a common ancient Near Eastern 'creation-by-combat' myth are not gainsayable. "[2]

The ancient Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat circular disc surrounded by a saltwater sea. The habitable earth was a single giant continent inside this sea, and floated on a second sea, the freshwater apsu, which supplied the water in springs, wells and rivers and was connected with the saltwater sea. The sky was a solid disk above the earth, curved to touch the earth at its rim, with the heavens of the gods above. So far as can be deduced from clues in the bible, the ancient Hebrew geography was identical with that of the Babylonians: a flat circular earth floating above a freshwater sea, surrounded by a saltwater sea, with a solid sky-dome (raqia, the "firmament") above. It is the creation of this world which Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 describe. [3][4]

Comparisons between the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts are often obscured by English translations, which impose on the Hebrew the Christian doctrines of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and of the Trinity. Thus the opening of Genesis 1 is traditionally rendered: "In the beginning God created both Heaven and Earth. . . ", whereas the Hebrew makes it clear that Genesis 1:1-3 is describing the state of chaos immediately prior to God's creation:[5]

"In the beginning of God's creating the skies and the earth, when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God's spirit was hovering on the face of the water, God said, 'Let there be light!"[6]

In both Enuma Elish and Genesis, creation is an act of divine speech - the Enuma Elish describes pre-creation as a time "when above, the heavens had not been named, and below the earth had not been called by name", while in Genesis each act of divine creation is introduced with the formula: "And God said, let there be. . . ". The sequence of creation is identical: light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, and man. In both Enuma Elish and Genesis the primordial world is formless and empty (the tohu wa bohu of Genesis 1:2), the only existing thing the watery abyss which exists prior to creation (Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, tehom, the "deep", a linguistic cognate of tiamat, in Genesis 1:2). In both, the firmament, conceived as a solid inverted bowl, is created in the midst of the primeval waters to separate the heavens from the earth (Genesis 1:6–7, Enuma Elish 4:137–40). Day and night precede the creation of the luminous bodies (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, and 14ff. ; Enuma Elish 1:38), whose function is to yield light and regulate time (Gen. 1:14; Enuma Elish 5:12–13). In Enuma Elish, the gods consult before creating man (Enuma Elish 6:4), while Genesis has: "Let us make man in our own image. . . " (Genesis 1:26) – and in both, the creation of man is followed by divine rest. "Thus, it appears that the so-called Priestly Source account echoes this earlier Mesopotamian story of creation. The Priestly Source (P is posited as the most recent of the four chief sources of the Torah, as postulated by the long-established "standard" Wellhausen (or Graf-Wellhausen "

Notes

  1. ^ Smith's "The Chaldean Account of Genesis" (London, 1876).
  2. ^ Professor Chris Heard, "Higgaion"
  3. ^ Seeley The Geographical Meaning of "Ëarth" and "Seas" in Genesis 1:10, Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997), p.246
  4. ^ Paul H. Seely, The Firmament and the Water Above, Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991)
  5. ^ Harry Orlinsky, Notes on the New JPS Translation of the Torah: Genesis 1:1-3 (1969), at voiceofiyov.blogspot.com
  6. ^ Richard Elliot Friedman, "The Bible With Sources Revealed", Harper, 2003. Richard Elliott Friedman is a biblical scholar and the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. See also the New JPS Bible, 1999, in which Harry Orlinsky replaces Friedman's "spirit" with what he argues is the more contextually accurate "wind".

Editions and translations

Further reading

General

Enuma Elish

Online resources

See also

External links

Theogony ( Greek: Θεογονία theogonia = the birth of God(s is a Poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies The Religions of the Ancient Near East were mostly Polytheistic, with some early examples of emerging Henotheism ( Atenism, early Dingir is the Sumerian for " Deity " It is written as an Ideogram in the Cuneiform script (Borger 2003 nr A creation myth is a supernatural mytho-[[religion religious]] story or explanation that describes the beginnings of humanity, Earth, life, and
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic