The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden
(The Ancient Near Eastern Motifs behind)
Please click here for _my map_ showing the location of the Garden of Eden based on my research.
Please click here for this website's most important article: Why the Bible Cannot be the Word of God.
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07 July 2001;
Revisions through 14 May 2008
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I understand that Genesis is _denying or refuting_ the Mesopotamian myths' explanation of how and why man came to made, what his purpose on earth is, and why his demise was sought in a flood. This "_denial_" is for me accomplished by the Hebrews having taken motifs and concepts from a variety of contradicting myths giving them "new twists" by changing the names of the characters, the locations, and sequences of events. It is my perception that the Hebrews are _not_ "copying" the Mesopotamian myths, they are RECASTING certain motifs and concepts within them inorder to REFUTE and DENY THEM, hence the "reason why" there are _no_ individuals called Adam, Eve, the Serpent, Yahweh, Noah, Shem, Japheth and Ham appearing in _any_ of the Mesopotamian pre-biblical myths. Why are the Hebrews doing this? Apparently they objected to the Mesopotamian portrayal of man being ruthlessly exploited by his creators. So, instead of man being portrayed as a "victim" of the gods, they _inverted_ the storyline: it is a loving caring, merciful God who is the "victim" of a callous, rebellious, undeserving mankind!
Please click here for my article identifying Eve as being a recast of Shamhat the Harlot-Priestess of Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Please click here for my article identifying the pre-biblical Mesopotamian protagonists which were recast by the Hebrews into the Garden of Eden's Serpent.
Please click here for my article identifying the pre-biblical Mesopotamian protagonists which were recast by the Hebrews into Eden's Adam, Eve and Yahweh-Elohim.
Please click here for my article on the pre-biblical protagonists which were recast by the Hebrews into the Cherubim that guard the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.
Please click here for my article on Why the Bible Cannot Be The Word of God (The Holy Spirit _Contradicts_Itself).
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Before we can even begin to discuss Eden's Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as well as the Tree of Life it is absolutely critical to understand what is going on here behind Genesis' presentation regarding the origins of primeval man. It is my understanding that the Hebrews are _refuting, challenging, and denying_ the Mesopotamian notions regarding Who, What Why, When, Where and How primeval man came to be created and what his purpose in life is. The Hebrews are apparently objecting to these myths, recasting them via a series of inversions and reversals.
Mankind's acqusition of knowledge brought with it great grief according to Genesis and the author of Ecclesiastes appears to echo this motif:
Ecclesiastes 1:18 KJV
"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."
CONTRA this notion the Mesopotamians understood that man's acqusition of knowledge from the gods was a GIFT from the gods _not_ a CURSE, for this knowledge IMPROVES man's life, in that he began life as a beast wandering naked the desolate edin/eden of ancient Sumer with wild animals for companions. It is when man is taken from the beasts of edin/eden and clothed by the gods his life improves as the gods' servant, caring for their city-gardens in the midst of the edin/eden. In the cities man acquires from the gods godly knowledge: the rudiments of civilization and all its blessings (law codes, writing, animal husbandry, farming, etc.). In other words in the beginning "civilization" was a creation of the gods improving their way of life, and later they present this knowledge to man so that he may better serve them. That is to say man comes to live like a god instead of a wild beast when he comes to live in cities with the gods. The Hebrews are apparently _refuting_ the Mesopotamian beliefs regarding man's acquistion of godly knowledge being a BLESSING instead of being a CURSE.
Some of the themes or motifs found in the Book of Genesis regarding the Garden of Eden are to be found in the Mesopotamian myths regarding primeval man, but in a somewhat different format, the 'different format' being a series of "reversals" or "inversions" as noted by Professor Campbell.
The late Professor Campbell (1904-1987) in 1964 noted that the Mesopotamian myths understood man was created to till the fields of the gods which he equates with Adam being created to care for God's garden:
"...one of the chief characteristics of Levantine mythology here represented is that of man created to be God's slave or servant. In a late Sumerian myth retold in Oriental Mythology it is declared that men were created to relieve the gods of the onerous task of tilling their fields. Men were to do that work for them and provide them with food through sacrifice. Marduk, too, created man to serve the gods. And here we have man created to keep a garden." (p. 103. "Gods and Heroes of the Levant." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. New York. Arkana. Viking Penguin. 1964, reprinted 1991)
Campbell also very astutely and penetratingly noted that the Hebrews in the book of Genesis appear to have employed at times "inversions" or "reversals" which "turn about" Mesopotamian beliefs by 180 degrees (emphasis mine):
"No one familiar with the mythologies of the primitive, ancient, and Oriental worlds can turn to the Bible without recognizing COUNTERPARTS on every page, TRANSFORMED, however, TO RENDER AN ARGUMENT CONTRARY TO THE OLDER FAITHS.
(p. 9. "The Serpent's Bride." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Arkana. New York. Viking Penguin Books. 1964, 1991 reprint)
"The ultimate source of the biblical Eden, therefore, CANNOT have been A MYTHOLOGY OF THE DESERT -that is to say, a primitive Hebrew myth- but was the old PLANTING MYTHOLOGY of the peoples of the soil. HOWEVER, IN THE BIBLICAL RETELLING, ITS WHOLE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN TURNED, SO TO SAY, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES...One milllennium later, the patriarchal DESERT NOMADS arrived, and all judgements WERE REVERSED in heaven, as on earth."
(pp.103, 105-106. "Gods and Heroes of the Levant." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Arkana. A Division of Penguin Books. 1964. 1991 reprint)
Campbell on the Hebrews "inverting" of earlier myths (Emphasis mine):
"The first point that emerges from this contrast, and will be demonstrated further in numerous mythic scenes to come, is that in the context of the patriarchy of the Iron Age Hebrews of the first millennium B.C., THE MYTHOLOGY ADOPTED FROM THE EARLIER NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATIONS of the lands they occupied and for a time ruled BECAME INVERTED, TO RENDER AN ARGUMENT JUST THE OPPOSITE TO THAT OF ITS ORIGIN."
(p. 17. "The Serpent's Bride." Joseph Campbell. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. New York. Arkana & Viking Penguin. 1964. Reprinted 1991)
The late (1943-2006) Professor Tikva Frymer-Kensky understood that Israel's religion developed from and in refutation of
Mesopotamian notions via counterpoints. Her notion of some Hebrew concepts being "counterpoints" to Mesopotamian notions seems to parallel Campbell's observation that the Hebrews are "countering" Mesopotamian concepts with inversions and reversals:
"Many Israelite ideas about justice, society, and even religion developed from and in counterpoint to Mesopotamian ideas."
(p. 83. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Ballantine Books. 1993. First Edition by Freepress 1992)
The Mesopotamians had no account of a primal man and woman "falling from a state of innocence" via an illegal acquisition of knowledge by eating of a forbidden fruit. There was _no_ "fall from innocence" because man was made in the image of the gods some of whom are portrayed as slaying each other in various conflicts, murdering their fathers and mothers, engaging in incest with their children, being unfaithful to their spouses by having extramarital sex with others, and even propositioning humans for illicit sex too, as well as being sponsors or patrons of cultic acts of prostitution with male and female prostitutes in temples. In other words all the nefarious activities of humankind were, _before man's creation_ , engaged in by the gods, so there could be _no_ "fall from innocence" for primal man and woman for man cannot be "better" than his _immoral_creators_ in whose image he was made! That is to say in Mesopotamian myth man's immorality is because he was made in the image of immoral gods and goddesses. For all the sordid details please click here.
Genesis opens with the story of God's having planted a garden in the East in a place called Eden. He evidently places two trees within this garden, one is "the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", the other is "the Tree of Life". God then stations the Cherubim to deny access to the latter tree by man. This brief article, employing a Secular Humanist and Anthropological point of view, will explore the Ancient Near Eastern motifs and concepts possibly lying behind Genesis' portrayal of the events.
I understand that the Hebrews are recasting several motifs and concepts found in a number of Mesopotamian myths regarding the creation of man, how he came to realize his god had denied him the knowledge it is wrong to be naked and how he lost out on a chance to obtain immortality.
Professor Batto of DePauw University (1992) on Genesis' author recasting motifs from the Atrahasis Epic which explained why man was created: to care for the gods' gardens:
"It is important to notice that Yahweh was the original gardener. It was he who "planted" the garden in Eden and made to grow there..."the tree of life" and "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (2:8-9)...Humankind, it seems, was created to work this garden for the deity: "Yahweh God took the human and placed him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to care for it" (2:15). Surely we are here picking up an echo of Atrahasis. In that myth humans were created as substitute laborers for lesser gods, who had revolted from performing this arduous chore for the benefit of the high gods. There is, of course, no revolt of lesser gods here...humankind was originally created to relieve the deity of the burden of cultivating his own plantation or "garden"...As in Atrahasis, the function of humankind was divine service, a service that included providing provisions for the deity."
(pp. 50-51. Bernard F. Batto. Slaying the Dragon, Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1992)
Ziolkowski (Professor Emeritus Princeton University) on the Hebrews recasting of earlier motifs associated with the Epic of Gilgamesh and Adapa and the Southwind myth:
"...biblical scholars have long been aware that the Genesis account is based on cosmological legends and mythological elements known to various peoples of the ancient Near East—in particular the image of a garden of the gods containing trees with mysterious powers. The anthropomorphic conception of a god strolling in his garden, as alien to the Hebrew tradition as is the walking and talking serpent, probably also came from another source. Notably, most of the characteristic motifs of the Genesis account are to be found, albeit in wholly different configurations, in the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh." (p.13. "Near Eastern Sources." (p. 13. Theodore Ziolkowski. The Sin of Knowledge. Princeton University Press. 2000)
"...the harlot tells him, in words anticipating the biblical serpent’s, “Thou art wise, Enkidu, art become like a god!” Clothing him with half of her garment, she leads him to Uruk..." (p.14. Ziolkowski)
"...the epic contains virtually all the elements of the biblical account of the Creation, Temptation, and Fall..."
(p.15. Ziolkowski)
"Like Adam, Enkidu is created by a deity from the clay of the earth and spends his early days in naked innocence among the beasts of the field. Then, succumbing to a woman’s temptation, he loses his innocence and acquires godlike knowledge. The motifs of a plant of life and the serpent that tricks Adam and Eve out of immortality occur after Enkidu’s death in connection with Gilgamesh, who obtains the plant but is prevented from eating of it. Several of these common Mesopotamian elements occur also in the later (fourteenth-century B.C.E.) Akkadian tale of Adapa, who is created by the culture-god Ea as “the model of men,” and to whom is given wisdom but not eternal life." (p.16. Ziolkowski)
"Why should the people who subsequently prided themselves for centuries on being the People of the Book have placed at the beginning of history a myth suggesting that the fall of humankind was due to the desire for knowledge?
"Why should it have been a tree of knowledge through which sin was introduced into the world?" (p.18. Ziolkowski)
"Generally speaking, myths of a past Golden Age and of man’s fall from that happy state are produced by cultures that have reached a certain level of sophistication, that are interested in origins and look back with a degree of nostalgia at an imagined simpler, happier existence." (p.19. Ziolkowski)
"The Yahwist’s text suggests that he wonders specifically what happened to account for the fact that men must work so hard to eke out a living from an intransigent soil, that women are condemned to subservience and to the pains of childbearing, that humankind is ashamed of its nakedness, that a hostility exists between humankind and the animal world, with whose skins we conceal our nakedness, and that the serpent must crawl on the ground. Above all, why are men and women condemned to death, not blessed with immortality?" (p.21. Ziolkowski)
"...what else is civilization but knowledge?"
"The Yahwist is obsessed with the sin of knowledge..." (p. 22. Ziolkowski)
"The narrator of the primeval history, living in the sophisticated intellectual climate of Solomon’s Jerusalem and reflecting historically on origins, etiologically on the state of his present culture, and psychologically on the sources of modern malaise, appropriated motifs from the common pool of Near Eastern folktales concerning Creation and Fall and collated them in such a manner, most conspicuously through Adam’s name, as to make universal what had been local legends and to lend a new dimension of moral meaning to primitive myths that had held little but entertainment value for nomadic desert peoples— in sum, to transform...Enkidu into the culture-hero Adam (and simultaneously to give the serpent a new importance by projecting upon it the role of trickster)."
(p. 23. Ziolkowski)
One "evil act" of mankind was defined by the Mesopotamians as eating or drinking that which is forbidden by one's god. Such notions may explain why Adam and Eve's eating of forbidden food caused God to say later of mankind "Their hearts are evil from their youth" (Ge 8:21).
The late Professor Kramer (1897-1990) on the Sumerian goddess Nanshe (Emphasis mine):
"...Nanshe...judging mankind...The evil human types who suffer her displeasure are described as follows:
(People) who walking in transgression reached out with high hand,
Who transgress the established norms...
Who said "I would eat that which is forbidden."
Who said "I would drink that which is forbidden."
(p. 106. "The First Moral Ideas." Samuel Noah Kramer. History Begins At Sumer, Twenty-seven "Firsts" in Man's Recorded History. Garden City, New York. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959. First published 1956 by The Falcon's Wing Press)
The Neo-Assyrian king Asshurbanipal's (669-633 B.C.) 7th century B.C. prayer of forgiveness (he is apparently afflicted with some unknown illness) enumerates among unknown trespasses against his god, the eating of forbidden food:
"In ignorance I have eaten that forbidden of my god;
In ignorance I have set foot on that forbidden by my goddess.
O Lord, my transgressions are many; great are my sins.
The transgression I have committed, indeed I do not know;
The sin I have done, indeed I do not know.
The forbidden thing which I have eaten, indeed I do not know...
The god in the rage of his heart confronted me...oppressed me...
Mankind, everyone that exists -what does he know?
Whether he is committing sin or doing good, he does not even know."
(p. 241. "Summary and Conclusions." John H. Walton. Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context, A Survey of Parrallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan. 1989, revised edition 1990)
From the above passages it would appear that the Assyrians shared with the Hebrews the notion that one's god could become outraged over a man's eating a forbidden food item, regarding said act as a grievous trespass and sin against the deity, causing the deity to strike man down with diseases which would ulitmately cause his death.
The Serpent in the Garden of Eden presented itself as man's benefactor, warning Eve that God was lying, God's concern was not that she and Adam would die, rather God's concern was that they would become like him, knowing good and evil. Genesis' narrator has God repeating back the serpent's words, confirming the serpent's shrewd and penetrating analysis:
Genesis 3:4-5, 22 RSV
"But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil...Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil..."
Scholars have found _no_ mention of a "tree of knowledge of good and evil" in _any_ Mesopotamian text, however, the notion that knowledge can be obtained by eating of a tree _is_ attested.
No Mesopotamian text makes any mention of a "tree of life" which is capable of bestowing immortality on those who eat of its fruit, however the notion that immortality can be obtained by eating (and drinking) _is_ attested.
Two Mesopotamian myths preserve the notion that "knowledge is obtainable by eating of a tree." In both cases the individuals who _obtain knowledge by eating of a tree_ are not mortal humans, they are Deities. The _female_ who "ate of a tree to aquire knowledge" is the Sumerian goddess Inanna ("the Queen of Heaven") who in the Nippur hymns bore two Sumerian epithets nin edin "the Lady of Edin" and Inanna edin "Inanna of Edin" (Her huband Dumuzi, bore the epithet mulu edin "the Lord of Edin"). Two _males_ who "ate of a tree to acquire knowledge" were Inanna's brother Utu (Akkadian: Shamash) the sun-god, and the Sumerian god Enki (Akkadian: Ea) the god of wisdom and knowledge, who, in some hymns is called the "father" of Inanna (cf. below for more details).
Only _one_ Mesopotamian myth preserves the notion that a special food when eaten will confer immortality on mankind. The man's name was Adapa, he lived at Eridu in Sumer (modern Iraq) and was a servant of the Akkadian god Ea (Sumerian: Enki); the "bread of life" (also rendered as the "food of life") and "water of life," had he consumed them (offered to him in heaven by the god Anu), would have given him and mankind immortality.
Speaking from an Anthropological point of view, ancient man (the Mesopotamians) realized life could not be sustained without eating and drinking, thus the reason why his gods had to eat and drink too. For the Mesopotamians, the gods ate earthly food, the very same food consumed by man. So the "food of life" (or "plant of life") is anything eaten by man, be it a fruit from a tree, vegetables or wheat for bread as well as meat and drink. If there was no food offered to the gods they would starve to death (the gods could also be slain in the Mesopotamian myths). The Mesopotamians understood the gods had made man to till and tend their earthly city-gardens and feed them daily in temple offerings their garden's produce. Yahweh was fed by the Hebrews the very same food items offered to the Mesopotamian gods.
After _eating_ of the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, Adam and Eve's eyes are opened and they realize THEY ARE NAKED, in SHAME they cover themselves. Many have wondered, WHY did God keep "grown" adults as his "servants" in a STATE OF NAKEDNESS AND NOT CLOTHE THEM? No explanation makes sense for Yahweh's behavior, especially in light of the condemnation of nakedness as being "shameful" throughout the Bible.
I understand Enkidu of the Epic of Gilgamesh is one of several prototypes behind Adam. Like Adam Enkidu had no mother or father he was a created being made of clay by the goddess Aruru and cast upon edin the steppe to roam naked with its wild animals for companions. Then a naked woman is brought to edin's wateringhole by a Hunter to entrap him and separate him from his animal companions. Overwhelmed by lust at the sight of a naked woman's voluptuous body Enkidu mates with her, _neither are ashamed of their nakedness_ as they mate with each other for 6 days and 7 nights, just as Adam and Eve were _not ashamed of their nakedness_ in Eden. God had told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" apparently a euphemism meaning they are being commanded _to have sex_ with each other. The naked woman had been told by the Hunter _to have sex_ with Enkidu and she obeyed, just as Adam and Eve obeyed God and later had sex with each other. Enkidu did NOT eat "forbidden food." He balked at eating the bread set before him by shepherds at their camp in the edin because he was used to eating only grass. YES, a naked woman (Shamhat, a prototype of Eve) did "URGE" him _in_edin_ to eat the food he balked at and he also drank alcoholic beverages set before him (he balked at these too, having only drunk water with the gazelles, he was a vegetarian like Adam). Mesopotamian shepherds grazed their herds and flocks in the uncultivated steppe called in Sumerian the edin, so YES Enkidu DID EAT while in the edin. YES a woman, formerly naked, urged him to eat in edin. YES his nakedness was clothed upon leaving the edin with her. His eating did NOT give him "knowledge of good and evil," that it is wrong to be naked. He learned it was "wrong to be naked" when Shamhat shared her clothes with him after he agreed to accompany her to Uruk to meet Gilgamesh. So YES the naked man of edin LEARNED IN EDIN that it is wrong to be naked, he learned it from a naked woman, Shamhat, who had disrobed in order to entice him to lay with her in sexual abandon. The naked man and woman of edin (Enkidu and Shamhat) WERE NOT DRIVEN FROM EDIN by an enraged god. They left edin of their own free will. Enkidu's patron god Shamash _approved_ of his learning it was wrong to be naked in edin for when Enkidu later curses the Harlot blaming her for his loss of innocence and impending death Shamash berates him telling him the Harlot did him only good, providing him a fine robe to cover his nakedness! In other words in the "original" pre-biblical story the patron god of the naked man of edin _approved_ of his acquistion of clothing in the edin! The Hebrews have _inverted_ or _reversed_ the storyline by having Eden's God being outraged over naked man's illegally learning it is wrong to be naked. The Harlot declared that the edin and its watering hole "whose water was the animals' and naked man's heart's DELIGHT" was actually in her city-dweller's eyes a place of _desolation_, bereft even of shepherds! It was NOT a place lush with herbs, fruit trees and forage for the shepherd's flocks. It was NOT a god's garden! Gods' gardens in Mesopotamian myths are city-gardens POSSESSING FRUIT-TREES, they are off-limits to primeval naked man and his wild animal companions of edin for foraging! Hebrew `eden means either delight or a place well-watered. I understand that the motif of a primal naked man's (Enkidu's) heart's delight over the water in the edin's wateringhole was morphed by the Hebrews into `eden meaning delight. Yes, in the Mesopotamian myths there was indeed "a fall" for edin's naked man, he "fell for" a beautiful naked Harlot and came under her power. She accomplished her assignment: to "bring him down," or accomplish "his fall," she succeeded in (1) separating him from his animal companions and (2) she caused him via her persuasive words to _leave_ edin, just as Eve "brought down" Adam causing him to (1) give up his animal companions and (2) he leaves Eden with her (just as Enkidu and Shamhat leave edin together, their nakedness clothed). I hope, dear reader, you are _beginning to comprehend and appreciate_ the cleverness, vastness and depth of the Hebrews' recasting via _inversions_ and _reversals_ (as noted "above" by Professor Campbell) of the pre-biblical Mesopotamian concepts regarding primeval man and his relationship with his creator.
The Mesopotamians had several CONTRADICTING accounts of man's creation and where this event took place. One account has him made and "left" a wanderer with wild animals in a desert-like plain or steppe called in Sumerian the edin (edinu, edin-na). Another account has him made at Nippur to be an agricultural servant, working in a god's city-garden (Enlil); yet another account has man being made at Eridu to work in a god's city-garden (Enki).
According to one ancient Mesopotamian myth when the gods made man, they left him to wander NAKED a desert-like plain or steppe called in Sumerian edin (edin-na, edinu) with only wild animals for companions. Later man is brought to the cities the gods have made for themselves in the edin (the arid desert-like plain of Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers called Sumer) to be their servant. Man will tend their city gardens raising food for them to consume in the temples. The Sumerian art forms of the 3rd millennium B.C. show NAKED MEN serving beverages to seated, clothed gods and goddesses. I understand that the gods at first DENIED MAN THE KNOWLEDGE IT WAS WRONG TO BE NAKED: (1) he wanders NAKED in the edin with animals; (2) later is made a "servant of the gods" and SERVES THEM IN A STATE OF NAKEDNESS; (3) man tills the gods' city-gardens in a state of nakedness like Adam _tills_ God's garden. Please click here and scroll down for pictures of NAKED man _TILLING_ the earth in the gods' gardens with an ox-drawn plow as revealed on ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals.
Genesis 2:15 RSV
"And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden _TO TILL IT_ and keep it."
I suspect the Hebrew author possessed traditions of man being naked with animal companions and serving a clothed god in a state of nakedness (who, for him, is Yahweh). The Mesoptamian myths explain that man is eventually taught by the gods how to make and wear clothing, how to spin wool and weave it, how to process plant fibers and make them into fine cloth.
For the Mesopotamians MAN'S NAKEDNESS was _symbolic of_ man's ORIGINAL BESTIAL STATE AND IGNORANCE. He was a savage brute who's only intelligence or knowledge was that of an animal, like an animal he ate grass and lapped water with NAKED animals at watering-holes in the wilderness; AND LIKE A "LAWLESS" ANIMAL OR BEAST HE HAD _NO_ CONCEPT OF GOOD AND EVIL OR RIGHT AND WRONG. Primitive savage naked man would acquire knowledge of good and evil (right and wrong) "_later_" from the gods when he became their servant and was taught the "Arts of Civilization" including the LAW codes the gods used to regulate godly behavior among themselves.
The Book of Ecclesiastes makes a remarkable observation of man being wicked and like a beast, which recalls for me the Mesopotamian creation myths portraying man in the beginning as being like a beast:
Ecclesiastes 3:16-21 RSV
"Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness...I said in my heart with regard to the sons of men that God is testing them TO SHOW THEM THAT THEY ARE BUT BEASTS..."
Today Darwinist or Evolutionist Scientists (Anthropologists) understand man in the beginning was a naked beast somewhat affirming the Mesopotamian myths portraying man as a beast or animal.
For the Mesopotamians their gods were _distinguished from_ NAKED SAVAGE MAN by their possessing _TWO TRAITS_ DENIED MAN BY THE GODS:
(1) KNOWLEDGE (The gods KNOW it is "wrong to be naked", for ONLY they wear clothes; they also have
KNOWLEDGE of GOOD AND EVIL, for they have created LAWS (Sumerian me) governing appropriate
and inappropriate conduct; for example Enlil is "banished" by his fellow gods from Nippur for raping Ninlil
BEFORE man's creation).
(2) IMMORTALITY (Only the gods possess it).
I understand that Genesis is recasting THE ABOVE _TWO TRAITS_ by ASSOCIATING THEM WITH TWO TREES, a TREE OF KNOWLEDGE and a TREE OF LIFE (IMMORTALITY).
The _TREE OF KNOWLEDGE_ becomes the "vehicle" or "mechanism" for the Hebrews whereby man comes to realize HE IS NAKED, and faced with SHAME, DESIRES TO BE CLOTHED _LIKE A GOD_. BY WEARING CLOTHING HE TAKES ON THEN A GODLY ASPECT, he has also acquired the GODLY KNOWLEDGE IT IS WRONG TO BE NAKED initially DENIED MAN BY YAHWEH AND THE MESOPOTAMIAN GODS.
From a Mesopotamian point of view man's acquistion of clothing "symbolizes" his existence as a beast _ending_ and his _BECOMING LIKE A GOD_. For the gods not only wear clothes, they have built for themselves BEFORE man's creation cities to dwell in with city-gardens full of fruits, vegetables and wheat for bread to nourish themselves, all these crops are fed by irrigation canals. The gods _ONLY_LATER_pass on to man their GODLY KNOWLEDGE: "the Arts of Civilization": LAW (codified statements of what constitutes good and evil, right and wrong), metallurgy, weaving of cloth, animal husbandry (shepherding), music, art, literature, writing, etc. ALL THIS GODLY KNOWLEDGE "IN THE BEGINNING" _WAS DENIED MAN_ BY THE GODS, _ONLY_LATER_ DOES MAN OBTAIN ALL THIS. For further in-depth details along with pictures of Mesopotamian NAKED MEN AND NAKED WOMEN SERVING GODS AND GODDESSES PLEASE CLICK HERE.
I need to clarify the above statement "naked man becomes likes a god when he acquires clothing." I understand that Adam is a recast of Adapa of the Adapa and the Southwind myth and Enkidu of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Shamhat being recast as Eve. The Hebrews are taking great liberties in recasting motifs from these two compositions.
Enkidu is portrayed as a NAKED "primeval man," created without father or mother like Adam; he is powerful and strong and his companions are gazelles which feed in the steppe (Sumerian: edin). When offered bread by shepherds, he balks at eating it for he knows only the eating of grass; Shamhat tells him to eat the bread and he does, whereupon he is declared "TO BE HUMAN" and given a change of clothes.
The eating of the bread did _not_ make him like a god, it made him "into a civilized human" in that earlier his only food was grass which he foraged on with his gazelle companions. Enkidu is no longer a beast, he's a "civilized human" now.
So why do I claim he is _like a god_ when he "acquires clothing" and "eats bread"? According to the myths in the beginning the gods were naked and like beasts, eating grass, wandering with wild animals the steppe or edin "they knew not the eating of bread" according to the storyline. Later they acquire knowledge about the growing of food in irrigated gardens, build cities to live in, clothe their nakedness with woven cloth from plants they raise (linen) and wool from sheepskins.
Professor Kramer noted that the gods in the beginning before man's creation were naked beasts eating grass like primeval naked man would later do. The Sumerian word for "uncultivated" steppeland or plain is edin. Before the gods came to acquire the knowledge to make clothes for themselves, build cities to live in and create irrigated city-gardens to provide food for themselves, they were apparently like the naked beasts that roamed the edin, "the uncultivated steppe or plain" through which the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flowed. Genesis denies this presentation of God and mankind's origins. God is not presented as in the beginning being a naked beast roaming edin and eating grass. Genesis denies that God built a city to live in and a city-garden to provide for himself. God created a garden in Eden for naked man's sustenace.
Kramer (1963) on the _naked_ Anunnaki gods (the "senior" gods who will later cause man to be created at Eridu and Nippur and the edin near Uruk in Sumerian myths):
"Like mankind when first created,
They (the Anunnaki) knew not the eating of bread,
Knew not the dressing of garments,
Ate plants with their mouths like sheep,
Drank water from the ditch."
(pp. 220-221. "Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres." Samuel Noah Kramer. The Sumerians, Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago & London. University of Chicago Press. 1963. Reprint of 1972)
The myths have primal man in the beginning naked, with wild animals for companions and this was the same situation originally for the gods. After the gods have clothed themselves, built cities, and created gardens to provide food for themselves they create man. He will take care of their gardens and provide them garden-grown food to eat in the temples. In other words naked primal man's acquistion of clothing (Enkidu) not only transforms him from a beast to a "civilized human," he also becomes "like a god" to the degree that he now wears clothing, because _in the beginning, only the gods wore clothing_, man was naked and a beast. Man becomes "like a god" also in that the gods teach him how "to live like them," in cities, how to create irrigated city-gardens, how to grow food, how to build temples and homes, all this knowledge was denied man in the beginning by the gods. Man also becomes "like a god" in that he EATS THE SAME FOOD THE GODS EAT: BREAD. We are _not told_ that Enkidu "became human" because he acquired clothing, it is because he has eaten bread and consumed alcoholic drink, something animals do not do, only civilized city-dwelling humans and the gods are clothed, drink alcoholic beverages and eat bread!
When the gods in the beginning were NAKED wild animals they ATE GRASS. Now that they ARE "civilized city-dwellers" who wear CLOTHING and they EAT BREAD. Enkidu becomes "like a god as well as like a human" because he now IS CLOTHED and EATS BREAD and goes to DWELL IN THE GODS' CITIES with civilized man. That is to say, "civilized man" by dwelling in cities built by the gods before man's creation, working their city-gardens, wearing clothes, eating bread, is living "like a god" instead of living like a naked wild animal who has no knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, unaware it is wrong to be naked.
Mesopotamian myths (The Eridu Genesis myth) speak of naked man wandering the steppe with animals for companions. He knows no fear, because no animals exist "yet" to harm him like lions, hyenas, and snakes. In the below myth Nintur takes man from his wanderings in the steppe (Sumerian edin) and has him build cities for the gods in high desert (an-edin):
"Mankind's trails when forgotten by the gods were in the high (i.e., not subject to flooding) desert. In those days no canals were opened, no dredging was done at dikes and ditches on dike tops. The seeder plow and plowing had not yet been instituted for the knocked under and downed people. Mankind of (those) distant days, since Shakan (the god of flocks) had not (yet) come out of the dry lands, _did not know arraying themselves in prime cloth_, MANKIND WALKED ABOUT NAKED. In those days, there being NO SNAKES, being no scorpions, being no lions, being no hyenas, being no dogs, being no wolves, MANKIND HAD NO OPPONENT, FEAR AND TERROR DID NOT EXIST. [The people had as yet no] king. Nintur was paying attention: Let me bethink myself of my mankind, (all) forgotten as they are; and mindful of mine, Nintur's creatures let me bring them back, let me lead the people back from their trails. MAY THEY COME AND BUILD CITIES and cult-places, that I may cool myself in their shade; may they lay the bricks of the cult-cities in pure spots, and may they found places for divination in pure spots ! She gave directions for purification, and cries for quarter, the things that cool (divine) wrath, perfected the divine service and the august offices, and said to the (surrounding) regions: "Let me institute peace there !" When An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag fashioned the darkheaded (people) they had made the small animals (that came up) from (out of) the earth in abundance and had let there be, as befits (it) gazelles, (wild) donkeys, and fourfooted beasts in the desert...he (i.e., the king)...laid the bricks of those cities...The firstling of those cities, Eridu she [Nintur] gave to the leader Nudimmud [Enki/Ea]...[man] dredged the canals, which were blocked with purplish (wind-born) clay, and they carried water. Their [man's] cleaning of the smaller canals established abundant growth." (pp. 160-161. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. "Eridu, Dunnu and Babel: A Study in Comparitive Mythology." pp. 143-168. Richard S. Hess & David Toshio Tsumura. Editors. I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood, Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11. Winona Lake, Indiana. Eisenbrauns. 1994. ISBN 0-931464-88-9, citing from Professor Thorkild Jacobsen's translation. 1981. "The Eridu Genesis.")
As can be seen from the above composition, the Gods did _not_ create man in order to fellowship with him as taught by Christianity, they _abandoned_ man, and left him a wild naked savage or animal to wander the an-edin or "high steppe/desert." Only later is man taken from the edin by the gods to care for their cities and city-gardens. Man (Adam) in Eden has no fear of wild animals, the same motif appears above. However other compositions reveal the edin is a place of danger for man, it is inhabitated by carnivores like bears, leopards, lions, wolves and poisonous snakes. Genesis _denies_ this concept, having Eden's carnivores eaters of green plants instead of meat, thus posing no danger to Adam. The Hebrews are challenging the Mesopotamian motifs and concepts of primal naked man's life in the edin. God _loves_ man, seeks his fellowship, he wouldn't abandon man, leaving him a naked ignorant savage with only wild animals for companionship and in fear of his life by edin's carnivores.
Eden's serpent had said "you will become like a god, knowing good and evil." The gods KNEW it was wrong to be naked, neither Adam or Enkidu knew that it was wrong to be naked. Both were created and had no father or mother and both lived in a location called eden or edin. Civilized man who dwells in cities with the gods,WEARS CLOTHING LIKE A GOD, EATS BREAD LIKE A GOD, DRINKS ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES LIKE A GOD, AND TOILS IN AN IRRIGATED CITY-GARDEN LIKE A GOD.
Because I understand Genesis is a _challenge, refutal and denial_ of Mesopotamian beliefs regarding man's origins and his relationship with the gods, it is my proposal that various Mesopotamian motifs have been "recast", transformed and reinterpreted for a "NEW STORY" of why God made man and what man's relationship is with the deity. That is to say I DO NOT EXPECT the details to be identical or even "close" between Genesis and the Mesopotamian myths, the Hebrews are CHANGING the myths, refuting and denying them. For me the Hebrews are being very creative, and innovative in their transformation of the Mesopotamian myths their ancestors Terah and Abraham once embraced while dwelling in Ur of the Chaldees (Tell al Muqayyar, Mugheir, Mughayir in Lower Mesopotamia, ancient Sumer).
In REFUTING or DENYING the Mesopotamian myths Genesis presents man ILLEGALLY obtaining KNOWLEDGE from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, WHEREAS in the Mesopotamian myths although man IS INITIALLY DENIED KNOWLEDGE by the gods and kept in a state of nakedness as the gods' servant, _EVENTUALLY_ THE GODS _DO GRANT MAN_ THE KNOWLEDGE IT IS WRONG TO BE NAKED. That is to say, MAN IN THE MESOPOTAMIAN MYTHS DOES _NOT_ ACQUIRE THE KNOWLEDGE IT IS WRONG TO BE NAKED _ILLEGALLY_.
The Mesopotamian myths do NOT trace mankind's SINFULNESS to an act of rebellion by a primal man against the gods by disobeying them by eating of a forbidden tree's fruit as in Genesis. For the Mesopotamians man's SINFULNESS comes from the fact that HE IS MADE IN THE IMAGE OF THE GODS, HE CAN BE NO BETTER THAN HIS CREATOR, for the gods are portrayed as jealous, petty, arrogant, deceitful, and egotistical as well as merciful, loving, kind, and compassionate. The Mesopotamian myths also state that IN THE BEGINNING THE ANUNNAKI GODS (the senior gods) who dwelt on the earth at first WERE LIKE BEASTS, they roamed NAKED, ate grass, and lapped water at watering holes with the NAKED ANIMALS. Only "later" do the gods learn "the Arts of Civilization", HOW TO MAKE CLOTHING, how to domesticate animals how to plant crops, create cities, and engineer irrigation systems.That is to say the Hebrews in _recasting_ the Mesopotomian beliefs or motifs DENY THIS PORTRAYAL OF GOD AND MAN.
According to one Mesopotamian myth man is created by the god Enki to replace the junior Igigi gods who toil in the garden of a god at Nippur. The Igigi revolt because they have been given NO REST from agricultural toil. To stop the revolt, Enlil, the god of Nippur, summons his brother-god Enki from Eridu asking what can be done to appease the Igigi ? Enki suggests the making of man to replace the Igigi. Enlil gives his assent. Man is made from clay mixed with the FLESH AND BLOOD of Aw-ilu the leader of the Igigi revolt. It is this god's life-force (flesh and blood) which gives life to man. Man's "rebelliousness against god" is accounted for in Mesopotamian myths as man possessing the "rebellious spirit" of the slain rebel leader of Igigi revolt against Enlil (Note: In myths it is Enlil who is the "principal instigator" who decides to send a flood to destroy mankind for violating his rest). Man's sinfulness and rebellious is NOT traced to a man willfully disobediant of his god in eating of a forbidden tree fruit to acquire knowledge and become like a god. Man's DECEITFULNESS or LYING was another GODLY QUALITY passed on to man, the god Enki is famed for his decitfulness, cunning, knavery and trickery on fellow gods as well as man (Note: In myths its is Enki who warns one man of the Flood to be sent to destroy man, telling him to build a boat and save self, family and animals).
Foster noted that the Mesopotamians understood man's "lies and falsehood" were implanted in man at his creation by the gods Enlil and Ea and the birth goddess Mami:
"Enlil, king of the gods, who created teeming mankind,
Majestic Ea, who pinched off their clay,
The queen who fashioned them, mistress Mami,
Gave twisted words to the human race,
They endowed them in perpetuity with lies and falsehood."
(p. 323. "The Babylonian Theodicy." Benjamin Read Foster. From Distant Days, Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. Bethesda, Maryland. CDL Press. 1995. ISBN 1-883053-09-9)
So, in the Mesopotamian myths man was created to work in a city-garden of a god, Enlil, at Nippur, by Enki, and he was to work in the god's city-garden FOREVERMORE, giving the Igigi gods an eternal rest from agricultural toil as was already enjoyed by the senior gods, the Anunnaki (Enlil and Enki). The Mesopotamians had NO CONCEPT of a wrathful god EXPELLING MAN FROM HIS EARTHLY GARDEN, man had been created to toil for all eternity in the god's gardens. Genesis' notion that Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden in Eden is then a REFUTAL OR DENIAL of the Mesopotamian's understanding of the gods' purpose in creating man. The gods NEEDED MAN TO WORK IN THEIR GARDENS, if there was no man to work the gardens of the gods they would have to work the gardens themselves, an onerous task they did not relish.
Professor Frymer-Kensky on Israel's religion developing from and in refutation of -via counterpoints- Mesopotamian notions:
"Many Israelite ideas about justice, society, and even religion developed from and in counterpoint to Mesopotamian ideas."
(p. 83. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Ballantine Books. 1993. First Edition by Freepress 1992)
Frymer-Kensky on the gods creating man to labor on their behalf growing food to feed them:
"The gods themselves, says the Akkadian-language Atrahasis Epic, had once worked to grow their own food. Tiring of this, they created human beings who could do the work for them."
(p. 245. Note 26. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Ballantine Books. 1993. First Edition by Freepress 1992)
"In Mesopotamian thinking, labor is divinely ordained, the purpose for which humans were created."
(p. 91. Tikva Frymer-Kensky. In the Wake of the Goddesses, Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Ballantine Books. 1993. First Edition by Freepress 1992)
Because the gods could die at the hands of fellow gods, I draw the assumption that they could also starve to death if not fed, for the purpose in eating and drinking is to sustain life; that is to say, if the gods are truly immortal there should be no need for them to eat and drink. I thus understand that the gods' "immortality" was dependant upon (1) Their not being slain by their fellow gods and (2) their being able to eat daily the food raised in their earthly city-gardens in the edin (the desert-like steppe or plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and presented them for their nourishment by man (priests) in the temples and shrines. This observation also applies to the Hebrew God. He receives food offerings or sacrifices at Mount Sinai and throughout the Exodus wanderings and later at the Temple in Jerusalem built by Solomon. If God is immortal there should be no need for food offerings (and a "needless" loss of animal life: sheep, goats, cattle and fowl to quench Yahweh's appetite). I suspect the Hebrews are getting the notion that their God needs to eat twice a day from their Mesopotamian ancestors (Abraham and Terah living at Ur of the Chaldees south of Babylon). In 70 A.D. with the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans under Vespasian and Titus the feeding of Yahweh came to an end. Along similar lines is the problem posed for Christians regarding Adam and Eve. We are informed death entered the world with Adam's transgression, he is to die (as well as all mankind) for disobeying his God and eating of the Tree of Knowledge. But, paradoxically, God has to intervene to prevent him from eating of the tree of life and obtaining immortality. How can Adam not have been mortal to begin with? That is to say, he is immortal only if he eats of the tree of life, ergo whether he ate or not of the the tree of knowledge he still would have died. So Christianity's notion that death began with Adam's disobedience is non-sensical. He was mortal and could thus die BEFORE he ate, and he was MORTAL and could die after he ate.
The fact that Yahweh MUST EAT a sacrifical meal twice a day, morning and evening LIKE A MESOPOTAMIAN GOD, is proof for me he is NOT IMMORTAL, FOR EATING IS NECCESSARY ONLY FOR MORTALS, ITS PURPOSE BEING TO SUSTAIN LIFE. The New Testament has the righteous dead being told they will attain immortality by being allowed to drink of the water of life and eat of the tree of life (Revelation 22:1-2, 14, 17, 19). Again, these promises are nonsenical and are based in reality upon the observation of ancient man that life without eating and drinking is not possible. Hence the reason they gave their gods food and drink to keep them alive. Had the Hebrews wanted to make a real break with the Ancient Near Eastern notion that the gods need food and drink they would have dispensed with this nonsense in the Old Testament by doing away with Yahweh's daily feedings. The Mesopotamian gods could die and they did at times slay each other. They had planted city-gardens to provide food to eat for themselves (not for man), and later made man to toil in their gardens to relieve themselves of having to toil on the earth for life's necessities: FOOD, shelter, and clothing. Man would now provide all this for the gods.
Professor Batto (1992) on the Hebrews recasting of earlier Mesopotamian myths and motifs in the Hebrew Bible:
"...I want to emphasize that this new mythmaking process is a conscious, reflected application of older myths and myhic elements to new situations...In so far as one admits the presence of myth in ancient Babylonian and Canaanite culture, then one must also admit the presence of myth in the Bible...This book, then, is a series of case studies of mythmaking in ancient Israel, or to be more exact, in the biblical tradition." (pp. 13-14. "Introduction." Bernard F. Batto. Slaying the Dragon, Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1992)
"Now the Yahwist's primeval narrative is itself a marvelous example of mythmaking based upon prior Mesopotamian myths, notably Atrahasis and Gilgamesh. Interestingly, the reappropriation of mythic traditions and intertextual borrowing posited for biblical writers was already present within ancient Babylonia, and illustrates that biblical writers must be understood within the larger ancient Near Eastern literary and theological tradition." (p. 14. "Introduction." Bernard F. Batto. Slaying the Dragon, Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1992)
"The theme of this volume...is, of myth and mythmaking speculation within the Hebrew Bible...biblical writers employed much the same techniques and even the same mythic motifs as their ancient Near Eastern neighbors...Israel...drew heavily upon the Babylonian myth of Atrahasis, supplementing with motifs from Gilgamesh and other traditional myths, to create a specifically Israelite primeval myth...Like their ancient Near Eastern counterparts, Israel's theologians were concerned with the place of humankind -and particularly of their own people- within the realm of being." (pp. 168-169. "Conclusion." Bernard F. Batto. Slaying the Dragon, Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1992)
"The focus of this volume has been the various ways in which biblical writers throughout the history of the composition of the Hebrew Bible have used and reused myth...to undergird their religious and/or sociopolitical agenda. My purpose...has been only to show through representative examples how biblical authors actually went about using mythic motifs in their writing and how they consciously manipulated these to serve their specific purposes." (pp. 171-172. "Conclusion." Bernard F. Batto. Slaying the Dragon, Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1992)
The "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" does _not_ exist as a motif _to my knowledge_ in any Ancient Near Eastern myths other than the Hebrews' Genesis account. Nor does the "Tree of Life" appear _to my knowledge_ in any Ancient Near Eastern myths, it is "bread of life" and "water of life" that bestows "immortality" on man in Mesopotamian belief, which interestingly resurrects itself later with Christ tearing apart _bread_ and telling his apostles to eat his bread/body and drink his blood/wine to obtain immortality.
I realize for some readers or viewers that the foregoing assertion must "come as a shock" as some of the scholarly literature in the past speaks of a "tree of life", as for example E. O. James, The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study. (E. J. Brill Publishers. Leiden,The Netherlands. 1966, 1997). Because _no_ ancient inscriptions mention specifically "a tree conferring _knowledge of good and evil_" or "conferring _immortal life_", some scholars in the past have chosen to speak of trees flanked by beasts, gods or genies as "sacred trees", deliberately refusing to call these iconographic representations "tree of life or tree of knowledge". In earlier articles at this website, I confess I followed the school calling the iconic representations "tree of life" (please click here for said articles).
Tsumura citing Sjoberg notes that there is no mention in any Sumerian or Akkadian text of a 'Tree of Life':
"However, according to Sjoberg, who recently reexamined Sumerian connections with regard to the "tree of life," there is "no evidence" for such a tree in Mesopotamian myth and cult. He says, "The identification of different trees on Mesopotamian seals as a Tree of Life is a pure hypothesis, a product of pan-Babylonianism...There is no Sumerian or Akkadian expression 'Tree of Life'."
(p. 39. footnote 70. David Toshio Tsumura. "Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood: An Introduction." pp. 27-57, in Richard S. Hess & David Toshio Tsumura. Editors. "I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood" Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11. Winona Lake, Indiana. Eisenbrauns. 1994, citing A. W. Sjoberg, "Eve and the Chameleon," pp. 219-221, In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Litereature in Honor of G. W. Ahlstrom. Sheffield: JSOT Press. 1984)
NOW, I understand that these two trees are the Hebrews "unique" contribution to Ancient Near Eastern religious belief as they transform and challenge the earlier Mesopotamian myths regarding man's creation which understood man was made to be a servant/slave in the gods' city-gardens lying in edin-the-floodplain of ancient Sumer.
The question arises, why did of all things the Sumerians settle on bread being the magical food bestowing immortality? I suspect the reason is that bread is NOT a food found "growing in Nature." It is a "processed" food, the grains must be separated from the husks via crushing and then there is a winnowing of the empty hulls, then the seed must be ground or "milled" into flour, and the flour must be made into dough with the addition of water and yeast for leaven, then baked. In the myths these processes were discovered by the gods who dwelt on the earth who had created irrigated grain fields. So bread was "uniquely" a product _not available_ to naked wild animals and naked primitive man their companion. In fact Enkidu when presented bread by shepherds in the steppe after his animals companions have fled from him, DOES NOT KNOW the eating of bread, he gapes at the food, neither does he know the drinking of alcoholic beverages set before him, as a beast he knew only the eating of grass and the drinking of water and milk sucked from female animals. One would have expected that an alcoholic beverage would have been "uniquely" the choice for the drink conferring immortality as it too is a "processed" beverage, but the reality is that water is more important as plants, animals and man all need water to live not alcoholic drinks.
In agreement with other scholars I understand that the Mesopotamian myth about Adapa's lost chance at obtaining immortality for himself and mankind has been reworked by the Hebrews in the Adam and Eve myth. Adapa 'the man' serves in Eridu the god Ea (Sumerian: Enki), who has given him forbidden wisdom or powerful curses to overpower the lesser gods, in this case, he breaks the wing of the southwind-god, preventing breezes from occurring. The supreme god Anu summons "the man" to his heavenly abode to find out how he was able to overpower a lesser-god. Before going to heaven Ea warns "the man" not to eat or drink anything while at Anu's residence or he will die for it is the food of death. In another myth Ea created "man" to serve him on the earth in Eridu, to work in his fruit tree-garden replacing the Igigi gods who protested the onerous toil and who threatened rebellion. Ea does not want man to become like a god and possess immortality for who will then work in his city-garden and present him its fruits and vegetables to eat in his temple at Eridu? By obeying his god, Adapa 'the man' is "tricked" out of a chance to BECOME LIKE A GOD and obtain immortality for himself and mankind. All he has obtained in this myth is great wisdom or knowledge, apparently "forbidden knowledge", in that man is able via curses taught him by Ea to overpower the lesser gods. I understand that the Hebrews have merely reworked these themes of a lost chance at immortality, (BECOMING LIKE A GOD) and attainment of "forbidden knowledge" in a god's garden in Eden (Eridu lies in a plain, the Sumerian word for plain being Edin). Note that Enki (Akkadian Ea) in another hymn bears the epithet Ushumgal, meaning "great serpent/dragon" who _walks_ about in the fruit-tree garden he has planted at Eridu, where he creates man to toil in his city garden, replacing the Igigi gods of that onerous task.
Sandar's translation seems _to me_ to capture the notion that Adapa "the man" has knowledge granted him by his god Ea (Enki) making the "man" LIKE A GOD, recalling the Edenic serpent telling Eve she will become "like a god" possessing knowledge:
Anu addresses Tammuz (Sumerian: Dumuzi) and Gizzida (Nin-gish-zida) his gate guards, who in other myths were able to assume the form of a serpent and also were the life force in fruit-trees as vegetation deities:
"What was Ea about to GIVE KNOWLEDGE of all nature to a wretch of a man, TO MAKE HIM LIKE ONE OF US, and with such a name for WISDOM ? But now that he is here what else can we do? Fetch the bread of life and he shall eat it."
When they brought him the BREAD OF LIFE he would not eat.
When they brought him the water of life he did not drink.
When they brought him a garment he put it on...
Then Anu, the lord of heaven, looked at the man and laughed,
"Ah, Adapa, why did you neither eat or drink, stupid man; perverse mankind; you will never now have eternal life.''My master Ea ordered me, "You shall not eat, you shall not drink."
(p. 171. "Adapa: The Man." Translation by N. K. Sandars. Poems of Heaven and Hell From Ancient Mesopotamia. London. Penguin Books. 1971. paperback)
Professor Foster on Adapa's being offered "FOOD OF LIFE" by Anu, Ningishzida and Dumuzi instead of Sander's "BREAD OF LIFE":
"They brought him FOOD OF LIFE, he did not eat.
They brought him waters of life, he did not drink."
(p. 101. "How Adapa Lost Immortality." pp. 97-101. Benjamin R. Foster. Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. Bethesda, Maryland. CDL Press. 1995)
So, man was offered immortality by Anu, Dumuzi and Ningishzida, but Ea's cunning caused a naive, trusting man to obey his lying god. 'The man's' (Adapa's) acquistion of "forbidden knowledge" was not from eating a forbidden fruit in a god's garden. He was given _illegally_ the 'forbidden knowledge" by Ea "the trickster god", who is famed for playing tricks on his fellow gods as well as mankind. The Hebrews in recasting this myth have 'the man's' God, denying him _knowledge_and_immortality. Ea did deny Adapa "knowledge," as well as immortality: he didn't let Adapa know that the food presented him would bestow immortality MAKING HIM LIKE A GOD (just as the Edenic serpent had predicted: "YOU SHALL NOT DIE...YOU SHALL BECOME LIKE A GOD...").
Professor Langdon (1931) on Anu wanting to keep man in ignorance of the secrets of Heaven and Earth and Yahweh's denying knowledge to Adam:
"It was the plan of Anu to keep man (amelutu) in ignorance of the secrets of Heaven and Earth, and when he found that Adapa had learned them from Ea, he had no alternative but to give him the bread and water of life. Yaw had the same intention for Adam, who became a gardener in Eden." (p. 184. "The Myth of Adapa and Adam." Stephen Herbert Langdon. The Mythology of All Races: Semitic. Volume 5. Boston. Marshall Jones Company. Archaeological Institue of America. 1931)
"...Yaw-Elohim planted a garden in eden toward the east. This is surely a survival of a Sumerian legend; for the word edin in Sumerian means "plain," and "Eden to the eastward," refers to some legendary part of Sumer, from the point of view of a writer in Canaan." (pp. 183-184. "The Myth of Adapa and Adam." Stephen Herbert Langdon. The Mythology of All Races: Semitic. Volume 5. Boston. Marshall Jones Company. Archaeological Institue of America. 1931)
Adapa is NOT presented as a SINNER like Adam. He is praised as being BLAMELESS, having "pure" hands; he is conscientious and diligent in serving his god. Adapa is portrayed as THE MODEL OF MEN, perhaps this means that all men should emulate him in his blamelessness? Ea has NO COMPLAINT WITH HIS SERVANT (Yahweh having found "fault" with Adam). Adapa is GIVEN WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE by his god, although DENIED IMMORTALITY:
"Wide understanding he [Ea] had perfected for him [Adapa]
to disclose the designs of the land.
To him [Adapa] he [Ea] HAD GIVEN WISDOM; ETERNAL LIFE HE HAD NOT
GIVEN HIM.
Ea, created him as THE MODEL OF MEN.
The SAGE...
The capable, the MOSTWISE...
THE BLAMELESS, THE CLEAN OF HANDS, the ointment priest,
the observer of rites...
Bread and water for Eridu daily he provides,
WITH HIS CLEAN HANDS he arranges the (offering) table."
(p. 76. "Adapa." James B. Pritchard. Editor. The Ancient Near East, An Anthology of Texts and Pictures. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University. 1958)
Barton on several "modern" scholars (by 1916) suggesting Genesis' Fall motif is a recast of similar motifs appearing in the Adapa and the Southwind myth:
"In the first place, Adapa, like Adam, had gained knowledge. This knowledge carried with it a power hitherto regarded as an attribute of divinity. It enabled Adapa to break the wing of the southwind; it tempted Adam and Eve "to become like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5). As in Genesis, knowledge did not carry with it immortality. Ea, the god who had permitted Adapa to become wise, feared that he might gain immortality, as Jehovah thought that Adam might "put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat and live forever" (Gen. 3:22)...Ea accordingly told Adapa a falsehood when he was about to go into the presence of the supreme god, Anu, in order to prevent him from eating the food that would make him immortal; Jehovah drove man from the garden where the tree of life grew. The two accounts agree in thought that immortality could be obtained by eating a certain kind of food. The lines at the end of the Adapa story are much broken, but they make clear that as punishment for what he had done, Adapa was subjected to sickness, disease and restlessness. This corrresponds to the toil inflicted upon woman (Gen. 3:17-19), and the pangs of childbirth imposed upon woman (Gen. 3:16). It appears also that as Adam and Eve were clothed with skins in consequence of their deed (Gen. 3:21), so Adapa was clothed by Anu in a special clothing.
These similarities indicate that the Babylonians possessed the same general ideas of the connection of increasing knowledge, with the attributes of divinity on the one hand, and with suffering and clothing on the other, which are presented in Genesis. An increasing number of modern scholars regard the Babylonian story as an earlier form of a narrative which the Hebrew writer took and purified...In the Babylonian myth, the gods, Ea and Anu, are divided and work at cross purposes; Ea tells a falsehood to accomplish his end." (pp. 260-261. George A. Barton. Archaeology and the Bible. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. American Sunday-School Union. 1916)
From the contradicting Mesopotamian myths regarding the creation of man, his lost chance at obtaining immortality for himself and his demise being sought in a universal flood it is clear that the gods were viewed as both benefactors and enemies of mankind. The gods did not have to behave in an ethical manner, they could and were capricious at times in regards to man.
It is interesting that God _contradicts_ himself regarding the eating of
