Genesis' Genesis,
The Hebrew Transformation of
the Ancient Near Eastern Myths
and Their Motifs
(Primarily, the Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis)
Please CLICK HERE for Part 2: Conclusions/Bibliography
25 March 2001
Revisions through 27 October 2006
Please click here for this website's most important article: Why the Bible Cannot be the Word of God.
For Christians visiting this website _my most important article_ is The Reception of God's Holy Spirit:
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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 taking motifs from a variety of contradicting myths and 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 deliberately CHANGING _or_ RECASTING their motifs and concepts 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.
If I had to summarize my research on Genesis' motifs from the Garden of Eden to the Flood vis-a-vis the Mesopotamian "creation of man" myths it would have to be that the Mesopotamians appear to have held their gods as responsible for man's misfortunes whereas the Hebrews in refuting this, held man as culpable, absolving their God of any blame. In other words the Mesopotamians saw _MAN AS THE VICTIM_ of capricious gods versus the Hebrew notion that _GOD IS THE VICTIM_ of an ungrateful and rebellious mankind.
The Mesopotamians saw the world being created for the benefit of the gods, not man. Genesis refutes this notion, God made the world for man's benefit. I understand that the Hebrews, _employing INVERSIONS_, are recasting many of the Mesopotamian motifs and concepts by 180 degrees, turning them upside down and on their ear.
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14 July 2005 Update:
I understand Sumerian edin (Akkadian seru, seri), translated variously as "plain," "steppe," or "desert plain," to apply to both upper and lower Mesopotamia please click here for my article titled "Eden's Four Rivers."
21 Feb 2005 Update:
Highly reccomended is Tim Langille's article which draws pretty much the same conclusions as I do in the below article. Please click here for his article titled "Myth Making in the Bible and in the Ancient Near East: The Yahwist Primeval Creation Myth" (2003).
However, let it be acknowledged here, that in a search for "The Truth," one MUST study _both sides_, so, dear reader, I would encourage you to pause a moment and click here and read what I regard as a typical Christian Apologist "refutation" of the notion that Genesis is a reformatting of Ancient Near Eastern Mesopotamian myths.
07 March 2005 Update:
Highly reccomended is Professor William H. Shea's research (1984) comparing Genesis' Creation-Flood theme with Mesopotamian parallels, please click here for his article. Another fine article is by Professor Jeffrey Tigay, click here for his article on Paradise & the Garden of Eden.
22 March 2005 Update:
I received a most interesting e-mail today from a reader of my articles asking what my opinion was regarding the "origins" of the Anunnaki gods. I am posting my reply because it caused me "to see" the Garden of Eden story from _a neglected_ Anthropological point of view. That is to say, the Mesopotamian myths about man's origins are merely a recollection of REAL HISTORY to a degree, but in "mythologized form." I recall here Life magazine's excellent book titled The Epic of Man (Time Life Publishers. 1961), which traces his development from a naked beast, to a gatherer of nuts and berries, then hunter, who fashions clothes for himself from animal hides; then the REAL REVOLUTION, he settles down in Lower Mesoptamia and builds villages, domesticates animals, builds canals and irrigation systems and grows his food, and learns to grow plants to make "real clothes from" on looms to cover his naked body. That is to say, the Sumerian myths about the gods initially making man NAKED, and having him roam "edin-the-steppe/plain" with other animals, lapping water and eating herbs of the field with other beasts, are recalling their ancestors' evolution from hunter-gatherers to urban civilized man. It is _my understanding_ that Genesis' 1-4, although a later reformatting of these Sumerian myths is recalling this same _momentuous event_ in man's history. My letter:
"Dear XXXXXX,
I'm not quite sure how to answer your question. Obviously the Mesopotamian
gods and goddesses are "figments of the imagination," and are in fact -from
an Anthropological point of view- man's projection of his fears, loves and
hatreds onto "imaginary" deities created in his image.
Society has always had leaders and followers, and some kind of a "pecking
order" as seen in non-human species (chickens, ants, bees, wolves, apes,
lions, etc). Probably the Anunnaki represent this "pecking order," they _not
having to toil_ in the earthly garden of the gods, leaving the lesser Igigi
gods that _onerous_ task. That is to say, in early Sumerian society there
were the priests, nobles and kings who did not do manual labor, and then
their were the common people, who toiled. The Anunnaki probably reflect the
"privileged" class in Sumerian society and the Igigi the un-privileged.
The building of Ziggurats, called at times, Kur meaning "mountains," suggest
that they may have lived originally in the Zagros mountain range as hunters
and gatherers, who came down into the flood plains of the Tigris and
Euphrates in search of game and wild food-bearing flora. Eventually, they
came to realize they would be better-off settling down and growing their own
food and raising domesticed animals of the area, and came to build at first,
villages with canals and irrigation networks then cities. So the "Anunnaki
stories" about them being naked at first and lapping water like beasts (like
the first humans) and roaming "edin-the-plain" with wild animals, is _probably_ the
Sumerian "recollection" -in mythical terms- of mankind's transformation from
hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist and city dweller. In a sense, Genesis 1-9
is recalling this Sumerian mythology of man's transformation from a roaming
naked beast to a clothed urbanite, but transforming it somewhat into a
single god, Yahweh-Elohim vs. many gods.
I hope this has answered your question. You might also want to try the
Google internet search engine for more articles on the Anunnaki."
25 March 2005 Update:
Neglected, in the above article is _"Eden from an Anthropological view"_. Let me "digress" here a moment. I was an educator or teacher from 1967 to my retirement in 2002. I taught Art and Social Studies to Middle School students (ages 12-14 years of age). One of those Social Studies courses was World Geography. Only a few days ago, did it finally dawn on me what the Garden of Eden story was "really all about." Its about something I had taught my students in Geography classes for the past 30 years!
I taught 7th Grade "Cultural Geography," man's inter-relationship to the land. The most important event in the history of mankind was when he ceased to be a roaming naked wild animal and became "civilized." This momentuous event was accomplished in the following manner: Speaking Anthropologically, man at first was an animal, he roamed naked with other beasts. He ate what they ate, wild herbs of the field and fruit from trees. He drank at watering holes with the animals. Then he became a "gatherer-hunter," still nomadic. Then the great revolution occured, man settled down, built villages and then cities, and became civilized and wore fine clothes made from plant fibers on looms. What made this "civilization" possible? It was man's becoming a domesticator of animals for food and his becoming an agriculturalist, growing and raising food to eat. In Lower Mesopotamia, he achieved this via the creation of canals and irrigation sytems for gardens supporting fruit trees, vegetables, date palms, etc., said gardens being associated with a nearby village or city.
Even today, in the 21st century, the Great Civilizations are made possible by "the agriculturalist" or farmer who tends his "garden" which provides A SURPLUS OF FOOD allowing others in the group or "society" to not have to spend their time scrounging for a mouthful to feed their empty bellies or their family's hunger. By contrast, primitive man who is still a nomadic "gatherer and hunter," spends most of his time seeking food, he has NO TIME to develop a civilization. Also note that it is not unusual to find primitive man in the wilds, NAKED like Adam and Eve, and without shame. I know of no Great Civilization, whose people wander about naked, all are clothed.
It is _my understanding_ that the Sumerian myths about the who, what, why, where, and how of man coming to be created, is in reality, recalling a REAL EVENT of great importance, these myths recall that moment in time when man ceased to be a naked wild animal roaming with other animals, and settled down, became an agriculturalist (creating gardens for food) and Civilization began.
Speaking from an Anthropological viewpoint, in reality, it was NOT a god or gods who taught man it was wrong to be naked, and provide him with clothes (as in the Sumerian Eridu Myth), nor was it the gods or a god who made man to tend his/their garden on the earth teaching him "how" to be an agriculturalist. That great achievement was man's doing, not a god's. Man gave up being a nomadic "gatherer-hunter," gave up being naked, gave up roaming the wilds with animals. In Lower Mesopotamia he settled down, built canals, irrigation ditches, became an agriculturalist, raised food, grew plants which could be turned into cloth on looms. Man, via, experimentation, keen observation of nature (flora and fauna), and trial and error, developed Civilization and cities, NOT the gods or a god.
I understand with other scholars, that Genesis' myths regarding man's creation and being placed in a god's garden to till and tend it, in a state of nakedness, and then later leaving it to found cities (Cain) is nothing more than a "re-working" of earlier Sumerian motifs on how man came to be made, and cities and civilization came into being. The Sumerians possesed one of the world's earliest "great" civilizations with temples, ziggurats, canals, cities, writing, mathematics and calendars.
The Sumerians were WRONG, the gods did NOT teach their ancestors all this ("the arts of civilization"), man achieved all this ON HIS OWN ACCORD. So, in a sense the Sumerian myths about man's creation and his cites are recalling man's _EVOLUTION_ from a naked ANIMAL TO A CLOTHES-WEARING CIVILIZED HUMAN BEING dwelling in cities.
Thus _I understand_ Genesis' "Garden of Eden" and creation of man by God, although a later re-working of Sumerian creation myths of how mankind came to be made by the gods, is in reality, a recollection of the greatest achivement ever made by man, his self-transformation from a wandering naked animal to a settled agriculturalist and city dweller, all made possible by man's becoming an agriculturalist, creating wonderous gardens capable of creating a "food-surplus" freeing his fellow men, so that they could apply themselves to discovering and developing the "arts of civilization."
So, man _was robbed_ by "priests" of his greatest intellectual achievement, his SELF-TRANSFORMATION from a naked animal roaming edin-the-plain to a clothes-wearing civilized man. The "priests" of Sumer ascribed man's "wearing of clothes" and "arts of civilization" to the gods teaching man that he should wear clothes, till and tend gardens and build cities. It would take some 6000 years for man's SELF-TRANSFORMATION from naked beast to clothes-wearing city-dweller to be _properly restored to man_ by the Secular Humanist disciplines of Archaeology and Anthropology, which arose in the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries, our modern era.
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This article is an attempt to briefly identify some of the Ancient Near Eastern Motifs and Myths which the Hebrews apparently borrowed, adapted, and reworked in the Book of Genesis. It is my understanding that the Mesopotamian Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis constitute MAJOR sources for various motifs and concepts appearing in Genesis 1-9 (the Creation to the Flood), however other sources are the Adapa myth, Inanna and Utu, the Enuma Elish, etc.
Professor Blenkinsopp (of Notre Dame University) on Atrahasis and Gilgamesh motifs in Genesis:
"...just as Genesis 1-11 as a whole corresponds to the structure of the Atrahasis myth, so the garden of Eden story has incorporated many of the themes of the great Gilgamesh poem."
(pp. 65-6. "Human Origins, Genesis 1:1-11:26." Joseph Blenkinsopp. The Pentateuch, An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. New York. Doubleday. 1992. ISBN 0-385-41207-X)
Professor Foster on the Mesopotamian literary audience:
"To a Mesopotamian audience, certain themes of the poem [The Epic of Gilgamesh] would have been familiar from other popular literary works. The portrayal of human mortality as a consequence of divine selfishness, for example, was well known to them. They also recognized a hero as a man striving towards greater accomplishments than those of ordinary people, in spite of the limitations imposed by chance and destiny. The Mesopotamians preferred literary works set in ancient times, involving kings and gods, narrating events largely outside of everyday experience. Yet the divine and human heroes often display imperfections and personal limitations, as if the remoteness of time and empirical background were no obstacles to projecting inglorious human weakness onto long-ago heroes. The theme of the partiality of divine justice was familiar to Babylonian readers as well: they would not have been surprised at the unfair condemnation of Enkidu nor at the intervention of the sun god, Shamash, to the crucial advantage of the heroes...Mesopotamians expected their literature to stress the importance of knowledge. The significance of Gilgamesh's story lay not so much in the deeds themselves as in the lesson his experience offered to future generations. The Mesopotamians believed that the highest knowledge came to sages of the remote past directly from the gods or through extraordinary events not likely to recur. For their own times, they thought that the highest knowledge came from the study of written works of the past."
(pp. xx-xxi. "Introduction." Benjamin R. Foster. The Epic of Gilgamesh. [Norton Critical Edition]. New York. W. W. Norton & Company. 2001. ISBN 0-393-97516-9 paperback)
Foster's observation that Divine and Human Heroes being portrayed with human weaknesses, would appear to belie that oft heard claim by some Bible Fundamentalists, that the Bible really is the word of God because it shows heroes like David and Solomon with human character flaws. These flaws appear to be following in the Mesopotamian tradition. A number of scholars have noted God's character flaws, his anger, vacillation, vindictiveness, lying, contradicting himself, persecuting the faithful as well as the sinner- all in harmony with the earlier Mesopotamian notions of the Gods possessing the same human weaknesses !
Professor Hooke on Genesis' Myths:
"The mythological material was specifically affected by this process; hence three main problems confront us in studying the mythology of the Old Testament. First we have to inquire what was the source and original form of the myths which we find there; then what modifications did the Hebrew writers or editors make in the mythological material which they borrowed from Canaanite or other sources; and lastly whether Israel produced any myths of its own.
The final editors of the Old Testament collected most of the mythological material into the first eleven chapters of Genesis but other myths and legends are to be found in fragmentary form scattered through the sagas and poetry of Israel..."
(pp. 104-105. S. H. Hooke. Middle Eastern Mythology. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. 1966, 1981 [paperback]. Note: The late Samuel Henry Hooke, 1874-1968, was Professor Emeritus of Oriental Languages at Toronto University)
Rogerson understands Genesis was composed in the Exile or shortly thereafter, I understand it was composed in 560 BCE (Emphasis mine):
"The simple answer to the question of date is that Genesis 1-11 is _part of the larger work_ containing Genesis to 2 Kings...This COMPLETE WORK did not reach its final form until during or after the Babylonian Exile in the sixth century BCE. However, the date of the final editing does not determine the date of the individual items to be found in Genesis 1-11."
(p. 76. "The Date of Genesis 1-11." J. Rogerson. Genesis 1-11. Sheffield, England. JSOT Press [University of Sheffield]. 1991)
It is my understanding that Genesis' motifs and characters, God, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and Noah, are adaptations and transformations of characters and events occurring in earlier Near Eastern Myths. In some cases several characters and motifs from different myths have been brought together and amalgamated into Genesis' stories.
Lambert, has made a very important observation regarding the manner in which Mesopotamian mythographers worked:
"The authors of ancient cosmologies were essentially compilers. Their originality was expressed in new combinations of old themes, and in new twists to old ideas."
(p.107, W.G. Lambert, "A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis," [1965], in Richard S. Hess & David T. Tsumra, Editors, I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood. Winona Lake, Indiana, Eisenbrauns, 1994)
I believe Lambert's observation can be applied to the Hebrews who were combining old themes and putting "new twists" to old ideas. My research indicates that, at times,"reversals" or "inversions"are occurring in the Hebrew transformation and reinterpetation of the Mesopotamian myths. These "reversals," as I call them, can take the form of different characters, different locations for the settings of the stories, and different morals being drawn about the nature of God and Man's relationship.
Another scholar, Wenham, made another important observation about Genesis, it is apparently a polemic, challenging the Mesopotamian view of the relationship between God and Man:
"Viewed with respect to its negatives, Gen 1:1-2:3 is a polemic against the mythico-religious concepts of the ancient Orient...The concept of man here is markedly different from standard Near Eastern mythology: man was not created as the lackey of the gods to keep them supplied with food; he was God's representative and ruler on earth, endowed by his creator with an abundant supply of food and expected to rest every seventh day from his labors. Finally, the seventh day is not a day of ill omen as in Mesopotamia, but a day of blessing and sanctity on which normal work is laid aside. In contradicting the usual ideas of its time, Gen 1 is also setting out a positive alternative. It offers a picture of God, the world, and man...man's true nature. He is the apex of the created order: the whole narrative moves toward the creation of man. Everything is made for man's benefit..."
(p. 37, Vol. 1, "Explanation," Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 [Word Biblical Commentary, 2 vols.], Word Books, Waco, Texas 1987, ISBN 0-8499-0200-2)
Lambert's and Wenham's observations are "keys" to understanding how and why Genesis was formatted in the manner it now appears. In other articles posted on this website I have explained why I believe that Genesis was composed in the Exilic era (ca. 560 BCE), I accordingly understand that the Ancient Near Eastern myths and their motifs being utilized by Genesis' author, are of periods preceeding 560 BCE.
Numerous scholars have noted that some motifs appearing in Genesis can be found in Sumerian myths of the 3rd millenium BCE. Kramer, a Sumeriologist, makes the following observation:
"Sumerian literature contained a number of literary forms and themes found much later in the Bible...there are many parallels to Sumerian literature in biblical themes."
(p.154, "Sumerian Literature and the Bible." Samuel Noah Kramer and John Maier. Myths of Enki, the Crafty God. New York. Oxford University Press. 1989. ISBN 0-19-505502-0)
Professor Tigay, noting that some scholars _deny_ any "borrowing" of Mesopotamian motifs for the book of Genesis because details _differ_ between the biblical and Mesopotamian accounts of the Flood, concluded that the Bible has "indeed" borrowed from Mesopotamian motifs and transformed them (Emphasis mine):
"This brief survey shows that peripheral versions of Mesopotamian literary texts may not only differ from the Mesopotamian versions in detail, but that they may abbreviate them or even modify them in accordance with their own ideology and local interests, PRECISELY AS THE BIBLE APPEARS TO HAVE DONE. If these data appear to weaken the grounds for opposing claims of literary borrowing -- and I believe that they do -- then this has some unsettling implications. For it means that an alleged relationship between a Biblical text or motif and some ancient Near Eastern counterpart CANNOT BE REFUTED SIMPLY BY POINTING TO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO, even if they are numerous."
My research suggests that motifs from Canaan, Phoenicia, Syria, and Mesopotamia are being drawn from.
Genesis opens with a world in existance, but covered in water, called in Hebrew, Tehom (English: "the deep" Ge 1:2). Mesopotamian myths have the world originating in a watery deep, a saltwater ocean called Tiamat; some have sought Hebrew Tehom as a cognate of Tiamat. Tiamat was personified as a goddess, and the mother of the gods. Her husband was called Abzu/Apsu, the freshwater ocean which lies under the earth when it arose from the sea. The mingling of Apsu and Tiamat created the gods who in turn eventually created man.
In Genesis God speaks and things are created, light from the sun, moon and stars, land arises from Tehom, herbage is created, animals, and finally man. Kramer has noted that the Sumerians possessed the idea that the gods could speak and things would be created. They also are portrayed as forming things with their hands, like man, just as God "makes" Adam from the dust of the earth-
"Some of the more conspicuous themes involve creation of the universe, creation of humankind, techniques of creation (in two ways, by word and by 'making' or 'fashioning')..." (p.154, Kramer)
In the Enuma Elish (a Babylonian myth), Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, is portrayed slaying Tiamat and making the earth, rivers and heavens from her body. From her pierced eyes arise the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Perhaps this is why the Hebrews called the fresh waters under the earth as well as the salty ocean, Tehom (cf. Ge 1:2 Tehom or "the deep" being the waters covering the whole earth, and Ezek 31:4-9, where "the deep," or subteranean streams, nourishes trees in the Garden of Eden).
God makes a world in six days and then rests on the seventh, hallowing it, and it becomes known as the Sabbath (Hebrew: Shabbat). He creates a Garden of Eden and places a man in it, and later introduces a woman for a companion (made of man's rib). I have argued elsewhere that Genesis' author is borrowing motifs about the Sumerian paradise called Dilmun and transforming the story (cf. my article, Sabbath Origins and the Epic of Gilgamesh).
Clifford appears to understand that some motifs in Genesis' Garden of Eden account are drawing from earlier Mesopotamian works. He specifically identifies Atrahasis and Gilgamesh and the Sumerian Pre-flood list of kings and suggests that the serpent appearing in the Epic of Gilgamesh has been recast as Eden's serpent:
"Were Adam and Eve created immortal only to lose it in the sentence imposed on them in 12:17, "on the day you eat [the fruit] you shall die"? The question is difficult to answer. For one thing, Genesis 2-11 drew on more traditions than Atrahasis and Gilgamesh. The ten preflood ancestors of Noah seem derived from the ten kings found in some versions of the Sumerian King List...The question of Adam's mortality must ultimately, of course, be decided from Genesis and not its sources...The J-storyteller [Yahwist author] takes the Gilgamesh motif of the snake's theft of the plant of life from the hero (a postflood occurrence in Gilgamesh XI) and places it before the flood (Genesis 3). As in Gilgamesh, Adam is naked when the loss takes place, the snake deceitfully steals the fruit supposed to transform life, and a tree or plant of life is involved. Such kaleidoscopic reuse of traditional details may seem strange to modern readers, but ancient authors evidently liked to put familiar objects in new contexts...Another example comes from Gilgamesh I: the naked and animal-like Enkidu acquires wisdom from his seven-day dalliance with a prostitute. Afterwards she clothes him and leads him to the city of Uruk and its king Gilgamesh. Genesis rearranges the same traditions to describe the institution of marriage!"
(pp. 147-149. "Genesis 1-11." Richard J. Clifford. Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible. Washington, DC. The Catholic Biblical Association of America. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series No. 26. 1994. ISBN 0-915170-25-6)
Eden is said to lie somewhere "in the East." We are also informed that Haran of Mesopotamia was in the East (Ge 29:1). I have proposed that Dilmun lies in Mesopotamia, so apparently, Mesopotamia is conceived of as being "in the East."
My research on Eden has caused me to realize that the _ORIGINAL PRE-BIBLICAL SOURCES_ of "the garden of Eden" are _several locations_ as preseved in various Mesopotamian myths.
I found these Edens, as a "byproduct" of attempting to document Mesopotamian _parallels_ to the Adam and Eve story in the Bible, as noted in the scholarly literature. To my surprise, I discovered that no single Mesopotamian myth possessed _all_ the elements or motifs appearing in the biblical story. The parallels or motifs were "scattered" amongst several different myths. Another unexpected surprise was to realize that the Mesopotamian myths at times DISAGREED and CONTRADICTED each other about how man came to be made by the gods and WHERE the location of his first appearance on the earth was. I understand that the Hebrews brought these contradicting parallels or motifs together and created the garden of Eden myth from them.
1) According to the Bible man is made by God and placed in the garden of Eden to till and keep the garden. Some Mesopotamian myths understand that man was created to till and tend the earthly garden at Nippur belonging to a god who in myth is called Enlil. The products of this garden were originally tended and tilled by the Igigi gods, who objected to the working conditions. To prevent a revolt by the Igigi, man is made by the god Enki to replace them at Enlil's behest. Enki has an Igigi god slain and his flesh and blood are mixed into some clay making man. So, both Mesopotamia and the Bible understand man's _first appearance_ on the earth is in a garden belonging to _a_ god_, his job being to tend and till it. However, in Sumer, the god's garden is ALWAYS associated with a city that the god dwells in. The Mesopotamian "garden of the god" was NOT in some remote wilderness all by its self as portrayed in Genesis. So, Nippur's _garden of a god_ (Enlil), is an edenic prototype.
2) In another contradicting myth, man is created by the god Enki to tend and till _his_ garden located in the city of Eridu in Sumer. The Igigi gods at Eridu object to their hard toil in Enki's garden so he makes man to replace them. In this myth man is made of clay over the apsu (a freshwater source of all rivers, a spring). Please note that Eridu like Nippur, lies on a great plain or steppe, which in Sumerian is called edin and in Akkadian seru or seri. So, man is made at Eridu _in_ edin, of its clay or earth, thus Eridu and vicinity is another edenic prototype. The Sumerians never called the gods' city-gardens edin. The _uncultivated_ land (steppeland or plain) contiguous to, surrounding, and about the cities and their city-gardens was the edin. The Sumerians distinguished two edins, an-edin "high plain" or "high steppe," and ki-edin "low plain" or "low steppe." Unknown to many, except professional Assyriologists, is that the Akkadian word seru or seri meaning uncultivated "plain" or "steppe" is COMMONLY rendered by the use of a Sumerian logogram or cuneiform sign rendered in English in capital letters within ellipses as (EDIN). For example, the Epic of Gilgamesh describes Shamhat's encounter at the watering hole in the seru where apears Enkidu with the gazelles as he being a wild man of (EDIN). That is to say, the Sumerian edin logogram was in the mind of the Akkadian scribe (who knew Sumerian) equated with the Akkadian word seru or seri. I understand Enkidu and Shamhat have been recast as Adam and Eve and the watering hole of (EDIN) has been recast as the garden in Eden.
3) Another CONTRADICTING Mesopotamian myth, called by some scholars "The Eridu Genesis Myth" has man in a steppe or plain called in Sumerian edin and in Akkadian (Babylonian) seru. He wanders this edin NAKED and wild animals are his companions; he eats grass and laps water at watering holes like an animal. Eventually a goddess called Nintur takes pity on naked man's "hard life" in edin the steppe and takes him from this edin and "civilizes him." Man is taught that it is wrong to be naked, he MUST wear clothes when he comes to _dwell with the gods in their cities_ and _work in their gardens_, for the gods wear clothes and nakedness is an offense for them. The gods provide man clothing and settle him in cities built originally to house only the gods. From the gods man learns the arts of civilization, how to make musical instruments, how to forge metals, how to be shepherds, how to grow food in irrigation-fed gardens, as the gods do. To the degree that edin means a "plain, floodplain or steppe", and the Tigris and Euphrates do cross a great _plain_, extending from Baghdad to Basrah these rivers are thus associated with edin. However, please note an interesting contradiction exists here, the cities of Sumer were built in edin the plain. According to one myth in the beginning the gods (called the Annunaki) who built these cities were originally naked like animals, eating grass and lapping water like naked man. So, edin is not only the UNTAMED PLAIN that wild animals and naked man roamed, its also a plain "TAMED" by civilized man, with irrigation canals and networks for gardens and cities! So, edin the UNTAMED PLAIN which lies _near_ Nippur and Eridu as well as Uruk (biblical Erech Genesis 10:10) is another edenic prototype. The Eridu Genesis myth notes that NAKED man in the UNTAMED edin knew NO FEAR, no animal offered harm to him. Harm came when man left this edin to dwell in cities and maintain the gardens of the gods in Sumer. Apparently Genesis' notion of an "idyllic eden" is fusing two different Mesopotamian concepts, the UNTAMED edin with the TAMED edin which has cities, canals and irrigated gardens planted by the gods for their self-nourishment.
4) The notion that Adam and Eve ate of forbidden food from a tree is drawn from -in part- the myth about Enki and Ninhursag in the earthly garden of Dilmun. Enki eats without his goddess-wife's permission eight of her plants, in order to "know" them; enraged, she curses him with death, the first plant that Enki consumed is called "a tree plant". She later relents, asking him what body part ails him and thereupon makes either a god or goddess to heal that part. When he complains of his rib aching, she makes Nin-Ti, a goddess to heal his rib (Sumerian ti means rib). In Sumerian Nin-ti can mean "Lady of the rib" and "Lady that makes live." One of Enki's epithets was En-Ti, "Lord of the Rib."A number of professional scholars have suggested that Eve's being made of Adam's rib is drawing from this myth, as well as her name Eve, Hebrew Havvah meaning "mother of life" located at Dilmun. Some scholars have suggested Dilmun is the island of Bahrain near Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. My research, however, suggests its Tell el Lahm east of Eridu. The Mesopotamian Noah called Ziusudra was placed in Dilmun, " _in the East_ where the sun rises, _AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVERS_".
Kramer suggested Dilmun was an Edenic prototype (Note: I understand the "Sumerian Noah and wife place in Dilmun to be prototypes for Adam and Eve):
"Paradise, according to the Sumerian theologians, was for the immortal gods, and for them alone, not for mortal man. One mortal, however, and only one, according to Sumerian mythmakers, did suceed in gaining admittance to this divine paradise. This brings us to the Sumerian "Noah" and the deluge myth, the closest and most striking Biblical parallel as yet uncovered in cuneiform literature."
(p. 149. "The First Biblical Parallels." Samuel Noah Kramer. History Begins At Sumer: Twenty-seven "Firsts" in Man's Recorded History. Garden City, New York. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959 reprint of 1956 published by The Falcon's Wing Press)
But, according to other non-mythcal annalistic texts, Dilmun is a location with a city, it has a king, buildings, boat docks along a river which lies in a marshland setting, irrigation canals, plantations of Date Palms, lagoons filled with fish. So, Dilmun/Tilmun (Tell el Lahm), in the marshes east of Eridu, Shuruppak and Uruk, is another edenic prototype.
5) The motif of forbidden access to trees appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when he and Enkidu set out to cut down for timber Cedars growing on a mountain guarded by a half-human monster called Huwawa or Humbaba. Most scholars usually identify this cedar mountain with some location in the Lebanon, famed in antiquity for its mighty cedars, coveted for the building of palaces and temples throughout the Ancient Middle Eastern world. Gilgamesh and Enkidu take 6 days to cross a great plain (also called the steppe, Akkadian seru or Sumerian edin) to reach this cedar mountain where Enkidu once roamed with his animal friends. Has Huwawa the guardian of the trees been reformatted in the Cherubbim? Has the SWORD used by Gilgamesh to slay Huwawa become the "feiry sword" that bars access to the forbidden trees of Eden? Perhaps Adam and Eve's forbidden access to sacred trees is a reformatting of Gilgamesh and Enkidu's forbidden access to cedar trees? If so, then it worth noting that Ezekiel mentions the cedars of Lebanon in the Garden of Eden, comparing themselves to Pharaoh who is portrayed like a mighty cedar. That is to say, perhaps a Lebanese cedar mountain in the Epic of Gilgamesh lies behind Ezekiel's imagery of a cedar mountain in the Garden of Eden in the Lebanon? Thus another "edenic prototype" is a Lebanese cedar mountain.
Ezekiel 31: 3, 8-9 RSV
"Behold, I will liken you [Pharaoh] to A CEDAR IN LEBANON...THE CEDARS in the GARDEN OF GOD could not rival it...all the trees of EDEN envied it, that were in the GARDEN OF GOD."
Some may "wonder" how does the garden of Eden wind up in association with a _mountain_ (Hebrew: Har, pronounced khar) in Ezekiel's imagery if it originally was associated with Sumerian edin-the-PLAIN? The answer will surprise you! In Sumerian hymns, Eridu in Sumer, where Enki lives, and where he "made man to tend and till his fruit-tree garden" is called on occasion, _KUR_, which in Sumerian has several meanings: "land", "the underworld," and "_MOUNTAIN_." Perhaps "_KUR_ERIDU_" became over the millennia, the "Garden of Eden on a mountain"? Another contradicting myth as noted above, has man created at Nippur to tend the garden of a god called Enlil. Enlil dwelt in a temple-ziggurat called e-kur, meaning "mountain house" (e= house, kur= mountain), so his garden is associated with a mountain too like Eridu.
Kramer (emphasis mine in CAPITALS):
"Then Enki raises the city Eridu from the abyss and makes it float over the water like a lofty MOUNTAIN. Its green fruit-bearing gardens he fills with birds...
Enlil says to the Anunnaki:
"Ye great gods who are standing about,
My son has built a house, king Enki;
Eridu LIKE A MOUNTAIN, he has raised up from the earth,
In a good place he has built it."
(pp. 62-63. "Enki and Eridu: The Journey of the Water-god to Nippur." Samuel Noah Kramer. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B. C. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1944, 1961, 1972, 1997. ISBN 0-8122-1047-6 paperback)
Now, Eridu does have the remains of a great ziggurat-temple, and the ziggurat at Nippur was called the E-Kur "Mountain House" of the god Enlil. So, if one wants to argue for the real physical presence of a "mountain" at Eridu in association with Enki's fruit-tree garden worked by man who has been created to replace the Igigi gods, the ziggurat would be my first choice. The other possible "edenic mountain" is Nippur's ziggurat called the "mountain house" where man was created to work in a god's garden (Enlil's garden).
6) Adam loses out on attaining immortality, he ate the forbidden fruit. This motif appears in several Mesopotamian myths. In the Adapa myth (Adam's prototype according to several scholars) while at Eridu, his god Enki warns him that when he goes up to heaven to face the supreme god An or Anu, not to eat anything offered for its is "the food of death." In reality, it is the "food conferring immortality" on mankind, but Enki does not want to lose man as a servant (He made man to be a servant to the gods). The Hebrews have INVERTED this myth, having man consume forbidden food when in the Adapa myth man obeyed a lying god and lost out in attaining immortality (but note, neither Adapa or Adam ate the food which would confer immortality on them and via them, mankind). In another INVERSION the Hebrews place the event on the earth (but note that the warning from Enki was given on the earth at Eridu, which lies in edin-the-plain, where he has a garden of fruit trees he planted next to his shrine). So, another "edenic prototype" is Anu's abode _in Heaven_.
7) By the 2d-1st centuries BCE (Before the Common Era or BC, Before Christ), the Hasmonean Jews had come to locate Eden in the Yemen and nearby Dhofar, sources of spices and incense since King Solomon's days and the Queen of Sheba. This notion is preserved in various books called "The Pseudepigrapha." These books claim that when Adam was expelled from Eden, he asked God to allow him to take from the garden, spices and incense as offerings to God, and God assented. As the ONLY known location for these products was Southwest Arabia (the Yemen and Dhofar), thus Eden came to be "transposed" there from Lower Mesopotamia (the steppe called edin, where are located Eridu and Nippur of Sumer as well as Dilmun and its marshes) to a new location. Jewish communities, according to Yemeni Jewish traditions existed from Mecca and Medina to the Yemen, settled in the days of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, to exploit the spice trade between Sheba and Jerusalem (other traditions say they settled in the area after the fall of Jerusalem, ca. 587 BCE, to the Babylonians). So, by the 2d-1st centuries BCE, Eden had come to be identified with Arabic Adn, the modern port of Aden in the Yemen, the Islamic holy book, The Koran/Quran, calls the "garden of Eden" Jannat Adn. Thus, when The Quran came to be composed in the 7th century CE (CE means "of the Common Era", or AD meaning Anno Domini, "year of our Lord"), its Jannat Adn (however Jannat Adn in the Quran is understood to be in heaven, not on the earth), was a concept the Arabs had picked up from Jews living in their area, which had been a part of Jewish folklore since the 2d century BCE; that is to say, for some 9 centuries Jewish traditions in the areas of the Yemen, Mecca and Medina, had preserved a notion of Eden being in this part of the Arabic world!
8) Even later, additional Pseudepigraphic writings identified Eden with Jerusalem or Bethshean near the Jordan River!
9) Today, some scholars seek Eden in Missouri (the Mormons), others near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates (David Rohl). Another scholar, Dr. Juris Zarins proposed that Eden is submerged beneath the Persian Gulf near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab in Iraq. By the 1600's and 1700s a number of European scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, believed Eden could never be found because they argued that Noah's Flood had destroyed the original river courses by which it could be pin-pointed or located.
I do NOT understand that Eden is a real place, _its a Hebrew myth_ based on a re-working of earlier Mesopotamian myths, which offer -contradictorily- several different locations, as noted above.
The original pre-biblical prototypes appear to be_all_ Mesopotamian and associated with the great plain of edin in LOWER MESOPTAMIA and the lands of Sumer, Dilmun, and a Lebanese Cedar Mountain abutting edin-the-plain.
Of interest here, is a Mesopotamian flood myth in which Enlil is portrayed as the principal instigator in SENDING a flood to destroy _all_ of mankind which disturbs _his rest_ with its noise. However, his brother, the god Enki, "defies him" and WARNS a pious man called variously Ziusudra, Atrahasis or Utnapishtim of the coming flood and to save himself, family and animals by building a boat. When the flood ends an enraged Enlil learns that some humans have survived (Ziusudra and family). Enki confronts his angry brother beseeching him not to ever again send a flood to destroy mankind. Enlil relents and agrees never again to send a flood then Enlil "blesses" the survivors (Yahweh "blessed" the flood's survivors too, cf. Ge 9:1).
In Genesis it is Yahweh who SENT the flood and he WARNED one man, Noah, to save himself, family and animals by building a boat. I understand that Yahweh-Elohim is a fusion of Enlil who _sent_ the flood and Enki who _warned_ the Mesopotamian Noah, Ziusudra and his family.
So, according to various Mesopotamian "creation and flood" myths man was created to tend and till the garden of _a_ god in edin-the-plain at Nippur (Enlil) and another contradicting myth has man created to work in a garden of _a_ god in edin-the-plain at Eridu belonging to Enki. Thus the two brother gods, Enlil and Enki, who each had man created to work in their garden located in edin, are also involved in a Mesopotamian FLOOD myth, the one seeking mankinds' destruction, the other intervening to spare "a remnant" for a new beginning. That is to say, I understand that Enlil and Enki "lurk" behind Genesis' presentation of Yahweh-Elohim.
Another important "theme" or "motif" in the Mesopotamian "creation and flood" myths is that of the gods' attaining REST. Man is made to replace the Igigi gods who toil in the garden of a god (Enlil) at Nippur or at Eridu (Enki). The Igigi thus attain "eternal rest" from agricultural toil with man's creation. In the Mesopotamian flood myth man is to be destroyed because his "noise" disturbs the "rest" of the god Enlil (for whom man was created to work in his garden at Nippur) who complains he can neither sleep or rest! The myths suggest that the Igigi themselves constantly clamored for a freedom from toil and this clamor was at first ignored by the Annuaki or senior gods (Enki and Enlil). When man is made, we are told that the Igigi gods "clamor" is TRANSFERRED to man! In other words, the reason for man's "clamor" is for the same reason as that of the Igigi gods' -he has no rest from agricultural toil! Enlil decides he will obtain sleep and rest from the "clamor" by sending a flood to destroy man. That mankind seeks to enter into the "rest" from toil enjoyed exclusively by the gods is suggested in the Bible when Yahweh swears he will not allow a sinful mankind to enter into "his rest" (cf. Hebrews 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3, 5, 8-11).
Professor Foster:
"When the gods were man, they did forced labor, they bore drudgery. Great indeed was the drudgery of the gods, the forced labor was heavy, the misery too much: The seven (?) great Anunna-gods were burdening the Igigi gods with forced labor...[The gods] were digging watercourses, canals they opened, the life of the land...They heaped all the mountains. [ years] of drudgery, [ ] the vast marsh. They counted years of drudgery, [ and] forty years too much ! [ ] forced labor they bore night and day. They were complaining, denouncing, muttering down in the ditch, "Let us face up to our foreman the prefect, He must take off this our heavy burden upon us!"
(pp. 52-3, "The Story of the Flood," [The Atrahasis version]." Benjamin R. Foster. From Distant Days, Myths Tales and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. Bethesda, Maryland, CDL Press, 1995, ISBN 1-883053-09-9, paperback)
The Anunna gods acknowledge the burden of the Igigi and their "clamor":
"Ea made ready to speak, and said to the gods [his brethren], what calumny do we lay to their charge? Their forced labor was heavy. [their misery too much]! Every day [ ] the outcry [was loud, we could hear the clamor]. There is [ ] [Belet-ti, the mid-wife], is present. Let her create, then a human, a man, let him bear the yoke...[let man assume the drud]gery of god...She summoned the Anunna, the great gods...Mami made ready to speak, and said to the great gods, "You ordered me the task and I have completed (it)! You have slaughtered the god, along with his inspiration. I have done away with your heavy forced labor, I have imposed your drudgery on man. You bestowed (?) clamor upon mankind..."
(pp.58-59, Foster)
The Igigi gods in gratitude fall at her feet, kissing them, she having freed them from toil, and declare a new name for her "Mistress of All the gods" (Belet-kala-ili).
A CAVEAT ("WARNING"):
As can be seen from Professor Foster's above translation the Igigi gods are objecting to the making of watercourses and canals, NOWHERE does the text say they are working in the Anunnaki gods' city-gardens! So, why am I claiming the Igigi worked in the Anunnaki gods' gardens?
I am stepping back and looking at the "big picture," or to put it another way "connecting the dots" (making INFERENCES)! We have two sets of gods dwelling in cities they have made for themseleves on the earth, the senior gods called the Anunnaki or Anunna and the junior gods called the Igigi. The Anunnaki are making the Igigi do the work. What is the purpose of canals and watercourses in Mesopotamia? Its not to water the grass lawns near the temples. The cities of Lower Mesopotamia are habitable only if a food-supply is available for the occupants.
The watercourses, canals and irrigation ditches MAKE POSSIBLE THE CITY-GARDENS OF THE GODS. Thus I INFER that when the Anunnaki sit down to a meal, they as the senior gods are not out in the hot sun planting the crops, nor are they hoeing out the weeds, nor are they harvesting the crops, nor are they preparing the crops for the table. The Anunnaki are eating the garden-produce, and someone has to make all this "happen."
According to the myths Man has not yet been created, so that leaves the Igigi gods as bearing these burdens. That is to say it is my understanding that they not only are digging-out watercourses and canals, but irrigation ditches, and planting, hoeing and harvesting the crops to feed the Anunnaki as well as themselves.
When it is at last decided to REPLACE THE IGIGI WITH MAN, it is man who will now dig watercourses, canals, irrigation ditches and plant the crops, hoe them of weeds and harvest them and present them as food in the temples and shrines to the Anunnaki and the Igigi. Hence the reason I understand that the Igigi were burdened with toil in the gods' gardens. The gods' gardens cannot exist without water from man-made watercourses, canals and irrigation ditches.
George (a Professor of Babylonian at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies) suggests that THE IGIGI WERE TASKED WITH GARDENING DUTIES: planting, harvesting and preparing crops for the table in addition to making canals and irrigation ditches (Emphasis mine):
"We know from many ancient Mesopotamian sources, in Sumerian and in Akkadian, that the Babylonians believed the purpose of the human race to be the service of the gods. BEFORE MANKIND'S CREATION, the myth tells us, the cities of lower Mesopotamia were inhabited by the gods alone and they had to feed and clothe themselves by their own efforts. Under the supervision of Enlil, the lord of the earth, THE LESSER DEITIES GREW AND HARVESTED THE GODS' FOOD, TILLED THE SOIL and most exhaustingly, dug the rivers and waterways THAT IRRIGATED THE FIELDS...Eventually the labour became too much for them and they mutinied." (p. xxxvii. "Introduction." Andrew George. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. London. Penguin Books. 1999)
I understand that the "irrigated fields" ARE THE CITY GARDENS OF THE GODS, which provide them with food. Man is created to replace the mutinous Igigi gods. Man's destiny is to toil in the Gods' gardens for evermore, providing the Anunna and Igigi gods with food, releasing them from agricultural toil upon the earth. Genesis' notion that God made man and placed him in his garden in Eden, is then, for me a later Hebrew recasting of the Mesopotamian myths about man being made and placed in the gods' gardens to relieve them of toil. The Hebrews in RECASTING these Mesopotamian myths regarding how, why, when, where man was created ARE REFUTING, DENYING AND CHALLENGING this presentation of the relationship between Man and his God.
Man is made of clay at Nippur under the god Ea's (Sumerian Enki) direction. This clay is given life or animated by being mixed with the flesh and blood of the Igigi god considered to be the ringleader of the Igigi rebellion against Enlil of Nippur. That is to say Man's REBELLIOUSNESS to a god is because he has in his body the REBELLIOUS SPIRIT of the slain Igigi god. The Hebrews are REFUTING this notion, portraying Adam as REBELLING against Eden's God as an act of freewill, by eating the forbidden fruit. For the Mesopotamians MAN IS THE VICTIM OF THE GODS. For the Hebrews GOD IS THE VICTIM of a rebellious ungrateful mankind whom he wishes to shower with love and fellowship.
How did the Hebrews come by these ORIGINALLY SUMERIAN MOTIFS? The answer is that these existed in the literature and traditions of a city called UR OF THE CHALDEES where lived Terah and his son Abraham. I understand that these two individuals, transformed these myths, believing that they had a "relevation from God," to do so.
Predictably the local populace OBJECTED to this reinterpretation and transformation of their myths explaining where, how and why man came to be made. I suspect Terah and Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees as OUTCASTS or HERETICS, rejected by the local populace. Of note here is that the Jewish Hasmonean authors of the book of Judith (said book being in Catholic Bibles, and a few Protestant bibles under the title of Apocrypha), understood that because Terah and Abraham had REJECTED THE GODS OF THEIR ANCESTORS, to follow Yahweh-Elohim, they were _forced to flee_ to Haran of Mesopotamia, and later to Canaan.
Here is the account from Judith (believed by some scholars to date from the late 2nd century BCE):
Judith 5:5-9
"Then Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites, said to him, "Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth about this people that dwells in the nearby mountain district. No falsehood shall come from your servant's mouth. This people is descended from the Chaldeans.At one time they lived in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the the gods of their fathers who were in Chaldea. For they had left the ways of their ancestors, and they worshipped the God of Heaven, the God they had come to know; hence they drove them out from the presence of their gods; and they fled to Mesopotamia, and lived there a long time. Then their God commanded them to leave the place were they were living and go to the land of Canaan. There they settled, and prospered..."
(Herbert G. May & Bruce M. Metzger. Editors. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. [Revised Standard Version]. New York. Oxford University Press. 1977)
Professor Kramer on Abraham of Ur being Genesis' possible source of motifs:
"To be sure, even the earliest parts of the Bible, it is generally agreed, were not written down in their present form much earlier than 1000 BC, whereas most of the Sumerian literary documents were composed about 2000 BC or not long afterward. There is, therefore no question of any contemporary borrowing from the Sumerian literary sources. Sumerian influence penetrated the Bible through the Canaanite, Hurrian, Hittite, and Akkadian literatures -particularly through the latter, since, as is well known, the Akkadian language was used all over Palestine and its environs in the second millennium BC as the common language of practically the entire literary world. Akkadian literary works must therefore have been well known to Palestinian men of letters, including the Hebrews, and not a few of these Akkadian literary works can be traced back to Sumerian protoypes, remodeled and transformed over the centuries.
However, there is another possible source of Sumerian influence on the Bible, which is far more direct and immediate than that just described. In fact, it may well go back to Father Abraham himself. Most scholars agree that the Abraham saga as told in the Bible contains much that is legendary and fanciful, it does have an important kernel of truth, including Abraham's birth in Ur of the Chaldees, perhaps about 1700 BC, and his early life there with his family. Now Ur was one of the most important cities of ancient Sumer; in fact, it was the capital of Sumer at three different periods in its history. It had an impressive edubba; and in the joint British-American excavations conducted there between the years 1922 and 1934, quite a number of Sumerian literary documents have been found. Abraham and his forefathers may well have had some acquaintence with Sumerian literary products that had been copied and created in their home town academy. And it is by no means impossible that he and the members of his family brought some of this Sumerian lore and learning with them to Palestine, where they gradually became part of the traditions and sources utilized by the Hebrew men of letters in composing and redacting the books of the Bible."
(p. 292. "The Legacy of Sumer." Samuel Noah Kramer. The Sumerians, Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. [1963] reprint 1972. ISBN 0-226-45237-9. paperback)
Kramer's explanation, below, of how the ancient Sumerians sought to explain the creation of the world and man, _for me_ applies just as well to Genesis' fanciful explanation of the creation of the earth and man:
"...modern thinking man is usually prepared to admit the relative character of his conclusions and is skeptical of all absolute answers. Not so the Sumerian thinker; he was convinced that his thoughts on the matter were absolutely correct and that he knew exactly how the universe was created and operated."
(p. 82. "Man's First Cosmogony and Cosmology." Samuel Noah Kramer. History Begins At Sumer: Twenty-seven "Firsts" in Man's Recorded History. Garden City, New York. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959 reprint of 1956 History Begins at Sumer by The Falcon's Wing Press)
"The mythographers were scribes and poets whose main concern was the glorification and exhaltation of the gods and their deeds...The aim of the myth-makers was to compose a narrative poem that would explain one or another of these notions and practices in a manner that would be appealing, insipring, and entertaining. They were not concerned with proofs and arguments directed to the intellect. Their first interest was in telling a story that would appeal to the emotions. Their main literary tools, therefore, were not logic and reason, but imagination and fantasy. In telling their story, these poets did not hesitate to invent motives and incidents patterned on human action which could not possibly have any basis in reasonable and speculative thought. Nor did they hesitate to adopt legendary and folkloristic motifs that had nothing to do with rational cosmological inquiry and inference...The mature and reflective Sumerian thinker had the mental capacity of thinking logically and coherently on any problems, including those concerned with the origin and operation of the universe. His stumbling block was the lack of scientific data at his disposal. Furthermore, he lacked such fundamental intellectual tools as definition and generalization, and had practically no insight into the the processes of growth and development, since the principle of evolution, which seems so obvious now, was entirely unknown to him."
(pp. 80-81. "Man's first Cosmogony and Cosmology." Samuel Noah Kramer. History Begins At Sumer: Twenty-seven "Firsts" in Man's Recorded History. Garden City, New York. Doubleday Anchor Books. 1959 reprint of 1956 History Begins at Sumer by The Falcon's Wing Press)
Why does Genesis "open" with Adam's being present in the garden of God? I understand that this is an echo of the Mesopotamian creation myths regarding how and why man came to be made. According to these myths (the Atra-hasis Epic), BEFORE man was created, there existed on earth a GARDEN OF THE GODS in Lower Mesopotamia, fed by irrigation canals, this garden was tilled, tended, and maintained by earth-dwelling gods called the Igigi. They sweated and toiled night and day according to one myth _without rest_ for 40 years in the GARDEN OF THE GODS (the garden of the earth-dwelling gods called the Annunaki) and eventually threatened rebellion if something wasn't done to end their misery as agriculturalist laborers, dredging irrigation canals, planting, harvesting and presenting the earthly fruits to the gods in heaven as well as on the earth. To end a threatened rebellion the earth-dwelling god Ea/Enki orders the slaying of one of the Igigi rebel gods and his flesh and blood are ground into the clay to make man. Accordingly,THE MESOPOTAMIAN MYTHS UNDERSTOOD THAT MAN WAS CREATED TO TOIL IN A GARDEN OF THE GODS _in_ edin the plain (Sumer lies in the great plain of Lower Mesopotamia) to provide them food in heaven as well as on the earth via sacrifices, releasing the Igigi gods of agricultural toil upon the earth. Thus the reason Genesis has man in the form of Adam making his FIRST appearance on the earth in a GOD'S GARDEN, called the garden of Eden, is because the Hebrews have reformatted the Mesopotamian myth about man's creation and being made to tend the earthly garden of the gods near Eridu, as well as at Nippur, in Sumer. Please note it is the blood of a slain earth-dwelling god that animates or gives "life" to the inert clay that is man. Some scholars have suggested that the Hebrew Bible's statement that blood must not be consumed because _it is the life_ of an animal may recall the blood of a slain god _giving life_ to man (De 12:16-23). In the New Testament, it is a god's shed blood (Jesus the Christ) that gives _"life"_ to mankind, rescuing him from death.
Why does Genesis portray Adam and Eve as NAKED and UNASHAMED in EDEN? The answer is that other Mesopotamian myths (the so-called "Eridu Genesis Myth") have man roaming the high plains or steppe, called in Sumerian edin and in Akkadian (Babylonian) seru, with wild animals for companions. He is like a wild beast, he roams edin NAKED and eats grass and laps water from ditches or watering holes like an animal. Later, the gods take pity on man's "hard life" in edin and teach him that to be NAKED is WRONG, they "civilize" him, taking him from his animal companions in the steppe, and settle him in cities originally built by and for the gods, to serve them. They CLOTHE HIM, and teach him the arts of civilization, music, dance, writing, laws, how to build cities, temples, how to cast metals, how to build irigation-fed gardens for food, how to be a shepherd and raise animals, all of these things were previously KNOWN ONLY BY GODS, NOT BY MAN, the NAKED animal in edin. The Hebrews have DENIED the gods made man, he was made by one god, Yahweh-Elohim. They deny that the first cities were made by gods, who later allowed man to dwell in them, instead they claim Cain and his descendants made the first cities. The Hebrews also transformed edin the plain, instead of it being a "hard" unforgiving environment NOT conducive to NAKED man's well-being, it is INVERTED and portrayed as the idyllic or ideal place for NAKED man to thrive in! However, please note an interesting contradiction exists here, the cities of Sumer were built in edin the plain. The gods who built these cities were originally naked like animals, eating grass and lapping water like naked man. So, edin is not only the plain wild animals roam, its also a plain "tamed" by civilized man, with irrigation canals and networks for gardens and cities!
Kramer on man being NAKED and eating like an animal:
"The men of those days of yore,
Knew not the eating of bread,
KNEW NOT THE WEARING OF CLOTHES,
Ate herbs with their mouths like sheep,
Drank water from the furrows...
Man was given the breath of life."
(pp. xx-xxi. "Preface." Samuel Noah Kramer. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium BC. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press. [1944], 1961, 1972 Revised Edition. ISBN 0-8122-1047-6. paperback)
Please click here for 3rd milllennium BCE Sumerian pictures of NAKED MAN THE AGRICULTURAL SERVANT OF THE GODS, from which _I understand_ the Hebrews drew their notion that A NAKED ADAM WAS AN AGRICULTURAL SERVANT OF A GOD.
Kramer also noted that SURPRISINGLY, the gods themselves, dwelling upon the earth, were at one time ORIGINALLY NAKED and ate like animals, just like man (Emphasis mine) :
"In addition to the creation poem outlined above, a detailed description of the purpose for which mankind was created is given in the introduction to the myth Cattle and Grain" (cf. p. 53); it runs as follows. After the Anunnaki, the heaven-gods, had been born, but before the creation of Lahar, the cattle-god, and Ashnan, the grain-goddess, there existed neither cattle nor grain. The gods therefore "knew not" the eating of bread nor the dressing of garments. The cattle-god Lahar and the grain-goddess Ashnan were then created in the creation chamber of heaven, but still the gods remained unsated. It was then that man "was given breath," for the sake of the welfare of the sheepfold and "good things" of the gods. This introduction follows:
"Like mankind when first created,
They (the Anunnaki) knew not the eating of bread,
Knew not the dressing of garments,
Ate plants with their mouth like sheep,
Drank water from the ditch."
Kramer explains that man was created to be the gods' servant and given the "breath of life" rather reminiscent of Genesis' God giving the NAKED Adam "the breath of life":
"The myth involving Lahar, the cattle-god, and his sister Ashnan, the grain-goddess, represents another variation of the Cain-Abel motif in Near East mythology. Lahar and Ashnan, according to our myth, were created in the creation chamber of the gods in order that the Anunnaki, the children and followers of the heaven-god An, might have food to eat and clothes to wear. But the Anunnaki were unable to make effective use of the products of these deities; it was to remedy this situation that man was created."
(p. 53. "Cattle and Grain Myth." Samuel Noah Kramer. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium BC. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press. [1944], 1961, 1972 Revised Edition. ISBN 0-8122-1047-6. paperback)
"In those days, in the creation chamber of the gods,
In their house Dulkug, Lahar and Anshnan were fashioned;
The produce of Lahar and Ashnan,
The Anunnaki of the Dulkug eat, but remain unsated;
In their pure sheepfold milk..., and good things,
The Anunnaki of the Dulkug drink, but remain unsated;
For the sake of the good things in their pure sheepfolds,
Man was given breath."
(pp. 72-73. "Cattle and Grain Myth." Samuel Noah Kramer. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium BC. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press. [1944], 1961, 1972 Revised Edition. ISBN 0-8122-1047-6. paperback)
The Mesopotamian myths offer differing _contradicting accounts_ about man's creation and which god or goddess actually made man and where and when. I understand that some of these contradictory motifs have been combined together from differing myths and preserved in Genesis account (Ge. 1-9). Apparently the gods were conceived at times as living on the earth and on other occasions in the heavens. According to myths the tower of Babylon was built by the gods as a resting place for themselves, yet on other occasions they dwell in heaven and are invisible.
Enki is iconographically rendered with two rivers erupting from his shoulders, and seated at times on a throne in the depths of the Abzu (on his throne are carved pots with streams of water erupting from them, suggesting that from under his throne arises the freshwaters man needs for life and surival, rather like the Hebrew notion of God's throne at
