Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition.pdf

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Tiamat, whose waters were mingled together. Then follows the successive generation of two pairs of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, and Anshar and Kishar, long ages separating the two generations from each other and from the birth of the great gods which subsequently takes place. In the summary of the myth which is given by Damascius[1] the names of the various deities accurately correspond to those in the opening lines of the poem; but he makes some notable additions, as will be seen from the following table: DAMASCUS "SEVEN TABLETS" I {'Apason---Tauthe} Apsû---Tiamat | {Moumis} Mummu {Lakhos---Lakhe}[2] Lakhmu---Lakhamu {'Assoros--- Kissare} Anshar---Kishar {'Anos, 'Illinos, 'Aos} Anu, [ ], Nudimmud (= Ea) {'Aos---Dauke} | {Belos} [1] /Quaestiones de primis principiis/, cap. 125; ed. Kopp, p. 384. [2] Emended from the reading {Dakhen kai Dakhon} of the text. In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos} and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in favour of the restoration;[1] and the omission of Enlil's name from this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of the World"[2] upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative. It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is presumably of Sumerian origin. [1] Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time at the beginning of a line, and the three lines following the reference to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with descriptions of his wisdom and power. It is also probable that the three preceding lines (ll. 14-16), all of which refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied with his description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any reference to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of their second halves do not suggestion the restoration. [2] Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116. Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in the Sumerian Version.[1] Before leaving the names, it may be added that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously Sumerian in form. [1] Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and Ninkharsagga is associated with Enki, as his consort, in another Sumerian myth. It may be noted that the character of Apsû and Tiamat in this portion of the poem[1] is quite at variance with their later actions. Their revolt at the ordered "way" of the gods was a necessary preliminary to the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the heroes. Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were generated.[2] This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem than any that has yet been proposed. That line is usually taken to imply that the gods were created "in the midst of [heaven]", but I think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better sense:
When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not bear a name, And the primaeval Apsû who begat them,[3] And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them[3] all,-- Their waters were mingled together, . . . . . . . . . Then were created the gods in the midst of [their waters],[4] Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . . [1] Tabl. I, ll. 1-21. [2] We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat's original character in her control of the Tablets of Fate. The poem does not represent her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology they are "not his by right" (cf. Tabl. I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl. IV, l. 121). [3] i.e. the gods. [4] The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate (/Seven Tablets/, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the restoration /ki-rib š[a-ma-mi]/, "in the midst of heaven", as possible, since the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of /ša/. The restoration appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by supposing that /šamâmu/, or "heaven", was already vaguely conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl. i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the sign /me/; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo- Babylonian tablet as /ki-rib m[e-e-šu-nu]/, "in the midst of [their waters]", corresponding to the form /mu-u-šu-nu/ in l. 5 of this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version /mé(pl)-šu-nu/ would be read in both lines. It will be possible to verify the new reading, by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British Museum collections again become available for study after the war. If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in which living creatures, such as he had already described, were generated.[1] The primaeval waters are originally the source of life, not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was self-created, never ceased to be the Sungod's supporter. The change in the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the combination of the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination that in Egypt would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From a study of some aspects of the names at the beginning of the Babylonian poem we have already seen reason to suspect that its version of the Birth of the Gods goes back to Sumerian times, and it is pertinent to ask whether we have any further evidence that in Sumerian belief water was the origin of all things. [1] {ugrou gar ontos tou pantos kai zoon en auto gegennemenon [toionde] ktl}. His creatures of the primaeval water were killed by the light; and terrestrial animals were then created which could bear (i.e. breathe and exist in) the air. For many years we have possessed a Sumerian myth of Creation, which has come to us on a late Babylonian tablet as the introductory section of an incantation. It is provided with a Semitic translation, and to judge from its record of the building of Babylon and Egasila, Marduk's temple, and its identification of Marduk himself with the Creator, it has clearly undergone some editing at the hands of the Babylonian priests. Moreover, the occurrence of various episodes out of their logical order, and the fact that the text records twice over the creation of swamps and marshes, reeds and trees or forests, animals and cities, indicate that two Sumerian myths have been combined. Thus we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant connexion with each other.[1] Of the actual cause of Creation the text appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal, and the other carried out by a god. But these two accounts are quite unlike the authorized version of Babylon, and we may confidently regard them as representing genuine Sumerian myths. The text resembles other early accounts of Creation by introducing its narrative with a series of negative statements, which serve to indicate the preceding non-existence of the world, as will be seen from the following extract:[2] No city had been created, no creature had been made, Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built, Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built, Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built, Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been created. All lands[3] were sea. At the time when a channel (was formed) in the midst of the sea, Then was Eridu created, Esagila built, etc.
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Page 13 and 14: [3] Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii. 23; and cf.
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Page 17 and 18: example, which preceded that of Nî
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Page 23 and 24: I may add that a parallel is provid
Page 25 and 26: Now the tablets from the Royal Libr
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Page 31 and 32: from it might well be referred to b
Page 33 and 34: [1] In Semitic-Babylonian the first
Page 35 and 36: after which the text continues: At
Page 37 and 38: It is an interesting fact that Zius
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Page 43 and 44: oth versions. We find an equally cl
Page 45 and 46: We will now return to the text and
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Page 49 and 50: Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, tho
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