The Last book of the
Bible, Revelation, uses many highly symbolic figures and
specificially warns that the end-time religion will look just like the
beginning
religion in
the very first part of the book of Genesis. As in the New Testament,
the Old Testament reveals a True God of right living and social
justice within history and often explained by the use of stories
invented by human composers. The natural phenomena and natural ideas
of right and wrong led some people to live in harmony with what they
knew, while most people were not mentally or spiritually aware of the
spirit realm. The entire Bible is the story of God looking for "the
few good men and women." To the masses, God spoke in parables. When
asked why this was, Jesus told the Apostles: A vital part of that
parable history was the evil which resulted following the destruction
of their fruitful lands (earth) by the flood. The surviving people followed a
system of beliefs and practices in their religion which allowed a few
as "god's agents" to use the many as slaves in a communistic system until the
"capitalists" woke up about 2000 B.C. God called Abraham
out of that environment to make him a blessing to all of the nations.
His descendants finally went into Egypt to escape a famine. During
the Exodus from Egypt and before the wilderness wandering, Israel
lived under a covenant and did not need a complicated system of laws.
Righteousness was measured by living a personally right life and
treating others with social justice. God was approached on a personal
basis and not through a central priesthood and temple. Only when a
society totally fails the spiritual test, do they need laws, human
priests and temples. When the
oral
covenant was
rejected at Mount Sinai, a written law and history was produced. A national priesthood was
established and the Levites assigned to keep the people away from the
Tabernacle as symbol of God's presence -- just like the nations. Moses began to write a very
unique record of creation and history based on this righteousness and
justice. In this story of a spiritual dimension of mankind, two
things are Holy: The One Yahweh who is the only elohim, and His Word which reaches into the human heart as
His voice or Arm. or Spirit. In the Babylonian
and other accounts, the gods were both good and evil and there was no
place for righteousness and justice. Mankind was created to be
slaves so that the lazy, lower-level gods could take their ease.
Yahweh, on the other hand, decreed that mankind had a right to rest. From understanding the
ancient accounts we can recognize when false gods are worshipped and
the people are again deprived of the rest of God and spiritual
understanding. Jesus identified the clergy as a "Baal-like" tribe
doing battle with John the Baptist as "Elijah." Christ's mission was
to remove the burden which was "anxiety created by religious
ritual." Where evil results
in Israel's history it is because people who reject God's common
sense, righteous rules are doomed to have to be ruled like the
nations,
make war like the nations, worship like the nations and cease to exist like the nations.
Therefore, the Biblical record of the period of the kingdom or
Monarchy is a record of them living much like their old Mesopotamian
and Canaanite neighbor nations. Many of the gods and rituals Israel
fell into were taken directly from the myths of the nations. However,
this should not disturb us because this is a faithful record of what
God's people should not do. Therefore, the
Mesopotamian accounts are absolutely required reading if we are to
understand the Bible as contrasted to the myths people compose like
modern songs and sermons. check timeline http://www.freemasonry.bc.ca/Writings/timeline/timeline.html
Theogony: Deals with the origin of the gods. Hesoid's
Theogony
is the fullest record of the Greek myths which have parallels in
Babylonia. Cosmogony: Studies the origin and evolutionary behaviour of
the universe: planets, nebula, etc. The myth makers viewed it as
being: the result of the conscious or unconscious emanation from the
transcendent realm; the result of the fall of a deity from the
Beyond; the creation of a hostile, ignorant, or evil deity; or a joke
or mistake. Hesoid addresses this also. Cosmology: deals with the ordering of the world. It deals
primarily with astronomy and physics to understand the universe as an
ordered system. In the 6th century BC the Phythagoreans taught a
spherical Earth and a harmonius relationship with the planets. Hesoid addresses this
also.
A course.
Modern
Cosmology Hubble
Photos. Many of the ancient
myths overlap many areas covered by the Bible and are a vivid
contrast between religion based upon the external body and a religion
of the mind or spirit. The "earth" in
Genesis is not the cosmos of the globe. Rather, Genesis speaks of God using
pillars (buckling of the land) to raise the earth or fruitful
place up
between the liquid waters and the gaseous waters. This fruitful place
or earth created a place where animal and plant life could exist. If
man can evolve then the ancient mind would say that the gods can
evolve. And they do, based upon the "survival of the fitest."
The Eridu
Genesis
is a
Sumerian text. It covers the creation of the world, invention
of cities and the flood. After the universe was created out of the
chaos of the sea, the gods evolved and they in turn created mankind to farm, herd and worship them.
Cities and
kingship was created but the gods decided to destroy mankind with a
flood. Ziusudra (Upnapishtim) from Eridu was instructed by Enki (Ea) to build a boat to
survive the flood blown up by Enlil. After the flood he worshipped
(prostrated) himself before An (Anu) and Enlil (Bel) and was given
immortality for his godly life. Enuma Elish
Babylonian c. 2000
B.C. Begins when all was
a watery
chaos and
only the
sea,
Tiamat, and the sweet waters under ground, Apsu the salt waters. They
mingled their waters together in a sexual union. Mummu personified the watery form
like a womb and served as Apsu's page. In their midst the gods were
born or brought fouth in pairs. The first pair, Lahmu and
Lahamu,
represented the powers in silt; the next, Anshar and Kishar, those in the horizon. They brought forth the god
of heaven, Anu, and he in turn brought forth the god of the flowing
sweet waters, Ea. The "younger" gods got on the nerves
of the Father God but the wise Ea plotted his
murder. After defeating Apsu and
Tiamat through Marduk, the divine mother was
divided into two parts, one forming heaven, the
other, earth. The primal stuff (considered as beings) had
to be organized out of the chaos or vain and
empty state. Tiamat is tehom
in Hebrew. This is a mass of
waters but Genesis does not consider it a supernatural being. In Genesis, the "spirit" or wind hovered or copulated
or brooded upon the face of the waters. In the Babylonian account the
waters which were female and male embraced.
Jesus and Job use the language of "parable" and do not agree with the Babylonian
literal account. The accounts agree in that the waters had to be
separated into a sea and a "covering" or firmament which literally
"holds up" the waters so that the earth (fruitful place) could be
created above the lower waters supported by "pillars" of the buckled
land. In Genesis, the word
"day" can also mean a journal (as in
"day log") or seven
chronicle; in the epic the story is organized
in seven tablets or
cantos.or cantus or
chants of a long poem divided into parts.
The epic ends in praise of Marduk by the lesser gods and Marduk begans to organize
temples and a religion to force the people to serve the lazy gods.
Genesis ends in God giving man rest. The
heavens were created in the fourth period by both and the creation of
man on the sixth. Marduk is identified with the sun
and its creation is
not therefore described. In Genesis, the effects of the
sun are assumed but it is only on the fourth "day" that the sun and
moon are ordained (Heb.
nathan) to be the timekeepers and regulators of
life. That is, they become visible on the
fourth day. Enuma
Elish is mythological and
polytheistic and describes the condition of religion when Moses wrote
a version dictated by Yahweh Who is described as the one
and only Elohim. The Babylonian Creation Epic
TOTAL:
N.K.Sandars Tablet I, Tablet
II,
Tablet III, Tablet
IV,
Tablet V, Tablet
VI,
Tablet VII Fragment describing the
creation of animals.
Tablet I, Tablet
II,
Tablet III, Tablet
IV,
Tablet V, Tablet
VI,
Tablet VII
Enuma Elish, The Fifty
Names of Marduk, Tablet VIb - VII Tablet I, Tablet
II, Tablet III, Tablet IV, Tablet V, Tablet VI, Tablet
VII Shamash,
the sun god, rising in the morning from the eastern mountains between
(left) Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna), the goddess of the morning star, and
(far left) Ninurta, the god of thunderstorms, with his bow and lion,
and (right) Ea (Sumerian Enki), the god of fresh water, with (far
right) his vizier, the two-faced Usmu. By
courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum The gods were the
clergy. They owned the land or means of production. Each had their
lands and temple controlled by a city-state. This was the model of
Jerusalem after Israel rejected God's direct rule and demanded a king
like the nations so that they could worship like the nations. The gods met in "the assembly of the
gods" to make and depose kings. They also controlled the cosmic
offices. For example, Utu, the sun god, was the judge of the gods, in
charge of justice and righteousness generally. Highest in the
pantheon--and presiding in the divine assembly--ranked
An (Akkadian Anu), god of heaven, who was responsible for the
calendar and the seasons as controlled by certain stars. Next came Enlil of Nippur, god of winds and of agriculture, creator
of the hoe. In the modern trinity of three Beings (required because
the pagans had a trinity), the Holy Spirit is the executive "person"
who cleans up the totally worthless mess left over after the "father
god" and "song god" got through. This is clearly borrowed from
Babylonia. For instance, Enlil executed the verdicts of the divine
assembly. Equal in rank to An
and Enlil was the goddess Ninhursag (also known as Nintur and Ninmah), goddess of stony ground: the close
mountain ranges in the east as well as the stony desert in the west
with its wildlife--wild asses, gazelles, wild goats, etc. She was
also the goddess of birth. With these was joined--seemingly
secondarily--Enki (Ea), god of the sweet waters of rivers and marshes; he
was the cleverest of the gods and a great "fixer." Enlil's sons were
the moon god Nanna or Sin; the god of thunderstorms, floods, and the plough,
Ninurta; and the underworld figures Meslamtaea, Ninazu, and Ennugi. Sin's sons were the sun god and judge
of the gods, Utu (the Akkadian Shamash); the rain god Ishkur (the Akkadian
Adad); and his daughter, the goddess of war, love, and
morning and evening star, Inanna (the Akkadian Ishtar). Inanna's luckless young husband was
the herder god Dumuzi (the Akkadian Tammuz worshipped in the temple in Jerusalem,
Eze 8). The dread netherworld was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and her husband Nergal, who are much like
Meslamtaea and Ninurta. Earlier tradition mentions
Ninazu as her husband. Meslamtaea, in Mesopotamian religion, city god of
Cuthah in Akkad. His temple in Cuthah was called Emeslam, or Meslam
("Luxuriant Mesu Tree"). His name, which means "He Who Issues from
Meslam," perhaps indicates that he was originally a tree god, which
would agree with his general chthonian, or underworld, character. He
was the son of Enlil (Akkadian: Bel), god of the atmosphere, and of Ninlil (Belit),
goddess of grain, and he appears in hymns as a warrior similar to the war god
Ninurta. Meslamtaea's weapons, however, sometimes seem to be turned
against his own people and their herds, when he kills them in great
plagues.
http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=1011&sctn=1#s_top Demons (mediators) played little or no role in the myths or
lists of the Mesopotamian pantheon. Their domain was that of
incantations. Mostly, they were depicted as outlaws; the
demoness
Lamashtu,
for instance, was hurled from heaven by her father An because of her
wickedness. The demons attacked man by causing all kinds of diseases
and were, as a rule, viewed as wind and storm beings. Consonant with
the classical view of the universe as a cosmic state, it was possible
for a person to go to the law courts against the demons--i.e., to
seek recourse before Utu and obtain judgments against them. Various
rituals for such procedures are known. When the supreme
being created the world and that there was no matter prior to his
creation, then the destiny of the world is in the mind and will of the God. This means that
the destiny of the world and man and all meaning is not determined by
the original matter but by the God who did the creating. God alone
determines the preservation, maintenance, and end of the
world.
The Sumerian texts
indicate that the first men grew from the earth in the manner of
grass and herbs. One of these texts, the "Myth of the Creation of the
Hoe," adds a
few details: Enlil removed heaven from earth in order to
make room for
seeds to come up, and after he had created the hoe he used it to
break the hard crust of earth in Uzumua ("the flesh-grower"), a place
in the Temple of Inanna in Nippur. Here, out of the hole made by
Enlil's hoe, man grew forth. The other view was
that man was created from "ingredients" by Enki, or by Enki and his
mother Nammu, or by Enki and the birth goddess called variously
Ninhursag, Nintur, and Ninmah. In the myth of "Enki and
Ninmah."
Enki had man sired by the "engendering clay of the Apsu"--i.e., of
the waters underground--and borne by Nammu. The Akkadian tradition, as
represented by the "Myth of Atrahasis," had Enki advise that a
god--presumably a rebel--be killed and that the birth goddess Nintur
mix his flesh and blood with clay. This was done, after which 14 womb
goddesses gave birth to 7 human pairs. A similar account is found in Enuma elish, in which Enki (Ea) molded
man out of the blood of the slain rebel leader Kingu. The creation of man from
the blood shed by two slain gods is yet another version in a myth
from Ashur. Therefore, is part
clay (earthly) and part god (divine). The divine aspect, however, is
not that of a living god but rather that of a slain, powerless divinity. The Atrahasis story relates
that the etemmu (ghost) of the slain god was left in man's flesh and
thus became part of man. It is this originally divine part of man,
his etemmu, that was believed to survive at his death and to
give him a shadowy afterlife in the netherworld. There is no other
hint of divine essence in man. Man by himself was viewed as being
utterly powerless to act effectively or to succeed in anything. For
anything he wanted to do he needed the help of a personal god or
goddess,
some oe who had taken them on as a "project." "Without his personal
god a man eats not." It really didn't
matter how mankind came into existence, he was designed to
work in order
to provide food, clothing, housing, and service for the gods, so
that they, relieved of all manual labour, could live the life of a
governing upper class, a landed nobility. In the scheme of existence
man was thus never an end, always just a means. The Creation of the Pickax
by Enlil, the Babylonian Holy Spirit The Creation Account From
Ashur Anunnki - Anu, Enlil,
Shamash, Ea - The Creation of Man Enki and
Ninmah.
Without
mankind the gods had to produce their own food, dig irrigation
ditches and all tasks. They complained to Enki's mother, Nammu (womb
or "mother of the god") and she interceded with Enki. From clay of the Apsu
(fresh underground waters, his father) and with the help of the womb
goddesses and eight midwife goddesses led by Ninmah (Ninhursag), his mother
became pregnant and gave birth to man to relieve the burden of the
gods. Ninmah (perhaps like Lilith) became drunk and impaired all of the newborn creating
seven
freaks.
Enki, however found a job for each. However, some were created beyond
help. Also known as Ninmah, she was given the title Ninhursag - "Lady of the Hursag (The stoney
foothills)" by her son Ninurta in the myth Lugal-e. She was an ancient Sumerian
form of the mother-goddess, known as 'mother of the gods,' and 'mother of all
children.' It was Ninhursag who was said to have been midwife to
Nammu at the creation of man.
Atrahasis and Human
Creation And
The Flood -This Akkadian story tells that mankind was created to
relieve the gods of their labor. Enki advised that a rebel god be
killed and that Nintur mix his flesh and blood with clay. 14 womb
goddesses gave birth to 7 human pairs similar to the story of
Enuma
Elish.
Elil cannot stand the noise of people, tried to eleminate
them and finally sends Enki to open the floodgates to drown
civilization witha flood. Enki rescues them by telling Atrahasis how to build a boat. See the
flood below Scholars have not
succeeded in tracing the origin of the seven-day week, nor can they
account for the origin of the Sabbath. A seven-day week does not
accord well with either a solar or lunar calendar. Some scholars,
pointing to the Akkadian term shapattu, suggest a Babylonian origin for the seven-day week
and the Sabbath. But shapattu, which refers to the day of the Full Moon and is
nowhere described as a day of rest, has little in common with the
Jewish Sabbath. It appears that the notion of the Sabbath as a holy
day of rest, linking God to his people and recurring every seventh
day, was unique to ancient Israel. Britannica
Members The Feast of Marduk and
Zarpanit - the Sabbath, Shabbat, Shabatum
Enmerkar and the Lord of
Aratta Because Dilmun has
no fresh sparkling water ENKI orders UTU, the sun god, to fill it
with fresh
water
brought up from the earth. Dilmun is thus turned into a divine
garden. In this garden 8 plants are
created and grown by NINHURSAG only to be eaten by ENKI.
NINHURSAG becomes so angry that she places the curse of death on ENKI
whose eight organs then begin to fail. NINHURSAG leaves Dilmun
although the other gods eventually convince NINHURSAG to return to
cure ENKI. She does so by creating eight healing gods including
NINTI: Adapa Myth Ea gave Adapa great wisdom but in spite
of this he was denied immortality. While fishing, the south wind belw
him into the sea. He became enraged and broke the wings of the south
wind, which ceased to blow. Anu (Sumerian: An), the sky god, called
Adapa on the carpet to be punished. However, Ea warned him not to
touch the bread and water when offered. The two heavenly doorkeepers
Tammuz and Ningishzida interceded with his omniscience Adapa needed
only immortality to become a god. Anu offered Adapa the bread and
water of eternal life but Adapa refused them. Thus at the advise of
Ea mankind became mortal.
Long-Lived
Patriarchs 317
epic of
gilg
Sumerian
Epics ANEOutline.html file
2 recheck for
redundancy Flood
Account From Nineveh 7th Century B.C. The
Flood Narrative From the Gilgamesh Epic 11th tablet Another Flood Narrative
From the Gilgamesh Epic
Version 3, 11th tablet extra ninevah? Sumerian Flood Narrative
From the Gilgamesh Epic
Version 4, 11th tablet A single short
Sumerian epic tale, "Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish," is told in the style of primary
epic. It deals with Gilgamesh's successful rebellion against his
overlord and former benefactor, Agga of Kish. More in the style of
romantic epic are the stories of "Enmerkar and the Lord of
Aratta,"
"Enmerkar and
Ensuhkeshdanna," and the "Lugalbanda epic," all of which have as heroes rulers
of the 1st dynasty of Uruk (c. 3500 BC) and deal with wars between
that city and the fabulous city of Aratta in the eastern highlands.
Gilgamesh, also of that dynasty, figures as the hero of a variety of
short tales; some, such as "Gilgamesh and Huwawa" and "Gilgamesh and the Bull of
Heaven," are
in romantic epic style, and others, such as "The Death of
Gilgamesh"
and "Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld," concern the inescapable
fact of death and the character of afterlife. The Epic of
Gilgamesh tells of Gilgamesh who was part divine and part human. He
was a great building and warrior. Anu created Enkidu as a wild man
who lived among animals to control Gilgamesh. However, Enkidu was
diverted by city life and went to Uruk to find Gilgamesh. and of
course Gilgamesh won. After he killed the wild bull Ishtar had sent
to destroy him. He travelled in search of Utnapishtim, who survived
the Babylonian flood, to learn how to gain immortality. He was told about the flood
and the plant which would renew youth. Gilgamesh obtained the plant
but it was stoken by a serpent and Gilgamesh returned to Uruk.
Gilgamesh
Prologue
This is similar to the Atrahasis story. This adds the story of a
Noah-like figure, Utnaphishtim, who survived the flood and became
immortal. This is a Neo-Assyrian version. Girgamesh Epic, Tablet
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII
The ordering, rather
than the creation, of the world is the subject of another myth about
Enki, called "Enki and World Order." Beginning with long praises and
self-praises of Enki, it tells how he blessed Nippur (Sumer), Ur,
Meluhha (Ethiopia), and Dilmun (Bahrain) and gave them their
characteristics, after which he turned his attention to the Euphrates
and Tigris rivers, to the marshes, the sea, and the rains, and then
to instituting one facet after another of the economic life of Sumer:
agriculture, housebuilding, herding, and so forth. The story ends
with a complaint by Enki's granddaughter Inanna that she has not been
given her due share of offices, at which he patiently pointed to
various offices she had in fact been given and kindly added a few
more. (See cosmology.) Another myth about
the world order but dealing with it from a very different point of
view concerns Enlil's son, the rain god Ninurta, called from its
opening word Lugal-e ("O King"). This myth begins with a description
of the young king, Ninurta, sitting at home in Nippur when, through
his general, reports reach him of a new power that has arisen in the
mountains to challenge him--i.e., Azag, son of Anu (Sky) and Ki
(Earth), who has been chosen king by the plants and is raiding the
cities with his warriors, the stones. Ninurta sets out in his boat to
give battle, and a fierce engagement ensues, in which Azag is killed.
Afterward Ninurta reorganizes his newly won territory, builds a stone
barrier, the near mountain ranges or foothills (the hursag), and
gathers the waters that used to go up into the mountains and directs
them into the Tigris to flood it and provide plentiful irrigation
water from Sumer. The hursag he presents as a gift to his mother, who
had come to visit him, naming her Ninhursag (Lady of the hursag).
Lastly he sits in judgment on the stones who had formed the Azag's
army. Some of them, who had shown special ill will toward him, he
curses, and others he trusts and gives high office in his
administration. These judgments give the stones their present
characteristics so that, for example, the flint is condemned to break
before the much softer horn, as it indeed does when the horn is
pressed against it to flake it. Noteworthy also is the way in which
order in the universe, the yearly flood and other seasonal events, is
seen--consonantly with Ninurta's role as "king" and leader in
war--under the pattern of a reorganization of conquered territories.
Other myths about
Ninurta are An-gim dím-ma and a myth of his contest with Enki.
The first of these tells how Ninurta, on returning from battle to
Nippur, was met by Enlil's page Nusku, who ordered him to cease his
warlike clamour and not scare Enlil and the other gods. After long
speeches of self-praise by Ninurta, further addresses to him calmed
him and made him enter his temple gently. The second tale relates how
he conquered the Thunderbird Ansud with Enki's help but missed the
powers it had stolen from him, and how, resentful at this, he plotted
against Enki but was outsmarted and trapped. Another Sumerian myth,
the "Eridu
Genesis,"
tells of the creation of man and animals, of the building of the
first cities, and of the flood.
The Emergence of Kingship: Inscription of Umma
and Lagash, c. 2500BCE Enki
and Enlil Establish order at Nippur With the Grain Goddess
Ezinu Enki
and The World Order describes the organization of the creation which had
been created a freak or "empty and void." After a lot of self-praises he
blessed Nippur (Sumer), Ur, Meluhha (Ethiopia) and Dilumn which may be Bahrain. He
organized the Tigris and Euphrates, the marshes, the sea and the
rains. He created Sumerian economic life of farming, housebuilding,
herding, and etc. Inanna, Enki's grandaughter, did not receive her share of offices and authority
(the MES). However, Inanna determins to dominate, gets Enki drunk and
just takes the MES: Inanna
- Ea - Gift of Wisdom and Music
Origin of a City
p. 337 above tower of bable
Institutions and
practices City-state and
national state In early dynastic
times, probably as far back as historians can trace its
history,Mesopotamia was divided into small units, the so-called
city-states, consisting of amajor city with its surrounding lands.
The ruler of the city--usually entitled ensi--wasalso in charge of
the temple of the city god. The spouse of the ensi had charge of the
temple of the city goddess, and the children of the ensi administered the temples of the
deities who were regarded as children of the city god and the city
goddesses. Afterthe foundation of larger political units, such as
leagues or empires, contributions were made to a central temple of
the political unit, such as the temple of Enlil at Nippur inthe
Nippur league. On the other hand, however, the king or other central
ruler mightalso contribute to the shrines of local cults. When, in
the 2nd and 1st millennia, Babylonia and Assyria emerged as national
states, their kings had responsibility for thenational cult, and each
monarch supervised the administration of all temples in
hisdomain. Epic of Paradise, Mountain Dilmun
/ Tilmun, Flood, Fall of Man
Abraham, Ur of Chaldees,
Babylonian Tablets
Law Code of Hammurabi
378 Hittite Cod of Law
407 http://www.asor.org/HITTITE/HittLit.html http://www.multimania.com/hatti/HattiEnglish/texts.html
Asserian Code of
Laws 427 Carthaginian Law of
Sacrifices 439
Tale
of Two Brothers - Anpu and Bata 8/5/99 Letters
to Dudu or David -Joseph in Egypt 8/5/99 Egyptian
Famine - Baba of El-Kab - Joseph
Wenamon
- Wenamun - Amun-Re - Lucifer at Tyre ===== Ninturta
-Creation of the
Pickax
Journey to the
Netherworld The genre of myths in ancient
Mesopotamian literature centres on praises that recount and celebrate
great deeds. The doers of the deeds (creative or otherwise decisive
acts), and thus the subjects of the praises, are the gods. In the
oldest myths, the Sumerian, these acts tend to have particular rather
than universal relevance, which is understandable since they deal
with the power and acts of a particular god with a particular sphere
of influence in the cosmos. An example of such myths is the myth of
"Dumuzi's Death," which relates how Dumuzi (Producer of Sound
Offspring), the power in the fertility of spring, dreamed of his own
death at the hands of a group of deputies from the netherworld and
how he tried to hide himself but was betrayed by his friend after his
sister had resisted all attempts to make her reveal where he was.
A similar, very complex myth,
"Inanna's
Descent," relates how the
goddess Inanna (Lady of the Date Clusters) set her heart on ruling
the netherworld and tried to depose her older sister, the queen of
the netherworld, Ereshkigal (Lady of the Greater Earth). Her attempt
failed, and she was killed and changed into a piece of rotting meat
in the netherworld. It took all the ingenuity of Enki (Lord of Sweet
Waters in the Earth) to bring Inanna back to life, and even then she
was released only on condition that she furnish a substitute to take
her place. On her return, finding her young husband Dumuzi feasting
instead of mourning for her, Inanna was seized with jealousy and
designated him as that substitute. Dumuzi tried to flee the posse of
deputies who had accompanied Inanna, and with the help of the sun god
Utu (Sun), who changed Dumuzi's shape, he managed to escape, was
recaptured, escaped again, and so on, until he was finally taken to
the netherworld. The fly told his little sister Geshtinanna where he
was, and she went in search of him. The myth ends with Inanna
rewarding the fly and decreeing that Dumuzi and his little sister
could alternate as her substitute, each of them spending half a year
in the netherworld, the other half above with the living.
A third myth built over the motif of
journeying to the netherworld is the myth of "The Engendering of the
Moongod and his Brothers," which tells how Enlil (Lord Wind), when
still a youngster, came upon young Ninlil (goddess of grain) as
she--eager to be with child and disobeying her mother--was bathing in
a canal where he would see her. He lay with her in spite of her
pretending to protest and thus engendered the moon god Suen. For this
offense Enlil was banished from Nippur and took the road to the
netherworld. Ninlil, carrying his child, followed him. On the way
Enlil took the shape first of the Nippur gatekeeper, then of the man
of the river of the netherworld, and lastly of the ferryman of the
river of the netherworld. In each such disguise Enlil persuaded
Ninlil to let him lie with her to engender a son who might take
Suen's place in the netherworld and leave him free for the world
above. Thus three further deities, all underworld figures, were
engendered: Meslamtaea (He Who Comes Out of the Meslam Temple),
Ninazu (Water Sprinkler [?]), and Ennugi (the God Who Returns Not).
The myth ends with a paean to Enlil as a source of abundance and to
his divine word, which always comes true. Most likely all of these myths have
backgrounds in fertility cults and concern the disappearance of
nature's fertility with the onset of the dry season or with the
underground storage of food. As Enlil is celebrated for
engendering other gods that embody other powers in nature, so also
was Enki in the myth of "Enki
and Ninhursag," in which
myth Enki lay down with Ninhursag (Lady of the Stony Ground) on the
island of Dilmun (modern
Bahrain), which had been allotted to them. At that time all was new
and fresh, inchoate, not yet set in its present mold. There Enki
provided water for the future city of Dilmun, lay with Ninhursag, and
left her. She gave birth to a daughter, Ninshar (Lady
Herb), on whom Enki in turn engendered the spider Uttu, goddess of
spinning and weaving. Ninhursag warned Uttu against Enki, but he,
proffering marriage gifts, persuaded her to open the door to him.
After Enki had abandoned Uttu, Ninhursag found her and removed Enki's
semen from her body. From the semen seven plants sprouted forth.
These plants Enki later saw and ate and so became pregnant from his
own semen. Unable as a male to give birth, he fell fatally ill, until
Ninhursag relented and--as birth goddess--placed him in her vulva and
helped him to give birth to seven daughters, whom Enki then happily
married off to various gods. The story is probably to be seen as a
bit of broad humour. Not only the birth of gods but also
the birth, or creation, of man is treated in the myths. The myth of
"Enki and
Ninmah" relates how the gods
originally had to toil for their food, dig irrigation canals, and
perform other menial tasks until, in their distress, they complained
to Enki's mother, Nammu, who took the complaints to Enki. Enki
remembered the engendering clay of the Apsu (i.e., the fresh
underground waters that fathered him), and from this clay, with the
help of the womb goddesses and eight midwife goddesses led by Ninmah
(another name for Ninhursag), he had his mother become pregnant with
and give birth to man so that he could relieve the gods of their
toil. At the celebration of the birth, however, Enki and Ninmah both
drank too much beer and began to quarrel. Ninmah boasted that she
could impair man's shape at will, and Enki countered that he could
temper even the worst that she might do. So she made seven freaks,
for each of which Enki found a place in society and a living. He then
challenged her to alleviate the mischief he could do, but the
creature he fashioned--a prematurely aborted fetus--was beyond help.
The moral drawn by Enki was that both male and female contribute to
the birth of a happy child. The aborted fetus lacked the contribution
of the birth goddess in the womb. Religion text from
http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=6#s_top
5. Ipuwer
6-Ishtar
Descent to the Nether world (The 7 Gates of Hell) Dumuzi's
Death "The Engendering of
the Moongod and his Brothers," BabEnkNinhur.html==== 8 - Death of Alen Baal - Poem
from Ras Shamra 9 - Resurrection of Alein
Baal - Poem from Ras Shamra to do
In the cultic practices,
humans fulfilled their destiny: to take care of the gods' material needs. They therefore provided the gods with
houses (the temples) that were richly supplied with lands, which
people cultivated for them. In the temple the god was present in--but
not bounded by--a statue made of precious wood overlaid with gold.
For this statue the temple kitchen staff prepared daily meals from
produce grown or raised on the temple's fields, in its orchards, in
its sheepfolds, cattle pens, and game preserves, brought in by its
fishermen, or delivered by farmers owing it as a temple tax. The statue was also clad in costly raiment, bathed,
and escorted to bed in the bedchamber of the god, often on top of the
temple tower, or ziggurat. To see to all of this the god had a
corps of house servants--i.e., priests
trained as cooks, bakers, waiters, and bathers, or as encomiasts (singers of praise) and musicians to make the god's
meals festive, or as elegists to
soothe him in times of stress and grief. Diversions from the daily
routine were the great monthly festivals and also a number of special
occasions. Such special occasions might be a sudden need to go
through the elaborate ritual for purifying the king when he was
threatened by the evils implied in an eclipse of the Moon, or in
extreme cases there might be a call for the ritual installation of a
substitute king to take upon himself the dangers threatening, and
various other nonperiodic rituals. Partly regular, partly impromptu,
were the occasions for audiences with the god in which the king or
other worshipers presented their petitions and prayers accompanied by
appropriate offerings. These were mostly edibles, but not
infrequently the costly containers in which they were presented,
stone vases, golden boat-shaped vessels, etc., testified to the
ardour of the givers. Appropriate gifts other than edibles were also
acceptable--among them cylinder seals for the god's use, superhuman
in size, and weapons for him, such as maceheads, also outsize.
To the cult, but as private rather
than as part of the temple cult, may be counted also the burial ritual, concerning which, unfortunately,
little is known. In outgoing Early Dynastic times in Girsu two modes of burial
were current. One was ordinary burial in a cemetery; the nature of
the other called laying the body "in the reeds of Enki," is not
understood. It may have denoted the floating of the body down the
river into the canebrakes. Elegists and other funerary personnel were
in attendance and conducted the laments seeking to give full
expression to the grief of the bereaved and propitiate the spirit of
the dead. In later times burial in a family vault under the dwelling
house was frequent.
Sacred
Time http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=17
Administration http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=18
Sacred
Places http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=19
The Magical
Arts http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=20
-Babylonia Catholic
Encyclopedia - -Domestication of
Enkidu
--- -Dumuzi is
Presented to Inanna
-The Courtship of
Inanna and Dumuzi
-Magian Version of the
Descent of Ishtar
The Praiser
http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=119916&sctn=5
Babylonian Psalms
497 -Hymn of Love
from Inanna to Tammuz
-Ludlul Bel Nimeqi,
Tabu-utul-Bel (Job)
-Prayer of Lamentation
to Ishtar -Prayer of Ashurbanipal to
Shamash (the sun god) -Prayer to Ishrar
(B) -Prayer to Ishtar 2
(B)
-Babylonian Proverbs and
Precepts- Ashurbanipal's Library - Ancient Education
Hymn to Sin, the
Moon God (B) Hymn to Bell
(B) Hymn to the Sun
God (E) Hymn in Praise of
Aton (E) Marriage of Nergal and
Ereshkigal
Lament for the Destruction of
Ur
Assyria (c.1350- 612
BCE) http://pw1.netcom.com/~aldawood/ahikar.htm
ahikar.htm to
lost books==== Phoenicia 950 BCE
on http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/430phoenicia.html
Other
Links Linda
Casselman - Marduk - God of Babylon Babyloniaca = Ancient & Modern
Mesopotamian Texts & Links Chris
Siren-Sumerian- Assyro/Babylonian-Canaanite/Ugaritic - Hittite/Hurrian
John
Heise Sources--Index--Mesopotamia
h http://www.nineveh.com/
7/5/998/4/987/4/99
ttp://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/catlist.htm