diana

This came up in an EoG discussion, and I'm interested to see different opinions on it:

From Nectaris d

Marduk

“The Canaanite creation myth was based on the Sumerian creation myth of deities also referred to as Elohim or, more often, Enuma Elish. “


Huh? Enuma Elish means ‘when on high’ it is the first words of the poem. Ancient documents are often named by using the opening line as a title, it is also referred to as ‘the 7 tablets of creation’ you can read it here, they use a standard translation Stephany Dalley I believe. When you are done let us know how much you think it parallels the Genesis myth.

<a href="http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/enuma/enuma.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/enuma/enuma.shtml</a>

I often took it on faith as well when I read somewhere that "oh, story X is 'just like' story Y"
until I read both stories myself, the only real similarity I see is that both stories say 'the gods made the earth & people' as does every creation story on Earth, otherwise it wouldn't be a creation story.

[ December 24, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

Marduk

I have lost all patience with ‘historians’ with an agenda, be they theist or atheist, just the facts please.
I want Joe Friday to make the comparisons.

Answerer

I know that there are some people who love to equate Elohim with aliens(which they believed is the creator of mankind). I wonder how accurate their guess is?

Marduk

“I wonder how accurate their guess is?”


Sometimes I wonder myself, the idea makes for intriguing speculation not to mention sci-fi, and It would explain a lot:

The origin of the plethora of stories from around the world of ‘gods’ coming to Earth from the sky.
The habit of so many ancient writers to credit these gods with teaching people how to do almost everything but chew gum and walk at the same time. ‘The gods gave us this, the gods taught us that yadda yadda yadda.’
All this stuff about so and so being taken to ‘heaven’ in a whirlwind or flaming chariot.
Peculiar verses from old text like one of the Apocrypha of Abraham “I was taken into the air by beings as if with wings, to a great ship which rotated on its own axis”
I particularly like the story in the Atrahasis about how the lesser gods go on strike because their work is ‘too much’. To placate the rabble-rousers the higher gods create humans to do the grunt work.
“We will make a primitive man” they nailed that one.

Anti-Creedance Front

I think the flawed part in this argument is insisting that Elohim was the Enuma Elish. El is a god in the Canaanite pantheon, and gods were not directly carried over from Sumer. The creation story was probably the same in Canaanite mythology, that's the part I agree on. I think there was a strong influence for it in the region, especially because when you take over someone else's land, Canaan, like every culture has done at one time or another, the people there don't all just pack up and get out of there. Some of them stay and get mixed in with the other culture's populace. Plus, the Israelite tribes were based in Mesopotamia throughout all of the Bible, and one would assume that is their home region.

I have a strong belief that the Abrahamic religions themselves came from Sumer, along with Abraham. The creation story has some differences with Genesis, but not much. If you look at the Enuma Elish, it goes to name multiple gods one after the other. In Genesis, this is done with Adam's sons. The thing that really hit me hard was seeing an old illustration from a book called Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris which places Eden and the 4 rivers right smack in Sumer. If you don't believe me, I'll upload the picture.

Marduk

I think the flaw is in using the Enuma Elish at all. There are much more striking similarities in other Sumerian texts:

The 4 Rivers from Eden (Edin means 'pastoral land' in Sumerian) can be found in "Enmmakar and the Gods of Erratta" Which they used as a guide to try and find the region where Eden would have been on a recent TV show "The Real Eden", Somewhere in Northern Iran I believe.
And of courese the flood stuff and how humanity lost its chance at immortality is in "The Epic of Gilgamesh" with some variations.

The Enuma Elish has more or less three parts:
the battle against Tiamat
creating humans to relieve the minor gods of their hard work
and praising Marduk
none of which reads like Genesis.

Anti-Creedance Front

Yeah, you're right. I always confuse the Enuma Elish with the Epic of Gilgamesh. How much do you study up on this stuff? I want to make a little group for studying it. I am really profoundly interested in it, for both helping out the fanatically religious and for my own knowledge.

semyaza

With the exception, possibly, of the actiual creation of the world by Marduk, which parallels Genesis 1 quite closely. But the, the creation is only a very small part of Enuma.

Jan Haugland

It seems likely that Genesis 1 was a near-monotheist reply to the origins myths of competing religions, particularly the Mesopotamian. It was probably written during or shortly after the exile.

We see in it that God creates with his word the celestial objects and creatures that were often attributed sacred significance or even godlike powers in other religions. Genesis 1 removes the creation from the realm of the sacred and moves it into the profane. It also places humans distinctly over animals in the order of things.

This seems to show a 'high' theology indicating the believer who wrote it was close to a fully developed monotheism (which should give us a date not earlier than Deutero-Isaiah). A counterpoint here is the "let us" sayings, indicating a pantheon of sorts, but that is a long debate.

- Jan

...who rants and raves every day at Secular Blasphemy