' (
Akkadian Cuneiform: , also spelled "Enuma Elish"), meaning "When on High", is a
Babylon
Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...
ian
creation myth
A creation myth or cosmogonic myth is a type of cosmogony, a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Cre ...
(
named after its opening words) from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of
ancient near eastern cosmology. It was recovered by English archaeologist
Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined
Library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BCE, including texts in ...
at
Nineveh
Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...
(
Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...
,
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
). A form of the myth was first published by English
Assyriologist
Assyriology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logy, -logia''), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies, is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cune ...
George Smith in 1876; active research and further excavations led to near completion of the texts and improved translation.
''Enūma Eliš'' has about a thousand lines and is recorded in
Akkadian on seven
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...
s, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of
Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered, but, aside from this
lacuna, the text is almost complete.
Over the seven tablets, it describes the creation of the world, a battle between gods focused on the offering to
Marduk, the creation of man destined for the service of the
Mesopotamian deities, and it ends with a long passage praising Marduk. The rise of Marduk is generally viewed to have started from the
Second Dynasty of Isin, triggered by the return of the statue of Marduk from
Elam by
Nebuchadnezzar I, although a late Kassite date is also sometimes proposed. It may have been recited during the Akitu festival.
Some late Assyrian versions replace Marduk with
Ashur.
Background and discovery
Before the tablets were discovered, substantial elements of the myth had survived via the writings of
Berossus (primarily his
Babyloniaca), a 3rd-century BCE Babylonian writer and priest of Bel (
Marduk). These were preserved in
Alexander Polyhistor's book on Chaldean History, which was reproduced by
Eusebius in Book 1 of his
''Chronicon''. In it are described the primeval state of an abyssal darkness and water, the two primeval beings existing therein, said to be of a twofold principle. The description then relates the creation of further beings, partly human but with variants of wings, animal heads and bodies, and some with both sex organs. (Berossus states images of these are to be found at the
temple of Bel
The Temple of Bel (), sometimes also referred to as the "Temple of Baal", was an ancient temple located in Palmyra, Syria. The temple, consecrated to the Mesopotamian god Bel (mythology), Bel, worshipped at Palmyra in triad with the lunar god Ag ...
in Babylon.) The text also describes a female being leading over them, named as Omoroca, called Thalatth in Babylonian (derived from Greek), and her slaying by Bel, who cut her in half, forming Heaven of one part and Earth of the other. This Berossus claims to have been an allegory. The text also describes the beheading of a god, and the mixing of the god's blood with the Earth's soil, leading to the creation of men (people). Finally, there is also reference to Bel's creation of the stars, Sun, Moon, and planets. Berossus also gave an account of the sage
Oannes, a sort of fish-man hybrid, who appeared from the sea and taught people all manner of knowledge, including writing, lawmaking, construction, mathematics, and agriculture; Berossus presented the account of creation in the form of a speech given by the Oannes. The neo-Platonist
Damascius also gave a short version of the Babylonian cosmological view, which closely matches .
Clay tablets containing inscriptions relating to analogues of biblical stories were discovered by
A. H. Layard,
Hormuzd Rassam, and
George Smith in the ruins of the Palace and
Library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BCE, including texts in ...
(668–626 BCE) during excavations at the mound of Kuyunjik,
Nineveh
Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...
(near
Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...
) between 1848 and 1876. Smith worked through Rassam's find of around 20,000 fragments from 1852, and identified references to the kings
Shalmaneser II,
Tiglath-Pileser III,
Sargon II,
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...
,
Esarhaddon, and other rulers mentioned in the Bible. Furthermore, he discovered versions of a Babylonian deluge myth (see
Gilgamesh flood myth), as well as creation myths.
On examination it became clear that the Assyrian myths were drawn from or similar to the Babylonian ones. Additionally
Sir Henry Rawlinson had noted similarities between Biblical accounts of creation and the geography of
Babylonia
Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
. He suggested that biblical creation stories might have their origin in that area. A link was found on a tablet labelled K 63 at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
's collection by Smith, as well as similar text on other tablets. Smith then began searching the collection for textual similarities between the two myths, and found several references to a deluge myth with an 'Izdubar' (literal translation of cuneiform for
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumer ...
). Smith's publication of his work led to an expedition to Assyria funded by ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
''. There he found further tablets describing the deluge as well as fragmentary accounts of creation, a text on a war between good and evil 'gods', and a
fall of man
The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God in Christianity, God to a state of guilty disobedience.
*
*
*
* ...
myth. A second expedition by Smith brought back further creation legend fragments. By 1875 he had returned and began publishing accounts of these discoveries in the ''Daily Telegraph'' from 4 March 1875.
Smith speculated that the creation myth, including a part describing the fall of man, might originally have spanned at least nine or ten tablets. He also identified tablets the themes of which were, in part, closer to the account given by Berossus. Some of Smith's early correspondences, such as references to the stories of the temptation of Eve, to the
Tower of Babel, and to instructions given from
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
(
Yahweh
Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...
) to
Adam
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam).
According to Christianity, Adam ...
and
Eve
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...
, were later held to be erroneous.
The connection with the Bible stories brought a great deal of additional attention to the tablets, in addition to Smith's early scholarship on the tablets, early translation work included that done by E. Schrader,
A. H. Sayce, and
Jules Oppert. In 1890
P. Jensen published a translation and commentary , followed by an updated translation in his 1900 ; in 1895 Prof. Zimmern of Leipzig gave a translation of all known fragments, , shortly followed by a translation by
Friedrich Delitzsch, as well as contributions by several other authors.
In 1898, the trustees of the British Museum ordered publication of a collection of all the Assyrian and Babylonian creation texts held by them, a work which was undertaken by
L. W. King. King concluded that the creation myth as known in Nineveh was originally contained on seven tablets. This collection was published 1901 as Part XIII of ''Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum'' . King published his own translations and notes in two volumes with additional material 1902 as ''The Seven Tablets of Creation, or the Babylonian and Assyrian Legends concerning the creation of the world and of mankind'' . By then additional fragments of tablet six had been found, concerning the creation of man; here Marduk was found to have made man from his blood combined with bone, which brought comparison with Genesis 2:23 ("This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman', for she was taken out of man") where the creation of woman required the use of a man's bone.
New material contributing to the fourth and sixth tablets also further corroborated other elements of Berossus' account. The seventh tablet added by King was a praise of Marduk, using around fifty titles over more than one hundred lines of cuneiform. Thus King's composition of consisted of five parts: the birth of gods, legend of
Ea and
Apsu,
Tiamat
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...
primeval serpent myth, account of creation, and finally a hymn to Marduk using his many titles. Importantly, tablets, both Assyrian and Babylonian, when possessing
colophons had the number of the tablet inscribed.
Further expeditions by German researchers uncovered further tablet fragments (specifically tablet 1, 6, and 7) during the period 1902–1914. These works replaced Marduk with the Assyrian god
Ashur; additional important sources for tablets 1 and 6, and tablet 7 were discovered by expeditions in 1924–25 and 1928–29 respectively. The Ashur texts uncovered by the Germans necessitated some corrections: it was
Kingu, not
Marduk, who was killed and whose blood made men. These discoveries were further supplemented by purchases from antiquity dealers. As a result, by the mid 20th century most of the text of the work was known, with the exception of tablet 5. These further discoveries were complemented by a stream of publications and translations in the early 20th century.
In the 21st century, the text remains a subject of active research, analysis, and discussion. Significant publications include: ''The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth '' ; ; ''Babylonian Creation Myths'' ; '': '' ; and other works still.
Date
The earliest manuscript of the myth was excavated from Assur and dated to the 9th century BCE, though may have been recited as part of
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
prior to this date.
While it used to be viewed that Enuma Elish was composed in the reign of
Hammurabi, most scholars now believe it is unlikely and accept a dating to the
Second Dynasty of Isin. During the Old Babylonian period, Marduk was not the pantheon head, appearing instead as the mediator between the great gods and Hammurabi, and there is no evidence that Hammurabi or his successors promoted Marduk at the expense of the other gods. It was during the Second Dynasty of Isin that Marduk started to be referred to as the king of the gods, with the return of the statue of Marduk from Elam by
Nebuchadnezzar I. Sommerfield's suggestion that Enuma Elish should be dated instead to the Kassite period, was countered by Lambert, but the god list
An = Anum does give the number 50, which traditionally belongs to Enlil, to Marduk. Dalley still proposes that Enuma Elish was written during the Old Babylonian Period, but other scholars find her proposal unlikely.
Variants
Numerous copies of the tablets exist. Even by 1902 fragments of four copies of the first tablet were known, as well as extracts, possibly examples of 'handwriting practice'. Tablets from the
library of Ashur-bani-pal tended to be well written on fine clay, whereas the
Neo-Babylonian tablets were often less well written and made, though fine examples existed. All tablets, both Assyrian and Babylonian had the text in lines, not columns, and the form of the text was generally identical between both.
A tablet at the British Museum (No 93014), known as the "bilingual" version of the creation legend, describes the creation of man and animals (by
Marduk with the aid of
Aruru), as well as the creation of the rivers
Tigris
The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...
and
Euphrates
The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...
, of land and plants, as well as the first houses and cities.
Other variants of the creation myth can be found described in and .
Text
The epic itself does not
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually the exact same phonemes) in the final Stress (linguistics), stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of rhyming (''perfect rhyming'') is consciou ...
, and has no
meter
The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...
; it is composed of
couplets, usually written on the same line, occasionally forming
quatrains. The title , meaning "when on high", is the
incipit
The incipit ( ) of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of Musical note, notes, having the same purpose. The word ''incipit'' comes from Latin an ...
.
The following per-tablet summary is based on the translation in ''Akkadian Myths and Epics'' (E. A. Speiser), in ''
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament'' .
Tablet 1
The tale begins before creation, when only the primordial entities
Apsu and
Tiamat
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...
existed, co-mingled together. There were no other things or gods, nor had any destinies been foretold. Then from the mixture of Apsu and Tiamat two gods issued –
Lahmu and
Lahamu; next
Anshar and
Kishar
In the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, Kishar () is the daughter of Abzu and Lahmu, the first children of Tiamat
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the ...
were created. From Anshar came firstly the god
Anu, and from Anu, came
Nudimmud (also known as
Ea).
The commotion of these new gods disturbed and disgusted Apsu, and Apsu could not calm them. Apsu called
Mummu to speak with Tiamat, and he proposed to destroy the new gods, but Tiamat was reluctant to destroy what they had made. Mummu advised Apsu to destroy them, and he embraced Mummu. The new gods heard of this and were worried; Ea, however, crafted a spell to lull Apsu to sleep.
Mummu sought to wake Apsu but could not. Ea took Apsu's halo and wore it himself, slew Apsu, and chained Mummu. Apsu became the dwelling place of Ea, together with his wife
Damkina. Within the heart of Apsu, Ea and Damkina created
Marduk. The splendor of Marduk exceeded Ea and the other gods, and Ea called him "My son, the Sun!" Anu created the four winds.
Other gods taunted Tiamat: "When your consort (Apsu) was slain you did nothing", and complained of the wearisome wind. Tiamat then made monsters to battle the other gods, eleven chimeric creatures with weapons, with the god
Kingu chief of the war party and her new consort. She gave Kingu the 'Tablet of Destinies', making his command unchallengeable.
Tablet 2
Ea heard of Tiamat's plan to fight and avenge Apsu. He spoke to his grandfather Anshar, telling that many gods had gone to Tiamat's cause, and that she had created eleven monstrous creatures fit for war, and made Kingu their leader, wielding the 'Tablet of Destinies'. Anshar was troubled and told Anu to go to appease Tiamat, but he was too weak to face her and turned back. Anshar became more worried, thinking no god could resist Tiamat.
Finally, Anshar proposed Marduk as their champion. Marduk was brought forth, and asked what god he must fightto which Anshar replied that it was not a god but the goddess Tiamat. Marduk confidently predicted his victory, but exacted their promise to proclaim him supreme god, with authority over even Anshar.
Tablet 3
Anshar spoke to
Gaga, who advised him to fetch Lahmu and Lahamu and tell them of Tiamat's war plans, and of Marduk's demand for overlordship if he defeats her. Lahmu and Lahamu and other
Igigi (heavenly gods) were distressed, but drank together, becoming drowsy, and finally approving the compact with Marduk.
Tablet 4
Marduk was given a throne, and sat over the other gods, who honored him.
Marduk was also given a sceptre and vestments, as well as weapons to fight Tiamat – bow, quiver, mace, and bolts of lightning, together with the four winds. His body was aflame.
Using the four winds Marduk trapped Tiamat. Adding a whirlwind, a cyclone, and
Imhullu ("the Evil Wind"), together the seven winds stirred up Tiamat. In his war chariot drawn by four creatures he advanced. He challenged Tiamat, stating she had unrightfully made Kingu her consort, accusing her of being the source of the trouble. Enraged, Tiamat joined Marduk in single combat.
Marduk used a net, a gift from Anu, to entangle Tiamat; Tiamat attempted to swallow Marduk, but 'the Evil Wind' filled her mouth. With the winds swirling within her she became distended. Marduk then shot his arrow, hitting her heart – she was slain. The other gods attempted to flee but Marduk captured them, broke their weapons, and netted them. Her eleven monsters were also captured and chained, whilst Kingu was imprisoned, and the 'Tablet of Destinies' taken from him. Marduk then smashed Tiamat's head with the mace, while her blood was carried off by the North Wind.
Marduk then split Tiamat's remains in two. From one half he made the sky; in it he made places for Anu, Enlil, and Ea.
Tablet 5
Marduk made likenesses of the gods in the constellations, and defined the days of the year from them. He created night and day, and the moon also. He created clouds and rain, and their water made the
Tigris
The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...
and
Euphrates
The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...
. He gave the 'Tablet of Destinies' to Anu.
Statues of the eleven monsters of Tiamat were made and installed at the gate of
Apsu.
Tablet 6
Marduk then spoke to Ea, saying he would use his own blood to create man, and that man would serve the gods. Ea advised one of the gods be chosen as a sacrifice; the Igigi advised that Kingu be chosen. His blood was then used to create man.
Marduk then divided the gods into "above" and "below" – three hundred in the heavens, six hundred on earth. The gods then proposed to build a throne or shrine for him; Marduk told them to construct Babylon. The gods then spent a year making bricks; they built the
Esagila (Temple to Marduk) to a great height, making it a place for Marduk, Ea, and
Enlil
Enlil, later known as Elil and Ellil, is an List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by t ...
.
A banquet was then held, with fifty of the great gods taking seats, Anu praising Enlil's bow and then Marduk.
The first nine names or titles of Marduk were given.
Tablet 7
The remainder of Marduk's fifty names or titles were read.
Colophon
Tablets Smith examined also contained attributions on the rear of the tablet. The first tablet contained eight lines of a
colophon. Smith's reconstruction and translation of this states:
Significance, interpretation, and ritual use
Due to the nature of , it is generally advised to be wary of simply taking the text as a representative of Mesopotamian creation myths. Enuma Elish references multiple myths and other texts, and epithets usually attested in royal inscriptions were given to Marduk. Similarities with the
Anzû myth are commonly observed, such as both myths using the Tablet of Destinies as a key object and the similarities between the weapons used by Ninurta and Marduk, and lines from the Anzu myth were adapted to fit the story of Enuma Elish, such as Anzu's feathers being blown off by the wind being adjusted to having Tiamat's blood being blown off by the wind. Marduk using floods and storms as a weapon and using a net to capture Tiamat (the personified sea) does not make logical sense, but they were weapons that Ninurta used in the Anzu myth and in Lugal-e, and usage of a net would make sense against Anzu. Other traditions related to Ninurta were also applied to Marduk in Enuma Elish, such as the name of one of Ninurta's weapons (long wood) being given to Marduk’s bow. While it would make sense to simply write this off as Marduk using Ninurta's model simply because it was the closest match, the traditions involving Ninurta were already used to allude to heroism in the epic of Gilgamesh, and imageries of Ninurta played an important part of Neo-Assyrian ideology.
Outside of the Anzu myth, similarities between Enuma Elish and the
Atrahasis epic were also pointed out. Both Apsu and Enlil wanted to destroy a source of noise which prevented them from falling asleep (for Enlil, this was humanity and for Apsu, this was his offspring). Both Nintu and Tiamat then lament their fate. Wisnom further suggests that the similarities between the beginning of Enuma Elish and Atrahasis was to have Apsu remind people of Enlil, thus the overthrowing of Apsu symbolically represents the dethronement of Enlil, the old head of the pantheon. Enlil is conspicuously missing in most of Enuma Elish, only appearing to offer his title to Marduk, and Marduk receives fifty names, the number of Enlil.
Other comparisons were also drawn, such as the description of Marduk's awe with the description in Marduk's Address to the Demons, and the creation of the universe at the beginning of Tablet X with Tablet XXII of the astronomical series
Enuma Anu Enlil
Enuma Anu Enlil ( ,'' The Assyrian Dictionary'', volume 7 (I/J) – ''inūma'', The Oriental Institute, Chicago 1960, s. 160. ''When he gods Anu and Enlil'' .., abbreviated EAE, is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets (depending on the recension) ...
. In Enuma Anu Enlil, the creation of the universe was credited to Anu, Enlil and Ea, while in Enuma Elish the creation of the universe was credited to Marduk while Enlil and Ea were assigned a position.
The myth of a god (usually a storm god) fighting the sea is well known in the Ancient Near East, including myths such as the
Song of Hedammu, the
Baal cycle, the Illuyanka myth, and the
Astarte papyrus. In the Song of Hedammu and the Illuyanka Myth the sea acts as a sort of breeding ground for the god's enemies, as both Hedammu and Illuyanka were sea monsters. The Song of the Sea, suggested to belong to the Kumarbi Cycle, likely narrates the story of the storm god Teshub fighting the sea god, although the text is damaged and fragmentary. The Astarte Papyrus also mentioned a struggle with the sea, and the Ugaritic Baal Cycle had Baal Hadad fight for his position from Yam.
A ritual text from the
Seleucid period states that was recited during the
Akitu festival.
There is scholarly debate as to whether this reading occurred, its purpose, and even the identity of the text referred to. Most analysts consider that the festival concerned and included some form of re-enactment of
Tiamat
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...
's defeat by
Marduk, representing a renewal cycle and triumph over chaos. However a more detailed analysis by
Jonathan Z. Smith
Jonathan Zittell Smith (November 21, 1938 – December 30, 2017), also known as J. Z. Smith, was an American history of religion, historian of religions. He was based at the University of Chicago for most of his career. His research included ...
led him to argue that the ritual should be understood in terms of its post-Assyrian and post-Babylonian imperial context, and may include elements of psychological and political theater legitimizing the non-native Seleucid rulers; he also questions whether read during that period was the same as that known to the ancient Assyrians. Whether creation myth was created for the Akitu ritual, or ''vice versa'', or neither, is unclear; nevertheless there are definite connections in subject matter between the myth and festival, and there is also evidence of the festival as celebrated during the neo-Babylonian period that correlates well with myth. A version of is also thought to have been read during the month of Kislimu.
It has been suggested that ritual reading of the poem coincided with spring flooding of the Tigris or Euphrates following the melting of snow in mountainous regions upstream. This interpretation is supported by the defeat of the (watery being) Tiamat by Marduk.
Influence on biblical research
contains numerous parallels with passages of the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
, which has led some researchers to conclude that these were based on the Mesopotamian work. Overarching similarities include: reference to a watery chaos before creation; a separation of the chaos into heaven and earth; different types of waters and their separation; and the numerical similarity between the seven tablets of the epic and the seven days of creation. However, another analysis notes many differences, including polytheism vs. monotheism, and personification of forces and qualities in the Babylonian myth vs. imperative creation by God in the biblical stories; permanence of matter vs. creation out of nothing; and the lack of any real parallel for Marduk's long battles with monsters. He also notes some broad commonalities of both texts with other religions, such as a ''watery chaos'' found in Egyptian, Phoenician, and Vedic works; and that both texts were written in languages with a common Semitic root. Regarding the creation of man, there are similarities in the use of dust or clay, but man's efficiency is inverted in the two texts: in they are created as already qualifying as acting as servant of gods, whereas in Genesis, by being given more agency, room for failure is introduced. Nevertheless in both, the dust is infused with "godhood", either through a god's blood in , or by being made in God's image in Genesis. As to the seven tablets and seven days of each system, the numbered itineraries in general do not closely match, but there are some commonalities in order of the creation events: first darkness, then light, the firmament, dry land, and finally man, followed by a period of rest.
Different theories have been proposed to explain the parallels. Based on an analysis of proper names in the texts,
A. T. Clay proposed that was a combination of a Semitic myth from
Amurru and a Sumerian myth from
Eridu. This theory is thought to lack historical or archaeological evidence. An alternative theory posits a westward spread of the Mesopotamian myth to other cultures such as the Hebrews; additionally, the Hebrews would have been influenced by Mesopotamian culture during their
Babylonian captivity
The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...
. A third explanation supposes a common ancestor for both religious systems.
Conrad Hyers of the
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a Private university, private seminary, school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Establish ...
suggests that Genesis, rather than adopting earlier Babylonian and other creation myths,
polemically addressed them to "repudiate the divinization of nature and the attendant myths of divine origins, divine conflict, and divine ascent".
According to this theory, elaborated the interconnections between the divine and inert matter, while the aim of Genesis was to state the
supremacy of the Hebrew God
Yahweh
Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...
Elohim over all creation (and all other deities).
The broken tablet seems to refer to a concept of sabbath. A contextual restoration contains the rarely attested or as the
full moon, cognate or merged with Hebrew (cf. ), but monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of
Sumerian ("mid-rest"), attested in
Akkadian as ("day of mid-repose"). The reconstructed text reads: "
abath shalt thou then encounter, mid
onthy."
The
'Ain Samiya goblet, found in a tomb near modern
Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
, is believed to depict scenes similar to and illustrates a clear influence from Mesopotamia on Canaan during the Middle Bronze Age. The depictions of a double headed god and the creation of the world from a dragon provide the earliest evidence of the epic's composition.
Editions and translations
English:
* Lambert, Wilfred. ''Babylonian Creation Myths'', Eisenbrauns, 2013.
* Helle, Sophus. ''Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Epic of Creation'', Bloomsbury, 2024.
[An open-access version is availabl]
here
* Dalley, Stephanie. ''Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others,'' Oxford University Press, 2000.
(as ''The Epic of Creation'')
German:
* Kammerer TR, Metzler KA. ''Das babylonische Weltschopfungsepos Enuma elîsh'', Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2012.
French:
* Talon P. ''The standard Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish'', 2005.
See also
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Mesopotamian pantheon
*
Religions of the ancient Near East
*
Eridu Genesis
References
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External links
I.2 Poem of Creation (''Enūma eliš'')critical edition and translation of the text (electronic Babylonian Library).
''Enuma Elish'' – The Babylonian Epic of Creationon Ancient History Encyclopedia (includes the original text)
*, extract of English translation by W.G. Lambert reproduced a
etana.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Enuma Elis
18th-century BC literature
17th-century BC literature
16th-century BC literature
1849 archaeological discoveries
Creation myths
First Babylonian Empire
Mesopotamian myths
Akkadian literature
Tiamat
Library of Ashurbanipal
Ancient Near Eastern cosmology