Enuma Elish Quotes

The Enuma Elish, the epic of Tiamat and Marduk, is thought to be a direct inspiration for the biblical book of Genesis.

There the original Sumerian Epic of Creation was translated and revised so that Marduk, the Babylonian national god, was assigned a celestial counterpart. By renaming Nibiru "Marduk" in the Babylonian versions of the creation story, the Babylonians usurped for Marduk the attributes of a supreme "God of Heaven and Earth." This version—the most intact one found so far—is known as Enuma elish

Nothing worthwhile comes without toil, for men or for gods

In Babylonian myth—as later in the Bible—there was no creation out of nothing, an idea that was alien to the ancient world. Before either the gods or human beings existed, this sacred raw material had existed from all eternity. When the Babylonians tried to imagine this primordial divine stuff, they thought that it must have been similar to the swampy wasteland of Mesopotamia, where floods constantly threatened to wipe out the frail works of men. In the Enuma Elish, chaos is not a fiery, seething mass, therefore, but a sloppy mess where everything lacks boundary, definition and identity: When sweet and bitter mingled together, no reed was plaited, no rushes muddied the water, the gods were nameless, natureless, futureless.2 Then three gods did emerge from the primal wasteland: Apsu (identified with the sweet waters of the rivers), his wife, Tiamat (the salty sea), and Mummu, the Womb of chaos. Yet these gods were, so to speak, an early, inferior model which needed improvement. The names “Apsu” and “Tiamat” can be translated “abyss,” “void” or “bottomless gulf.” They share the shapeless inertia of the original formlessness and had not yet achieved a clear identity.

Of the actual tablets inscribed with portions of the text of the Creation Series we possess none which dates from an earlier period than the seventh century B.C.

When in the height heaven was not named, 2. And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, 3. And the primeval Apsû, who begat them, 4. And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,— 5. Their waters were mingled together,

The poem embodies the beliefs of the Babylonians and Assyrians concerning the origin of the universe; it describes the coming forth of the gods from chaos, and tells the story of how the forces of disorder, represented by the primeval water-gods Apsû and Tiamat, were overthrown by Ea and Marduk respectively, and how Marduk, after completing the triumph of the gods over chaos, proceeded to create the world and man. The poem is known to us from portions of several Assyrian and late-Babylonian copies of the work, and from extracts from it written out upon the so-called "practice-tablets," or students' exercises, by pupils of the Babylonian scribes. The Assyrian copies of the work are from the great library which was founded at Nineveh by Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria from B.C. 668 to about B.C. 626; the Babylonian copies and extracts were inscribed during the period of the kings of the

library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh.

Then it was on the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month That he conducted a water-purification through immersion

Naturalmente, Esdras y los suyos contaron lo que rezaba la tradición y se apropiaron de muchas de las leyendas de los babilonios y de los asirios. Ejemplo: la llamada Enuma Elish, una epopeya de origen akádico que fue escrita unos 1.500 años antes de Esdras. Las siete tablillas con escritura cuneiforme (156 líneas por tablilla) describen la creación del mundo por parte de los dioses.1

Naturalmente, Esdras y los suyos contaron lo que rezaba la tradición y se apropiaron de muchas de las leyendas de los babilonios y de los asirios. Ejemplo: la llamada Enuma Elish, una epopeya de origen akádico que fue escrita unos 1.500 años antes de Esdras. Las siete tablillas con escritura cuneiforme (156 líneas por tablilla) describen la creación del mundo por parte de los dioses.1 Se cree que la primera redacción de la creación del mundo y de Adán y Eva (Génesis) fue llevada a cabo por el referido Esdras después del año 458 antes de Cristo. Fue redactado en la ciudad de Jerusalén, cuando Esdras retornó de Babilonia. Esdras y su gente, como es lógico, conocían la versión babilónica de la creación del mundo. Y, como digo, la copiaron y la adornaron.

The ancient Near Eastern background. A number of considerations support the literary framework interpretation of Genesis 1. To begin with, an examination of ancient Near Eastern creation literature seems to confirm this view. Over the last century a number of ancient Near Eastern texts have been found that deal with creation and that to some degree parallel Genesis 1. There is often a “six plus one” literary structure to these texts, expressed as the seven “days” of creation. (This is found, for example, in the Enuma Elish as well as in several Ugaritic texts such as Keret, Aqhat, and Baal.) The general pattern of presenting creation in the form of a weeklong period has cultural precedent. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Genesis author was following this cultural pattern to communicate his own view of creation. 2.

What makes Israel’s God better than the other gods? For one thing, he is the true creator of the cosmos. In the stories of Israel’s ancient neighbors, creation is a group activity and involves, as we’ve seen, some sort of conflict among the gods—as in the Babylonian story Enuma Elish, where Marduk slices Tiamat in half to make the sky and the earth. In the biblical creation story, however, we see no conflict, no battle. Israel’s God acts alone and speaks things into existence.

one like a son of man. In Aramaic and Hebrew the phrase “son of man” is simply a common expression to describe someone or something as human or humanlike. In Ezekiel, God often addresses the prophet as “son of man” to emphasize his humanness (e.g., Eze 2:6). coming with the clouds of heaven. In ancient Near Eastern literature clouds are often associated with the appearances of deities. In the OT it is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who rides on the clouds as his chariot (Ps 104:3; Isa 19:1). In Canaanite mythology Baal, the son of El, is described as “rider/charioteer of the clouds.” After doing battle with, and defeating, Yamm/Sea, Baal is promised an everlasting kingdom and eternal dominion. Some scholars see echoes of this story in Da 7:9–14. Others argue for a background in Mesopotamian cosmic conflict myths (such as the creation epic Enuma Elish and the Myth of Anzu), which depict a deity (Marduk and Ninurta, respectively) defeating the representative of chaos (Tiamat and Anzu, respectively) and regaining authority and dominion for the gods and for himself. Daniel’s vision has no conflict between the “one like a son of man” and the beasts. The interpretation in vv. 17–27, however, makes it clear that the “one like a son of man” in some way represents “the holy people of the Most High” (vv. 18, 22), who are in conflict with the “little horn” that arises out of the fourth beast (v. 8).