[Lisheo]

Enuma Elish
Well, here it is. It's the ancient Babylonian creation myth. Have a read through. Discuss.
It's incomplete, but it's a jolly interesting read, and you can find a summary-thingy on wikipedia here

[frookenhauer]

Er...Dude you going to break it down for us? We like bite sized pieces over here .

[Aleksandrov]

What do we discuss?

The validity of the Myth?
The context?
Relevence to Society?
Moral ambiguity?

But yeah, that story is Epic, I read the first Tablet and it was fighting from the start. Reminded me of Norse mythology but damn, it was pretty good.

Quote

[about 30 illegible lines]

Babylonians invented Censorship!

[Epiph]

Quote

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being...
Ages increased,...
Then Ansar and Kisar were created, and over them....
Long were the days, then there came forth.....
Anu, their son,...
Ansar and Anu...
And the god Anu...
Nudimmud, whom his fathers, his begetters.....
Abounding in all wisdom,...'
He was exceeding strong...
He had no rival -
Thus were established and were... the great gods.

So, there was the sky and there was the earth, and the parents of the gods, who were the children of chaos: the father Apsu, fresh water, and the mother Tiamut, salt water. There was no land, and so no boundary between water and land, and there were no gods yet born, and nothing yet had a name, and no destinies had been laid out. Apsu and Tiamut mingled and created the gods in the afore mentioned order.

...lazy bastards...

[Lisheo]

I'd actually like it if it were discussed in comparison to the bible/other more modern creation stories. Pick out the similarities. I do believe this is the earliest known creation story, so, see how the other may have developed from it and if it has relevance, note it here.

[frookenhauer]

Actually it might be Sumerian that is first in terms of creation myths and in fact civilization as a whole. Look em up, first the Sumerians then Assyrians and then the Babylonians. There are some links on the sites you've linked to, so...

[Rashan]

Mistake post

This post has been edited by Rashan: 26 November 2008 - 09:24 PM

[Lisheo]

Nah, every civiliazation, even if its just a group of savages sqautting around a fire, have some form of creation myth. However, it's probably the first organised in so far as we can use the word, creation myth. And thus I think it has a lot of relevance.

Mafia alt loose

[frookenhauer]

Yup, it seems to be the first whole creation myth, the Sumerian one seems to have disappeared over the ages and is only alluded to in the Epic of Gilgamesh...

[Lisheo]

It could well simply have been absorbed into the Enuma, which is my opinion. Change some names around, mess with the roles and timelines, there you have it, new creation myth.

[frookenhauer]

That could work, I suppose, its a shame so much is lost, it would have been useful to have more physical evidence of those times with us today.

[Lisheo]

Absolutely. You've read Gem's linky article in the Alien thread? if even a quarter of those things are real... We've lost far too much.

[Epiph]

What I find interesting is that this chaotic void is a common feature in mythologies, but not in the Judeo-Christian mythologies.

[Lisheo]

It is interesting, I agree. You should look up more creation myths. Ive looked at a good dozen in depth, a few years back, and there are so many similarities between them all... Then they almost completely vanish in the Old Testament.

[Aleksandrov]

I'm finding a lot of similarities in that region of area too...
I could be mistaken, but the Assyrians had a similar ideology.

I suppose this is "evidence" that as one culture assimilated another whether through conquest or just forced to live together they tend to share a lot of religion, culture and style of living.

@Lisheo, I think Judeo-Christianity offers perhaps an alternative route, I mean the Old Testament it was smiting and killing but there were no void or "darkness", it's easy to be explained that way. If you are going to have one, people will inevitably argue and try to find it's origin and why. Judeo-Christianity was better adapted to surviving the rest of the weaker religions.

Mebbe that's why the Romans took on it so easily after Constantine.

[Lisheo]

I wouldn't argue that. I think the ethos and teachings of the bible are more accessible to people, and generally better, there's less of "And this God killed this god with the help of this god," and more "this guy killed him with her help, and then they all got smited(am I right there) for disobeying God's thou shalt not kill commandment" which is just generally better lol.
Successful conquerers usurp the conquered people's customs. A lot of Christian customs originally began as pagan rituals and such that were adopted. I'm studying Christianity in early Ireland in college currently, and a lot of records and such have been editted and altered for various reasons, whether to advance one church or region (over here, the Church of Armagh basically made up everything most people regard as truth about Saint Patrick, for one) or to ease transition from paganism (local dieties just sort of became saints). Christianity is basically Judaism with all the most successful bits of other, now dead religions thrown in, which aided its success and prevalence.
It's not unlikely that the Enuma Elish was actually a great big mixing pot of the original religions of the area, or one of the components.
Anyway. Rambling a bit.

[Aleksandrov]

So you think it developed on it's own?

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about these mythologies.

[Lisheo]

No, I do reckon it's a combination of god knows how many myths and stories that have been forever lost, with leanings towards all the other religions in the area. Although all we can really do is speculate about it I guess But I'd say that's most likely.

[frookenhauer]

 Aleksandrov, on Nov 27 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

Mebbe that's why the Romans took on it so easily after Constantine.

I've actually had some thoughts with regards to this statement already, I was listening to a lecture on Virgils Aenid in the car (I spend about two hours a day in my car, so I've decided to learn stuff while on the road) . Anyway the Romans originally absorbed the greek religions and myths and made them their own. They onle had gods of wind and earth and stuff and so did the Greeks, but the Greeks had them all organised and had a lot of mythology built in. The Romans essentially transposed their gods over the Greek ones and were quite happy to do so, because of the special relationship the two cultures had. The Romans admired the Greek philosophy and culture, while simultaneously despising their unmanly ways.

Consider this: Jesus and christianity had such an impact on them and this coupled with the guilt of being the perpetrators of Jesus' Death might have made them change the story so that Jesus actually sacrificed himself for Mankinds sins. By doing this they absolve themselves of putting him to death. The Roman culture had absolutely no problem altering their faiths as we can see from the past, so we can see how they could so readily change their beliefs. Interesting, no?

[Darkwatch]

 frookenhauer, on Nov 26 2008, 04:20 PM, said:

Actually it might be Sumerian that is first in terms of creation myths and in fact civilization as a whole. Look em up, first the Sumerians then Assyrians and then the Babylonians. There are some links on the sites you've linked to, so...

Actually the sequence is:

-Sumerian (Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Nippur)
-Akkadian (Kish, Agad)
-Babylonian (Babel)
-Assyrian (Ashur, Niniveh, Dur-Sharrukin)
-Persian (Pasagarde, Persepolis, Susa, Ecbatana)

in terms of cultures appearing in temporal sequence in that area (I left the Elamites, the Kassites, the Medians, the Hurrians, The Hittites, The Ougarit out of the list)
The Persians bring new things to the table under Darius I by associating the Dynasty with Ahura Mazda and not the traditional Sumero-Semetic predominance with Ishtar (Innin all the way back to Uruk and Agad) and Enlil (for everyone) or Marduk (for the Babylonians).

Enuma Elish is more than likely based on an older Sumerian version, though there was probably no fixed story in Sumerian (as with the Epic of Gilgamesh), which means that Enuma Elish has quite a lot of Babylonian semetic elements to it as well.


In relation to other myths, we once again have the primordial waters. In parallel with Greek mythology the creator gods must be put out of comission in order for the world to be in order, or else they cause chaos by continually creating.