The Sumerian belief system offers a fascinating insight into the lives of these ancient people as they struggled to establish the first empires of man. There were 32 of these things in all. The gods Ninurta and Enlil kept their original Sumerian names. Hey, Leah, great post! 97-98). Before we analyze the Sumerian creation story, we must understand the cultures own history, that is, where the Sumerians came from in order to conceive of their own creation. All rights reserved. When the gods like men He also convinced Shotelel, also a Canaanite, to accept in exchange the designation of Tausret as the great regent of the whole country. version of the Sumerian King list, found in Larsa details ten antediluvian Even if some rabbis explain that those who ask themselves the question know nothing about it, that it is normal to write God in the plural, the answers they give are far from convincing. The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the Ur III period. We are sorry that this post was not useful for you! However, if one can assume that the book of Genesis is inspired by God, then the idea of the Genesis flood account being borrowed from Gilgamesh does not work. [17]:108109[14]:203 The sun was her brother Utu, the god of justice,[14]:203 and the moon was their father Nanna. The Sumerian god Enlil becomes Abraham's El, the Elohim becomes Eloha. Did the Jews borrow their flood story from the Sumerians? Romans Class for the West Coast School of Ministry. She was known for her intelligence, beauty, and powerful political acumen. A woman from the Levi tribe then hid hers for three months. Dilmun, described in the myth of "Enki and Ninhursag". For example, Wood (2003) has drawn attention to the fact that there are remarkable similarities between the Sumerian King List and accounts in Genesis, from descriptions of the great flood, to the eight rulers who reigned before the flood, and decreasing longevity of people after the flood. over to Eve. It was "primitive" religion when compared to Judaism. It was therefore under the name of El that God addressed this call to Abraham. The Igigi were the servants of the Anunnaki but one day they got tired of it and went on strike! Adams First Wife Lilith: Diabolical Demoness or the First Feminist? Both were influenced by a massive flood. breath of life, and so man became a living being." Chronicles series suggests that the Bible ought to be read literally as a historic/scientic document, and that ancient civilizations-- The question naturally arises: Where did these obvious parallels arise? It assumes that the gods and the universe already exist and that once a long time ago the heavens and earth were united, only later to be split apart. Until next week, keep searching. In Sumerian texts, we have references to the Ninhursag's milk, one of the seven great deities of Sumer, the goddess of fertility that is associated with a cow (similar to the magic goat Amalthea of the Greek mythology). Enlil and a fox act on Enki's behalf to call (Genesis 5). First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later developed into the concept of Kur. During the Old Babylonian Period, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages were retained for religious purposes; the majority of Sumerian mythological literature known to historians today comes from the Old Babylonian Period,[5] either in the form of transcribed Sumerian texts (most notably the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh) or in the form of Sumerian and Akkadian influences within Babylonian mythological literature (most notably the Enma Eli). It is a compilation of traditional Mesopotamian myths of Creation and the Flood, including the creation of man from clay, the history of Noah and the end of the time of the patriarchs. This is a potentially fruitful area of research for Bible believers as well. How can you say that we are not sure which came earlier? Why do people try to find relationships between these? (Pierre Jovanovic, 2001). analog, Tammuz, appears in the Bible, however Dumuzi's periodic Nammu, Then: unable to hide him any longer, she found him a papyrus basket, coated him with bitumen and pitch, put the child in it and placed him in the rushes on the banks of the River. (Wolkstein [19] This bleak domain was known as Kur,[17]:114 and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. Shown are three classic planetary symbols of Sumero-Mesopotamian religious art: the Moon (crescent), Sun (estoile) and Venus (octactinal star). The prologue of "Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld" It seems, like El, to be a generic and polysemous name which, if it most often refers to Israels Elohim, is also used for pagan gods (Exodus 12:12, 18:11, 20:3 etc.) it form" (Kramer & Maier p. 33) From there the similarities to the quarrels of Cain and Abel. They do mention Ra [sun deity in Ancient Egyptian Religion] and his creation of gods and people. Logically, one might assume that since the Gilgamesh Epic precedes the Bible account, at least in its written form, it was the source for the biblical story of the flood. is the lack of "pangs of childbearing" for those in Dilmun. [17]:75 His primary consort was Ninhursag, the Sumerian goddess of the earth. There were civilizations present in three main regions that contributed to these accomplishments, the Sumerians being one of them. Samuel Noah Kramer, an American Assyriologist, a specialist in Sumer and the Sumerian language, published a book in 1957 that became his best seller: In this book he develops the four common points between a Sumerian text that tells the story of the god Enki and the goddess Ninhursag in Dilmun and the text of the Garden of Eden: 1- Ninti (a goddess) is created from a coast. I am sure you are familiar with his legend which states that he was born in a manger surrounded by shepherds, What's your favourite Fairy Tales (and their possible origins). Although the stories are not identical (for example, when God spoke to Noah, it was not in a dream) there is obvious parallel to the biblical flood account. I believe the Bible is based on actual events. Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. I think early societies which hadn't yet learned to accurately measure the length of the year to within a day used the cycle of the moon as a visual counter of a person's age. Christian Zionists claim that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. [13]:3741, The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes (usually three, but sometimes seven) covering the flat earth. See our article : Worlds in Collision, a book that questions part of the Bible. means the Queen of months, (Kramer & Maier 1989: pp. When they came to the Earth, there was much work to be done and these gods toiled the soil, digging to make it habitable and mining its minerals. Finally, he took a raven and dropped it; the raven went away, but when he found the withdrawal of the waters, he picrored, croaked, shook, and did not return. And this literary pun passed into the Bible where it naturally lost its value since in Hebrew the words meaning coast and life have nothing in common. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization's survival. ADAD - The Babylonian god of storms, a darker version of the Sumerian god Ninurta.Known to the Sumerians as Ishkur, he is depicted with a lion-headed dragon or a bull and carrying a hammer or lightning bolt. MacDonald has found numerous other examples of similarities between Bible parables and the stories of ancient myths and legends, too numerous, he says, to be accidental. This was a society that invented writing, and had advanced knowledge of mathematics, science and astronomy. Ancient Sumerian Mythology The Chronicles Of The Sumerian Peoples Myths And Epics Gilgamesh And Beyond Greek Mythology Babylonian Mesopotamia Norse Ancient Egypt Gilgamesh Liturgies Pdf Pdf When people should go to the book stores, search creation by shop, shelf by shelf, it is truly problematic. 37-41) keeps popping up, especially in popular literature and on the internet. Worlds in Collision, a book that questions part of the Bible, The Ten Commandments and the Law of Maat, similarity between Egyptian texts and the Bible. The true secret of Tutankhamun finally revealed. The full story can be found here: Mesopotamian relition was polytheistic. Historians have also suggested that Sumerian references to two ancient trading lands known as "Magan" and "Meluhha" may refer to Egypt and Ethiopia. Sumerian Mythology Fascinating Sumerian History A Gods and Heroes - Nov 25 2020 . and the pass "like good princely cream" (Kramer 1981: Aqqi the water pumper adopted me as his son and raised me. [17]:86 The later Mesopotamians knew this underworld by its East Semitic name: Irkalla. The Sumerian and Egyptian origin of the Bible: who wrote the Bible? [17]:75 He was the patron and creator of humanity[17]:75 and the sponsor of human culture. This association carries It is unclear when the first settlers of the region arrived, but they were a non-Semitic people that historians believe may have come out of the Samarra culture in northern Mesopotamia or Assyria. attributed to the Priestly source. Man would be a creation in the image of the gods except that he would not have their life span, would not have their powers and would have to work at their services instead of the Igigi. Another possible Sumerian carry-over related to the Fall of man Ishtar's primary legacy from the Sumerian tradition is the role of fertility figure; she evolved, however, into a more complex character, surrounded in myth by death and disaster, a goddess of contradictory connotations and forcesfire and fire-quenching, rejoicing and tears, fair play and enmity. 49-51, 53-54), The ten patriarchs in Genesis born prior to the flood lived very [14]:184. It is difficult to judge the motives of people I have never met. They were the first that we know of to do so. [15] The highest and outermost dome of heaven was made of luludntu stone and was personified as An, the god of the sky. The epic of Atrahasis or Poem of Supersage was written in Akkadian Semitic language, probably dating from the 18th century BC. This week we are going to analyze the oldest creation story ever recorded, known as the Eridu Genesis. or overflows, to form four rivers including the Tigris and Euphrates. Of course, much of that evidence is found at my web site, to include prophecies in Genesis which are fulfilled in Jesus (see my book From Shadow to Reality www.ipibooks.com), historical and archaeological accuracy of Genesis (Reasons For Belief www.ipibooks.com), and so forth. Where is the king who should be ruling them? Francis Dymoke, a 67-year-old farmer from eastern England, will play a ceremonial role in the upcoming coronation of King Charles III, and carry forward an ancient royal tradition while at it. (Kramer 1963 pp. Erich Von Danikens theory of ancient astronauts, Historians are perplexed by the list of Sumerian kings on cuneiform tablets containing the list of Sumerian kings, The genesis of humanity: Secret histories of civilizations: see on Amazon The civilizing gods: The genesis of humanity: see on Amazon The Bible as you have never read it: Did the Gods come from the stars? It has been proved that Gilgamesh is older than Genesis. Il ne faut pas se laisser impressionner par ce qui nest pas dit mais il faut apprendre comment gurir les malades et comment chasser les dmons. Utu was god of the sun, whose primary center of worship was the E-babbar temple in Sippar. Aqqi the water puffer pulled me out of the river by diving his bucket. By this time, humans had already learned how to farm, plow, develop copper and bronze metallurgy, and develop the first calender. Were Adam and Eve the first "homo sapiens"? (Genesis 4: 17-18) The He started by creating heaven and Earth. It is certainly from there that Elohim says: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness Genesis 1.27. The implication of course is that it suggesets that the Gospels are retellings of ancient stories. The motivation is different, her progenitor, a high priestess, had wanted to hide the fruit of an illicit affair with a stranger. Around -1200, the Egyptian sage Amnmop wrote a list of about thirty maxims and recommendations for educating his son. En ce qui concerne les religions de Msoamrique, bien peu de textes sont parvenus jusqu nous, et lhistoire sest perdue dans les autodafs des conquistadors. Notons que dautres divinits peuvent jouer un rle plus direct dans la cration de la faune, de ses modes de vie, et de ce qui lui permet de subsister, mme si le dmiurge reste linstance suprieure lorigine de toute vie. [14]:178179 As a result of this, Sumerian deities began to lose their original associations with nature and became the patrons of various cities. Eloha and Elhoim are an elongated form of EL, Eloha is the singular: God, Elohim is the plural: the Gods. children and so was cursed by Ninhursag, receiving one wound for The Sumerian Flood Story (also known as the Eridu Genesis, The Flood Story, Sumerian Creation Myth, Sumerian Deluge Myth) is the oldest Mesopotamian text relating the tale of the Great Flood which would appear in later works such as the Atrahasis (17th century BCE) and The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE).. The cultures of the Near East were constantly repurposing the beliefs of those around them and the Greeks did the same comparing every one of the major foreign gods of other cultures to their own: Amun=Baal=Zues=Jupiter, Mercury= Odin, Artemis=Bastet, Nergal=Ninurta=Ares. One possibility is that the flood is an actual event, the memory of which was carried forward by the survivors, finding its way into both Gilgamesh and the biblical account. Your email address will not be published. The Eridu Genesis shines light on the bare bones of creation. (Kramer 1961 pp. Sumerian tablets vs. Bible: Do you know about their similarities and differences? For example, the biblical account of Noah and the Great Flood bears a striking resemblance to the Sumerian deluge myth, recorded in a Sumerian tablet discovered at Nippur. ADAPA - In Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, the first created man, son of Ea (or Enki) who, in anger at the overturning of his boat, broke the wings of . The famous tower of babel story from Gen 11:1-9 has strong Mesopotamian echoes. MSSW, Moses or Beya (his Canaanite name) gets Tausret, the first wife of the deceased pharaoh, to agree to see the young Siptah, son of Shotelel, ascend the throne of Egypt. It is understandable that exiles use the stories and cults learned from Babylonians and Egyptians to create a religion and a promised land that gives them a legal right of return to their land in Canaan. from one another by a solid dome. [30]:xiii,xv[13]:101 Many of the myths involving her revolve around her attempts to usurp control of the other deities' domains.[32]. There are significant similarities between the Gilgamesh epic and the flood account in Genesis, which seem to defy coincidence. The parallels between the Gilgamesh Epic and the Genesis flood story are really striking. Scholars of comparative mythology have noticed parallels between the stories of the ancient Sumerians and those recorded later in the early parts of the Hebrew Bible. Pareil pour les habitudes religieuses. The Book of Revelation is Filled with Ancient Curses, New Research Reveals. According to Doctor Ashok Malhotra, It was suggested that Sumerians appeared in Southern Mesopotamia around five and half thousand years ago carrying with them the seeds of civilization. I later realized that the hypothesis I had arrived at on my side had already been suggested thirty years earlier by a great French assyriologist, Father Vincent Scheil, as the American orientalist William Albright, who published my work, taught me.. Belief in one God in ancient Egypt, the teaching of Hermes, Pierre Jovanovics universal lie: see on Amazon Eric de Broquevilles secret of Paul: see on Amazon The story begins in Sumer: Samuel Noah Kramer: see on Amazon, The genesis revisited by the Sumerian texts: documentary, Anunnaki, the Sumerian version of the creation of humanity, Our ancestors of aliens ? Shotelel, Pharaohs second wife, had also given him a son: Siptah but he has polio. The river carried me; it carried me to Aqqi, the water pumper. 2- The text is a perfect parallel between Enki eating forbidden plants and Adam eating the forbidden fruit. The Sumerian belief system offers a fascinating insight into the lives of these ancient A similar story is described in the Sumerian tablets. Periodic death and rebirth His consort was the goddess Shala. evil. In particular, Ninhursag gives birth in nine days, not nine months, [31] Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid with priestesses. 143-44).. To make a long story short, the god Enki out of curiosity eats 8 plants in the paradise of . Enlil, after the failures of his attempts to exterminate men, was increasingly exasperated and decided to end it by triggering the Flood and forbidding Ea to communicate with them. I think you are just getting mixed up with the actual Biblical account in the New Testament in Luke 9:54 when James & John ask Jesus if they can destroy a Samaritan town/village with fire. According to Kabbalah, at the beginning of creation, things called Sephiroth, meaning circles or orbits, with both material and spiritual characteristics took shape. Noah's Ark, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1660, via Art Institute, Chicago, USA. back Ninhursag in order to undo the damage. The pagan traditions associated with it have survived through the centuries, with many still A large Viking burial mound found on the island of Karmy off Norways western coast was long thought to be empty. The tale is also - most famously - told as the story of Noah and his ark from . Jesus and the Family: The Bible says honor your father and mother, yet Jesus says you must hate your father, mother, wife, children, and even your own life to be a disciple, and says to call no man on earth your father. [14]:184 She was Inanna's older sister. Lerreur a t corrig. Puisque nous sommes lge des possibles pour expliquer ce pass, nous pouvons alors formuler des hypothses hors du champ connu. They weren't known "in Greek myth" to have done this, so you have it wrong. and bears eight new children, each of whom are the cure to one of My mother, the high priestess, conceived me and bore me in secret. Maybe the cuneiform for the Sumerian story is a written form of a much more ancient story, so not sure. The huluppu tree is transplanted [36] In later myth, her husband was the god Nergal. Ninmah (Ninhursag) use a similar method in creating man. This story is not the first of its kind, the third story of the papyrus Westcar, dating from about 2500 BC, cites a similar story: A young girl unfortunately drops a very precious amulet into the waters of a lake. Not. but is given eternal life. [19][14]:184 All souls went to the same afterlife,[19] and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come. This story was written in the 2ndMillenium BCE by the Sumerians. For some reason the scribes never grasped this but hey!, when God's involved it does makes it a better yarn if they leave in the unlikely. It first appeared in archaeological records around 3100 B.C. 7- There was a 5th author who cut the texts of authors 1, 2, 3 and 4 into slices, placed them end to end, then gathered them together to write a text that was even more consistent and unifying. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals' spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. Hundreds of gods comprised its religious system. (Gen. 2:9-10) In the or even a goddess (I Kings 11:5) or men considered superior (Exodus 4:16, I Samuel 28:13, Zechariah 12:8). Historians wondered how a people who had not created a great civilization could have invented a writing, we know today that the Hebrew alphabet comes from the Protosinaitic alphabet which itself comes from Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is only natural that anthropologists, historians and those who study religion to look for parallels between the earliest docoments of the Old Testament and the Sumerian/Babylonian/Akkadian religions in Mesopotamia. Oui, ce que tu dis se rapproche de : Anunnaki, la version sumrienne de la cration de lhumanit Et de : Nos anctres des extra-terrestres ? (Kramer, History Begins at Sumer 1981: pp. Assuming the second possibility, the question becomes who borrowed from whom? [14]:179181 Powerful deities such as Enki and Inanna became seen as receiving their power from the chief god Enlil. . 7. She joins with him again The king-priest, wearing a net skirt and a hat with leaves or feathers, stands before the door of a temple, symbolized by two great maces. In Ezekiel 8:14, the prophet sees women of Israel weeping for Tammuz (Dumuzi) during a drought. These ancient gods of Mesopotamia had wings, wore horned caps, and possessed the ability to . Most major gods had a so-called sukkal, a minor deity serving as their vizier, messenger or doorkeeper. I don't believe before any flood people lived many hundreds of years. [22], During the middle of the third millennium BC, Sumerian society became more urbanized. the legendary first wife of Adam. la thorie des anciens astronautes dErich Von Daniken, Cuneiform tablets containing the list of Sumerian kings leave historians perplexed. While mankind had existed prior to that time for thousands and tens of thousands of years, this was the first creation story ever recorded in history. The last option seems unlikely because there is evidence for the Gilgamesh Epic from before 2000 BC, but we cannot rule out that the ancestors of Abraham passed along the account we now have in Genesis. So, good, honest, open-minded scholars and students of religion will look for parallels and comparisons between Judaism and Mesopotamian religion. Pierre voici un petit texte que javais crit un soir de solitude, vous me direz ce que vous en pensez, merci. But ti also means to keep alive. As late as Ezekiel, there is mention of a is a common theme in agricultural myths where the return of the Sumerian scholar Samuel Noah Kramer has also noted similarities between many Sumerian and Akkadian "proverbs" and the later Hebrew proverbs, many of which are featured in the Book of Proverbs. Imaginons un instant que ces diffrents Dieux ntaient pas le fruit de limagination des anciens, mais quils taient bien rels. from the dead. He was the father of Utu and one of the patron deities of Ur. Vous ne dites pas dans votre expos les malades que vous avez guris et les entits (dmons ou E.T. It is interesting that these topics arise in this first creation story, perhaps shining light on events that everyone can relate to (government and sacrifice). So what could account for these similarities? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. No more than this one: on a wall of the tomb, the double cartouche (the engraved signature) of an obscure pharaoh, Ai, whose name, in hieroglyphics, resembles that in the Aramaic Bible, of God, pronounced Adonai (Aton-Ai). [14]:184 Nanna was god of the moon and of wisdom. The Twins, Castor and Pollux, had a mortal father named Tyndareus, while also going by the collective epithet Dioscuri sons of Zeus, the Thunderer. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Pursued by Sethnakts armies, Tausret and Moses with their fellow travellers will have to take the southern route and sink into the Sinai like the Bible Moses. introduces the paradise Eden, a place which is similar to the Sumerian He was a Field Assyriologist for the Iraq Expedition of the The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in the years 1929 to 1937, according to his biography, as well. She put me in a basket of reeds, which she sealed with bitumen. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan. During the Akkadian Empire, Inanna, the goddess of sex, beauty, and warfare, was widely venerated across Sumer and appeared in many myths, including the famous story of her descent into the Underworld. From an historical or literary point of view, this is hard to disprove. The main source of information about the Sumerian creation myth is the prologue to the epic poem Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld,[13]:3033 which briefly describes the process of creation: originally, there was only Nammu, the primeval sea. Finally, we see that in ancient coins and gems, the Twins are depicted positioned on either side of enthroned deities, such as Zeus, Serapis, Mars and Mithras. The ancient civilization of Greece is a historical period that has long been a subject of fascination and intrigue. [19][14]:184 The Akkadians attempted to harmonize this dual rulership of the underworld by making Nergal Ereshkigal's husband. Required fields are marked *. Interestingly, the translated Sumerian story is actually the oldest account of many ancient events that are most commonly thought as having originated from the Bible's Genesis. Sumerian religion was the religion practiced and adhered to by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia.The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Sumer, in Mesopotamia, was called 'the land of civilized kings'. However, the method is identical. le reste, cest dire la capacit grer des rvlations toujours plus bouleversantes, vous sera donn par surcrot. Aqqi the water pumper taught me his job as a gardener. Enlil was the god of air and wind among the Sumerians. Later, Atrahasis settled at the mouth of the Great Rivers, in the Garden of Dilmun where Ea lived. We see the weekly Sabbath, circumcision (it is an Egyptian practice), the celebration of Easter. While there is not much information on how he translated these ancient texts, he received his M.A. [23], During the late 2000s BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians. If there is no trace of the Bible Moses among the Egyptians, there are many traces of a Moses at the court of Egypt, here is his story: From 1197 to 1190 BC, Egypt was ruled by the old Pharaoh Seti II (1203 1197), who succeeded Merneptah. Achilles and Patroclus: Close Confidants or Passionate Paramours? First of all, the Gilgamesh Epic was around in the time of the first Babylonian Empire, about 1800 BC, not during the Neo-Babylonian Empire, under Nebuchadnezzar. reptiliens) que vous avez chass : vous navez jamais essay ? Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us. Enki was god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge. Ancient Sumerian Mythology The Chronicles Of The Sumerian Peoples Myths And Epics Gilgamesh And Beyond Greek Mythology Babylonian . there are eight antediluvian patriarchs. Other Sumerian and Akkadian deities adapted into the Hurrian pantheon include Ayas, the Hurrian counterpart to Ea; Shaushka, the Hurrian counterpart to Ishtar; and the goddess Ninlil,[41] whose mythos had been drastically expanded by the Babylonians. Source La Croix, the largest French Catholic newspaper, Despite the takeover of Babylon by the Persians in 539 and Cyrus edict allowing exiles to return to Judea, an important Jewish community remained in the city: it was it that, at the end of the 5th century AD, initiated the so-called Babylonian Talmud, which is still the authority in Judaism. Traces of Sumerian religion survive today and are reflected in The Yahwist source (J), details My fathers brothers are camping in the mountains. 25), The quarrels between herder god and farmer deity pairs such as The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dates back nearly 5,000 years and is thought to be perhaps the oldest written tale on the planet. There are two possibilities to explain this. In Luke 9:54 when Jesus is refused entry into a Samaritan village, the brothers ask, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and destroy them? Jesus rebukes them for their quick tempers, but its assumed they have this power. Nevertheless it is not true to say that there is absolutely nothing in common between Judaism and Mesopotamian religion.
