...also known as the Enûma Elish. The Mesopotamian "Epic of Creation" dates to the late second millennium B.C.E. In the poem, the god Marduk (or Assur in the Assyrian versions of the poem) is created to defend the divine beings from an attack plotted by the ocean goddess Tiamat. The hero Marduk offers to save the gods only if he is appointed their supreme unquestioned leader and is allowed to remain so even after the threat passes. The gods agree to Marduk's terms. Marduk challenges Tiamat to combat and destroys her. He then rips her corpse into two halves with which he fashions the earth and the skies. Marduk then creates the calendar, organizes the planets, stars and regulates the moon, sun, and weather. The gods pledge their allegiance to Marduk and he creates Babylon as the terrestrial counterpart to the realm of the gods. Marduk then destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu using his blood to create humankind so that they can do the work of the gods. (Sources, Foster, B.R., From Distant Days : Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. 1995, Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press. vi, 438 p., Bottéro, J., Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia. 2004, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. x, 246 p., Jacobsen, T., The Treasures of Darkness : A History of Mesopotamian Religion. 1976, New Haven: Yale University Press. 273.) Enuma Elish 'When on high' The Babylonian Epic of Creation (full text) Translator unknown. The Babylonian/Mesopotamian creation myth, Enuma Elish, When on high,...
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...Since the beginning of time, man has created many myths with many different functions, such as explaining how things came to be, explaining where we came from, or telling what will happen to us after death. Trickster myths show many similarities, especially in the case of Ea in the Enuma Elish and Ea in the Kumarbi Cycle. In the Song of Kumarbi, Kumarbi battles Apsu for the thrown. At the end of the battle, Kumarbi casterates Apsu, and is impregnated with the storm god Tessub. Kumarbi wanted to destroy Tessub, so he plans to eat him once he is born. Ea, however, whom is acting as Kumarbis midwife, gave him a rock and tells him that the rock is Tessub. Kumarbi bites into the rock and broke off his teeth, and so Tessub is able to...
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...We are going to examine a similarity between Tiamut in Enuma Elish and God in the book of Genesis. In the beginning of both literatures Tiamut and God were in existence before the heavens and the earth were created. In the opening of Genesis, there you will find a detailed report on “God creat[ing] the heavens and the earth…[and how he] formed man of the dust of the ground.” God was proud of the work he had created and “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Not long after Adam and Eve were created, Eve indulges in the forbidden fruit that they were instructed not to eat and God became angry and punished all mankind henceforth for their unforgivable mistake. As time went on “the earth…filled with violence through...
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...Anna Iwaniw The Pentateuch Jacob Rodgers 17 September, 2015 Short Paper #1 When it comes to the biblical story of creation, it can be wondered how it was written and told in such detail when there was no people to observe it. There are quite a few possible answers to this question including it being a story passed down through generations, or perhaps God revealed the story to the writer in some way (Schittjer, 2006). One of the theories of how the creation story could have been written is from adaptations of other cosmologies. In this paper, I will look into some of these cosmologies and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between them and the biblical narrative of the creation story. One of the most contrasting cosmology to the bible is the Egyptians. As we know, the Egyptians were the ones to enslave Israel under their power and rule. The Egyptians also are known to have polytheistic views and believe and worship many different gods. This is very contrasting to the monotheistic biblical viewpoint of one God. Though they are two very different viewpoints, a few similarities can be found in their ideas of the creation story. For example, in the Egyptian views each creation aspect is and made by a different deity of their religion. The sky is Nut, the atmosphere is Shu, the earth is Geb, and the sun god is Re (Schnittjer, 2006). Each of these gods work with one another to create a different aspect of the creation such as day and night and the earth and...
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...our world and the people that inhabit it. Every culture has a myth or story on how the world was created and where civilization began. During ancient time creation myths and stories were their cosmological research. Creation myths reveal a lot about the thoughts of humans from the past and how they saw and understood the world during their time. Their minds were not that much different than ours, and the myths of the past teach us a lot about ourselves today. Even though it is not the oldest of the creation myths it is however one of the oldest that is documented. Enuma Elish or also known as the Babylonia creation story begins with the creation of the world with a battle for sovereignty between the Gods. According to the myth the Babylonian God Marduk defeats the gods of old that the neighboring culture inherited. When it comes to the actual creation of the world, which is my main interest in the epic, Enuma Elish has two separate accounts of it. The first one is in the beginning, where the waters of Tiamat and Apsu are joined, and the second one is when Marduk has killed Tiamat and uses her corpse to build the world (Stenudd, N.d.). Another myth that I found to be interesting was Xingo or The creation of man from Brazil, in this myth the world was already created but man was not. This myth begins with Mavutsinim, the primordial deity whom may or may have not created the world. The story of Mavutsinim is that he was a loner in the beginning with no wife and no children. Then...
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...W. Oct. 17 | Demeter & Ritual | Hom. Hymn to Demeter, T 430-448 | M. Oct. 22 | Tricksters: Prometheus | T 381-383, 396-402, 27-29, 38-41Review Lévi-Strauss, T 280-294 | W. Oct. 24 | Tricksters: Hermes | Hom. Hymn to Hermes, ACM 187-197 | M. Oct. 29 | Dionysus: Myth & Bacchae | T 495, 509-514Euripides, Bacchae (44-83) | W. Oct. 31 | Bacchae | ACM 21-22 (D1), 47 (M2), 48 (M4), 212-213 (Ode 2.19), 394 (1130) | M. Nov. 5 | Exam 1 | Odyssey Books 1-8 | W. Nov. 7 | Hesiod Theogony 1 | Hesiod Theogony ACM 129-160 | M. Nov. 12 | Hesiod Theogony 2 | Same | W. Nov. 14 | | | M. Nov. 19 | | | W. Nov. 21 | Hesiod Works and Days | Hesiod “The Ages of Man” T 41-44 | M. Nov. 26 | | | W. Nov. 28 | Enuma Elish | T 61-81 Mesopotamia: Enuma Elish | M. Dec. 3 | Heracles 1 | | W. Dec. 5 | Heracles 2 | Apollodorus ACM, pp. 33-45 | | Xmas Break | Xmas Break | M. Jan. 7 | No class—classics conf. in Seattle | | W. Jan. 9 | Epic 1: Epic as Source for Myth | No new reading | M. Jan. 14 | Epic 2: Epic as Source for Myth | Proclus ACM pp. 378-382 | W. Jan. 16 | Epic 3: Epic as...
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...Bible Among the Myths Malcom College English 093 Ms. Smith 01/23/2012 Introduction The book is an analysis of the Biblical view of the world and compares it other works in the Ancient Near East of that time with the development of the Bible. This is done by an in-depth analysis of the underlying beliefs inherent in mythology and the Biblical text. Of primary significance is the author's portrayal of the Biblical insistence on monotheism and divine transcendence compared to the polytheistic underpinnings of mythology. The author compares the ethically based Biblical view of the divine/human relationship with the ritualistic and magical view of that relationship found in mythology. With these and other comparisons (and with due consideration given to the various similarities between Israel and her neighbors), the author gives an excellent overview of the subject matter of the thought. In The Bible Among the Myths,Oswalt takes the conversation further by illuminating the fact that Israel's faith couldn’t have simply evolved out of nowhere. Oswalt shows that the surrounding Ancient Near East cultures had a worldview known as Continuity. This view maintained that all things that exist are a part of each other (such as the gods, nature, and humanity), the existence of polytheism, that the gods could be manipulated through nature and natural artifacts(which was the point of idol worship), the significance of magic, the obsession with fertility which led to sexual...
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...sun, while Yin’s was cool and created water and the moon. From these came celestial bodies as well as different bodies of water, settling with their creators in Heaven and on Earth. The sheer essence of the Goddess Yin and the God Yang become the four seasons and from that comes all that is in existence, plants, trees, insects, humans etc. In this myth we see the two become separate entities that together form all of existence. The celestial beings and water together help to create all living things upon the earth that has been created. We see no destruction caused by the previous chaos, but the opposite, it is from the chaos that the God and Goddess are created and allowed to create life in many forms. In the Babylonian myth of the Enuma Elish it is taught that in the beginning only water and mist existed. Father Apsu ruled the sweet waters and Mother Tiamat ruled the salt waters. These bodies of water flowed together as one unit and the mist that resulted was their son Mummu. The blending of these waters resulted in the creation of Anshar and Kishar, who eventually parented the God of...
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...Near East (ANE) along with its stories and imagery and transformed it to conform to a new vision of a non-mythological God and a monotheistic, superior religion. “The Pentateuch developed against the background of the Ancient Near Eastern culture first cultivated in and spread by Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires”. This exemplifies how Israelite religion, was “shaped by responses to and reactions against this culture due both to contacts with neighboring Canaanites and to conflicts with Assyrian and Babylonian empires”. Genesis 1:1-2:4a can therefore be said to reflect the “Babylonian account of creation, which we call Enuma Elish…known from at least 1700 BCE,” “predating the earliest text of Genesis by at least a millennium.” In both Genesis and the ancient Babylonian myth, water is divided into upper and lower waters. The Enuma Elish is recorded on seven tablets and the Genesis account is completed in seven days. The Babylonians created humans to serve as slaves yet in Genesis God creates humans in the likeness of the divine. The Priestly source penned the creation story with the intent of being a “monumental historiographic composition…with the purpose of portraying both the beginnings of mankind and Israel in the spirit of a monotheistic concept with a didactic aim.” This conveys the notion of a pure and superior religion assuming Gods eternity; as Genesis 1:1 states that in the beginning He created not that he was created. It is therefore implied that at the...
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...Susan Niditch, in the book Ancient Israelite Religion, provides a study of Israelite religion based on critical reading of the biblical text. Niditch discusses the Old Testament story, some archaeological discoveries, and the worldview. The book looks into the experiential, mythical, ethical, and ritual components of the Old Testament story. In an effort to greater understand the way this text informs my reading and interpretation of the Old Testament, I will go through each chapter and discuss elements that impacted my understanding of the Old Testament text. Niditch begins with a discussion of the experiential elements of the Old Testament. In this chapter she looks into covenant making, annunciations to women, Jacob at Bethel, Saul’s encounter with the deceased Samuel, Moses and his return to Egypt, and visions of heaven. The most impactful element of this discussion, was perhaps that of the annunciations to women. Niditch suggests that, “[The annunciation to women] is probably male-generated, is perhaps patronizing in its implications for modern women, but is nevertheless an empowering cameo of the experiential for women.” As a young woman in the church, it has often been hard for me to read the Old Testament and feel validated. I often looked at these texts and saw the patronizing elements, and the churches response to those texts did not make matters easier. I rarely saw the empowering nature of these stories. In reading Niditch’s book, I was able to see a more...
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...CREATION IN GENESIS BIBLE: It is a collection of sacred sicripture of both Judaism anda Christianity. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament and the second portion is called the New Testament. THESE MAIN QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED IN GENESIS 1- Why do we live? 2- Why do we die? 3- Why does the evil exist? CREATION IN 1ST VERSION - God created man in his own image. - God created the man and female at the same time - God created man after he ended all his work. - The first creation story says that grass and trees were created before the sun, moon and stars, whereas we know that stars were created first, then the earth and the moon. Only later was it possible for grass and trees to evolve. Finally, God created man in his own likeness- there is no suggestion of any evolution here. - God let man dominion over everything.(ıt shows the importance of man) - God said man “ be fruitful, be multiply and replenish the earth. CREATION IN 2ND VERSION - There was a garden in Eden and he put the man whom he had formed. - The was a tree of knowledge of good and evil ● So we understand that in 2nd Version, there is Good an Evil. - The second creation story says that a man was created first, before any other animal, whereas scientists tell us that many animals existed before humans, who are of relatively recent origin. This version also says that every plant of the field was...
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...REL 1300 MWF 11:15-12:05 Final Exam: Apr 25, 2016 | 10:00AM-12:00PM Study Guide 1. Which early theorist of religion said the following: “The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true sun”? 2. Which early theorist of religion proposed the concept of the numinous? 3. What does Emile Durkheim say that religion essentially is? 4. In Eliade’s model of the sacred and profane, what does it mean for something to be profane? 5. What does Martin Ruel say about the concept of belief in the study of religion? 6. Why does Catherine Bell suggest that scholars reframe their discussions of ritual to instead talk about ritualization? 7. What does Steven Ramey say is the major problem in the popular video “the spread of world religions”? 8. What is the main point that Edward Said makes when talking about Orientalism? 9. Which public speaker in the 1893 World Parliament of Religions spoke about “little wells” and which religion did he/she represent? 10. Which of the following is not one of the postmodern critiques of “religion”. 11. What does Masuzawa say about the study of religion? 12. What is Craig Martin’s “Rule of Thumb”? 13. What does Portier-Young say about apocalypses? 14. What label do we use to refer to a religious discourse that maintains the basic logic...
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...ancient Mesopotamians lived in a polytheistic environment, meaning they worshipped many different gods and goddesses. They believed that their gods heavily influenced everything that happened within their lives. The meaning of life back then was to actually live in harmony or become one with the gods. In ancient Mesopotamia, each city had their own god or goddess. At the center, a large temple stood which was dedicated to that certain god or goddess. It is said that they looked like steep pyramids with a flat top. To the sides, there would be small shrines that were dedicated to the other gods. It started out with the Sumerians which, in time, heavily influenced the Babylonian and Assyrian religion. In an ancient Mesopotamian myth, called Enuma Elish, it is said that life began after much confrontation between the elder and younger gods. Before creation began, the salt and fresh water was mixed together. These waters separated the...
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...RTS1100K Fall 2015 Sullivan 10612:30 pm Class Christianity in Context Anna S. Choi, Instructor Phone. 978.8373509 choia@merrimack.edu Texts: Mueller, J.J. Theological Foundations: Concepts and Methods for Understanding Christian Faith. Any Bible Additional online assigned readings indicated on the syllabus below. COURSE SYLLABUS 9/1: Introduction to the Course. Mueller, pgs 17-73 http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/#books Genesis 1-3, 12, 17, 20. Exodus, 1-3, Exodus 15. 20:1-17, Deut 5:6-21, Deut 26, Joshua 1-3, 7, 23. Judges 1-2, , 2 Samuel 7, I Kings 6:1-38, Amos 2, 4:4-8, 5:21-24, 7, 9:13-15. Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 31:31-33, Ecclesiastes 3, Daniel 7:13-14, 12:2. Enuma Elish in Course Documents Epic of Gilgamesh http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ 9/3-9/17: Biblical History and Selections from the Hebrew Bible. 9/22: Test #1. Hebrew Bible and History. 9/24-10/8: New Testament History and Biblical Selections. Mueller: pgs 73-124. Gospel of Mark. John 1:1-18, Acts of the Apostles, TBD, Letter from Paul to the Galatians, Letter from Paul to the Romans. Continued New Testament History, early Christianity. Women in the New Testament period. Mueller, pgs 105-124, 277-296 Council of Nicea, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm Council of Constantinople and Council of Chalcedon http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/monotheisticreligions/g/chalcedoncreed.htm Council of Constantinople, http://www...
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...MODULE ONE AN INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS Bible Topics | * Mosaic Authorship * Dating of Genesis * Purpose of Writing * Theological Themes of Genesis | People to Know | Places to Know | Terms to Know | SpinozaAstruc | | Documentary TheoryCovenant History | Study Questions: Answer the following questions (based on the reading), save it and then submit it to the professor. 1. What is the Documentary Theory? The Documentary Source Theory states the belief that Torah was not written by Moses, but rather, four independent authors. (Ch. 1 Pg. 21 ) 2. Give the “contributions” Spinoza and Astruc made to this theory. Spinoza developed a "higher criticism" of the Bible to analyze its contents internally, rather than through the text, which is tagged "lower criticism". (Ch.1 Pg. 21) 3. How does Davis refute this theory? Because it takes everything God made as a farse considering there is scientific evidence to back up this theory 4. Give several examples of external evidences for Mosaic authorship? The external evidences are contained with in the Torah, which contains references to Mosaic authorship. Exod. 17 :14; 24:4; 34:27; Num. 33:1, 2; Deut. 31:9. Numerous references :n the New Testament also allude to Mosaic authorship, and many are direct quotes from Christ Him- self. For example, Jesus asked the Sadducees, "Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God...
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