Today's Topics: 

The Epic of Creation (Enuma elish) ... continued

Marduk begins to test his powers in Tablet IV, making the stars and constellations appear and disappear at will.  He is now trained and ready for combat.  Page 251 lists his various weapons, such as bows and arrows, flame throwers, and the "flood-weapon."  Why would a flood-weapon be effective against Tiamat?  Simple -- the floodwaters of a river will flush the salt waters back toward the sea, purifying and cleansing the rivers of the poison.  Again, this story is metaphorical, and it really describes the battles that took place all around them in Nature.

Marduk enters the battlefield, fully armed, and easily defeats Tiamat by forcing the imhullu-wind down her throat.  She expands like a balloon, and that's when Marduk shoots an arrow into her belly. Let's look more closely at this. Notice that Marduk uses an arrow (that looks like a phallus) that he shoots into Tiamat's belly (womb). Here is the male defeating the female in the very essence of her womanhood, her womb. Kill the womb and you kill the concept of the woman.

He ultimately slices her into two halves, one that is lifted up to form the firmament of the sky, and the other that creates the Underworld below.  Think of a hamburger.  The meat patty is the Earth, and the two halves of Tiamat will be the bun that encompasses this new creation.  The henchmen run away in fear, leaving Qingu standing there shaking in his boots.  As I said before, he looks to be set up for failure here.  Qingu is ensnared in the net, and Marduk goes home a champion.

In Tablet V, the new hero Marduk continues to maintain order in the universe.  He had just killed the chaotic ocean waters, and now sets his designs on the stars and constellations.  On pages 255-256, Marduk creates the Zodiac, which is used to tell time (this would be shared by the Egyptians; the Chinese created their own Zodiac).  Notice the reference to the quarterly moon phases, with each new phase occurring every seven days.  This is the origin of our seven-day week, and it also was shared by the Egyptians.

Why is the number 7 so important to early cultures?  The answer is to be found in astronomy.  The Mesopotamians were avid astronomers, and the wise men of the villages would be charged with watching the night sky for changes that might offer clues to the future.  When looking at the night sky over the course of a night, you will see that the stars rotate around the axis point of the earth (in the northern sky).  Although they rotate, the constellations retain their shapes, even if they appear to bob up and down the horizon.  However, there were seven lights in the sky that moved independently, and sometimes in odd ways.  These lights are the seven visible moving objects in the skies: the sun and the moon, as well as the five nearest planets, all of which can be seen with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.  When the ancient astronomers wanted to remember how these seven lights moved over the course of a year, they invented stories about them and gave these lights names and personalities.  Since the ancients did not have paper to sketch out these planetary movemements, creating stories about their journeys became the methods of recalling major conjunctions and oddities, such as eclipses.

After Marduk further orders the universe, he is praised and given royal garments to wear (there's nothing like wearing wool robes in the summer!).  Shrines are built in his honor and accolades are showered on his ego.  Marduk instructs his fellow gods to build temples for the gods before he creates the first people.  Marduk wishes to place the yoke of the gods' labor onto the shoulders of the men and women (another common theme).  Marduk then establishes the community of Babylonia, giving these people a story about their city's origin too.  Of course, he orders the other gods to dig their own dirt and to build their own temples so that the people (who are yet to be created) can have a place to worship these nature gods.

In Tablet VI, Marduk finally takes action against Qingu.  Marduk asked the other gods who had started the war in the first place, and everyone says, "Qingu!"  Of course, this is not true, but Qingu is the last remaining figure that must be brought to justice.  Marduk uses the blood of Qingu to form the first human beings.  Marduk says that he will "change the ways of the gods miraculously, / So they are gathered as one yet divided in two" (Dalley 261).  In other words, men and women (a common dualtiy) will be created by the blood of one god, Qingu.  Notice that Marduk himself was created from the Apsu, the fresh water, and he embodied the force of Apsu in a new form, Marduk.  Men and woman are therefore thought of as offspring of the godly materials, although technically we appear to be the descendants of scapegoats, perhaps setting humans up for further tribulations.  But people in this story (and several others) were created solely to take over the labors and duties of the gods, who now believe that they deserve a bit of a rest.  So now we know our purpose in life -- to do the work of gods!

The tale concludes with Marduk receiving 50 holy identities, to reinforce that he is the new king of the gods, and will rule over the people in a fairer manner than the earlier deities had done.  The new has replaced the old, much like the Babylonians had replaced the Sumerians in history.  The Sumerians eventually disappeared, but their influences were borne into the next interpretation of the society, hence Marduk rising from the Apsu.

As an historical connection, you will notice that one of Marduk's names is Bel (sometimes spelled Ba'al).  Although he is a savior figure to the Mesopotamians, many neighboring cultures did not view him this way.  The ancient Hebrews, for example, considered the "devil" to be called Bel (or Ba'al, where we get the name Beelzebub, or Baalzebub -- Prince of the Devils).  Why would one culture consider another culture's great god to be a devil?  Well, one culture's heroes are another's enemies, and the difference between gods and demons is often indistinguishable (recall the "Earth Diver" creation story where the two black geese cannot be distinguished from each other). 

The Babylonian Theodicy

This dialogue between a poor sufferer and his religious friend is a classic morality debate from this time. The sufferer has lost his parents and is relegated to working slave labor for poverty wages. He claims to be a loyal and beneficent person, praying constantly to the gods who seem to ignore his plight. He bemoans the fact that many others have lived wicked lives and have escaped the law, yet the gods continue to reward them.

The heart of this debate centers around the assumptions of the two men. The sufferer assumes that the gods will reward good behavior while punishing the bad. While this is the assumption made in contemporary Western religions, the Mesopotamians were not like minded. The friend, on the other hand, has near total faith that the gods will come through for the sufferer, even if it takes a long time. This does not appease the sufferer who explains the evidence to the contrary. The friend concedes that evil is allowed to happen, but that the sufferer should not lose hope. No proof or reason is given, just the claim.

This is also why I asked you to read over the titles of law codes and moral proverbs. Although we didn't have time to cover this today, we will incorporate the discussion of Mesopotamian law (and Campbell's 5th chapter in The Power of Myth) in the discussions for the next few weeks.

Mesopotamian Laws (Hammurabi's Code and the Supplemental Law Codes)

This set of readings is mostly supplemental, mainly because it's difficult to discuss the laws as literature, but they provide some key insights into the Mesopotamian culture. To recognize that they had clear laws regarding marriage and divorce shows the culture to be advanced, especially regarding the treatment of women. In many cultures, such as ancient India, widows would lose all of their property (including the house and the children) to the dead husband's family, leaving the widow to be turned away poor and homeless, relegating them to beggar status. In Mesopotamia, however, women had property rights, suggesting that this male-dominated society was generations ahead of their time.

Many of the laws refer to occupational issues, such as the carpenter who builds a bad house that kills the occupant's daughter. The law states that the carpenter's daughter must be killed, even though she had nothing to do with the situation (except being related to her dad). Whereas the law seems to be especially fierce to this innocent bystander, it places responsibility upon the man to stand behind his work ... on pain of death. Might surgeons be more careful today if their malpractice resulted in harm to the other members of their family? This scenario is the quintessential "eye for an eye" mentality, and it predates the Bible by hundreds of years. Likewise, notice that the owner of a bull that escapes and kills has the responsibility to control his animal.

The one punishment that elicits a lot of reaction is the method of throwing the women into the river (sometimes voluntarily!). Yes, being tossed into the river will kill someone, especially when her hands and feet are bound with rope. If, somehow, a woman were to survive the ordeal, they would have been released. In 17th century America, the Salem witch trials would take this method one step further -- if the woman drowned, the assumption was that she really wasn't a witch and all this was a very tragic error. On the other hand, if the "witch" survived the drowning, then she must have been kept alive by a devil, so she was then burned at the stake.

I will not ask you specific questions about specific laws on the second test, but you should have a general understanding of the legal codes practiced in the Babylonian cities.

Announcements:

Tests will be returned and reviewed on Monday.

Also, a study guide for Test 2 will be available over the weekend.

Due Next Time:

 

Atrahasis (Dalley, 1-38); READING GUIDE (200-203)

Lugal-e (The Exploits of Nintura) (204-216)

Quiz 5 (due WED 22 FEB)

Anzu (Dalley, 203-221); READING GUIDE (217)

 

COLOR CODES:
		-= Required		-= Supplemental