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ENUMA ELISH
The Babylonian Creation Myth

  1. Enuma Elish
  2. The continued story
  3. The source
  4. Theories
  5. Separation of purposes
  6. Mode of creation

MYTH

Myths of Creation

The Logics of Myth

Psychoanalysis of Myth

Genesis 1: The first creation of the Bible

Enuma Elish: Babylonian Creation

Cosmos of the Ancients: Greek philosophers

Cosmos of the Ancients: The book

Aristotle - life and work

Aristotle's Poetics

Ideas and learning

Life Energy
Encyclopedia


Taoist source

About the writer

Books by Stefan Stenudd:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd.
Cosmos of the Ancients
by Stefan Stenudd. What the Greek philosophers thought about religion, cosmology, myth, and the gods.
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Life Energy Encyclopedia, by Stefan Stenudd.
Life Energy Encyclopedia
by Stefan Stenudd. Qi, prana, spirit, and other life forces around the world explained and compared.
Get the book at Amazon.


Murder, by Stefan Stenudd.
Murder
by Stefan Stenudd. Thoughts on life, death, and the meaning of it all.
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QI - increase your life energy.
Qi
Increase your life energy
by Stefan Stenudd. The life energy qi (also chi or ki), with exercises on how to awaken, increase, and use it.
Get the book at Amazon.



Tiamat, the Babylonian creation goddess.

Enuma Elish

The Babylonian Creation Myth.

This article was originally written in the year 2007 for a seminar at the Department of History of Ideas, Lund University, as a part of my dissertation in progress on Creation Myths and their patterns of thought. Transforming the text to webpages, I have excluded footnotes, or edited them into the text.
Published on this website September 14, 2007.

1 Enuma Elish - the beginning of the text

When skies above were not yet named
Nor earth below pronounced by name,
Apsu, the first one, their begetter
And maker Tiamat, who bore them all,
Had mixed their waters together,
But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds;
When yet no gods were manifest,
Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed,
Then gods were born within them.
Lahmu (and) Lahamu emerged, their names pronounced.
As soon as they matured, were fully formed,
Anshar (and) Kishar were born, surpassing them.
They passed the days at length, they added to the years.
Anu their first-born son rivalled his forefathers:
Anshar made his son Anu like himself,
And Anu begot Nudimmud in his likeness.
He, Nudimmud, was superior to his forefathers:
Profound of understanding, he was wise, was very strong at arms.
Mightier by far than Anshar his father’s begetter,
He had no rival among the gods his peers.
The gods of that generation would meet together
And disturb Tiamat, and their clamour reverberated.
They stirred up Tiamat’s belly,
They were annoying her by playing inside Anduruna.

Notes on the text

The version of Enuma Elish used in this and other quotes is from Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford 2000, 233ff.

Apsu comes from the Sumerian ab-zu, ‘the conscious sea’ or ‘the sea of wisdom’, and represents freshwater and the male principle. This freshwater sea was supposed to exist below ground, as a foundation on which the world rested.

The word for ‘maker’ is mummu. King translates it ‘chaos’, without explaining why [L. W. King, Enuma Elish: The Seven Tableets of Creation, volume I and II, London 1902]. Wikander explains the word as meaning a creative force, but also points out that a wordplay with the god name Mummu appearing later is intended [Ola Wikander, Enuma elish. Det babyloniska skapelseeposet, Stockholm 2005].

Tiamat represented the saltwater sea and the female principle. The name means ‘the ocean’.

Lahmu is also used about one of the eleven monsters later in the text. Lahmu translates ‘the hairy one’, perhaps ‘muddy’, and are primeval heroes of undecided number, sometimes as many as 50.

About Anshar and Kishar: In Sumerian, an is heaven and ki is earth, whereas shar means horizon or everything. So, the names of the gods refer to above and below the horizon.

The six gods mentioned first – Apsu, Tiamat, Lahmu, Lahamu, Anshar, and Kishar – were primeval creatures who were probably never worshiped. For Tiamat, Apsu, and Mummu, the determinative sign for divinity seems not to have been used.

Anu (Sumerian An) means ‘sky’. He was the god of heaven.

Nudimmud is the name for Ea as a Sumerian creator-god. Ea (Sumerian form Enki) is the god of fresh water, wisdom and incantations, who taught men the arts and skills of civilization by sending them the Seven Sages.

About the last line: Instead of ‘playing’, Wikander uses ‘song’. He comments that the translation is uncertain, but the word surely refers to some kind of loud expression of joy. In King’s version this part is missing.

Anduruna is a Sumerian word that can be translated ‘Heavenly abode’, and probably refers to the home of the gods.


ENUMA ELISH
The Babylonian Creation Myth

  1. Enuma Elish
  2. The continued story
  3. The source
  4. Theories
  5. Separation of purposes
  6. Mode of creation

© Stefan Stenudd 2007



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Cosmos of the Ancients, a book by Stefan Stenudd. Cosmos of the Ancients
This book tells what the Greek philosophers thought about the myths, the gods, and cosmos. What they lacked in scientific knowledge, they compensated with brilliant reasoning. Written by Stefan Stenudd.
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Stefan Stenudd
Stefan Stenudd
is a Swedish author and historian of ideas, who researches the thought patterns in creation myths. He has also written books about Chinese and Japanese traditions.



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The Taoist source. The complete Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.


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