The Enuma Elish and Ancient Religions

The Enuma Elish is essentially the Babylonian Creation tale. It is probably based on a tale told by the Sumerians, who were the antecedent culture in Babylonia. This makes the story at least 5,000 years old, and it is probably much older. It may have acquired it’s formal structure during the rise of the first cities (1) but it is possible that the tale originates in our pre-civilization era, when people still lived in villages or even as roving bands of hunter-gatherers.

This creation story is not really a great book of Western Civilization, or of any civilization. Unlike the Iliad or Milton’s Paradise Lost, it does not continue to be read for entertainment by anyone, and is not found in complete form anywhere (The preceding can be considered as a just the initial requirement for a great book). While some books included on the reading list also suffer from lacunae or missing pages, such as Beowulf, their meaning is not greatly affected and, furthermore, they have continued in the popular imagination (or have re-emerged into the popular imagination in the case of Beowulf) in a way that the Enuma Elish has not.

What remains of the Enuma Elish is found on seven broken stone tablets discovered in 1849 near Mosul, Iraq (2). It is a story that little involves mankind, though there is a fragment which suggests that some of the battles between the gods (which the tale describes) took place after "the cities" had been established. The Enuma Elish is difficult to read, even in translation, because several sections of these tablets are missing(3). Thus one cannot summarize the story well, since no one is exactly sure of what is happening at a number of points, and it is not clear what causes lead to which effects and so on.

What is evident, and what is crucial for us in understanding the later stories that we will study, is that the story depicts a world dominated by gods who resemble men in the worst possible ways. The multiple gods of the ancients, be they Babylonian, Greek, Roman or Hindu, are described as a great inter-related (and incestuous) clan of deities, who spend most of their time in power struggles and petty bickering which often result in strife for mankind or the world in general. Indeed, the creation story told on these seven tablets is more a tale of divine war than it is of creation. Those accustomed to the sedate and orderly procession of the days of Creation in Judeo-Christian scriptures may be shocked, and perhaps a little disappointed, in the chaotic scenes described in the Enuma Elish.

The world begins, as in Genesis, with the waters dominating the scene. There is no name for anything else, just the awesome waters and the primeval gods. We are told that much time passes in this uncertainty at the beginning of all things.

Somehow, the gods come into conflict and an alliance is formed around the Great Mother of the gods, Tiamat, or Chaos, against the ascendant Marduk. Tiamat takes a new husband, Kingu, and gives him the "Tablets of Destiny". She also creates many monsters, such as dragons and scorpion-men, to fight battles for her. The meaning of all this is best left for the study of history and has little importance for our goal: an understanding of the literature of Western Civilization. Let it suffice to say that Marduk eventually wins and becomes the greatest among the gods.

The most significant information for our study is found in the depictions of the deities involved. In the West, we live in a society founded on an orderly concept of divinity. Judaism, the foundation for both Christianity and Islam, is a legalistic religion, which describes a god who is somewhat mysterious yet very regular and logical. He is also the greatest of the all "the gods" and completely in charge of the universe. Christianity, which began as a Jewish sect, later embraced Greek philosophy, in particular that of Aristotle, who sought to organize thought in a way never before attempted. The god of Islam is also a god of order and law. These three religions being the essential foundations of culture in the West, they have been the springboards for a viewpoint which sees an orderly, almost mechanistic deity, such as in Deism. And, though many in the West no longer follow any of these religions, they usually eschew religion in favor of science, which also presents an ordered and logical universe to its followers.

This orderliness was unthinkable to our ancestors. When we pick up the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey, we will read of multiple gods, ever in conflict, ever scheming and altering not only the physical world at a whim, but even breaking moral codes when it suits them. We shall see some examples of this in our first Great Book - the Epic of Gilgamesh.