The 12th Planet
Page 34
Fig. 150
Sumerian texts, too, speak of deformed humans created by Enki and the Mother Goddess (Ninhursag) in the course of their efforts to fashion a perfect Primitive Worker. One text reports that Ninhursag, whose task it was to "bind upon the mixture the mold of the gods," got drunk and "called over to Enki,"
"How good or how bad is Man's body?
As my heart prompts me,
I can make its fate good or bad."
Mischievously, then, according to this text—but probably unavoidably, as part of a trial-and-error process—Ninhursag produced a Man who could not hold back his urine, a woman who could not bear children, a being who had neither male nor female organs. All in all, six deformed or deficient humans were brought forth by Ninhursag. Enki was held responsible for the imperfect creation of a man with diseased eyes, trembling hands, a sick liver, a failing heart; a second one with sicknesses attendant upon old age; and so on.
But finally the perfect Man was achieved—the one Enki named Adapa; the Bible, Adam; our scholars, Homo sapiens. This being was so much akin to the gods that one text even went so far as to point out that the Mother Goddess gave to her creature, Man, "a skin as the skin of a god"—a smooth, hairless body, quite different from that of the shaggy ape-man.
With this final product, the Nefilim were genetically compatible with the daughters of Man and able to marry them and have children by them. But such compatibility could exist only if Man had developed from the same "seed of life" as the Nefilim. This, indeed, is what the ancient texts attest to.
Man, in the Mesopotamian concept, as in the biblical one, was made of a mixture of a godly element—a god's blood or its "essence"—and the "clay" of Earth. Indeed, the very term lulu for "Man," while conveying the sense of "primitive," literally meant "one who has been mixed." Called upon to fashion a man, the Mother Goddess "Washed her hands, pinched off clay, mixed it in the steppe." (It is fascinating to note here the sanitary precautions taken by the goddess. She "washed her hands." We encounter such clinical measures and procedures in other creation texts as well.)
The use of earthly "clay" mixed with divine "blood" to create the prototype of Man is firmly established by the Mesopotamian texts. One, relating how Enki was called upon to "bring to pass some great work of Wisdom"—of scientific know-how—states that Enki saw no great problem in fulfilling the task of "fashioning servants for the gods." "It can be done!" he announced. He then gave these instructions to the Mother Goddess:
"Mix to a core the clay
from the Basement of Earth,
just above the Abzu—
and shape it into the form of a core.
I shall provide good, knowing young gods
who will bring that clay to the right condition."
The second chapter of Genesis offers this technical version:
And Yahweh, Elohim, fashioned the Adam
of the clay of the soil;
and He blew in his nostrils the breath of life,
and the Adam turned into a living Soul.
The Hebrew term commonly translated as "soul" is nephesh, that elusive "spirit" that animates a living creature and seemingly abandons it when it dies. By no coincidence, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) repeatedly exhorted against the shedding of human blood and the eating of animal blood "because the blood is the nephesh." The biblical versions of the creation of Man thus equate nephesh ("spirit," "soul") and blood.
The Old Testament offers another clue to the role of blood in Man's creation. The term adama (after which the name Adam was coined) originally meant not just any earth or soil, but specifically dark-red soil. Like the parallel Akkadian word adamatu ("dark-red earth"), the Hebrew term adama and the Hebrew name for the color red (adom) stem from the words for blood: adamu, dam. When the Book of Genesis termed the being created by God "the Adam," it employed a favorite Sumerian linguistic play of double meanings. "The Adam" could mean "the one of the earth" (Earthling), "the one made of the dark-red soil," and "the one made of blood."
The same relationship between the essential element of living creatures and blood exists in Mesopotamian accounts of Man's creation. The hospital-like house where Ea and the Mother Goddess went to bring Man forth was called the House of Shimti; most scholars translate this as "the house where fates are determined." But the term Shimti clearly stems from the Sumerian SHI.IM.TI, which, taken syllable by syllable, means "breath-wind-life." Bit Shimti meant, literally, "the house where the wind of life is breathed in." This is virtually identical to the biblical statement.
Indeed, the Akkadian word employed in Mesopotamia to translate the Sumerian SHI.IM.TI was napishtu—the exact parallel of the biblical term nephesh. And the nephesh or napishtu was an elusive "something" in the blood.
While the Old Testament offered only meager clues, Mesopotamian texts were quite explicit on the subject. Not only do they state that blood was required for the mixture of which Man was fashioned; they specified that it had to be the blood of a god, divine blood.
When the gods decided to create Man, their leader announced: "Blood will I amass, bring bones into being." Suggesting that the blood be taken from a specific god, "Let primitives be fashioned after his pattern," Ea said. Selecting the god,
Out of his blood they fashioned Mankind;
imposed on it the service, let free the gods....
It was a work beyond comprehension.
According to the epic tale "When gods as men," the gods then called the Birth Goddess (the Mother Goddess, Ninhursag) and asked her to perform the task:
While the Birth Goddess is present,
Let the Birth Goddess fashion offspring.
While the Mother of the Gods is present,
Let the Birth Goddess fashion a Lulu;
Let the worker carry the toil of the gods.
Let her create a Lulu Amelu,
Let him bear the yoke.
In a parallel Old Babylonian text named "Creation of Man by the Mother Goddess," the gods call upon "The Midwife of the gods, the Knowing Mami" and tell her:
Thou art the mother-womb,
The one who Mankind can create.
Create then Lulu, let him bear the yoke!
At this point, the text "When gods as men" and parallel texts turn to a detailed description of the actual creation of Man. Accepting the "job," the goddess (here named NIN.TI—"lady who gives life") spelled out some requirements, including some chemicals ("bitumens of the Abzu"), to be used for "purification," and "the clay of the Abzu."
Whatever these materials were, Ea had no problem understanding the requirements; accepting, he said:
"I will prepare a purifying bath.
Let one god be bled....
From his flesh and blood,
let Ninti mix the clay."
To shape a man from the mixed clay, some feminine assistance, some pregnancy or childbearing aspects were also needed. Enki offered the services of his own spouse:
Ninki, my goddess-spouse,
will be the one for labor.
Seven goddesses-of-birth
will be near, to assist.
Following the mixing of the "blood" and "clay," the childbearing phase would complete the bestowal of a divine "imprint" on the creature.
The new-born's fate thou shalt pronounce;
Ninki would fix upon it the image of the gods;
And what it will be is "Man."
Depictions on Assyrian seals may well have been intended as illustrations for these texts—showing how the Mother Goddess (her symbol was the cutter of the umbilical cord) and Ea (whose original symbol was the crescent) were preparing the mixtures, reciting the incantations, urging each other to proceed. (Figs. 151, 152)
The involvement of Enki's spouse, Ninki in the creation of the first successful specimen of Man reminds us of the tale of Adapa, which we discussed in an earlier chapter:
In those days, in those years,
The Wise One of Eridu, Ea,
created him as a model of men.
Scholars have surmised that references to Adapa as a "son" of Ea implied that the god loved this human so much that he adopted him. But in the same text Anu refers to Adapa as "the human offspring of Enki." It appears that the involvement of Enki's spouse in the process of creating Adapa, the "model Adam," did create some genealogical relationship between the new Man and his god: It was Ninki who was pregnant with Adapa!
Fig. 151
Fig. 152
Ninti blessed the new being and presented him to Ea. Some seals show a goddess, flanked by the Tree of Life and laboratory flasks, holding up a newborn being. (Fig. 153)
Fig. 153
The being that was thus produced, which is repeatedly referred to in Mesopotamian texts as a "model Man" or a "mold," was apparently the right creature, for the gods then clamored for duplicates. This seemingly unimportant detail, however, throws light not only on the process by which Mankind was "created," but also on the otherwise conflicting information contained in the Bible.
According to the first chapter of Genesis:
Elohim created the Adam in His image—
in the image of Elohim created He him.
Male and female created He them.
Chapter 5, which is called the Book of the Genealogies of Adam, states that:
On the day that Elohim created Adam,
in the likeness of Elohim did He make him.
Male and female created He them,
and He blessed them, and called them "Adam"
on the very day of their creation.
In the same breath, we are told that the Deity created, in his likeness and his image, only a single being, "the Adam," and in apparent contradiction, that both a male and a female were created simultaneously. The contradiction seems sharper still in the second chapter of Genesis, which specifically reports that the Adam was alone for a while, until the Deity put him to sleep and fashioned Woman from his rib.
The contradiction, which has puzzled scholars and theologians alike, disappears once we realize that the biblical texts were a condensation of the original Sumerian sources. These sources inform us that after trying to fashion a Primitive Worker by "mixing" apemen with animals, the gods concluded that the only mixture that would work would be between apemen and the Nefilim themselves. After several unsuccessful attempts, a "model"—Adapa/Adam—was made. There was, at first, only a single Adam.
Once Adapa/Adam proved to be the right creature, he was used as the genetic model or "mold" for the creation of duplicates, and those duplicates were not only male, but male and female. As we showed earlier, the biblical "rib" from which Woman was fashioned was a play on words on the Sumerian TI ("rib" and "life")—confirming that Eve was made of Adam's "life's essence."
•
The Mesopotamian texts provide us with an eye-witness report of the first production of the duplicates of Adam.
The instructions of Enki were followed. In the House of Shimti—where the breath of life is "blown in"—Enki, the Mother Goddess, and fourteen birth goddesses assembled. A god's "essence" was obtained, the "purifying bath" prepared. "Ea cleaned the clay in her presence; he kept reciting the incantation."
The god who purifies the Napishtu, Ea, spoke up.
Seated before her, he was prompting her.
After she had recited her incantation,
She put her hand out to the clay.
We are now privy to the detailed process of Man's mass creation. With fourteen birth goddesses present,
Ninti nipped off fourteen pieces of clay;
Seven she deposited on the right,
Seven she deposited on the left.
Between them she placed the mould.
. . . the hair she ...
. . . the cutter of the umbilical cord.
It is evident that the birth goddesses were divided into two groups. "The wise and learned, twice-seven birth goddesses had assembled," the text goes on to explain. Into their wombs the Mother Goddess deposited the "mixed clay." There are hints of a surgical procedure—the removal or shaving off of hair, the readying of a surgical instrument, a cutter. Now there was nothing to do but wait:
The birth goddesses were kept together.
Ninti sat counting the months.
The fateful 10th month was approaching;
The 10th month arrived;
The period of opening the womb had elapsed.
Her face radiated understanding:
She covered her head, performed the midwifery.
Her waist she girdled, pronounced the blessing.
She drew a shape; in the mould was life.
The drama of Man's creation, it appears, was compounded by a late birth. The "mixture" of "clay" and "blood" was used to induce pregnancy in fourteen birth goddesses. But nine months passed, and the tenth month commenced. "The period of opening the womb had elapsed." Understanding what was called for, the Mother Goddess "performed the midwifery." That she engaged in some surgical operation emerges more clearly from a parallel text (in spite of its fragmentation):
Ninti ... counts the months....
The destined 10th month they called;
The Lady Whose Hand Opens came.
With the ... she opened the womb.
Her face brightened with joy.
Her head was covered;
... made an opening;
That which was in the womb came forth.
Overcome with joy, the Mother Goddess let out a cry.
"I have created!
My hands have made it!"
•
How was the creation of Man accomplished?
The text "When the gods as men" contains a passage whose purpose was to explain why the "blood" of a god had to be mixed into the "clay." The "divine" element required was not simply the dripping blood of a god, but something more basic and lasting. The god that was selected, we are told, had TE.E.MA—a term the leading authorities on the text (W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard of Oxford University) translate as "personality." But the ancient term is much more specific; it literally means "that which houses that which binds the memory." Further on, the same term appears in the Akkadian version as etemu, which is translated as "spirit."
In both instances we are dealing with that "something" in the blood of the god that was the repository of his individuality. All these, we feel certain, are but roundabout ways of stating that what Ea was after, when he put the god's blood through a series of "purifying baths," was the god's genes.
The purpose of mixing this divine element thoroughly with the earthly element was also spelled out:
In the clay, god and Man shall be bound,
to a unity brought together;
So that to the end of days
the Flesh and the Soul
which in a god have ripened—
that Soul in a blood-kinship be bound;
As its Sign life shall proclaim.