While no Mesopotamian counterpart of the biblical tale has yet been found, there can be little doubt that the tale—like all the biblical material concerning Creation and Man's prehistory—was of Sumerian origin. We have the locale: the Abode of the Gods in Mesopotamia. We have the telltale play on words in Eve's name ("she of life," "she of rib"). And we have two vital trees, the Tree of Knowing and the Tree of Life, as in Anu's abode.
Even the words of the Deity reflect a Sumerian origin, for the sole Hebrew Deity has again lapsed into the plural, addressing divine colleagues who were featured not in the Bible but in Sumerian texts:
Then did the Deity Yahweh say:
"Behold, the Adam has become as one of us,
to know good and evil.
And now might he not put forth his hand
And partake also of the Tree of Life,
and eat, and live forever?"
And the Deity Yahweh expelled the Adam
from the orchard of Eden.
As many early Sumerian depictions show, there had been a time when Man, as a Primitive Worker, served his gods stark naked. He was naked whether he served the gods their food and drink, or toiled in the fields or on construction jobs. (Figs. 154, 155)
Fig. 154
Fig. 155
The clear implication is that the status of Man vis-à.-vis the gods was not much different from that of domesticated animals. The gods had merely upgraded an existing animal to suit their needs. Did the lack of "knowing," then, mean that, naked as an animal, the newly fashioned being also engaged in sex as, or with, the animals? Some early depictions indicate that this was indeed the case. (Fig. 156)
Fig. 156
Sumerian texts like the "Epic of Gilgamesh" suggest that the manner of sexual intercourse did indeed account for a distinction between wild-Man and human-Man. When the people of Uruk wanted to civilize the wild Enkidu—"the barbarous fellow from the depths of the steppes"—they enlisted the services of a "pleasure girl" and sent her to meet Enkidu at the water hole where he used to befriend various animals, and there to offer him her "ripeness."
It appears from the text that the turning point in the process of "civilizing" Enkidu was the rejection of him by the animals he had befriended. It was important, the people of Uruk told the girl, that she continue to treat him to "a woman's task" until "his wild beasts, that grew up on his steppe, will reject him." For Enkidu to be torn away from sodomy was a prerequisite to his becoming human.
The lass freed her beasts, bared her bosom,
and he possessed her ripeness ...
She treated him, the savage,
to a woman's task.
Apparently the ploy worked. After six days and seven nights, "after he had had his fill of her charms," he remembered his former playmates.
He set his face toward his wild beasts; but
On seeing him the gazelles ran off.
The wild beasts of the steppe
drew away from his body.
The statement is explicit. The human intercourse brought about such a profound change in Enkidu that the animals he had befriended "drew away from his body." They did not simply run away; they shunned physical contact with him.
Astounded, Enkidu stood motionless for a while, "for his wild animals had gone." But the change was not to be regretted, as the ancient text explains:
Now he had vision, broader understanding....
The harlot says to him, to Enkidu:
"Thou art knowing, Enkidu;
Thou art become like a god!"
The words in this Mesopotamian text are almost identical to those of the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. As the Serpent had predicted, by partaking of the Tree of Knowing, they had become—in sexual matters—"as the Deity—knowing good and evil."
If this meant only that Man had come to recognize that having sex with animals was uncivilized or evil, why were Adam and Eve punished for giving up sodomy? The Old Testament is replete with admonitions against sodomy, and it is inconceivable that the learning of a virtue would cause divine wrath.
The "knowing" that Man obtained against the wishes of the Deity—or one of the deities—must have been of a more profound nature. It was something good for Man, but something his creators did not wish him to have.
We have to read carefully between the lines of the curse against Eve to grasp the meaning of the event:
And to the woman He said:
"I will greatly multiply thy suffering
by thy pregnancy.
In suffering shalt thou bear children,
yet to thy mate shall be thy desire"...
And the Adam named his wife "Eve,"
for she was the mother of all who lived.
This, indeed, is the momentous event transmitted to us in the biblical tale: As long as Adam and Eve lacked "knowing," they lived in the Garden of Eden without any offspring. Having obtained "knowing," Eve gained the ability (and pain) to become pregnant and bear children. Only after the couple had acquired this "knowing," "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain."
Throughout the Old Testament, the term "to know" is used to denote sexual intercourse, mostly between a man and his spouse for the purpose of having children. The tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the story of a crucial step in Man's development: the acquisition of the ability to procreate.
That the first representatives of Homo sapiens were incapable of reproduction should not be surprising. Whatever method the Nefilim had used to infuse some of their genetic material into the biological makeup of the hominids they selected for the purpose, the new being was a hybrid, a cross between two different, if related, species. Like a mule (a cross between a mare and a donkey), such mammal hybrids are sterile. Through artificial insemination and even more sophisticated methods of biological engineering, we can produce as many mules as we desire, even without actual intercourse between donkey and mare; but no mule can procreate and bring forth another mule.
Were the Nefilim, at first, simply producing "human mules" to suit their requirements?
Our curiosity is aroused by a scene depicted on a rock carving found in the mountains of southern Elam. It depicts a seated deity holding a "laboratory" flask from which liquids are flowing—a familiar depiction of Enki. A Great Goddess is seated next to him, a pose that indicates that she was a co-worker rather than a spouse; she could be none other than Ninti, the Mother Goddess or Goddess of Birth. The two are flanked by lesser goddesses—reminiscent of the birth goddesses of the Creation tales. Facing these creators of Man are row upon row of human beings, whose outstanding feature is that they all look alike—like products from the same mold. (Fig. 157)
Fig. 157
Our attention is also drawn again to the Sumerian tale of the imperfect males and females initially brought forth by Enki and the Mother Goddess, who were either sexless or sexually incomplete beings. Does this text recall the first phase of the existence of hybrid Man—a being in the likeness and image of the gods, but sexually incomplete: lacking in "knowing"?
After Enki managed to produce a "perfect model"—Adapa/Adam, "mass-production" techniques are described in the Sumerian texts: the implanting of the genetically treated ova in a "production line" of birth goddesses, with the advance knowledge that half would produce males and half would produce females. Not only does this bespeak the technique by which hybrid Man was "manufactured"; it also implies that Man could not procreate on his own.
The inability of hybrids to procreate, it has been discovered recently, stems from a deficiency in the reproductive cells. While all cells contain only one set of the hereditary chromosomes, Man and other mammals are able to reproduce because their sex cells (the male sperm, the female ovum) contain two sets each. But this unique feature is lacking in hybrids. Attempts are now being made through genetic engineering to provide hybrids with such a double set of chromosomes in their reproductive cells, making them sexually "normal."
Was that what the god whose epithet was "T
he Serpent" accomplished for Mankind?
The biblical Serpent surely was not a lowly, literal snake—for he could converse with Eve, he knew the truth about the matter of "knowing," and he was of such high stature that he unhesitatingly exposed the deity as a liar. We recall that in all ancient traditions, the chief deity fought a Serpent adversary—a tale whose roots undoubtedly go back to the Sumerian gods.
The biblical tale reveals many traces of its Sumerian origin, including the presence of other deities: "The Adam has become as one of us." The possibility that the biblical antagonists—the Deity and the Serpent—stood for Enlil and Enki seems to us entirely plausible.
Their antagonism, as we have discovered, originated in the transfer to Enlil of the command of Earth, although Enki had been the true pioneer. While Enlil stayed at the comfortable Mission Control Center at Nippur, Enki was sent to organize the mining operations in the Lower World. The mutiny of the Anunnaki was directed at Enlil and his son Ninurta; the god who spoke out for the mutineers was Enki. It was Enki who suggested, and undertook, the creation of Primitive Workers; Enlil had to use force to obtain some of these wonderful creatures. As the Sumerian texts recorded the course of human events, Enki as a rule emerges as Mankind's protagonist, Enlil as its strict discipliner if not outright antagonist. The role of a deity wishing to keep the new humans sexually suppressed, and of a deity willing and capable of bestowing on Mankind the fruit of "knowing," fit Enlil and Enki perfectly.
Once more, Sumerian and biblical plays on words come to our aid. The biblical term for "Serpent" is nahash, which does mean "snake." But the word comes from the root NHSH, which means "to decipher, to find out"; so that nahash could also mean "he who can decipher, he who finds things out," an epithet befitting Enki, the chief scientist, the God of Knowledge of the Nefilim.
Drawing parallels between the Mesopotamian tale of Adapa (who obtained "knowing" but failed to obtain eternal life) and the fate of Adam, S. Langdon (Semitic Mytlwlogy) reproduced a depiction unearthed in Mesopotamia that strongly suggests the biblical tale: a serpent entwined on a tree, pointing at its fruit. The celestial symbols are significant: High above is the Planet of Crossing, which stood for Anu; near the serpent is the Moon's crescent, which stood for Enki. (Fig. 158)
Most pertinent to our findings is the fact that in the Mesopotamian texts, the god who eventually granted "knowledge" to Adapa was none other than Enki:
Wide understanding he perfected for him....
Wisdom [he had given him]....
To him he had given Knowledge;
Eternal Life he had not given him.
A pictorial tale engraved on a cylinder seal found in Mari may well be an ancient illustration of the Mesopotamian version of the tale in Genesis. The engraving shows a great god seated on high ground rising from watery waves—an obvious depiction of Enki. Water-spouting serpents protrude from each side of this "throne."
Flanking this central figure are two treelike gods. The one on the right, whose branches have penis-shaped ends, holds up a bowl that presumably contains the Fruit of Life. The one on the left, whose branches have vagina-shaped ends, offers fruit-bearing branches, representing the Tree of "Knowing"—the god-given gift of procreation.
Standing to the side is another Great God; we suggest that he was Enlil. His anger at Enki is obvious. (Fig. 159)
We shall never know what caused this "conflict in the Garden of Eden." But whatever Enki's motives were, he did succeed in perfecting the Primitive Worker and in creating Homo sapiens, who could have his own offspring.
After Man's acquisition of "knowing," the Old Testament ceases to refer to him as "the Adam," and adopts as its subject Adam, a specific person, the first patriarch of the line of people with whom the Bible was concerned. But this coming of age of Mankind also marked a schism between God and Man.
The parting of the ways, with Man no longer a dumb serf of the gods but a person tending for himself, is ascribed in the Book of Genesis not to a decision by Man himself but to the imposition of a punishment by the Deity: lest the Earthling also acquire the ability to escape mortality, he shall be cast out of the Garden of Eden. According to these sources, Man's independent existence began not in southern Mesopotamia, where the Nefilim had established their cities and orchards, but to the east, in the Zagros Mountains: "And he drove out the Adam and made him reside east of the Garden of Eden."
Once more, then, biblical information conforms to scientific findings: Human culture began in the mountainous areas bordering the Mesopotamian plain. What a pity the biblical narrative is so brief, for it deals with what was Man's first civilized life on Earth.
Cast out of the Abode of the Gods, doomed to a mortal's life, but able to procreate, Man proceeded to do just that. The first Adam with whose generations the Old Testament was concerned "knew" his wife Eve, and she bore him a son, Cain, who tilled the land. Then Eve bore Abel, who was a shepherd. Hinting at homosexuality as the cause, the Bible relates that "Cain rose up unto his brother Abel and killed him."
Fearing for his life, Cain was given a protective sign by the Deity and was ordered to move farther east. At first leading a nomad's life, he finally settled in "the Land of Migration, well east of Eden." There he had a son whom he named Enoch ("inauguration"), "and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son." Enoch, in turn, had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the sixth generation after Cain, Lamech was born; his three sons are credited by the Bible as the bearers of civilization: Jabal "was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle"; Jubal "was the father of all that grasp lyre and harp"; Tubal-cain was the first smith.
But Lamech, too, as his ancestor Cain, became involved in murder—this time of both a man and a child. It is safe to assume that the victims were not some humble strangers, for the Book of Genesis dwells on the incident and considers it a turning point in the lineage of Adam. The Bible reports that Lamech summoned his two wives, mothers of his three sons, and confessed to them the double murder, declaring, "If Cain be sevenfold avenged, Lamech shall seventy and seven fold." This little-understood statement must be assumed to deal with the succession; we see it as an admission by Lamech to his wives that the hope that the curse on Cain would be redeemed by the seventh generation (the generation of their sons) had come to naught. Now a new curse, lasting much longer, had been imposed on the house of Lamech.
Fig. 158
Fig. 159
Confirming that the event concerned the line of succession, the following verses advise us of the immediate establishment of a new, pure, lineage:
And Adam knew his wife again
and she bore a son
and called his name Seth ["foundation"]
for the Deity hath founded for me
another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
The Old Testament at that point loses all interest in the defiled line of Cain and Lamech. Its ongoing tale of human events is henceforth anchored on the lineage of Adam through his son Seth, and Seth's firstborn, Enosh, whose name has acquired in Hebrew the generic connotation "human being." "It was then," Genesis informs us, "that it was begun to call upon the name of the Deity."
This enigmatic statement has baffled biblical scholars and theologians throughout the ages. It is followed by a chapter giving the genealogy of Adam through Seth and Enosh for ten generations ending with Noah, the hero of the Deluge.
The Sumerian texts, which describe the early ages when the gods were alone in Sumer, describe with equal precision the life of humans in Sumer at a later time, but before the Deluge. The Sumerian (and original) story of the Deluge has as its "Noah" a "Man of Shuruppak," the seventh city established by the Nefilim when they landed on Earth.
At some point, then, the human beings—banished from Eden—were allowed to return to Mesopotamia, to live alongside the gods, to serve them, and to worship them. As we interpret the biblical statement, this happened in the days of Enosh. It was then that the gods allowed Mank
ind back into Mesopotamia, to serve the gods "and to call upon the name of the deity."
Eager to get to the next epic event in the human sage, the Deluge, the Book of Genesis provides little information besides the names of the patriarchs who followed Enosh. But the meaning of each patriarch's name may suggest the events that took place during his lifetime.
The 12th Planet Page 36
