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Adam and Eve |
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In another Sumerian myth the goddess Ninhursag created a beautiful garden full of lush vegetation and fruit trees, called Edinu, in Dilman, the Sumerian earthly Paradise, a place which the Sumerians believed to exist to the east of their own land, beyond the sea. Ninhursag charged Enki, her lover, with controlling the wild animals and tending the garden, but Enki became curious about the garden and his assistant, Adapa, selected seven plants and offered them to Enki, who ate them. (In other versions of the story he seduced in turn seven generations of the offspring of his divine marriage with Ninhursag). This enranged Ninhursag, and she caused Enki to fall ill. Enki felt pain in his rib, which is a pun in Sumerian, as the word "ti" means both "rib" and "life. The other gods persuaded Ninhursag to relent. Ninhursag then created a new goddess named Ninti, (a name made up of "Nin", or "lady", plus "ti", and which can be translated as both Lady of Living and Lady of the Rib), to cure Enki. Ninhursag is known as mother of all living creatures, and thus holds the same position as Eve. The story has a clear parallel with Eve's creation from Adam's rib, but given that the pun with rib is present only in Sumerian, linguistic criticism places the Sumerian account as the more ancient. |
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Adam ("Earth" or "Man", Standard Hebrew ?????, Adam; "Soil" or "Light Brown", Arabic ???, Adam, ??? (Adam) in Geez); and Eve (living one or life, Standard Hebrew ??????, Arabic ????, ?avva Hawwa, ???? (Hiywan) in Geez) were the first man and woman created by God according to the Bible and the Quran. |
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In Sumerian myth the senior gods spent their time in leisure, while the junior gods laboured at digging the channels of the rivers and other tasks. Eventually the junior gods rebelled and threatened to overturn the heavenly order. The senior god Enki therefore fashioned the first men from clay, mixed with spittle and the blood of a slain god, so that men could work and the gods could rest. Originally Enki made seven men and seven women, but the numbers of mankind soon multiplied. |
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By the Babylonian era, Enki's place was taken by Adapa Uan (the Oannes of Berossus), a human created by Enki as advisor to the first king of Enki's city of Eridu. A 14th century BC tablet refers to Adapa as the seed of humankind. One myth recounts that Adapa broke the wings of the wind in anger at being disturbed while fishing, and was called to the heavens to answer for doing so. He was warned by Enki to apologise for his actions, but not to touch the food, in case it had been poisoned in revenge. The gods, impressed by his penitence, set the food and drink of immortality before him, but Adapa heeded Enki's warning and refused the food, thus missing out on immortality. The god who offered the food and drink of immortality was the wily serpent-god Ningishzida. In the Biblical account the serpent offers knowledge, but he also says to Eve that she shall not die.
As the food and drink of the gods originated on earth, somewhere on earth must lie the source of the food and drink of immortality, a Tree of Life. In the biblical account the food is consumed, not rejected, and the couple are punished by being expelled from the garden. Thus any derivation of the biblical account from Sumerian and Babylonian mythology involves the confusion of the tales of Adapa and Enki. Such a conflation may have been influenced by a story preserved in the prologue of Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld. In this tale, the goddess Inanna, who gains knowledge of sex by descending to earth and eating from various plants and fruits, transplants the huluppu tree from the Euphrates to her own garden, but a wicked serpent made its nest amongst the roots of the tree. This tale connects the serpent to the garden, and with the presence of Inanna, the theme of lust. Moving the story of Enki's rib to the start of the Biblical story would allow the failure to gain immortality to be seen as punishment for eating the fruit. |
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Creation of Eve
Despite popular belief to the contrary, men and women have the same number of ribs (twelve pairs). The misconception that they do not is probably due to the verse at Genesis 2:20, "[T]he Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man�s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and brought her to the man."
If this verse was not attempting to explain a non-existent difference between males and females, what was it trying to do? One theory is based on the Sumerian myth of Ninhursag and Enki. Ninhursag was angry with Enki and caused him to fall ill. Enki felt pain in his rib "ti", which in Sumerian means both "rib" and "life", and began to die. Ninhursag relented, and created a new goddess named Ninti, ("Nin", or "lady", plus "ti"), which can be translated as both Lady of Living and Lady of the Rib, to cure Enki. Given that the pun of "life" with "rib" is present only in Sumerian, this hypothesis, based on linguistic criticism, places the Sumerian account as the more ancient |
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back to men and women |
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