SOME FOLKS SAY that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is a thinly veiled reference to Tiamat. It's unknowable, of course, but it makes some sense that it might be so - since there are two competing creation stories from the Middle East.
In the creation mythology of ancient Babylon, as told in the Enuma Elish tablets, the world was created by Apsu and Tiamat. Apsu was the male spirit of fresh water and emptiness, and Tiamat was the female spirit of salt water and chaos, embodied in a great serpentine dragon. Between them were the heavens and earth created and all the living things conceived, including the gods.
Some of the god-children were rowdy and unruly, causing a great clamor. Apsu and Tiamat were disturbed by their commotion. Apsu suggested that they should kill some of their rowdy children, but Tiamat indulged her boisterous children and rejected the plan. One of their god-children, Ea, had the power to foresee the future. So Ea could foresee that Apsu intended to kill him and so, to save himself, he rose up and killed Apsu.
This enraged Tiamat who swore to avenge Apsu's death. But Ea could foresee that, too, so he enlisted the aid of Marduk, the most powerful of the gods, to help him defend against Tiamat's fury. Tiamat created a horde of great monsters, dragons, and demons to fight Ea, but in the end the ultimate conflict came down to mortal combat between Tiamat and Marduk.
Marduk rode into the conflict in a chariot pulled by four fierce horses, accompanied by the four winds. He brought with him a bow that shot arrows of lightning. When Tiamat opened her great jaws to swallow Marduk whole, Marduk threw one of the winds down her throat, blasting her mouth wide open. He then shot one of his lightning arrows down her open throat directly into her heart.
Mortally wounded, Tiamat cried great tears as she fell; tears of grief for her fallen Apsu and sorrow for herself, slain at the hands of her own children. Marduk crushed her skull and dismembered Tiamat's body, using part of it to roof up the sky thus forming the Milky Way. Her crying eyes became the source waters for the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. And so it has been ever since.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
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