131. 1650, Hurrians and Goddess Tiamat.pdf

131. 1650, Hurrians and Goddess Tiamat ReGenesis is the first open-access encyclopedia to liberate pre-colonial research to its rightful 3,000,000 BCE origins - and liberate female spirituality. (RGS.) * * * Babylonian Creation Epic. Enuma Elish – the Babylonian Creation Epic composed during the latter half of the second millennium BCE and performed at the New Year Festival every year for nearly two thousand years - shows that before the king could assume absolute power, women had to be totally subjugated. (PPSF: 63.) Marduk and Tiamat. The Enuma Elish describes how the god Marduk assembles a force to overcome Tiamat and Mummu [Mother], in order to become lord of the universe and possess the tablets. After a horrific battle he is successful. (CDBL: 105.) Each Becomes a Master. The epic describes her story. Creation of the gods comes first, from her body; then there is dissension between them. Eventually her descendant Marduk with his various friends manages to kill her and tear her apart. He gives the various divisions of her body to his friends and each of these becomes master of some part of the universe created from Tiamat. (CDBL: 104.) In 1650 BCE, migrating Hurrians entered Syria–Palestine. Their presence and contributions were significant including ancient Middle Eastern languages and the Hurrian Creation Epic known as the Enuma Elish, initiated a new order. Various Babylonian, Hurrian, Phoenician, and Greek interpretations of this Creation Epic indicate that the originators were the Hurrians/Babylonians. Marduk who replaced the god Enlil, slaughtered dragon–goddess Tiamat. * (OGR: 30, 58-63; MG: 273-298.) * (Enlil was king of all lands and father of all the gods. (KSH: 224.)) An investigation into the genealogy of the dragon – sea monster brings us to the primordial struggle recounted in Enuma Elish. This conflict, which brought the created world and humanity into being, was between Marduk, heroic representation of the patriarchal city–state and Tiamat, the First Mother, whose name means primeval waters, the deep chaos. After a fearsome battle, Marduk slaughters Tiamat and creates the cosmos out of her dismembered corpse. This triumph was ritually re–enacted at every Babylonian New Year festival and underlies the biblical account of the Hebrew monotheistic God’s creation of the world over against Tehom, the chaotic waters of the deep, the void. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water” (GN 1.2). Clifford among others suggests that the Genesis narrative may well have been an adaption of Enuma Elish. (PSI: 82.) Marduk, great grandson of Tiamat, can make an analogy of an ideological shift where the hero modality transitions into control and power. Following the slaughter/destruction of the dragon – sea monster Tiamat, Marduk then becomes the creator god. This Mesopotamian motif results in discord in the social structure of worldviews, later illustrated in Greece when the Amazon tribes may have resisted a similar take over. (Joan Marler: 2-19-97.) Summary of the defeat of Tiamat that marks the beginning of a new ideology. Enuma Elish is the Babylonian creation myth of Tiamat as the celebrated serpent – dragon and the new generation God Marduk, Tiamat’s great–great–great grandson. (MG: 275). The legend is the death and destruction of the son’s mother or grandmother i.e. matrilineal/maternal lineage. During seven stages, Marduk defeats/slaughters his grandmother. (MG: 419; ECLE.) ‘A new order replaced what once had been considered order, but, with that act, became redefined as chaos (SDGF: 176).’ (Following Carol Christ‘s deduction that patriarchy [theology] is an ‘evolving ideology’ (ROG: 62, n. 53), she questions if this text actually reflects earlier sources?) The defeat of the serpent goddess marked the end of a culture, and also the end of the Neolithic way of perceiving life, which very soon becomes almost inaccessible; for the victory of a solar god creates a new way of living, a new way of relating to the divine by identifying with the god’s power of conquest, the victory over darkness that the sun wins each dawn (MG: 280). … [Also] the violent image of conquest in Enuma Elish set[s] the paradigm of the Iron Age as one of conflict between the older mythology of the mother goddess and the new myths of the Aryan and Semitic father gods. The father gods struggled for supremacy in Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Anatolia, Canaan and Greece and less obviously, in Egypt. But Marduk was the first god to vanquish the mother goddess and take her place as creator of life (MG: 275). Given different translations, interpretations, and discoveries, there are various dating considerations for Mesopotamian myths and tablets, including Enuma Elish 1600-1100 BCE that may stretch back to the Ziusudra 2300 BCE tablets? Just as there are varying accounts of creation in the Bible, so also do the Mesopotamian accounts to which they relate differ. There are three Mesopotamian stories dealing with the creation, the flood and the ‘fallen,’ or more properly, limited, state of humankind. These are Adapa, Atrahasis and Enuma Elish. In addition to these, motifs scattered through the epic of Gilgamesh impinge on the creation, the flood and the mortality of Humans. (SOTB: 32.) Various dating considerations for Tiamat and Enuma Elish in ReGenesis include entries: 2500, Inanna Holder of the Me; 2300, Sumerian Transitions; 2000, Babylonian Mythology; 1650, Hurrians and Goddess Tiamat; and 587-500, Demise of Sumerian and Babylonian Goddesses. Dates will be adjusted as further information becomes available. In the interim: We know of the epic only from tablets unearthed in AD 1848 from the library of Assurbanipal, the last king of Assyria, who immolated himself in the flames of his burning palace in 626 BC, but it dates to the era 1,000 years earlier, when Semitic Amorite Hammurabian dynasty came to power in Babylonia about 1750 BC. The first mention of the epic comes in a tablet of about 1580 BC (MG: 275- 276). BCE Further Enuma Elish research and interpretations: Baring, Anne and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London, England: Viking, 1991. 373-299. (MG.) Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley, 1997. (ROG: 62-69.) Jacobsen, Thorkild. “The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat.” American Oriental Society 88.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1968): 104-108. (BBM.) James, Edward Oliver. Ancient Gods: The History and Diffusion of Religion in the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. London, England: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960. 87-90. (AG.) Kramer, Samuel Noah. “Sumerian Historiography.” Israel Exploration Journal 3.4 (1953): 217-232. (KSH.) Muss-Arnolt, W. “The Babylonian Account of Creation.” Biblical World 3.1 (Jan. 1894): 17-27. (BAC.) Pritchard, James Bennett. The Ancient Near East; An Anthology of Texts and Pictures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958. 60-72. (ANE.) Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. 1987. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 21-32. (CM.) For the full “Enuma Elish” translation: Thomas, D. Winston, Ed. Trans. “The Epic of Creation.” Documents from Old Testament Times. London, England: T. Nelson, 1958. (EOC: 10-11.) Further research on mother – rite to father – right savior * Gods: 92,000, Qafzeh or Kafzeh Cave and Ochre Symbolism; 4400-2500, Kurgan Invasions; 44002500, Olympus Hera; 4000-3000, Egypt, Africa, and Cathedra Goddesses; 30002780, Egyptian Bronze Age; 2686-2181, Old Kingdom Egypt (2600 Fifth Dynasty); 2600-1100, Late Indo-European Bronze Age; 2370-2316, Akkadian Enheduanna and Inanna’s Hymns; 2300, Sumerian Transitions; 2300-2100, Edfu Egypt 1580, Zeus; 1450-1260, Hattusa and Yazilikaya, Anatolia; 1100-800, Iron Age; 1100-800, Mediterranean Dark Ages; 1000, Double Goddess Transition; 800-500, Archaic Greek Age; 700-550, Apollo at Delphi and Didymaion; 668626, Sumerian Mythology; 587-500, Demise of Sumerian and Babylonian Goddesses; 323-30, Kom Ombo Temple; and 305-30, Esna Temple. (RGS.) (Also see CE entries: 325, Council of Nicaea and Goddesses and Gods; 431, Council of Ephesus and Virgin Mary, Anatolia and Virgin Mary; 570, Mohammed’s Birth; 1207-1273, Rumi and Mother.) (RG.) * Soteriology: study of God’s salvation and ontological concepts of female evil. The following speaks to the theory that mankind is not a one size fits all. Over the centuries, there has been a historic shift to a culture and society in which half of the population (females) are traditionally regarded as: politically; philosophically; psychologically; professionally; theologically; spiritually; academically; scientifically; sexually; biologically and etc. inferior or less than the other half. (MHE: 150.) The repercussions of this shift in the symbolic plane can be seen NOT only in the division of male gods from female gods, but also in the separation of sky from earth, of mind from body, of spirituality from sexuality. Incorporated into the mainstream of Greek thought and later crystallized in the philosophical writings of Plato, these ideas then pass via Neoplatonism into Christian theology and contribute to the symbolic worldview, which is still dominant in western [global] society today. From this early Greek Geometric period onwards, European culture ceases to offer the imaginative vocabulary for any human being, female or male, to experience themselves as whole and undivided (MHE: 150). This hierarchical dis-order is discussed at length throughout ReGenesis including BCE entries: 4400-2500, Olympus Hera; 3100-2600, Proto Bronze Age Crete, Writing, and Heroes; 3000-1450, Gournia; 2500, Inanna, Holder of the Me; 2400, Sumerian Women in the Akkadian Period; 2400, Lilith and Eve; 2300, Sumerian Transitions; 1750, Hammurabian Dynasty, Babylon, Ishtar, and Inanna; 1580, Zeus; 1100-800, Iron Age; 1000, Gods; 800-500, Archaic Greek Age; 587-500, Demise of Sumerian and Babylonian Goddesses; 500-400 Classical Greek Era and Leading Male Authors; 384-322, Aristotle’s Theory of Rational Male Dominance; and First Century BCE-Sixth Century CE, Summary of Female Catholic Priests and Synagogue Leaders. Further research and discussions on myths, epics, and tablet dating challenges: Baring, Anne, and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London, England: Viking, 1991. 175-224 (MG.) Callahan, Tim. Secret Origins of the Bible. Altadena, CA: Millennium Press, 2002. (SOTB.) Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1984. 80-81. (MOG.) Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1989. 228-229. (MFMC.) Kramer, Samuel Noah. From the Poetry of Sumer. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1979. (FPS.) Long, Asphodel. “The Goddess in Judaism: An Historical Perspective.” The Absent Mother: Restoring the Goddess to Judaism and Christianity. Ed. Alix Pirani. Hammersmith, London, England: Mandala, 1991. 34-46. (GJ.) Nilson, Sherrill V. Gilgamesh in Relationship: A Feminist, Kleinian Hermeneutic of the Contemporary Epic. Diss. CIIS, 2000. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest/UMI, 2000. (Publication No. AAT 9992393.) (GIR.) Sandars, N. K. Epic of Gilgamesh: An English Version with an Introduction. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971. (EOG.) Stanton, Elizabeth C. The Woman's Bible. Seattle, WA: Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion, 1974. (TWB.) Starhawk. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1987. 32-40. (TDE.) Further Sumeria and Enlil research: Gadotti, Alhena. “Portraits of the Feminine in Sumerian Literature.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.2 (Apr.-Jun. 2011): 195-206. (PFS.) Further research on theocratic cosmologies, mythic heroes, and savior Godtraditions: Baring, Anne, and Jules Cashford. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London, England: Viking, 1991. 290-298. (MG.) Berry, Jason, and Gerald Renner. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II. New York, NY: Free Press, 2004. (VOS.) Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley, 1997. 48-49; 160-171. (ROG.) _____. “Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and War, Part 2.” Feminism and Religion (18 Feb. 2013 http://feminismandreligion.com). (PSM.) _____. “A New Definition of Patriarchy: Control of Women’s Sexuality, Private Property, and War.” Feminist Theology 24:3 (April 2016): 214-225. (NDP.) Finkelberg, Margalit. Greeks and Pre-Greeks: Aegean Prehistory and Greek Heroic Tradition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 173-176. (GPG.) Goodison, Lucy. Moving Heaven and Earth: Sexuality, Spirituality and Social Change. Aylesbury, Bucks, England: The Women’s Press, 1990. (MHE.) Jantzen, Grace. Foundations of Violence. London, England: Routledge, 2004. (FV.) Keller, Mara Lynn. “Violence against Women and Children in Scriptures and in the Home.” The Rule of Mars: Readings on the Origins, History and Impact of Patriarchy. Ed. Christina Biaggi. Manchester, CT: Knowledge, Ideas & Trends, 2005. 225-240. (VA.) Martos, Joseph, and Pierre Hégy. Equal at the Creation: Sexism, Society, and Christian Thought. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1998. (EAC.) Raynor, Diane. The Homeric Hymns: A Translation, with Introduction and Notes. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. (HH.) Richlin, Amy. "Reading Ovid's Rapes.” Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2014. 158-179. (ROR.) Sissa, Giulia. “The Sexual Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.” A History of Women in the West: I. From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints. Ed. Pauline Schmitt Pantel. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 46-81. (SPPA.) Thornhill, Randy, and Craig T. Palmer. A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. (NHR) Weil, Simone. The Iliad: Or, the Poem of Force. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1962. (TLPF.) Yalom, Marilyn. “Wives in the Ancient World: Biblical, Greek, and Roman Models.” A History of the Wife. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001. (HOW.) IMAGE: ANCIENT CUNEIFORM SCRIPT: MARDUK’S TEMPLE, BABYLON. PHOTO: © GSA. DESCRIPTION: BOUNDARY STONE FROM MARDUK’S BABYLON TEMPLE INC. PROTECTIVE SPREAD EAGLE (ANZU?) ABOVE A FATHER AND SON, BOTH TEMPLE PRIESTS. BABYLONIAN CUNEIFORM SCRIPT ATTESTS TO LAND RIGHTS AND JUDGMENTS PLUS KUDURRU CURSES. SLIDE LOCATION NEAR EAST, SHEET 11, ROW 1, SLEEVE 4, SLIDE #4, 900-800 BCE. CU_NEA_S11_R1_SL4_S4.jpg SHOT ON LOCATION: BRITISH MUSEUM: LONDON, ENGLAND. NOTE 1: THE GOD MARDUK WAS REQUESTED BY THE ASSEMBLY TO CRUSH AND DESTROY TIAMAT, SHE WHO WAS THE BEGETTER OF ALL BEINGS. (PPSF: 63.) (PPSF: 60-65.) NOTE 2: FIELDWORK PROJECT 2002. IMAGE: SERPENT – DRAGON TIAMAT ON ISHTAR’S GATE: MESOPOTAMIA. PHOTO: © GSA. DESCRIPTION: UPPER REGISTER INC. RELIEFS OF TIAMAT WITH A SERPENT’S TAIL AND UNICORN BROW ON ISHTAR’S GATE, RE. BABYLON CREATION EPIC, ENUMA ELISH. SLIDE LOCATION NEAR EAST, SHEET 6A, ROW 1, SLEEVE 3, SLIDE #35, 604-562. BCE CU_NEA_S6A_R1_SL3_S35.jpg SHOT ON LOCATION: ISTANBUL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM: ISTANBUL, TURKEY. NOTE 1: “THE ASSEMBLY ASKS THE GOD MARDUK TO DESTROY THE GODDESS TIAMAT – THE ORIGINAL PROGENITOR AND CREATOR OF ALL (PPSF: 63) (PPSF: 6065).” NOTE 2: ALTHOUGH BABYLONIAN/MESOPOTAMIAN MARDUK WAS APPARENTLY THE FIRST GOD TO CONQUER THE DEITY TIAMAT AND THEN CLAIM VICTORY OVER THE MOTHER GODDESS AND MATERNAL LINEAGE, OTHER GODS ALSO STRUGGLED FOR SIMILAR SUPREMACY IN PERSIA, INDIA, ANATOLIA, CANAAN, GREECE AND EGYPT (MG: 275; RGS). (SOURCE: ENTRY ABOVE.) NOTE 3: FIELDWORK PROJECT 1986. IMAGE: DRAGON/SNAKE GODDESS TIAMAT: BABYLON. PHOTO: © GSA. DESCRIPTION: SCHEMATIZED DRAGON/SNAKE GODDESS TIAMAT, BABYLON. (SV: 47, FIG. 1.8a.) SLIDE LOCATION NEAR EAST, SHEET 2, ROW 2, SLEEVE 4, SLIDE #21, 4000-3500 BCE. CU_NEA_S2_R2_SL4_S21.jpg SHOT ON LOCATION: BRITISH MUSEUM: LONDON, ENGLAND. NOTE 1: A DOCUMENT FREQUENTLY CITED IS THE BABYLONIAN CREATION EPIC, ENUMA ELISH IN WHICH THE CELEBRATED SERPENT – DRAGON TIAMAT IS RITUALLY SLAUGHTERED IN THE RE–ENACTMENT OF THE KING’S ABSOLUTE POWER (MOG: 80-81; MG: 280-281; PPSF: 63; RGS). (SOURCE: RGS.) NOTE 2: FIELDWORK PROJECT 1998-2002. IMAGE: DRAGON/SNAKE CERAMIC: ISTANBUL, TURKEY. PHOTO: © GSA. DESCRIPTION: BLUE AND WHITE CERAMIC DRAGON/SERPENT, TOPKAPI SARAYI MUSEUM, ISTANBUL, TURKEY. SLIDE LOCATION TURKEY, SHEET 47, ROW 3, SLEEVE 1, SLIDE #468, 16th-17 CENTURY CE BCE. CO_TUR_S47_R3_SL1_S468.jpg SHOT ON LOCATION: TOPKAPI SARAYI MUSEUM: ISTANBUL, TURKEY. NOTE 1: A DOCUMENT FREQUENTLY CITED IS THE BABYLONIAN CREATION EPIC, ENUMA ELISH IN WHICH THE CELEBRATED SERPENT – DRAGON TIAMAT IS RITUALLY SLAUGHTERED IN THE RE-ENACTMENT OF THE KING’S ABSOLUTE POWER (MOG: 80-81; MG: 280-281; PPSF: 63; RGS). (SOURCE: RGS.) NOTE 2: FIELDWORK PROJECT 1998. th