There seems to be a debate as to the usefulness of this little text and I would pretty much fall into the category of not much. The reason that I say that is because if this book was lost then we would lose very little of our understanding of Greek Mythology. Everything that is contained in this little book is also contained in more expanded works such as the Library of Greek Mythology and Ovid. While it is a primary source, it is still something that we could probably do without. Fortunately its small size means that it does not take up much space on my bookshelf, however I would probably not find myself ever actually needing to reference it. Okay, we could probably use it to talk about the accuracy of later works, but then again, this is Greek mythology, there is no consistency in it. In fact, there isn't even any consistency with the twelve tasks of Heracles.

Now, you would probably say that since this book is one of the earliest Greek texts then it gives us an idea of the development of Greek mythology, and yes, that is probably true to an extent, and from an anthropological view that is probably important, but I am not interested in that. On the other hand a lot of authors seem to look back at Hesiod with some sought of awe, and granted, it helps us understand the background from which they were writing, but remember most of Greek mythology back at this time was passed down by word of mouth and Hesiod is only one view of it.

I have written before, and will continue to write, about how my position with regards to the Greek gods is that they were humans that were deified, and Hesiod once again goes on to prove that point. This is a genealogical text much in the same way that sections of the Bible are genealogical texts, however by the time that Hesiod came around the Greek Gods had already been deified. There are some major differences between the two forms of genealogy though. As mentioned, the non-biblical genealogies tend to deal only with the gods, unless you are looking at a familial genealogy, where as the Biblical genealogies all deal with humans, and the Bible is very specific that the people mention in the genealogies are human. Secondly the biblical genealogies actually serve a purpose where as the non-biblical genealogies are simply a list of names.

The purpose of the biblical genealogy is to trace the line of people who in the end become the ancestors of Christ. These genealogies tend to reach their fulfillment in the Gospels, with both Matthew and Luke (and also, as some have argued, with John as well) containing genealogies. We do note that there are differences in the genealogies, and some have criticised the Bible for that, but I will simply say that the differences simply come out of methodology as opposed to inherent errors. My understanding is that in both maths and science one can reach the same proof even though two different methodologies were used.

Basically, whenever we see a genealogy in the Old Testament we are always looking at how it is directing us towards the saviour that was promised in Genesis 3. For those who are familiar with these genealogies you will note that they tend to only go down in one line, meaning that while a list of children may be given, the genealogy will end up focusing only one a handful of these children to narrow it down to a specific point. The exception is the table of nations in Genesis 10, the purpose of which is to outline the beginning of the nations as the readers would have known them to be at the time (namely during the Exodus). We do see a similarity between the table of nations and some Greek genealogies as it appears that a nation back then was defined by the father of the nation as opposed to a specific culture, language group, or location (and Apollodorus does give us that idea in the library of Greek Mythology).

There is a mention of the war of the Gods in Hesiod, and once again I have speculated on the origins of these wars. They can be twofold. The first is the idea that these wars developed out of different tribal groups moving into an already inhabited area bring their own culture and gods with them, winning a victory over the inhabitants, and installing their own culture (as defined by their gods). For instance, in early times we have a people group who worshipped Chronos as their chief God, but then they are invaded by a people who worshipped Zeus as their chief God and as the new group overran and conquered the old group, then Chronos was sidelined in favour of Zeus.

The second idea is the idea that I have proposed that these gods are little more than deified humans whose existence has been lost in the midst of times, so what we are actually seeing is some form of succession crisis. This would be particularly relevant if we are looking at an Antediluvian civilisation. In the era of short life spans and high morality, such succession crises would not be evident since when the old king died then the new king would still be old enough to assume the throne, but young enough not to have a number of children that would have to wait a long time for them to ascend the throne amongst a multitude of competeing claims. It differs today in that the Queen of England, the matriarch of the royal family, is still alive and well, and her grandchildren are now ready to marry and have kids. Pope John Paul II was the oldest living Pope in the history of the papacy, and it is likely that Pope Benedict will be around for a long time yet (unless he meets either with an unfortunate accident, or is removed for some reason or another - noting that this review was written prior to him stepping down).

When you have the antediluvian civilisation, where biblically (and elsewhere) you have people living for hundreds of years, even if you did not begin having children until the age of a hundred, by the time you die (even if it is five to six hundred years old) you still have at least four living generations below you, all of them struggling to get your position, and knowing that for them to get to that position they would have to wait a very long time. This is something that we see in this text, namely a fear in Chronos that his children would rise up and overthrow him, so he acts proactively and removes them before they have a chance of removing him. Much of it is allegorical though (and for the sake of space I will not go into detail here, for instance the gods all seem to have been born as adults, and also Chronos eats his children, but upon his defeat, all of them are released) so it can be difficult to understand what actually went on, though to take it literally can in itself be dangerous (and also somewhat ridiculous).

The final point I wish to make is the interesting note that Hesiod was a shephard tending sheep on Mount Helicon when he received this vision and wrote it down. This is something that seems to happen throughout the history of humanity in that many religious icons seem to have come from humble pasts and have made a tremendous impact upon human history. Many have suggested (and it is true to an extent) that history, up until the mid 18th century, was written by the upper class. However the reason for that is because it was only the upper class that had the time to write histories, as well as being the only ones who could read and write. However, this is not always the case, particularly with these early civilisations, because much of the history was passed down by word of mouth. This is why we can have shepherds actually becoming literary heroes because they did not need to read and write, they simply needed to be able to tell a story people could remember, and also convince them that they had a vision (or actually have had a vision) to make people sit up and listen.

Now, even though I have already completed a commentary on this book I still cannot help but go over a few more aspects of this story because I feel that there is actually a lot more to consider than meets the eye. It is also very useful to compare with the biblical account, if only to see the similarities. Some would suggest that this book disproves the biblical account, however I generally take a different approach by saying that it actually goes a long way to support it. Others argue that the biblical account was written to counter these creation myths, and that I do not doubt, however we must still consider that the main purpose of the biblical account (as well as the others) is to outline our origins and to explain why the world is in the state that it is in.

First of all there is the creation of man, however it is interesting to note that this does not occur until later in the first tablet (the story is divided into tablets, which are basically the same as pages). Humanity was created from clay (which is the same as the biblical account) however the clay was also mixed with the blood of a dead god and with the spittle of each of the living gods. This, once again, is similar to the biblical account in where God breaths life into humanity thus indicating a divine origin and nature of our race. However, it differs in that the creator is the female god, and that she used a womb as a means of creating humanity. This obviously is reflective of what the ancients originally could see around them, particularly noting that a baby is formed in the womb of a female.

Being an origin myth the Atrahasis also explores the nature of the main Mesopotamian gods, with Anu, Ellil, and Enki dividing the world up amongst them. Anu was given the sky to be his domain, Ellil was given the Earth, and Enki was given the seas. In a way it is similar to the division in the Greek myths, with Zeus taking command over the sky, Hades being given the underworld (namely because the Earth was the domain of humanity) and Poseidon being given the sea. I suspect if we look closer to the Mesopotamian gods we will see a number of similarities with the Greek gods, though we should note that Ellil seems to be the god that has the biggest gripe with humanity while Enki is the one who always seems to step in and protect them.

The final aspect that I wish to explore is the nature of rebellion, something that I have flagged above as being central to the text itself. It appears that the text is really about rebellion and how the gods dealt with humanity's rebellion. This is critical as it provides the link to the biblical account in that the bible is really about humanities rebellion against God, and his response to it (though the Bible is also the story of how God redeems humanity). The interesting thing in the Atrahasis is that there are two rebellions, the first being the Igigi and the later being humanity. While not explicitly stated in the bible, there are a number of hints as to an angelic rebellion. This seems to be the same as the rebellion of the Igigi, however it differs in that the bible is very clear that the rebellious angels were cast out of heaven where as the Igigi's demands were met. Further, note that the Mesopotamian gods were not overthrown. This differs from the Greek myths in that there are also two rebellions, the first being the Titans rebelling against the rule of the old gods, and then the new gods rebelling against the Titans. In both events the rebels won and overthrew their predecessors. This could be reflective of the invasions that occurred over the period of Ancient Greek history known as the Dark Ages. It is quite possible, or more than possible, that the later gods were introduced by the invaders, and that the changes in the heavenly powers is indicative of these invasions.

When I has handed a copy of this text in Old Testament I was not sure if I had actually read it or not even thought I had the Oxford World Classic's [bbok:Myths from Mesopotamia}. However, when I recently returned to that book to read the myths again (so that I could be more accurate when commenting on them, and the book as a whole, for Goodreads) I discovered that the 'Epic of Creation', as it is called in that book, is the Enuma Elish. I guess I had read it.

I have now read it again so I feel in a much better position to be able to write some decent comments, and in doing so I will outline the story, try to give my understanding of this story (though it will be quite speculative which is likely to put me in the madhouse alongside [book:Immanuel Velikovsky]) and then throw down some thoughts on its relationship to the biblical account.

Basically the Enuma Elish is a creation myth – well, not quite, but I will say that it is to ease some confusion. The story opens with the god Tiamat rebelling against the other gods, creating a race of monsters, and then setting a guy named Qingu up as the chief god and her consort. I guess even in Ancient Mesopotamia the saying still holds true that behind every great man is an equally great woman. Anyway, Tiamat, who is basically using Qingu as a puppet, prepares to go to war against the other gods so that she may fulfil her goal of becoming all powerful. A couple of gods attempt to confront her but her power is so great that they are either defeated or flee in terror. Then Marduk presents himself as the champion, confronts Tiamat, and in an epic battle, slays her. Qingu is then captured and later executed for treason. The gods then take Tiamut's body and from her remains create the world. From the remains of Qingu they create humanity to pretty much do all of the work that they no longer wish to perform. The tale then ends with a list of the gods and their role in the governance of creation.

While the poem seems to be fairly short I notice that the style is similar to some of the styles that appear in the Bible. One interesting aspect is that the poem will repeat entire tracts that have previously been said: for instance, something happens and then when somebody reports that event the entire text of that event is repeated, and then when the next person goes and reports it the entire text is repeated once again. This seems to occur a number of times in Mesopotamian literature, and as mentioned (though I cannot cite any passage off hand) appears to be a similar style used in some of the earlier parts of the bible. This obviously flags the possibility that parts of the Bible were written contemporaneously with these ancient Mesopotamian myths.

We must remember that all of these events occurred before the flood, so we are dealing with prehistoric accounts. My theory is that the gods that are mentioned here were actually at one point real human beings, however due to time and also the nature of primitive religion, these gods had been deified and thrust into the realm of mythology. One of my theories of antideluvian civilisation is that they were substantially more advanced than humanity at the time that these myths were written down. Take for instance the book of Genesis. We learn that three generations after the fall humanity had discovered literature, music, and metallurgy, however technological development stops at that point. The reason being is that the writers of Genesis had no concept of technology beyond what they understood at the time of writing. So to would have the ancient Mesopotamians, and we see that in this book with references to spells and flood weapons, as well as creation of monsters and humanity out of the blood of a dead god.

Now, I am not ascribing the creation of humanity to a cloning vat, but I shall point to references in the earlier parts of Genesis of the sons of god and the daughters of men coming together and producing great heroes as well as giants known as Nephalim. Did the antideluvians have cloning technology along with being excellent bioengineers? We do not and probably will never know unless that information is revealed to us in the restoration. However, it is interesting to see the possibility of how the ancients viewed potential technology far in advance of what they actually knew at the time. We should also note that after Tiamat's death Marduk went out and destroyed all of Tiamat's creation.

My theory of how this story was elevated to mythology with the main actors being gods, is as such: the Bible indicates that the reason for the fall was because humanity chose to remove God from his rightful place as ruler of creation and place themselves up there instead. In a sense humanity was worshipping humanity. In a primitive culture, deity is usually ascribed to the older and deceased generations, a term we refer to as ancestor worship (however if you actually speak to a Christian ancestor worshipper, as I have done, we come to understand that ancestor worship is much more than simply deifying your ancestors, but rather respecting their wishes and holding their memory in high regard). However, as time passes and these ancestors drift into distant memory they cease to be human and instead become gods.

Now, with the Egyptian and Babylonian deities we notice that they take the form of animals with humanoid features, whether it be the body of an eagle and the head of a man as with Anzu, or the head of an eagle and the body of a man as with Ra. These features do not necessarily indicate that that is what the deity looked like, but rather the deity has taken on an animal form to represent an aspect of their character, in the similar way that we see animals used in the Bible to represent certain qualities (such as a bull representing strength and a dragon representing destruction).

So, by bringing them out of mythology we have an idea that maybe it is not so much the creation of the world that we are seeing but rather the development of civilisation, and the gods that we are seeing are early antideluvian human beings. Now, as with our society, so with theirs, there are is ruling class and a working class, and what we have here is a rebellion amongst the ruling class. Tiamat is attempting to overthrow the established order, and her army of monsters suggest that she has skills and abilities that are able to overrealm the established order (much the same was that Germany's advances during World War II were to give them an advantage over the less developed allied powers). However, Marduk, the champion, was able to defeat her, suggesting that the usage of her body to continue and complete creation reflects the sacking of her compound and using her technology to continue the development of civilisation. In particular we see references to the setting of times and dates (and it is interesting that the week is established on a seven day roster, and the month is established on a 30 day roster, which is very similar to the Biblical account).

As I have mentioned previously, it is my position that the biblical account will supersede all other accounts, including this one. As the academic Christians like to put it, the Genesis account was handed down to stand apart from the ancient mythologies that were surrounding the Isrealite nation at the time, and the general consensus is that this was while they were either in Egypt, or after that they left. I sort of disagree slightly because we must remember that the revelation appeared to a number of earlier people, including Adam and Eve (which is to be discounted because it is quite likely that the events in this poem occurred after them, however would have possibly occurred before Enoch), Noah, and Abraham. We will take Abraham as an example (and whether Noah was alive when Abraham was alive can be debated and while I would like to think that the answer to that speculation is yes I am going to fall the other way and say no, namely because Abraham received a special revelation from God, something that probably would not have been necessary is Noah was still alive). Abraham, remember, grew up in Mesopotamia, so he would have been exposed to and surrounded by these myths, which is why he received the special revelation from God, and I suspect it was a lot more than simply 'pack up your bags go to the other side of the known world'. To be honest with you, we are told that Abraham was a man of Faith, but I am doubtful he was a man of blind faith. A mysterious voice (we actually don't know how God appeared to Abraham) coming out of nowhere and telling him to pack his bags would have needed some examination as to its truth. Remember, many of the men of faith in the Bible would turn to God and say 'if you are who you say you are, prove it to me'. God never asks for blind faith, that is dangerous, no, when God asks you to step out in faith, he does it in a way that we know that we can trust him (such as Christ's resurrection, which was necessary to prove that Christ's death was more than just the execution of a revolutionary).

This is a very ancient story, probably one of the oldest that we have, having been written in ancient Mesopotamia. Despite its age it is still a relatively recent discovery, namely because we did not actually know about it until the clay tablets were dug up in northern Iraq. In fact many of the stories from ancient Mesopotamia are relatively recent discoveries having been hidden under the desert sands for millennia. I guess that is one of the good things about clay tablets in that they preserve quite well (though paper does as well, as the Nag Hammadi Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to).

This is the Mesopotamian story of the creation of humanity and it includes a story about the flood. In a way it has connections with the Genesis account in the Bible, I that there are a few similarities in both works. However there are also a number of differences as well. We must keep in mind though that this text is quite corrupt, meaning that there are sections of the text that are missing and in many cases it is impossible for us to actually piece together what is being said, though the style of writing can help (the Mesopotamians seemed to like repeating lines in much the same way that the Old Testament does).

I should make clear my opinion of the Genesis account first of all. Now, traditionally it is held that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which are the first five book of the Bible. Now, I do not dispute that, however my position is that Genesis was compiled and added to the Penteteuch by Moses, but the sources from which he complied Genesis are much older. Personally I do not buy into the redactionist argument in relation to the Old Testament, nor do I accept the source criticism approach, in that the Old Testament was written in Babylon during the captivity by a collection of priests who compiled a collection of myths that had developed over the intervening years. I consider that the biblical account is a first hand account, and considering my theological stance, see no problem with a omnipotent deity making sure that the true account is handed down.

Also, I see no reason why this account should supercede the Genesis account, and the only argument seems to be that people are so challenged by the biblical account that they must look for a different explanation for our origins and thus we turn to other ancient accounts despite the fact that these accounts are corrupted. I do not accept the 6000 odd year old Earth theory that was concocted by the Bishop of Ulster simply because I believe that the purpose of dating in the Old Testament was not necessarily put in place a method to enable us to calculate the exact age of the Earth. Since the Bible is not meant to be a scientific text, I do not believe that we should be applying scientific and mathematical concepts to it.

One of the things that I did notice about this story was that it seemed to be a political text. It is difficult for me to understand how the story was delivered and who it was delivered too. Was it something that was kept and shared amongst the nobility and the priesthood, or were these stories told to the slave population as well? It seems in a way to be something that would be told to the hoi poloi as a means to reminding them of their place in the world. The reason I say this is because of the reason behind the creation of man and the fear that the gods had in relation to humanity.

At the beginning we seem to have two layers within the realm of the gods. There were the gods that were in charge of the world, and then there were the Igigi who seemed to the the labourers. However it appears that the Igigi rebelled against the gods and laid siege to their holy city, and as such humanity was created to perform the work that the Igigi were performing, and this allowed the gods (who decided they no longer wanted to work) to sit back and relax. This seems to be a common theme in relation to a class system. The upper class does not want to work, so they force the lower classes to work, however as one class becomes more numerous or influential, they rebel and force themselves into the lazy class, as I will call them. In fact, this seems to reflect a Marxist view of history, in that it is dominated by class war, and we can see from this ancient text that the class war was being fought as far back as ancient Mesopotamia.

The problem with humanity was that the gods had made them too powerful, and as they became more powerful, and more populous, they became more of a threat. One suggestion is that the gods became annoyed because of all of the chattering that would come from humanity, though I suspect that it has more to do with fear of being overthrown. We see some connections with the biblical account as well since humanity went to war against the deity numerous times, and each time the diety acted to defend his position (not that it was threatened anyway). In the biblical account we see the beginning of a shortened lifespan, the dispersion of the population, and also the creation of languages. We see similar events in this epic.

What is noticeable is the actions that the gods perform to defend their position against an ever increasing human population. First of all disease is sent to wipe them out, however that does not succeed and humanity keeps on expanding, so they then send drought and famine, however one of the gods shows mercy and sends dew to water the land. Then there is something about 'tying up the air'. This is quite baffling as some people could almost suggest as if the population of Earth was being cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Is this an ancient account of the end of interstellar travel? Who is to know, though I will not be staking my reputation on it, but rather just float the idea simply because it is there. In any case, how did the ancient Mesopotamians know about the atmospheric covering of Earth, and how did they know that if they went too high then there would be no air? The only explanation is that they noticed that as they climbed higher up the mountains then the air would become thinner.

Finally we have the flood, though I do not necessarily want to go into too much details. Now, I am a supporter of a world wide flood as indicated not only in the Bible but here as well. Now, it is not surprising that an ancient Mesopotamian story would talk about a flood, the reason being is that it would always be flooding in the cradle of civilisation, and sometimes the floods would be so massive that the entire desert would be covered in water. This is possible and factual, however that is also ignoring all of the other flood stories the world over. It is not simply a question of stories and myths travelling around the Middle East by merchants, but rather ancestral memories dating back to the first post-deluvian man, that being Noah. We also consider that Palestine was mountainous (and still is), as is Greece (who have their own story of the flood with the survivor being Deucalion). Now mountainous countries do not make good settings for a world wide flood story, unless of course the flood was world wide (and I suspect that there is enough water on the Earth, especially if the sunken continental plates are risen, to flood the Earth). Look, I could go into a very deep scientific argument on the possibility of a world wide flood (and some Christian writers have done so), but I really don't want to go down that path at this time, and when I get to Gilgamesh (which is the next book on my list, sort of), I will probably try to steer away from it and focus more on the question of immortality and defeating death.