Monday, September 13, 2010

The Epic of Creation - Humanistic Gods

The Epic of Creation, in the first six tablets, is a tale about how the world and humans in general came to existence. After reading the six tablets, one could conclude that the main ideas of writing the story was to show how gods were like humans in that they all had defects and how the world was created.

The gods in the story are nothing like the gods we picture “gods” to be. We imagine gods to be indestructible and very powerful, but the gods in the story are weak, can be killed and constantly fight each other. These characteristics are common among humans. The murder of Apsu, Tiamat and Qingu are just an example of how the gods are imperfect and human-like. Also the gods display human “feelings” such as anger, love, hate, and fear. These are all typical human emotions and they even find their own “children” to be annoying and “Noisome”.

The story also explains the creation of humans the Earth, sky and everything else in the world after Marduk wins the battle and takes over. This shows how the world and its beings were created.

In the Epic of Creation, the gods display features very commonly found in humans. This idea of humans and gods being very similar is rare and is certainly a distinct feature in how the Babylonians viewed the gods and how they behaved.

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