Myths of Enki, the Crafty God.

• Author: Hallo, William W.

Ancient Egytian religion viewed the world through three discrete intellectual perspectives which modern Egyptologists have labeled the theologies of Thebes, Heliopolis, and Memphis.(1) Similarly, the older Mesopotamian Weltanschauungen can be subsumed under three headings best described as the theologies of Nippur, Lagash, and Eridu.(2)

The first and oldest of these theologies centered upon Enlil, effectively the head of the Sumerian pantheon, and reflected conditions in Early Dynastic times, a period when Nippur, Enlil's cult city, also served as the religious center of a league of all Sumer (Jacobsen's "Kengir League")(3) and later, under the Sargonic and Ur III Dynasties, of Sumer and Akkad.(4) It survived into Old Babylonian times when the First Dynasty of Isin tried to present itself as the heir to all Sumerian traditions since the Flood. It was enshrined at this time in the Neo-Sumerian canon as fixed in the scribal schools, particularly at Nippur.(5) In addition to the hymns, lamentations, and other genres on Enlil and/or his consort Ninlil (or Sud(6) or even Ashnan(7)), the theology of Nippur is exemplified primarily in the Nippur recension of the Sumerian King List.(8)

The theology of Lagash revolved around Ningirsu, "the lord of Girsu," the capital city of the Lagash city-state, a leading actor in the outgoing Early Dynastic Period and once again in the late Sargonic Period. Lagash was dormant, if not actually suppressed, in the Ur III and early Isin Periods but surfaced once more under the Dynasty of Larsa thereafter. It is reflected in myths about Ninurta (who took Ningirsu's place in the Nippur curriculum(9)); in hymns to Ningirsu's consort Bau or to the goddess Nanshe who was "born in Eridu,"(10) but whose cult center had moved from Eridu to Lagash, more specifically to Nina (Sirara)(11); in non-Nippur versions of the Sumerian King List, which prefixed an antediluvian section featuring Larsa; and finally in a polemical parody of the Nippur recension of the Sumerian King List, which described the history of the world entirely in terms of Lagash.(12)

The theology of Eridu centered on the cult of Enki, the "junior Enlil" (Enlil-banda)(13) of the Sumerian tradition, equated with Ea of the Akkadian tradition. His cult center was at Eridu, and Eridu was the oldest city in fact as well as in tradition (Sumerian, Akkadian, and even Hebrew(14)). It was thus possible to claim a hoary antiquity for this theology, though, in fact, it was probably not systematized before the middle of the Old Babylonian Period and the rise to prominence of Babylon. Here Marduk, the local deity, was equated with Asarluhi, the son of Enki, and turned, like his Sumerian prototype, into a patron of incantation and magic. The Sumerian flood story, in which Enki bests Enlil to assure the survival of humankind,(15) was modified to provide a new antediluvian prologue, beginning with Eridu, to the Sumerian King List. A whole host of myths focusing on Enki developed the theme of his solicitude for humanity as a counterweight to the terror inspired by Enlil and his unalterable "word."

The book under review speaks of a "theology of Ea" (p. 146). It does not operate with the notion of a "theology of Eridu," but it provides for the first time a systematic survey of the Sumerian and Akkadian literary texts that go to make it up, i.e., the myths and other compositions about Enki/Ea. It is the product of a collaboration between Samuel Noah Kramer, the late dean of Sumerology, and John Maier, a professor of English at the State University of New York at Brockport. Their respective roles are partially delineated in the introduction (pp. 17f.).

Maier is the coeditor of two volumes of essays on the Bible.(16) He is known to Assyriologists chiefly through his contribution to the second Kramer Festschrift(17) and through his collaboration with the poet John Gardner (and the Assyriologist Richard A. Henshaw) in the preparation of a new and rather imaginative rendition of the Gilgamesh Epic.(18) He has also addressed the...