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19 2 / The Planting of Man:A Study in Biblical Imagery 1987 There are two distinct traditions about the creation of man in Sumerian literature. In one, man is created from clay, most probably an analogy to the work of potters and sculptors. This tradition is continued in Akkadian literature, where creation from clay becomes the dominant image of the origin of man, and, of course, in Israel, where creation from clay is the only story preserved of man’s creation (Gen 2:6–7). In the other Sumerian tradition, man sprouts up from the earth like grass. This concept did not play a major role in Babylonian religion, possibly because it was associated with An and Enlil rather than with Enki.1 It is, however, a powerful symbol of the nature of man and survived in biblical literature as a pervasive image of man, and more particularly of the people of Israel. Creation from clay is certainly the most widespread and best known of the Mesopotamian motifs. The major Sumerian source for this idea is the myth of “Enki and Ninmah.”2 In this text, which describes the labor of the gods before the creation of man and their distress, Enki decides to make man and to bind onto him the corvée of the gods. He creates the Siensišar to assist in the birth3 and tells his mother Ninsun, “After you knead the heart of the clay above the apsu, the Siensišar will nip off pieces of clay; after you have given it form . . . [the various mother and birth-goddesses] will assist in the giving of birth.” This abzu-clay here called “clay above the abzu” and elsewhere “clay of the abzu”4 is the material from which Ninmah later fashions her creatures in “Enki and Ninmah,” and from which Enki fashions the turtle in “Enki and the Turtle” (UET VI:36). It is known in the later incantation literature as the material from which Enki made the craftsmen gods (R. Acc. 46:6) and from which ritual figurines are fashioned (CT 17 29:30–33). A more oblique reference to this concept is found in Enki’s creation of the 20 Comparative Culture I Creation Myth kalatur and kurgarra from the dirt under Enki’s fingernails in “Inanna’s Descent”5 and, similarly the creation of the dimgi and saltu, also from the dirt under Enki’s nails.6 Babylonian literature contains numerous references to creation from clay.7 In the creation of Enkidu in the Gilgamesh epic, a “special creation” paralleling the original creation of man, Aruru washes her hands, takes the clay and casts it onto the steppe (ii 37–38); in the Babylonian Theodicy, Zulummar nips off clay in the abzu and fashions man and lesser deities; and in a fire incantation, Ea nips off clay in the apsu and creates humankind (fire incantation no. 3 25–27).8 Babylonian religion also introduces a new concept to Mesopotamia, the idea that man was created from the f lesh and blood of a slaughtered god.9 In the Babylonian Atrahasis epic the clay is mixed with the f lesh and blood of We-ilu, a god who has rationality, so that man will have a spirit. In Enuma Elish the clay is not mentioned, and it appears that man is created entirely from the blood of Kingu. In KAR 4, a bilingual text which may be a scholastic composition (see below), the Anunnaki decide to slay Lamga gods and create humankind from their blood. The imagery of creation from clay is twofold. In its simplest form the image used is that of potting and sculpting: “nipping off” the clay (t .it .am kara. su), moistening the clay (in Atrahasis the god spit on it, in Gilgamesh Aruru washes her hands, and in Genesis 2 the first step in the creation of man is the rising of the –ed to moisten the earth), mixing or kneading the clay, and casting it (Gilgamesh). This craft imagery is also combined, in “Enki and Ninmah” and Atrahasis, with a sexual idea: birth goddesses, mother goddesses, and midwives are called to assist, and in Atrahasis the clay undergoes a gestation of nine months before man is “born.” The two images are juxtaposed rather than harmonized, for both the creation of man which is analogous to the creation of a statue, and the birth of the first man which is like the births of all subsequent humans, are understood...

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