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It has indeed long been recognized that the rôle played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been borrowed from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil himself appears as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods figure as "his sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the leading part in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival.
But in a later passage in the Epic, when Ea seeks to excuse his action to Enlil, he says that the gods' decision was revealed to Atrakhasis through a dream. Dr. Poebel rightly compares the direct warning of Ut-napishtim by Ea in the passage quoted above with the equally direct warning Ziusudu receives in the Sumerian Version.
In the first, corresponding to that in our text, Ea communicates the gods' decision directly to Ut-napishtim; in the second he sends a dream from which Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise one", guesses the impending peril; while in the third he relates the plan to a wall, taking care that Ut-napishtim overhears him.
This section of the Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping with her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together. Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff. In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of Ammizaduga, Col. I, l. 5, contains a reference to the "cry" of men when Adad the Storm-god, slays them with his flood.
Here the Deluge story does not form part of the Gilgamesh Epic, but is recounted in the second tablet of a different work; its hero bears the name Atrakhasis, as in the variant version of the Deluge from the Nineveh library. The Semites as a ruling race came later, though the occurrence of Semitic names in the Sumerian Dynastic List suggests very early infiltration from Arabia.
I caused Atrakhasis to behold a dream and thus he heard the decision of the gods." Cf. Poebel, Hist. Texts, p. 51 f. Op. cit., p. 51; cf. also Jastrow, Heb. and Bab. Trad., p. 346.
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