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Nebopolassar and his successors are fond of giving themselves the title of 'beautifier of E-Sagila and E-zida. In these great temples sacred to Marduk and Nebo, there were shrines to Sarpanitum, Tashmitum, Nusku, Ea and others, which also engaged the energies of the rulers.
It is not improbable that in the original form of the Babylonian epic it was Ea who sent the flood and saved one man a natural representation for the god of Eridu; in later recensions of the poem it is first Bel and then Marduk who assumes the principal rôle.
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.
This scene is described in a tablet which for the present we may regard as the close of the series. No less than fifty names are bestowed upon him by the gods, the number fifty corresponding according to some traditions to the number of the Igigi. Marduk accordingly absorbs the qualities of all the gods. Such is the purpose of this tablet. The diction is at times exceedingly impressive.
Gilgamesh was rated, with reservations, as a civilized planet though not on a level with Odin or Isis or Baldur or Marduk or Aton or any of the other worlds which had maintained the culture of the Terran Federation uninterruptedly. Perhaps Gilgamesh deserved more credit; its people had undergone two centuries of darkness and pulled themselves out of it by their bootstraps.
Instead of setting aside En-lil altogether, as was done by the compilers of the Tiâmat myth, Marduk conquers for himself the supremacy that his followers claimed for him. The contradictions between the two myths need not disturb us. As variant versions of a tale intended to account for one and the same fact, the supremacy of Marduk, they may well have arisen even in the same place.
They bestow all manner of glorious epithets upon him; and, to cap the climax, the old Bel, known as 'father Bel, steps forward and transfers to him his name, bêl matâti, 'lord of lands. To bestow the name was equivalent to transferring Bel's powers to Marduk; and so Marduk is henceforth known as Bel. But Ea must be introduced into the episode.
Yes: Fortuna, Bolide, and two armed merchantmen, a Baldurbuilt ship called the Reliable, and your friend Honest Horris." "You didn't really believe Dunnan was on Marduk?" Boake Valkanhayn asked. "Actually, I didn't. I had to have some kind of a story, to talk those people out of that crusade against Omfray of Glaspyth."
This conception is more clearly emphasized by the parallelism implied between Eridu and the 'deep. The 'formation' of Apsu corresponds to the 'structure' made by Marduk according to the first version, as the seat of Ea. The waters were not created by Marduk, but they were confined by him within a certain space. In a vague way, the 'deep' itself rested in a vast tub.
We should expect to find at the head of the list Marduk. The hymn may be older than Hammurabi, who, perhaps, is quoting or copying it, and since the Bel who is here at the head of the pantheon is the god of Nippur, the hymn may originally have belonged to the ritual of that place.
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