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Updated: May 5, 2025
This theory of the quasi-artificial character and origin of Tashmit finds support in the manner in which the mention of her name is entwined with that of Nabu. Sarpanitum, bound up as the goddess is with Marduk, has at least a shrine of her own, and occasionally she is spoken of in the texts without her husband Marduk. The mention of Tashmitum, however, invariably follows that of Nabu.
Anu is represented as the father of both groups. But they are also at the service of other gods, notably of Bel, who is spoken of as their 'lord, of Ninib, of Marduk, of Ishtar, and of Nergal. They prostrate themselves before these superior masters, and the latter at times manifest their anger against the Igigi. They are sent out by the gods to do service.
On another occasion, incidental to a northern campaign, Ashurbanabal mentions that the day on which he broke up camp at Damascus was the festival of Marduk, an indication that the Babylonian god was in his thoughts, even when he himself was far away from Babylonia. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, when approaching the sun-god to obtain an oracle, make mention of Marduk by the side of Shamash.
In the cosmogony, Bel is the creator and champion of mankind, and Ea is the subterranean deep which surrounds the earth, the source of wisdom and culture; in the theology, Ea and Bel are pictured in the relation of father and son, who, in concert, are appealed to, when misfortune or disease overtakes the sons of man; Ea, the father, being the personification of knowledge, and Bel, the practical activity that 'emanates from wisdom, as Professor Sayce, adopting the language of Gnosticism, aptly puts it; only that, as already suggested, Marduk assumes the rôle of the older Bel.
In the case of Hammurabi's immediate successor, as has been pointed out, the equation Bel-Marduk is distinctly set down, but, for all that, the double employment of the name continues even through the period of the Assyrian supremacy over Babylonia. The northern rulers now use Bel to designate the more ancient god, and, again, merely as a designation of Marduk.
In the weapons that Marduk employs, particularly the lightning and the winds which belong to an atmospheric god rather than a solar deity, we may discern traces of the older narrative which has been combined with the Marduk-Tiâmat nature myth. It may be that Kingu represents Bel's particular rival.
There are quite a number in which Ea is alone and directly appealed to, and these form a welcome confirmation of the supposition that those in which Ea is joined to Marduk have been reshaped with a desire to make them conform to the position of Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon. Again, there are incantations in which the name of Marduk appears without Ea.
If, in addition to this, we find that much of the religious literature, in the shape that we have it, reflects the religious conditions such as they must have shaped themselves in consequence of the promotion of Marduk to the head of the pantheon, the conclusion is forced upon us that such literary productions date from this same epoch of Hammurabi.
+758+. A particularly good illustration of the dependence of a god's position on the political position of his region is furnished by the god Marduk, a name the meaning of which is uncertain.
May the beasts of the field take it away from me, The flowing waters of the stream wash me clean. Let me be pure like the sheen of gold. Remove my iniquity, save my soul. Let me enter into E-sagila, the temple of the gods, the house of life. Commend me to Marduk, the merciful one, for favor, I will be subservient to thy greatness, I will exalt thy divinity.
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