United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Associated with Marduk in the creation of mankind is a goddess Aruru. The goddess Aruru created the seed of men together with him. We encounter this goddess Aruru in the Gilgamesh epic, where she is represented as creating a human being, Eabani; and, curiously enough, she creates him in agreement with the Biblical tradition, out of a lump of clay.
The Prime Minister came to Cragdale that evening, heavily incognito and accompanied by several leaders of the Crown Loyalist Party. In principle, they all favored a treaty with Tanith. Politically, they had doubts. Not before the election; too controversial a subject. "Controversial," it appeared, was the dirtiest dirty-name anything could be called on Marduk.
The immediate result of Hammurabi's master-stroke in bringing the various states of the Euphrates Valley under a single control, was the supremacy secured for his capital, of the city of Babylon over all other Babylonian cities, and with this supremacy, the superior position henceforth assumed by the patron deity of the capital, Marduk.
If they desired the favour of Marduk they must needs claim it at the sword's point, and when that point was lowered, his favour was always withdrawn. From first to last they had perforce to remain military tyrants, who relied on no acknowledged legitimacy but on the spears of conscript peasants, and at the last of mercenaries.
The account of the beginning of things and of the order of creation is but incidental to an episode which is intended to illustrate the greatness of Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon. This episode is the conquest of a great monster known as Tiâmat, a personification, as we shall see, of primaeval chaos.
So at Sippar, sacred to Shamash, and where the king deposits a cylinder recording the improvements that he instigated in the city, he associates the sun-god with Marduk, whereas in contradistinction to the rulers of the old Babylonian cities or states, when addressing Marduk, he does not find it necessary to make mention at the same time of an entire pantheon.
Bearing in mind the general nature of the creation epic we have discussed, we must of course in our conclusions distinguish between those elements in it which reflect the intent of the compiler or compilers to glorify Marduk at the expense of other gods and such parts as bear the stamp of being generally accepted beliefs.
Ah! it is grand synthesis; Seneca with his conception of a perfected humanity, Lucretius, Manlius who called, rightfully too, Epicurus a god and Heraclitus with the first idea of a logos: all these ancient ideas I have worked into my romantic play, including the old cult of the Trinities; the Buddhistic: Buddha, Dharma, and Saingha; the Chinese: Heaven, Earth, and Emperor; the Babylonian: Ea, the father, Marduk, the son, and the Fire God, Gibil, who is also the Paraclete.
You'll be on my staff." Two days later, the Corisande came out of hyperspace. Harkaman was guardedly noncommittal by screen. Trask took a landing craft and went out to meet the ship. "Marduk doesn't like us, any more," Harkaman told him.
By Shamash the mighty, be ye foresworn. By Ea, the lord of everything, be ye foresworn. By Marduk, the chief magician of the gods, be ye foresworn. By the fire-god, be ye foresworn. From my body be ye restrained! Repetition and variation in the use of certain phrases make up, as will be seen from the specimens given, a large part of the incantation.
Word Of The Day