reply to post by Devino
If YHVH is "bad" does that mean that Saddam Hussein was actually the good guy, and the Americans are evil (or more likely deluded)? That's really
something to think about. Another mystery is just
who YHVH is meant to be. I think he's like a mix of Enlil and Enki.
Another interesting thing, En.ki was called called Aman.ki in Emesal (woman's tongue). I think this Aman meaning "Lord" in place of En might be
related to Amon-Ra. Emesal is weird because the sound changes don't exactly correspond. It doesn't seem like "code" either. It's like a different
dialect with different words. It doesn't look like Emesal came from Emegir or vice-versa, but that they came from the same source.
www.bibleorigins.net...
This site tries to explain that the Bible is based on Sumerian myth. It doesn't try to present either as factual, but as allegory and myth (it seems
to be an atheist site). However, it has a lot of interesting analysis and information about Sumerian history and beliefs. I think a lot of this stuff
is true or based on truth. Of course some things, like Enki's ejaculation filling the Tigris, are false, but I think the flood was real.
Enki's human servant, Adapa, is a baker of bread and fisherman of the nearby marshlands, who prepares these items as offerings to Enki in his shrine.
While _in_ Eridu, Enki warns Adapa that when he is summoned to heaven by the god Anu, that he is to consume nothing offered him as it is "the food of
death" and he will surely die. Adapa obeys Enki and when "the bread of life" and "water of life" are presented to him by Anu's servants, he
refuses to eat, fearing he will die. In reality, this food will confer immortality on Adapa and through him ALL MANKIND. So man lost out on a chance
to attain immortality by NOT eating the food of the gods. A number of scholars have suggested this motif is behind the biblical story of Adam and Eve
being denied the privilege to eat a fruit giving them immortality by Yahweh-Elohim.
For the people who say that Enki was the good guy and Enlil was the bad guy, Enki was the one (in the original Sumerian myth) who urged the first
humans
not to eat the apple/bread. Anu was the one who wanted mankind to have eternal life. I think Enki and Enlil are both bad guys. Enki
tricked man into not living forever, Enlil tried to destroy man with a flood. I don't think An ever did anything bad, though, right?
reply to post by PhyberDragon
You're partially right. In Egyptian and Semitic languages, vowels were not important, and were added based on how the word is used (noun, adjective,
verb, tense, etc), and based on guttural sounds like 'Ayin and 'Alef. But Sumerian is not a Semitic language and not related to Akkadian, but
Akkadian adopted thousands of Sumerian compound words because Sumerian, like Latin and Chinese, are very good at making compound words.
Scholars don't know if the word EA is Akkadian (the consonants hyy, meaning "life") or Sumerian (meaning "House of Water"). Sumerian uses very
short words for things. If it's Akkadian, the only reason it has vowels written is because Sumerian has no gutturals or "y" or "w" sounds, and
Akkadian used the Sumerian script.
Some people in this thread are comparing words like MAR-duk and MAR-s, but Mars is Latin and Marduk is Babylonian and represents Jupiter (Zeus), not
Mars. His Akkadian name was AMAR.UTU (Sumerian for "Solar Calf"). The Semitic word Misr, referring to Egypt is also completely different. People
can't just take parts of words like that unless it's the same etymology and the same or a related language. So people can say tele+vision=far+sight
or EN.LIL=Lord+Wind or I.SEI.JIN=other+planet+person=alien, but not MARDUK=Mars+whatever.