ASA - December 2007: [asa] Adam and Adapa

From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
Date: Fri Dec 21 2007 - 06:16:12 EST

Hi Phil, you wrote:

Here is an interesting article discussing the possible literary connections between Adam in Genesis 2-3 and Adapa in the Babylonian myth.

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Andreasen_AdamAdapa_AUSS.pdf

This is an excerpt from my book <http://www.historicalgenesis.com/> , Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham, due out in January. (Web page courtesy ASAer Don Perrett.)

Adam and the Legend of Adapa

There is one historical personality who, although encumbered with mythological embellishments, very well may have been Adam of the Bible - the legendary Adapa. Several fragments of the "Legend of Adapa" were taken from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. One also was found in the Egyptian archives of Amenophis III and IV of the fourteenth century BC. (1) To date, six fragments of the Adapa legend have been discovered written in various Semitic languages. (2) Versions and fragments of the Adapa myth have been found in Akkadian, Canaanitish-Babylonian, Assyrian and Amorite. (3) Even a Sumerian version similar to the Akkadian legend was discovered at Tell Haddad. (4)

According to the legend, Ea created Adapa an exemplary man, endowed with "superhuman wisdom," but not eternal life. A fishing accident angered Adapa, who broke the wing of the south wind, and was summoned to heaven to appear before father-god, Anu. Ea had warned Adapa not to eat a certain food or drink any water that would be offered to him. A cautious Adapa shuns the food and water of life, whereby he would have acquired eternal life, and he is sent back to earth to live out his days. (5)

A fragment of one record of the Adapa legend resides in the Pierpont Morgan Library. Inscribed in Amorite, a Semitic language, this is part of the translation:

In those days, in those years, the sage, the man of Eridu,

Ea, made him like a “riddi” (rabbi?) among men;

A sage, whose command no one could oppose;

The mighty one, the Atra-hasis of the Anunaki, is he;

Blameless, clean of hands, anointer, observer of laws.

With the bakers, he does the baking;

With the bakers of Eridu, he does the baking. (6)

Adam of the Bible and Adapa were “created” human sons of God (god). According to the legend, Adapa was a sage, a profoundly wise man, in Eridu. Adapa prepared the altar table. Daily while Ea (his creator) slept in his chamber, Adapa guarded the sanctuary. (7) Regarded as a prophet or seer, Adapa had been priest of the temple of Ea at Eridu. He was described as "blameless," "clean of hands," "anointer and observer of laws." Could that also describe Adam, the first type of Christ? Also, Adam was taken from the ground; in the Hebrew: 'adam from 'adamah. How close phonetically is 'adamah to Adapa?

Could it be only coincidence that Adam was told "by the sweat of his face" he would eat "bread," and Adapa was a baker by trade; or that Adapa was deprived of eternal life by not eating or drinking the "food and water of life," while Adam was cut off from eating the fruit of the "tree of life"? In one version, Adapa was given vast understanding “that he might give names to all ‘concepts’ in the earth.” And Adam was tasked to name the “creatures” of the earth. Adapa was offered new garments, and Adam was clothed by God. Adapa was returned to the earth and Adam was told he too would return to earth. (8)

When Anu summoned Adapa to appear, Ea warned him that two departed gods guarded the gate. These gods were Tammuz and Gizzida – two cult figures who mysteriously departed and became elevated to god status. Ea instructed Adapa how to get by the “guards.” He was “soiled” and “sackcloth” was put upon him. (9) Ea explained what would be asked at the gate of Anu:

O man. For whom art thou become like this?

O Adapa, for whom art thou clad in sackcloth? (10)

Adapa was told to reply: “In our land two gods have disappeared and I have been brought to this plight.” Finally at the gate of heaven Adapa was questioned, “Who are the two gods who have disappeared in the land?” Adapa feigned not knowing to whom he was speaking and replied, “They are Tammuz and Gizzida.” The two laughed, the ploy worked, and they gave him entry.

Semitic Assyrian kings were well aware that Adapa was someone noteworthy. Sargon II (722-705 BC) likened him to a king with the “likeness of the sage.” (11) Sennacherib, (12) king of Assyria (705–681 BC), said Ea gave Adapa “vast intelligence.” Sennacherib compared his own accomplishments in conceiving the ground-plan of his palace and city with that of Adapa who received his wisdom from his father, the wise Ea. (13)

King Ashurbanipal (omit date) referred to Adapa, “the sage.” He recalled a dream where Asshur (who had achieved god status) spoke to him, saying:

O king, lord of kings, offspring of the sage (Sennacherib)

and Adapa ... You surpass in knowledge even the apsu (14)

and all the wise men (15)

Although Ashurbanipal may have been bragging a bit, nevertheless, he traced his ancestry through his grandfather back to Asshur and to Adapa. This puts Adapa in the chain of descent of the Assyrians, even at the apex, as Adapa, according to legend, had no earthly father.

Before Cyrus of Persia established his reign, Nabonidus (555-539 BC) was king of Babylon. His line of descent ran through Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24-26). Nabonidus too recalled the legendary Adapa. Lamenting on an idol he had fashioned, he added not even the “learned Adapa knows his (the idol’s) name.” Later in the same text, the Babylonian king told of a “wisdom” he possessed that “greatly” surpassed one which Adapa had “composed!” (16)

No other man so far back in ancient history had been given such accolades, and by kings no less who couldn’t possibly have known him except by reputation and through lines of ancestry. In literary Sumerian, the contrast "town and country" was commonly expressed by uru and 'adam, literally "town and pasture.” (17) The connection with 'adam taken from the "ground" in Genesis was mirrored by the word 'adam meaning “pasture land” in Sumerian.

Translation of archaic names and places from Akkadian to English has inherent difficulties. Sayce argued the name Adapa should have been translated “Adamu” on the strength of the character pa which had the value of mu. A principle that governed the transcription of names and words was the selection of characters to express their sounds which also harmonized with their sense. The last syllable of a name like Ada-mu was represented by an ideograph which not only had the phonetic value of mu, but also signified “man.” (18) Sayce recommended:

Henceforward, therefore we must transcribe the

name of the first man of Babylonian tradition,

not A-da-pa, but A-da-mu. (19)

Horne, who published the legend of Adapa in 1917, also included in a footnote, “Adapa, or perhaps Adamu.” (20) Reflecting for a moment on ancient naming patterns, often the name of an important ancestor was carried to subsequent generations. The second king on the Assyrian king list was called “Adamu” after his far more famous namesake. In tablets recovered at Tello, Adamu was recorded among the proper names. (21) Just as an Assyrian king was named Adamu, and the name cropped up often in Akkadian texts from the reign of Sargon the Great, “Adamu” was found in records discovered at the Canaanite city of Ebla. One of the governors under Igris-Halam, first Eblaite king, was “Adamu.” (22)

A vassal treaty of Esarhaddon ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/681_BC> 681- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/669_BC> 669 BC), son of Sennacherib, who had been murdered while on the throne, carried a seal naming “Ashur,” founder of Assyria (Gen. 10:11), as a god. (23) And appropriately, Esarhaddon named his son, who was crown prince at the time, “Ashurbanipal” in honor of him. Possibly the name of the first recorded Canaanite king of Ebla, Igris-Halam, harkened back to one of his ancestors – Ham, son of Noah.

Thus it should come as no surprise that “Adamu” appeared among the recorded names within Semite nations which were traceable directly to Noah’s sons. In honoring their famous forefather, these tribes preserved the name for many generations, enabling us to identify this important family relationship. By contrast, the name “Adamu” cannot be found among those nations not related, the Sumerians, Egyptians, Persians, etc.

One step further, when Akkadian words are carried into Hebrew, the nominative “u” is dropped. Thus Akkadian ilu for god (24) becomes El in Hebrew – meaning, God. And in dropping the “u” in Akkadian, Adamu becomes the Hebrew, “Adam.”

Notes

1. Albert T. Clay, A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922), 39-41.

2. Izre’el, Shlomo, Adapa and the South Wind: Language has the Power of Life and Death, (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 5.

3. Canon John Arnott MacCulloch, ed., The Mythology of All Races (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1964), 175.

4. Antoine Cavigneaux and Farouk Al-Rawi, "Gilgameš et Taureau de Ciel (šul-mè-kam) (Textes de Tell Haddad IV)," Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archéologie orientale 2, 87 I-III. Paris (1993), 92-93.

5. Clay, A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform, 40.

6. Clay, A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform, 41.

7. McCulloch, ed., The Mythology of All Races, 176.

8. William H. Shea, “Adam in Ancient Mesopotamian Traditions,” Andrews University Seminary Studies XV, 1 (Spring 1977): 27-41.

9. Shea, “Adam in Ancient Mesopotamian Traditions,” 148.

10. Shea, “Adam in Ancient Mesopotamian Traditions,” 148.

11. Stephen Langdon, Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood and the Fall of Man (Philadelphia: University Museum, 1915), 64.

12. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah. For the biblical version of their battles, see 2 Chron. 32:1-37:37. From the Assyrian side, Sennacherib had a different perspective: “As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: forty-six of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small towns in their area, which were without number, by leveling with battering-ram and by bringing up siege-engines, and by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels, and breeches, I besieged and took them.” See Sennacherib’s hexagonal prism < <http://www.bible-history.com/empires/prism.html> http://www.bible-history.com/empires/prism.html> (26 Sept. 2006).

13. R. Campbell Thompson, A Century of Exploration at Nineveh (London: Luzac, & Co., 1929), 121.

14. The cosmic subterranean water, abode of Ea, god of wisdom.

15. James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East Volume II, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 170.

16. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 313, 314.

17. William W. Hallo, “Antediluvian Cities,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, XXIII, (1970), 58.

18. Archibald Sayce, “Recent Biblical and Oriental Archaeology,” The Expository Times, XVII, 11 (1906): 416-7.

19. Sayce, “Recent Biblical and Oriental Archaeology,” 416.

20. Charles F. Horne, ed., The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East (New York: Parke, Austin, and Lipscomb, Inc., 1917), 225.

21. Tablettes Chaldéennes inédites, 7.

22. Giovanni Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), 274.

23. James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 534.

24. Archibald Sayce, “The Archaeology of Genesis XIV,” The Expository Times XVII, 11 (Aug 1906): 499.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/> www.genesisproclaimed.org

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Received on Fri Dec 21 06:17:28 2007

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