‘‘Myth’’ is defined in its function of ordering or explaining the present physical, political, and social world for the society which produced it (Kirk 1970). The mythic narratives of the Ancient Near East are tales about the god or gods and their deeds, with the purpose of explaining the origin of aspects of the world (George 1999a: xxxiii; Baines 1996b: 361; Smith 2001: 22-3). Myth may overlap with folk tales or legends (Kirk 1970: 28). Generally, however, folk tales or legends take place in the simple human sphere and deal with human subjects. When the gods appear in them, they are not the focus, and anything fantastic is merely for adventure and not for reflection.
Mesopotamian myths of origins include stories of the flood and creation. A catastrophic deluge is known in several versions from Mesopotamia, and the hero is saved by his god who tells him to build a boat. As slaves of the gods, humans are too noisy, and Enlil tries to reduce the number of humans so he can sleep, but Enki/Ea, humanity’s creator, thwarts him at each turn. When Enlil seeks to annihilate humans totally, Enki saves one human. A future flood is avoided by choosing other means to avert overpopulation; a certain number of women will be sterile. The Biblical flood of Noah in the book of Genesis 6-9 shares continuity with the other Ancient Near Eastern flood stories, but is probably not directly dependent on any of them.
When on High is a Babylonian creation narrative that explores the ascendancy of Marduk over the other gods through his defeat of the primordial salt water goddess, Tiamat. As a result of his victory, Marduk is able to create the cosmos by splitting Tiamat’s body, and creates humans from the blood of her consort. The justification for Babylon’s supremacy over other cities is that Babylon’s Marduk defeated all other gods. Ancient Mediterranean stories about the origins of the gods all involve successive generations of gods with the younger generations overthrowing the older ones. These include the Hurrian story in the Hittite composition The Heavenly Kingship, Hesiod’s Theogony, and the version in Philo of Byblos in the second century ce.
Another theme in Mesopotamia is the journey to either heaven or the Netherworld. In the Descent of Inanna the goddess of love and war visits the Netherworld. As she descends, she is forced to give up one item of clothing at each of the gates. When she reaches the core of the Netherworld, she is naked and powerless, and the world above loses its fertility because of her disappearance. She is revived by a being sent by the god Enki/Ea, and the god Dumuzi, her lover, takes her place (Reiner 1985: 29-49).
In Nergal and Ereshkigal, Nergal insults the vizier ofthe Netherworld goddess and is sent down to the Netherworld as punishment; but he ends up marrying the goddess. In its Middle Babylonian version Nergal takes the throne by force, but in the later versions the narrative turns into a romance in which the goddess longs for Nergal when he abandons her for the world above (Reiner 1985: 50-60).
In the Akkadian Adapa story the sage Adapa breaks the wing of the south wind and is brought to heaven for an audience with Anu. The god Ea counsels him to dress in mourning to please the guards at heaven’s gate, but also counsels him not to eat or drink anything he is offered, because it will be fatal. But the bread and water in fact would have granted him eternal life (Izre’el 2001). Etana is about a childless man who saves an eagle from a pit and rides on its back toward heaven in order to obtain the plant of birth.
Other Mesopotamian mythological narratives report more deeds of the gods: Anzu, Erra and Ishum, Lugal-e, and Enki and the World Order. There are also etiological narratives such as the Sumerian text How Grain Came to Sumer.
Hittite literature seems to have absorbed the myths of the surrounding cultures (Hoffner 1998: 9). The Hittites took myths from the Hattians - the original population of the area - in which the myths relate a ritual to be performed. In the myths of the disappearing gods the gods are incapacitated or kidnapped, or depart in anger. The disappearance of Telipinu is the most important of these, but there are also versions in which other gods disappear. In the Illuyanka tale a serpent conquers the Storm God, who then with an ally kills the snake.
The Hurrian myths translated by the Hittites were less tied to ritual. The most important of these myths are the six songs which recount the competition for kingship over the gods between Kumarbi, a Netherworld god, and Tessub, a sky god (Hoffner 1998: 40-65). Another important myth is the Song of Release, a Hurro-Hittite bilingual in which a city asks for release from the city of Ebla which has enslaved it (Neu 1996). Hittite myth includes bits of a narrative probably with Canaanite influence about interactions between Elkunirsa (that is, the ‘‘Creator of the Earth,’’ a name for the West Semitic god El), his wife, and Baal.
Egypt has few mythological narratives. One of the best examples is the myth of Osiris and Isis, which is not fully recorded until the second century CE in Greek (Griffiths 1960; Plutarch 1970). Both Osiris and Isis and The Contendings of Horus and Seth relate accounts of the struggles for supremacy between Osiris, god of order, and Seth, his brother, the god of disorder. Osiris is murdered by Seth and his body reclaimed by his sister and wife Isis, and his son Horus triumphs over Seth. The Greek version of the myth results in Osiris’s becoming the god of the Netherworld, and Horus is seen as his reincarnation in the living Pharaoh. The Contendings of Horus and Seth consists of a series of episodes in which Horus and Seth struggle for the office of Osiris. Horus is ruled the victor in each case.
Egyptian accounts of creation stem from the cosmogonies developed in the four religious centers at Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis, and Thebes. The four schools should not be seen as producing competitive theologies; rather the Heliopolitan school can be viewed as the basis of the other three, although all four impacted each other’s development (Van Dijk 1995: 1699; Allen 1988).
There is no flood account in Egyptian, but there is a narrative of human destruction from The Book of the Cow of Heaven (Hornung 1982a). The relevant section describes how the sun god Re sent the goddess Hathor to destroy humankind because of a plot to rebel against him. To keep her from slaying too many humans, Re pours out a thousand jars of beer dyed the color of blood, which Hathor drinks. The narrative explains why the first waters of the Nile’s inundation are red (Redford 1995: 2230-1).
Another Egyptian myth, Astarte and the Sea, is of Canaanite origin reflecting the battle between Baal and the Sea, and recounts a tale of the Sea’s threat to cover heaven, earth, and sky if he does not receive tribute. Once Astarte goes to him to deliver the tribute, he demands that she be given him in marriage.
Among the Ugaritic texts from coastal Syria the Baal Cycle is the longest mythological work. It appears on six large tablets and some fragments, and only about half of its lines are preserved. The cycle is probably from around 1250 bce (Singer 1999: 689). This story treats three topics: the struggle of Baal, the storm and fertility god, with the god Sea over who should be king of the gods, the building of a palace for Baal, and the struggle of Baal with the god Death. As Death’s captive Baal descends to the Netherworld, but his sister Anat finds his body and slays Death. Baal is resurrected and fertility returns to the world. The two gods, Baal and Death, also somehow resurrected, live to fight again. Other mythological texts from Ugarit include some amusing stories about El, the ineffective father god (Parker 1997).
Later narratives seem to know variants of the Baal myth (Attridge and Oden 1981). Some of the same deities at Ugarit also appear in the Hebrew Bible (Athirah/Asherah, Baal, El, Astarte, Mot [Death], Yamm [Sea]), and from the Ugaritic texts, we understand their place in the early Israelite cosmos better. In addition, there are several Biblical passages in which Ugaritic mythic imagery is used in connection with Israel’s god Yahweh (Smith 1995: 2035-40; Smith 2001: 18-24). Yahweh is described as a chariot-riding storm god in much the same way as Baal (Psalm 77:19; Psalm 18:10; Psalm 29; Job 38), as awarrior-king like Baal and Anat (Psalms 50,97,98; Judges 4-5), and has as enemies the Ugaritic gods and monsters Leviathan, Tannin, Yamm, and Mot (Psalm 93: 3-4; Isaiah 25: 8, 27: 1, 28: 15, 18; Psalm 74: 13-14). Yahweh’s holy mountain in the Bible is also called ‘‘north,’’ just like Baal’s mountain.
World History
