nPeace
Veteran Member
I was searching for some information on this.Uh, Inana was 2000 years before the Israelites were a people. This is the first known writing by a human in existence. A small sample written by Enheduanna. Clearly as transformative as any Biblical praise.
Also Genesis is confirmed to be written as a response to Mesopotamian myths. Heaven, souls returning there is not originally a Hebrew belief.
That is Greek.
Hymn to Inanna
The Hymn to Inanna (also known as The Great-Hearted Mistress) is a passionate devotional work by the poet and high priestess Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), the first author in the world known by name...www.worldhistory.org
: To run, to escape, to quiet and to pacify are yours, Inana. To rove around, to rush, to rise up, to fall down and to ... a companion are yours, Inana. To open up roads and paths, a place of peace for the journey, a companion for the weak, are yours, Inana. To keep paths and ways in good order, to shatter earth and to make it firm are yours, Inana. To destroy, to build up, to tear out and to settle are yours, Inana. To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana. Desirability and arousal, goods and property are yours, Inana. Gain, profit, great wealth and greater wealth are yours, Inana. Gaining wealth and having success in wealth, financial loss and reduced wealth are yours, Inana. Observation (1 ms. has instead: Everything), choice, offering, inspection and approval are yours, Inana. Assigning virility, dignity, guardian angels, protective deities and cult centres are yours, Inana.
6 lines fragmentary
132-154: ... mercy and pity are yours, Inana. ... are yours, Inana. To cause the ... heart to tremble, ... illnesses are yours, Inana. To have a wife, ..., to love ... are yours, Inana. To rejoice, to control (?), ... are yours, Inana. Neglect and care, raising and bowing down are yours, Inana. To build a house, to create a woman's chamber, to possess implements, to kiss a child's lips are yours, Inana. To run, to race, to desire and to succeed are yours, Inana. To interchange the brute and the strong and the weak and the powerless is yours, Inana. To interchange the heights and valleys and the ... and the plains (?) is yours, Inana. To give the crown, the throne and the royal sceptre is yours, Inana.
12 lines missing
155-157: To diminish, to make great, to make low, to make broad, to ... and to give a lavish supply are yours, Inana. To bestow the divine and royal rites, to carry out the appropriate instructions, slander, untruthful words, abuse, to speak inimically and to overstate are yours, Inana.
158-168: The false or true response, the sneer, to commit violence, to extend derision, to speak with hostility, to cause smiling and to be humbled or important, misfortune, hardship, grief, to make happy, to clarify and to darken, agitation, terror, fear, splendour and great awesomeness in radiance, triumph, pursuit, imbasur illness, sleeplessness and restlessness, submission, gift, ... and howling, strife, chaos, opposition, fighting and carnage, ..., to know everything, to strengthen for the distant future a nest built ..., to instill fear in the ... desert like a ... poisonous snake, to subdue the hostile enemy, ... and to hate ... are yours, Inana.
169-173: To ... the lots ..., to gather the dispersed people and restore them to their homes, to receive ..., to ... are yours, Inana.
1 line fragmentary
174-181: ... the runners, when you open your mouth, ... turns into ... At your glance a deaf man does not ... to one who can hear. At your angry glare what is bright darkens; you turn midday into darkness. When the time had come you destroyed the place you had in your thoughts, you made the place tremble. Nothing can be compared to your purposes (?); who can oppose your great deeds? You are the lady of heaven and earth! Inana, in (?) the palace the unbribable judge, among the numerous people ... decisions. The invocation of your name fills the mountains, An (?) cannot compete with your ...
182-196: Your understanding ... all the gods ... You alone are magnificent. You are the great cow among the gods of heaven and earth, as many as there are. When you raise your eyes they pay heed to you, they wait for your word. The Anuna gods stand praying in the place where you dwell. Great awesomeness, glory ... May your praise not cease! Where is your name not magnificent?
Once you have said 'So be it', great An does not ... for him. Your 'So be it' is a 'So be it' of destruction, to destroy ....... Once you have said your ...... in the assembly, An and Enlil will not disperse it. Once you have made a decision ......, it cannot be changed in heaven and earth. Once you have specified approval of a place, it experiences no destruction. Once you have specified destruction for a place, it experiences no approval.
209-218: Your divinity shines in the pure heavens like Nanna or Utu. Your torch lights up the corners of heaven, turning darkness into light. ... with fire. Your ... refining ... walks like Utu in front of you. No one can lay a hand on your precious divine powers; all your divine powers ... You exercise full ladyship over heaven and earth; you hold everything in your hand. Mistress, you are magnificent, no one can walk before you. You dwell with great An in the holy resting-place. Which god is like you in gathering together ... in heaven and earth? You are magnificent, your name is praised, you alone are magnificent!
: Advice ..., grief, bitterness ..., 'alas' ... My lady, ... mercy ... compassion ... I am yours! This will always be so! May your heart be soothed towards me! May your understanding ... compassion. ....
I have a question. Do you believe that information was passed down from generation to generation by God's people?
I ask, because it seems some people think the writings of the Bible, began in Moses' time, but if Moses wrote a record of documents collected from past history, that would make his writings older. Would they not?
A Difference of Opinion
After experts had carefully examined the Gilgamesh Epic, opinions became divided over which Flood account was older, the Mesopotamian one mentioned in the Epic, or the one found in the Bible. Many adopted the viewpoint that the non-Biblical account was first. For example, in Gods, Graves, and Scholars, C. W. Ceram asserts that it is “impossible to question the fact that the primal version of the Biblical legend of the Deluge had been found.” Perhaps the young man with whom I had spoken had based his viewpoint on such a statement.
But is it correct? Does the Flood narrative of Genesis really have its origin in Sumerian or Babylonian legends? It seemed best to seek an answer to that question by making a comparison of the Bible’s Flood account with that found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.