Posted by pancho from customer-148-233-78-77.uninet.net.mx (148.233.78.77) on Monday, March 03, 2003 at 2:07PM :
Beginnings
In their book, "The Bible and the Ancient Near East", Gordon and Rendsburg try mightily to appear objective...and to any other person but an Assyrian, they do well enough. But still they feel it's better not to appear to be too openly partizan...although, as long as you're all so willing to believe this nonsense anyway...you've more than half helped them complete their bamboozle. There's nothing wrong with studying Hebrew Tribal Beliefs, any more than there is in studying the behavior of gangs or Fijian headhunters. In every case we know those kinds of people to be "mistaken" whenever they ascribe their deplorable behavior to a deity...yet with them Hebrews we're taught from the cradle that they and only they have the real Word Of God, contrary to all outward appearances, because, "They Say So"...and that makes all the difference in the world, supposedly, and if you don't believe it they'll do what they did to their Jew brothers and sisters back when they first discovered this WOG...THEY WILL KILL YOU. If we're going to become so all-fired stupid about this sort of antique shit, then it becomes more than a matter of private conscience...it becomes a question of public health and sanitation, in which case you have to hold the people and their beliefs up to the light for a better look...and you'll see them either squirm a lot or kill you because that same god of theirs "told them to"...cause he only became a "supreme" being in the first place by having everyone else kiled...and like any thug, celestial or not, it takes a whole lot of murder to keep the guy up there.
In the chapter titled, "In The Beginning", the authors say they aren't interested in actual beginnings, before writing was invented...pre-history etc., but rather in another kind..." as the people of the Near East saw them. Their views of the origin of the universe are manifestations of their intellectual growth and of their outlook on life." Fair enough...so let's watch them squirm the way they taught all you Assrins to.
The authors proceed to go through Genesis outlining Hebrew beliefs about how the world was created, why man was, why woman was added as an afterthought...how humans were supposed to remain like the animals, naked and ignorant...how Eve, wouldn't you know, ate of the forbidden fruit of knowledge and turned Adam on...how God had to throw them out because they might go on disobeying and eat that other forbidden fruit of the tree of immortality and become too much like God themselves (and one of Him was enough)...how they and their children were cursed in various ways...how God came to dislike them (even he couldn't take responsiblity for anything), and tried to kill them all but relented and saved Noah and his brood cause they were righteous...how they in turn gave us the people who bought us a second chance and how we've fucked up even worse because not everyone will believe in Yahwe etc.
Next they take on the Mesopotamian Creation Epic, the Enuma Elish, which they translate as, "When On High"...but was probably just, "When High"...for we were fun loving people, not like them grumpy Hebrews. When the authors confront Mesopotamian history or beliefs they do this subtle thing...whenever something positive or that compares more favorably to Judaism occurs, they just leave it hanging...like it's up to the reader to make the connections, to go the extra distance. Since, as they believe, there are no Mesopotamians around any longer and the ones who are are all so piss happy to be descended from the Jews/Christians, though late arrivals...they have little to fear. Who's going to call them on it? Aprim?
Just one example from thousands and millions you could find in any number of "scholarly" works has to be mentioned here. Now if you were a sheepshitherder when these religions came along, or an island cannibal and such, I can see you being swept off your feet by Hebrew and then Christian nonsense...although even in those cases it took a lot of murder and rape to finally convince those poor bastards that you had the real WOG and would either shove it down their throat or up their arse...the "free choice" was theirs.
After Sargon the Great's empire collapses, there is a resurgence among the Sumerians best typified by the enlightened rule of Gudea. Now mind you this takes place a good 1000 years before Solomon comes along to build great buildings no one can find any traces of. Here's where you have to take your Jew hat off and put on a Mesopotamian one. Listen up because this goes by real fast..."Gudea's cylinders are leading sources of ideas and institutions in the Bible World (now right there, and as an added Jew bonus, you'll notice that the entire region is called the Bible World, even though that book wont see the light of day for several centuries to come..like there were no other worthy books in Mesopotamia...not till the bible was written down). For instance, Gudea gives names to parts of, or furnishings in, Eninnu. Thus a pillar or a divine emblem will have a name given to, and inscribed on, it. THIS IS IN KEEPING WITH"JACHIM" AND "BOAZ": THE NAMES ASCRIBED TO PILLARS IN SOLOMON'S TEMPLE (I KINGS7:22)."
See...a Jew scholar hunts the world over going through things to place himself and his religion and people on top...they've been doing that since they realized they couldn't make an empire last more than a week or two but wanted to be Players anyway. This makes them powerful intellectually, if not honest...keeps them sharp and on the look out for every advantage while a Christian Assyrian will labor mightily to steal defeat from the jaws of victory...(ONE more Assyrian monument anyone or are there enough in the world?). We, on the famous other hand...waltz and sashay our way through modern history like idiot sheep believing the worst they have to say about us and not minding because another Jew had a few kind words to throw our way. We are bred to indolence and foolishness, while they have been honing their bullshit skills to advance themselves all over the place and against all odds...an amazing people any way you look at it. How they have managed to make so much from the little they had to build on...while we have sunk this low from where we started out...is enough to make an Assyrian weep and a Christian, "rejoice".
But back to that last sentence. Now how do you go about saying that something the Sumerian/Mesopotamian did 1000 years before the Jew did the same thing...was done, "in keeping with", what the Jew would do 1000 years later? Is this more backwards dating...like Prophecy? Gudea did it first...therefore what Solomon did was "IN KEEPING" with what was done long before him by a Mesopotamian. Yet the authors stand reason on its head...and why?...because you are all so willing to BELIEVE them anyway that you don't catch it. They are helping you to root for "Your Team"...you sure as hell aren't going to look too closely...not unless you're an Assyrian and figure your team is at least as good as theirs...do you?
As they begin to go through the Mesopotamian Creation Epic, you'll notice right off there's a concilliatory tone in it...that even when the gods speak and act towards other gods, there are instances of common decency and good sense. When the sea god Apsu has a bellyfull of the other gods and wants to destroy them (Monotheism anyone?), his wife Tiamat says, "How could we destroy what we have created? Their way is grevious but let us act kindly." The greatest kindness you could accuse Yahwe of was that after the Romans broke every bone in his son's body, at his insistance...he was willing to have him brought back to life. How'd you like someone to be that "kind" towards you?
Apsu is killed by Ea and then Tiamat rebels so the gods create wise and beautiful Marduk who kills Tiamat and her host of minor dieties and sets about creating the universe from her corpse. At least all this mayhem is taking place in heaven. Now in disussing Marduk's claim to divinity the authors make one of those statements that no "believer" is going to pounce upon. Marduk claimed to have been suckled by a goddess..."in keeping with a motif whereby kings (regularly in Egypt, sometimes in Mesopotamia and often elsewhere, as in Ugarit) claimed divinity through the FICTION (emphasis mine) that they suckled divine breasts." Now I ask you...what more lovely "fiction" can there be? How often have I done just that same thing...and for real..though it felt divine enough.
How about Mary's little "fiction", played on her husband Joseph, who had to be the most accomodating fool in the world..."Uh, dear...I'm pregnanat...and god did it". Only if you believe the accumulated fictions of your own beliefs...and Assyrian Christians have Christian beliefs, after all...would you accept the whoppers in the bible...while calling the just as whacky beliefs of your own dim past, fictions. Either they are ALL fictions, or they're all true. See, I'm willing to grant them Hebrews every tall tale and lie they want to swear to...but you Assyrian Christians can't do the same, you can't return the favor, can't do an Assyrian the same courtesy...you don't believe in Mesopotamian "fictions"...oh no, not you...you've "seen the light"..you've bought the real WOG...you believe JEW FICTIONS.
Now Yahwe made Adam out of clay...mud, and although he breathed life into him, it was meant to be the life of an ignorant animal...and I'd say he got it just about right. Yahwe never intended his creation to think, to reason, to have curiosity, to wonder abut anything...just romp around naked, eat grass and fornicate whenever he could. Lovely.
When Marduk gets around to creating humans he takes a different approach..."Marduk needed materials with which to create man, and it was decided that a guilty god would have to give up his life to provide them. Kingu was chosen because he had incited and helped Tiamat in her revolt. He was put to death and his blood was used for creating man. Thus man was created out of divine stuff, albeit from a rebellious god. This last item may suggest the source of man's troublesome qualities."
The authors insert a footnote in regards to a god, Kingu, being put to death..."Note that a god can die. Nor is Kingu a god who was resurrected...Thus, far from being omniscient, the gods of Mesopotamia are often ignorant and error prone". Right...and Yahwe is a genius, who couldn't make humans the way he intended them to stay...who kills his own son BUT...resurrects him...setting us all the dismal example we follow yet, only all we can do is the killing part and just hope someone gets resurrected from all this gore...for we are pretty ignorant as to the final outcome... as ignorant as any Mespotamian god ever was...and a whole lot brighter than old Yahwe.
It's instructive to note that the Mesopotamians believed we were made from flawed material...but divinely flawed material. That a bit of god was in us from the beginning. We weren't animals first then "accidental humans" after. I'd say that pretty well defines the feeling one has when he or she stands marvelling at the extremes in human nature...how humans can be so kind and wonderful and then so cruel and awful. Yahwe just wanted animals in a peculiar form we've come to call "Human". If a bitch, like Jackie for instance, had been the first to eat the fruit...we'd have dogs ruining he world today and killing each other instead of humans. Marduk, it seems, knew from the outset that his creations would have the potential for both goodness and cruelty...that was to be their lot in life...it was pre-ordained that way...not a matter of disobedience that came as a complete surprise to the Hebrew "omniscient" god who apparently didn't know what he was trying to achieve, then took out his own fuck-up on his innocent creations (in fact there's a whole lot of punishing-your-innocent-creations in Hebrew Hoohah).
Marduk may have become discouraged with what he made, but he did what he did deliberately, with full knowledge of the risk he was taking. When he wanted an animal, he made one...when he wanted a Human instead, he made a Human...at the outset. You could say the Hebrew creation myth gave us flawed animals in human form...and we're acting the part still. The Mesopotamian myth produced humans from flawed divinity. I don't know about you...but, as an Assyrian, I'm glad to own up to being made, deliberately by a God who knew what he was up to, from the blood of a flawed divinity...rather than as an accidental and completely unforseen result of a total fuck-up as an animal with "attitude"....for which I and my children are to be punished forever. Hell...if you're going to hound your creations for all their born days on this planet, and at that for your own screw up...of COURSE they're going to be eager to escape and get off of it...even if they have to go see the divine asshole who couldn't get a piddling earth right and yet went on creating an entire Universe??? I mean...where else COULD you go?
The ancestors of the Hebrews and all their brood come to us from two disobedient animals who were intended to remain animals. Hebrew humans were a complete accident and surprise. After being made from shit...and behaving accordingly... Jew Humans get thrown out of paradise, out from the presence of god to come back "divine" somehow...to discover that part of "god" that was never put in them in the first place...no more than it was put into a skunk or cockroach. But Marduk placed divinity in us from the start...so that even if we are flawed, we are "of the gods"...we have the potential...we carry god within us from the very beginning. We have nothing to apologize for...nothing we have to "pay" for...no original sin to damn our babies to hell with. there WAS no fuck up...we are flawed from the beginning, but not because we were made from inferior shit and even then turned out worse..."disobeyed and must be punished"...but because our people had every intention of living up to the god within...and created the Enuma Elish as a standard to guide them all their days.
As the authors said, "Their views (Hebrew and Mesopotamian) of the origin of the universe are manifestations of their intellectual growth and of their outlook on life." Amen...and nuff said.
-- pancho
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