Similarities Between Enuma Elish And The Genesis: Compare And Contrast

The Babylonian, Enuma Elish, and the Hebrew author of Genesis (2.5-3) both contain figures characterized as tricksters. In both of these works, tricksters transform the world around them and are themselves transformed. The introduction of these troublesome characters in each work provides a mischievous twist and underlying meaning to every story. In the Enuma Elish, a God named Ea (god of cleverness), who is the son of Anu and father of Marduk, tricks Aspu (the primordial fresh water) and kills him. A similar character in the Genesis (2.5-3) is known as a serpent. This serpent causes the man and woman to decide to eat the fruit, and ultimately, whether they are to stay in the Garden or to leave it. These two works clearly show how these trickster

Tricksters are sometimes hard to define as they can come in many shapes and sizes. A trickster can be a god, goddess, human, animal, and object. They are usually a character that is outside of the main group of the story, however they always seem to play a huge part in the stories outcome. Tricksters tend to have no morals and their motivations are hard to understand if they even have one. They can literally transform themselves and change their bodies, shape, and appearance. In the Enuma Elish Ea is not only the god of cleverness but also the god of fresh water. He provided clean water and fertile land to Mesopotamians. When Ea killed Aspu, being a trickster, he drew up a clever spell and put Aspu into a deep sleep where he took off his crown and put it on himself. As the author of the Enuma Elish says, Ea “Made it cleverly, his pure spell was superb. He recited it and it stilled the waters. He poured sleep upon him […] He (Ea) unfastened his belt, took off his crown, took away his mantle of radiance and put it on himself. He held Aspu down and slew him”, thus, making the body of Aspu into his new “Home”. Therefore as Ea lives inside of Aspu’s body he is also living in an underground bank filled with freshwater that Mesopotamians would get their water from. Ea transformed himself after cleverly tricking Aspu and now resides in

Their clever schemes and plots alter the stories and provide a cause and effect outcome. The two characters in The Enuma Elish and the Genesis(2.5-3) both portray tricksters as the “bad guys”, but in the end they are actually culture heroes and world transformers. These tricksters tend to unintentionally help humans to cultivate and create their world’s culture. In the Enuma Elish Ea defeats Aspu and was thought by Mesopotamian people to hold all of earths fresh water, thus creating clean water for the earth. After Ea tricks and kills Aspu, Marduk sets out to battle Tiamat and Tiamat is killed. Marduk then takes her body and splits her in half to form the sky and earth, which becomes the first creation theory of how the world formed. Marduk also announces that he wants to create human beings so that gods don’t have to do all the work. As the author of the Enuma Elish praises Marduk for his accomplishments, he writes, “[…] who showed mercy to even the captured gods, who removed the yoke imposed upon the gods, his enemies, who created mankind, to set them free! The merciful one who has the power to give life!” This is a perfect example of how a trickster character can transform the world. For, as if it was not for Ea’s actions to trick and kill Aspu, Marduk would of never went to war with Tiamat and thus would of never created the earth and sky as well as all of human kind. Moreover,