goddesses were present. The Mother Goddess went on working while incantations were constantly recited. Then she shouted in
triumph:
"I have created!
My hands have made it!"
She "summoned the Anunnaki, the Great Gods . . . she opened her mouth, addressed the Great Gods":
"You commanded me a task -
I have completed it. ...
I have removed your heavy work
I have imposed your toil on The Worker, 'Man.'
You raised a cry for a Worker-kind:
I have loosed the yoke,
I have provided your freedom."
The Anunnaki received her announcement enthusiastically. "They ran together and kissed her feet." From then on it would be the Primitive Worker - Man - "who will bear the yoke."
The Nefilim, having arrived on Earth to set up their colonies, had created their own brand of slavery, not with slaves imported from another continent, but with Primitive Workers fashioned by the Nefilim themselves. A mutiny of the gods had led to the creation of Man. THE CREATION OF MAN
THE ASSERTION, first recorded and transmitted by the Sumerians, that "Man" was created by the Nefilim, appears at first sight to clash both with the theory of evolution and with the Judeo-Christian tenets based on the Bible. But in fact, the information contained in the Sumerian texts - and only that information - can affirm both the validity of the theory of evolution and the truth of the biblical tale - and show that there really is no conflict at all between the two.
In the epic "When the gods as men," in other specific texts, and in passing references, the Sumerians described Man as both a deliberate creature of the gods and a link in the evolutionary chain that began with the celestial events described in the "Epic of Creation." Holding firm to the belief that the creation of Man was preceded by an era during which only the Nefilim were upon Earth, the Sumerian texts recorded instance after instance (for example, the incident between Enlil and Ninlil) of events that had taken place "when Man had not yet been created, when Nippur was inhabited by the gods alone." At the same time, the texts also described the creation of Earth and the development of plant and animal life upon it, in terms that conform to the current evolutionary theories.
The Sumerian texts state that when the Nefilim first came to Earth, the arts of grain cultivation, fruit planting, and cattle raising had not yet extended to Earth. The biblical account likewise places the creation of Man in the sixth "day" or phase of the evolutionary process. The Book of Genesis, too, asserts that at an earlier evolutionary stage:
No plant of the cleared field was yet on Earth, No herb that is planted had yet been grown. . . . And Man was not yet there to work the soil.
All the Sumerian texts assert that the gods created Man to do their work. Putting the explanation in words uttered by Marduk, the
Creation epic reports the decision:
I will produce a lowly Primitive;
"Man" shall be his name.
I will create a Primitive Worker;
He will be charged with the service of the gods,
that they might have their ease.
The very terms by which the Sumerians and Akkadians called "Man" bespoke his status and purpose: He was a lulu ("primitive"), a lulu amelu ("primitive worker"), an awihim ("laborer"). That Man was created to be a servant of the gods did not strike the ancient peoples as a peculiar idea at all. In biblical times, the deity was "Lord," "Sovereign," "King," "Ruler," "Master." The term that is commonly translated as "worship" was in fact avod ("work"). Ancient and biblical Man did not "worship" his god; he worked for him.
No sooner had the biblical Deity, like the gods in Sumerian accounts, created Man, than he planted a garden and assigned Man to work there:
And the Lord God took the "Man" and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and to tend it.
Later on, the Bible describes the Deity "strolling in the garden in the breeze of the day," now that the new being was there to tend the Garden of Eden. How far is this version from the Sumerian texts that describe how the gods clamored for workers so that they could rest and relax?
In the Sumerian versions, the decision to create Man was adopted by the gods in their Assembly. Significantly, the Book of
Genesis - purportedly exalting the achievements of a sole Deity - uses the plural Elohim (literally, "deities") to denote "God," and
reports an astonishing remark:
And Elohim said:
"Let us make Man in our image,
after our likeness."
Whom did the sole but plural Deity address, and who were the "us" in whose plural image and plural likeness Man was to be made? The Book of Genesis does not provide the answer. Then, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowing, Elohim issued a warning to the same unnamed colleagues: "Behold, Man has become as one of us, to know good and evil." Since the biblical story of Creation, like the other tales of beginnings in Genesis, stems from Sumerian origins, the answer is obvious. Condensing the many gods into a single Supreme Deity, the biblical tale is but an edited version of the Sumerian reports of the discussions in the Assembly of the Gods.
The Old Testament took pains to make clear that Man was neither a god nor from the heavens. "The Heavens are the Heavens of the Lord, unto Mankind Earth He hath given." The new being was called "the Adam" because he was created of the adama,
the Earth's soil. He was, in other words, "the Earthling."
Lacking only certain "knowing" and a divine span of life, the Adam was in all other respects created in the image (selem) and likeness (dmut) of his Creator(s). The use of both terms in the text was meant to leave no doubt that Man was similar to the God(s) both physically and emotionally, externally and internally.
In all ancient pictorial depictions of gods and men, this physical likeness is evident. Although the biblical admonition against the worship of pagan images gave rise to the notion that the Hebrew God had neither image nor likeness, not only the Genesis tale but other biblical reports attest to the contrary. The God of the ancient Hebrews could be seen face-to-face, could be wrestled with, could be heard and spoken to; he had a head and feet, hands and fingers, and a waist. The biblical God and his emissaries looked like men and acted like men - because men were created to look like and act like the gods. But in this very simplicity lies a great mystery. How could a new creature possibly be a virtual physical, mental, and emotional replica of the Nefilim? How, indeed, was Man created?
The Western world was long wedded to the notion that, created deliberately, Man was put upon Earth to subdue it and have dominion over all other creatures. Then, in November 1859, an English naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin published a treatise called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Summing up nearly thirty years of research, the book added to earlier thoughts about natural evolution the concept of natural selection as a consequence of the struggle of all species - of plant and animal alike - for existence. The Christian world had been jostled earlier when, from 1788 on, noted geologists had begun to express their belief that Earth was of great antiquity, much, much greater than the roughly 5,500 years of the Hebrew calendar. Nor was the concept of evolution as such the explosive: Earlier scholars had noted such a process, and Greek scholars as far back as the fourth century B.C. compiled data on the evolution of animal and plant life.
Darwin's shattering bombshell was the conclusion that all living things - Man included - were products of evolution. Man, contrary to the then-held belief, was not generated spontaneously.
The initial reaction of the Church was violent. But as the scientific facts regarding Earth's true age, evolution, genetics, and other biological and anthropological studies came to light, the Church's criticism was muted. It seemed at last that the very words of the Old Testament made the tale of the Old Testament indefensible; for how could a God who has no corporal body and who is universally alone say, "Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness?"