Adapa
From BibleWiki
The El-Amarna Tablets.
Though there is no one Babylonian legend of the Garden of Eden with which the Biblical story can be compared as in the case of the stories of the Creation and of the Flood, there are nevertheless points of relationship between it and Babylonian mythology. On one of the tablets found at Tell el-Amarna, now in the Berlin Museum, occurs the legend of Adapa. Adapa, the first man, is the son of the god Ea, by whom he has been endowed with wisdom, but not with everlasting life. He lives in Eridu, and cares for the sanctuary of the god. One day while fishing in a calm sea the south wind suddenly arises and overturns his boat. In his anger Adapa fights with the south wind and breaks his wings so that he can not blow for seven days. Anu, the god of heaven, hearing of this, summons Adapa before him. Ea gives his son instructions as to his behavior before Anu; among other things he tells him: "Bread of death will they offer thee: eat not of it. Water of death will they bring thee: drink not of it." Adapa does as he is told, but the bread and water Anu causes to be placed before him are of life, not of death. Thus Adapa loses his chance of eternal life. He puts on the garment, however, which is offered him, following Ea's instructions. In this story the bread of life is parallel to the tree of life in the Biblical story. It is probable that the water of life also formed a part of the original story, and that the river of Eden is a trace of it. In Ezek. xlvii. 6-12 and, with some variation, in Rev 22:1f mention is made of a "river of water of life, . . . and on either side of the river was there the tree of life," showing that the water of life was associated with the tree of life.
Further, in the Biblical story, as in the Adapa legend, man is prevented from eating the food of life through being told that it means death to him. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17); and it is Ea, who has formed man, who is the means of preventing him from attaining life everlasting, just as it is God who removes man from out of Eden "lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" (Gen 3:22). Jastrow (l.c.) remarks that the Hebrew story is more pessimistic than the Babylonian, since God even begrudges man knowledge, which the Babylonian god freely gives him. Adapa, who has been endowed with knowledge, puts on the garment given him by Anu, and Adam and Eve, after eating of the tree of knowledge, make for themselves garments of fig-leaves.
Schrader ("K. A. T." ii. 1, 523) calls attention to the possibility of associating the name "Adam" with "Adapa." The "garden of God," situated on the mountain, in Ezek 28:13ff and the tall cedar in Ezek 31:3, may have some connection with the cedar-grove of Khumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic and with the high cedar in the midst of the grove. In this connection may be mentioned the attempt to associate Eden with the mountain in Iranian mythology, out of which rivers flow, or with the Indian mountain Maru with the four rivers (Lenormant). Jensen ("Keilschriftliche Bibliothek," vi.) places the "confluence of the streams" in the Far West, and associates the island with the Greek Elysium.
