Texts in Conversation
In Atrahasis, the Igigi gods abandon their assigned labor, a boundary crossing that triggers a cosmic crisis. 1 Enoch 6 echoes this with the Watchers abandoning heaven to take human wives and provoking the same kind of divine response.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Atrahasis I
Ancient Near East
They were counting the years of loads. For 600 years they bore the excess, Hard work, night and day. They groaned and blamed each other, Grumbled over the masses of excavated soil: Let us confront our the chamberlain, And get him to relieve us of our hard work! Come, let us carry [the Lord ], The counsellor of gods, the warrior, from his dwelling. Come, let us carry [Ellil], The counsellor of gods, the warrior, from his dwelling. Then Alia made his voice heard And spoke to the gods his brothers Come! Let us carry The counsellor of gods, the warrior, from his dwelling. Come! Let us carry Ellil, The counsellor of gods, the warrior, from his dwelling. Now, cry battle! Let us mix fight with battle! The gods listened to his speech, Set fire to their tools, Put aside their spades for fire, Their loads for the fire-god, They flared up. When they reached The gate of warrior Ellils dwelling, It was night, the middle watch, The house was surrounded, the god had not
Date: 18th-century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
1 Enoch 6:2
Pseudepigrapha
1 And it came to pass when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them. 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to each other: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.' 3 And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: 'I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4 And they all replied to him and said: 'Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.' 5 Then they all took an oath together and bound themselves with a solemn promise to do so. 6 And there were in total two hundred who descended on the summit of Mount Hermon in the days of Jared, and they named it Mount Hermon because they had taken an oath and bound themselves with solemn promises there.
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Notes and References
“… Through the adaptation of the rebellion of the watchers into the flood story the dichotomy of the Watcher Story is created: the groups from the rebel story, the watchers and giants, are oppressing the group from the flood story, the human beings. This is done in this way: the negative characteristics of the humans as they are found in the Genesis flood story are portrayed either as the acts of the watchers and giants or as direct consequences of these acts. Compared to Genesis and Atrahasis this means that the watchers and giants, as antediluvian beings, are cast in the same role as the antediluvian human race. The controversy in the Watcher Story is between the watchers/giants and the Most High and his heavenly companions, in the same manner as the controversy is between the humans and God/gods in Genesis and Atrahasis. …”
Kvanvig, Helge S.
Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading
(pp. 403-404) Brill, 2011
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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