Texts in Conversation
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta praises the king as a world tree linking heaven and earth, its crown in the sky and trunk in the ground. Daniel echoes this when Nebuchadnezzar sees a giant tree at the center of the earth whose top reaches the sky.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta
Ancient Near East
‘This is what my master has spoken, this is what he has said. My king is like a huge mes tree, … son of Enlil; this tree has grown high, uniting heaven and earth; its crown reaches heaven, its trunk is set upon the earth. He who is made to shine forth in lordship and kingship, Enmerkar, the son of Utu, has given me a clay tablet.
Date: 2300 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Daniel 4:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Here are the visions of my mind while I was on my bed. “While I was watching, there was a tree in the middle of the land. It was enormously tall. 11 The tree grew large and strong. Its top reached far into the sky; it could be seen from the borders of all the land. 12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful; on it there was food enough for all. Under it the wild animals used to seek shade, and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest. All creatures used to feed themselves from it.
Tags:
Search:
Notes and References
“... In the Sumerian epic Lugalbanda and Enmerkar, the ‘eagle-tree’ has a similar role. In Assyrian contexts, the motif of a sacred tree is also well known. Some scholars have called it a tree of life, and some also associate it with the world tree. The tree is often flanked by animals or by human or divine figures. A winged disk is typically located centrally over the top of the tree. The king is presented as the human personification of this tree. The tree is thought by some to represent the divine world order, but discussion of the tree is absent from ancient Near Eastern texts. ...”
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.