IN OTHER RELIGIOUS LEGENDS (INTRODUCTION) N addition to the Creation and Gilgamesh epics several other tablet series have come down to us, though no others form such extended or connected stories. The legend of Adapa, presented here, has aroused wide interest because of its resemblance and difference to the Genesis account of the tree of life. In the Adapa tale the gods would give the hero eternal life, but he, through over-caution, following the counsel of the god Ea, rejects the food and water of life. Wisdom and knowledge Adapa already had. So that, with the same materials, the story at each point reverses that of Adam. Instead of being disobedient, Adapa is too obedient. What finally became of Adapa we do not know, as his tale is incomplete. The legend is now known from four tablets. Three of these were in Ashur-banipal's library. The fourth, which parallels and enlarges part of one of the others, was found at Tel-el-Amarna in Egypt. Its date is about 1400 B.C., and from the way it is marked it was probably a common text used to teach the Babylonian tongue to Egyptian scholars. Hence we have here another evidence of how aged were many of the texts which Ashurbanipal copied, and of how little they changed with the passage of the centuries. The Legend of the Seven Evil Spirits is from a long series of sixteen tablets all dealing with demons. The series is in Ashur-banipal's library, and gives a late text side by side with an old Sumerian one. Perhaps in their original form these demon texts were very old, but our present Sumerian copy has Marduk of Babylon as its chief deity, and hence can not antedate the time of Babylon's power. "The Seven " are favorite figures of Babylonian and Assyrian magic. Much of the old "literature of f" is based upon them. The remarkable tale of Ishtar's descent into the lower world brings us with almost painful sharpness to face the Babylonian conception of after-life. There is a world of the dead; but it is a bleak shadow-world, a "house without light for him who enters." Its queen, when she hears of Ishtar's coming, cries out in amazement, asking what has moved Ishtar's heart that she should wish to dwell in this dead and shriveled home, "to eat clay as food, to drink dust as wine." It is as drear as the stern old Scandinavian myth of the ice-bound world of the dead souls who have missed Valhalla. But Babylon knew no Valhalla. His command like the command of Anu.. He (Ea) granted him a wide ear to reveal the destiny of the land, He granted him wisdom, but he did not grant him eternal life. 5 In those days, in those years the wise man of Eridu, Ea had created him as chief among men, A wise man whose command none should oppose, The prudent, the most wise among the Anunnaki was he, 1 Reprinted, by permission of the Methodist Book Concern, from "Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament," by Prof. R. W. Rogers. 2 The four Adapa tablets may be here summarized as a clue to their contents, which in the translation alone might not always be clear upon the first examination. No. 1. Adapa, or perhaps Adamu, son of Ea, had received from his father wisdom, but not eternal life. He was a semi-divine being and was the wise man and priest of the temple of Ea at Eridu, which he provided with the ritual bread and water. In the exercise of this duty he carried on fishing upon the Persian Gulf. No. 2. When Adapa was fishing one day on a smooth sea, the south wind rose suddenly and overturned his boat, so that he was thrown into the sea. Angered by the mishap, he broke the wings of the south wind so that for seven days it could not blow the sea's coolness over the hot land. Anu calls Adapa to account for this misdeed, and his father Ea warns him as to what should befall him. He tells him how to secure the pity of Tammuz and Gishzida, whom he would meet at heaven's portal, and cautions him not to eat the food or partake of the drink which would be set before him, as Ea feared that food and drink of death would be offered him. The counsel was ill advised, for it was, rather, the food of life and the water of life that were set before him, and over-caution deprived him of immortal life, and he had to return to earth. No. 3 is a duplicate of lines 12 to 21 of No. 2. No. 4 is so badly broken that its general sense is very difficult to obtain. Blameless, of clean hands, anointed, observer of the di vine statutes, 10 With the bakers he made bread, With the bakers of Eridu, he made bread, The food and the water for Eridu he made daily, With his clean hands he prepared the table, And without him the table was not cleared. 15 The ship he steered, fishing and hunting for Eridu he did. Then Adapa of Eridu While Ea,... in the chamber, upon the bed. Daily the closing of Eridu he attended to. Upon the pure dam, the new moon dam, he embarked upon the ship, 20 The wind blew and his ship departed, With the oar, he steered his ship Upon the broad sea . . . TABLET NO. 2 The south wind . . . when He had driven me to the house of my lord, I said, 5 Thy wing will I break." As he spoke with his mouth, Called to his messenger Ilabrat: Anu "Why has the South wind not blown upon the land for seven days?" 10 His messenger Ilabrat answered him: "My lord, Adapa, the son of Ea, the wing of the South wind Has broken." TABLET NO. 2 (continued) When Anu heard these words 13 He cried, "Help!" He ascended his throne, TABLET NO. 3 1 When heard that 2 In the anger of his heart |