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Atra-Hasis Background

• Version we have: ~1646-1626, lost for milennia

• Lots of Myths• The role of temples• Comparison with Enuma Elish• “Good” Gods

Questions to Consider

• How does the account explain the creation of the universe, the world and human beings?

• Is creation divinely inspired? What role do they play?• Are humans one of many objects of creation? The

pinnacle of the process?• Do humans have any obligation towards their

creator?• Creation process: Lineal, Cyclical, Formless?• Any behaviors that are encouraged/forbid?• Creation process reproduced in everyday life?

Tablet 2

• Gods Angry at Men• Enlil’s attempts to destroy men– Namtar’s Plague– Adad and rains– Famine

• Enki vs. Enlil

Tablet 3: Flood Story

• Later adapted in epic of Gilgamesh• Enki and Atra-Hasis• Different means to control population

Significance

Significance

• Precariousness of Human Existence• Gods use humans to serve them• Don’t annoy the Gods!• Enki, Enlil, and Authorship



• Is creation divinely inspired? What role do they play?• Are humans one of many objects of creation? The

pinnacle of the process?• Do humans have any obligation towards their

creator?• Creation process: Lineal, Cyclical, Formless?• Any behaviors that are encouraged/forbid?• Creation process reproduced in everyday life?

Intro to the Vedas

• Rig Veda– Sacred Text of Brahmanism– Preserved orally for centuries, written down ~600

• Diversity– Varied systems of belief/ritual– Pluralistic tradition• “May good thoughts come to us from all sides”• “Hinduism arose from multiple sources and from the

geniuses of individual reformers in all periods.”

Intro to the Vedas

• Writing and Power in the Vedas– Brahman authorship– Absolute authority– Sacred Ritual

• Challenges to Vedas– Kshatriya (ruling class) challenges– Learning not birth– Ascetic Sects (Buddhism/Jainism)

Questions to Consider- 10.72 and 10.129


• Is creation divinely inspired? What role do they play?

• Are humans one of many objects of creation? The pinnacle of the process?

• Do humans have any obligation towards their creator?

• Creation process: Lineal, Cyclical, Formless?• Any behaviors that are encouraged/forbid?• Creation process reproduced in everyday life?

Questions to Consider--Purusa






Background to Torah

• Historical Argument: Multiple Sources for Pentateuch

• Documentary Hypothesis (Enlightenment View)– J= Yahwist (~900, Kingdom of Judah, Genesis 1)– E= Elohist (~850, Kingdom of Israel, Genesis 2)– D= Deuteronomist (During Turmoil in Judah, ~600)– P= Priestly (Babylonian Captivity, 6th Century)

• Good Sides, Bad Sides• Torah similar to other sources in this unit

Genesis 1:Before: Unformed, Void• Day 1: Day/Night• Day 2: Sky• Day 3: Dry Land/Seas/Plants• Day 4: Sun/Moon/Stars• Day 5: Birds, Sea Monsters, Creeping

Animals• Day 6: Cattle, and Humans (“Fill the Earth

and master it; and rule the fish...”)• Day 7: RestsSabbath

Genesis 2:Before: Heaven/Earth, No Grasses, Rain• Man created from dust• Garden of Eden, Trees, incl. Tree of

Knowledge• Man supposed to Tend Garden• Man needs helper: first try, all the animals• Second Helper: Woman. She becomes

companion

Differences

Why the Differences?

• Different Oral Traditions• Different Sources (Documentary Hypothesis,

JEDP)• Different “Zooms”• Narrative Logic vs. Literal Logic

Connection to Mesopotamian Myths

• Jewish stories adapted Mesop Myths to create something new

• Examples– Mesopotamian Eden (Eating Plants, Lady of the

Rib)– Babylonians had man made of clay, but function?– Flood, but why?

64 Hexagrams

• Created by Pao Hsi• Composed of

combinations of 8 Trigrams

• Used for Divination• Part of cosmology that

views nature as part of unified system

• If properly interpreted, profound messages

Hexagram 1: Ch’ien, the Creative

• These unbroken lines stand for the primal power, which is light-giving, active, strong, and of the spirit.

• The hexagram is consistently strong in character, and since it is without weakness, its essence is power or energy. Its image is heaven

• Its energy is represented as unrestricted by any fixed conditions in space and is therefore conceived of as motion

• The power represented by the hexagram is to be interpreted in a dual sense in terms of its action on the universe and of its action on the world of men.

Hexagram 2: K’un, the Receptive

• The broken lines represents the dark, yielding, receptive primal power of yin. The attribute of the hexagram is devotion; its image is the earth.

• It is the perfect complement of THE CREATIVE—the complement, not the opposite, for the Receptive does not combat the Creative but completes it.

• It represents nature in contrast to spirit, earth in contrast to heaven, space as against time, the female-maternal as against the male-paternal

Hexagram 15: Modesty

Hexagram 15: ModestyWithin the earth, a mountain:The image of Modesty.Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much,And augments that which is too little.He weighs things and makes them equal.

Words/Symbols have deep spiritual significance

Yi Jing, “Book of Changes”

• Main Body 12th Century BCE, but we are reading later (3rd Century)

• Ritual Text (not political)• Divination: Limited to Practitioners vs. Studied

by Scholars• Cult of Yellow Emperor (Warring States/Han)

Examples of Binaries• Heaven/earth• creative/receptive• High/low• Superior/inferior• Movement and rest have definite laws• Firm and yieldings lines • Fortune and Misfortune • Phenomena in the Heavens, shapes take form on Earth• Thunder/lightning, wind/rain• sun and moon • hot and cold

“Therefore the eight trigrams succeed one another by turns, as the firm and the yielding displace each other.”

Creative Receptive

Hexagram 1 Hexagram 2

Firm Lines Yielding Lines

Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female

Great beginnings Finished things

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female


Easy Simple

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female


Easy Simple

Easy is easy to know Simple is easy to follow

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female


Easy Simple


Fealty (loyalty) Works

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female


Easy Simple



Endure for long Can become great

Creative Receptive



Yang Yin

Heaven Earth

Male Female


Easy Simple



Endure for long Can become great

Disposition of the Sage Action of the Sage

What did they do? What Hexagram? Who did it?

Allows garments to hang down, world in order Creative and Receptive

Yellow Emperor, Yao and Shun




Made boats and oars, could travel far Dispersion “”





Tamed ox and yoked horse. Could carry heavy loads over distances

Following “”






Following “”

Double Gates, night watchmen, to deal with robbers

Enthusiasm “”






Following “”


Enthusiasm “”

Made Pestle/Mortar, benefit to mankind (Used to grind/mix)

Preponderance of the Small

“”






Following “”


Enthusiasm “”



“”

Bow and Arrow to keep world in fear Opposition “”






Following “”


Enthusiasm “”



“”


Build better houses with roofs to keep off wind/rain

Power of the Great

Holy Men of a later time






Following “”


Enthusiasm “”



“”



Power of the Great


Inner and outer coffins to replace lack of good burial rituals. Defined mourning period

Preponderance of the Great

“”






Following “”


Enthusiasm “”



“”



Power of the Great


Inner and outer coffins to replace lack of good burial rituals. Defined mourning period

Preponderance of the Great

“”

Writing replaces knotted cords as a means to govern the people

Breakthrough “”

Background on Popul Vuh

• “Book of the People”• Chronicles creation of humans, actions of

gods, origins and history of Quiche people, chronology of Kings

• Who wrote it?

Background on Popul Vuh

• “Book of the People”• Chronicles creation of humans, actions of gods, origins

and history of Quiche people, chronology of Kings• Originally written in Quiche with Spanish Letters• Discovered in 18th Century by missionary Francisco

Jiminez. Copied and translated into Spanish– “This we shall write now under the Law of God and

Christianity; we shall bring it to light because now the Popol Vuh, as it is called, cannot be seen any more, in which was clearly seen the coming from the other side of the sea and the narration of our obscurity, and our life was clearly seen."

Third Attempt• “The wooden people scatter into the forest.

Their faces are crushed,and they are turned into monkeys.And this is why monkeys look like humans.They are what is left of what came before,an experiment in human design.”

• “This the Forefathers did, Tepeu and Gucumatz, as they were called. After that they began to talk about the creation and the making of our first mother and father; of yellow corn and of white corn they made their flesh; of cornmeal dough they made the arms and the legs of man. Only dough of corn meal went into the flesh of our first fathers, the four men, who were created. [...] And as they had the appearance of men, they were men; they talked, conversed, saw and heard, walked, grasped things; they were good and handsome men, and their figure was the figure of a man.”

• Women were created later while the first four men slept.

• Heart of Heaven blew mist into their eyes so that they could only see what was close, thus checking their desires to become gods.

Then the first four women were created as wives for the first 4 men.• Jaguar Quiche (Balam Kitze) got Red Sea

Woman • Jaguar Night (Balam Aqab) got Beauty Woman • Naught (Mahuq'utah) got Hummingbird Woman• Wind Jaguar (Iq'i Balam) got Parrot Woman.

Ancient Japan and Shinto

• Shinto– Popular “Native” Religion of Japan– Spirits called “Kami”– Kojiki, more than 120 songs, oral tradition written

down in 8th Century• Worldview– 3D: High Heaven, middle land, hades, vertical order– 2D: this world and the perpetual country (Tokoyo,

beyond the sea) horizontal order– Mythology vs. Popular View

Other Events in the Kojiki• Izanami dies in childbirth while bearing fire God.• Izanagi kills son, whose body parts become various deities• Izanagi goes to underworld

– Chased out– 1000 die, 1500 born

• Izanagi takes ritual bathDeities and 3 ancient families (Yamato)– Chased out– 1000 die, 1500 born

• Goddess of Sun sends down first ruler– Marries Princess Brilliant Blossoms– Kids mortal cause he doesn’t marry Princess Long as the Rocks

• Horizontal or Vertical Worldview

\ie\\. atra-hasis background version we have: ~1646-1626, lost for milennia lots of myths the role...

Documents

creation process

objects of creation

authorship slide

enlil slide

significance slide

human beings

everyday life

multiple sources