Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic

Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic
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date: 22 December 2022
Atrahasis and creation
Narratives involving the deluge are critically important to the Mesopotamian view of the history 
of humanity,
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 and the nature of human/divine connections. While several literary texts center on 
the divine creation of humanity, along with the natural world, the destructive potential of deities 
was also the subject of Mesopotamian myth. The Babylonian Flood story Atrahasis contains both 
creative and destructive relations between humans and deities. The Atrahasis narrative (meaning 
“surpassingly wise”) takes its name from the human Flood survivor, and is famous for its 
correspondence with the biblical Flood account from Genesis. The story of Atrahasis is available in 
several versions, one of which forms part of Tablet XI of the Gilgamesh Epic. The narrative of 
Atrahasis presents a complicated relationship between humans and deities, with an interesting 
contrast between the individual and the collective. Relations are shown to vary among deities and 
individual humans, and humanity as a whole, as well as between humanity and individual deities 
and groups of deities.
The myth begins with the greater deities imposing on lesser deities the menial work of food 
production and the building of canals. The arduous nature of the work leads to a rebellion by the 
lesser deities; they go on strike and challenge the primary deity, Enlil. The senior deities agree 
that the situation requires redress, but also that the rebellion will be punished. Ea (Sumerian 
Enki), the god of wisdom, suggests a solution—that the mother and birth goddess, Belet-ili 
(“Lady of the Gods”) create a human being to perform the menial duties of the deities. The leader 
of the rebellion is killed and his body and blood are mixed with clay to create a human. The spirit 
of the dead deity is also mixed into the new creation
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; the etemmu (“spirit”) of the dead god 
remains within humanity. The presence of the “spirit” is signaled by the “drumbeat” of the 
pulse, which is a constant reminder of the divine contribution to humanity.
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 The mythopoeic 
linking of humans and the divine in the constant rhythm of the pulse provides a microcosm of the 
interconnectedness of the two worlds.
Belet-ili next establishes sexuality, birth, and marriage in her human creations, so that they may 
reproduce themselves, and she is praised greatly for her work. Yet the spread of humanity creates 
problems for Enlil, who finds he cannot sleep because of human noise. He sends a variety of 
afflictions against humanity: first plagues, then a drought, then a famine. Each time, Ea advises 
the humans to stop making offerings to their favorite deities, but to devote all of their offerings to 
the deity who could stop the presiding affliction. The deity related to the affliction is in each case 
so moved by the upspring of attention that he intervenes to improve the humans’ situation.
While humanity is presented as being at the mercy of the destructive supernatural powers of the 
divine, their efforts to emotionally manipulate the deities into assisting them are successful, with 
the help of Ea’s guidance. Communicating with deities through offerings is presented as an 
effective means of accessing divine support; divine/human communication is foregrounded in 
the narrative, yet not all communication is positive. Rigmu (“clamor”) is given to humans by the 
gods, along with menial work, at their creation, and it is this “clamor” that causes Enlil to try to 
destroy humanity. Conversely, Ea encourages the people to communicate with deities to avoid 
Enlil’s plagues (through sacrifice, prayer, and making noise), and the success of Ea’s rescue of 
humanity from destruction rests on his ability to communicate with Atrahasis through dreams, 
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