Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story

523 Pages·2019·6.671 MB·English

by  Martin Worthington

Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh
Flood Story
This volume opens up new perspectives on Babylonian and Assyrian literature
through the lens of a pivotal passage in the G ilgamesh Flood story. It shows how,
using a nine-line message where not all was as it seemed, the god Ea inveigled
humans into building the Ark.
The volume argues that Ea used a ‘bitextual’ message: one which can be
understood in different ways that sound the same. His message thus emerges as an
ambivalent oracle in the tradition of ‘folktale prophecy’. The argument is supported
by interlocking investigations of lexicography, divination, diet, fi gurines, social
history, and religion. There are also extended discussions of Babylonian word-play
and ancient literary interpretation. Besides arguing for Ea’s duplicity, the book
explores its implications – for narrative sophistication in G ilgamesh, for audiences
and performance of the poem, and for the relation of the G ilgamesh Flood story
to the versions in A tra–hasīs , the Hellenistic historian Berossus, and the Biblical
Book of Genesis .
Ea’s Duplicity in theG ilgamesh Flood Story will interest Assyriologists, Hebrew
Bible scholars, and Classicists, but also students and researchers in all areas
concerned with G ilgamesh , word-play, oracles, and traditions about the Flood.
Martin Worthington is Senior Lecturer in Assyriology and a Fellow of St John’s
College at the University of Cambridge, UK.
The Ancient Word
Series editor: Seth Sanders
Professor of Religious Studies, University of California Davis, USA
‘ The Ancient Word’ is dedicated to publishing exciting, broadly relevant new
research in ancient Near Eastern and biblical studies. Each book represents
an advance both philologically, in our understanding of ancient sources, and
intellectually, in providing fresh ways to think about what the remote past means.
Herder once imagined an “archive of paradise” containing the fi rst writing
in the world from its oldest civilization: primordial texts holding the keys to
understanding our formation. In unearthing the remains of the ancient Near East,
we have something like this archive – but it remains mostly unread. Herder’s bold
search has been replaced with safer techniques, from sweeping theories of oral vs
literate societies to reductive legitimation theories that boil culture down to power.
This series showcases fresh work that helps unlock this archive’s potential.
Baal and the Politics of Poetry
Aaron Tugendhaft
Beyond Orality
Biblical Poetry on Its Own Terms
Jacqueline Vayntrub
Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story
Martin Worthington
www.routledge.com/classicalstudies/series/ANCWORD
Ea’s Duplicity in the
Gilgamesh Flood Story
Martin Worthington
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Martin Worthington
The right of Martin Worthington to be identifi ed as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Worthington, Martin, author.
Title: Ea’s duplicity in the Gilgamesh fl ood story / Martin Worthington.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series:
The ancient word | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2019016908 (print) | LCCN 2019981112 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138388925 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429424274 (ebk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Gilgamesh. | Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian—History and
criticism. | Deluge. | Plays on words.
Classifi cation: LCC PJ3771.G6 W67 2019 (print) | LCC PJ3771.G6 (ebook) |
DDC 892/.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016908
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981112
ISBN: 978-1-138-38892-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-42427-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Lauren
šamhatiya

The ways of water are devious.
Thorkild Jacobsen1

1 See fn. 48 .

Contents
Preface xiv
Acknowledgements xvi
Copyright credits xx
Abbreviations xxiv
Bibliographical xxiv
Tablet sigla xxvii
Miscellaneous xxvii
Conventions xxix
Standard Assyriological conventions xxix
Ad hoc conventions xxx
PART I
Preliminaries 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Bitextuality 6
1.2 The Gilgameš Flood story 12
1.3 Other Mesopotamian Flood stories 16
1.4 Ea’s message 17
1.4.1 The manuscripts 18
1.4.2 Synoptic transliteration 19
1.4.3 Composite text and translation 19
1.5 The problems 22
1.6 Previous studies 23
1.6.1 Recovering (most of) the text: George Smith (1872) to
Paul Haupt (1883) 26
1.6.2 A “disgraceful lie”? Peter Jensen (1890) and dissenters 32
1.6.3 Glimmers of puns: Ungnad (1911) etc. 42
1.6.4 The ‘bitextual’ pun of Frank (1925) 49
1.6.5 Early reception of Frank’s idea 50
1.6.6 Thompson’s (1930) reading i na še-er 53
viii Contents
1.6.7 The golden age of Frank’s bitextual pun 56
1.6.8 Exit puns: von Soden (1955) to Millard (1987) 62
1.6.9 Re-enter puns: Dalley (1989) and others 73
1.6.10 Re-exit puns: George (2010) to the present 90
1.6.11 Summary 92
1.7 Outline of the argument 93
1.7.1 Angles not pursued 95
1.8 Audiences, internal and external 97
2 ‘Interrogating’ Babylonian narrative poetry 100
2.1 Is ‘interrogation’ appropriate? 100
2.1.1 Is the poem too ‘naïve’? 101
2.1.2 Is ‘interrogation’ precluded by accretion? 103
2.2 Modelling ancient interpretations 105
2.2.1 The elusiveness of native meta-discussions 106
2.2.2 Did they simply ‘know it all’? 107
2.2.3 Differences between ancient and modern interests 110
2.2.4 Glimpses of ancient interpretation 112
2.2.4.1 Commentaries on narrative poems 113
2.2.4.2 Commentaries mentioning narrative poems 116
2.2.4.3 Other commentaries 117
2.2.4.4 The ‘Marduk Ordeal’ 119
2.2.4.5 Colophons 128
2.2.4.6 Self-refl exive comments within poems 129
2.2.4.7 Adaptation 129
2.2.4.8 The ‘Catalogue of Texts and Authors’ 132
2.2.4.9 A personal response to the Flood story? 132
2.2.5 Summary: modelling ancient interpretations 136
2.3 Summary: ‘interrogating’ Babylonian narrative poetry 136
3 ‘Identifying’ puns 138
3.1 Are they ‘really there’? – author intention vs audience
reception 139
3.2 Disadvantages of the exclusive focus on authorial
intention 141
3.2.1 Cases where authorial intention is clear 141
3.2.2 Obstacles to identifying authorial intention 143
3.2.3 Rigidity 145
3.3 Alternatives to the emphasis on authorial intention 145
3.3.1 ‘Ironclad’ vs ‘potential’ puns 147
3.3.2 A ‘high-potential’ bitextual pun in OB A tra–hasīs 147
3.4 Puns and pronunciation 149
3.5 Summary 150
Contents ix
4 The high concentration of puns in the G ilgameš
Flood story 151
PART II
Dissecting Ea’s message 157
5 The lines about the Flood hero 159
6 Raining ‘plenty’: ušaznanakkunūši nuhšam-ma 161
6.1 The positive sense 161
6.2 The negative sense 164
6.3 The subject of u šaznanakkunūši 164
6.3.1 Enlil as instigator of the Flood 166
6.3.2 Exit Šamaš 169
7 The birds: [ hiṣib ] iṣṣūrāti 173
7.1 The restoration ‘ hi-ṣib ’ 173
7.2 The positive sense 174
7.3 The negative sense 175
7.3.1 The verb vs the noun 177
7.3.2 ‘Cutting off’, literal and metaphorical 177
7.3.3 The spheres of use attested for h aṣābu 180
7.4 An Ur–Namma passage 182
7.5 Summary 183
8 The fi sh: p uzur nūnī 184
8.1 What is p uzur ? 184
8.2 The positive sense 185
8.2.1 The associations of ‘covering’ 186
8.2.2 Fish as comestibles 188
8.3 The negative sense 192
8.3.1 Fish-cloaked sages, Assyrian vs Babylonian 193
8.4 Summary 197
9 The harvest: [ . . . ] mešrâ ebūram-ma 198
9.1 The positive sense 198
9.2 The negative sense 198
9.3 Summary 201
10 ‘Cakes at dawn’: ina šēr(-)kukkī 202
10.1 The positive sense 203
10.1.1 kukku ‘bread, cake’ 203