Download Marduk: Sun God of Babylon

Marduk
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This article is about the Babylonian god. For other uses, see Marduk (disambiguation).
Marduk, sun god of Babylon, with his thunderbolts pursues Anzu after Anzu stole the Tablets of
Destiny.
Marduk (Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMAR.UTU �� "solar calf"; perhaps from
MERI.DUG; Biblical Hebrew ‫ ְמר ֹדַ ְך‬Merodach; Greek Μαρδοχαῖος,[1] Mardochaios) was the
Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city
of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time
of Hammurabi (18th century BCE), started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the
Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium
BCE.
According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced
Marutuk. The etymology of the name Marduk is conjectured as derived from amar-Utu ("bull
calf of the sun god Utu"). The origin of Marduk's name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have
had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar (whose god was Utu, the sun god), dating back to
the third millennium BCE.[2]
In the perfected system of astrology, the planet Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the
Hammurabi period.[3]
Contents
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1 Mythology
o 1.1 Babylonian
o 1.2 Late Bronze Age
2 The fifty names of Marduk
3 The Marduk Prophecy
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4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit] Mythology
Marduk and his dragon Mušḫuššu, from a Babylonian cylinder seal
[edit] Babylonian
Marduk's original character is obscure but he was later on connected with water, vegetation,
judgment, and magic.[4] He was also regarded as the son of Ea[5] (Sumerian Enki) and Damkina[6]
and the heir of Anu, but whatever special traits Marduk may have had were overshadowed by the
political development through which the Euphrates valley passed and which led to people of the
time imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who in an earlier period were recognized as the
heads of the pantheon.[7] There are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and
attributes pass over to Marduk.
In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god. Marduk
took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, so that Marduk was integrated
in the pantheon of Eridu where both Ea and Asarluhi originally came from. Father Ea voluntarily
recognized the superiority of the son and hands over to him the control of humanity. This
association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing of the supremacy once
enjoyed by Eridu to Babylon as a religious and political centre, may also reflect an early
dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the
spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as
the older centre on the part of the younger one.
Part of a series on
Mesopotamian history
Mesopotamian religion
Primordial beings[show]
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Seven gods who decree[show]
o
The great gods[show]
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Demigods & heroes[show]
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Spirits & monsters[show]
o
Tales from Babylon[hide]
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Enûma Eliš
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Atra-Hasis
Marduk & Sarpanit
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Agasaya
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Bel
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Kingu
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Mami
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Nabu
Other traditions
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Arabian
Levantine
Near Eastern religions
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v
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[edit] Late Bronze Age
While the relationship between Ea and Marduk is marked by harmony and an amicable
abdication on the part of the father in favour of his son, Marduk's absorption of the power and
prerogatives of Enlil of Nippur was at the expense of the latter's prestige. After the days of
Hammurabi, the cult of Marduk eclipsed that of Enlil; although Nippur and the cult of Enlil
enjoyed a period of renaissance during the four centuries of Kassite control in Babylonia (c. 1570
BCE–1157 BCE), the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Enlil became felt within
the Babylonian empire. The only serious rival to Marduk after ca. 1000 BCE was Aššur in
Assyria. In the south, Marduk reigned supreme. He is normally referred to as Bel "Lord", also bel
rabim "great lord", bêl bêlim "lord of lords", ab-kal ilâni bêl terêti "leader of the gods", aklu bêl
terieti "the wise, lord of oracles", muballit mîte "reviver of the dead", etc.
When Babylon became the capital of Mesopotamia, the patron deity of Babylon was elevated to
the level of supreme god. In order to explain how Marduk seized power, Enûma Elish was
written, which tells the story of Marduk's birth, heroic deeds and becoming the ruler of the gods.
This can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are
the fifty names of Marduk.
In Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki
gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a
very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god.
To prepare for battle, he makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before
him, fills his body with flame, makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so
that no part of her could escape, creates seven nasty new winds such as the whirlwind and
tornado, and raises up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood. Then he sets out for battle, mounting
his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell
and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison.
First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, to
single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and
piercing her belly with an arrow.
Then, he proceeds to defeat Kingu, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and wore the Tablets
of Destiny on his breast, and "wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his" and
assumed his new position. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the
gods could be at leisure.
Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken
over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade.
Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, "the holy city,
the dwelling of their [the other gods] delight".
Nabu, god of wisdom, is a son of Marduk.
[edit] The fifty names of Marduk
Leonard W. King in The Seven Tablets of Creation (1902) included fragments of god lists which
he considered essential for the reconstruction of the meaning of Marduk's name. Franz Bohl in
his 1936 study of the fifty names also referred to King's list. Richard Litke (1958) noticed a
similarity between Marduk's names in the An:Anum list and those of the Enuma elish, albeit in a
different arrangement. The connection between the An:Anum list and the list in Enuma Elish
were established by Walther Sommerfeld (1982), who used the correspondence to argue for a
Kassite period composition date of the Enuma elish, although the direct derivation of the Enuma
elish list from the An:Anum one was disputed in a review by Wilfred Lambert (1984).[8]
[edit] The Marduk Prophecy
The Marduk Prophecy is a text describing the travels of the Marduk idol from Babylon, in
which he pays a visit to the land of Ḫatti, corresponding to the statue’s seizure during the sack of
the city by Mursilis I in 1531 BC, Assyria, when Tukulti-Ninurta I overthrew Kashtiliash IV in
1225 BC and took the idol to Assur, and Elam, when Kudur-nahhunte ransacked the city and
pilfered the statue around 1160 BC. He addresses an assembly of the gods.
The first two sojourns are described in glowing terms as good for both Babylon and the other
places Marduk has graciously agreed to visit. The episode in Elam however is a disaster, where
the gods have followed Marduk and abandoned Babylon to famine and pestilence. Marduk
prophecies that he will return once more to Babylon to a messianic new king, who will bring
salvation to the city and who will wreak a terrible revenge on the Elamites. This king is
understood to be Nabu-kudurri-uṣur I, 1125-1103 BC.[9] Thereafter the text lists various
sacrifices.
A copy[10] was found in the House of the Exorcist at Assur, whose contents date from 713-612
BC and is closely related thematically to another vaticinium ex eventu text called the Shulgi
prophecy, which probably followed it in a sequence of tablets.