A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

Enki errs by violating his own law.

Does Fate itself represent a god in this mythological construct? If not, does the existence of a Fate binding the gods imply another, greater entity?

Thant’s how I always thought it should go. It would be much easier that way.

I cannot find any clue as to what is a Lagma god.

Or, that humans were created with a divine element.

They mirror the creation of the universe?

Not the creation of the universe, but its recreation, apparently by mortal agents; allowing us to mirror the divine.

Essentially a sacred prostitute.

Literally "Image of the World." It refers to the creation of a miniature cosmos as a representation of the larger cosmos.

The idea that concepts exist in ... well, somewhere, before they become actualized in the world, and the corollary that the ideal versions are more perfect than earthly incarnations.

Making Plato, ironically, not the first Platonist

It was the end of the world

Are Dilmun and "The Mouth of the Rivers" different places?

Do they need a common source separate from one a another?

Thank you

You know, I somehow managed never to associate the pre-creation waters of chaos with the waters of the flood. Seems kind of obvious now.

Are the sins of man and the decrepitude of the world separate things? If one sees mankind and the earth inhabited by mankind as a single entity than the decrepitude of the latter should be reflected in the conduct of the former.

Like a person

It is actually the same theme underlying zombie movies and other post-apocalyptic stories of the early 21st century.

What is meant by "actuality" and why does it appear in quotation marks?

Because being all-powerful required encompassing both genders, or because being all-powerful required her to be at least part Dude?

It was not even Dumuzi's own ambition that led to his downfall, but that of his wife.

Is the association of nudity and helplessness universal among humans?

There was a definite echo of Christ’s “harrowing of hell” right up to the part where, instead of becoming a sacrifice to redeem humanity, she seeks out a mortal to guarantee her own redemption. Actually, maybe the echo persists. Maybe Christ’s story is a defendant of this reimagined to put us at the center of the cosmological drama.

Oh, apparently Dumuzi did beckon his own destruction.

The myth creates a god who periodically dies and is periodically reborn. In this version he is coupled with a sister who dies upon his birth and is herself reborn upon Damuzi's death. It is like a combined Baldr & Persephone super-duo.

Like Orpheus.

A reason separate and apart from his necessary role in the drama of the seasons.

In Jerusalem?

Both the king and the world could die, but could also return. They apparently did so together in a single festival marking the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

A mystery related to the discovery of agriculture? It could be modeled on the death of the crops at harvest and their rebirth in the spring.

The human king could partake in a cyclical mode of life normally available only to the gods. Presumably, Damuzi's own human origins served as a sort of precedence for this transcendence. The creation of humans from divine elements (Enki's breath, the blood of Lagma gods, etc.) could also be considered a precedent for the human king's access to a divine mode of death and rebirth.

The privilege of rebirth after facing the inevitability of death.

There is a lot more than Gutians involved in the collapse of Sargon’s empire.

Ur was a Sumerian as opposed to Akkadian polity? Or, had the two linguistic/cultural groups become fully integrated by that point?

The Akkadian/Amorite speaking rulers of Mesopotamia will apparently continue to use Sumerian for religious ceremonies and scholarship until 500 B.C?

I wonder why square-ing numbers seems significant. Maybe it’s the inherent symmetry in the thing.

Sky-Atmosphere-Earth is replaced by City-Sun-Venus.

Good cliff-hanger

I did not realize that Tiamat was part of the first couple.

As a virtue of being undifferentiated?

Is a desire for quiet part of these gods' identity as forces of stagnation?

Which sounds pretty awesome

Giving us another link to divine, but also giving us a link to the bad guys.

Is this an early intrusion of morality into theology? Is Tiamat the first evil goddess?

Is this the first connection between materialism and profanity?

Man is in some sense imperfect, corrupt, or profane.

Maybe not as pessimistic as Eliade believes. There is a redemptive element in man's creation, albeit from profane materials, by a divine hand.

A gnostic sect from the early Christian Era.

All of which appear in festivals of modern religions.