ASMR Enuma Elish: Babylon and its Creation Myth

Are you in the mood for some mythology? Let's look at an ancient creation myth from one of the cradles of civilisation, Mesopotamia. The Babylonian story tells about Marduk, the greatest god in the pantheon, and how he created the world by slaying Tiamat, a sea-monster and mother of all other gods. The tablets with the text were found during excavations in the 18th century, but some parts of the story lived on since ancient times, through a retelling in the Genesis.
And yes, I did first learn about Enuma Elish from a metal band.
Small correction: Tiamat's army leader is called Kingu, not Kinshu.
Sources:
Hölzel Universalatlas
Faulmann: Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller Zeiten und Völker. (in German)
And the translation of Enuma Elish I've used is this one:
ia600707.us.archive.org/16/it...
Further sources:
For more info, I recommend Christine Hayes "The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context" (part of a longer lecture series on the Old Testament)
• Lecture 3. The Hebrew ...
In German, you can listen to the podcast "Die Bibel in ihrer Welt" by Tim Weinheimer. There are two episodes specifically on Enuma Elish, plus info on for example Gilgamesh, Sumerian Kings, Atra Hasis etc.
open.spotify.com/episode/0ba4...
Full text of Enuma Elish with translation:
www.ebl.lmu.de/corpus/L/1/2/SB/I
Or if you'd like to listen to it in reconstructed Akkadian:
www.soas.ac.uk/baplar/recordings
Nail polish:
Essie Love, putting myself first
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Audio only version is available on various podcast platforms.
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Melange ASMR
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You can support my channel via:
www.paypal.com/paypalme/melan...

[@jpeterman6725]

Thanks!

[@MelangeASMR]

Thank you so much for your generosity!💕

[@kwippo]

Hebrew speaker here. Abyss in Hebrew is 'TEHOM'. The word is mentioned in the Bible (the Old Testament) in Genesis chapter A. According to Bible researchers, 'TEHOM' is mentioned as a direct contrast to the name of the Goddess Tiamat. Sounds similar, but not the same. The writer of that Genesis chapter probably wanted to negate Tiamat and state that this is the true Genesis story. The story of Adam and Eve is told in chapters B and C and it is believed it was written at a different period of time and tells a different Genesis story than the one in chapter A. The chapters were simply assembled together at a later time. In chapter A there are also mentioned animals likes whales and crocodiles because these were Gods in Enuma Elish, again, strengthening the hypothesis of negation.

[@naturalexplorer]

Fantastic to have good detailed insights into prehistory of this Akkadian/Sumerian/Babylonian/Mesopotamian civilizations in your relaxing ASMR. Wonderfully blended with the Enuma Elish mythology, geography and language of the region. Astrotheology once again a primary factor of ancient cultures. ♥🙏

[@littlecatfeet9064]

I was just watching vintage maps of New Hampshire last night (well, falling asleep to it). 20th century nostalgia is one of my favourite things. Tonight I’ll get about 10 minutes of lucidity with another of my favourite subjects, ancient history. Melange, you’re the best!

[@arielcerbus7762]

hey there Mel, thank you again. your channel has truly been an absolute post-pandemic motivation to keep traveling & adventuring. and as always i love that there's an education part of your videos, its one of my weekly highlights =) be encouraged to keep doing it. peace to you.

[@160p2GHz]

This is so cool. I love learning about this. The Young's Literal Translation of the Bible has it as "In the beginning of the gods creating the heavens and the earth" or something like that, similar to the other interpretation you say. And the dark water representing chaos with two forces that come out is in almost all cosmogonies. As a physicist I always found that interesting because in a metaphorical way that's similar to how I'd describe the origin of the universe.

[@imokin86]

This is great! Learned a lot. But I can't unsee reading it as Enuma Eilish. A Babylonian pop star perhaps. He's a Marduk Seeing-very-far-duk Drinking-in-a-bar-duk

[@SteWorthington]

Fascinating; particularly as I'm currently on a bible school and we were studying Genesis and the similarities between ancient creation stories. We looked a lot at how the differences would have jumped out to the original audience, and were quite deliberate. Thanks for adding a bit more detail to this from the other ancient texts!

[@MelangeASMR]

How cool, bible school sounds interesting! And yeah, the part about how listeners at the time would have immediately noticed the similarities is my favourite part.

[@sunseyaki9704]

I don’t usually comment but I got so excited! I learned about this story in a classics course at uni a few years ago. It was lovely to hear about it again

[@lucjanocastro]

Love your videos! I'm learning ( and remembering) so much Geography and History! It's a shame I hardly stay awake 'till the end of the class😴 Thank you 🌷

[@SereglothIV]

As opposed to the usual, I watched this video on the Saturday morning. Nice cozy way to start a lazy day :) Ancient history is always very interesting for me. My favourite bit was finding out that the Babylonian coastline moved so much over time. On a sidenote, even though they are completely different colours, your nails go really well with your shirt ;)

[@HappyRachel100]

I knew nothing about this creation myth before - fascinating. I love to learn with Melange especially about history, languages and culture. I think I like these more than the map tracing ones now 💕

[@theskellyboi]

I’m always excited to see an update from this channel!! ♥️

[@MelangeASMR]

🧡🧡

[@jpeterman6725]

I’m staying at a hotel in Salt Lake City and just met some diplomats. The gentleman I spoke to was from Sudan and this California girl impressed him with her Enuma Elish knowledge. This is the best channel! Side note: he lived in Vienna for 7 years and said it was the best kept city he’s in. He’s currently in Boston.

[@MelangeASMR]

How cool! I love that little anecdote - it's not an encounter I would have imagined when we made that video.

[@catecoleman9852]

When you begin to read the text translation the captions say [Music] I agree. Your voice is lovely, so relaxing. Thank you for these videos. I appreciate them very much ❤

[@asmrairhorn]

this was the perfect thing to listen to to relax and get away from it all for a bit while on break at my nursing job at the hospital. thank you again for your wonderful videos!!

[@ddkdkdkdkdkdk1]

Love your wide ranging and fascinating interests and knowledge!

[@taurusmoon844]

Loved watching this, as an Assyrian-American I love that you are able to teach others about our history and geography!

[@caxalxsixex9281]

These maps are gorgeous.

[@whssy]

I've started this on the podcast so many times and never got more than 15 minutes in before nodding off. Time to try if I can make it through to the end on the video.

[@MelangeASMR]

How did it go with the video? 😊

[@whssy]

@@MelangeASMR I didn't make it... still 5 minutes to catch up on.

[@verite]

This is wonderful. Thank you!

[@MelangeASMR]

Thank you 😊😊

[@djserious9341]

Love this. It’s so interesting. Thanks!

[@shardanette1]

Oh, cool. Looking forward to listening to this one tonight.

[@vladimirshadrin3182]

Oh this video would be a start for another ancient history/mythology videos with historical maps!

[@MelangeASMR]

Love the idea!

[@evigskog]

So perfect!! As always 🥰

[@MelangeASMR]

Thank you!!

[@r_r_r_r]

Oo coooool I absolutely love myth/folklore AND maps so this is so my cup of tea!

[@MelangeASMR]

Awesome, glad you liked it!

[@VickyDPi]

This is fascinating and I am so grateful! Thanks!

[@MelangeASMR]

💛

[@thedana89]

I love enuma elish! Thanks!

[@joe_malott]

Great video 🎉

[@nataliefaust7959]

Just as a note, Melange... the Hebrew Bible is called the Tanakh, while the Torah refers specifically to the first five books of the Tanakh. Lovely video! I adore all West Asian history, mythology, and cultures. ♥

[@MelangeASMR]

Ah, thank you! I find religious history fascinating but I have to admit my foundation is a bit shaky.

[@nataliefaust7959]

@@MelangeASMR You're most welcome and it's quite all right. Generally speaking "Bible" isn't used by Jews for the Hebrew Scriptures, but it's very common to use it when explaining things, such as in my initial post. It's just easier and faster to get meaning across to non-Jews to say bible. Tanakh is sort of an acronym in Hebrew that lists the Torah (the first five books), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings). ♥

[@feesoleilangedamour5340]

Hi. Thank you for your videos. I learn so much and relaxing with your voice too . also, I learn english 😃😃😃 I have a question.. you have a lot of angles and you focussing on the maps .. are you the only person to shoot your sections or you have another person with you when you tape yours videos ? ☺️ thank you . I 'm curious about that ☺️ have a good day 🙏

[@ShinnoEli]

She has one fixed camera and a second camera that's held by someone else. V^_^ (She talks about it in her "ASMR Answering Your Questions" video from last month, around four minutes in. I'd definitely recommend checking that video out; there was lots of other interesting stuff in there.)

[@feesoleilangedamour5340]

@@ShinnoEli oh.. thank you so much !!! 🙏🙏🙏

[@ayrshiretattie]

Listening to this and thought, "hey, wasn't there a metal band called Tiamat?" Looked them up and, sure enough, they've got an album called Sumerian Cry.

[@cloudsingh3147]

🙏

[@bakedzd4933]

Yay more melange!

[@AutomanicJack]

that was super interesting. i saw a documentation from a bible researcher about the old sumerian godess Aschera, which probably was even still around the time when Jesus lived honoured by the people and was seen as the wife or female counterpart Jehovas and then she got transformed to the Holy Spirit/the white dove in the old/new testament for monotheism sake. would love to hear something about that.

[@MelangeASMR]

I love stories like that! That might be a good topic for autumn, I've been wanting to put something together on mythology anyway. Thanks for the suggestion!

[@Abdulrahman1997A]

❤❤

[@krlneed]

Gilgamesh like that :)

[@dimensionalowl]

Enki or Enlil

[@dimensionalowl]

Anunaki on Nibiru

[@mikegreen3485]

Yeah I'm stylish Black top, big shirt, Enuma Elish

[@dearmadeline]

what kinda accent is this?

[@nataliem90]

She’s Austrian

[@cathycatanese]

Thanks!

[@MelangeASMR]

Thank you!! 💛