The second tablet describes humanity multiplying and growing so numerous and loud that the god Enlil cannot sleep, prompting him to send a graduated series of disasters, plague, then drought, then famine, to reduce the population, each time thwarted when the god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets up the flood of Tablet III as Enlil's final and most drastic measure.
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Position in the Canon Canonical Reference Literary form (class) Connections
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Enki, Deities This source names Enki directly: "each time thwarted when the god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets..."
Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
Enlil, Deities This source names Enlil directly: "so numerous and loud that the god Enlil cannot sleep, prompting him to send a graduated series of disasters, plague, then drought, then famine, to reduce the population, each time thwarted when the..."
Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
This source names Utnapishtim directly: "god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets up the flood of Tablet III..."
Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
Belongs to Tradition
Source Epic of Gilgamesh (Wikipedia)
Contained In
Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
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Sources
1. Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood
W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Oxford University Press, 1969Tablet II, the escalating plaguesQuote, Tablet II, the escalating plagues
Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood: narrative epic recounting the gods sending plagues on humanity.
Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others
Stephanie Dalley, Oxford University Press, 2000on the overpopulation and plague motifView the Source Epic of Gilgamesh (Wikipedia)
Belongs to Tradition: Mesopotamian Religion, Lead states this is an epic from ancient MesopotamiaView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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