Due Jan 30

Sacred Performance in Babylon

Reading: Enuma Elish (Blackboard: EnumaElish.pdf)

Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, and post as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:

1. Marduk proves himself the equal of Tiamat when he kills her. But does this mean he is simply her replacement? Or is he different from her, qualitatively? Quote or paraphrase a moment that strikes you as presenting these two characters as similar or as strikingly different entities.
2. In the introduction I wrote to the Enuma Elish, I suggested that this epic is a political as well as a cosmic myth of creation. Quote or paraphrase a moment when the action strikes you as foregrounding the creation of a political order.