takes precautions
lest mortals eat of the tree of life and 'live forever.' The problem
presented by the Hebrew and Babylonian stories is the same: why should
not man, who is descended from the gods, who is created in the likeness
of a god, who by virtue of his intellect can peer into the secrets of
heaven and earth, who stands superior to the rest of creation, who, to
use the psalmist's figure, is only 'a scale lower than god,' why should
he not be like the gods and live forever? The Hebrew legend solves the
problem in a franker way than does the Babylonian. God, while as anxious
as Ea to keep man from eating of the tree of life, cautions Adam against
the act, whereas Ea practises a deception in order to prevent man from
eating. That in both tales eternal life is contained in food points
again (as we have found to be the case with the Biblical narratives of
Creation and of the Deluge) to a common source for the two traditions.
Similarly the phrase 'waters of life' is a figure of speech of frequent
occurrence in Biblical literature in both the Old and the New
Testaments. It is no argument against a common source for the Hebrew and
Babylonian stories explaining how man came to forego immortality, that
the waters of life should be found in the one and not in the other. If
we assume with Gunkel[1108] that the stories embodied in the first
chapters of Genesis were long current among the Hebrews before they were
given a permanent form, the adaptation of old traditions to an entirely
new order of beliefs involves a casting aside of features that could not
be used and a discarding of such as seemed superfluous. The striking
departures in the case of the Hebrew legends from their Babylonian
counterparts are as full of significance as the striking agreements
between the two. The departures and agreements must both be accounted
for. For both there are reasons. So, to emphasize only one point, in a
monotheistic solution of the problem under consideration, there was no
place for any conflict among the gods. In Genesis God simply wills that
man should not eat of the tree of life. In the Adapa legend the gods,
including Anu, are willing to grant a mortal the food and water of life,
simply because they believe that Ea, the creator of man, wishes him to
have it. Accordingly, Anu and his associates are represented at the
close of the legend as being grieved that Adapa should have foregone the
privilege.

Anu looked at him[1109] and