lamented over him. 'Come, Adapa, why
didst thou not eat and not drink? Now thou canst not live.'

Adapa replies, unconscious of the deception practised on him:

'Ea, my lord, commanded me not to eat and not to drink.'

Adapa returns to the earth. What his subsequent fate is we do not know,
for the tablet here comes to an end. It is possible that he learns what
Ea has done, and that the god gives him the reason for the deception
practised. A scene of this kind could not find a place in the Hebrew
version that emphasizes the supreme authority of a power besides whom
none other was recognized. God acts alone.

Adam, it will be recalled, after eating of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, makes a garment for himself. There can be no doubt that there
is a close connection between this tradition and the feature in the
Adapa legend, where Adapa, who has been shown the 'secrets of heaven and
earth,'--that is, has acquired knowledge,--is commanded by Ea to put on
the garment that is offered him. The anointing oneself with oil, though
an essential part of the toilet in the ancient and modern Orient, was
discarded in the Hebrew tale as a superfluous feature. The idea conveyed
by the use of oil was the same as the one indicated in clothing one's
nakedness. Both are symbols of civilization which man is permitted to
attain, but his development stops there. He cannot secure eternal life.

On the other hand, in comparing the Hebrew and Babylonian versions of
the problem of knowledge and immortality, one cannot help being struck
by the pessimistic tone of the former as against the more consolatory
spirit of the latter. God does not want man to attain even
knowledge.[1110] He secures it in disobedience to the divine will,
whereas Ea willingly grants him the knowledge of all there is in heaven
and earth. In this way the Hebrew and Babylonian mind, each developed
the common tradition in its own way.

Leaving the comparison aside and coming back for a moment to the Adapa
story, it is interesting to observe that as we have two tales, both
intended to explain the position of Marduk at the head of the pantheon,
the one by making him the conqueror of Tiamat and forcing from Kingu the
tablets of fate, the other by representing him as recovering from Zu the
tablets which En-lil, who originally held them, could not protect
against the storm-bird, so we have two solutions offered for the problem
of immortality. The one in the Gilgamesh