l, _Der Thontafelfund von
El-Amarna_, iii. 166a, b; translated also by Harper, _ib._ pp. 420, 421.

[1092] See above, p. 63.

[1093] My rendering is given in continuous lines. The legend is in
narrative, not in poetic form.

[1094] Adapa.

[1095] Lit., 'house.'

[1096] Neither Delitzsch's suggestion 'god of dwellings' nor Harper's
'god thou art strong' is acceptable.

[1097] See p. 99.

[1098] See p. 462.

[1099] See the following chapter.

[1100] See pp. 139 _seq._

[1101] First suggested by Zimmern.

[1102] Of the eighth century. See Harper, _ib._ p. 424.

[1103] To Ea.

[1104] Anu, it will be recalled, utters the same cry. See p. 546.

[1105] Referring to his garments of mourning.

[1106] _I.e._, Ea.

[1107] I follow Zimmern's rendition of the line.

[1108] _Schoepfung und Chaos_, pp. 168 _seq._

[1109] Adapa.

[1110] The phrase 'knowledge of good and evil' (Gen. ii. 17) is simply
an expression equivalent to our 'everything,' or to the Babylonian
'secrets of heaven and earth.'

[1111] See pp. 476 _seq._ Sayce has even gone so far as to suggest an
identification of Adapa (by reading Adawa) with the Biblical Adam, but
this conjecture is untenable.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE VIEWS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

The problem of immortality, we have seen, engaged the serious attention
of the Babylonian theologians. While the solutions they had to offer
could hardly have been satisfactory either to themselves or to the
masses, it must not be supposed that the denial of immortality to man
involved the total extinction of conscious vitality. Neither the people
nor the leaders of religious thought ever faced the possibility of the
total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a
passage to another kind of life, and the denial of immortality merely
emphasized the impossibility of escaping the change in existence brought
about by death. The gods alone do not pass from one phase of existence
to the other. Death was mysterious, but not more mysterious than life.
The Babylonian religion does not transcend the stage of belief,
characteristic of primitive culture everywhere, which cannot conceive of
the possibility of life coming to an absolute end. Life of some kind and
in some form was always presupposed. So far as man was concerned,
created by some god,--Bel, Ea, Aruru, or Ishtar, according to the
various traditions that were current,[1112]--no divine fiat could wipe
out what was endow