) if we assume with Dr.
Poebel, as we are probably justified in doing, that the title Nintu
is employed here and elsewhere in the narrative merely as a synonym of
Ninkharsagga.(3) It appears to me far more probable that one of the two
supreme gods, Anu or Enlil, is the speaker,(4) and additional grounds
will be cited later in support of this view. It is indeed possible, in
spite of the verbs and suffixes in the singular, that the speech is to
be assigned to both Anu and Enlil, for in the last column, as we shall
see, we find verb in the singular following references to both these
deities. In any case one of the two chief gods may be regarded as
speaking and acting on behalf of both, though it may be that the
inclusion of the second name in the narrative was not original but
simply due to a combination of variant traditions. Such a conflate use
of Anu-Enlil would present a striking parallel to the Hebrew combination
Yahweh-Elohim, though of course in the case of the former pair the
subsequent stage of identification was never attained. But the evidence
furnished by the text is not conclusive, and it is preferable here and
elsewhere in the narrative to regard either Anu or Enlil as speaking and
acting both on his own behalf and as the other's representative.

(1) Op. cit., p. 21 f.; and cf. Jastrow, _Hebrew and
Babylonian Traditions_, p. 336.

(2) It necessitates the taking of (_dingir_) _Nin-tu-ra_ as
a genitive, not a dative, and the very awkward rendering
"my, Nintu's, creations".

(3) Another of the recently published Sumerian mythological
compositions from Nippur includes a number of myths in which
Enki is associated first with Ninella, referred to also as
Nintu, "the Goddess of Birth", then with Ninshar, referred
to also as Ninkurra, and finally with Ninkharsagga. This
text exhibits the process by which separate traditions with
regard to goddesses originally distinct were combined
together, with the result that their heroines were
subsequently often identified with one another. There the
myths that have not been subjected to a very severe process
of editing, and in consequence the welding is not so
complete as in the Sumerian Version of the Deluge.

(4) If Enlil's name should prove to be the first word of the
composition, we should naturally regard him as the speaker
here and as the protagonist of the gods throug