Similarities Between Christianity And Sumerian Religion

Throughout human history a nearly innumerable amount of cultures have risen, each developing their own sets of sociological norms and beliefs. In complex societies, like Sumer, these norms developed further into laws or were expressed in religious texts. In History Begins at Sumer, Samuel Noah Kramer identifies parallels among the religious literature of ancient Sumerian society and the modern holy book of Christianity, the Bible. While there are certainly many differences among the Sumerian religion and Christianity, Kramer offers enough evidence to be persuasive in his belief that Christianity (among other religions) borrowed upon ideas and literature from Sumerian society. The first religious parallel described by Kramer is the concept …show more content…
This, Kramer suggests, is reminiscent of the Bible verse Genesis 2:6, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” (143). In a primary passage from the tale, Enki eats eight various plants from the garden in Dilmun and — in doing so — upsets the goddess Ninhursag, who curses him with death. Kramer identifies this as being easily associated with Adam’s eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the biblical tale of man’s fall from paradise (143). It is this similarity that leads to Kramer’s primary and most convincing argument for the connection between the Sumerian and biblical paradise stories. Both Enki and Adam experience some consequence for eating their respective forbidden foods, but these consequences are quite different and ultimately do not seem to offer a significant relationship between the writings. However, Enki’s punishment, argues Kramer, offers the first trace of origin from “Enki and Ninhursag” to the biblical paradise. Due to the curse, eight of Enki’s organs begin to fail, one of which is his rib. In order to save him, a deity is created to heal each organ (Kramer 146). It is at this point that Kramer reveals his convincing explanation