The Fifty Names of Marduk in Enuma Elis (Critical Essay‪)‬

Enumu elis is one of the few Akkadian texts that are relatively well known beyond the cryptic domain of the Assyriologist. The "popularity" of Enuma elis seems to relate, at least in part, to one of its most transparent themes, namely, the creation of the universe. An emphasis on the etiological aspect of the composition appears already in George Smith's translation entitled The Chaldean Account of Genesis published in 1876, only some twenty years after the official decipherment of cuneiform writing. In successive decades, other scholars adopted Smith's title, if slightly modified, and variants such as The Babylonian Genesis, The Poem of Creation, or The Epic of Creation are still frequent. (1) Although early commentators concentrated on highlighting similarities and differences between the Mesopotamian and the Biblical accounts of Genesis, it became apparent relatively soon that the text served not only mythological motives but that it also had other religious, ideological, and political purposes (see Michalowski 1990: 383-84). The creation story was thus the means to convey, proclaim, and justify the enthronement of Marduk as Babylonia's main deity. The glorification of Marduk is so forceful that the poet has him take over Enlil's role as head of the pantheon. This was achieved progressively throughout the text, first by suggesting Marduk's righteous genealogy, then by presenting him as the hero who defeated Tiamat and fashioned the universe, and finally by granting Marduk fifty names. In this paper, I wish to address the structure of the section dealing with the fifty names and its function within the poem as a whole.