Dr. Dylan Johnson

He's what's called the Lulu Amelu, the primordial man.

And in that story, it's through a woman, this time a prostitute named Shamhat, that Enkidu is brought into the world of civilization, and explicitly through the act of sex, that he gains consciousness.

So in the biblical tradition, we don't have explicit references to sex, but still the woman plays the role of that second stage of evolution of consciousness to take Enkidu or the man from that primordial state to one of consciousness.

So again, we have these parallels.

Exactly.

Because it's the woman who takes the fruit.

And man wouldn't gain consciousness were it not for the woman.

So again, we can kind of flip with more feminist interpretations.

The view on the fruit is it's not a negative thing.

Not necessarily, unless you view consciousness as inherently negative.

And so, again, we have these very clear parallels.

Now, I'm not trying to make the case here that these texts were known to biblical authors in a direct way, but these ideas and variations would have been widely disseminated, both in Mesopotamia in texts that we don't have access to, but also all along the Levantine coast, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.

There would have been versions of these creation stories.

And then there's still another one that's really important.

And this is the story called Adipa and the South Wind.

Not many people will know this story, but what's really important is early versions of this Adapa story basically speak about him as he's this clever exorcist who plays a trick on the gods.

But at some point in the Neo-Assyrian period, so really close to when we think the Eden story is being written, his character changes.

And his character in the opening lines is described as the exceedingly clever man who attained wisdom but not immortality.

And that's the narrative, that's the story of Adapa.

And there, he misses out on immortality by not eating food offered to him by the gods, because he doesn't understand what it would give him, which is immortality.