Why did Ea permit an impure mortal to see the interior of heaven and earth? He made him great and gave him fame.[1107]
The privilege accorded to Adapa appears to alarm the gods. As among the Greeks and other nations, so also the Babylonian deities were not free from jealousy at the power and achievements of humanity. Adapa, having viewed the secrets of heaven and earth, there was nothing left for the gods but to admit him into their circle. The narrative accordingly continues:
'Now what shall we grant him? Offer him food of life, that he may eat of it.' They brought it to him, but he did not eat. Waters of life they brought him, but he did not drink. A garment they brought him. He put it on. Oil they brought him. He anointed himself.
Adapa follows the instructions of Ea, but the latter, it will be recalled, tells Adapa that food and water of death will be offered him. It is Ea, therefore, who, although the god of humanity, and who, moreover, according to the tradition involved in the Adapa legend, is the creator of mankind, who prevents his creatures from gaining immortality. The situation is very much the same that we find in the third chapter of Genesis, when God, who creates man, takes precautions lest mortals eat of the tree of life and 'live forever.' The problem presented by the Hebrew and Babylonian stories is the same: why should not man, who is descended from the gods, who is created in the likeness of a god, who by virtue of his intellect can peer into the secrets of heaven and earth, who stands superior to the rest of creation, who, to use the psalmist's figure, is only 'a scale lower than god,' why should he not be like the gods and live forever? The Hebrew legend solves the problem in a franker way than does the Babylonian. God, while as anxious as Ea to keep man from eating of the tree of life, cautions Adam against the act, whereas Ea practises a deception in order to prevent man from eating. That in both tales eternal life is contained in food points again (as we have found to be the case with the Biblical narratives of Creation and of the Deluge) to a common source for the two traditions. Similarly the phrase 'waters of life' is a figure of speech of frequent occurrence in Biblical literature in both the Old and the New Testaments. It is no argument against a common source for the Hebrew and Babylonian stories explaining how man came to forego immortality, that the waters of life should be found in the one and not in the other. If we assume with Gunkel[1108] that the stories embodied in the first chapters of Genesis were long current among the Hebrews before they were given a permanent form, the adaptation of old traditions to an entirely new order of beliefs involves a casting aside of features that could not be used and a discarding of such as seemed superfluous. The striking departures in the case of the Hebrew legends from their Babylonian counterparts are as full of significance as the striking agreements between the two. The departures and agreements must both be accounted for. For both there are reasons. So, to emphasize only one point, in a monotheistic solution of the problem under consideration, there was no place for any conflict among the gods. In Genesis God simply wills that man should not eat of the tree of life. In the Adapa legend the gods, including Anu, are willing to grant a mortal the food and water of life, simply because they believe that Ea, the creator of man, wishes him to have it. Accordingly, Anu and his associates are represented at the close of the legend as being grieved that Adapa should have foregone the privilege.
Anu looked at him[1109] and lamented over him. 'Come, Adapa, why didst thou not eat and not drink? Now thou canst not live.'
Adapa replies, unconscious of the deception practised on him:
'Ea, my lord, commanded me not to eat and not to drink.'
Adapa returns to the earth. What his subsequent fate is we do not know, for the tablet here comes to an end. It is possible that he learns what Ea has done, and that the god gives him the reason for the deception practised. A scene of this kind could not find a place in the Hebrew version that emphasizes the supreme authority of a power besides whom none other was recognized. God acts alone.
Adam, it will be recalled, after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, makes a garment for himself. There can be no doubt that there is a close connection between this tradition and the feature in the Adapa legend, where Adapa, who has been shown the 'secrets of heaven and earth,'—that is, has acquired knowledge,—is commanded by Ea to put on the garment that is offered him. The anointing oneself with oil, though an essential part of the toilet in the ancient and modern Orient, was discarded in the Hebrew tale as a superfluous feature. The idea conveyed by the use of oil was the same as the one indicated in clothing one's nakedness. Both are symbols of civilization which man is permitted to attain, but his development stops there. He cannot secure eternal life.
On the other hand, in comparing the Hebrew and Babylonian versions of the problem of knowledge and immortality, one cannot help being struck by the pessimistic tone of the former as against the more consolatory spirit of the latter. God does not want man to attain even knowledge.[1110] He secures it in disobedience to the divine will, whereas Ea willingly grants him the knowledge of all there is in heaven and earth. In this way the Hebrew and Babylonian mind, each developed the common tradition in its own way.