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Original Message
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I think the following information translated by Zecharia Sitchin is important because it marks the moment Enki went against his own kind, the Anunnaki, and the reason why, which was to save his creation, Mankind.
From what I understand, this was unheard of for a "Individual" within a hive mind consciousness to seperate from it and go their own way.
Anyhow, enjoy. Here is the story...
Enlil - once again cast as the prosecutor of Mankind - then ordered a punishment. We would expect to read now of the coming Deluge. But not so. Surprisingly, Enlil did not even mention a Deluge or any similar watery ordeal. Instead, he called for the decimation of Mankind through pestilence and sicknesses. The Akkadian and Assyrian versions of the epic speak of “aches, dizziness, chills, fever” as well as “disease, sickness, plague, and pestilence” afflicting Mankind and its livestock following Enlil’s call for punishment.
But Enlil’s scheme did not work. The “one who was exceedingly wise” - Atra-Hasis - happened to be especially close to the god Enki. Telling his own story in some of the versions, he says, “I am Atra-Hasis; I lived in the temple of Ea my lord.” With “his mind alert to his Lord Enki,”Atra-Hasis appealed to him to undo his brother Enlil’s plan: “Ea, O Lord, Mankind groans; the anger of the gods consumes the land. Yet it is thou who hast created us! Let there cease the aches, the dizziness, the chills, and the fever!”
Until more pieces of the broken-off tablets are found, we shall not know what Enki’s advice was.
He said of something, “. . . let there appear in the land.” Whatever it was, it worked. Soon thereafter, Enlil complained bitterly to the gods that “the people have not diminished; they are more numerous than before!”
He then proceeded to outline the extermination of Mankind through starvation. "Let supplies be cut off from the people; in their bellies, let fruit and vegetables be wanting!" The famine was to be achieved through natural forces, by a lack of rain and failing irrigation. Let the rains of the rain god be withheld from above; Below, let the waters not rise from their sources. Let the wind blow and parch the ground; Let the clouds thicken, but hold back the downpour. Even the sources of seafood were to disappear: Enki was ordered to "draw the bolt, bar the sea," and "guard" its food away from the people.
Soon the drought began to spread devastation. From above, the heat was not. . . . Below, the waters did not rise from their sources. The womb of the earth did not bear; Vegetation did not sprout. . . . The black fields turned white; The broad plain was choked with salt. The resulting famine caused havoc among the people. Conditions got worse as time went on. The Mesopotamian texts speak of six increasingly devastating sha-at-tam - a term that some translate as "years," but which literally means "passings," and, as the Assyrian version makes clear, "a year of Anu":
For one sha-at-tam they ate the earth's grass.
For the second sha-at-tam they suffered the vengeance.
The third sha-at-tam came; their features were altered by hunger, their faces were encrusted . . . they were living on the verge of death.
When the fourth sha-at-tam arrived, their faces appeared green; they walked hunched in the streets; their broad [shoulders?] became narrow. •
By the fifth "passing," human life began to deteriorate. Mothers barred their doors to their own starving daughters. Daughters spied on their mothers to see whether they had hidden any food. By the sixth "passing," cannibalism was rampant. When the sixth sha-at-tam arrived they prepared the daughter for a meal; the child they prepared for food. . . . One house devoured the other.
The texts report the persistent intercession by Atra-Hasis with his god Enki. "In the house of his god ... he set foot; . . . every day he wept, bringing oblations in the morning ... he called by the name of his god," seeking Enki's help to avert the famine.
Enki, however, must have felt bound by the decision of the other deities, for at first he did not respond.
Quite possibly, he even hid from his faithful worshiper by leaving the temple and sailing into his beloved marshlands. "When the people were living on the edge of death," Atra-Hasis "placed his bed facing the river." But there was no response.
The sight of a starving, disintegrating Mankind, of parents eating their own children, finally brought about the unavoidable: another confrontation between Enki and Enlil.
In the seventh "passing," when the remaining men and women were "like ghosts of the dead," they received a message from Enki. "Make a loud noise in the land," he said. Send out heralds to command all the people: "Do not revere your gods, do not pray to your goddesses." There was to be total disobedience!
Under the cover of such turmoil, Enki planned more concrete action. The texts, quite fragmented at this point, disclose that he convened a secret assembly of "elders" in his temple. "They entered . . . they took counsel in the House of Enki." First Enki exonerated himself, telling them how he had opposed the acts of the other gods. Then he outlined a plan of action; it somehow involved his command of the seas and the Lower World. We can glean the clandestine details of the plan from the fragmentary verses: "In the night . . . after he . . ." someone had to be "by the bank of the river" at a certain time, perhaps to await the return of Enki from the Lower World.
From there Enki "brought the water warriors" - perhaps also some of the Earthlings who were Primitive Workers in the mines. At the appointed time, commands were shouted:
"Go! . . . the order . . ." In spite of missing lines, we can gather what had happened from the reaction of Enlil. "He was filled with anger."
He summoned the Assembly of the Gods and sent his sergeant at arms to fetch Enki. Then he stood up and accused his brother of breaking the surveillance-and-containment plans:
All of us, Great Anunnaki, reached together a decision. ...
I commanded that in the Bird of Heaven Adad should guard the upper regions; that Sin and Nergal should guard the Earth's middle regions; that the bolt, the bar of the sea, you [Enki] should guard with your rockets. But you let loose provisions for the people!
Enlil accused his brother of breaking the "bolt to the sea." But Enki denied that it had happened with his consent: The bolt, the bar of the sea, I did guard with my rockets. [But] when . . . escaped from me . . . a myriad of fish ... it disappeared; they broke off the bolt. . . they had killed the guards of the sea. He claimed that he had caught the culprits and punished them, but Enlil was not satisfied. He demanded that Enki "stop feeding his people," that he no longer "supply corn rations on which the people thrive."
The reaction of Enki was astounding: The god Ea/Enki got fed up with the sitting; in the Assembly of the Gods, laughter overcame him. We can imagine the pandemonium. Enlil was furious.
There were heated exchanges with Enki and shouting. "There is slander in his hand!" When the Assembly was finally called to order, Enlil took the floor again. He reminded his colleagues and subordinates that it had been a unanimous decision. He reviewed the events that led to the fashioning of the Primitive Worker and recalled the many times that Enki "broke the rule." But, he said, there was still a chance to doom Mankind. A "killing flood" was in the offing. The approaching catastrophe had to be kept a secret from the people. He called on the Assembly to swear themselves to secrecy and, most important, to "bind prince Enki by an oath." Enlil opened his mouth to speak and addressed the Assembly of all the gods: "Come, all of us, and take an oath regarding the Killing Flood!"
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