09/04/2026
Someone asked me to expand on my previous post. I didn't know which direction to go, before or after, so I did both. In Genesis, creation begins on page one, in the Seven Tablets of Creation, creation begins on tablet IV. There's a lot more to the story than most know.
Before creation, as the old stories claim,
Across distant cultures the beginning was the same.
There first came the darkness, the waters, the void,
A world without order, not yet formed or employed.
Before the beginning, before heaven had form,
The world lay in darkness, surrounded by storm.
From waters of chaos the first gods would rise,
While darkness still covered the earth and the skies.
The waters were ruled by Apsu and Tiamat,
The first of the gods from where all others begat.
From their union came sons who would challenge their reign,
And soon their great kingdom was fractured by pain.
But these weren't great beings who fell from the skies,
Nor spirits immortal with supernatural lives.
They were rulers of lands where the great waters ran,
Who governed their kingdoms like any other man.
Apsu ruled waters and marshlands below,
While Tiamat held lands above where the great rivers flow.
Together they governed with power and might,
Until blood within family would shatter their right.
Of their sons there was Kingu, the favored to reign,
While Lahmu was viewed with distrust and disdain.
Though Lahmu was eldest and first in the line,
His father chose Kingu to rule in his time.
Fearing that Lahmu might challenge his throne,
Apsu conspired against flesh of his own.
But Lahmu discovered what Apsu had planned,
And struck down his father before his command.
His father lay dead with his minister too,
And Lahmu took power with nothing to lose.
He settled in Eridu, claiming the land,
And mastered the marshes by building a dam.
But Tiamat remembered the blood that was spilled,
And those loyal to Apsu demanded Lahmu be killed.
They gathered around Kingu, his brother and foe,
And crowned him their ruler as tensions would grow.
The Tablet of Destinies was placed in his hand,
Giving Kingu the right to command every land.
He carried the title all rulers desired,
While hatred between the two brothers burned higher.
Years passed as both families strengthened their claim,
While sons of the rulers were drawn to the same.
Lahmu had Anshar, the first of his line,
Then Marduk, his younger, with conquest in mind.
Kingu grew stronger with sons of his own,
And soon his great army threatened the throne.
The balance of power had shifted his way,
And Lahmu grew weaker with each passing day.
So Lahmu called Anshar and ordered him forth,
To challenge his uncle and prove what he's worth.
But Anshar refused him, unwilling to fight,
So Marduk stepped forward to claim what was right.
He offered to battle the forces of old,
But only if kingship became his to hold.
The gods gave agreement and granted his plea,
If Marduk could bring them their victory.
With weapons and armor bestowed by his sire,
He marched against Kingu with vengeance and fire.
The battle was brutal, but ended with haste,
As Kingu was captured and stripped of his place.
From Kingu he seized both the title and command,
The Tablet of Destinies passed to Marduk's hand.
Then Tiamat remained as the last of the old,
The queen of the waters whose vengeance grew cold.
She fled from the warrior who entered her land,
But Marduk pursued her with spear in his hand.
He trapped her in netting and struck through her chest,
Ending the power her kingdom possessed.
Her body was broken, her followers confined,
And Chaos was conquered by Marduk's design.
Yet victory opened a struggle for reign,
For Anshar by birth-right still held first claim.
Though Marduk had conquered and answered the call,
His brother was eldest and heir after all.
Their father divided the powers they sought,
Believing the balance would settle their lot.
Anshar was given the right to command,
While Marduk remained as the Lord of the Land.
But peace among brothers would never remain,
For blood once awakened demanded more pain.
Marduk believed he was cheated once more,
And anger soon entered the heart that he bore.
With help from his sister, a murder was planned,
To place every power within Marduk's hand.
His brother was struck and abandoned to die,
While beasts took the blame for the murderous lie.
The following morning, with Anshar now dead,
The crown of the kingdom was placed on Marduk's head.
The powers of heaven and earth became one,
And Marduk now ruled what his fathers had begun.
The ruler grew greater with each passing year,
His enemies conquered, his subjects in fear.
His deeds became stories repeated abroad,
Until the man who was king became known as a god.
As centuries passed, the old memories blurred,
And history was reshaped with each spoken word.
The Bible would later reshape what was said,
With God as creator, and this is how it read.
In the beginning, or at least we were told,
An all knowing God had fashioned the world.
Believed by most, both young and old,
A loving God who became so cold.
He sent forth the flood to wash us away,
For only again to be led astray,
When the flood didn't work, he made a new plan,
He wiped out one million with a wave of his hand.
When that wasn't enough he continued to try,
By raining fire and brimstone down from the sky.
As time passed by, believers dared not sin,
While all along ignorant to this story's origin.
For in the true beginning, God was a man,
Not a divine being, no divine plan.
He mastered the waters, creating a dam.
This dried the marshes, creating new land.
He built a mud-brick mountain house and named it Heaven.
Then raised the same for sons who numbered seven.
Their temples stood on high, on sacred foundation.
From there they ruled in heaven and shaped civilization.
As this story passed from generation to generation,
This man became known as the God of Creation.
But as the story goes, God made man from clay.
He placed him in a garden where man intended to stay.
Man worked the garden and he lived there alone.
So God made a woman from the man's bone.
Then along came Nachash, the serpent, the shining one.
He tempted her to eat, the evil deed was done.
She offered the fruit to man, which he also consumed.
And because of this sin, mankind was now doomed.
They broke God’s command, so he drove them into exile.
He judged the deed corrupt, deceitful, and vile.
Then cursed Nachash, the serpent of guile.
But the story told here is a mere retelling,
Of an ancient account of words more compelling.
Where a man crowned as God made slaves for his garden's tilling.
God shaped this lower class and named it mankind.
Trained in their master's image to bear the work God assigned.
Then the shining one Anu, who swore to avenge,
His father slain by God, his blood demanded revenge.
The shining one plotted, setting his gaze on mankind,
To claim sacred knowledge God had hidden and confined.
He offered man poison bread with darker plans designed.
But man refused the feast and left its curse behind.
So he sent forth a woman with a secret purpose aligned.
To steal the sacred knowledge that God had enshrined.
She journeyed to Eridu dressed for her role,
And entered the chamber where God kept control.
She drank with the Lord till his judgment grew weak,
Then asked for the knowledge she'd traveled to seek.
He proudly revealed her the tablet he prized,
Then fell into slumber, too drunk to realize.
She fled back to Uruk with knowledge in hand,
And opened its secrets to woman and man.
The fruit from the tree that mankind was denied,
Was knowledge the rulers had guarded inside.
What later became an original sin,
Was man gaining knowledge once hidden from him.
But Anu had learned what his uncle concealed,
The truth of his father's own murder revealed.
He gathered his warriors and stormed Heaven's gate,
Driving God from his throne to avenge his father's fate.
The Lord returned to Eridu, still holding command,
While Anu took Heaven and strengthened his hand.
Yet power brought conflict within Anu's reign,
And even his sons began showing disdain.
His sons Ellil and Hadad grew opposed to his way,
As tensions within his own household held sway.
His treachery spread and his enemies grew,
While those once beside him slowly withdrew.
The shining one once praised for the light that he bore,
Became known as a serpent through deeds done before.
No scales marked his body, no crawling beast grew,
It was guile and betrayal that shaped how they knew.
His own blood opposed him, his kingdom grew weak,
And those he had wronged began vengeance to seek.
And so the same blood feud continued its course,
As each wounded bloodline returned with new force.
But another great judgment was soon to begin,
Though later accounts would blame mankind's sin.
Genesis blamed violence corrupting their days,
While Enoch blamed Watchers who led men astray.
But tablets much older gave different complaint,
The noise of the people exhausted restraint.
The rulers grew weary of mankind below,
And gathered together to silence them so.
They planned that the waters would wash them away,
Lord of the Earth opposed what the council would say.
He secretly warned one good man of their scheme,
And told him to build before waters would stream.
The Bible called Noah the man who survived,
While older traditions kept other names alive.
Ziusudra in Sumer would weather the blast,
Atrahasis and Utnapishtim further carried the past.
Different names followed the survivor through time,
Yet warning and vessel remained in each line.
Scripture brought creatures of every known kind,
While Noah and family followed behind.
The older boat carried farm animals too,
With family and craftsmen among its small crew.
Then Genesis opened the fountains below,
And floodgates of heaven let great waters flow.
For forty days rainfall would descend from the sky,
Till mountains were covered and mankind would die.
But tablets much older told seven days' rain,
As storms drove the Euphrates across Sumer's plain.
Hadad roared thunder while blackened skies rained,
The dikes split open, the channels unchained.
The moorings were severed, the waterways freed,
The rivers poured outward with terrible speed.
The cities were swallowed, the lowlands were stained,
And even the gods feared the flood they had gained.
They fled up to Heaven, their ziggurats high,
And watched from their mountains as people would die.
The gods who had ordered the waters released,
Now wept at destruction that could not be ceased.
Both stories sent birds when the waters withdrew,
To search for dry ground that the survivors once knew.
The Bible's dove carried a leaf through the sky,
The older returned bearing mud from nearby.
The Bible said Ararat received Noah at last,
While older accounts named Mt Nisir in the past.
Both survivors offered their sacrifice there,
But only the older was granted god's share.
The survivor was blessed with unending life,
Rewarded for living through floodwater strife.
Yet this was no ocean that swallowed each shore,
The cities of Sumer could simply be seen no more.
The water stayed local, but stories unfurled,
Until one flooded region became all the world.
And tablets would mark where the old age would end,
With Shuruppak fallen and Kish to ascend.
After the flood, kingship returned to the plain,
As dynasties rose and established their reign.
The Bible then followed with Noah's three sons,
From whom every kingdom and nation would come.
But older traditions remembered the same,
As rulers and gods beneath differing names.
Seventy nations were counted in line,
While El claimed seventy sons as divine.
The Most High divided the borders and lands,
Giving each son a people to hold in his hands.
And Yahweh was given his portion to claim,
The people of Jacob allotted his name.
Some accounts called El by the name Cronus too,
While post-flood traditions preserved what they knew.
Old writings named Cronus, Titan, Japetus by name,
As the three sons of Noah each given a claim.
The Bible named Shem, Ham, and Japheth instead,
Three branches through which all the nations would spread.
As El became Cronus in Greco-Phoenician lore,
And Cronus as Ham linked the bloodlines once more.
From Ham came Mizraim and Cush in the line,
Two rulers whose kingdoms were later divine.
Mizraim was Set in Egyptian design,
While Cush was Osiris of the southern bloodline.
The southern throne fell as the northern prevailed,
And Egypt remembered the feud in its tale.
As Menes he united the kingdoms as one,
And history recorded what Set had begun.
So men called mere patriarchs in scripture's account,
Became gods in the nations where temples would mount.
The family stayed rooted though titles would change,
Each culture retold them with names rearranged.
Then scripture named Nimrod, a hunter of fame,
Who founded great cities and strengthened his name.
In Shinar his kingdom first rose from the plain,
With Babel and Erech both tied to his reign.
But Sumer remembered two kings in his place,
Whose stories were later condensed in one face.
Enmerkar ruled Uruk and strengthened the land,
While Etana reached toward the heavens firsthand.
A tower was raised with its summit held high,
For men sought a pathway that reached to the sky.
But towers in Sumer were more than mere stone,
They joined earthly kingship to heaven's own throne.
The Bible says mankind once spoke with one tongue,
Till God broke their language and scattered each one.
Yet Sumer had spoken of this long before,
When Eridu's Lord changed the speech people bore.
As Semitic peoples moved into the plain,
The language of Sumer could not always remain.
One culture met others, and unity broke,
As differing languages divided the folk.
What scripture made punishment sent from the sky,
Was rooted in kingdoms where cultures collide.
The tower was power, the language was rule,
And Babel preserved where those ancient worlds dueled.
But old family hatred still poisoned the throne,
And Anu's own blood soon opposed at home.
His children rose with him no longer in awe,
While Ninurta joined them to settle the score.
The Shining One fell from the Heaven he'd gained,
His power was broken, his influence waned.
Ninurta was praised as the shackle of Anu,
A title recalling what victors could do.
Then El rose in power among his own kin,
And gathered the Elohim closely within.
The serpent was fallen, yet peace did not last,
For every new ruler inherited the past.
Allies grew rivals when victory was won,
And Ninurta opposed what the Elohim had done.
As Kumarbi remembered in Anatolian fame,
He sent forth his children to challenge El's claim.
First Lotan, the serpent, was sent into fight,
Then Yam, lord of waters, would challenge their right.
But Hadad struck both with the strength of his hand,
And rose as the warrior who guarded El's land.
Then Titan and Iapetus entered the war,
And conflict spread wider than ever before.
The Greeks called this war the Titanomachy,
Another old blood feud preserved differently.
When fighting was ended, Hadad stood above,
The warrior El and the Elohim loved.
El gave him a throne upon Zaphon's great height,
Where clouds crowned his kingdom and lightning his might.
His voice was the thunder, his weapon the mace,
The storm clouds his kingdom, the mountain his place.
He battled the sea and the twisting great snake,
While mountains below him were said to all quake.
Canaan knew Hadad by the title of Baal,
While Hebrews called him Yahweh, Lord of all.
Baal struck Lotan, the twisting serpent that fled,
While Yahweh struck Leviathan, leaving the serpent dead.
Baal battled Nahar, the raging lord of the sea,
While Yahweh subdued waters and claimed victory.
Both ruled from mountains surrounded by storm,
The same ancient office in differing form.
The names had been altered, the kingdoms had changed,
But thunder and serpent remained rearranged.
The storm-bearing ruler still conquered the sea,
And claimed over nations divine sovereignty.
Yet victory fed him with limitless pride,
And strength without measure grew dark at his side.
He turned on the children of Ashera's line,
And even the elders grew scared of his climb.
His power outpaced every boundary and law,
Till those who once praised him grew fearful with awe.
The guardian once seated beside El on high,
Became one they would seek to remove from the sky.
In Canaan, Mot brought the storm ruler low,
And Athtar took Heaven but soon let it go.
In Isaiah, Lucifer fell from the heavens, cast down,
Like Athtar, who rose but could not hold the crown.
Then Hadad returned and reclaimed what he'd lost,
The throne won through battle regardless the cost.
But later religions transformed this old frame,
And ancient opponents received altered names.
The mighty storm ruler once seated up there,
Became the Adversary, prince of the air.
The New Testament called him the god of this age,
A ruler of kingdoms on history's page.
The lord of the atmosphere, power, and air,
Still carried the office that Hadad held there.
One memory crowned him as Yahweh the Lord,
Another condemned him as Satan abhorred.
Yet thunder and mountains remained in the frame,
Along with the serpent despite changing name.
The gods did not vanish when kingdoms would fall,
Their names merely changed as new priesthoods would call.
The victor of one age, once righteous and brave,
Could turn to the demon another age gave.
From Apsu to Marduk, from Anu to El,
Each ruler would rise while another house fell.
From El down to Hadad, the pattern remained,
As blood followed blood and each kingdom was claimed.
A dam became firmament, ziggurat Heaven,
A council of rulers the heavenly seven.
A tablet became fruit, forbidden to man,
And kings became gods as the stories began.
A regional flood became all of the earth,
A dynasty's rise became heavenly birth.
A tower of kingship reached into the sky,
While political rivals became gods on high.
Their battles grew cosmic, their kingdoms divine,
Their blood feuds survived through religion and time.
What started as rulers with weapons and rod,
Passed down through the ages and turned into God.
