In his book, Over the Face of All the Earth, on pp. 53-55, Dr. Osgood writes):
On reading the average archaeological textbook, one is given the impression that ancient man started off with polytheistic notions and gradually came to the idea of one God.
However as one follows the actual historical records, evidence emerges that in fact the opposite occurred.
Man had the true knowledge of God and turned from it.
This fact is confirmed in the records of ancient Sumer where there are at least three clear examples.
To see this, the first example is a passage from the poem ‘Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta’ (we will see later that Enmerkar is in fact the Biblical Nimrod), where we have the following quote:
‘Once upon a time, the lands Shubur and Hamazi, Many(?) tongued Sumer, the great land of princeship’s; divine laws, Uri, the land having all that is appropriate.
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people in unison,
To Enlil in one tongue give praise….. (The Sumerians, Kramer, p. 285).
The Sumerians_ Their History, Culture, and Character (ISBN_ -- Samuel Noah Kramer -- New Ed edition, February 15, 1971 -- The University of Chicago -- 9780226452326 -- 83edaf22db275bc0ebd02052e8229b22 -- Anna’s Arc.pdf
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View full-sizeDownload The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation." — American Journal of Archaeology. "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity." — Library Journal. Archeology and Decipherment.
The people gave united praise to the god they called Enlil prior to the dispersion of languages.
Now whilst it is granted that the latter ideas of this deity were quite different, we find that the original concept was as follows:
‘Enlil was the most important deity of the Sumerian pantheon, ‘the father of the gods’, ‘the king of heaven and earth’, the king of all the lands’.
According to the myth ‘Enlil and the creation of the Pickax’, he was the god who separated heaven from earth, brought up ‘the seed of the land’ from the earth, brought forth ‘whatever was needful’, fashioned the pickax for agricultural and building purposes and presented it to the ‘black-heads’ - i.e.. the Sumerians, or perhaps even mankind as a whole.
According to the disputation ‘Summer and Winter’, Enlil was the god who brought forth all trees and grains, produced abundance and prosperity in ‘the land’, and appointed ‘Winter’ as the ‘Farmer of the Gods’ in charge of the life-producing waters and of all that grows.’(The Sumerians, p. 145)
Clearly the Sumerians had the knowledge of the true God – the Almighty – but later turned their concept into an anthropomorphic god with sinful human characteristics (Rohl, Legend, p. 221).
‘There is good reason to believe that An, the heaven-god, was at one time conceived by the Sumerians to be the supreme ruler of the pantheon.
An continued to be worshipped in Sumer throughout the millenniums, but he gradually lost much of his prominence.
He became a rather shadowy figure in the pantheon, and he is rarely mentioned in the hymns and myths of later days, and by that time most of his powers had been conferred upon the god Enlil’. (The Sumerians, p. 118)
Instead if the city being referred to as the house of An, it appears that the name was changed to Uruk, and its worship was changed to the worship of Inanna, a goddess of sexual love, fertility and procreation, and associated with a ritual in the temple called ‘holy marriage’ (but no doubt the forerunner of temple prostitution).
Inanna in Semitic is Ishtar, later Astarte, and Ashteroth known from the Bible in association with Baal worship which was considered an abomination by God.
The Sumerians turned from the true God of heaven.
The third example is even more interesting.
This involves the god known to the Sumerians as Enki.
He was the god of Eridu which was the same people that built Ur – a Chaldean city where Abraham came from.
[Mackey: I believe that Abram came from Ur (Urfa) near Harran].
This is highly significant.
Now Enki in the semitic Akkadian is Ea. (Rohl, Legend, p. 206-207).
Apparently this is pronounced Eya.
The Hebrew equivalent is Eyah – the name God said Moses was to call Him to the Israelite people – the I AM (Exodus 3:14).
Then revealing Himself in the expanded name Jahweh (Exodus 3:15).
He declares that he was known by this name by the Patriarchs – the name of the covenant-making God, as he asks the rhetorical question in Exodus 6:3‘… by my name Jehovah (Jahweh) was I not known to them?’ (sadly most versions misinterpret this question and turn it into a negative statement).
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
It however brings great significance to the statement in Genesis 9:26,
‘Blessed be Jahweh, the God of Shem’.
The root behind the name Eyah and thus Jahweh is a root that means ‘to exist’, and thus the self-existent God, the eternal God, is the God that the people of Ur rejected in favor of the moon god Nanna and turned the idea behind Enki into an anthropomorphic being like sinful man.
