By the Gods!

Atar

The embodiment of fire in Zoroastrian mythology, Atar was the son of Ahura Mazda, although fire worship probably existed long before the naming of the supreme being. According to the teachings of Zoroastrianism, fire was one of Ahura Mazda’s seven creations. Atar was said to bring men comfort and wisdom, and to defend the world from evil. It represented the light of truth and the divine spark in humankind, which signified the presence of the supreme god. Yup, pretty much covers all the fire-metaphors.

The monstrous dragon Azhi Dahaka sought to extinguish the divine fire in a bloody battle, which took place across land, sea and air. Eventually, Atar caught the dragon and chained it to a mountain. ‘Cuz that’s how fire do it. 

Utnapishtim

According to one version of the Mesopotamian flood myth, Utnapishtim was the wise man who alone survived the great flood that was sent to eradicate humanity. The gods Anu, Enlil, Ninurta and Ennugi decided to destroy humankind, having grown tired of their ways. Oh, those humans, with their ways!

However, Ea, the water god, warned Utnapishtim of the conspiracy, and told him to build a great boat, and in it store the seeds of all life. He did it, and loaded it with the said seeds, his cattle, his family, and an ass-load of birds. A filthy rain came for six days and six nights, and the people despaired. On the seventh day it ceased, and all that was left of humanity was a vast heap of thick mud, and Utnapishtim’s ship. He sent out birds to look for land, and eventually a raven found some, prompting Utnapishtim to place offerings to the gods in gratitude. Utnapishtim was granted the immortality of the gods in return for his saving of humanity and appeasing of the mesopotamian pantheon. 

Later on, Gilgamesh, (ever heard of him? He’s kind of a big deal) who was a descendant of Utnapishtim, tracked him down to learn of him the secret of immortality. Long story short, he gets rejected. 

Now, if this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Indeed, the biblical Noah is an analog of Utnapishtim, though the Sumerian/Mesopotamian/Babylonian deluge story was written long before the Noah of the Torah. Deluge myths are found all over the world. People move, stories move, and myths morph into other myths. An argument for cultural diffusion, if you look at it that way. Or, perhaps, we’re all just coded to have similar developmental paths, prompting similar stories to crop up in global religions? That’d be the parallel development argument. Me, I’m a diffusion guy.

Lilith in Judaism 

In Hebrew mythology Lilith is believed to be a creature that is essentially a succubus, in that she seduces men and eats children. Her origins are scattered and varied, and while her presence in the Hebrew Bible itself is minimal, (perhaps nonexistent) additional writings in Judeo-Christian folklore have credited her with involvement in significant events in the Hebrew Bible. 

According to Hebrew legend Lilith was the first woman to be created, at the same time as Adam (according to the Talmud). She may have been his first wife and refused to lay with him, she may have been a woman who left Eden and then became a demon, she may have been a demon in the first place, or she may have been a fallen Cherubim. With all these theories flying about, who really knows? She is charged with tricking Eve into eating the infamous apple, and thus convincing Adam to do the same, so obviously Yahweh isn’t a big fan of her. Her only real mention in the Hebrew Bible, however, comes in Isaiah, a book of prophecy, and refers to a screech owl that some believe to be Lilith, as the owl was her sacred animal. Regardless of what we can actually pin on her, though, she’s definitely a big deal. She originated in Sumerian mythology as a goddess of desolation, and appears in Babylonian, Greek, and Arab myths, and is utilized in modern Luciferian and Wiccan practices.

Shamash

The Babylonian god of the sun was known as Shamash, and as Utu to the Sumerians. He saw all things, and was therefore also seen as a god of justice and divination, as his light uncovered every misdeed and allowed him to see into the future. He was nearly always depicted as a king seated on a throne.

Every morning, the scorpion men (as awesome as they sound) opened a gate in the vast mountain of Mashu, and Shamash made his way out into the sky. Slowly, he climbed the mountain until he reached it’s peak, the highest point in the sky, and then as evening approached he rode his chariot toward another great mountain and disappeared through its gates. During the night he journeyed under the depths of the earth, reemerging at the original gate the next morning. Sounds monotonous, but at least he got to see those awesome scorpion men every day.

Sumerian Religion

When it comes to bein’ old, the Sumerians take the ancient-cake. Sumer is the earliest known civilization in the world, and is known as the Cradle of Civilization. Centred in Mesopotamia (Greek for “the land between the rivers”) between the Euphrates and the Tigris and beginning in the 6th-5th millenium BCE, their empirical and cultural progress influenced mesopotamian development for thousands of years. 

Sumerian cosmology saw the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea. Under the earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called the Apsu (a name we see in later Babylonian myth). The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, and may have later become Tiamat during the Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st-20th century BCE. They developed a pantheon of anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces that underwent some changes over the millennia. Some of the important deities were Apsu, An, (god of heaven) Enlil, (god of the air) and Enki (god of freshwater and male fertility).

[Amendment: a kind reader brought a few errors in this post to my attention, and after checking some other sources I’ve adjusted some dates and phrasing. I use a variety of sources and try to cross-reference, but the importance of a particular fact in one source doesn’t always mesh with others, so I try to to establish a middle ground that is as inclusive as possible without overgeneralizing. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks!]

Tiamat

In the Babylonian creation myth, (Enuma Elish) Tiamat was the primordial salt-water ocean god that existed at the beginning of time. The universal primeval mother, she was depicted as a monstrous female dragon and was believed to embody the forces of chaos. The waters of Tiamat mingled with the fresh-water primordial ocean, Apsu, and in doing so initiated the creation of the gods.

Tiamat eventually assaulted some of the younger gods due after Ea (their leader, essentially) captured Apsu. Tiamat gave birth to an army of monsters that were “sharp of tooth and merciless of fang” and waged war on these young gods. (Note: this is where the image of Tiamat as a dragon comes from, the description of her children)

Nobody could stop the raging Tiamat, but eventually Marduk took up the challenge. They fought, and when Tiamat opened her jaws to swallow Marduk, he threw a raging storm into her mouth so that she was unable to close it. Then he did what anyone would do: catch ‘er in a net and fill ‘er with arrows before pulling her insides out. Classy. Marduk split Tiamat’s skull and slashed her body in two. One half of the body became the heavens, the other the ocean floor. He then pierced her eyes to form the sources of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and bent her tail into the sky to form the Milky Way.