Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

Sumero-Akkadian Mythology as Revisionist History of Whatever Came Over on the Boat

  What I have come to call “The Babel Paradigm” is a historical pattern that repeats itself from earliest times to the present. It is, at heart, a form of historical revisionism, where the meaning of past people and events is subverted for a purpose that is inherently hostile to what those people originally stood for, and to the reason behind the events in question.

  In the case of the history of God’s dealings with humanity, we start with people who knew God truthfully, as God had revealed Himself. Later generations (they do not need to be much later) either actively or passively rebelled against that revelation, and then sought to redefine the idea of God into something they could control. It is the heart of what the Bible calls idolatry: to fashion a god that conforms to a human mental image or ideology.

  In the pre-Christian, pre-Mosaic world, this came by lesser deities that distanced people from whatever legitimate idea of God they had. Eventually, the increasingly distant perception of God made it easy for ancient cults to either redefine God for their own ends, or make Him vanish entirely from people’s thinking.

  The Hebrew Old Testament is collectively a reaction against the dominant cults of the ancient Near East. Babel has a signature. It is not merely the sudden introduction of new languages, but of cults, worldviews, and religious forms inherently hostile to the God revealed in the Old and New Testament. The implications of Genesis 1-11 are truly horrifying in their scope—not because the God of the Bible is horrible, but because humanity is. It is as if God saw where the human heart wanted to go, grieved, and then gave Satan the “first move” in their long warfare since the Deluge.

  Satan effectively became the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) by blinding minds. Erasing history is the first move of any attempt to blind and control minds. Yet there is much to be said for the advantage of having the last move in any strategic situation.

  Satan’s “first move” at “civilization building” was Sumer and Akkad, two different people groups with the exact same mythology and religion, but two wildly different languages. That is an interesting historical signature in and of itself.

  In Sumero-Akkadian myth, the earliest extra-biblically known religion of post-Deluge civilization, we see a gruesome reflection of what sort of things humans worship when left to ourselves. My novel is actually a sanitized depiction, but not too sanitized, lest today’s reader assume this is just another belief system, as good an alternative for the human condition as any other.

  The goddess Inana, for example, is faithfully reproduced in my human character Inana—she was the goddess of prostitution, sex (but not the married sex of husband and wife), and war. She is the epitome of corrupted femininity, from which any redemptive element is removed. That is how the Sumerians and Akkadians themselves depicted her—and worshipped her. That is how the Canaanites also received her, as Astarte, which is the Western Semitic pronunciation of Ishtar, the Akkadian name for Inana.

  In Egypt, we see her live on as Isis, which is how her name transliterated there; although in Egypt we see some humanizing of her raw brutality, in that Isis had some mothering qualities added.

  The curses and blessings from the chapter Gilgamesh come right out of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu’s blessing of the prostitute Shamhat, “May the mother of seven sons be deserted by her husband because of you,” was a real “blessing” of the Inana/Ishtar cult, and comes straight from the Gilgamesh epic. I can think of no greater expression of contempt for womanhood or family stability than such a “blessing,” unless it is the direction public policy and family law is taking in the United States today.

  In Sumero-Akkadian myth, we have many elements that are inversions of the Book of Genesis. We have a story of two brothers, one a farmer, the other a shepherd, in which one brother rises up and murders the other. Only in Sumer and Akkad, the murderer is the shepherd and the innocent brother, the farmer. We have a deluge account that has Enlil destroying the world because men made too much noise, and he couldn’t sleep (as opposed to men becoming so reprobate that justice, and even love itself, could not allow such a world to continue). In this myth system, the Serpent was the source of truth and wisdom, instead of evil.

  We even find that the three main gods of the Sumerian pantheon appear to be a polytheistic revision of something consistent with an earlier Trinitarian view of God. Anu, the god of heaven is distant, uninvolved, and unreachable. Enlil, god of the air, sends storms and the Deluge, while Enki, god of earth and the under-world (god of the world), interacts with men the most, and even rescues the Sumero-Akkadian “Noah” by telling him to build a ship. The other gods are all subsidiary to these three, which appear to be a theological historic revision distorting an earlier, more unified concept of God.

  We see the Babel Paradigm proceed among the Canaanites. When Abram first encountered them, Melchizedek was “priest of El Elyon,” whom Abram saw as a legitimate representation of the God who had spoken to him to leave Ur, and later, Haran. Five Hundred years afterward, however, we find in the Ras Shamra Tablets that the Canaanites had redefined the originally dignified El Elyon into a distant, irrelevant, even senile deity to make room for the Baals, which began as intermediary deities.

  God judged Israel and the church whenever men began to redefine Him into something He was not. This is going on presently in Western Civilization, where the “Jesus” depicted in many religions today is qualitatively different from, even antithetical to, the Jesus of historic Christianity. This is happening mainly to accommodate life-styles and worldviews that violate the ethical character of the God of the Bible, and which value the same kind of things Sumerians and Akkadians appeared to have valued.

  If men had constructed the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, they would not have made Him as the Bible depicts. There would be fewer paradoxes, and a Divine Personality much easier to control and manipulate. Jewish and Christian religious systems would have more easily used this God for human ends. The fact that sects within both religious systems have used God for selfish ends only reveals the beginning of the Babel Paradigm in action. The difference in biblical history, and later church history, is that God acts in various ways to judge such sects and systems—even when they bear His name—especially when they bear His name.

  God, apparently, will not be our tool.

  Language is fundamental to this God. In John 1:1, we read that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” This word for “Word” is logos in Greek. It is not only the word for a word, but for the very capacity to reason with words—we get our word logic from it, as well as ship’s log, the study of any -ology, logarithm, analogy, et cetera. Logos is about meaning and communication. The most basic truth of Christianity is that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh—God’s ultimate way of communicating with us, and bridging the gulf created by our sin.

  In the end of Gate of the Gods, we find a strange passage where the God character answers a question of the type that rarely gets answered directly in real life —about suffering and purpose:

  The Wordspeaker smiled. “That’s what Palqui said when I spoke to him, too. He and El’Issaq needed to suffer as they did for good reason. Both the direct and indirect results of their testimonies shall prevail long after the manipulations of P’Tah-Tahut and Suinne crumble to dust. It shall come to its full, wrapped in the two languages they both shall spawn. Until then, think of yourself as a custodian of that Gift.”

  El’Issaq, who became Aeolis after being afflicted by the Bab’Elu Plague, is a progenitor of the Greeks, in whose language the New Testament later was written. Palqui is the biblical Peleg—ancestor of Abraham, and thus of the Hebrews—in whose developing language the Old Testament later was inspired.

  These two languages are uniquely tooled to express ideas in different ways. Hebrew is especially well tooled for expressing imagery and narrative, while Greek, especially of the type the New Testament was written in, is the pe
rfect medium for theological reasoning in that literary form known as the epistle. Epistles are not just letters, they are a type of letter where the sender starts the reader off with premises, and leads them through several lines of logic to arrive at conclusions. The Old Testament is mostly historical narrative and prophecy, and the New Testament is largely (but not exclusively) epistle.

  As much of a horror story as Gate of the Gods is, it sets up the rest of human history as a progression of events leading toward a redemptive end. It is easier to see this if one considers the human population growth curve over the last 5000 years. It was almost linear until the dawn of the 20th century. Humanity did not break the 1 billion mark until within the last two centuries. We now approach 8 billion. That means the curve has gone exponential. It also means that well over half of all the people who have ever lived on Planet Earth are currently alive today.

  This comes at a time when the best-selling book of all time—the Bible—is more available (generally speaking) than at any time in history. That gives me the impression that someone really big and really important is trying to tell us something in a way that reaches the broadest demographic possible.

  Maybe we should listen this time. Going the way the Akkadians and Sumerians went did not work terribly well for them, and it doesn’t seem to be working terribly well for us, either.

  Appendix II

  The Table of Nations Using the Name Forms Used in The Windows of Heaven

  Below is a rendition of the Genesis 10:1-25 “Table of Nations” using the names as they appear in Gate of the Gods. The names as developed in the novel are largely fictional, but are built from pronunciations based on actual ancient documents. For example, Ghimmuraya is the name used in Assyrian texts from Ashurbanipal’s Library for the Cimmerians, which the Hebrews rendered Gomer. The name of Mizori’Ra actually appears in the Genesis table in its tribal plural form, Mizraim. I took the small liberty of rendering it in its hypothetical singular in its first mention, and in something closer to its plural on its second.

  I only went to verse 25 because none of the subsequent names are in the story, and not even all of the ones listed are. The town of Kuara is likely not the biblical Calneh, but Rs and Ls often transpose (yeah, sorry about the N, but even those can get mushy), and the location of Calneh is uncertain. The 4th Lugal of Uruk in the Sumerian King List is identified as Dumuzi of Kuara. I’m not certain that Kuara is located either, they just were close enough in period and pronunciation that it seemed plausible enough to make the leap for a historical fiction novel. I wouldn’t make it a scholarly claim. It’s one of those fiddly-bits we may never know.

  For those who may be disturbed at my playing with these names so, I ask that you consider how much we live at a time when this story must stand on its own terms. When we hear the name Noah and the word ark, our minds go first to the Sunday school images of cute animals in a happy boat. This lacks a certain reality. Where Babel is concerned, the implications of Genesis 10 and 11 are that a branching point exists in human history. My purpose was to try to capture what it might have been like to live through that. I could not do that if I simply used the biblical names as they commonly appear in English Bibles.

  The Table

  1 Now these are the generations of the sons of A’Nu-Ahki: U’Sumi, Khumi, Iyapeti; and sons were born to them after the Flood.

  2 The sons of Iyapeti: Ghimmuraya, and Magog, and A’Madai, and Iavanni, and El’Issaq/Aeolis, and Tubalisi, and Muskoya, and Thuras. 3 And the sons of Ghimmuraya: Azkenadzu, and Europatha, and Tukormag. 4 And the sons of Iavanni: El’Issaq/Aeolis, and Tarsys, the Kyttim, and Rhodan. 5 From these were the islands of the Nations divided in their land, each according to his tongue, in their tribes and in their nations.

  6 And the sons of Khumi: Kush, and Mizori’Ra, Puta, and Khana’Ani. 7 And the sons of Kush: Saeba, and Khavilaq, and Sabatha, and Rhegma, and Sabataqa. And the sons of Rhegma: Seba, and Dadan.

  8 And Kush procreated Nimurta/Ninurta. This one began to be a giant upon the earth. 9 This one was a giant hunter with hounds before E’Yahavah. On account of this they shall say, “As Ninurta, a giant hunter with hounds before E’Yahavah.” 10 And it came to pass the beginning of his kingdom was Bab’Elu, and Uruk, and Akkad, and Kuara, in the land of the Sumar.

  11 From out of that land came forth Asshur. And he built Ninuwa (Nineveh), also in the midst of Kalhu (Calah) – this is the city great – 12 were outposts in the spaces between Ninuwa and Kalhu. (Rehoboth means space, and the word resen is uncertain. The city of Asshur also likely had its origin at this time. –KGP)

  13 And the Misori’Rayim begot the Ludiim, and the Nephthalim, and the Enemetiim, and the Labiim, 14 and the sons of P’Tah-Tahut, and the Khasluhim (whence came forth Phylistiim) and the sons of Ae’Guptor (Geb). 15 And Khana’Ani begot Psydon his first-born, and Khetta 16 and the Yebusim, and the Amurru and the Qirqasa, 17 and the Evim, and the Arukim, and the sons of Suinne, 18 and the Arvadian, and the Zemarean, and the Qamatim; and after this the tribes of the Khana’Anhu were dispersed. 19 And the boundaries of the Khana’Anhu were from Psydon till one comes to Gerara and Gaza, till one comes to Usdum (Sodom) and Agmurrha (Gomorrah), Aduma and the Zeboim, as far as D’Lasa. 20 There were the sons of Khumi in their tribes according to their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

  21 And to U’Sumi himself also were children born, the father of all the sons of Haviri, the brother of Iyapeti the Elder. 22 The sons of U’Sumi: Elammi, and Assur, and Arrafu’Kzaddi, and Ludth, and Aram, and Qe’Nani. 23 And the sons of Aram: Q’Uz, and Q’Ul, and Gutir, and Mashu. 24 And Arrafu’Kzaddi begot Qe’Nani, and Qe’Nani begot Usalaq. And Usalaq begot Haviri. 25 And to Haviri were born two sons, the name of the one, Napalku/Palqui, because in his days the earth was divided, and the name of his brother was Yoqtani.

  Appendix III

  Implications of Genetic Entropy

  One of the most horrific aspects of this story for me personally is its depiction of genetic entropy in action. Genetic Entropy is the breakdown of the genetic code over time via genetic bottlenecks, and through errors in DNA information called mutations.

  I know some of what it feels like to be a husband and parent forced to watch this in action. My wife died young in part from inherited diseases, and my daughter shows some of her mother’s physical traits. This is increasingly relevant today. We are regrettably passing from the era of easy access to modern medicine into one characterized by rationing. Meanwhile, genetic diseases grow more common, despite attempts to prevent passing them on. The genome itself shows evidence of breaking down.

  Nature, when one looks closely, better reflects the idea of the “survival of the luckiest” than the “survival of the fittest.” Imagine a nut tree with half of its branches over a parking lot. The nuts not eaten by birds or crushed under foot are not more apt to be the nuts carrying the best genes. The best-swimming sperm cells can carry distorted codes for birth defects. On top of that, the code itself is breaking down over time. While the code self-repairs much of the worst damage, it cannot keep up with mutation rates.

  Minor degenerative mutations accumulate by as much as 100 per generation. When enough bad code piles up, a new genetic disease is born. How many typographical errors in my novel would make it a better read? None! (Yes, I’m aware of the irony in the dialog of this particular novel.) That is what mutations are, typographical errors in the genetic code. Mutations do not give people super-powers. There are not enough beneficial mutations to counteract bad ones. Most “beneficial” ones are actually neutral.

  This has powerfully bad implications. It means that in time, chronic illnesses will become more the norm, and it will not be caused ultimately by unhealthy living (although that makes things worse), or by conspiracies to sell pharmaceuticals and food additives (though such things happen and certainly do not help). We will be unable to do more than minimize the effects of this. Sterilizing or killing affected people will not “help.” Such people still have o
ther genes that are healthy, and systematically shrinking the gene pool only accelerates Genetic Entropy.

  This means it is madness to follow the materialistic answer to this problem. Totalitarian death edicts for the genetically infirm could never keep up with the entropy long-term, because they only shrink the gene pool. The “healthy” survivors all have recessive genes, and amassed mutations that will pop up sooner in that shrinking pool. Such a civilization commits suicide as it consumes itself in a madness to cull out the “unfit.”

  The Judeo-Christian worldview that honors the sanctity of human life as created in God’s image turns out to be the best approach. Hope lies not in this world, which really is “waxing old like a garment.” This is an implication of the Genesis Curse. Yes, Virginia, we actually need to be saved from something, and it is more than just our souls that need saving (though it starts there).

  This also means we cannot afford to entertain Darwinistic ideas or overly utilitarian mindsets of survival. They seem to make sense superficially, but the devil is often in the details.

  Christians cannot back a “nanny state” mentality that usurps the church’s role in health care. That only fosters undue dependency that breaks the system. Neither can we rigidly entertain a utilitarian “just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” spiritual Darwinism. That denies the reality of Genetic Entropy’s probable role in many chronic illnesses, and what that means for the 21st century. It will be a real temptation to blame the sick somehow for their sicknesses, even before “nanny-state” collapse.

  Sickness and death, in general, are certainly the result of Original Sin. The Book of Job and the words of Jesus concerning a blind man (John Ch. 9); however, show that individual sin is not usually the best explanation for an individual sickness (except STDs etc.). The same evidence that seems to suggest to some that negative emotions cause most chronic illness actually better fits another conclusion. That is, the biochemistry of negative emotions amplifies most damage from existing pathologies (and some may well be caused emotionally). There is a world of difference between what these two statements imply, and where general attitudes based on them will ultimately lead when put into practice.