Keep working at it if it;s your thing. I am sure you will find an audience. I’m not convinced any of it is even remotely real, historical, or even useful. Good luck!
Uh… yah - we did. Perhaps some of us not in as great a detail, but it isn’t “unknown”.
Just remember, when you stumble onto something new, it is wonderful. However, the information you’ve stumbled onto has already been “discovered, translated, viewed, read…” (unless of course, you’ve dug it up and did the original translation - then had the work reviewed for accuracy).
Sharing an insight into already available information is appreciated though.
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No need to be so defensive Tom. I wasn’t criticising you. I responded to your proposal with the knowledge I have acquired through my interests in religion, history, art and society. I am not a qualified archaeologist. My career was in the arts and crafts. However I first started studying ancient civilisations and religions as a college student fifty years ago. I have maintained my interest ever since. I fell in love with Ishtar in my early twenties and as I have mentioned elsewhere intelligent strong women have been my weakness and downfall.
I admit I haven’t even attempted to find the details between the gospels and ancient Summerian poems, they never seemed important to me, but I might be wrong. I spent my time seeking the broader comparisons. For instance the Descent of Inanna to the Underworld was the basis of the similar Greek story of Demeter, Persephone and Hades which was written two thousand years later. The stories are similar but not exactly the same and there are countless copied versions throughout history. The Inanna stories were the oldest committed to writing. Its not surprising they are found to be templates for later retellings. I also think the stories were sustained through the oral traditions of storytelling more than through the written word. People loved story telling and plays long before electronic media. Its a lost artform which probably now only exists in the efforts of stand up comedians telling humourous anecdotes.
Dont be offended if I counter your proposal about the writings of the gospels. My view is supported by a lot of research and study of my own, but as I say I am no more formally qualified than you. I just don’t think that there is anything more than the persistent use of religious motifs and copied storylines between Inanna and Jesus. The numbers 3,7,12,30 and 40 invariably turn up as sacred numbers in nearly all Middle Eastern mythologies and they, and resurrection tales also turn up in many totally unrelated Far Eastern mythologies as well.
Inanna’s descent was probably the original resurrection story. As you know it has been repeated ad nauseum ever since and found its most powerful expression in the ‘passion of the Christ’. But as I have already said I don’t think the Jews would have honestly touched a pagan story about Inanna with a ten foot shepherd’s crook, considering their history but thats only my opinion based on what information I have studied about the very ancient religions and specifically about the Jewish religion and the composition of the Torah and the Old and New Testaments.
Don’t mind me or the others here, go find your scholar and put it to them. Then let us know what they think. Keep going.
Come on! You can’t be serious! What planet have you been living on. You really think the average atheist on this site is not familiar with the stories from Sumeria; The Epic of Gilgamesh, Inanna’s transformation to Ishtar, and then to the Hittite Sauska, before ending up as the Phoenician Astarte and the Greek Aphrodite, among many others? The Sumerian origins of Easter? The Sumerian Garden of Eden, " Garden of the gods or a divine paradise
You also need to visit ancient Babylonia and its influence on the creation of the bible. You can learn about Jewish Law, God’s wife, the Moses Myth and more. Did you know, according to Jewish historical sources, Adam had 3 wives?
Any atheist on this site can fill your head with bizarre and obscure biblical or early Christian trivia. You are not saying anything new.
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I didn’t know that. Sequential? Could you point me at the source.
I AM aware that a according to Jewish apocrypha*** , Adam did have two wives. The first was a redhead called Lillith. She would not obey Adam, so naturally the wimp complained to YHWH, who smote her, turning her into a demon. Apparently redheads are still considered unlucky in Jewish folklore. I don’t have enough to claim a causal connection, but it’s interesting.
Not surprised to learn Adam had three wives. Apart from being a total crunt, YHWH was also pretty incompetent. May have taken a long time to get Adam’s wife just right or perhaps he just got bored. Was Eve the last one? Didn’t YHWH do a bang up job with her! Doesn’t seem to have occurred to him to make a better Adam, the sexist arsehole.
***It’s over 40 years since I read it. I think it was called 'The Book Of Adam And eve, but I’m not sure.
Adam’s first wife was himself, a hermaphrodite, torn into two parts, and one part became “Lilith.” Lilith was Adam’s first wife, powerful and intelligent and Adam’s equal. Lilith left and so God created a second wife.
Adam watched as the second wife was created. “This wife was made from Adam’s own body. Yahweh pulled a rib from Adam’s chest and formed it into a woman from the ground up; bones, muscle, sinew, blood, mucus, organs, skin, eyes, cartilage, hair, etc… all right in front of Adam. Now, having witnessing this process Adam was so terrified that he refused to go near his new wife.” or utter her name. Yahweh saw the error he made and destroyed her. (So much for that bitch!)
Finally Yahweh put Adam to sleep, took a rib from his side, and from it created Eve.
Read the story here… http://ofepicproportions.blogspot.com/2008/06/adams-three-wives.html
I might have found a better source but I didn’t spend a lot of time looking. Just Googled and went to the first site.
.
Whitefire13
No Offense ofcourse it was not dug up by me not translated by me and not first read by me. Im not even the first who thinks there are simmelarities between the stories. The thing is that I cant find anyting like my comparissons on the internet or book or youtube. The question is why? It is easy to say “that must have been done before because it looks so obvious” if so provide me the evidence that someone was before me. Till now I only got these kind of reponses and no pointers to who was before me.The only article I got was from Boomer with three or four of the points I mentioned, and so actually is suporting my article.
Tom I found this article dated June 1918 which examines a specific point of discussion,
“The story of the death and resurrection of the Sumerian goddess Inanna closely mirrors the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus, yet predates his appearance by more than 3000 years. Discuss."
Of course this comes from a theist site and as you’d expect they argue against any connection but they do give reasonable explanations for their argument.
I have started going over your proposal in greater detail. I am still not convinced that the gospels ‘plagiarised’ the Inanna poems. I am still looking over several references etc, but busy tomorrow, will have more time on the week end. I am finding this interesting and I am refreshing my memory on several points and discovering new ones.
I’ll be beck.
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Just my two cents as a fellow “layperson” @BlackTom
Without credentials, when we come across something and mentally link it and then cannot find something similar on the “net” (our main source of info) or where to look for source materials… it can be beneficial to share those ideas and get feedback from those who have experienced that field and may have “credibility”.
I find maths, physics and quantum theory fascinating but have a layman’s knowledge and no ability to successfully lay out “ideas” in maths formulation. It hasn’t stopped me from sharing thoughts (which seem original) because it’s not mainstream knowledge - but I have found others here who can discuss it at their level and then translate it to my level - and back to theirs. Make sense? For example, we had a discussion about “light” photons, and outside/time space and relativity which got me to “is it one photon” or “one thing” - which I looked deeper into AND found a theory of electrons (which all have the same mass) maybe just “one” moving back and forth through time and “from our perspective” as it interacts, appears as more than one. BUT no demonstrable proofs - and this was thought of and presented back in
1940s…
As with all or many subjects, those that specialize can gain great knowledge or expertise and those who “skim the surfaces” in more than one, can develop an “overview” (but require the precision the specialists have).
Keep at it - there is much to learn.
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Hello Grinseed,
Thanks for your reply, I followed your link to the article, I think the date should be June 2018 
.
I also read it and Im sorry to say, although it does say there are some simmelarities with the Jesus eastern tale, it only describes the basic simmelarities I mentioned before and it doesnt go into the details I provided. The real smoking guns are not discussed, propbably they dont know about it or because they are hard to dismiss as coincidence and so difficult to counter.
Hello Cognostic,
Im afraid your are misguided, there is no Jewish tradition that Adam had three wives been made.
There are several versions of the creation of a wife for Adam, some have Lilith as the first and then
eve as the second. There is also a version the midrash genesis rabbah where it is explained how Adam rejected the first wive (without name) and then accepted the second one calling her Eve. The article you reffered to seems to combine at least two different versions of the Talmud and/or midrahs to explain the three wives theory. The midrash genesis rabbah doenst have the lilith story, also the other sources dont have a unnamed first eve. So unless you can show us a Midrash or Talmud version with all three wives mentioned together how would you explain this?
BlackTomAtheist
“The Alphabet of Ben Sira Midrash goes even further and identifies a third wife, created after Lilith deserted Adam, but before Eve. This unnamed wife was purportedly made in the same way as Adam, from the"dust of the earth”, but the sight of her being created proved too much for Adam to take and he refused to go near her. It is also said that she was created from nothing at all, and that God created into being a skeleton, then organs, and then flesh. The Midrash tells that Adam saw her as “full of blood and secretions,” suggesting that he witnessed her creation and was horrified at seeing a body from the inside out. Ben Sira does not record this wife’s fate. She was never named, and it assumed that she was allowed to leave the Garden a perpetual virgin, or was ultimately destroyed by God in favor of Eve, who was created when Adam was asleep and oblivious. It should be noted
here, that both Lilith and the Second Wife are free from any curse of the Tree of Knowledge, as they left long before the event occurred."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4131670
Another Source, Same story…
"Another midrash relates that Eve’s creation occurred while Adam was sleeping, and he neither knew nor even sensed anything when God created her from his rib. With this in mind, a noblewoman asked R. Yose: “But why stealthily?” [That is, why did God take Adam’s rib without his knowledge, after causing slumber to fall upon him?] He replied: “If a person entrusted you with a single uncia [a small weight] of silver clandestinely, and returned to you a libra [= 12 unciae ] of silver in public, is this theft?” She asked further: “And why in secrecy?” [Why did He create her while Adam was sleeping, and not while he was awake, so that he could see her at the moment of her creation?] He answered her: “Initially, He created Eve when she was full of secretions and blood, and he [Adam] cast her away from him. He created Eve a second time” [and therefore He let him sleep, so that he would not see her as she was created] ( Gen. Rabbah 17:7). This midrash places the questions in the mouth of a Gentile woman of noble station who takes an interest in Judaism. Underlying her questions is the feeling that there is something unworthy in the manner of Eve’s creation, which is conducted stealthily and in secret, while Adam sleeps, without his knowledge or consent. According to R. Yose, God did indeed take Adam’s rib surreptitiously, but he received manifold benefit when God gave him Eve. In this midrashic retelling, the woman was created from a body part of small worth, but God improved her many times over when she was returned to Adam. This positive depiction of the woman is accompanied by the conception of the woman as man’s possession. In the second part of the exegetical discussion, the woman is set forth as one who is meant to find favor in man’s eyes, as an instrument of beauty, and therefore he is spared the process of creation. The second answer also alludes to the creation of two Eves (see below: “Two Eves”).
I explain it by simply asserting you are wrong according to the sources I am reading.
Right, there are people who believe Adam had 3 wives. I mean, if your going to make shit up, might as well have some fun with it and make it spicy!
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And religion is the Borg!!!
Amen.
Wittiest response today. Have a Tim Tam . 
Tom, no offense, don’t take this any of this critique personally. I am not interested in offending you, I don’t even know you. I am only responding to your proposal in the light of my own research and study.
This is a bit of a long post. It would have been longer if I had enough time to give a full examination but I lack time, resources and quite frankly, interest.
When I started this examination I had not expected to find so much to write about.
This has proven to be one difficult project that has grown out of all proportion for me.
I find the object of trying to prove there is no connection is unnecessary and needs no clarification for hundreds of reasons, but at base, I am forced to say yes, its all co-incidental and nothing points to a direct connection.
And I say that fully aware of several facts: that the Sumerian language was not a Semitic language, like Akkadian or Hebrew, but it was used in the same way the West used Latin for the advantages of a dead language for purposes of religious and scientific texts. Consequently the libraries of the Babylonians and Assyrians in which the Jewish exiles might have worked would have had copies of those poems about Inanna and then those of Ishtar (The descent of Ishtar is a different read, with some similarities to the Sumerian). However even before the invasion of Judah the Jews were already worshipping Inanna and Tammuz. These two were part of a whole range of deities worshipped by the Jews for which Deuteronomy and all the early prophets had warned their God would send them into exile.
Ezekiel 8:14 mentions Tammuz by name: “Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz…” They were mourning for his departure to the Underworld for six months.
Inanna already had altars in Jerusalem and there are allusions to her in the Old Testament as well.
But after the Exile and the great shift to the belief in the existence of only one single jealous god instead of one god out of many, the Jews relinquished their faith in all other pagan deities. For almost five hundred years before Jesus, the Jews remained a monotheistic religion. A product of that monotheism is the Shema, the morning prayer, recited every blessed morning, to the effect that there is only one god. And I also know in the late 1800s there were still areas in eastern Europe where Ishtar was still worshipped, that’s nearly six or seven thousand years. A very popular goddess.
But the authors of the New Testament had no need to seek storylines or plot devices from 2000 year old pagan Sumerian poems.
The Jewish Christians upstarts were trying to maintain a close association with the parent Hebrew religion and most of the sources for their writings, were taken from the Old Testament/Torah to emphasise Jesus as the new Moses, the new Isaiah, the long awaited Messiah, with a new Jewish covenant. They would not have jeopardised the acceptance of their new religion by using references to totally heretical old Pagan ones which would usually lead to death by stoning or other unpleasantries condoned by the Sanhedrin.
While I do appreciate your studiousness to bring the Sumerian poems/Jewish Gospels connection to light, I just can’t accept it.
It was never an idea that I had even considered much before but now on examination I find I have a surprisingly lot of reasons based on a lot of reading and study to not accept it. So many reasons that it would take too much time for me to organise for presentation. I have limited time and resources and I have other unexplored areas for research of more interest to me personally.
A little history to show how detailed the study of “Descent” has been up to now.
Samuel Noah Kramer was the archaeologist and linguist, who translated much of the Sumerian tablets directly from the cuneiform, including ‘Descent’. He was even directly repsonsible for discovering some of the scattered fragments of the severely damaged tablets that comprised The Descent of Inanna. It was a search that involved many people over more than fify years from the turn of the century. Many parts of the poem are still missing, or too damaged to allow a clear translation. Kramer found the last four or five fragments himself over several years in the 1930s from locations as far afield as Istanbul to university collections in the US. He spent over six years translating “Descent” into English and he published in 1944. That work was updated in the 1960s following the discovery of another fragment by a French archaeologist which provided new insights into the structure of the language. Kramer was a world class academic and the leading authority on ancient religions. His achievements in mastering the Sumerian language and its interpretation is considered on par with the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone. His work has been at the core of all such research ever since. This is all to say very many clever qualified people have studied and written about the poems and about the goddess Inanna.
You need to accept that if there were a plausible connection between Inanna and the gospels, some ambitious professional archaeologist some time in the last 80 years would have already delivered a paper and several books and achieved world wide fame and well paid tenured University positions and grants for further research by now. It hasn’t happened. There simply is not enough evidence to warrant any such connection between the Descent poem and the Dream of Dummzi with the gospels.
You are claiming one resurrection story, the “Descent”, was used, about 2,000 years later, in the composition of four different versions of another resurrection story, in a different language, each written by authors with different social, political and educational outlooks, each separated from the others by decades and thousands of kilometres. Further, not all the similarities you refer to in the Descent are presented in all four gospels.
I found quite a lot to write about on your Jesus/Inanna comparison. What follows is just the few of the more organised points prepared from a lot of disjointed notes and references.
I regret I have not included anything from the Dream of Damuzi but I still see no apparent connection in that poem other than as coincidence.
There was an old saying often heard in creative writing classes, “there has been no such thing as an original story line since the Bible”, but I feel confident that that quaint observation was true even before the Bible itself was written.
Just for a brief look at your Jesus/Inanna comparisons:
“Jesus and Inanna say nothing in their defence.”
Inanna did remain silent, but she had nothing to say in her defence because she accepted she was responsible for the death of her sister’s husband, Gugalanna the Celestial Bull who she sent, without her sister’s knowledge, to kill Gilgamesh for spurning her. Gilgamesh won. She had already accepted her guilt. She had come to attend the funeral rites but sereptiously, in the sneaky reckless manner that makes her appealing, had arranged to escape her sister, the Lady of the Underworld, in a manner befitting the Queen of Heaven.
Jesus was not silent at all, while he was judged or condemned. He was confident of his innocence and challenged the false witness of his accusers. He was silent before Herod who had no legal power to sentence him to death.
Jesus replied to the priests while they judged him:
Mark 14:62
Matthew 26:64
Luke 22:67-70
John 18 20:23.
and Pilate several times before he gave him up to the mob:
Mark 15:2
Matthew 27 11-14
Luke 23:3
John 18 34-38
John 19:11
Jesus also talks with the Daughters of Jerusalem on the way to Golgotha (Luke 23:28), comments with the two criminals and prays to God before he dies.
“Jesus pierced by a spear; Inanna by a hook”
Only in John is Jesus reported to be speared. It is not mentioned in the other three synoptics. It is thought John added this detail to further satisfy the connection of Jesus’s sacrifice with the sacrificed paschal lamb of the Passover, whose bones were not to be broken as demanded in Exodus as part of the Passover rituals. The Christians were quick to associate the blood of the lamb being painted on the wooden door lintels, to signal the Angel of Death to passover, with the blood of Jesus on the wood of the cross to save us all from death. The Romans were in the habit of breaking the legs of crucified victims to quicken their deaths. John writes they found Jesus had already died and speared him instead, just to assure the reader he died and died intact. He is speared but not because of any need to imitate Inanna corpse being hung on a hook, but rather to emphasise the similarities of the Jewish Passover with the Christian Resurrection.
“Seven Demons”
Demons and the number “seven” are two of the most common motifs in many unconnected ancient religious writings and mythologies, right around the world and all down through history.
You will of course notice the seven pieces of clothing, the seven gates of Hell. I dont think I need to explain. Seven has always had a universal symgolic importance but to be frank the number seven does not link the Inanna poem to the gospels.
Likewise demons have always served as supernatural opposers and adversaries for mankind in myths of all nations. It is fundamental in the tradition of the the Hebrew ‘satan’ which translates as “opposer” or “adversary” which in the Old Testament were specially designated angels. Its more likely this is a genuine, and not unexpected co-incidence rather than proof of connection.
“Emaus, Emush”
There are several places in Judea and Galilee called Emmaus in the Bible. Josephus Flavius refers to a few of them. One such location is situated in the Valley of Ajalon which is reputed to be also known as Emmaus Nicopolis.
Another Emmaus, mentioned by Josephus, is a village, placed closer to Jerusalem, which is these days the town of Motza.
From the semitic languages like Hebrew and Akkadian, Emaus translates as ‘warm spring’. The non-semitic Sumerian “Emush” translates as ‘house of snakes’. I supposed snakes might be attracted to warm springs?
The thing is the gospel writers would not have needed to refer to “Descent” for a location called Emaus.
Luke 24:13 details the Emaus event and even specifies the village was ‘from Jerusalem about three-score furlongs’. There were reports earlier in 2020 about the site of that village being discovered.
Emaus is not specified in Mark, only the two unidentified persons walking in the country’.
The other gospels make no mention.
A little off topic but sort of relevant as another reason as to why I don’t accept the Sumerian connection. This is a review by Richard Carrier on Dennis MacDonald’s ‘The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark’ in which MacDonald gives a very convincing explanation with evidence showing how Mark might have composed his gospel, considered the earliest of the four, using Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. It was thoroughly denounced by theist critics which is not surprising given how compelling MacDonald’s case is.
That’s it for me. I have spent more time on this than I wanted to. Again don’t take offense that I don’t agree with the proposal. I think I have the greater information that does not support the idea. But I suggest by all means you find a real archaeologist and try out the idea with them.
Grinseed,
Lets start with your ending, ‘The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark’ I was not able to read the book, but reading the comments on it, it looks as if my comparrisons can complement to his theory. Like I said, I think that the gospel borrowed heavily from different kind of sources. If the Homer Epics contributed to the gospels then why not the Sumerian legends as well?
This is a false reasoning, it took almost 2000 years until a certain Dennis R. MacDonald compared
the gospel of Mark to the Homeric epics as noted by yourself. With the same reasoning I could say that mister MacDonald cant be right. The Homeric epics were always know and were never lost while the myths of Inanna and Dumuzi were only found 80 years ago.
It is commonly accepted that the three synoptic gospels borrowed heavily from each other despite your argument that they were written by different authors seperated by decades and thousands of kilometers. Its true that not all simmilarities are presented in all four gospels, something that strengthens my conviction that all authors had knowledge about the Inanna Dumuzi connection, because it wasnt copied from another.
Dumuzi praying asking God to let him escape his fate (3x)
Dumuzi in the garden of Geshtinanna\Gethsemane
Dumuzi betrayed by his friend for a bribe
Dumuzi captured by the demons\group of Jews
Correct but I was refering to what the Mathew and Mark wrote:
Mark 14:60: Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Mathew: 26:62: Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent.
Can be, but the remark of Mark is placed in the right spot where you expect it to be from the Inanna story. I must admit that the Inanna story doesnt mention there were seven demons (its a group), but when you read it until the dream of Dumuzi at the end of the story where the demons finaly catched Dumuzi you will find out the amount of demons involved because they are counted till seven.
It doesnt realy matter what the two words mean in each language, the most important thing is they sound alike, the author knows Inanna travels to Emush, from for example Josephus or Macabee he knows about this place Emaus and makes the connection by how the words sounds a like.
Great suggestion. Pretty simple to do.
I reckon a letter to Professor Irving Finkelstein,at The Department of The Middle East, British Museum. He not only reads cuneiform, he actually built an ark from instructions in the Epic of Gilgamesh (it’s round). Academics in the smaller disciplines tend to be very pleased to be asked their opinion of something in their field.
In my opinion, Tom’s work really needs expert academic scrutiny. (No offence Grin, I think your response is very erudite )
Below a clip about Professor Finkelstein’s construction of the round ark.
PS in his lecture, Prof. Finkelstein describes himself as ‘an Assyriologist’