Noah Primeval – Paperback
Chronicles of the Nephilim
Book One
By Brian Godawa
NOAH PRIMEVAL
5th Edition
(6c)
Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2022 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
Warrior Poet Publishing
www.warriorpoetpublishing.com
ISBN: 978-0-615-56567-5 (Kindle)
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
Preface
The story you are about to read is the result of Biblical and historical research about Noah’s flood and the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context of the book of Genesis. While I engage in significant creative license and speculation, all of it is rooted in an affirmation of what I believe is the theological and spiritual intent of the Bible. For those who are leery of such a “novel” approach, let them consider that the traditional Sunday school image of Noah as a little old white-bearded farmer building the ark alone with his sons is itself a speculative cultural bias. The Bible actually says very little about Noah. We don’t know what he did for a living before the Flood or even where he lived. How do we know whether he was just a simple farmer or a tribal warrior? Genesis 9:2 says Noah “began to be a man of the soil” after the Flood, not before it. If the world before the flood was full of wickedness and violence, then would not a righteous man fight such wickedness as Joshua or David would? Noah would not have been that different from Abraham, who farmed, did business and led his family and servants in war against kings.
We know very little about primeval history, but we do learn from archeological evidence that humanity was clearly tribal during the early ages when this story takes place. Yet, nothing is written about Noah’s tribe in the Bible. It would be modern individualistic prejudice to assume that Noah was a loner when everyone in that Biblical context was communal. Noah surely had a tribe.
There is really no agreement as to the actual time and location of the event of the Flood. Some say it was global, some say it was in upper Mesopotamia, some say lower Mesopotamia, some say the Black Sea, some say the earth was so changed by the flood that we would not know its geography from the previous world. Since Genesis has some references that seem to match Early Bronze Age Mesopotamian contexts I have gone with that basic interpretation.
The Bible also says Noah built the ark. Are we to believe that Noah built it all by himself? It doesn’t say. With his sons’ help? It doesn’t say. But that very same book does say earlier that Cain “built a city” (some scholars believe it was Cain’s son Enoch) Are we to assume that he built an entire city by himself? Ridiculous. Cain or Enoch presided as a leader over the building of a city by a group of people, just as Noah probably did with his ark.
One of the only things Genesis says about Noah’s actual character is that he was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). The New Testament clarifies this meaning by noting Noah as an “heir” and “herald” of righteousness by faith (Heb. 11:7; 2Pet. 2:5). The popular interpretation of this notion of “righteousness” is to understand Noah as a virtually sinless man too holy for his time, and always communing with God in perfect obedience. But is this really Biblical? Would Noah have never sinned? Never had an argument with God? Never had to repent? As a matter of fact, the term “righteous” in the Old and New Testaments was not a mere description of a person who did good deeds and avoided bad deeds. Righteousness was a Hebrew legal concept that meant, “right standing before God” as in a court of law. It carried the picture of two positions in a lawsuit, one “not in the right,” and the other, “in the right” or “righteous” before God. It was primarily a relational term. Not only that, but in both Testaments, the righteous man is the man who is said to “live by faith,” not by perfect good deeds (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17). So righteousness does not mean “moral perfection” but “being in the right with God because of faith.”
What’s more, being a man of faith doesn’t mean a life of perfect consistency either. Look at David, the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), yet he was a murderer and adulterer and more than once avoided obeying God’s will. But that doesn’t stop him from being declared as “doing all God’s will” by the apostle Paul. Or consider Abraham, the father of the Faith, who along with Sarah believed that God would provide them with a son (Heb. 11:8-11). Yet, that Biblically honored faith was not perfect, as they both laughed in derision at God’s promise at first (Gen. 17:17; 18:12). Later, Abraham argued with God over his scorched earth policy at Sodom (Gen. 18). Moses was famous for his testy debates with God (Ex. 4; Num. 14:11-24). King David’s Psalms were sometimes complaints to his Maker (Psa. 13; Psa. 69). The very name Israel means “to struggle with God.”
All the heroes in the Hebrews Hall of Faith (Heb. 11) had sinful moments, lapses of obedience and even periods of running from God’s call or struggling with their Creator. It would not be heresy to suggest that Noah may have had his own journey with God that began in fear and ended in faith. In fact, to say otherwise is to present a life inconsistent with the reality of every human being in history. To say one is a righteous person of faith is to say that the completed picture of his life is one of finishing the race set before him, not of having a perfect run without injuries or failures.
Some scholars have even noted that the phrase “blameless in his generation” is an unusual one, reserved for unblemished sacrifices in the temple. This physical purity takes on new meaning when understood in the genetic context of the verses before it that speak of “Sons of God” or bene ha elohim leaving their proper abode in heaven and violating the separation of angelic and human flesh (Gen. 6:1-4; Jude 5-7). Within church history, there is a venerable tradition of interpreting this strangest of Bible passages as referring to supernatural beings from God’s heavenly host who mate with humans resulting in the giant offspring called Nephilim. Other equally respectable theologians argue that these Sons of God were either humans from the “righteous” bloodline of Seth or a symbolic reference to human kings or judges of some kind. I have weighed in on the supernatural interpretation and have provided appendices at the end of the book that give the Biblical theological foundation for this interpretation.
This novel seeks to remain true to the sparse facts presented in Genesis (with admittedly significant embellishments) interwoven with theological images and metaphors come to life. Where I engage in flights of fancy, such as a journey into Sheol, I seek to use figurative imagery from the Bible, such as “a bed of maggots and worms” (Isa. 14:11) and “the appetite of Sheol” (Isa. 5:14) and bring them to life by literalizing them into the flesh-eating living-dead animated by maggots and worms.
Another player that shows up in the story is Leviathan. While I have provided another appendix explaining the theological motif of Leviathan as a metaphor in the Bible for chaos and disorder, I have embodied the sea dragon in this story for the purpose of incarnating that chaos as well. I have also literalized the Mesopotamian cosmology of a three-tiered universe with a solid vault in the heavens, and a flat disc earth supported on the pillars of the underworld, the realm of the dead. This appears to be the model assumed by the Biblical writers in many scriptural passages (Phil. 2:10; Job 22:14; 37:18; Psa. 104:5; 148:4; Isa. 40:22), so I thought it would be fascinating to tell that story within that worldview unknown to most modern westerners. The purpose of the Bible is not to support scientific theories or models of the universe, but to tell the story of God through ancient writers. Those writers were people of their times just as we are.
I have also woven together Sumerian and other Mesopotamian mythology in with the Biblical story, but with this caveat: Like C.S. Lewis, I believe the primary purpose of mythology is to embody the worldview and values of a culture. But all myths carry slivers of the truth and reflect some distorted vision of what really happened. Sumer’s Noah was Ziusudra, Babylon’s Noah was Utnapishtim, and Akkad’s was Atrahasis. The Bible’s Noah is my standard. So my goal was to incorporate real examples of ANE history and myth in subjection to that standard in such a way that we see their “true origin.” Thus my speculation that the gods of the ancient world may have been real beings (namely fallen “Sons of God”) with supernatural powers. The Bible itself makes this suggestion in several places (Deut. 32:17; Psa. 106:34), and it also talks of the Sons of God as “gods” or supernatural beings from God’s divine council (Psa. 82:1; 58:1; Ezek. 28:2). See the appendix at the back for my defense of this interpretation from the Bible.
Lastly, I have permitted myself to use extra-Biblical Jewish literature from the Second Temple period as additional reference material for my story. The most significant is the book of 1 Enoch, a document famous for its detailed amplification of the Genesis 6:1-4 passage about supernatural Sons of God mating with human women and birthing giants, as well as leading humanity astray with occultic knowledge. I use these ancient Jewish sources not because I consider them completely factual or on par with the Bible, but simply in an attempt to incarnate the soul of the ancient Hebrew imagination in conversation with the text of Scripture rather than imposing my own modern western one upon the text. I am within the tradition of the Church on this since authors of the New Testament as well as early Church Fathers and other orthodox theologians in church history respected some of these ancient manuscripts as well.
Many of these texts from the Second Temple Period, such as Jubilees, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs or The Life of Adam and Eve, and others found in the Pseudepigrapha, were creative extrapolations of the Biblical text. These were not intended to deceive or overturn the Bible, but rather to retell Biblical stories with theological amplification and creative speculation while remaining true to their interpretation of the Scriptures.
In short, I am not writing Scripture. I am not even saying that I believe this is how the story actually happened. I am simply engaging in a time-honored tradition of the ancient Hebrew culture: I am retelling a Biblical story in a new way to underscore the theological truths within it. The Biblical theology that this story is founded upon is provided in several appendixes at the back of the book for those who are interested in going deeper.
So, sit back and let your imagination explore the contours of this re-imagined journey of one of the most celebrated religious heroes across all times and cultures.
Prologue
Methuselah squinted through half opened eyes. Enoch traveled beside him as they descended onto crystalline blue waves, the eternal sea. Above him, the deep black sky, painted with a pulsating wave of ethereal color, stretched endlessly into the distance. Methuselah knew where they were — in the waters above the heavens. Before him, a lone ancient temple rested upon the waters like an island, crafted from white marble with gold trimming and inlaid with innumerable precious jewels; jasper, sapphire, emerald, onyx, and others. Around this temple hovered a myriad of the Holy Ones, like phantasms of starlight that he could see, but not quite see. He knew what the structure was — the temple of Elohim, and it was terrifyingly wondrous.
Methuselah sighed with disappointment. Another vision. He was approaching his eight hundred and fiftieth year of life and these visions wearied his old soul. His father, Enoch, hounded him like a ghost in his dreams. Enoch was known for being a righteous man who walked with Elohim, and Elohim spoke with him in visions. When he was young, Methuselah would often complain about his father’s “head in the clouds,” until he learned the frightening truth that Elohim’s holiness was unbearable to sinful human nature. It made him more sympathetic to the effect it had on Enoch.
Elohim had taken Enoch up to heaven alive before he could experience the dismal universal reality that is death. No aching joints, no wavering eyesight, no bodily pains as the years would wind him down to the grave.
From all this Enoch was spared.
It’s not fair, thought Methuselah. But alas, Elohim is the creator of all things, and surely has the right to do as he pleases, no matter how strange or incomprehensible those actions may be to us mortals made of clay and nephesh, God’s own breath. Methuselah took the lesson hard. One day soon, this heavenly temple will be his permanent home. But not today. He resigned himself and took in the fearful symmetry of a terrifying yet wondrous cosmos through which Enoch escorted him on the wings of the wind.
Despite his sense of helplessness, Methuselah considered that maybe these visions were worth the irritation, after all. Who else is allowed to see such awesome marvels before their time? Maybe Elohim may yet take him, as he did Enoch.
Out of a myriad of stars some fell from the sky and plunged into the waters below. Pulled beneath the waters, Methuselah watched their descent. The murky depths deadened their shining.
A shiver went through Methuselah’s spine as he continued descending into the deep. Then he saw the reason for his chill. The spiny armored back of a long serpentine creature swerved just below him, and disappeared into the darkness. Gigantic, the creature measured maybe three hundred cubits long, a shadowy impression of its full fearful presence in the murky blackness. This was Leviathan, the seven-headed sea dragon of chaos, and the guardian of the deep. Few had ever seen it, fewer still had lived to tell about it. The only thing more terrifying than Leviathan was its mother, Rahab.
Methuselah and Enoch landed on the bottom of the heavenly ocean and began to move through a solid crystalline floor, known to his people as raqia, the firmament of heaven. Below this raqia the heavens and the earth were enveloped by the firmament like a vaulted dome. Embedded in the vault of heaven glittered the stars, planets, and the greater and lesser lights that rose upon the ends of the earth in the east and set upon the gates of the west.
As Methuselah and Enoch watched, the luminaries passed through the clouds and approached the earth, a flat disc surrounded by the waters, under which were the pillars of the earth, and below that, Sheol, the underworld. Two hundred of them landed in succession on Mount Hermon in Bashan in the northwest and he knew he was watching many years of the past moving before his eyes. The shining ones spread out across the earth from that cosmic mountain to reign as gods over mankind. These were the Bene ha Elohim, the Sons of God.
“Weep for mankind, Methuselah,” said Enoch. “For every intent of the thought of his heart is only evil continually. And behold, the Lord will come with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to destroy the wicked. But I saw a vision of a Chosen Seed who will bring an end to the reign of the gods and bring rest from the curse of the land. Elohim promised in the Garden that the seed of the Woman, Havah, she who is also known as Eve, would be at war with the seed of the Serpent, Nachash. But through this chosen seedline will come an anointed King who will crush the head of the Nachash, the seed of the Serpent and their abominations in the land.”
Hundreds of leagues southeast from Mount Hermon, directly below Methuselah’s feet, sat Mesopotamia, the center of the earth, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The rivers produced a fertile crescent that rose from the Lower Sea in the south up to Ebla and Amurru in the north, bounded on the west by the vast Great Desert, and on the east by the Zagros Mountains.
Methuselah descended to the southern part of Mesopotamia near the Lower Sea into the fertile land of Shinar, now called Sumer. He was being taken home to the great cedar forest, where his nomadic tribe’s camp was hidden from the city-states that bordered the rivers. He felt the vision fading to its end.
“I am not the Chosen Seed,” complained Methuselah, “so why do you keep troubling me with these visions?”
“Because,” replied Enoch, “the Chosen Seed is not listening. But you have his ear.”
Methuselah knew who the Chosen Seed was. And he was going to tan his hide.
Chapter 1
Noah ben Lamech dashed through the sparse brush surrounding the mighty cedars, easily twisting his spear to avoid tangling low hanging branches. Five of his tribesmen trailed behind him, clad in animal skins, carrying spears, bows, and maces.
Lemuel, Noah’s protégé, ran fast, nocking his arrow and aiming the flint tip at the prey. The target was a pazuzu, a black monster with a double set of bat-like wings, talons for feet, and a ghastly looking doggish face. The arrow, loosed too quickly, buried into the tree inches from the pazuzu’s head. The vile creature let loose a shriek that pierced the human’s ears, and fluttered with increased frenzy.
A second pazuzu panicked and almost flew into the first one. They both flitted erratically around the thick trees, seeking shelter from their pursuers’ missiles. Unable to find an opening through the heavy canopy of foliage overhead to reach the sky and freedom, they split apart to escape their predators.
Noah gestured to his men to split as well, three on one. Lemuel and Shafat veered into Noah’s footsteps after the first pazuzu. The other three turned after the second one.
They are enemy spies, Noah thought, scouts for the city gods, gathering information on the last of the human tribes evading the conquering will of their Lords. We may have started the day hunting for food, but these things are no food for us. We must destroy them.
Until now, Noah had managed to avoid detection by staying nomadic and hiding in the forest with his people. His family had originally settled the city of Shuruppak in the midst of the southern plain generations ago. His father Lamech was the priest-king of the city-state and Noah had inherited the position as a young man. But when the pantheon of gods extended their dominion throughout the land of Shinar, Noah’s clan left the city because of their dedication to Elohim. They became nomads and roamed the forests, deserts, and mountains.
Noah’s tribe had traversed all these territories and had found the forests to be the most inhabitable. But as his people grew in number, presently a few hundred, with children and herd, it was becoming more difficult to pick up quickly and move. If one of these damnable creatures got away and reported to the gods, Noah’s community would be in jeopardy. They would run to the mountains where the city gods refused to follow. The desert was bone dry, scorching and brutal for child mortality, and mountain life was not much less miserable to raise a family like the ancient cave dwellers who died out long ago. There were not many of the human tribes left, and Noah was determined to remain one of them.
His desperate need fueled him. Noah’s spirit surged. His team spread out and surrounded their pazuzu. Hindered by the closeness of the trees and underbrush, the creature’s wings slowed its progress, and the pursuit steadily gained ground. The pazuzu twisted and turned in confusion. With the desperation of a cornered animal, the quarry looked for an opening to strike back at the hunters.
Lemuel glanced away to check his position. He nearly ran headlong into a cedar tree.
The pazuzu pounced in that instant. It took its eyes off Noah for one moment to swoop down.
That was all Noah needed. He drew back and released his spear with the power of an arm accustomed to strenuous labor. The wooden shaft flew straight into the breast of the creature with such force that it impaled the pazuzu’s body and pinned it into a tree. It screeched its last shriek and died, black blood oozing down the rough bark of the cedar.
Noah, Lemuel and young Shafat approached the beast. Their long hair, and beards flowed over their animal skins. Noah knew that it gave city dwellers the impression of uncivilized brutishness. But they would be wrong. His nomadic people were highly cultured, and their earthiness was a deliberate expression of their refusal to worship the city gods. His were the people of the Creator Elohim and they were proud to be separate from the rest of humanity who had rejected Elohim’s kingship and descended into the worship of the gods of the land. Noah felt that the nomadic tribes could rightly be called the last of humanity.
Noah was over five hundred years old and in his prime as the leader of his people. This was middle age in a community where many lived as long as nine hundred years. As Lemuel was Noah’s apprentice, so young twenty-year old Shafat was Lemuel’s. They were as close as brothers in their community. They did everything together and protected one another.
“Stand back!” Lemuel snapped to Shafat. “These things are treacherous. They will feign death just to bring one of us with them to the grave. If its talons get hold of you, we will have to cut your arm off to loose you.”
Its death throes were genuine. The pazuzu’s legs twitched and the last of its air gurgled from its lungs.
“It stinks like excrement,” blurted Shafat, with his hand over his nose in disgust.
“It is an abomination,” said Lemuel. He reached up and jerked the spear out of the monster, letting it drop to the forest floor in a heap. He handed the spear to Noah.
“It is getting worse, Noah. There will soon be nowhere to hide. We cannot run forever.”
Noah ignored the point. He prodded the creature with the tip of his spear, exposing a brand of the god’s name in cuneiform on the twitching leg. “This is a scout of Anu.”
“We killed a scout of the god Anu?” exclaimed Shafat.
“Quiet your fear,” Noah said. “We bow to no god.”
“No god but Elohim,” Lemuel amended.
Noah shot an irritated glance at Lemuel, then caught himself and nodded reluctantly, “No god but Elohim.”
This was a sensitive issue for Noah. He was not always on speaking terms with Elohim, who seemed to be quite distant, only conferring with crazy men like his grandfather Methuselah and leaving so much to the mal’akim angels to do his bidding.
Noah had served Elohim through the years. He remained pure in his generation. He walked upright and kept separate from the pollution of the city gods who came from heaven and sought to mix their blood with humanity. Noah’s tribe and the other human tribes of nomads refused to worship these pretenders to the throne of Elohim, and refused to participate in their corrupting sorceries.
But this was not enough for Noah. Though he knew Elohim was Lord of creation, he sometimes felt that there was little difference between the servitude Elohim expected and the servitude that the city gods demanded of their subjects. A god was a god after all, and in either case man was a servant.
Noah did not like being a servant. He yearned for freedom. Why can we not be left alone to live our lives? Why must we fight evil all the time? In a wicked generation, evil never sleeps. And Noah was growing weary from eternal vigilance. He preferred to hide away from it all and just enjoy his family, his beautiful wife, and his own concerns. He wanted to work the land and enjoy the fruit of his labors and be left alone. He had enough on his back to survive in this difficult world and to build his own community based on his own beliefs. If evil was left to run its course, it would destroy its own servants anyway, so why not let it? They deserved it. Why did Noah and his companions have to fight Elohim’s battles for him?
The sound of breaking twigs interrupted his thoughts. The three turned toward the sound, tensed and ready.
Tobias and the other two warriors came through the brush. Noah instinctively glanced at their spears, hoping for a sign of pazuzu blood. There was none.
Tobias looked uncertain. “I think we got it. We reached the forest’s edge and it broke out to the clearing. But we struck it twice. It managed to stay in the air, but I do not believe it could make it back the distance to the city with two flints in its flesh.”
Noah pondered a moment. “We had best have an elder’s meeting tonight and make a decision whether to move on.”
Shafat let out a sigh of disappointment. Noah slapped him on the back of the head and gave him a warning glance. Without a word, Noah stomped off toward the camp.
Lemuel wondered just how long they could keep going like this. He had followed Noah’s lead for many years and had always trusted him. Noah would do no wrong to any man. He was the patriarch of their tribe, a warrior who knew the land well and would not compromise with wickedness. But he could also be impatient and insensitive with those who lacked his resolve. Some men needed understanding and encouragement in the ways of the Lord. Zeal for righteousness did not mean one should give up compassion. Lemuel shook his head sadly as he walked.
But then again, Noah did listen to Lemuel. His passion meant he might be quick to anger, but he was also quick to repent. Lemuel had never known a better man in all his days. He repressed another sigh and tramped after his leader.
Chapter 2
Far away in the skies over Mesopotamia, the wounded pazuzu flapped its double wings struggling to navigate the air streams that helped it remain aloft on its journey to the city. The two arrows burned its muscles with searing pain, one in its left thigh and the other in its right calf. It had lost much blood. Its wings felt heavy. It labored on, knowing if it landed to rest, it would never make it back into the air.
The desert landscape gave way to the unmistakable marks of civilization as the pazuzu reached the outskirts of the city of Erech that encompassed over one hundred hectares of land. Below the creature’s labored flight stretched the agricultural fields and farms watered by canals from the bordering Euphrates River.
Since their very lives were interwoven with the river, the residents became expert canal builders. Levees and dikes brought water to their crops in the outlying areas. Within the city multiple man-made canals and aqueducts criss-crossed the various residential divisions, channeling lavish amounts of water for everything from cooking to cleaning to waste disposal. In between those channeled sections were the adobe and sun-dried brick homes. The Sumerian citizens went about their daily business, unaware of the flying presence high above.
In the center of this metropolis that boasted a populace of close to ten thousand, a raised hillock overlooked the city and its outlying farming villages. On the elevation rose the temple called Eanu. It was dedicated to the patron deity of the city, Anu, the father god of heaven. It consisted of a huge platform mound seventy-five cubits high, built from mud brick and limestone at the bottom. At the top of the platform terrace, raised another twenty cubits high, sat the White Temple, the holy place of the gods. Its intense whiteness, the result of gypsum plaster, created a shining glow in the hot sun.
Next to this temple complex stood a smaller temple district called Eanna for Inanna, the goddess of sex and war, and consort of Anu. Eanu dwarfed the Eanna temple. The compound of the goddess had a different design, reflecting the lesser divine status of the female deity. The Eanna district harbored cult prostitution and other deviant whims of the goddess.
Erech was one of the largest and most advanced cities of the alluvial plain. It was originally settled by Unuk ben Cain, son of Cain, who also built Eridu, the oldest city named after Unuk’s son, Irad. The original human inhabitants had arrived from the Zagros mountains to establish the first urban civilization on the plains. Those inhabitants formed a slave force that would help them achieve their urban paradise.
Each city was independent, ruled over by a god. Every year at the New Year Festival the pantheon of city gods would meet in assembly in Erech and deliberate their divine decrees for the upcoming year. Anu arranged his pantheon after Elohim’s divine council of heavenly host. It pleased Anu to mock the Most High with his own hierarchy of power.
The gods had no desire to burden themselves with the petty worries of human administrations, so they each chose a priest-king to rule in his stead through a governorship. Scribes referred to the arrival of the gods and their rule as the time “when kingship descended from heaven.” But ever since then, the princes of the cities vied for prominence amongst themselves as the gods also sought distinction. The hierarchy was unstable. Bureaucracy always courted ambition and rivalry.
The White Temple on the top of Eanu was the highest point in the city. The large platform structure imitated a holy mountain, a connection between heaven and earth. The people called the artificial mountain a ziggurat. Its four corners pointed to the four corners of the earth. The long straight limestone stairway that ascended from the base to the White Temple at top inspired the name Stairway to the Heavens. The gods assembled in the White Temple for their deliberations and liturgy. Only the priest-king and his servants could enter it.
The priest-king of Erech, Lugalanu, stood in the temple performing sacred duties when the wounded pazuzu crashed onto the floor.
Lugalanu hurried his pace through the long dark underground tunnel connecting the ziggurat and the palace in the Eanna district. With practiced effort he balanced his sacrificial bowl in the flickering torchlight without spilling the blood offering for Anu and his consort Inanna. They always wanted blood. It was the food of the gods and they were ravenous.
Lugalanu’s father, the previous priest-king of Erech, had died not long before, leaving his son as the new ruler of the city, called the Big Boss. Lugalanu’s name meant “leader of Anu,” and his name reflected his job. His responsibilities included not merely the overseeing of ceremonial and priestly activities but the civil governing of the city and the military defense of the outlying area. This combined religious and civic responsibility sometimes wore him out. He had even pleaded with the father god Anu to divide the duties between two leaders, one civil and one religious, but Anu told him it was not yet to be. Concentrated power was always more efficient at getting things accomplished, and Anu had a lot to accomplish with his priest-king.
The positive result of such multiple responsibilities was a certain breadth of wisdom. And wisdom made Lugalanu a good ruler. He had studied some of the dark secrets of the gods, and he was trained in the art of leadership and war. He pitied his people and sought their good, even if they did not understand that good, and the gods richly rewarded him. He had everything he wanted in this world of power and privilege — except a wife. Oh, he had concubines plenty. His nights were filled with selfish gratification of every desire, both natural and unnatural. What he longed for was to be known, to make a true connection with another human being, to have a queen who would rule by his side. But how could the supreme human ruler of the city ever find a woman he could trust amidst this crowd of sycophants, manipulators, and usurpers?
Such thoughts fluttered through his mind as Lugalanu passed into the palace area. His royal robes flowed behind him as he whisked over mosaic floors and past engraved walls of brick. Palace guards stiffened to attention at the sight of him.
He was pure royalty, a youthful three hundred years old, muscular, and handsome with his regal oblong cranium. All the servants of the gods and their entourage practiced head binding. It expressed devotion to the deities. Infants were taken early and their skulls bound with straps until they protruded like an extended egg. As the infant’s skull matured and hardened, it maintained its oblong shape permanently.
Lugalanu was completely hairless, like all royal servants. Not a hair on their heads, not an eyebrow or a single nose hair was allowed. It was a sign of perfection to transcend humanity by freeing oneself from the most mammalian of physical traits, hair. It made one look more like the sleek hairless gods he worshipped.
Lugalanu marched through the outer court of the palace, striding past lines of bird-men soldiers. These chimeras with bodies of men and heads of hawks and falcons stood at perfect attention, motionless as statues. Their stoic rigidity masked the savage brutality of fierce warriors, created by the sorceries of the gods to build an army for conquest. But the bird-men were a mere trifle compared to the apex of the gods’ creativity: the creatures which Lugalanu now approached at the doorway of the inner court.
The gigantic doors loomed over Lugalanu’s head. They were ten cubits tall, two and half times the size of the largest man, made of the mightiest cedar and inlaid with gold. Guarding either side of the gateway were two immense Nephilim.
These Nephilim were giant warriors eight to nine cubits tall, nearly as tall as the inner court doors, demigods created by the mating of the divine Sons of God with the human daughters of men. They were the personal royal guard of deity. Their bodies were covered in occultic tattoos used in magic. They had an extra digit on their hands and feet for a total of twelve fingers and twelve toes. No one on earth had seen anything like their armor, coverings made of a light metallic alloy unknown to man. The Nephilim were also called the Seed of Nachash, titans of war that could not easily be defeated by man born of woman. From the perspective of the gods, they were a strategic achievement of intermingling the human and the divine. From the perspective of Elohim, they were an evil corruption of creation. They struck terror into the hearts of everyone who saw them, including Lugalanu. Though they seemed to defer to his authority, he could never quite bring himself to look them in the eye. He stared blankly at the floor ahead of him and continued his purposeful march.
Lugalanu passed the giants into the inner court, the doors closing behind him like a barrier of magic. He paused to take a deep breath before looking up. This moment always astonished him. The most beautiful atrium ever conceived by the mind of deity lay before him. The vast space measured seventy cubits long and forty cubits high, a man-made paradise. It hosted a mixture of architecture sculpted by the most trained of slave craftsmen, and flora cultivated by the most practiced of horticulturalists. As Lugalanu proceeded down the path toward the throne room, a flurry of doves flew out of the foliage around him past the brick columns into the vaulted ceiling above, a heaven on earth. Gemstones glittered everywhere, embedded in the marble: lapis lazuli, sapphire, beryl, topaz, and amethyst. His own adjacent courtroom as priest-king, though full of its own luxuries, looked like a poor imitation of this chamber.
The smell of exotic incense burning on braziers filled his nostrils, as Lugalanu approached the throne room. He saw the shimmering curtains to the throne room were pulled back to display the forms of Anu and Inanna seated on gem-laden thrones. Two large crossbred sphinx-like creatures that the gods called aladlammu, guarded the pair. One had the body of a bull, the other of a lion, and both the bearded heads of a human being. They were born of the gods’ magical warping of creation. The stone sculptures outside the palace depicted this pair of living breathing monstrosities. The sight of them sent a shudder through Lugalanu. Their penetrating eyes followed his every move with sentinel alertness.
Anu and Inanna silently watched Lugalanu pour out his libation of blood into crystal chalices on the altar. Lugalanu then genuflected and waited for their command.
The gods lounged resplendent in their royal finery. When standing, they towered well over five and a third cubits, much more than Lugalanu’s own four cubits. Their eyes shimmered with blue lapis lazuli reptilian irises. Their tongues split lizard-like. Despite their androgynous appearance, Inanna dressed the part of a goddess. They had elongated heads, which the head-binding of their servants sought to mimic. Anu and Inanna would tolerate nothing less than human attendants molded into their likeness. They both wore the horned headdress of deity common throughout the region. Both wore royal robes created from the feathers of vultures.
Inanna cultivated a flamboyance that set her apart from Anu. She wore heavy makeup and pierced her body all over with rings, studs, and spikes. Her nose, eyebrows, and other body parts hosted these symbols of the forced pain that she pleasured in. She also gloried in outrageous outfits as a display of her ironic status as goddess of sex and war. This day, she was more restrained with her red leather and chains.
The skin of the gods appeared smooth, but Lugalanu knew that close up fine subtle scales that sparkled in the light covered them, producing a visible aura of constant radiant luminescence. Many described this radiance in terms of beryl, crystal or shining bronze. When their passions flared for good or bad, their shining would increase in brilliance, giving the impression of flashes of lightning. Because of this, they were called Shining Ones.
Lugalanu could always count on Anu to have a certain detached playfulness about him, as if he enjoyed being deity and played up the formalities of royalty with a sardonic loftiness. Inanna, on the other hand, was unpredictable and dangerous. She had a violent temper because everyone always seemed to be in the way of her accomplishing her plans. She would instantly kill servants who made mistakes in her presence. She might smite even those who gave her gaudy appearance a strange look. Lugalanu sought to ingratiate himself to them at every opportunity.
“My priest-king, Lugalanu, lord of the city, how dost thou fare?” pronounced Anu with a touch of playful overstatement in his voice.
“Well, my lord Anu, king of gods,” Lugalanu responded, promptly followed by a nod to Inanna. “Queen of heaven, my worship.”
“Up, up. What do you want?” blurted Inanna.
Lugalanu straightened up quickly and replied, “I have intelligence from one of our pazuzu scouts of a human tribe of nomads in the great cedar forest.”
“Well, go slay them,” she snorted.
Anu stepped in. “We want loyal, willing subjects, not rebels of insurrection, Inanna.”
They argued about this frequently. Anu knew that Inanna wanted to eliminate all the remaining human tribes who worshipped Elohim. But he thought they would accomplish their purposes more effectively if they concentrated on defiling the human bloodline as a way to thwart Elohim’s plans for a kingly seed.
It frustrated Inanna to no end that she had to submit to Anu’s kingship. Ever since her colossal failure in the war of the titans, called the Titanomachy, she had been demoted from co-regent with him to his consort so he could keep an eye on her. She had massive scars on her back to remind her of the consequences of insubordination. She reined herself in with calculated self-interest.
Lugalanu curried the Queen’s favor, “My lord, I humbly defer to her highness. Every rogue human tribe is a possible fulfillment of the revelation.”
Anu bristled with annoyance. “The Revelation,” he snorted, conveying the impression to the human that he did not believe it. But he did believe it. He sickened of the dread that seized everyone when this revelation business was brought up. Fear was healthy; dread was self-destructive.
“Ah yes, the Revelation,” Inanna shot back. “A ‘Chosen Seed’ who will end the rule of the gods. Are you not concerned, lord? We are among those gods who rule. And you are the head of the pantheon, the high and mighty one.” She matched Anu’s annoyance with sarcasm. “Unless you think you have nothing to lose.”
She knew how he would respond. For the hundredth time, he said, “If they worship us, then we have no concern, and are free to use them as slave labor for our kingdom.”
The gods of the pantheon kept hidden from Lugalanu and most humans their real identities and goals. Anu’s real name was Semjaza, and Inanna’s, Azazel. These divinities were not gods like Elohim. They were in fact the Sons of God who rebelled from Elohim’s divine council that surrounded his very throne.
Elohim himself sat on the high throne, the Creator and Lord of all. Though mortal eyes could not see him, he was visible in his vice-regent, the Son of Man, The Angel of Yahweh, who mediated and led God’s heavenly host. The members of the host were the Sons of God, or Bene Elohim, ten thousand times ten thousand of his Holy Ones who deliberated with the Almighty and would carry forth his judgments — except those who had fallen.
Two hundred of them had violated their proper domain and left their heavenly habitation to come to earth. They were called “Watchers.” By masquerading as gods of the land, they sought to usurp the throne of Elohim and draw human worship away from the Creator. To further enslave the sons of men in idolatry, they had revealed unholy secrets of sorceries, fornications, and war. Enoch had pronounced judgment upon them in faraway days, but the manifestation of that judgment had not yet fallen upon the Watchers. The fullness of their iniquity was not yet complete.
Elohim had created mankind as his representative image on earth, to rule in his likeness. If the fallen Sons of God could transform the image of God into their image, their revenge would be almost complete. By mixing the human line of descent with their own, they could stop the bloodline of the promised King from bringing forth its fruit, and thereby win the war of the Seed of Nachash with the Seed of Havah.
Anu had a mellower side that Inanna lacked. He preferred to keep humans alive to serve him rather than destroy them. It was all a matter of perspective. He believed wisdom dictated that his own interests be portrayed as compassion to the humans. Perhaps they would even one day love him instead of fear him. Was this not what it was like to be Elohim?
Lugalanu interrupted Anu’s thoughts. “These nomads killed our scouts. They are ruthless savages.”
Anu responded, “I too would kill those ugly little beasts if they were sniffing around my residence.”
Inanna snorted with disapproval but refused to keep fighting. She would choose her battles. This was not one of them.
“Meet with the tribal leaders and allow them every opportunity to submit,” Anu decreed.
Inanna’s ire went up. “And if they do not?”
“Then enforce the will of the gods.” He was not about to appear weak. His patience only went so far.
Lugalanu bowed low and backed away from their presence. He wondered if he had kept a proper balance of flattery for Inanna without disrespect for Anu’s supremacy.
When the human was gone, Inanna grinned with delight to herself. Her vampiric fangs glistened red as she guzzled the blood offering with satisfaction. Perhaps she had not lost this battle after all.