The roots of the legend of Adam, the first man, lie principally in two places; The early books of the Old Testament, and the alternative creation story such as the one known to the Babylonians and Assyrians¹ as the Enûma elish. The Enûma elish is thought to have been composed around 3500 BC, and copies from the first millennium BC are still extant today. The first of these tablets were excavated by Sir Austen Henry Layard and were from the library of King Ashur-banipal at Nineveh, Assyria.

The Enûma elish tells a reasonably similar story to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, of how the Earth was created by a certain deity through six clay tablets, with the seventh devoted to celebration and praise of the new creations.

The parallels between the Old Testament and the Enûma elish are numerous; but where the Bible has been doctored to match the needs of the Church, the older documents suffered no such blatant censorship and are concerned with telling a story.

The Story

So, in Genesis 1:7 (and more fully in Psalm 74, verses 13 and 14) the story is told that God parted the waters, and Psalm 74 goes further to say how God broke the heads of the dragons in the water. The Enûma elish goes further and explains that this was the God Marduk - who was named as being responsible for all the clever stuff with the clay tablets - who has to overcome the salt waters of Tiamat, portrayed as the great Dragon Queen.

These legends, and the basis for the Enûma elish, were handed down to these peoples from the Sumerians, who are truly the most mysterious people to walk this planet. We know nothing of where they came from, or their lineage, where they gained their technical know-how, or their language, which is unlike any language from any time period or any race, living or dead. Luckily for us, we have found the equivalent of their Rosetta Stone, which means we have been able to decode literally tens of thousands of clay tablets they have left behind. And because these tablets were created by inscribing a negative image into a cylinder and rolling it over wet clay, there are many copies of the same document and forgeries are very easy to spot! It is no exaggeration to say that we probably have more information about the Sumerians from first hand accounts than any other ancient race.

Genesis 5:2-3 says that when God created man he called them Adam; then took one and called her Eve. There is no conclusion to draw from this other than to presume Adam is a plural term. Genesis says God created Adam from the dust. The word for earth - Adamah.

The Sumerian creation records are over a thousand years older than the Enûma elish, and they tell of how the 'Lady of Life', the Goddess Nin-Khursag, was wont to make little clay models, and that one of these was mixed with the blood of Kingû, son of Tiamât, who had been executed for rebellion. The Enûma elish calls the first man lullû - literally, one who is mixed.

Nin-khursag continued her work with the clay models and to cut a long story short is eventually charged with populating the earth. She created 14 new humans - seven of each, by implanting into a normal human ova a cultured embryo created from her pinch of clay mixed with the blood of the Gods. Therefore, these 14 new people were born naturally as humans are now.

This repopulation experiment was a success as far as it went. But it was decreed that a line of earth-bound rulers was required to rule these new peoples. Nin-khursag, together with her husband and half brother Enki, the 'Lord Of Earth and Waters', concocted a new plan. Enki fertilised a mortal woman, and the embryo was placed into Nin-khursag, so that the foetus is fed with Annunaki (The race of Gods) blood. Nin-khursag carries the child to full term, and upon birth the child is designated the Adâma, which translates literally as 'earthling'. He is given the name Adapa and Enki bestows upon him the world's first priesthood. Enki also gives him extraordinary powers of control, and describes him as being of the 'Royal Seed'. And so the importance of Adapa - Adam - lies not as much in him being the first man, but in being the first in the priest-king bloodline. His partner, Khâwa - the woman we know as Eve - was created in the same way.

The implications of this are clear. Adam - Adapa - is therefore the first of the line that, we are led to believe, might eventually encompass King Solomon, Jesus and his children, and the Merovingians. It depends on which version of events you read, and more importantly believe. Is this the bloodline that the Priory of Sion has supported through the centuries, and from this line will the eventual King of All Europe come? All this and more has been postulated.

But this, in a nutshell, is the ancient legend of Adam, translated from the oldest documents to the best of current ability, without the need to subvert and control the population who would be reading it.

There are a number of footnotes to this story, which are mostly to do with mis-translated words in the Bible which can be clarified by use of these older documents. The mis-translations come in the change from Hebrew to Greek and mostly occurred when there was not an exact Greek translation for a Hebrew concept. This, coupled with the more colourful and joyous outlook on life that the Greeks enjoyed led them to treat some of the expressed biblical ideas differently and use a word that we now find misleading.