Ancient Mysteries & Interpretations
Adapa, a wise man, refuses heaven's bread and water of life and so remains mortal. In the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag, a goddess named Ninti heals Enki's rib, a pun that may echo Eve, made from a rib and named "mother of all living." Both comparisons are real; both need care.
Ancient texts: documented · Connection with Genesis: debated
God takes one of the man's ribs (tsela') and makes a woman (2:21–22). After the fall, Adam names her Eve (Hawwah), "because she was the mother of all living" (3:20). The humans are sent out "lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" (3:22).
Adapa, a sage of Eridu, breaks the wing of the South Wind and is summoned to heaven. His god Ea warns him not to eat the "bread of death"; the sky god Anu instead offers the bread and water of life, which Adapa refuses.
Source: S. Izre'el, Adapa and the South Wind (Eisenbrauns, 2001)
In the pure land of Dilmun, Enki eats eight forbidden plants and falls ill in eight body parts; Ninhursag creates eight healing deities. The one for his rib is Ninti.
Adapa and Adam
In Sumerian, ti means both "rib" and "to live." Nin-ti can be "lady of the rib" or "lady who makes live." Samuel Noah Kramer proposed in 1945 that this pun lies behind Eve, made from a rib and called the mother of all living. The idea is elegant, but the pun does not work in Hebrew (tsela' is "rib," hay is "living"), the plots differ completely, and most scholars now treat it as an intriguing possibility rather than a demonstrated link. Scholars have also largely abandoned identifying Dilmun (probably Bahrain) with Eden.
Scholarly reconstruction
Both Mesopotamia and Genesis asked why humans have wisdom but not immortality. Genesis answers with a moral story of trust broken; Adapa with a trick of the gods.
Source: S. Izre'el, Adapa and the South Wind (Eisenbrauns, 2001)
Scholarly reconstruction
Kramer and others proposed that Genesis reworked Sumerian motifs such as Ninti.
Source: S. N. Kramer, Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian "Paradise" Myth (1945)
Traditional reading
Some believers see in such stories distorted memories of the true events recorded in Genesis.
These stories show that Genesis 2–3 addresses questions the ancient world was already asking: life, death, wisdom and divine command. The specific links (Adapa = Adam; Ninti = Eve) are possible but unproven.
The Amarna Adapa tablet shows the story was copied as a training text by Egyptian scribes learning Akkadian in the 14th century BC: Mesopotamian literature traveled widely.
What the evidence shows
Source: S. Izre'el, Adapa and the South Wind (Eisenbrauns, 2001)
Source: S. N. Kramer, Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian "Paradise" Myth (1945)