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<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 9406441" data-attributes="member: 5142">It's probably not best to project our sentiments towards oceans onto ancient cultures. I do agree that the use of &quot;demiurge&quot; risks bringing in accumulated connotations to the word, which you point out here. Those can-of-worms issues aside, Lambert here is translating &quot;mummu&quot; from Tablet I, line 4: &quot;mummu tiāmtu muʾallidat gimrīšun.&quot; Looking through my copy of the Chicago Akkadian Dictionary, the word &quot;mummu&quot; commonly means &quot;craftsman, creator,&quot; among a few other things. The term &quot;bit mummu&quot; is often used for a workshop or even a scribal school. The lexical entry in CAD also notes that &quot;mummu&quot; is also an epithet of Ea and Marduk* as well as even Ištar. So it is a comparable term to the Greek word &quot;demiurge.&quot; However, Lambert (thankfully) does not provide the only translation of the Enuma Eliš and there are other translations that you can find for &quot;mummu tiāmtu&quot; that you find out there, including &quot;matrix/creatrix.&quot; For example, Kämmerer and Metzler, in a German translation after Lambert's, go with &quot;Die lebenswirkende Kraft Tiamat&quot; (trans. &quot;the life-giving force Tiamat&quot;). Of course, there may even be a pun at work here with mu-um-mu, as &quot;mu&quot; is the Akkadian word for &quot;water&quot; and &quot;ummu&quot; is an Akkadian word for &quot;mother.&quot; However, I am not so well versed in Akkadian that I can speak to the merits of whether such a pun is at play here, particularly as the actual cuneiform used could discredit this. I will save that question for an Assyriologist. I also don't want to spend too much of my day going down the rabbit hole of this broader issue of issues and scholarly debates in translating &quot;mummu.&quot; * For example, in the title and epithets given to Marduk in the final tablet, he is called &quot;mummu bān šamê (u) erṣeti&quot; or &quot;MUMMU, creator of heaven and the underworld.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 9406441, member: 5142"] It's probably not best to project our sentiments towards oceans onto ancient cultures. I do agree that the use of "demiurge" risks bringing in accumulated connotations to the word, which you point out here. Those can-of-worms issues aside, Lambert here is translating "mummu" from Tablet I, line 4: "mummu tiāmtu muʾallidat gimrīšun." Looking through my copy of the Chicago Akkadian Dictionary, the word "mummu" commonly means "craftsman, creator," among a few other things. The term "bit mummu" is often used for a workshop or even a scribal school. The lexical entry in CAD also notes that "mummu" is also an epithet of Ea and Marduk* as well as even Ištar. So it is a comparable term to the Greek word "demiurge." However, Lambert (thankfully) does not provide the only translation of the Enuma Eliš and there are other translations that you can find for "mummu tiāmtu" that you find out there, including "matrix/creatrix." For example, Kämmerer and Metzler, in a German translation after Lambert's, go with "Die lebenswirkende Kraft Tiamat" (trans. "the life-giving force Tiamat"). Of course, there may even be a pun at work here with mu-um-mu, as "mu" is the Akkadian word for "water" and "ummu" is an Akkadian word for "mother." However, I am not so well versed in Akkadian that I can speak to the merits of whether such a pun is at play here, particularly as the actual cuneiform used could discredit this. I will save that question for an Assyriologist. I also don't want to spend too much of my day going down the rabbit hole of this broader issue of issues and scholarly debates in translating "mummu." * For example, in the title and epithets given to Marduk in the final tablet, he is called "mummu bān šamê (u) erṣeti" or "MUMMU, creator of heaven and the underworld." [/QUOTE]

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