Posts

Showing posts from July 22, 2012

Is It Safe to Die, Part IV, Gilgamesh and Robert Monroe

The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Book of Job and several Psalms in the Hebrew Bible echo the dark and dreary Mesopotamian/Canaanite view of death. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s beloved friend Enkidu receives a premonition of his death in a dream. He describes his immanent fate to Gilgamesh. This passage can be found in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), 1950, p. 87, but a more lay-friendly version is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh by N. K. Sandars, Penguin, 1983. “As Enkidu slept alone in his sickness, in bitterness of spirit he poured out his heart to his friend. ‘It was I who cut down the cedar, who leveled the forest, I who slew Humbaba and now see what has become of me. Listen, my friend, this is the dream I dreamed last night. The heavens roared, and earth rumbled back an answer; between them stood I before an awful being, the somber-faced man-bird; he had directed on me his purpose. His was a vampire face, his foot was a lion’s foot, his hand