Synchronization

Chart cells

• Science

  Cosmos governed by physical processes.

• Judaism

  Creation by God.

• Enochic

  Created cosmos under divine order.

• Christianity

  Creation by God.

• Islam

  Creation by Allah.

• Hindu

  Reality and cosmos expressed cyclically; varies enormously by school.

• Buddhist

  No single creator required.

• Daoist

  Dao underlying or preceding differentiation.

• Egyptian

  Ordered cosmos emerges from primordial state.

• Mesopotamian

  Gods establish cosmic order.

• Norse

  Cosmos organized from primordial processes.

• Anishinaabe

  Creation understood relationally; accounts vary.

• Maya

  Creation involves successive ordering or attempts.

• Zoroastrian

  Ordered creation opposed by destructive force.

• LDS

  Eternal or preexistent elements/intelligences; God organizes creation.

• Scientology

  Spiritual beings precede present embodied existence.

• Astrology

  Cosmos and human life participate in an interconnected order; celestial configurations are traditionally understood as corresponding with terrestrial conditions and events.

• Sumerian

  No single cosmogony in the texts filed here. Kingship is lowered from heaven.

• Greek

  A cosmos from primordial conditions. Chaos, divine succession, and philosophical ordering are not one account.

• Jain

  No creator god. The universe is eternal and runs by its own order.

• Sikh

  One God, who creates and pervades the world.

• Shinto

  Land and kami arise in myth. There is no single creator-god doctrine across Shinto.

• Chinese

  Heaven and generative process. Not one creation myth across Chinese tradition.

• Gnostic

  A highest divine reality, and in many systems a lesser maker of the material world. Schools differ.

• Hermetic

  Divine Mind and an ordered cosmos, often called living. The Hermetica do not agree in every treatise.

• Yoruba

  Olódùmarè as source, with òrìṣà carrying creation in many accounts. Not one written canon.

• Aboriginal

  Ancestral beings shape country. There is no single Aboriginal creation story.

• Inca

  Viracocha, or other figures, orders the world in some Inca and Andean accounts. Local origins differ.

• Baháʼí

  One God, revealed through a series of Manifestations. Baháʼu’lláh is claimed as the latest.

• Haudenosaunee

  A sky world is above. Sky Woman falls through an opening. Animals dive, and earth is placed on a turtle’s back. Tellings differ by nation. This is not the Anishinaabe account.

• Lakota

  Not one story under both names. A Lakota telling has the people emerging at Wind Cave, in the Black Hills. That emergence is not filed as a Dakota origin. Dakota origin is Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Dakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Diné

  Emergence upward through earlier worlds into this surface world. First Man, First Woman, and Changing Woman (Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé) belong to these narratives. The number of earlier worlds is not the same in every telling. This is not a Hopi emergence.

• Hopi

  The people emerge upward through earlier worlds, by a sipapu, into this one. Maasaw meets them here. Clan tellings of the migrations differ. This is not the Diné emergence.

• Irish

  Irish tales begin with successive settlements, not creation from nothing.

• Welsh

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Gaulish

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Māori

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hawaiian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Tahitian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Enki and Ninmah

  Sumerian. Known from Old Babylonian copies. Not a single autograph date.

  The gods are burdened with labor. Enki and Ninhursag fashion humans from clay so the work can be carried. Some of the humans are made with bodily defects, and a place is found for them. Humanity is made by gods, for a task. The text is not a moral sermon.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Enūma Eliš

  Akkadian (Babylonian). Babylonian creation poem. Often placed in the later second millennium BCE. Copies continue long after.

  The gods contend. Marduk kills Tiamat and builds the ordered world from her body. Humans are made from the blood of the defeated Qingu, so the gods can be served. Creation is a deliberate ordering after combat. The human task in this poem is service, not a moral test.

Chart cells

• Science

  Biological organisms; consciousness unresolved.

• Judaism

  Created humans with moral agency.

• Enochic

  Humans entangled with heavenly rebellion.

• Christianity

  Embodied spiritual and moral beings.

• Islam

  Humans with moral agency.

• Hindu

  Ātman/self concepts vary by school.

• Buddhist

  No permanent independent self.

• Daoist

  Human life participates in cosmic process.

• Egyptian

  Multiple components of personhood.

• Mesopotamian

  Humans occupy a relationship with the gods.

• Norse

  Humans inhabit one of multiple worlds.

• Anishinaabe

  Humans embedded within living relationships.

• Maya

  Humanity participates in cosmic obligations.

• Zoroastrian

  Humans participate morally in cosmic struggle.

• LDS

  Humans have premortal existence and divine potential.

• Scientology

  Thetan is fundamentally spiritual.

• Astrology

  Humans exist within a larger cosmic pattern; the circumstances of birth are traditionally used to map an individual’s relationship to that pattern.

• Sumerian

  Humans fashioned from clay to carry the gods’ work.

• Greek

  Mortals, distinct from gods. A separable soul is a later and partial claim, not the Homeric one.

• Jain

  An embodied jīva, bound by karma.

• Sikh

  A soul in a body, liable to self-centeredness, able to live in hukam.

• Shinto

  People live among kami. A fallen soul is not the definition used here.

• Chinese

  A person between Heaven and Earth, with duties to ancestors. Soul-accounts differ.

• Gnostic

  In many tellings, a divine element in a body and a lower cosmos. Not every text uses that anthropology.

• Hermetic

  A mortal who shares in Mind and in body, and who can know the divine.

• Yoruba

  A person with orí, in relation to òrìṣà and ancestors.

• Aboriginal

  People belong to country, kin, and law. Personhood is not one definition.

• Inca

  Humans live in reciprocity with gods, ancestors, and land.

• Baháʼí

  A rational soul, created to know and to worship God.

• Haudenosaunee

  People are of Sky Woman’s line, living in clan under the Great Law of Peace. A further doctrine of the person is Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Lakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed. A Lakota way of speaking about the person is not copied onto Dakota.

• Dakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Diné

  Living in hózhǫ́ — balance, and right relation — is the aim named here. The word is not rendered as salvation or as enlightenment.

• Hopi

  People are here under a covenant to care for the land, and by clan. A doctrine of a separable soul is Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Irish

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Welsh

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Gaulish

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Māori

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hawaiian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Tahitian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Enki and Ninmah

  Sumerian. Known from Old Babylonian copies. Not a single autograph date.

  The gods are burdened with labor. Enki and Ninhursag fashion humans from clay so the work can be carried. Some of the humans are made with bodily defects, and a place is found for them. Humanity is made by gods, for a task. The text is not a moral sermon.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Enūma Eliš

  Akkadian (Babylonian). Babylonian creation poem. Often placed in the later second millennium BCE. Copies continue long after.

  The gods contend. Marduk kills Tiamat and builds the ordered world from her body. Humans are made from the blood of the defeated Qingu, so the gods can be served. Creation is a deliberate ordering after combat. The human task in this poem is service, not a moral test.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Atraḫasīs

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian copies exist, with later editions.

  Humans are created from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a god, to bear the work of the Igigi. They multiply. The gods are disturbed by their noise and send plague, famine, then a flood. Enki warns Atraḫasīs, who builds a boat and saves life. The poem’s stated grievance is noise and numbers, not a law code. The warning is knowledge from a god, and it is given against the decision of the divine assembly.

Chart cells

• Science

  Extraterrestrial life possible; unknown.

• Judaism

  Angels and other spiritual beings.

• Enochic

  Watchers, angels, giants.

• Christianity

  Angels, fallen beings/demons.

• Islam

  Angels, jinn, Iblis.

• Hindu

  Devas, asuras, and many other beings.

• Buddhist

  Devas and numerous classes of beings.

• Daoist

  Immortals, spirits, deities.

• Egyptian

  Gods, spirits.

• Mesopotamian

  Gods, spirits, monsters.

• Norse

  Æsir, Vanir, jötnar, elves, and others.

• Anishinaabe

  Manidoog and other-than-human persons/beings.

• Maya

  Gods and supernatural beings.

• Zoroastrian

  Beneficent and destructive spiritual beings.

• LDS

  Angels and divine beings.

• Scientology

  Spiritual beings/thetans.

• Astrology

  Planets, stars, signs, and celestial powers; some traditions associate celestial bodies with gods, spirits, intelligences, or other beings.

• Sumerian

  Gods, including Enki, Inanna, and the powers of the netherworld.

• Greek

  Olympian and chthonic gods, Titans, heroes, nymphs, daimones. Not one fixed pantheon.

• Jain

  Innumerable jīvas, including gods and hell-beings. They are not creators.

• Sikh

  God is one. Other named powers are not equals.

• Shinto

  Kami — myriad, local and cosmic. Not one pantheon.

• Chinese

  Gods, ancestors, ghosts, and local spirits. Not one list.

• Gnostic

  Aeons, archons, and a demiurge appear in many systems. Names and ranks differ.

• Hermetic

  God, Mind, and cosmic powers or daimones. Later ceremonial Hermeticism widens the hierarchy.

• Yoruba

  Òrìṣà and ancestors. The òrìṣà are not interchangeable.

• Aboriginal

  Ancestral beings and other presences in country. Not a portable pantheon.

• Inca

  Gods, huacas, and ancestors. The Inca list is not every Andean list.

• Baháʼí

  God and the Manifestations. A pantheon of peer gods is not the framework.

• Haudenosaunee

  Sky Woman, the twins, and the animals who act in the creation. Thunderers appear in many tellings. They are not the beings named on the Lakota, Diné, or Hopi rows.

• Lakota

  Wakaŋ Tȟáŋka is not translated here as another tradition’s God. Wakíŋyaŋ, the Thunder Beings, and White Buffalo Calf Woman are Lakota names. Dakota beings are not renamed into these.

• Dakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Diné

  Diyin Dineʼé, the Holy People. Public narratives name Changing Woman and the Hero Twins, Naayééʼ Neizghání and Tóbájíshchíní. They are not katsinam and not manidoog.

• Hopi

  Maasaw, and the katsinam. Katsinam are not Diyin Dineʼé and not manidoog.

• Irish

  Tuatha Dé Danann are named. The filed line does not give the rest of an Irish list.

• Welsh

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Gaulish

  Gaulish names are said to be known from inscriptions and Roman reports. They are not listed. Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Māori

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hawaiian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Tahitian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld

  Sumerian. Sumerian. The netherworld rules are stated inside the poem.

  Inanna leaves heaven and earth, descends, is killed, and is brought back. Someone must take her place below. Dumuzi is seized. Death here is a realm with a gate and a queen, not simple nonexistence. A god can cross, and the crossing has a price.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Descent of Ishtar

  Akkadian. Akkadian poem parallel to Inanna’s Descent, not the same text.

  Ishtar goes down to the netherworld, is stripped at each gate, and is held. The world above fails without her. She is released. The boundary can be crossed by a goddess, and the land of the dead is a place with gates.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Adapa

  Akkadian. Known from Amarna and later copies. The middle is fragmentary.

  Ea gives Adapa wisdom, not eternal life. Adapa ascends to Anu. He refuses the food of life because Ea told him it was the food of death. He returns mortal. Ascent happens. The knowledge and the immortality are separated on purpose.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Etana

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian and later copies.

  Etana, a king without an heir, is carried toward heaven by an eagle to obtain the plant of birth. A human is taken up. The poem is about a crossing for a specific need, not about a permanent change of realm.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Inanna and Enki

  Sumerian. Sumerian literary composition. Copy dates are later than any first telling.

  Inanna takes the me — the divine powers of crafts, rites, and offices — from Enki in Eridu and brings them to Uruk. Civilization’s offices move from one god’s city to another. The text treats that transfer as Inanna’s gain, not as a human crime.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Atraḫasīs

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian copies exist, with later editions.

  Humans are created from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a god, to bear the work of the Igigi. They multiply. The gods are disturbed by their noise and send plague, famine, then a flood. Enki warns Atraḫasīs, who builds a boat and saves life. The poem’s stated grievance is noise and numbers, not a law code. The warning is knowledge from a god, and it is given against the decision of the divine assembly.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet XI

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Standard Babylonian epic. A flood tale told inside a later frame.

  Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the flood: a boat, the city’s crafts carried aboard, the waters, a sacrifice, and eternal life granted to him and his wife alone. Gilgamesh is refused that life. The survivor carries people and crafts across the flood. Immortality is the exception. The human lot in the epic is death.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Adapa

  Akkadian. Known from Amarna and later copies. The middle is fragmentary.

  Ea gives Adapa wisdom, not eternal life. Adapa ascends to Anu. He refuses the food of life because Ea told him it was the food of death. He returns mortal. Ascent happens. The knowledge and the immortality are separated on purpose.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

• 1 Enoch

  Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72–82)

  Aramaic fragments at Qumran; Geʿez. Early Enochic. The astronomical scheme is its own booklet.

  Uriel shows Enoch the gates of the sun, moon, and stars and the law of their motion. Knowledge comes from a heavenly being. In this booklet it is the order of the lights, not metallurgy and not called a crime.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet I

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Opening of the Standard Babylonian epic.

  Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds god and one-third human, a king who built Uruk’s wall. The epic places an extraordinary being in a city after the flood-age of the other tablet. It does not say he is a Watcher, a giant of 1 Enoch, or a Norse jötunn.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Atraḫasīs

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian copies exist, with later editions.

  Humans are created from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a god, to bear the work of the Igigi. They multiply. The gods are disturbed by their noise and send plague, famine, then a flood. Enki warns Atraḫasīs, who builds a boat and saves life. The poem’s stated grievance is noise and numbers, not a law code. The warning is knowledge from a god, and it is given against the decision of the divine assembly.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

Chart cells

• Science

  Extinctions and catastrophes; cosmic endings possible.

• Judaism

  Flood, judgment, restoration.

• Enochic

  Judgment of corrupt beings and the world.

• Christianity

  Apocalypse, judgment, renewed creation.

• Islam

  Final judgment and transformation.

• Hindu

  Repeated cosmic cycles.

• Buddhist

  Cyclic existence; cosmological cycles in many traditions.

• Daoist

  Transformation and cycles.

• Egyptian

  Cyclical death and renewal.

• Mesopotamian

  Great flood and catastrophe traditions.

• Norse

  Ragnarök followed by a renewed world.

• Anishinaabe

  Flood and re-creation traditions exist.

• Maya

  Previous creations and transformations.

• Zoroastrian

  Final restoration.

• LDS

  Judgment and renewal.

• Scientology

  Not centered on one world apocalypse.

• Astrology

  Great ages, conjunction cycles, precessional/world-age concepts, and recurring celestial cycles appear in different systems.

• Sumerian

  A flood. Ziusudra survives. Kingship is lowered from heaven again, to Kish.

• Greek

  Divine succession and catastrophic episodes. Not one universal apocalypse.

• Jain

  The universe is not destroyed. Time moves in ascending and descending eras.

• Sikh

  Creation does not last forever. A dated apocalypse is not the center of the teaching.

• Shinto

  Not centered on a world-ending apocalypse.

• Chinese

  Disorder and the loss of Heaven’s mandate are recorded. Not one apocalypse.

• Gnostic

  The lower order is to be escaped or undone for the spiritual. Not one flood of a civilization.

• Hermetic

  The Asclepius laments a loss and return of sacred order in Egypt. Not a universal Hermetic apocalypse.

• Yoruba

  Not centered on one world-ending apocalypse.

• Aboriginal

  Not centered on a future end of the world. Local catastrophe stories are not one myth.

• Inca

  World-turnings are recorded. Not one flood and not a final judgment.

• Baháʼí

  Earlier religious cycles are said to be fulfilled, not repeated as equal kalpas.

• Haudenosaunee

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Lakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Dakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Diné

  Naayééʼ, the monsters, are overcome in the narratives. A future end of the world is Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hopi

  Earlier worlds were left. Continuation of this world is tied to keeping the covenant. A single prophecy text is not filed.

• Irish

  Invasions, floods, and the end of a people’s age appear in Irish legend.

• Welsh

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Gaulish

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Māori

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hawaiian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Tahitian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Eridu Genesis (Sumerian flood story)

  Sumerian. Fragmentary. The surviving pieces are not a complete tablet.

  A flood is sent. Ziusudra, king and priest, survives in a boat. After the flood he is granted life like a god. The survivor is named. The tablet is broken, so the cause of the flood is not fully on the pieces we have.

• Sumerian texts

  Sumerian King List

  Sumerian. Several versions. Antediluvian sections are not uniform across copies.

  Kingship is lowered from heaven. Kings before the flood reign for immense spans. Then the flood sweeps over. After it, kingship is lowered from heaven again, to Kish. The list treats the flood as a break, and the kingship after it as a second beginning — not as the end of kingship.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Atraḫasīs

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian copies exist, with later editions.

  Humans are created from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a god, to bear the work of the Igigi. They multiply. The gods are disturbed by their noise and send plague, famine, then a flood. Enki warns Atraḫasīs, who builds a boat and saves life. The poem’s stated grievance is noise and numbers, not a law code. The warning is knowledge from a god, and it is given against the decision of the divine assembly.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet XI

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Standard Babylonian epic. A flood tale told inside a later frame.

  Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the flood: a boat, the city’s crafts carried aboard, the waters, a sacrifice, and eternal life granted to him and his wife alone. Gilgamesh is refused that life. The survivor carries people and crafts across the flood. Immortality is the exception. The human lot in the epic is death.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90)

  Geʿez, with Aramaic fragments of related material. Includes the Animal Apocalypse. Second century BCE is a common placement. Not certain to the year.

  History is told as a vision of animals: a flood, a remnant, the nations that follow, and a judgment. The story does not stop at the flood. A later age is inside the same vision.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Eridu Genesis (Sumerian flood story)

  Sumerian. Fragmentary. The surviving pieces are not a complete tablet.

  A flood is sent. Ziusudra, king and priest, survives in a boat. After the flood he is granted life like a god. The survivor is named. The tablet is broken, so the cause of the flood is not fully on the pieces we have.

• Sumerian texts

  Sumerian King List

  Sumerian. Several versions. Antediluvian sections are not uniform across copies.

  Kingship is lowered from heaven. Kings before the flood reign for immense spans. Then the flood sweeps over. After it, kingship is lowered from heaven again, to Kish. The list treats the flood as a break, and the kingship after it as a second beginning — not as the end of kingship.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Atraḫasīs

  Akkadian. Old Babylonian copies exist, with later editions.

  Humans are created from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a god, to bear the work of the Igigi. They multiply. The gods are disturbed by their noise and send plague, famine, then a flood. Enki warns Atraḫasīs, who builds a boat and saves life. The poem’s stated grievance is noise and numbers, not a law code. The warning is knowledge from a god, and it is given against the decision of the divine assembly.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet XI

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Standard Babylonian epic. A flood tale told inside a later frame.

  Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the flood: a boat, the city’s crafts carried aboard, the waters, a sacrifice, and eternal life granted to him and his wife alone. Gilgamesh is refused that life. The survivor carries people and crafts across the flood. Immortality is the exception. The human lot in the epic is death.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90)

  Geʿez, with Aramaic fragments of related material. Includes the Animal Apocalypse. Second century BCE is a common placement. Not certain to the year.

  History is told as a vision of animals: a flood, a remnant, the nations that follow, and a judgment. The story does not stop at the flood. A later age is inside the same vision.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Sumerian King List

  Sumerian. Several versions. Antediluvian sections are not uniform across copies.

  Kingship is lowered from heaven. Kings before the flood reign for immense spans. Then the flood sweeps over. After it, kingship is lowered from heaven again, to Kish. The list treats the flood as a break, and the kingship after it as a second beginning — not as the end of kingship.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet I

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Opening of the Standard Babylonian epic.

  Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds god and one-third human, a king who built Uruk’s wall. The epic places an extraordinary being in a city after the flood-age of the other tablet. It does not say he is a Watcher, a giant of 1 Enoch, or a Norse jötunn.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90)

  Geʿez, with Aramaic fragments of related material. Includes the Animal Apocalypse. Second century BCE is a common placement. Not certain to the year.

  History is told as a vision of animals: a flood, a remnant, the nations that follow, and a judgment. The story does not stop at the flood. A later age is inside the same vision.

Chart cells

• Science

  Biological death; continuation unestablished.

• Judaism

  Multiple concepts across periods and traditions.

• Enochic

  Afterlife and judgment.

• Christianity

  Resurrection, judgment, eternal destiny.

• Islam

  Judgment and continued existence.

• Hindu

  Death changes embodiment or state.

• Buddhist

  Continuity through dependent processes.

• Daoist

  Varied traditions concerning spirit and death.

• Egyptian

  Extensive postmortem journey.

• Mesopotamian

  Underworld traditions.

• Norse

  Several possible destinations.

• Anishinaabe

  Continued spiritual existence.

• Maya

  Underworld and celestial journeys.

• Zoroastrian

  Judgment and continued existence.

• LDS

  Spirit world followed by resurrection.

• Scientology

  Thetan survives bodily death.

• Astrology

  Depends upon the religious or philosophical tradition in which the astrology operates.

• Sumerian

  A netherworld with gates. Inanna dies there and returns; a substitute is taken.

• Greek

  Underworld destinations vary: Hades, Isles of the Blessed, punishment, or a philosopher’s myth.

• Jain

  The jīva continues according to karma, or is liberated.

• Sikh

  The soul continues. Union with God is the aim. A mapped heaven-and-hell geography is not the center.

• Shinto

  Death is tied to impurity and, in many streams, to ancestors. One afterlife map is not shared.

• Chinese

  Ancestors continue and can be served. Underworld bureaucracies belong to some popular streams, not all.

• Gnostic

  Release of what is divine from the cosmos. Not one shared afterlife map.

• Hermetic

  Ascent or return of the soul is taught in several texts. Not one diagram.

• Yoruba

  Ancestors continue. Details of the land of the dead vary.

• Aboriginal

  Death is handled in local law. A shared afterlife map is not recorded here.

• Inca

  The dead remain active as ancestors. Inca destinations are not the whole Andean record.

• Baháʼí

  The soul progresses after death. Nearness to God and remoteness from God are the teaching’s heaven and hell.

• Haudenosaunee

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Lakota

  A Lakota teaching names a spirit road, Wanáǧi Thacháŋku, identified with the Milky Way. It is not filed as the Dakota teaching.

• Dakota

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Diné

  What remains with the dead is treated as dangerous and is not a heaven to be sought. A map of the afterlife is Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hopi

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Irish

  The filed line names síd as an otherworld. It does not give one afterlife.

• Welsh

  The filed line names Annwn as an otherworld. It does not give one afterlife.

• Gaulish

  Classical authors report a Gaulish teaching about death. The filed line says those words are not Gaulish, and that it is not a full doctrine.

• Māori

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Hawaiian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

• Tahitian

  Unclassified / Source Needed.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• Sumerian texts

  Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld

  Sumerian. Sumerian. The netherworld rules are stated inside the poem.

  Inanna leaves heaven and earth, descends, is killed, and is brought back. Someone must take her place below. Dumuzi is seized. Death here is a realm with a gate and a queen, not simple nonexistence. A god can cross, and the crossing has a price.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Descent of Ishtar

  Akkadian. Akkadian poem parallel to Inanna’s Descent, not the same text.

  Ishtar goes down to the netherworld, is stripped at each gate, and is held. The world above fails without her. She is released. The boundary can be crossed by a goddess, and the land of the dead is a place with gates.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Gilgamesh, tablet XI

  Akkadian (Standard Babylonian). Standard Babylonian epic. A flood tale told inside a later frame.

  Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the flood: a boat, the city’s crafts carried aboard, the waters, a sacrifice, and eternal life granted to him and his wife alone. Gilgamesh is refused that life. The survivor carries people and crafts across the flood. Immortality is the exception. The human lot in the epic is death.

• Akkadian and Babylonian texts

  Adapa

  Akkadian. Known from Amarna and later copies. The middle is fragmentary.

  Ea gives Adapa wisdom, not eternal life. Adapa ascends to Anu. He refuses the food of life because Ea told him it was the food of death. He returns mortal. Ascent happens. The knowledge and the immortality are separated on purpose.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)

  Aramaic fragments; Geʿez the continuous text. Oldest section of the collection. Qumran fragments. Not the same date as the Parables.

  Watchers descend, desire human women, and father giants. They teach arts the text treats as forbidden: metalwork and weapons, cosmetics, sorcery, and the observation of signs. Violence fills the earth. The Watchers are bound. A deluge is announced. Heaven is entered by Enoch as a visionary, and chapter 22 describes places for the spirits of the dead. Descent, hybrid offspring, transmitted knowledge, corruption, judgment, and a death-realm are all in this one booklet — and the booklet calls the teaching a transgression.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37–71)

  Geʿez; Aramaic original not found at Qumran. Later than the Watchers. Often placed around the late first century BCE or after. Uncertain.

  A visionary sees judgment, a Chosen One, and the dwellings of the righteous and the wicked. The end is a sorting, not annihilation into nothing. This section is not evidence for the date of the Watchers story.

• 1 Enoch

  Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91–108)

  Geʿez; Aramaic fragments include the Apocalypse of Weeks. Includes the Apocalypse of Weeks. Composite.

  Weeks of history run toward judgment. The righteous are promised a future. The wicked are not described as simply ceasing. The epistle is exhortation attached to the Enoch story, not a second flood narrative.

Chart cells

• Judaism

  Flood, judgment, restoration.

• Christianity

  Apocalypse, judgment, renewed creation.

• Norse

  Ragnarök followed by a renewed world.

• Zoroastrian

  Final restoration.

• LDS

  Judgment and renewal.

Text witnesses — not a change to the cell

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37–71)

  Geʿez; Aramaic original not found at Qumran. Later than the Watchers. Often placed around the late first century BCE or after. Uncertain.

  A visionary sees judgment, a Chosen One, and the dwellings of the righteous and the wicked. The end is a sorting, not annihilation into nothing. This section is not evidence for the date of the Watchers story.

• 1 Enoch

  Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90)

  Geʿez, with Aramaic fragments of related material. Includes the Animal Apocalypse. Second century BCE is a common placement. Not certain to the year.

  History is told as a vision of animals: a flood, a remnant, the nations that follow, and a judgment. The story does not stop at the flood. A later age is inside the same vision.

• 1 Enoch

  Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91–108)

  Geʿez; Aramaic fragments include the Apocalypse of Weeks. Includes the Apocalypse of Weeks. Composite.

  Weeks of history run toward judgment. The righteous are promised a future. The wicked are not described as simply ceasing. The epistle is exhortation attached to the Enoch story, not a second flood narrative.