16
such as, "The tallest man cannot reach heaven; the widest man cannot cover the mountain
(or `earth')," were used throughout 1,000 years of ANE writings to represent impossible
tasks and thereby "express the limitations of human existence and the gulf between
humans and deity."
For example, a segment of Babylonian wisdom literature called, "A
Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant" contains this proverb.
The
discussion between master and servant concerns the fact that all people, whether good or
evil, face the same fate. At the end of the dialogue, the Master cries, "Who is tall enough
to ascend to heaven? Who is broad enough to embrace the earth," in order to express
frustration with his limited understanding of fate. Similar sentiments are expressed in
the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the proverb is found in a shortened form:
Who, my friend, can scale heaven?
Only the gods dwell forever with [or: like] Shamash.
As for mankind, their days are numbered.
Whatever they achieve is but wind.
Here the great gulf between humankind and the gods is portrayed.
This proverb reflects ancient Mesopotamian thought about the relationship
between humans and gods. In this culture, the rewards for obedience were at the whim of
the personal god who may or may not act in one's favor.
Human beings could not
hope to understand the ways of the deities and so were left in ignorance and without any
16
Merrill, Deuteronomy, 390.
17
Frederick E. Greenspahn, "A Mesopotamian Proberb and its Biblical Reverberations," Journal
of the American Oriental Society, 114 (1994): 33.
18
James E. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, trans. H. L.
Ginseberg (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950) 438.
19
Epic of Gilgamesh, Old Babylonian version, 3:4.5-8, as reconstructed by J. Tigay in The
Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982) 164.
20
Jacobsen, The Intellectual Adventure 215