Adapa: The Wise Man Who Turned Down Immortality
The wise man of Eridu who was offered the bread and water of eternal life in heaven, and refused it on his god's advice.
Adapa was a legendary sage of Eridu and servant of Ea (Enki). Summoned to heaven by Anu, he refused the bread and water of life on Ea's advice and was sent back to earth mortal.
Adapa was a legendary sage of Eridu and a servant of Ea (Enki). He was wise but mortal. The main copy of his story was found, surprisingly, in Egypt, at Tell el-Amarna, among the diplomatic archives of the pharaoh Akhenaten from the 14th century BCE, where it was likely used to teach scribes Akkadian. Other fragments come from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh.
While fishing for Ea's temple, Adapa is capsized by the South Wind, and in anger he breaks the wind's wing. For seven days no wind blows, and Anu summons him to heaven. Ea coaches him: wear mourning, win over the gatekeepers Tammuz and Gishzida, and refuse the bread and water that will be offered, because they are the food of death.
Everything goes to plan, except that Anu offers Adapa the bread of life and the water of life. Adapa refuses. Anu laughs and sends him back to earth, mortal. As R. W. Rogers' translation on sacred-texts.com shows, the text never says plainly whether Ea misunderstood or deceived him on purpose.
Scholars have long compared the story with Genesis 3, where humans are kept from the tree of life. In later tradition Adapa is identified with Uanna, the first of the seven apkallu sages, whom Berossus called Oannes. That connection places Adapa at the very beginning of Mesopotamian learning: the first wise man, who came closest to eternal life and turned it down.
The best copy of this Mesopotamian myth about losing immortality was dug up in Egypt, in the royal archive of Akhenaten.
Most scholars read the myth as an explanation of why even the wisest humans die, and debate whether Ea's advice was an honest mistake or deliberate.
