“A Babylonian warrior god. Marduk was a son of Ea, the god of water and wisdom. When the other gods are terrified by the invasion of Tiamat, the dragon of the sea, Marduk slays her. He makes heaven and earth of the two halves of her body and creates man of the bones and blood of Kingu, one of Tiamat’s henchmen. Part of Marduk’s supremacy in the pantheon of Assyria and Babylonia was due to the fact that he was the local Baal of Babylon.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
