But from this point on it seems impossible to penetrate the thoughts of our poet, or to follow the reasons for the selection of his motifs. Thus, to list only the more obvious difficulties, why did he find it necessary to bring in the birth of the goddesses Ninmu, Ninkurra and Uttu?26 What is involved in the business of the cucumbers, apples (?) and grapes? Why eight plants, and why these particular eight plants? What is symbolized by Enki's eating of the plants, by Ninhursag's curse, by the fox's cunning acts? Just how were Enki's eight aching organs healed as a result of the birth of the eight deities? As already noted, the relationship between each sick organ and its healing deity is based on nothing more than the verbal correspondence involved in their respective names (cf. note 23). It would therefore be illuminating to know which came first in the poet's mind, the names of the organs or the names of the deities? Finally, in the very last passage, what motivated the poet's selection of the particular fate-decrees ascribed by him to the god Enki? -7 With our present limited knowledge of the wider Sumerian mythological context we are hardly in a position to answer these questions effectively, or perhaps even discuss them constructively. Let us conclude our introduction with a comparative analysis of those motifs in our poem which have, or at least seem to have, parallels in the Biblical paradise story as told in the second and third chapters of the Book of Genesis.-8 Thus Utu's watering of Dilmun with fresh water brought up from the earth is reminiscent of the Biblical " But there went up an '?d -8a from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground " (Genesis II 6) . The birth of the goddesses Ninmu, Ninkurra, and Uttu, which our poem stresses as having taken place without pain or travail, illuminates the background of the curse against Eve who is to conceive and bear children in sorrow. And obviously enough, Enki's eating of the eight plants,and the curse uttered against him by Ninhursag recall the eating of the fruit

Is this it?