The Revolt in Heaven

Assyrian · Tablet from the library of Ashurbanipal, 7th century BC.

Translation: George Smith, 1876 — Babylonian and Assyrian Literature (Colonial Press, 1901), reprinting George Smith's translation. Public domain.

A short, badly damaged tablet describing a rebellion during a festival of praise in heaven: a company of divine singers 'broke up his holy song ... spoiling, confusing, confounding his hymn of praise', a trumpet-blast bars the rebels from return, and 'in their room he created mankind'. An early note in the translation observes that the medieval Church held the same idea — that humankind was made to fill the gap left by the fallen angels.

Compare the fall of the rebel in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, and the war in heaven of Revelation 12. The identification is loose and the tablet is broken; read it as a shared motif, not a source.

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K. tablet, lines 5–22 2 biblical parallels