I. Name

Marduk was the god of Babylon and the supreme ruler of the Mesopotamian universe. Normally, the name Marduk is written ^damar.ud. The name has been treated by some as pre-Sumerian and the writing understood as a folk-etymology, whereby an unintelligible name is rendered understandable in Sumerian. It seems better, however, to treat the name as an original Sumerian name: amar.uda.ak. This agrees with the fact that the name possesses a long form: (A)marut/duk (= MT: Mĕrōdāk, LXX: Marōdak) in additio…