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366 god of Egypt, and (unless excluded by the argument that he was Yahweh), he was one of those upon whom Yahweh set out to make judgments. Renowned in ancient Egypt, there could be no Pharaoh ignorant of this deity. Yet, when Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and told him, "So sayeth Yahweh, the God of Israel: Let My people go that they may worship Me in the desert," Pharaoh said: "Who is this Yah- weh that I should obey his words? I know not Yahweh, and the Israelites I shall not let go." If Yahweh where Thoth, not only would the Pharaoh not answer thus, but the task of Moses and Aaron would have been made easy and attainable were they just to say, Why— "Yahweh" is just another name for Thoth .. . And Moses, having been raised in the Egyptian court, would have had no difficulty knowing that—if that were so. If Thoth was not Yahweh, the process of elimination alone appears to leave one more candidate: Marduk. That he was a "god most high" is well established; the Firstborn of Enki who believed that his father was unjustly deprived of the supremacy on Earth—a supremacy to which he, Marduk, rather than Enid's son Ninurta, was the rightful successor. His attributes included a great many—almost all— the attributes of Yahweh. He possessed a Shem, a_ sky- chamber, as Yahweh did; when the Babylonian king Nebu- chadnezzar II rebuilt the sacred precinct of Babylon, he built there an especially strengthened enclosure for the "chariot of Marduk, the Supreme Traveler between Heaven and Earth." When Marduk finally attained the supremacy on Earth, he did not discredit the other gods. On the contrary, he invited them all to reside in individual pavilions within the sacred precinct of Babylon. There was only one catch: their specific powers and attributes were to pass to him—just as the "Fifty Names" (i.e. rank) of Enlil had to. A Babylonian text, in its legible portion, listed thus the functions of other great gods that were transferred to Marduk: Ninurta Nergal Zababa Enlil Marduk of the hoe Marduk of the attack Marduk of the combat Marduk of lordship and counsel DIVINE ENCOUNTERS