Talk:Manu the Great

Lack of credible sources

Simply put, this page should not exist. There was no such a Mesopotamian deity as "Manu the Great." The only sources listed are either too old to be credible (as expected from 19th century scholarship pertaining to languages which were not even fully understood yet) or, in a single case, the result of a person with no expertise (a poet, not a historian, let alone an assyriologist) uncritically repeating claims found in 19th century literature (in a book about Abrahamic angels, not Mesopotamian gods at that!). There is no "Manu" listed in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, or in any other credible modern reference work, for that matter. I do not think "a god invented by a handful dubious 19th century sources with no real impact on the field" meets any notability critieria. The fact the article seems mostly concerned with connecting this invented deity with the Bible - not with any primary Mesopotamian sources - does not exactly help either. The use of the nebulous term "Chaldean" pretty clearly in its vintage sense does not help either.

Furthermore, the closest thing to a god of time in Mesopotamian mythology would be the pair Duru-Dari from various lists of divine ancestors (discussed ex. in W. G. Lambert's "Babylonian Creation Myths" from 2013), who were not actively worshiped, but merely could appear as a possible prime mover in enumerations of cosmogonic and theogonic figures.

As far as I am concerned, this should be deleted. There is simply no way to salvage this page because its subject does not exist outside of a handful of basically worthless sources. It's even less legitimate than making a page for Adar, the vintage erroneous reading of Ninurta's name, would be. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 06:56, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I was surprised to find this page at all, considering that "Chaldean" is a Biblical term, not an actual civilization with its own gods. "Manu" doesn't sound like any authentic Sumerian or Semitic name that I can remember seeing in any document written after the proper transliteration systems were developed. Also the article essentially admits that there is only one source for this information, with no follow-up from any reliable scholars thereafter.Quixilver391 (talk) 04:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC)