The Mesopotamian Connection: Comparing the Bible to Other Literature of the Ancient Near East
New Books in Literary Studies
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Gilgamesh and Atrahasis - The Oldest Flood Story
Gilgamesh is a familiar story to me, an old Babylonian tale. I do not know the other one,. Atrahasis that you referred to, and I think you could sort of put them in context for us. For a long time, scholars thought that Gilgamesh was the oldest sort of epic that we had from the ancient Near East. It seemed to be also the oldest flood story. And so that account kind of gives us a sense of this rather kind of peculiar construction that Utnapishtim made to escape these great waters.
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