Introduction

In the late enlightenment, natural philosophers were conducting the first experiments and investigations into chemistry and geology. The scottish geologist james hutton decided that the rock formations he studied could not possibly have been formed in a short period of time by means of a catastrophe such as the great flood. By the 18 thirties, natural philosophers generally accepted that the earth must be much older than the bible said. It is worth remembering just how little was known about the ancient middle east when johann semla wrote in the late enlightenment. Mesopotamia had enjoyed a two and a half thousand year literary tradition, with another thousand years incoded in myth and oral culture.