Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic

Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic
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12. For a recent discussion of the problem see Michael B. Hundley, “Here a God, There a God,” Altorientalische 
Forschungen 40.1 (2013): 68–72.
13. Jean Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, trans. Teresa L. Fagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 
2–3. Note that Bottero’s definition is considerably longer, more nuanced, and more complex than has been presented 
here.
14. See, for example, The Chronological Study Bible, New International Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014), 5; J. 
H. Walton, “Creation,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker 
(Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 165; and Jack Newton Lawson, The Concept of Fate in Ancient Mesopotamia of 
the First Millennium: Toward an Understanding of Šīmtu (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994).
15. Benjamin R. Foster, “Animals in Mesopotamian Literature,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, 
ed. Billie Jean Collins (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002), 272.
16. Benjamin S. Arbuckle, “Animals in the Ancient World,” in A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 
ed. D. T. Potts (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2012), 201.
17. Nadine Nys, “Scorpion People: Deadly or Protective?,” Studia Mesopotamica 1 (2014): 18.
18. Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 472, n. I.142.
19. Louise M. Pryke, Gilgamesh (London: Routledge, 2017).
20. Foster, “Sumerian Mythology,” 452. Foster notes the main feature of Sumerian myth as the story form; this 
observation can further be applied to Mesopotamian myth more generally.
21. Thorkild Jacobsen, “Mesopotamian Religions: An Overview (First Edition),” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay 
Jones (2d ed.; Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 5949–5950.
22. Benjamin R. Foster, “Mesopotamia,” in A Handbook of Ancient Religions, ed. John R. Hinnells (Cambridge, U.K.: 
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 187.
23. Benjamin R. Foster, From Distant Days: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 
1995), 58.
24. This link between beating hearts and drums is poetically described by William L. Moran in his analysis of this 
passage in “The Creation of Man in Atrahasis I 192–248,” in The Most Magic Word: Essays on Babylonian and Biblical 
Literature, ed. William L. Moran (Washington. DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2002), 84–86.
25. Y. S. Chen, The Primeval Flood Catastrophe: Origins and Early Developments in Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 248.
26. Rubio, “Sumerian Literature.”
27. Foster, “Mesopotamia,” 185.
28. Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (3d ed.; Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005), 
437.
29. Anne Kilmer notes the narrative parallels between the beginning of Enki and Ninmah and Atrahasis, which both 
involve overworked and rebellious deities surrounding the house of a primary god, prior to the creation of humans by 
Enki. Anne D. Kilmer, “The Mesopotamian Concept of Overpopulation and Its Solution as Reflected in the Mythology,” 
Orientalia 41.2 (1972): 161, fn. 6.

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