Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic

Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic
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51. Herman L. J. Vanstiphout, Epics of the Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta, ed. Jerrold S. Cooper (Atlanta: Society 
of Biblical Literature, 2003), 26.
52. Sagburu’s appearance is likely the result of her having been summoned by Utu, in response to pleas from the 
shepherds. See Gadotti, “Portraits of the Feminine,” 201.
53. Vanstiphout, Epics of the Sumerian Kings, 133.
54. Jeremy Black, Reading Sumerian Poetry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 110.
55. Abraham Winitzer has noted the eagle’s transgression as part of a thematic concern in the narrative with 
boundaries and divine limits. See Abraham Winitzer, “Etana in Eden: New Light on the Mesopotamian and Biblical 
Tales in Their Semitic Context,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3 (2013): 445.
56. Winitzer, “Etana in Eden,” 445.
57. Shlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language has the Power of Life and Death (Winona Lake, IN: 
Eisenbrauns, 2001), 123.
58. Mario Liverani, Myth and Politics in Ancient Near Eastern Historiography, ed. Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De 
Mieroop (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 3–23.
59. Liverani, Myth and Politics, 6–21.
60. Noegel, “Mesopotamian Epic,” 237; and Sasson, “Comparative Observations,” 231.
61. Keith Dickson, “Looking at the Other in ‘Gilgamesh’,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 127.2 (2007): 176; and 
Sara Mandell, “Liminality, Altered States, and the Gilgamesh Epic,” in Gilgamesh: A Reader, ed. John Maier (Wauconda, 
IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997), 122–130.
62. Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts (2 vols.; 
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 527.
63. The Gilgamesh Epic, OB VA + BM iii.6–7, 12–14. Andrew George, trans., The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, 
Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
64. I borrow the descriptive term “fuzzy” to elucidate the boundary between the divine and mortal realms from Gary 
M. Beckman, while noting that his use of the term is much more precise and refers to the transitional space inhabited 
by the king. See Gary M. Beckman, “Review: Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, ed. 
Nicole Brisch,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128.2 (2008): 390.
65. Thorkild Jacobsen and Giovanni Pettinato, “Mesopotamian Religions: History of Study,” in Encyclopedia of 
Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones (2d ed.; Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 5967.
66. Noel K. Weeks, “Myth and Ritual: An Empirical Approach,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 15.1 (2015): 92– 
111.
67. Tikva S. Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan 
Myth (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992).
68. John Maier, ed., Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997), 1–2.
69. Stephanie Dalley, ed., The Legacy of Mesopotamia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
70. Scott B. Noegel, “Greek Religion and the Ancient Near East,” in A Companion to Greek Religion, ed. Daniel Ogden 
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 21–38.

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