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Babylonian Creation Myths (Mesopotamian Civilizations) Hardcover – October 3, 2013
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For much of the last half of the twentieth century, W. G. Lambert devoted much of his research energy and effort to the study of Babylonian texts dealing with Mesopotamian ideas regarding creation, including especially Enuma Elish. This volume, which appears almost exactly 2 years after Lambert’s death, distills a lifetime of learning by the world’s foremost expert on these texts. Lambert provides a full transliteration and translation of the 7 tablets of Enuma Elish, based on the known exemplars, as well as coverage of a number of other texts that bear on, or are thought to bear on, Mesopotamian notions of the origin of the world, mankind, and the gods. New editions of seventeen additional “creation tales” are provided, including “Enmesharra’s Defeat,” “Enki and Ninmah,” “The Slaying of Labbu,” and “The Theogony of Dunnu.”
Lambert pays special attention, of course, to the connection of the main epic, Enuma Elish, with the rise and place of Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon. He traces the development of this deity’s origin and rise to prominence and elaborates the relationship of this text, and the others discussed, to the religious and political climate Babylonia.
The volume includes 70 plates (primarily hand-copies of the various exemplars of Enuma Elish) and extensive indexes.
- Print length656 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherEisenbrauns
- Publication dateOctober 3, 2013
- Dimensions8.5 x 2.07 x 11 inches
- ISBN-10157506247X
- ISBN-13978-1575062471
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Much more might be said about this magnum opus, but suffice it to say in conclusion that just as Professor Lambert’s Babylonian Wisdom Literature enables a generation of students to understand better the Hebrew books of Job, Proverbs and Qoheleth, so his Babylonian Creation Myths will help future generations of students understand better the creation-themed texts in Genesis, Job, the Psalter and the Prophets. Students around the world will find it difficult to measure their depth of gratitude not only for this volume but also that Professor Lambert lived long enough to complete it.”
―Michael S. Moore, Review of Biblical Literature
“Babylonian Creation Myths is an excellent book and a worthy memorial of a great Assyriologist.”
―Michael P. Streck, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
Product details
- Publisher : Eisenbrauns; 1st edition (October 3, 2013)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 656 pages
- ISBN-10 : 157506247X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1575062471
- Item Weight : 3.95 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.5 x 2.07 x 11 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,173,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Lambert had long ago prepared an edition of the cuneiform text, which was published at Oxford in 1966. It had remained the standard edition from then until 2005, when the edition by Philippe Talon was published, incorporating all the fragments of the text that had been discovered in the interim. Lambert had announced a new edition of the text decades ago, but held off publishing it as he continued to work on it until the year before his death. It took three years of hard work by his students and the publisher, Eisenbrauns, to prepare his difficult manuscript for publication. In the meantime, in 2012 another edition of the Akkadian text, by Thomas R. Kämmerer and Kai A. Metzler, was published. Now Lambert's long-awaited edition is at last available. The point of all this is that until the Akkadian text is established as accurately as possible, we cannot have a truly accurate translation.
Lambert has here given us what is certainly the definitive English translation of the Enuma Elish, the result of a lifetime's engagement with it and other Babylonian texts. He has moreover provided the Akkadian text and English translation of seventeen related items, mostly fragmentary, in Part III: "Further Babylonian Creation Tales." This book will no doubt remain the standard work on this subject for a long time to come.










