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The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of Creation 2nd Edition

by Alexander Heidel (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0226323992
ISBN-10: 0226323994
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Product Details

  • Series: Phoenix Books
  • Paperback: 153 pages
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2 edition (September 15, 1963)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226323994
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226323992
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #561,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsGood overview for the uninitiated.
By Jonathan Bailey on July 21, 1999
Format: Paperback
The book is not intended for students of Akkadian as there is no cuneiform or transcripted Akkadian. Everything is in translation. The book centers around the Enuma Elish (the biggest creation account), but has many other smaller creation legends. There is a synopsis of the Elish as well as various theories about its dating, composition, etc. There is also a lengthy (58 page) article showing parallels to the Old Testament creation account. The author does a good job of being objective, but leans toward showing the uniqueness of the Genesis account and contrasts it quite a bit against the remaining semitic literature.
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3.0 out of 5 starsExcellent translations marred by apologetics in the commentary
By Rob on December 28, 2005
Format: Paperback
On the one hand, this book contains readable, scholarly translations of various Mesopotamian myths- "Enuma Elish", "Adapa and the South Wind", "The Slaying of the Lion", and several others. While I don't know Akkadian, the translations appear to be very thorough. In places where the text is missing, this is indicated by a gap, rather than simply ignored or even "filled in" as it is in many of the more popular (read: for the layman) translations of these myths.

On the other hand, as the author himself writes in his introduction, the purpose of this book is not primarily for those interested in Assyriology, but for the use of "the Old Testament scholar and the Christian minister." This dissapointed me, as this is not mentioned at all on the back cover, and I was expecting a book that would be accessible to an amateur Assyriology enthusiast like myself; what I got was essentially a translation followed by a Christian apologetic. As someone who also happens to be interested in the Near Eastern background of Hebrew thought, I was well aware of the biblical myth of the Leviathan and its connection to the Marduk-Tiamat combat motif found throughout Ancient Near Eastern literature. In his commentary to the Enuma Elish however, the author often goes to ridiculous lengths in order to remove this story from the Bible- the various biblical passages that refer to Yahweh slaying the Leviathan in the context of Creation are not to be taken at face value, he says; rather, they are mere metaphors for the story of the crossing of the Red Sea.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsNot for me
By Dunyazad VINE VOICE on December 5, 2009
Format: Paperback
To say that this is not the most exciting book I've ever read would be a vast understatement; when I was only 30 pages from the end, I put it down for two weeks because I just didn't care enough to go on.

The premise sounds interesting enough: this is a collection of Babylonian creation stories in translation, accompanied by "a detailed examination of the Babylonian creation accounts in their relation to our Old Testament literature". The creation stories themselves were certainly worth reading, if a bit repetitive and dry at times. But the comparison to the Old Testament was not at all what I had expected. I had mistakenly supposed that the focus would be on similarities between the Babylonian and Biblical accounts, and I find that unexpected connections between different cultures are always interesting to read about. Unfortunately, though, the emphasis here was mostly on differences. We would be presented with some details from the Babylonian story, followed by some details from the Biblical story, and told how the two were different. This was repeated several times, and it just didn't make for an engaging narrative.

There was some discussion at the end of structural similarities, but this had too much of a Christian emphasis to really appeal to me. One of the "problems" with the theory that the Bible might have been influenced by the Babylonian Enuma Elish was that this might contradict the doctrine of divine inspiration which "is, of course, indisputably taught in Scripture". So, Heidel explained how the concept divine inspiration could be understood in a way that would allow this influence. I'm just not concerned with reconciling history with the Bible; I wanted to know the historical facts on their own.Read more ›
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