Albright and the gods of mesopotamia by La Biblia en la Historia

Albright and the Gods of Mesopotamia Author(s): William W. Hallo Source: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 56, No. 1, Celebrating and Examining W. F. Albright ( Mar., 1993), pp. 18-24 Published by: American Schools of Oriental Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210357 Accessed: 06-01-2016 01:11 UTC

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Albright and the Gods of Mesopotamia by William W Hallo

n my libraryin Connecticut, I

have two copies of Yahwehand the Godsof Canaan.One is a dogeared paperback, its narrow margins crowded with my pencilled exclamation points, question marks and other annotations, including numerous dissenting opinions. The other is a hardcover edition in mint condition, its fly-leaf inscribed "ToWilliam W. Hallo with the regards of the author, William F. Albright." This vignette probably serves as well as any to epitomize my attitude towards Albright: on the one hand a critical distancing from some of his detailed positions, on the other a profound admiration for his methodology and for important aspects of his broader vision. In a day and age when respect for Albright the man runs higher than ever, but his scholarly views have been challenged and superseded one after the other, I am happy to acknowledge my debt to him. It is second only to the one I feel toward my own teacher, I.J.Gelb. In many ways the "contextual approach" to biblical scholarship which I have tried to develop may be described as an attempt to salvage the best parts of Albright's comparative approach (Hallo 1991a:23-34). I knew Albright in many capacities. He was my colleague at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati where he served briefly (Winter and Spring 1961) as visiting professor at the invitation of his great admirer and oldest disciple Nelson Glueck. He served on the editorial committee for the Speiser Memorial Volume, which I 18

edited. I knew him as the former Assyriologist who would have come to Yale, he never tired of telling me, but for the strains that cuneiform studies would have put on his failing eyesight (see also Running and Freedman 1975:185-86),and as a commanding presence at many a meeting of the American Oriental Society and the Society of Biblical Literature. I had the privilege of contributing to one of the four Anniversary Volumes published in his honor (Hallo 1969) and of delivering the Albright Memorial lecture at Johns Hopkins University in 1987, at the kind invitation of Jerrold Cooper, one of his successors (Hallo 1991). If I were asked to characterize Albright's methodology today, I would be tempted to describe him as a prototype of the computer. He commanded an enormous data base, and his calculations were constantly and instantly self-correcting. He was even attached to a printer, so to speak, in the sense that his editorship of the

Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof Ori-

ental Researchgave him a ready outlet for his learned findings. At the same time his high standing in "Biblical Archaeology"-a field practically of his own making-provided access to a wider audience for his more popular conclusions. He absorbed every new datum and every novel interpretation into his existing view of the past and revised that view accordingly. Albright was the last of those giants of Ancient Near Eastern studies who mastered all the major cultures of the field with equal authority

and was one of the first to adopt a truly multi-disciplinary approach to them. In a world where the larger picture was more and more obscured by fixation on the discrete data, he was one who never missed the forest for the trees. To acquaint oneself with Albright's contributions to the specific field of Mesopotamian mythology, it is well to read his bibliography-itself no small task-in two of the Festschriften dedicated to him (Lapp 1961, Freedman 1969; cf. also Freedman et al., 1975). There we may note that he was trained as an Assyriologist and wrote his doctoral dissertation under Paul Haupt in 1916 on the subject of "The Assyrian Deluge Epic." Though Albright never published his dissertation, that same year he addressed the American Oriental Society (Washington 1916), under the heading of "Some Misinterpreted Passages in the Cuneiform FloodTablet," according to the Journalof the

AmericanOrientalSociety(36 [1917]:

440). Two years later, the same journal carried two brief notices on "The Babylonian Sage Ut-napi'ti(m) Ruiqu"(Albright 1919a)and on "Ninib-Ninurta" (Albright 1919c). In the next seven years, Albright published nine or ten papers specifically on Mesopotamian deities and myths, but none of great length or enduring significance. These papers ranged from "Some Cruces in the Langdon Epic" (Albright 1919d) which dealt with the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, through "Gilgames and Engidu, Mesopotamian Genii of

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Fecundity" (Albright 1920a), and "Some Notes on the Early Babylonian Text of the Atrahasis Epic" (Albright 1924). The first significant work intimating Albright's comparative interest was dedicated to his mentor, under the title "Mesopotamian Elements in Canaanite Eschatology" (Albright 1926c). The total output is not impressive: in ten years a dozen papers and some 157 pages from a scholar whose annual output averaged probably twice that for sixty years. (Other papers from this L' period are listed in the bibliography under Albright 1919b, 1920b and c, 1922, 1926a and b.) Another half dozen years were to elapse before Albright returned briefly to Mesopotamian studies with notes on "The SyroMesopotamian God SulmanEsmun and Related Figures" (Albright 1932) and "Primitivism in Ancient Western Asia (Mesopotamia and Israel)" (Albright 1935). In 1938, he reviewed S. Mowinckel's The TwoSourcesof the PredeuteronomicPrimevalHistory (Albright 1938), taking the renowned Scandinavian scholar to task for, among other things, ignoring the evidence about the antediluvian traditions of Mesopotamia furnished by the great "Weld-Blundell Prism" version of the Sumerian King List, which he himself had discussed fifteen years earlier (Albright 1923). The following year, Mowinckel offered a rejoinder and Albright a surrejoinder under the common title of "The Babylonian Matter in the PreDeuteronomic Primeval History (JE) in Gen. 1-11" (Albright 1939). In the same year, Albright became president of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis and devoted his presidential address to "The Ancient Near East and the Religion of Israel" (Albright 1940a). Thereafter

not a single new treatment of the theme of Mesopotamian mythology occurred among the ceaseless stream of articles that flowed from Albright's pen until his death on September 19, 1971. These last three decades of his life formed a period when Albright increasingly sought to sum up and synthesize his insights in longer

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Thought, 1600-1200 B.C." (pp. 157179, esp. pp. 157-163). This was eventually followed by History,Archaeology and ChristianHumanism (1964), including an updated version of his presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature (pp. 130-156). Finally in 1968 he summed up his views in the book with which I started, Yahwehand the Godsof Canaan (1968), surveying, among other things, "Mesopotamian Cosmogony in Genesis" i" (pp. 91-100). What emerges from this thumb-nail review of Albright's writings on O Mesopotamia and its mythology is a somewhat meager harvest: some studies of individual Mesopotamian deities, such as Ninurta and Geshtinanna, and distinctly minor ones like Sumuqan, Uttu and Shulman; some other studies on the Akkadian epics of Atra-hasis and Gilgamesh and the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag; and comparative treatments of Mesopotamian elements in the primeval history. Small wonder that, in the volume recently edited by Gus W. Van Beek (1989) under the title The Scholarshipof WilliamFoxwell Albright:An Appraisal,there are no chapters devoted to his contributions to Assyriology, to mythology, or even to the history of religions, though the last field certainly commanded his attention throughout his scholarly career. The slender volume confines itself to discussions of his contributions to Semitic epigraphy and paleography, history, philology, and archaeology. I have already alluded to Albright's failing eyesight as his own favorite explanation for the re-direction of his focus of interest. In the biography jointly authored by David Noel Freedman and Leona Glidden Running, under the subtitle "A

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monographic works. In these books we do find some echoes of his earlier interests. At the very outset, there appeared the influential From the Stone Age to Christianity:Monotheism and the HistoricalProcess (1940b), which included brief discussions on "Mesopotamian Religion between 3000 and 1600 B.C." (pp. 140-149) and "The Background of Religion and

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Twentieth-Century Genius," another explanation was offered by another of his principal disciples, George Ernest Wright. According to Wright, Albright was trained originally in Accadian studies. He was writing all those Assyriological mythological studies, and then shifted completely in the environment of the Holy Land, just as though he were a Jew being converted to the land, the Holy Land. All his childhood dreams now surface and he forgets - he just goes back on all the myth-and-ritual stuff. It was an identification with the soil as dramatic as any modem Israeli's transformation along that line (1975: 317). But I prefer yet another explanation, likewise found in the biography by Running and Freedman, but this time furnished by Albright's widow. According to this source, the invitation which Albright received from Yale to succeed to the Laffan Chair of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature was engineered behind the scenes by Mrs. Albright. She wanted to provide her husband with some leverage to improve his modest emoluments at Johns Hopkins University. She had, however, no wish whatsoever to leave Baltimore. When the offer came and Albright seemed disposed to consider it, she firmly announced that if he left for New Haven it would be without her (1975:185).This then appears to be the real reason for his abandonment of a career in Assyriology. But there is a footnote to this anecdote. Albright and his biographers are in agreement that, when he finally chose to remain at Johns Hopkins, he urged Yale to call Albrecht Goetze in his place. That suggestion alone would earn him the gratitude of Assyriology even if he had done nothing else for the field-and of course he did! If now we were to assess progress in the field of Mesopotamian mythology and its Biblical reflexes since the appearance of Yahwehand the Godsof 20

Canaanin 1968, it would be well to begin with some definitions. The plain sense of Greek muthosis "spoken word, report, narration," readily .shading over into "chatter, rumor, fable." Current usage has reverted to that sense, and particularly to the connotation of "misconception, untruth," as when Ernst Cassirer wrote on TheMyth of the State (1946, 1966), or Lewis Mumford on The Myth of the Machine (1967), or Thomas

ition was given wide currency in the introduction to TheIntellectualAdventure of Ancient Man in 1946, republished in 1967 as BeforePhilosophy. Here Henri Frankfort and Henriette Frankfort-Gronewegen introduced the notion of mytho-poetic thought, which was then illustrated by the various contributors. T. H. Gaster provided a felicitous reformulation of this definition in the preface to his Myth, Legend,and Cus-

(1978).

mythopoeia,"he wrote, "articulates a present, existential situation in general, continuous terms, translating the punctual into the durative, the real into the ideal" (1969:XXXIV).In this formulation, which has found favor in Assyriological circles (Hallo 1970:117n. 1; 1984:170),mythology comes very close to aetiology, a concept borrowed from medicine where it refers to the origin and evolution of a given pathology. And, indeed, texts labeled myths, as well as those usually described as epics, contain numerous aetiologies. More recent research, however, has sought a broader definition of myth, one that includes not only literary genres but also other "molds" that reflect, shape, and preserve the intellectual conceptions of a given ethos. Such molds include representations in art, reflections in ritual, and key expressions in the languages of the sources. A definition of this sort seeks to chart the underlying ideologies, the deep structure as it were, of which diverse formulations are but the surface manifestations. For all those manifestations, the term "mythologem" may be better suited. The concept of the mythologem can be illustrated (in a simplistic way) by the example of Etana the heavenscaler, whose mythologem is expressed first and perhaps most tellingly in pictorial terms, i.e., in the form of cylinder seals of Old Akkadian date (ca. 23rd century B.C.E.; Baudot 1982), and briefly in laconic entries in the Sumerian King List and other Sumerian and Akkadian compositions (Alster 1989). The formal

E. Szasz on TheMythof Psychotherapy tomin theOldTestament. "Myth,or

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of an eagle in hisquest for immortality portrayedon an OldAkkadiancylinder seal. Inthe neo-Assyrian re-tellingof his Etana becomes the firstking mythologem, and hisquest aspiresfor a son and successor.Hismythologembespeaksthe antiquityof kingship. Illustrationby RhondaRoot.

We can afford to ignore this usage here. A more familiar one defines myth as a tale about the gods, but this simple notion has now largely gone out of fashion. It depends on an untenable distinction between myth and epic, defining epic as a tale about mortals, albeit of a legendary past and of an accordingly heroic stature. In fact, of course, both myth and epic inextricably mix gods and mortals in ancient as well as classical traditions. A more serviceable definition regards myth as a poetic explanation of present phenomena in terms of an imaginary event in the past, i.e., as an essentially intellectual exercise of the pre-scientific imagination. This defin-

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myth, attributed to an author of neoSumerian date (ca. 2100-2000 B.C.E.) called Lu-Nanna, went through Old Babylonian and Middle Assyrian recensions before assuming the canonical form best known in neoAssyrian (Wilson 1985). In this recension, Etana has become the first king, his quest is for a son and successor, and his mythologem can best be defined as a metaphor for an underlying belief in the antiquity of kingship. Without multiplying the examples, it can be argued that while Mesopotamian mythology had its share of straightforward tales of the carryings-on of the gods, as well as of simplistic aetiologies, it also served on a more sophisticated level to articulate the tensions that informed a society standing in equal dread of palace and temple-of the visible might of the monarch as much of the unseen power of the deities and demons that populated the Mesopotamian pantheon. What, if any, light do these reflections on Mesopotamian mythologies throw on the Biblical situation? On the face of it, we seem to confront a consummate contrast. In Israel, one God alone contrasted with the multitudinous deities exemplified by the 3300 entries in the first edition of Anton Deimel's PantheonBabyloniacum of 1914 and the 5580 entries (5367 net after substracting cross-references) in the second edition of 1950. The God of Israel was its sole acknowledged king, except during its relatively short-lived experiment with an earthly monarchy. A gradual centralization of the Israelite cult superseded any competing claims of local shrines and presumably eclipsed or appropriated whatever myths might have perpetuated their ancient claims. And yet, the Bible preserves ample traces of mythologems not so fundamentally different from those of Mesopotamia (or of Ugarit). Some of these are found scattered throughout the Biblical texts, as when Ezekiel appeals to Noah, Dan'el (Daniel), and Job as models of rectitude (14:14, 20),

or when Isaiah alludes to Lothan (Leviathan; 27:1) and the Psalmist to God's triumph over watery chaos (e.g. 29:10; see Petersen 1982). But I will concentrate here, like Albright, on those motifs found in Israel's primeval history-or should we say pre-history-as preserved in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, especially as these have become known since the appearance of Yahwehand the

Godsof Canaanin 1968.

Leaving aside the priestly version of creation in 1:1-2:4a,we may begin

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Sumerian toponym (Millard 1984). But the essential parallelism between Adam and Adapa of the Akkadian epic is harder to escape. The epic of Adapa is first known in an exemplar from El Amarna at the threshold of the Iron Age (Piccioni 1981). Numerous studies of the epic conclude that this epic is an isolated aetiology on the origin of human mortality. If the Biblical story of Adam is in this respect derived from the Akkadian epic, it has certainly transformed the mortality motif

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der seals.Inthis impressionmade by a seal of OldAkkadiandate (ca.2300 B.C.E.), Etana scalesheavenon the backof an eagle who carriesthe Kingaloft to do reconnaissance for the "plant of birth." Illustrationby RhondaRoot.

with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Recent opinion has cast doubt on Kramer's comparison of Eve's creation from Adam's rib with the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, in which Ninhursag gives birth to various other deities out of different parts of her ailing anatomy, including Nin-ti, "the lady of life" or "the lady of the rib," out of her rib (Kramer 1945 and 1981:143-4; Attinger 1984;Jacobsen 1987:204). But it has given no greater credence to Hans Goedicke's proposal for an Egyptian word-play behind the story (1985). The derivation of Eden from Sumerian edin has also encountered opposition with A.R. Millard's preference for a native Hebrew etymology from the root 4dn,"to be pleasant," in spite of the luxuriant vegetation associated with the

greatly. It becomes a first link in the chain of traditions explaining the origins of all humanity and its gradually decreasing lifespan. Subsequent episodes in the primeval history are likewise transformed in the Biblical appropriation of this shared mythology of Western Asia. The conflict of shepherd and farmer is embodied in the Sumerian myth of Dumuzi and Enkimdu, also known as "The Wooing of Inanna," in which Inanna chooses the shepherd (Kramer 1981: 136-140). In Genesis, the corresponding motif becomes an aetiology of the domestication of plants and animals (in that order?) that is dimly preserved in the tale of Cain the farmer (and first-born) and Abel the shepherd (4:2), and the otherwise unexplained and inexplicable divine preference for the latter (4:4-5). BiblicalArchaeologist56:1 (1993)

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The founding of the first city, Eridu, and the whole "Eridu Genesis" (Jacobsen 1981, 1987:145-150;Hallo 1990:198)are encapsulated in one Biblical verse (4:17) according to which Cain gave birth to Enoch, and he (i.e. Enoch!) became a (i.e., the first) city-builder, naming this city"did Enoch"-after his son, Irad (Hallo 1970:64). The entire antediluvian tradition, with its double line of kings and counselors, is transformed in Genesis from a king-list into a genealogy, or

(Larsson 1983:404).As for his father Enoch, "the seventh in descent from Ada" (Jude 14), his "translation" or "metathesis" is now clearly seen as a reformulation of the ascension of Utu-abzu, counselor to the seventh antediluvian king Enmeduranki (Borger 1974). The end of the Flood is a mixed bag of comparisons and contrasts. The epics of Atar-hasis (Lambert and Millard, 1969:99) and Gilgamesh (Ancient Near EasternTexts,95, lines 159-161) preserve in successive ver-

Albright was the last of those giants of Ancient Near Eastern studies who mastered all the major cultures of the field with equal authority.

rather a double genealogy, one Cainite and one Sethite (Genesis 4:17-22; 5:3-32). The last antediluvian (Noah) is transformed from king or hero into a wise man and ancestor of all subsequent humanity. The flood itself, which figured in the earliest tradition as a metaphor for waves of Amorite migrations into the urbanized valley of Sumer, is transformed into a literal, natural cataclysm even before it enters the Biblical record (Hallo 1990: 194-197 citing Albright 1925:79n.2);in Genesis, it is further given a moral dimension of cleansing the earth of pristine evil (Frymer-Kensky 1977, 1978). Parenthetically, it may be noted that Methuselah, the longest-lived of the antediluvians, died in the year of the Flood by the Bible's own reckoning, i.e., 1656 according to the "Era of Creation." But according to Rabbinic exegesis, he was not among the evildoers, and died seven days beforethe Flood (cf. Gen. 7:4, 10), thus allowing a week of mourning for this pious man (Hallo 1983:26,n.12).Similarly, the Septuagint had him safely out of the way six years before the Flood 22

sions an unedifying spectacle of the Mesopotamian gods crowding like flies around the sacrifice of the floodhero. The scene itself depends ultimately on a Sumerian cliche of the sacrificial theme (Hallo 1987:10 and n.35). It is echoed in the chaster Biblical topos of God's smelling the sweet savor of the sacrifice (Gen 8:21), and perhaps even in Callimachus' simile: "Like flies around a goat herd or like Delphians at a sacrifice" (Burkert 1983:119). The "bow in the cloud" (9:13, 14, 16; cf. Ezekiel 1:28), which seals God's covenant with Noah, echoes the Sumerian word for rainbow, usually written TIR.AN.NA, literally "forest (Akkadian qitu) of heaven," but at least once TIR5.AN.NA., i.e., BAN.AN.NA, literally "bow (Akkadian qavtu)of heaven" (Hallo 1989: 69*). The covenant itself goes far beyond the Mesopotamian prototype. While the Mesopotamian gods are content to restore humanity to its prior condition of serving divine needs, the covenant with Noah imposes on all humanity a set of fundamental ethical requirements, system-

atized by later Rabbinic exegesis as the seven Noachide laws (Novak 1983). Finally, in the aftermath of the Flood, the story of the Tower of Babel has an obvious Mesopotamian setting, though it lacks, in texts discovered so far, an actual literary prototype in cuneiform, at least for the building of the tower as such. The ostensible theme of the Biblical tale is a "negative aetiology." It explains how a total "confusion of tongues" replaced a pristine unity of language. Early Mesopotamian bilingualism may also clarify this transformation, if we may understand the difficult plural of "one" in Gen 11:1 as words in "one-to-one (correspondence)" (see the remarks of A. Shaffer cited by Staal 1977:5).This theme is anticipated by the so-called "spell of Nudimmud (= Enki)," a passage in the Sumerian Epic of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta that has remained enigmatic despite the best efforts of a number of Sumerologists (Jacobsen 1987:288-290). But the denouement of the Biblical tale, and with that its deeper significance, is the dispersion of peoples from their original Mesopotamian home (11:9).Naturally enough, that theme is totally absent from the cuneiform version. It is clearly the creation of the Biblical author for whom it formed, via the genealogy of Shem (11:10-26)and the sojourn in Harran (11:27-32),the necessary transition from the universal prehistory of humanity to the particular protohistory of Israel. And while the former took place among the gods of Mesopotamia, the latter unfolds in the land promised by Yahweh. To return, then, to our starting point: the comparative methodology which Albright championed remains potentially valid even in a field such as Mesopotamian mythology where many of his specific contributions have been superseded. The "parallelomania" of which he and his disciples were sometimes wrongly accused, as well as the "parallelophobia" of some of his critics are both seen to be largely undesirable

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extremes. In the process a maturer methodology has emerged. Advancing from a primary concern with comparison, this methodology has learned to pay equal attention to contrasts. It has emphasized the importance of genre on both sides of any attempted equation or juxtaposition of Biblical data with that from the surrounding Near Eastern context. And it has dared to raise the questions of where, when, and even in what direction any alleged borrow-

Mesopotamian mythology and its Biblical reflexes entitled "Yahweh and the Gods of Mesopotamia" originally commissioned for the Albright Centenary Symposium, which was to have been held at Memphis State University from May 16-20, 1991, under the auspices of the Memphis Area Chapter of the Near East Archaelogy Society, Mr. James E. Powell, President. It is my sad duty to note here Dr. Powell's death on December 30, 1991.

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Anchor Books editions of Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1969) and From the Stone Age to Christianity:Monotheism and the HistoricalProcess (1957), originally published in 1940. Despite numerous challenges to detailed positions contained in Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, the volume remains a shining example of the comparative approach to understanding the relation of the Bible to ancient Near Easternmythology. From the Stone Age to Christianityexemplifies the synthetic work that characterized Albright's scholarly production in his last three decades. Photo courtesyof OtisPhotography.

ing between the two sides may have taken place. At its best, such a "contextual approach" salvages what is worthwhile in that earlier and perhaps simpler comparative approach of which Yahwehand the Godsof Canaanremains to this day a shining example (Hallo 1990, 1991).

Acknowledgment This is a portion of a longer paper on

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Burkert,W. 1983 HomoNecans:TheAnthropologyof AncientGreekSacrificialRitualand Myth. Berkeley:University of California. Frankfort,H. and Frankfort,H.A. et al. 1946 TheIntellectualAdventureof Ancient Man. Chicago: University of Chicago. 1951 BeforePhilosophy:theIntellectual AdventureofAncientMan. Chicago, Hammonds-North: Penguin. Freedman,D.N. 1969 Bibliographyof W.F.Albright. Eretz-Israel 9:1-5. Freedman,D.N. et al. 1975 ThePublishedWorksof William FoxwellAlbright:A Comprehensive Bibliography (Cambridge,MA: ASOR). Frymer-Kensky,T. 1977 The Atrahasis Epic and its Significance for Our Understanding of Genesis 1-9. BiblicalArchaeologist 40:147-155. 1978 What the BabylonianFlood Stories Can and Cannot TeachUs about the Genesis Flood. BiblicalArchaeology Review4/4:32-41. Gaster,T.H. Myth, Legend,and Customin theOld Testament,N.Y.:Harper & Row. Goedicke, H. 1985 Adam's Rib. Pp. 73-76 in Biblical and RelatedStudiesPresentedto SamuelIwry.Edited by A. Kort and S. Morschauer.Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Hallo, W.W. 1969 The Lame and the Halt. Eretz-Israel 9:66-70 1970 Antediluvian Cities. Journalof CuneiformStudies23:57-67. 1970a The Cultic Setting of Sumerian Poetry.Pp. 116-134in Actesde la XXVIIeRencontreAssyriologique Internationale. 1983 The FirstPurim. BiblicalArchaeologist 46:19-29. 1984 LugalbandaExcavated.American OrientalSeries65 (reprintedfrom Journalof theAmericanOrientalSoci-

ety103,1983)165-180. 1987 The Origins of the SacrificialCult: New Evidence from Mesopotamia and Israel. Pp. 3-13 in Ancient IsraeliteReligion:Essaysin Honorof

FrankMooreCross,edited by P.D. Miller,Jr.,et al. Philadelphia: Fortress. 20:68*1989 More on Bows. Eretz-Israel 71*. 1990 The Limits of Skepticism.Journalof theAmericanOrientalSociety 110:187-199. 1991 The Death of Kings. Scripta 33:148-165. Hierosolymitana 1991a TheBookof thePeople.Atlanta: ScholarsPress. 1992 Informationfrom Before the Flood. (forthcoming). Jacobsen,T. 1981 The Eridu Genesis. Journalof Biblical Literature100:513-529. 1987 TheHarpsthatOnce...:Sumerian New Poetryin Translation. Haven/London: YaleUniversity. Kramer,S.N. 1945 EnkiandNinhursag:a SumerianParadiseMyth. BASORSupplementary Studies 1. 1981 HistoryBeginsat Sumer.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Lambert,W.G.and Millard,A.R. 1969 Atra-hasis:theBabylonianStoryof the Flood.Oxford University Lapp, N. 1961 Bibliographyof W.F.Albright. Pp. 363-389in TheBibleand theAncient NearEast,edited by G.E.Wright. Garden City: Doubleday. Lasson, G. 1983 The Chronology of the Pentateuch: a Comparison of the MT and LXX. Journalof BiblicalLiterature102:401409. Millard, A.R. 1984 The Etymology of Eden. VetusTestamentum34:103-106. Novak, D. 1983 TheImageof theNon-Jewin Judaism: an Historicaland ConstructiveStudy of theNoahideLaws.New York: Mellen. Petersen, C. Bestim1982 Mythosim Alten Testament: und UntermungdesMythosbegriffes suchungderMythischenElementein den Psalmen(ZATWBeiheft 157). Picchioni, S.A. 1981 II Poemettodi Adapa.Assyriologia 6. Budapest:Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem. Running, L.G. and Freedman,D.N. 1975 WilliamFoxwellAlbright:a Twentieth-CenturyGenius.New York:Two Continents Publishing Group. Staal, F. 1979 OrientalIdeas on the Origin of Language. Journalof theAmericanOriental Society99:1-14. Wilson, J.V.K. 1985 TheLegendof Etana.Wauconda,IL: Bolchazy-Carducci.

ALBRIGHT

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