Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Exodus and Atrahasis?

JOHANNA MARKIND: Exodus Reworks the Atrahasis Flood Epic (TheTorah.com).
The biblical authors polemicize against the Mesopotamian Atrahasis epic, not only in Noah’s flood story, but in the account of the exodus as well
Could be. The biblical authors were certainly aware of Mesopotamian Flood traditions.

I don't know of any evidence that the full story of the Atrahasis epic reached ancient Israel, but a Flood story fragment from Ugarit does name the Flood hero Atrahasis (rather than Utnapishtim, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, or Ziusudra, in the Sumerian Flood story). But the Ugarit tablet did not include the prequel material in the Atrahasis epic involving the creation of people and the plagues from the gods.

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