George Smith (4) (1840–1876)

This is a tough book to rate because of what it is: a work-in-progress from the late 1800s when there were only the first signs and findings of non-Judaic ancient near eastern cultures. Smith thought he had really knocked it out of the park, though: Genesis was a plagiarism, a monotheized rendition of other Mesopotamian myths. The scholarship on this hypothesis largely fell into suspicion by 1910 (Thorkild Jacobsen) and is now largely dismissed (David Tsumura). Instead, it's now clear that show more these ancient near eastern myths and stories (this includes the Bible) were all operating within a shared set of genres, themes, styles, and oral traditions that predated any of the cultures we know about and even significantly predated written language.

There's also this BS idea someone keeps bringing me that the Biblical character of Nimrod is based on the Babylonian Gilgamesh (or vise-versa). Thankfully, I now know that this idea originates (it seems) with this book and maybe I can finally put this idiotic idea to rest and get this person to leave me alone about Nimrod.

I skimmed this book, but I'll be coming back to it (unfortunately). show less

I wanted more info on the corrupted sumerian legends as told from the babylonian, and what I got was preliminary and incomplete reporting. I guess it can't be helped, for the time of its writing and the amount of scholarship already put into the subject, not even mentioning the cultural bias and hopeful recounting of myths. Still, I did get some insights, although not as much as I had hoped.