Alan R. Millard

One of the oldest and most classic Mesopotamian flood stories, probably written around 1700 BCE (at least those are the oldest cuneiform tablets found to date). In the Gilgamesh story, which is much older, the Deluge is only part of the whole cycle, here the Deluge stands alone, as the outcome of an extensive preceding development. I was particularly struck by the very poetic formulations and the essentially humanistic slant of the story. More on that in my History account on Goodreads: show more target="_top">https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4152618394 show less

This book contains many interesting facts and photos about Utah and held a wealth of potential, but the content suffers from poor overall design, lack of cohesive organization, and mistakes often found in self-published works. As the title indicated, the book was clearly meant to be a broad overview of many aspects of the Great Salt Lake region including planetary/geological and human history, but the author's strength clearly lies in his extensive knowledge of natural history and show more environmental subject matter so leaving out weaker explanations of the human settlement (or acquiring the assistance of a colleague whose academic focus is US history) may have served him better in the long run. The pictures, particularly the ones from the Utah Historical Society, were definite highlights, but printing the entire book's text in bold face text was a major distraction. Overall, I'd say I'd lend it to a student doing a report on Antelope Island or the surrounding area, or possibly to a tourist with a casual interest in the local sights, but I won't be keeping it as a permanent part of my Utah library. show less

This is a three tablet 1700 B.C.E. flood story that would later get incorporated into other Babylonian and Abrahamic religion origin stories. In this case, the Akkadian gods spend the first tablet laboring over the creation of the world and create humans to "carry the load" of maintaining the world. However, in tablet two the population explodes, and Enlil becomes the god who wants to kill off humans while Enki is the god who tells Atrahasis to destroy his home and build a ship. The third show more tablet is the story of life surviving the flood. Tablet one is mostly intact while tablets two and three have a lot of damage, so most of what historians know about the story is extrapolated from myths built from this one.

Standard with reading ancient literature, I enjoyed the adventure of being an amateur historian by reading the original in as far as an English translation of the original, but otherwise these type of stories aren't exactly enticing. show less

Beautifully illustrated! If one can overlook its subtle Fundamentalist bias, it is useful for Sunday School, etc.