SUMER, THE BIBLE, AND COMPARATIVE METHOD:

HISTORIOGRAPHY AND TEMPLE BUILDING

Richard E. Averbeck

When I was first asked to write on this topic a friend of mine, who is also a
biblical scholar and, in fact, relatively well-informed about the ancient
Near Eastern world, asked: 'How is it that you would attempt to show
connections between the Bible and the Sumerians when they are so far
removed historically, geographically, and linguistically from the world
of ancient Israel. Sumerian isn't even a Semitic language'?!l He thought
that the goal was to establish some sort of direct connection between the
Sumerians and ancient Israelite culture. His skepticism was well founded.
Even Samuel Noah Kramer, who went so far as to endorse the very un-
likely view of his teacher (Arno Poebel) that the biblical name 'Shem' (see
Gen. 10-11) derives from 'Sumer' (Kramer 1959: 202-204),2 readily
acknowledged the mdirect connectedness between Sumerian literature and
the Hebrew Bible (Kramer 1959: 190). This, however, does not diminish
the fact that the level of indirect influence was indeed quite significant
(Bodine 1994: 19-21).
Given that there are special issues that arise in this instance, never-
theless, there are basic principles of comparative method that apply to all
comparative work. Over 20 years ago Shemaryahu Talmon published what
has become a classic essay on the principles and problems of using the
comparative method in biblical interpretation (Talmon 1978). He isolated

1. I thank Mark Chavalas for inviting me to read an earlier and much shorter
version of this paper at the symposium on Syro-Mesopotamia and Bible of the Near
Eastern Archeological Society, November 17 1995 in Philadelphia. I also thank him
and Lawson Younger for including this expanded version in the present volume.
2. For a good brief introduction to the Sumerian history, culture, and literature,
and its significance for the biblical world see Bodine 1994. For helpful summaries of
comparisons between Sumer and the Bible see esp. Kramer 1959: 189-204 and Hallo
1988.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 89

four major principles: proximity in time and place, the priority of inner
biblical parallels, correspondence of social function, and the holistic
approach to texts and comparisons. These four categories will provide the
framework for this study of methodology in the comparative study of
Sumer and the Bible.
The first section of this essay will deal with Talmon's first two prin-
ciples: proximity in time and place, and the priority of inner biblical
parallels. These require relatively little explanation, so simple and brief
illustrations will be sufficient. The principle of the priority of inner biblical
parallels, in particular, will provide an occasion for preliminary conside-
ration of the two main topics that will follow: historiography and temple
building. These two topics provide the main substance for the more in
depth treatments of Talmon's third and fourth principles: correspondence
of social function, and the holistic approach to texts and comparisons,
respectively.
With regard to correspondence of social function, much of the recent
scholarly discussion about biblical and ancient Near Eastern historio-
graphy relates to its function in society. My own continuing research
suggests that a comparison of the pre-Sargonic Sumerian historical in-
scriptions with the biblical historiographic literature offers a promising
way forward in the ongoing debate. These are the earliest historiographic
texts we have, and we know that Sumerian historiography was formative
in the cuneiform world of the ancient Near East.
I have chosen to illustrate the principle of the holistic approach to texts
and comparisons by comparing the biblical accounts of temple building
with that of Gudea in the Gudea Cylinders. The composition inscribed on
Gudea Cylinders A and B is renowned as one of the lengthiest, most
skillful, and most difficult masterpieces in the corpus of extant Sumerian
literature. It is also one of the most important ancient Near Eastern temple
building texts and continues to receive considerable scholarly attention in
that regard.3

1. Time, Place, and Inner-Biblical Priority

in the Study of Sumer and the Bible
Two major approaches have been taken to cataloging the various parallels
between Sumerian culture and literature and that of the Hebrew Bible.

3. See now especially Hurowitz 1992 and Averbeck 2000 and the literature cited
in those places.
90 Mesopotamia and the Bible

Already in 1959 Kramer isolated 15 themes or motifs that occur in both

the Bible and Sumerian literature: creation out of a primeval sea that
existed before the creation, mankind fashioned out of clay and granted the
'breathe of life', creation by both command and 'making' or 'fashioning',
paradise stories, the flood, rivalry motifs like that of Cain and Abel, the
Tower of Babel, organization of the earth, the personal god, law and law
codes, ethics and morals, divine retribution, the plague motif, the suffering
of the righteous, and the bleakness of the nether world.4 After highlighting
these points of correspondence he pointed out that they only 'scratches the
surface' of what is there, and suggests that further work would most cer-
tainly expand upon his list especially in regard to the books of Psalms,
Proverbs, Lamentations, and the Song of Songs.
Of course, since 1959 the work of isolating and explaining these and
other parallels has continued. One can begin with Genesis 1-11 and move
progressively through the biblical canon. For example, beginning with
Genesis 1-11, the dual accounts of the creation of man in Genesis 1 and 2
has a parallel in the myth of 'Enki and Ninmah' (Klein 1997). The 120
year limit on a person's longevity in Gen. 6.3 surfaces also in 'Enlil and
Namzitara' (Klein 1990). The combination of the creation of man and
animals, the antediluvian culture, and the flood story in Genesis 1-9 has its
parallel in a single Sumerian composition as well, 'The Eridu Genesis'
(Jacobsen 1997). Work is continuing on the relationship between the
Babylonian ziggurat and the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 (see most
recently Walton 1995). Various Sumerian epics could be compared and
contrasted with the patriarchal stories, the law codes of Urnammu and
Lipitishtar are most certainly important sources for the early development
of ancient Near Eastern case law, there are multitudes of hymns to gods
(and temples) that could be compared to various Psalms in the Bible,
laments that compare to laments in the Psalms and the book of Lamenta-
tions, love songs of the Dumuzi-Inanna cycle to be compared with the
biblical Song of Songs and referenced in Ezek. 8.14, 'Weeping for
Tammuz', and so on.5
Along the way, as the work on parallel themes and motifs has con-
tinued, scholars have sometimes raised concerns about the pick and choose
nature of this method of comparison. Although much good work has been
done by good scholars in this way, some of which has already been cited

4. See Kramer 1959: 190-98 and the literature cited there.

5. See well-rendered examples of these and other Sumerian texts in COS: 1,509-
99; and COS: II, 385-438 and the literature cited in those places.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 91

here, there is no doubt that the pick and choose method can lend itself to
the misuse or misrepresentation of the texts themselves from the point of
view of their own native literary and cultural context. Therefore, the well-
known Sumerologist and comparativist William Hallo, advocates an
approach based on genre comparability. Regarding comparisons between
Sumerian literary compositions and the Bible, for example, he has col-
lected and organized them according to genre categories based on their
subjects: gods, kings, and common mortals (Hallo 1988: 30-38).
Common mortal texts fall largely into the category of what is called
wisdom literature in the Bible (Job, Proverbs, Qoheleth). These include,
for example, riddles, proverbs, instructions, disputations, and righteous
sufferer accounts. Royal literature includes stories and traditions about
heroic Sumerian kings before and after the flood, casuistic law codes,
royal hymns, and prayers. In general, biblical correspondences here
include the patriarchal accounts in Genesis, the laws in Exodus through
Deuteronomy, and the Psalms, respectively. Literature that focusses on the
gods includes incantations and divinatory texts, the exaltation of the patron
deity, lamentations for destroyed cities, and erotic poetry. In the Bible,
Yahweh is indeed exalted (Psalms and prayers), the fall of Jerusalem is
lamented (Lamentations), and physical love is acclaimed as a wondrous
thing (Song of Songs), but incantation and divination are forbidden.6
Throughout his discussion Hallo is just as concerned with contrasts
between the Bible and Sumerian literature as he is with comparisons. This
is not to say that Kramer and others were not aware of this issue. They
also sometimes highlighted them in their writings, but Hallo and others
have taken this to another level. Hallo's recent emphasis on genre as an
organizing principle and on contrasts being as important as comparisons
will effect how the reader engages with Talmon's four principles.7 In
general, one must keep in mind that the Bible is both in its world and
against its world, and both sides of the discussion are equally important.

6. It is important to add here that, in the Bible, not only are all the various occultic
divinatory procedures forbidden (Deut. 18.9-14), but they are replaced by prophets
who were to speak clearly for Yahweh as Moses had done (Deut. 18.15-22).
7. See most notably Hallo 1990: 1-30, esp. 2-3. Most recently, see Hallo 1997:
xxiii-xxviii, esp. xxv-xxvi; 2000: xxi-xxvi and the literature cited in those places.
Talmon himself was already deeply concerned with a balance between comparison and
contrast (see, e.g., Talmon 1978: 345).
92 Mesopotamia and the Bible

2. The Principle of Proximity in Time and Place

First, we should limit ourselves to societies that lie within the 'historical
stream' of biblical Israel while avoiding comparisons on a 'grand scale'
(Talmon 1978: 356 with pp. 322-26, 329-32). This dictum is currently
well-received. Few scholars of the ancient Near East and the Bible place
much confidence in geographically and especially chronologically distant
comparisons, except as they reflect a certain commonality in human
experience quite apart from all the profound differences between cultures.
Sumer itself, of course, was far removed both geographically and
chronologically from ancient Israel as a nation and culture. The Sumerian
culture and the earliest precursors of the writing system that it spawned
extend far back at least into the pre-historic Uruk period of Mesopotamian
culture before 3000 BCE. The new consensus that has been emerging
among Syro-Mesopotamian archeologists in the last decade is that, in the
early Uruk period (i.e. 4000-3500 BCE), the kind of organized societies
associated with the early development of civilization (advanced chief-
doms, cities with massive walls, etc.) were developing in northeastern
Syria and southeastern Turkey without the influence of the highly urbanized
city-state Uruk culture that was developing during the same period of time
in the Sumerian homeland of southern Mesopotamian. Then in the later
part of the Uruk period (i.e. 3500-3000 BCE, especially after 3200 BCE)
there was an Uruk expansion that made contact with and influenced the
peripheral regions east, north, and west of the Mesopotamian alluvial
valley, including the already established chiefdoms and their cities in
northern Syria.8
This new consensus, however, does not undermine the fact that,

8. With regard to the history of writing and the Sumerian writing system see esp.
Schmandt-Besserat 1995; and Vanstiphout 1995:2182. Forarcheological, sociological,
economic, and political dimensions of this pre-historic Sumerian presence and its
contacts with regions outside of the central Mesopotamian valley see the proposal in
Algaze 1993; and Astour 1992: 14-18. As reported, for example, in the New York
Times of May 23 2000, § D p. 5 (John Noble Wilforn, 'Ruins Alter Ideas of How
Civilization Spread'), the new excavations at Tell Hamoukar in northeastern Syria are
reinforcing these conclusions from other recent archeological work at Tell Brak in
northeastern Syria and at Hacinebi and Arslantepe in southeastern Turkey. The work
by Algaze cited above, which argues that civilization started only in the south and then
moved from there to the north, now needs revision in light of this new emerging
consensus.
 AVERBEC Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 93

although the northern and western regions were much more advanced than
previously thought and developed independently of southern Mesopotamia
during the first part of the Uruk period, they did not achieve the high level
of cultural development that we know from the Sumerians in southern
Mesopotamia, the so-called 'cradle of civilization'. The following third
millennium was the time of the development of the Sumerian language
and literature in written form. By the end of the third millennium (c. 2000
BCE) the Sumerians had lost all political influence, but their language,
literature, and culture had left an indelible mark that would be carried
down into the second and first millenniums through the linguistic and
literary conventions of the cuneiform scribal schools. In fact, many early
Sumerian literary compositions are known only from their preservation in
the ld Babylonian scribal canon (c. 1800-1600 BCE), and some were
actually composed for the first time during the Isin- arsa (c. 2000-1800)
and ld Babylonian periods (c. 1800-1600).
As for the relationship between Sumer and the Bible, Sumer for all
practical purposes lies within and, in fact, chronologically and literarily, at
the beginning of the 'historical stream' of biblical Israel. In spite of the
lack of linguistic similarity between the Semitic languages, of which
Hebrew is one, and the non-Semitic Sumerian language, the Sumerians
were nevertheless the progenitors of the cuneiform writing system,
literature, and culture which deeply impacted the entire ancient Near East
from very early days at least down to the middle of the first millennium
BCE.
I am not arguing here for what elb ridiculed as a cultural ' an-
Sumerianism' that does not recognize the early development of other high
cultures both inside and outside of Sumer in proto-historical times ( elb
1992: 121-22). The remarks above on the fourth millennium Uruk period
are evidence of that. Moreover, in the third millennium the West Semitic
world was more highly developed and connected within itself and with the
Southern Mesopotamian world than once was thought. elb's proposal of
a mid-third millennium Semitic ' ish Civilization' that extended from the
region of Akkad westward through Mari to Ebla and beyond is well-
conceived ( elb, 1992: 123-25, 200-202),9 and others have argued that
Akkadian was more predominant even in Sumer itself in these early days
than has been commonly recognized.10

9. See also Astour 1992: 3-10; Archi 1987: 125-40.

10. See the rather provocative analysis of Sumerian and Akkadian language and
culture in resargonic Sumer in Cooper 1973.
94 Mesopotamia and the Bible

These factors suggest that the cultural ingenuity and influence of the
Sumerians had already been felt even in those early days in the Semitic
world beyond the confines of the Mesopotamian valley. Moreover, there
were later periods of time during which the level of international
connectedness by means of cuneiform culture was indeed impressive. I am
thinking here especially of the Amarna period (c. 1500-1200 BCE)
(Lambert 1982: 314-15).11 Again, even though the Sumerian people and
their culture were long gone by that time, the origin of many cuneiform
institutions and ideas went back to the Sumerian culture and its literary
traditions.
The Sumerian world was mediated to the later biblical world through
other languages and cultures, especially Akkadian, which became the
linguafranca of the ancient Near East for a millennium and a half, as well
as other forms of early Semitic cuneiform (e.g. Ebla in northern Syria and
Presargonic Mari and Abu Salabikh in Mesopotamia), and the later
cuneiform culture at large. This cuneiform culture was responsible for
establishing and maintaining a longstanding underlying connectedness in
the ancient Near East—a certain kind of overall 'common cultural foun-
dation' that informed without undermining the various local cultures with
which it came into contact (Hallo 1988: 38).
In light of the above, I would argue that the connections between Sumer
and the Bible are /wdirect. Nevertheless, some of them are quite significant
and revealing. An apt lexical illustration is the well-known but clearly
non-Semitic word in the Hebrew Bible, hekal, 'palace, temple', which
derives originally from Sumerian E-GAL, 'big house', via the Sumerian
loanword in East Semitic Akkadian, ekallu. True, the connection from
Sumerian to Hebrew is indirect here, but it is clearly a Hebrew word that
has its ultimate origin in Sumerian.
With regard to clause syntax, the verb last word order of the Sumerian
clause seems to have influenced Akkadian word order so that the verb is
usually last in Akkadian clauses as well. It is true that the predominant
verb first order in the normal biblical Hebrew prose may have been due in
part to the nature of the wow-consecutive as a clause connector and the
associated requirement of putting the verb first. The verb first word order
common in other Semitic languages, nevertheless, suggests an underlying
Sumerian causation for the verb last order in Akkadian. Here there is a
contrast between Hebrew and Akkadian probably due to the fact that

11. Lambert also makes some important observations about influence in the other
direction, from Syria-Palestine to southern Mesopotamia (1982: 311-14).
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 95

Sumerian had such a significant impact on the development of Akkadian.

As I have already observed, the early Sumerian hegemony in southern
Babylonia had deep and abiding influence in the ancient Near Eastern
world long after and far beyond the boundaries of direct Sumerian
influence.

3. The Priority of Inner-Biblical Parallels

Talmon's second methodological principle is that 'The interpretation of
biblical features.. .with the help of inner-biblical parallels should always
precede the comparison with extra-biblical materials' (Talmon 1978:356
with pp. 338-51). For example, assuming that one has analyzed a par-
ticular text comprehensively on its own merits, one needs to do careful
analysis of and comparisons between the various biblical accounts of
temple building (see esp. Exod. 25-40, the tabernacle construction
account; 1 Kgs 5.1[15]-8.66; 2 Chron. 2-7; Ezek. 40-48) before com-
paring them with other ancient Near Eastern temple building texts, such as
the Gudea Cylinders.
I would also argue, however, that this is just as important for the non-
biblical comparative material. The Gudea Cylinders, for example, also
need to be analyzed in comparison with other texts of their type from
within their own immediate cultural and literary milieu. Fortunately,
Victor Hurowitz and Jacob Klein have already done much of this work.
Klein has shown that there is a particular subgenre of Sumerian royal
hymns known as 'building and dedication hymns', which includes the
Gudea Cylinders and three other compositions (Klein 1989:27-67). Huro-
witz has taken this subgenre of Sumerian texts as well as other (temple)
building texts from the ancient Syro-Mesopotamian world, analyzed them,
and in the context of that kind of analysis, has then compared them with
the two major sanctuary construction accounts in the Bible, Exod. 25-40
and 1 Kgs 5-9 (Hurowitz 1985; 1992). As it turns out, there is one
especially important point of contrast. The Gudea Cylinders present the
temple building and dedication process as essentially a step by step ritual
process. Ritual actions and processes saturate the text and, in fact,
structure it. This is not the case in the parallel biblical accounts. It is true
that the dedication procedures for the tabernacle and temple in the Bible
involved elaborate ritual procedures, but that in no way compares with the
obsessive concern for ritual guidance and confirmation in the Cylinders. I
will come back to the details of this in the final section of this article.
96 Mesopotamia and the Bible

Much of this overbearing ritual concern in the Cylinders reflects the

need on the part of the ruler, Gudea, to virtually pry the specific desires
and plans for the temple out of the heart of the deity for whom the temple
was to be built (i.e. Ningirsu, the patron deity of Lagash). There is no
ready revelation as is found in the Bible (Exod. 25-40). This feature of the
Gudea Cylinders has gone relatively unnoticed in the comparative
discussion and will be treated in greater detail below. Another example is
historiography and history writing in Sumer and the Bible. Although much
has been written on this subject, it seems to me that a good deal of it is
defective, and a considerable amount of foundational work still remains to
be done on both sides of the comparison. Moreover, there is far too much
confusion about the very nature of the comparative enterprise as it has
been applied to this subject.

4. The Corresponding Social Function of Compared Texts:

Historiography in Sumer and the Bible
The third methodological principle that Talmon emphasizes is the need to
treat societal phenomena by paying close attention to their 'function in the
developing structure of the Israelite body politic before one engages in
comparison with parallel phenomena in other societies' (Talmon 1978:
356 with pp. 324,328-29,333-38,351 -55). Texts and the phenomena that
they describe or recount are integrally related to other phenomena in the
community from which they derive, and superficial comparisons of
isolated phenomena that appear to be similar are often misleading and
counterproductive. With regard to texts in particular, which is what I am
especially concerned with here, the point is that if a certain (kind of) text
has a specific function in a society, comparative work should see to it that
the corresponding (kind of) text in the other society has a similar function
in that society.
This principle is actually a plea for paying due attention to the literary
Gattung of the composition and its concomitant Sitz im Leben, and using
that as one of the major criteria for comparison with other compositions
within its historical stream (Talmon 1978: 351-52). This, of course, goes
hand in hand with the study of textual genres and their production and use
in societies as part of the 'form critical' enterprise. In other words, to the
degree that the sociology of a text or text-type is known, this too should be
considered when it is used in comparative work.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 97

5. The Current Discussion

The past two or three decades of scholarship have seen increased debate
over the subject of biblical history writing and historiography, much of it
based on comparative ancient Near Eastern historiography. One of the
major stimuli has been John Van Seters' book In Search of History
(1983),12 in which he argued that the so-called 'Deuteronomist', the exilic
writer of the 'Deuteronomistic History' (i.e. Deut. 1-4 plus the substance
of Joshua-Kings stripped of its later additions), was the earliest author to
perform the task of true 'history writing' in the Bible and, in fact, in the
entire ancient Near East (Van Seters 1983: 209-362).13 He argues that the
similarities between the Deuteronomistic History and the history writing
of the Greek historian Herodotus show that there was an indirect con-
nection between the two. The connection was supposedly mediated his-
torically through the Phoenicians, who were seafaring Semites that had
longstanding contact with the Aegean (Van Seters 1983: 8-54, esp. 53-54).
For Van Seters, 'history writing' is to be distinguished from 'historio-
graphy' and from texts that are 'historiographic' in nature but do not rise
to the level of'history writing' (Van Seters 1983:1-7). Before the time of
the Deuteronomist in ancient Israel and in the whole ancient Near East
there was no true 'history writing', although there were 'historiographic'
texts, according to Van Seters. Any pre-existing sources, native or foreign,
that were used by the Deuteronomist and later by the 'Yahwist' to com-
pose their histories do not qualify as 'history writing'. The implications of
all this for the Yahwist's history in the Tetrateuch is worked out in two
more recent volumes, one on Genesis and the other on Exodus through
Numbers (Van Seters 1992; 1994).14
So Van Seters went 'in search of history' and found it in Genesis
through 2 Kings. However, not all scholars are willing to accept the notion

12. There have been numerous reviews of this book and reactions to its arguments
by scholars from all the various strands of biblical scholarship, some of which will be
referred to in the following discussion.
13. The last sentence of his book reads,'... I hope I have demonstrated that the first
Israelite historian, and the first known historian in Western civilization truly to deserve
this designation, was the Deuteronomistic historian' (1983: 362).
14. He argues for a Yahwist that post-dates the Deuteronomist, contrary to
common historical critical scholarly opinion. As for the work of the 'Priestly Writer',
he considers it to be 'a secondary supplement to that of J and not an independent
composition' (1992: 4).
98 Mesopotamia and the Bible

that what he has found in Genesis through 2 Kings is 'history writing' in

any meaningful way. Thomas L. Thompson, for example, has become
unwilling to call anything in Genesis through Kings 'history writing' and,
instead, thinks of it as an account of 'the mythic past'. It is a collection of
old stories and legends about the past that was put together specifically to
create a mythic past for the Israel of Persian and Hellenistic days. He
argues that the Bible has been misunderstood as history and, in fact, we
currently have 'no viable history for what we used to call "ancient Israel"'
(Thompson 1999: 7). This is so, according to him, because the only
sources we could use to write such a history are extra-biblical, and we
have precious few of those. The Bible, after all, is disqualified for his-
torical reconstruction because of its essentially mythological character.
I find myself agreeing in some respects and at the same time disagreeing
in other respects with both of these men. On the one hand, Thompson is
right to demand that history writing must be well-anchored in the truth
about what actually happened in the past. If, therefore, one says that
Genesis through 2 Kings is 'history writing', one needs to hold to a high
degree of historicity in what it says about Israel's past. But I simply
disagree with his almost totally negative assessment of the historical
reliability of the biblical text. Van Seters, on the other hand, is right to
emphasize the fact that 'history writing' was in ancient times, as it is
today, a literary endeavor that not only records past situations and events
but also imposes a certain form upon them. Thus, the way in which the
ancients wrote history needs to be taken into account when one makes a
judgment about whether or not Genesis through 2 Kings can properly be
called ancient 'history writing'. I disagree, however, with his limited
definition of 'history writing', his conclusion that it does not appear in
the ancient Near East until the writing of Genesis through 2 Kings, and
his proposal that the latter could have developed only under the influence
of early Greek 'history writing' such as that of Herodotus.
It seems to me that one of the major problems in this discussion is that
Talmon's third methodological principle of comparative analysis (socio-
logical analysis) has been ignored. History writing is a general category of
writing into which several different kinds of texts might fit. For example,
to begin with Johan Huizinga's well-worn definition of history: 'History is
the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of its
past' (Huizinga 1963: 9).15 This is primarily a sociological definition of

15. This is, in fact, the same definition that Van Seters uses to start with (1983:
1-2).
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 99

history and, in my opinion, in the present environment it is one of the best

places to start when dealing with history writing, whether ancient or
modern. Any text that functions sociologically in this way for a particular
civilization constitutes history writing for that civilization. Whether it does
it in the same way or with the same level of sophistication as a text from
another place or another time is irrelevant.
Every civilization creates its own form of history, and must do so. The
character of the civilization determines what history shall mean to it, and of
what kind it shall be. If a civilization coincides with a people, a state, a
tribe, its history will be correspondingly simple. If a general civilization is
differentiated into distinct nations, and these again into groups, classes,
parties, the corresponding differentiation in the historical form follows of
itself (Huizinga 1963: 7).
In a previous study I began an investigation of ancient Sumerian history
writing based on the Presargonic Sumerian royal inscriptions from Lagash
(c. 2500-2350 BCE) (Averbeck 1994).161 analyzed the most comprehen-
sive and helpful exemplar of the set, and demonstrated how this analysis
contributes to our understanding of history writing in the Bible. Even in
the Presargonic inscriptions, which are the earliest historiographic docu-
ments available, one reads things like:
Enlil, king of all lands, father of all the gods, by his authoritative command,
demarcated the border between Ningirsu and Shara. Mesalim, king ofKish,
at the command of Ishtaran, measured it off and erected a monument there
(Cooper 1986: 54).17
This suggests that the predominantly Semitic kingdom ofKish in the north
(see the remarks on this above) might have dominated Sumer politically in
the mid-third millennium. The royal title 'king ofKish' was used in later
times as a claim of sovereignty in the whole region of Sumer and Akkad
and beyond (Hallo 1957: 23, 26). One can also compare the Sumerian
King List, which says, 'After the flood swept over (the earth) (and) when
kingship was lowered (again) from heaven, kingship was (first) in Kish\l*
But even if in some cases the innovations they are credited with derive

16. Perhaps it is his view of royal inscriptions as only biographical that led Van
Seters to overlook the significance of the Presargonic Sumerian royal inscriptions (c.
2500-2350 BCE).
17. Regarding influence from Syria-Palestine to southern Mesopotamia in the later
second millennium BCE, see Lambert 1982: 311-14.
18. ANET265.
100 Mesopotamia and the Bible

ultimately from other pre- or proto-historic civilizations, the Sumerians

were the ones that mediated them in literary form to later cuneiform
cultures which, in turn, mediated them to the Israelite world in one way or
another.
This is not the place to take the analysis of Sumerian historiography
further. The goal on this occasion is to expand on its comparability to
biblical history writing and the importance of that for the critical
discussion outlined above. As Kirk Grayson once wrote:
Although there were some differences between the earlier and later cultures
as a result of ethnic and linguistic change, in many respects Assyrian and
Babylonian ideas and institutions are Sumerian ideas and institutions in new
garb, the new garb being a different language, Akkadian. Ideas about the
past in Assyria and Babylonia were inherited from the Sumerians and,
despite some alteration, their essential Sumerian character continued to be
recognizable. In the discussion of historiographical genres we shall find
only a few innovations in Assyrian and Babylonian times (Grayson 1980:
142).

I am fully aware that by taking the earliest ancient Near Eastern historical
texts as the comparative base for understanding biblical historiography I
am starting at the opposite end of the ancient Near Eastern history from
Herodotus, upon whom Van Seters bases his comparative work. But that is
part of the point. Although the Sumerians were far removed from ancient
Israel in time and place, in some important ways at least, these inscriptions
served the same basic sociological function in their time, place, and his-
torical situation as Genesis through Kings did in ancient Israel. Moreover,
the connection between Herodotus and the biblical history writers is, if
anything, more tenuous than the comparison with Mesopotamian historio-
graphy to be articulated here (see more on this below). Comparing these
Sumerian texts with the Bible from a sociological point of view provides a
badly needed framework for properly handling three basic questions: the
nature of history writing, the question of historicity, and the connection
between history and mythology (or theology).

6. History and the Nature of History Writing

Many of the Presargonic royal inscriptions contain or consist almost
entirely of historical narratives. These narratives recount and reflect on
specific events, especially regarding the longstanding boundary conflict
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 101

between Lagash and its competing city-state, Umma.19 The Enmetena

cone, in particular, 'provides the most comprehensive preserved recitation
of the boundary history, beginning with Mesalim's arbitration, and ending
with Enlil and Ninhursag, the great god of Sumer and his consort,
supporting Enmetena against a contemporary ruler of Umma who claimed
part of the territory of Lagash' (Cooper 1983:15).20 From this inscription
we can discern some basic principles of historiography in Sumer, or at
least in Presargonic Sumer at Lagash.21
First, the Enmetena cone begins by recounting how Enlil, who was
conceived of in all of Sumer (not just Lagash) as the chief god of the
Sumerian pantheon, first established the boundary between Lagash and
Umma (literally, between the god of Lagash, Ningirsu, and the god of
Umma, Shara). Second, in an early generation Mesalim, 'king of Kish'
(see the remarks on this above), had measured it all off and set up a
monument on the border. Third, the text recounts the previous history of
the border conflict between Lagash and Umma over the fertile agricultural
territory of the plain, covering at least three previous generations. Fourth,
there is a relatively full description of the conflict between Enmetena
himself and two successive rulers of Umma.
Fifth, Enmetena built a new boundary channel from the Tigris to the
Nun-canal and re-established the proper boundary between Lagash and
Umma. Finally, there is a blessing/prayer addressed on behalf of Enme-
tena to Shulutul, his personal god, followed by a conclusion in which the
inscription calls upon Enlil and Ningirsu to destroy any ruler of Umma, or
anyone else for that matter, who would dare violate the boundary channel.
This final portion of the text, therefore, looks forward into the future days
of Enmetena or perhaps even later generations.
Now, Van Seters admits that there are several different genres of extant
historiographic texts from the ancient Near East, but argues that, ulti-

19. See the historical reconstruction of this conflict in Cooper 1983: 18-37.
20. There are two quite similar exemplars of this particular composition on clay
cones (designated Cones A and B), and some fragmentary duplicates on jars (see the
publications listed in the next footnote and the literature cited in them). None of them
were found in situ, so one cannot discern their function or significance from the
archeological context with any certainty. See the helpful discussion in Ellis 1968:114-
20.
21. See the short quotations and historiographic analysis in Averbeck 1994:93 -98.
For a full English translation with notes see Cooper 1986: 54-57, and for a
transliteration with German translation and commentary see Steible and Behrens 1982:
1, 230-45 and II, 112-22.
102 Mesopotamia and the Bible

mately, 'history writing' perse must be comprehensive and creative from

the point of view of national identity. Thus, he writes in his conclusion:
Dtr's purpose, above all, is to communicate through this story of the
people's past a sense of their identity—and that is the sine qua non of
history writing. No other historical work of the ancient Near East reveals so
broad a purpose as this (Van Seters 1983: 359).

He has a legitimate point about the Joshua-Kings history, but the imme-
diate question is whether it is appropriate to so strictly limit the concept of
'history writing' to exclude what he calls 'historiographic texts'. I do not
think this is an acceptable way of handling the material.
It is hard for me to understand why the Enmetena inscription should not
be called 'history writing'. There is no 'accidental accumulation of
traditional material' here, 'the reason for recalling the past and the sig-
nificance given to past events' is clearly evident, and the document most
certainly 'examines the causes of present conditions and circumstances'.22
One could even argue that it is 'national or corporate in character'. Even
though it reports 'the deeds of the king', it does so from a corporate
perspective, was part of the literary tradition, and played an important role
in the official 'corporate tradition of the people' of Lagash, although it is
hard to be sure how much these inscriptions reflect the views of the
commoners or any other levels of the society.23 In any case, the Enmetena

22. I am referring here to the first three of the five 'criteria by which to identify
history writing in ancient Israel' according to Van Seters 1983:4-5. With regard to the
last two criteria, see below.
23. See Van Seters' fourth and fifth criterion of history writing (1983: 5). In point
of fact, his emphasis on the importance of the 'national' character of true 'history
writing' in ancient Israel does not really fit Huizinga's definition of history (cited
above).
For example, in his review of In Search of History, Lawson Younger (1988:110-17)
rightly criticizes the manner in which Van Seters misapplies Johan Huizinga's
definition of history as 'nationalistic' (see more on this below), his rather far-fetched
connection between Herodotus and the Deuteronomist (is Israel really in the 'historical
stream' of Greece? See Talmon's first principle above), and his use of genre as a
'magic wand' (Younger's term) by which he attempts to disqualify all other ancient
Near Eastern historiographic texts as 'history writing' (p. 113).
With regard to the latter point, Younger cites the earlier review by Halpern (1985:
506-509), who writes, 'Here is the form-critic shaking an impotent fist at the refractory
ancient who wrote to suit his own selfish ends: mixed forms, or mixed themes... reflect
long development' (p. 508). Halpem continues, 'Van Seters sets out with a limited
sensibility about history-writing and ends by discovering virtually none of it before the
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 103

cone is a carefully constructed purposeful composition that represents a

long tradition, although admittedly not nearly as long and comprehensive
as that of Genesis through 2 Kings. I will come back to the distinctiveness
of biblical history writing in this regard later.

7. History, Historicity, and Tradition

The Enmetena inscription has a relatively sound foundation in historical
fact. There are inter-textual parallels between the compositions from the
several different generations represented by the inscriptions. Sometimes
later inscriptions refer to events that are attested in earlier ones closer to or
contemporary with the events themselves.24 Now it is obvious that the
Enmetena composition was written from the point of view of Lagash as
opposed to Umma. Similarly, Genesis through 2 Kings was also written
from a certain point of view, as is all history writing both ancient and
modern.25 This does not mean that we should necessarily deny any
historical factuality to this section of the Hebrew Bible. Even the most
critical of scholars do not take such a position, for example, regarding the
Enmetena composition.
About 25 years ago Thompson and Van Seters wrote two separate vol-
umes, both challenging the then current consensus of the relative his-
toricity of the patriarchal narratives (Van Seters 1975: 1-122; Thompson
1974). Both men articulated their proposals and arguments very well. Each
in their own way has contributed much to the development of what is
sometimes called the 'minimalist' view of biblical historicity, which has
moved far beyond doubting the historicity of the patriarchs. Today
minimalism also includes David, Solomon, and in its most extreme forms
almost all of what had previously been widely considered the history of
Israel in the Old Testament period.26

6th century BCE. The book thus amounts to a procrustean definition and the assertion,
possibly correct, that nothing before Dtr. fits it' (p. 508). See also the reviews by
Roberts 1984; Rogerson 1986.
24. See the footnotes in Cooper 1986: 56-57 and the extensive discussion in
Cooper 1983: 22-37.
25. For a careful discussion of this point as it relates to the philosophy of history
and history writing see Younger 1990: 25-47.
26. For example, Thompson (1999:190) writes: 'In short, the only historical Israel
to speak of is the people of the small highland state which, having lost its political
autonomy in the last quarter of the eighth century, has been consistently ignored by
historians and Bible scholars alike. This is the Israel whose people, understanding
104 Mesopotamia and the Bible

As I have already explained, the Enmetena cone clearly refers to earlier

traditions about the boundary disputes between Lagash and Umma, and
there are some earlier narrative inscriptions that independently verify those
traditions. Unfortunately, theories rather than facts tend to become the
overriding force in highly polemical discussions such as the one
surrounding historicity in the Hebrew Bible.27 The point is that, no matter
what one's theoretical stance may be, one should always be willing to
submit their theoretical framework to verifiable data, whether biblical or
extra-biblical. The trick is to distinguish between what is truly verifiable
data as opposed to scholarly interpretation or theoretical (re)construction
of or about the data, or the absence of data. One should at least be willing
to say that their theory is not currently confirmed in this or that detail by
the data we have, if that is in fact the case.
How should one respond to such a state of affairs? Historical critical
investigation of the history of Israel is a legitimate scholarly endeavor, and
archeology and epigraphy have something significant to offer those who
engage in it. All history writing is selective, and if the Bible does include
history writing, as I believe it does, the history that it presents is also
selective and incomplete. The nature of history writing necessarily leads to
purposeful selection in order to draw out the significance of past events
from the point of view of the civilization for which the history is written
(see the definitions and remarks). This was certainly part of the purpose
and rationale of the writing of the Enmetena cone in Presargonic Lagash
and the various elements of the attested written tradition about the past
referred to in it.

themselves as "Israelites", return to the light of history as the same highland farmers
they had been for millennia. They are referred to in the stories of Ezra 4 as enemies of
Benjamin and Judah. Their offence: they wish to help in the building of a temple to
"the God of Israel" in Jerusalem. They are rejected in the story by Ezra's Jews and
given a sectarian identity as "Samaritans" by historians. This Israel is not the Israel that
biblical scholars who write "histories of Israel" have been interested in. It is not the
Israel that we find in our biblical narratives. It is historical Israel'.
27. This is the sense one gets when reading, for example, Thompson's most recent
discussion of the Tel Dan inscription, in which we find the expression bytdwd
(Thompson 1999: 203-205). Certainly the most reasonable rendering is 'the house of
David' in spite of all the objections that have been raised against it by those who, like
Thompson, are committed to the non-historicity of David. The objections amount to so
much special pleading and, I am sorry to say, the not so shrouded accusations of fraud
and forgery in the discovery of the inscription are a disgrace (see, e.g., Thompson
1999: 205). See the remarks and literature cited in Schniedewind 1996; Dion 1999.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 105

There is no space for an examination of all the textual and archeological

details of this discussion here. The current state of affairs suggests, how-
ever, that scholars should back up and ask whether or not the account of
Israelite history given in Genesis through 2 Kings would have made sense
in the world of the ancient ear East. As ui inga put it:
In reality history gives no more than a particular representation of a
particular past, an intelligible picture of a portion of the past.. .The idea of
history only emerges with the search for certain connexions (sic), the
essence of which is determined by the value which we attach to them.
y is always an imposition of form upon the past, and cannot claim
to be more...
If history as an intellectual activity is an imposition of form, then we
may say that as a product it is a form an intellectual form for understand-
ing the world, ust as philosophy, literature...[i ts purpose is to understand
the world in and through the past ( ui inga 1963: 5, emphasis original).

As noted above, one needs to resist imposing modern standards and

criteria for history writing on the ancients. Therefore, one must also resist
denying their literary productions the status of 'history writing' simply
because they do not correspond in some respects to the way in which we
generally do historical research and write history today (Van Seters 1992:
1-7,20-44,328-33; 1994:1-12,457-58,468). It may be true for some that
'a history adequate to our civili ation can only be scientific history', which
supposedly demands scientific certainty and accepts only natural causes
a 1963: 8). But such was most certainly not the case in either
ancient Sumer or Israel.
This does not mean, however, that the ancients were not concerned to
know the truth about what actually happened in their past and what caused
those things to happen. This carries the notion of imposition of form on
the past to its ultimate extreme. Such a view leads some scholars to the
conclusion that since history writing is by nature literary, therefore, it does
not necessarily have any substantial correspondence to the actual realities
of the past. On the contrary, history writing that is worthy of the name
cannot be purely fictional or propagandistic. As ui inga puts it, although
history writing must take a perspective on the past:
Every civili ation and every sectional civili ation must hold its own history
to be the true one, and is entitled to do so, provided that it constructs this
history in accordance with the critical requirements imposed by its
conscience as a civili ation, and not according to the cravings for power in
the interests of which it imposes silence upon this conscience ( ui inga
1963: 9, emphasis original).
106 Mesopotamia and the Bible

Thus, for historical traditions to be truly historical they must have a

substantial relationship to the actual reality of the past. At this point I
would agree with Thompson against Van Seters in principle as it relates to
the Bible. The degree to which Genesis through 2 Kings is accurate about
what actually happened in the history recorded in them is an essential
factor in determining whether or not they should be labeled 'history
writing'. To put it the other way, to whatever degree these books do
not recount accurately what happened in the past when it purports to
do so, to that degree they are 'myth', or 'fiction', or 'legend', or perhaps
'propaganda'.
This brings us to the subject of pre-existing sources actually mentioned
in the Hebrew Bible, as opposed to historical critical theories about
hypothetical sources. First, the postexilic author(s) of Chronicles probably
used the pre-exilic history written in Samuel and Kings as part of their
source material. The latter may even be cited by name in certain places.
Specific reference is made to 'the book of the kings of Israel' (1 Chron.
9.1; 2 Chron. 20.34; cf. 2 Chron. 20.34, 'the annals of Jehu son of Hanani,
which are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel'), 'the records of
Samuel the seer' (1 Chron. 29.29), 'the book of the kings of Israel and
Judah' (or '..Judah and Israel'; see 2 Chron. 16.11; 25.26; 27.7; 28.26;
32.32; 35.27; 36.8), or simply 'the annotations on the book of the kings'
(2 Chron. 24.27). Compare also: 'written in the vision of the prophet
Isaiah son of Amoz in the book of the kings of Judah' (2 Chron. 32.32)
and 'the book of the annals' (Neh. 12.23; note the word 'annals' = Hebrew
lit. 'the words of the days', which is the Hebrew name for the books of
'Chronicles').
There are also references to other sources that probably do not cor-
respond to the pre-exilic canonical historical books: 'the records of Nathan
the prophet and the records of Gad the seer' (1 Chron. 29.29), 'the
prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite.. .the visions of Iddo the seer' (2 Chron.
9.29), 'the annotations of the prophet Iddo' (2 Chron. 13.22), 'the records
of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer that deal with genealogies'
(2 Chron. 12.15), 'written in the records of the seers' (2 Chron. 33.19),
'written in the Laments' (2 Chron. 35.25). There are even references to the
annals of foreign kings and kingdoms (e.g. Est. 2.23; 6.1-2; 10.2).
Second, and even more importantly, according to the pre-exilic his-
torical books themselves (and one particular verse in the Pentateuch), even
in the pre-exilic period some important written sources were used mat, by
and large, seem to have been completely lost to us. The names given to
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 107

such sources include: 'the Book of the Wars of the LORD' (Num. 21.14),
'the Book of Jashar' (Josh. 10.13; 2 Sam. 1.18), 'the book of the annals of
Solomon' (1 Kgs 11.41), 'the book of the annals of the kings of Israel' (1
Kgs 14.19; 15.31; 16.5, 14, 20, 27; 22.39; 2 Kgs 1.18; 10.34; 13.8, 12;
14.15, 28; 15.11, 15, 21, 26, 31),'the book of the annals of the kings of
Judah' (1 Kgs 14.29; 15.7,23; 22.45; 2 Kgs 8.23; 12.19; 14.18; 15.6,36;
16.19; 20.20; 21.17,25; 23.28; 24.5).
The sheer number of sources and references to them must be taken into
consideration when assessing the concern for historicity in ancient Israelite
history writing. I would argue that this comes as close to our standards of
reference as we could expect them to come in the ancient Near East. Yes,
their history writing does not suit the modern positivistic and naturalistic
sensibilities and methodologies of some modernist scholars. For such
scholars the presumed mixture of'myth' and 'legend' in the pre-exilic his-
torical books utterly eliminates them as sources for learning about what
happened in history.

8. History, Historiography, and Mythography

This brings me to the relationship between historiography and mythography.
The latter refers to the critical study of mythological materials, and here I
am concerned with how such study of myth relates to critical study of
history writing in the Hebrew Bible. Over against Thompson, although
Van Seters (1975:1-122) has long since given up on historicity as a matter
of any great concern to the biblical history writers, he still holds that
Genesis through Kings is indeed 'history writing' rather than simply
'story' or 'myth'. Some might think that this difference between Thomson
and Van Seters is just a matter of semantics—one man's history may be
another man's myth, depending on how they define their terms. But there
is something of substance here as well.
A modern positivist form of history writing will not admit myth into its
consideration, except as a matter of correctly representing what people
believed in the past about the past. According to the standard definition,
legend stands 'somewhere between' myth and history, but more in the
realm of myth because it is 'about heroes and eponymic forefathers'. So,
'It is the presence of either myth or legend in a historical work that
requires some explanation' (Van Seters 1992: 25).
There are actually two different kinds of'myth'. 'Founding myth' refers
to origins, or at least divine intervention outside of time, 'when new
108 Mesopotamia and the Bible

patterns are established and old ones reformulate —times that need not be
chronologically distant but usually are' (Doty 1986:8). 'Permeating myth'
refers to divine intervention that takes place within human time. For
example, from the perspective of what is and is not expressed in the
Enmetena cone, Enlil's demarcation of the original boundary is to be
considered 'founding myth'. Enlil's founding moment was the perspective
from which all the conflicts over the boundary were to be understood.28
'Permeating myth' does, in fact, 'permeate' the remainder of the com-
position. When 'Mesalim, king of Kish' measured off the boundary and
set up a monument there, he did it 'at the command of [the god] Ishtaran'.
When Ush smashed Mesalim's monument and invaded the plain of
Lagash, 'Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at his [Enlil's] just command, did
battle with Umma. At Enlil's command, he [apparently referring to the
god Ningirsu] cast the great battle-net upon it, and set up burial mounds
for it on the plain'. No ruler of Lagash is mentioned in this portion of the
account. The victory is attributed to Ningirsu alone. When II, a later ruler
of Umma, attempted to shift 'the boundary-levee' to give Umma a larger
portion of the plain, 'Enlil andNinhursag did not allow him [to do] this'. It
is not exactly clear how to interpret this line, but the outcome is once again
attributed to divine intervention.29 When Enmetena constructed the
boundary channel 'from the Tigris to the Nun-Canal', he did it 'at the just
command of Enlil, at the just command of Ningirsu'. Finally, if the future
leader of Umma or anyone else should transgress upon the plain of
Lagash, 'may Enlil destroy him! May Ningirsu, after casting his great
battle-net upon him, bring down upon him his giant hands and feet!'
I have been using the term 'myth' to refer to the rationale of divine
intervention in the Bible and the ancient Near East. One could just as
easily use the term 'theology', as some do.30 The difference is that for
most people the term 'mythology' brings to mind 'fiction',31 whereas this
is not necessarily so with 'theology'. From the point of view of most
modernists and positivist historians, Genesis 1-11 is 'founding myth' and
Genesis 12 through 2 Kings is saturated with 'legend' and 'permeating
myth'. But it must be recognized that, even in the case of the Enmetena

28. See the remarks and literature cited in Averbeck 1994: 92-93, 95-96.
29. For discussion of the problem here see Cooper 1983: 32-33.
30. See also, for example, Cooper 1983: 11, where he refers to the 'theological
rationale of all Mesopotamian imperialism' (emphasis mine).
31. See the helpful discussion of definitions in Doty 1986: 1 -40, and compare also
the discussion of myth, legend, and history in the Bible in Averbeck 1994: 93-100.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 109

cone and other ancient ear Eastern compositions of its kind, the ancients
themselves did not see this as 'fiction'. The 'theology' of the composition
was simply treated as an essential part of their true 'history' (in the sense
of historically accurate 'history writing'). In fact, there is no doubt that
much of what is recounted in this inscription is historically accurate even
if it is shaped according to the perspective of one side as opposed to the
other, which is true of all history writing, ancient and modern. One would
find comparable differences of perspective in histories of the 1950s or 60s
CE written in the nited States as opposed to the Soviet nion.
Similarly, in the ebrew Bible Genesis 1-11 is presented as 'history',
not 'myth' or 'fiction'. Van Seters himself is willing to include Genesis
1-11 in his category of'history writing' (although he would argue that it is
a case of 'mythologi ation of history') (Van Seters 1992: 26-27,188-93).
t of the reason for this is the genealogical framework that runs through
the entire book. By taking this framework of Genesis seriously, including
the toledot ('generations') formula that runs through the book (Gen. 2.4;
5.1; 6.9; 10.1; 11.10, 27; 25.12, 19; 36.1, 9; 37.2) as well as the more
substantial hori ontal (Gen. 4.17-24; 10.1-32; 25.12-18; 36.1-43) and
vertical genealogies (Gen. 5.1-32; 11.10-26) that periodically (re)capture
the overall structure of its history, one is able to show that Genesis 1-11 is
presented as an integral part of the history of Israel. It is ust as historical
as Genesis 12-50 and Exodus through 2 Kings, from the perspective of
the text. There is no primary distinction between myth, legend, and history
here.32
It is no surprise that Van Seters comes back to the Greeks when explain-
ing the overall genealogical shape and much of the substance of Genesis.33

32. See Averbeck 1994: 98-100 and the literature cited there. See also Van Seters
1992:330-31.
33. One of the ma or methodological defects in Van Seters' discussion, in my
opinion, is his insistence that, although there is much in Gen. 1-11 that owes its origin
to 'eastern' (i.e. ancient ear Eastern) traditions, the genealogical framework must be
due to the influence of the early Greek (i.e. 'western') antiquarian tradition (Van Seters
1992:78-99). e argues similarly regarding Gen. 12-50, 'Although there is little in the
patriarchal stories that corresponds to any eastern antiquarian traditions, in spite of
Abraham's association with esopotamia in the tradition, the parallels with the
western traditions are extensive and have been neglected for too long' (Van Seters
1992:213).
The fact of the matter is that many scholars find a great deal of material in the
patriarchal accounts that has significant parallels in the so-called 'eastern' tradition.
110 Mesopotamia and the Bible

His earlier work on the Deuteronomistic History already set this as his
agenda based on supposed correspondences between it and Herodotus (see
above). However, the level of true correspondence between them has been
seriously challenged.34 Furthermore, his attempt at discrediting the work
of others who have argued that the kinds of genealogies and genealogical
structure for narrative that we find in Genesis is most characteristic of
primitive tribal societies is, in the end, unconvincing (Van Seters 1992:
197-98). Genealogy is an important feature of ancient Near Eastern history
and culture from very early (Chavalas 1994). Even the shift from before
the flood to after in a genealogical framework is attested, for example, in
the Sumerian King List.
The tradition of 'history writing' that begins with the Presargonic in-
scriptions as witnessed by the Enmetena cone and other such texts is quite
sufficient as a literary background for much of what is found in Genesis
through 2 Kings without resorting to Herodotus. In this inscription, on the
one hand, the deity intervenes on behalf of the ruler and his people and, on
the other hand, the ruler also sees himself as acting on behalf of the deity.
As Jerrold Cooper puts it:
This theological rationale of all Mesopotamian imperialism—making war
in the name of a god for territory claimed by a god or given to the warring
ruler by a god—was thus present at the beginning of recorded Babylonian
history. It persisted in royal inscriptions through two millennia and figured
prominently in the propaganda of Cyrus the Persian when he justified
bringing the last independent Babylonian kingdom to an end (Cooper
1983: II). 35

This is certainly integral to the 'history writing' in Genesis through 2 Kings

as well.
Admittedly, however, the combination of the overarching scope, exten-
sive development, and literary quality and diversity of Israel's history as
presented in Genesis through 2 Kings is truly unprecedented in the ancient
Near East.
That brings me back to Genesis 1-11 and the issue of'theology'. I have
already argued that on the level of the larger literary structure of Genesis

The correspondences with the Ugaritic Poems ofKeret and Aqhat leap to mind. See the
convenient summary in Parker 1989: 225-32.
Moreover, the association of Abraham with Mesopotamia in the tradition cannot be
so easily pushed aside.
34. See, e.g., the extensive remarks in Nicholson 1994: 141-46.
35. See also the quote from Grayson above.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 111

these chapters are presented as 'history'. This does not mean that the
Israelites would have seen no distinction between the primeval history in
Genesis 1-11 and the patriarchal history in chs. 12-50. On the contrary,
they surely would have recognized the difference between the origins of
humankind and all the nations from creation to the tower of Babel as
opposed to the origins of the nation of Israel from Abraham to Joseph. In
light of that, one must ask the question: why was it so important for the
author of Israel's earliest history to include the material of Genesis 1-11 in
his 'history writing'?
At least part of the answer must be that this section of Genesis sets the
agenda for Israel's engagement with the nations roundabout them and,
therefore, their national history as reflected in the rest of Genesis through
2 Kings. It is this agenda, not the influence of Herodotus, that led to the
distinctiveness of Israel's 'history writing' in its ancient Near Eastern
context. The mentality of distinctiveness is pervasive in the Hebrew
Scriptures. This is not just a matter of modern conservative concern about
the superiority of the Bible (Machinist 1991:196-212). The difficulty is in
defining that distinctiveness in a way that stands up under the scrutiny of
careful reading and comparison with other ancient Near Eastern literature.
Perhaps the best way to say it is that the whole perspective on God, his
people, and the relationship between the two is different in the Hebrew
Bible as opposed to the rest of the ancient Near East (Machinist 1991:
207-12; Arnold 1994: 129-48, esp. 142-48). It is true that there are some
instances of what seems to be a sort of 'monotheism' in the ancient Near
East outside of Israel, although with Finkelstein I am not convinced that
they are of the same kind and quality as that found in the Bible. They
certainly did not permanently replace polytheism in their religious cul-
tures.36 Whatever one concludes on that count, the distinctiveness actually
extends beyond monotheism to the relationship between the one true God,
his world, and his people Israel.
Genesis 1-11 presents one true God who stands above and outside of
the world and history. He created the world from outside of it and still
stands in that transcendent position. He is neither bound by nature nor
determined or undermined by history. Nevertheless, Genesis 12 through
2 Kings proceeds to narrate why and how this God has committed himself
by covenant bond to a particular people, Israel, who stand in a particular

36. See Finkelstein 1958:431 -44, esp. 438-44, as opposed to, e.g., Machinist 1991:
197-200 and Lambert 1975: 191-99.
112 Mesopotamia and the Bible

kind of relationship to the world.37 It is through them (literally, Abraham

their father) that 'all the families of earth will be blessed' (Gen. 12.3b).
The whole earth belongs to the Lord, but Israel is his 'treasured posses-
sion', his 'kingdom of priests', his 'holy nation' (Exod. 19.5-6).
There is a position and a commission here that sets Israel apart from all
other nations even as they struggle with their God, who is so far above and
beyond them (and yet still present with them), and with the natural and
national world that surrounds them. Genesis 12 through 2 Kings only takes
us so far with this, but there is enough written there to let us know that
more is coming. The comprehensiveness of Israel's history derives from
the comprehensive nature of Israel's God, not the historiography of
Herodotus or anyone else.

9. Summary and Implications

I have argued here that some of the problems in the scholarly discussion of
comparative historiography as it relates to biblical history writing may be
sorted out and resolved by more careful attention to certain basic
principles of research. First and foremost one should take Talmon's third
comparative principle seriously. If it can be established that there is
history writing in the ancient Near East that served the same sociological
junction as biblical history writing in the respective societies, then there is
no good reason to categorize such texts as 'historiographic' as opposed to
'history writing' in the Bible.
A comparison of biblical history writing with Pre-Sargonic history writ-
ing is certainly appropriate on the level of the function of the texts, and
that is one of the main points of this part of the discussion. This functional
principle can be violated either by imposing a comparison where the texts
are not comparable from a sociological point of view, or it can be violated
by ignoring function and shifting the comparison to the literary level
isolated from function. This is not to say that comparison on the literary
level is not important, but when something is defined in a functional way
(see Huizinga's definition of history) and allowing for several different
literary genres to perform that sociological function, then it is important to
base the comparison on the functional comparability of the texts. It is not

37. As Machinist puts it: 'Cosmology where it occurs in the Biblical text is not
identical with national history. Similarly, there is no notion of autochthonous origins—
of a primordial connection between the people and a particular territory' (1991: 208,
emphasis original).
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 113

fair to shift the definition away from the function of history writing
in order to avoid the rather significant implications of functional com-
parability when it is really there.
Second, the fact that 'theology' (or 'mythology', depending on one's
point of view, ancient or modern) serves an important function within
history writing in the ancient Near East does not mean that these ancient
history writers were not concerned about what actually happened in their
past. On the contrary, by definition, a composition does not belong to the
category of history writing at all if it does not present what the writer and
the civilization to whom he is writing would consider to be a realistic
presentation of their own historical past. To be sure, history, ancient and
modern, is always written from a certain perspective, but that does not
necessarily falsify it from an historical point of view. By the standards of
function as well as the realistic presentation of the historical facts, the
Enmetena cone is history writing and so is, for example, Genesis through
2 Kings in the Hebrew Bible.
Finally, what stands out about history writing as it is found in Genesis
through 2 Kings is its 'metanarrative' quality. That is, it claims 'to make
sense of all other stories and the whole of reality'.38 It goes much further
than any other history writing in the ancient Near East by presenting a
history of Israel and the world that is, in turn, a function of the nature of
Israel's view of their God and how he relates to the world. This was a
gigantic leap in the ancient Near Eastern history writing, but it was, in
fact, inherent to the way in which ancient Israel rendered 'account to itself
of its past' (Huizinga 1963: 9). It was the ancient Israelites' view of their
own history and the significance of their history for the history of the
entire world.

10. The Holistic Approach to Texts and Comparisons:

Temple Building in Sumer and the Bible
The main burden of sections 4-9 was to show the importance of comparing
not only texts but also the sociological function of texts. If a genre of text
had a particular function in the civilization in which it was composed, then
it is important that one compare it with the corresponding genre of text
from another culture that fulfills the same function there. This functional
concern actually matches well with the recent emphasis on language and

38. See Vanhoozer 1997: 39 for this definition of the term 'metanarrative'.
114 Mesopotamia and the Bible

texts as acts of communication.391 can go no further with that here, except

to add that contrast can be just as informative as comparison. If similar
kinds of literature actually function differently in different cultures,
this too is an important contribution in the comparative analysis of the
literature.
Now I need to shift my attention away from this form critical emphasis
on Junction to the purely literary analysis of compositions used in com-
parative analysis. One must take the sociological function of a text as it fits
into a particular culture seriously, but one also needs to realize that what
are being examined in the first place are texts, not cultures or the functions
of texts in socio-cultural contexts. Function is not the most immediate
reality an ancient text presents to us, the modern readers. In an important
article on historiographic texts, Mario Liverani made an essential distinc-
tion when he wrote:
The thing to do should be to view the document not as a 'source of
information', but as information in itself; not as an opening on a reality
laying beyond, but as an element which makes up that reality... In this type
of approach our attention is no more centered on the events, but on how
they are narrated (Liverani 1973: 180).

Since 1973 when Liverani made these remarks the literary method has
infiltrated biblical and even ancient Near Eastern studies in general at an
ever-increasing rate.
Talmon's fourth point of methodological concern in comparative
analysis is that 'the "holistic" approach always should be given preference
over the "atomistic"' (Talmon 1978: 356 with pp. 327-29). However, as
he develops this point he continues to emphasize the sociological function
of the compared element within its larger socio-cultural complex. He
wants scholars to keep foremost in their minds that they need to compare
similar elements in two different cultures under the control of their shared
comparable function within their distinctive cultures. The socio-cultural
complex within which the cultural element is imbedded is of utmost
importance. This helps to make comparative work 'holistic* rather than
'atomistic'.
Liverani rightly suggests that a holistic approach from a functionalist
perspective must be complemented and, in fact, should be preceded by the
literary holistic approach where compositions are analyzed from the top
down—structure—as well as the bottom up—philology—and from multiple

39. See the very helpful summary in Vanhoozer 1997: 31-35.

 AVERBECK The and Method 115

points of view (Liverani 1973:180). A rigorous holistic method, therefore,

will take an initially literary approach to the comparison between texts as
distinct from the realities lying behind them. Furthermore, such literary
analysis necessarily engages the text first at the word and sentence level
and moves progressively toward the paragraph, section, and whole text
level with constant interplay along the continuum between the two poles
of word and whole text. However, the comparison between already
texts proceeds in the opposite direction, from the higher level of
literary analysis to the lower level in order to avoid the atomistic fallacy
rightly emphasized by Talmon and others.
This means that one must emphasize what Liverani calls the 'compre-
hensive reading' of the single text, biblical or otherwise, standing on its
own, as a necessary first step in the comparative study of literary com-
positions. Approaching ancient Near Eastern literature from the standpoint
of interests in the Bible is a legitimate endeavor, but one must avoid
running rough shod over the texts in a rush to find biblical parallels. It is
only right that the extra-biblical literature receive fair and comprehensive
treatment, even if for no other reason than to avoid inadequate or even
inaccurate comparisons between individual texts or genres or whole
literary traditions and the Bible (Sasson 1982: 217-25, esp. 220 and 224-
25). Some of the work done in comparing the biblical temple building
accounts and the Gudea Cylinders has been fraught with errors and mis-
understandings of immense proportions (see Lundquist 1983). Fortunately,
there have also been highly competent treatments of the same subject
(Hurowitz 1985; 1992).
The goal in the remainder of this article is to illustrate the importance of
the 'holistic literary principle' in comparative research by showing how a
comprehensive reading of the Gudea Cylinders improves one's perspec-
tive for comparison and contrast with the Bible, especially biblical temple
building accounts. The present author has already published on this sub-
ject, so the reader can see more thorough discussions of some points in
those places (see Averbeck 1997; 2000).
At the outset one must recognize two major problems. First, although
the Gudea Cylinders constitute one of the most important ancient Near
Eastern temple building compositions, its use in comparative work is
hindered by the fact that the Sumerian language is not always easy to
understand, and the Gudea Cylinders are particularly difficult. Second, the
Gudea Cylinders stand isolated as a separate composition, not imbedded in
a literary context as such accounts are in the Bible. For example, the
116 Mesopotamia and the Bible

Solomonic temple building account in 1 Kings 5-9 stands within the

ideology and literary flow of the oshua-Kings narrative account. This
informs the reading of 1 Kings 5-9. There is no such literary context for
the Gudea Cylinders. oreover, the basic nature of the accounts is
different. One is narrative preserved in a narrative context while the other
stands alone as an isolated poetic narrative with hymnic sections and
characteristics. This point of contrast, in fact, impacts the overall structural
comparability of these compositions, to which we now turn.

11. Overall Compositional Literary Structure

In his work, referred to above, on temple building in the Bible in light of
n and orthwest Semitic writings, Victor urowit has
shown that there is a common fivefold thematic structure in the ancient
r Eastern temple building accounts: (1) the decision to build with an
expression of divine sanction (Cyl. A i-xii and 1 Kgs 5.3-5[17-19]); (2)
preparations for the building, including materials, workers, and laying
foundations (Cyl. A xiii-xx and 1 Kgs 5.6-18[20-32]); (3) description of
the construction process, the buildings, and their furnishings (Cyl. A xxi-
xxx and 1 Kgs 6-7); (4) dedication prayers and festivities (Cyl. B i-xviii
and 1 Kgs 8); and (5) divine promises and blessings for the king (Cyl. B
xix-xxiv and 1 Kgs 9.1-9) ( urowit 1992: 56,109-10).40 On this basis he
asserts that:
the 'building account' may safely be added to the list of traditional literary
types or forms recogni able as common to Israelite and neighboring
literatures of the ancient ear East in general and in esopotamia in
particular. The similarities between the biblical 'building account' and the
traditional esopotamian 'building account' are no less and no different in
nature than the recogni ed, well known similarities between other types of
biblical and ancient ear Eastern literary forms, such as treaties and
covenants, law corpora, proverb collections and wisdom instructions, letters
and the like ( urowit 1992: 312).
It is important to notice, however, that urowit includes temple,
palace, and city(-wall) building accounts in his comparative sources.
Similarly, acob Klein sees essentially the same thematic pattern for
building a sacred chariot and boat as for a temple.41 This is not necessarily

40. Regarding comparisons with the tabernacle account in Exod. 25-40 see
1985:21 -26; and for E ekiel's temple vision (E ek. 40-48) see Sharon 1996:
99-109.
41. In his own investigations of this sub ect Klein has taken the results of
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 117

a problem. In fact, although there are a few distinctions between temple

and other accounts, they are relatively minor and do not affect the overall
fivefold pattern. But this may suggest that the thematic pattern itself is
actually a natural outcome of the necessary pragmatics of undertaking any
such building project. That this is in fact the case is suggested by a more
synchronic analysis of the structure of the Gudea Cylinders.42
Within the main body of the composition there is a relatively frozen
formula that recurs five times at major breaks between movements in the
narrative: 'The faithful shepherd Gudea had come to know what was
important, (so) he proceeded to do it' (Cyl. A vii 9-10, xii 20, xxv 22-23,
Cyl. B ii 7-8, and the expanded formula in xiii 11-13). This results in a
sevenfold literary structure: (1) the initial dream and its interpretation
(Cyl. A i 12-vii 8); (2) incubation of a second dream (Cyl. A vii 9-xii 19);
(3) the construction of the new Eninnu (Cyl. A xii 20-xxv 19); (4)
furnishing, decorating, supplying, and praising the temple complex (Cyl.
A xxv 20-xxx 5); (5) preparations for the induction of Ningirsu and his
consort, Baba, into the new Eninnu (Cyl. B i 12-ii 6); (6) induction of
Ningirsu and Baba into the new Eninnu (Cyl. B ii 7-xiii 10); and (7) the
housewarming celebration of the induction of Ningirsu and Baba into the
new Eninnu (Cyl. B xiii 11 -xxiv 8). Another formula recurs four times and
helps the reader follow the movements in the relatively complicated third
section of Cylinder A: 'For the faithful shepherd, Gudea, it was cause for
rejoicing' (Cyl. A xiv 5-6, xvii 28, xx 4, and xx 12).43
The overall literary structure derived from the recurrence of these
formulas does not fit the comparative form critical pattern established by
Hurowitz. This does not mean that one analysis is correct and the other is
wrong. Instead, they are reflective of different levels of textual analysis,
one form critical and the other purely literary. That is the point here. On
the one hand, a form critical analysis concentrates on the level of structure

Hurowitz's work as part of his foundation for suggesting that the Gudea Cylinders are
the literary prototype of all later Sumerian 'building and dedication hymns'. He has
discovered three other examples of such hymns. See Klein 1989: 27-67.
42. See the comprehensive remarks on this matter in Averbeck 1997: 59-62.
43. See the more detailed discussion in Averbeck 1997: 65-74; and the translation
with notes of major sections of the Cylinders in Averbeck 2000:418-33 with headings
that reflect these formulaic patterns, and esp. n. 18 pp. 421-22 and n. 35 p. 425.
There are also other structural frames and thematic echoes in the Cylinders that
overlap with the section by section analysis that derives from these formulaic patterns.
See the detailed discussion in Averbeck 1997: 76-89.
118 Mesopotamia and the Bible

in texts that makes them comparable to one another, not their literary
distinctiveness. n the other hand, a purely literary analysis focusses on
the inherent structural indicators that appear in each individual literary
composition.
In the case of the Gudea Cylinders, both structural formulas I have
referred to above participate in the ritual nature of the composition as well
as the building and dedication processes recounted in it. Both the nature
of the formulas themselves and their placement within the composition
shows this. The first formula leads from one section to another by an-
nouncing that: 'The faithful shepherd Gudea had come to know what was
important, (so) he proceeded to do it'. The second formula actually
concludes subsections within the third major section of the composition
(as established by the major formula) by announcing that what he had
accomplished 'was cause for rejoicing for the faithful shepherd Gudea'.
As I observed earlier in this essay, the Gudea Cylinders present the
temple building and dedication process as essentially a step by step ritual
process. Ritual actions and processes saturate and structure the text. This is
not the case in the biblical temple building accounts, and it does not come
out in a form critical comparative analysis. It requires a literary focus that
pays attention to the peculiarities of this particular temple building text.
From the initial call to build the temple, to the preparation of the con-
struction area, the fashioning of the first brick, the design of the temple,
the actual laying of the foundation, constructing the superstructure, the
calling of Ningirsu (the patron deity of Lagash) and Baba (his consort) to
occupy the temple, the staffing and furnishing of the temple on the divine
level, the actual induction of Ningirsu and Baba into the temple, and the
temple dedication feast of the gods, everything was permeated with ritual
procedures. Thus, Gudea had to pry the specific desires and plans for the
temple out of the heart of the deity for whom the temple was to be built
(i.e. Ningirsu, the patron deity of Lagash). There was no ready revelation
as we have it in the Bible (Exod. 25 40).
I do not propose to do the same kind of literary analysis here for the
biblical accounts in Exodus 25 40, 1 ings 5-9; 2 Chronicles 2-7; or
Ezekiel 40-48. However, such an investigation would show that all of
them have their own peculiarities on the level of overall structure as well
as at the lower levels of the text, to which I will now turn. As I proceed it
is important to keep in mind that there are important commonalities
between the texts, but the differences are just as informative and profound
for understanding the texts and the cultural context from which they arose.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 119

12. Detailed Textual Parallels

Parallels between the Bible and the udea Cylinders also come through in
the details of the text. They can be broken down into two main categories.
First, there are those that relate directly to the subject of temple building.
Second, there are general parallel concepts and expressions that do not
relate directly to temple building. It is not my goal to explain all the
parallels here, since they are treated in the second COS volume to which
the reader is referred for further study (Averbeck 2 ). ** Instead, the
various parallels will be listed as they occur sequentially through the
composition, with only a very brief description so the reader knows what
the parallel is about.
The previous discussion of the overall structure and nature of the com
position provides the needed contextual background for our understanding
of the more detailed parallels I am about to treat. Having looked at the
text from that point of view, one is more able to avoid the atomistic com
parisons that have often plagued comparative research. This frees one to
attempt to screen the text at all levels for comparative concepts, expres
sions, and other points of interest. This includes even isolated textual items
that have nothing to do specifically with temple building.

. Temple Building Parallels

1. The close association between temple building and fertility, abun
dance, and prosperity in the ancient Near East and the Bible: Cyl. A i
, xi 5 11 COS: II, 419 n. 4,2.42 n. 2 2 Sam. 7.1 2 (= 1 Chron.
17.1) 1 Kgs 5.1 8[4.2 28], 18[4] (= 2 Chron. 1.14 2.1 ) E ek.
Hag. 1.2 11, 2.15 19 ech. 9.9 1 .
2. Royal wisdom in association with temple building: Cyl. A i 12 14
COS: II, 419 n. 1 Kgs . 15 = 2 Chron. 1.7 1 )
1 Chron. 28. 1 .
. The need for a divine call or at least divine permission to build a
temple: Cyl. A i 19 COS: II, 419 n. 8 Exod. 2 .24 25.1 9 2 Sam.
, 12 18 1 Chron. 17.1 1 ,11 12 21.28 22.19 28.2 .

44. In this final section of the essay I will be referring to and depending on the
reader having access to this translation of selected portions of the udea Cylinders and
notes on parallels between them and the Bible, or at least some other good modem
translation. See, e.g., Ed ard 1997 and acobsen 1987.
12 and the

4. The importance of constructing the temple according to every detail

of a divinely revealed plan: Cyl. A i 2 21, xvii 15 17 COS: II, 419
2 n. 9,42 n. 4 ,42 n. 44 Exod. 25.9,4 2 . 27.8 Num. 8.4
Josh. 22.28 2 Kgs 1 .1 1 Chron. 28.11 19 E ek. 4 42,4 .1 12.
5. The tireless commitment of the ruler to the temple building project:
Cyl. A vi 11 1 , xvii 5 9, xix 2 27 II, 421 n. 1 , 42 n. 42,
427 n. 5 Ps. 1 2.2 5 1 Chron. 22.14 19 28.2 29.5.
. The levying of laborers and materials for building the temple: Cyl. A
xiv 7 xvi 2 II, 425 2 nn. , 7, 8,4 Exod. 5.5,1 19,
22 .1 4 1 Kgs 5.2 2[ 18] .2 22, , 5 2 Chron. 2.1 18 (cf.
1 Chron. 22.2 5 28.14 18) .4 1 4.19 5.1 (cf. 1 Chron. 22.14 1 ).
7. The importance of the first brick: Cyl. A xvii 29 xix 15 II,
7 n. 48 perhaps with some kind of parallel in ech. 4.7 9.
8. The special significance of laying the foundation of the temple: Cyl.
A xx 24 2 II, 428 n. 54 ech. 4.8 1 E ra .8 1 .
9. The pronouncement of blessings on the temple: perhaps Cyl. A xx
i 12 II, 428 n. 55 1 Kgs 8. 1 5 .
. The building of a temple (or the residence of a deity) on a mountain
or raised platform: Cyl. A xxi 19 2 II, 428 n. 5 Exod. .1
15.17 Isa. 2.2 ic. 4.1 2) Pss. 2. 48.2 4[l ].
11. audatory descriptions of the temple: Cyl. A xxv 24 xxix 12
II, 429 n. 59 Exod. 25.1 28.4 .1 1 .8 8. 1 1 Kgs .14
7.1 51.
12. Petitionary announcement of the completion of the temple and the
invitation to the deity to occupy it: Cyl. B ii 14—iii 1 II, 4 n.
1 Kgs 8.12 1 (= 2 Chron. .2).

2 n. 74 ev. 8. 1 Kgs 8.2, 5 2 Chron. 7.8 9 E ek. .

14. Social justice, equity, and purity in association with temple building
and dedication: Cyl. B xviii 11 II, 4 2 n. 75 E ek. 42.1 14,
4 . 12.
15. The close association of temple building with the blessings and
responsibilities of kingship: Cyl. B xxiii 18 xxiv 8 II, 4
n. 79 2 Sam. 7.4 17 (= 1 Chron. 17. 15) 1 Kgs 8.14 21 9.1 9
Chron 7.11 22) Ps. 78. 8 7 .

14. General
1. reams, dream incubation, and interpretation of dreams: Cyl. A i 17
19, ii 1 , viii 2 ix 4 II, 419 n. 7,42 n.12, 422 n. 19 en.
 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 121

40.1-23; 41.1-36; 46.1-4 (cf. 26.23-25?); Num. 12.6; 1 Kgs 3.4-5,

2 Chron. 1.6-7; Dan. 2.1-45; 4.4-27.
2. Theophanies, dreams, and visions struck awe in people, even a fear
of death: Cyl. A i 22-23; II, 420 n. 10; Gen. 41.8; Exod. 33.18-
23; Judg. 13.21-22; Isa. 6.5; Dan. 2.1-4, 10-13; 4.5, 19.
3. The ruler described as a 'shepherd': Cyl. A i 26; II, 420 n. 11;
2 Sam. 5.2 (= 1 Chron. 11.2); 7.7 (= 1 Chron. 17.6); Ps. 78.70-72;
Jer. 3.15; 23.1-4; Ezek. 34.2, 8,10, 23; Zech. 11.4-17; Mic. 5.3[4];
Psalm 23 and Ezek. 34.11 -22 refer to the Lord their God as the ruler-
' shepherd' of Israel.
4. Gigantic awe-inspiring images in dreams: Cyl. A v 13-17; II,
420-21 n. 14; Dan. 2.31-33.
5. The attention a cow pays to its calf: Cyl. A xix 24; II, 427; 1
Sam. 6.10-12.
6. A legitimate king is divinely chosen and commissioned: Cyl. A xxiii
25-29; II, 429 n. 57; 1 Sam. 13.14; 16.1-13; 1 Kgs 2.15;
1 Chron. 28.5.
7. Expression of concern for the disadvantaged and helpless in society:
Cyl. B xviii 6-11; II, 432 n. 75; Exod. 22.21-24; Deut. 24.17-
18; Isa. 1.17; Jer. 7.5-6.

15.
Sumer and the Sumerian language and literature influenced ancient Near
Eastern culture in a formative way. This is due in no small part to the fact
that they were the originators of many of the cuneiform cultural and
scribal traditions that dominated much if not all of the fertile crescent
for almost two millennia. The underlying common cultural foundations
that developed through this influence penetrated into and persisted in
many cultures near and far, both geographically and chronologically, from
ancient Sumer. Some reflections of this influence are found also in the
Hebrew Bible.
The four major principles of comparative research described and
illustrated in this essay are: proximity in time and place, the priority of
inner biblical parallels, correspondence of social function, and the holistic
approach to texts and comparisons. They are important not only in the
proper isolation and explanation of comparisons between Sumerian
language and literature and the Bible, but in all such comparative analysis.
122 Mesopotamia and the Bible

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 AVERBECK Sumer, The Bible, and Comparative Method 125

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Mesopotamia and the Bible

Comparative Explorations

edited by

Mark W. Chavalas and

K. Lawson Younger, Jr

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Supplement Series 341
Copyright © 2002 Sheffield Academic Press

First published in 2002 by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd, an imprint of

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