3 - Suffering and Meaning in Mesopotamian Literature

Summary

This chapter assesses Mesopotamian literature that was concerned with suffering and categories of meaning. Do the “fictional royal autobiographies” of Assyria or the “skeptical” literature of Babylonia, for example, also exhibit an interest in human suffering that bears a relation to the meaning of life categories? Based on The Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin, Sin of Sargon, Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, The Babylonian Theodicy, Counsels of a Pessimist, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which receives extended treatment due to its links with Ecclesiastes, I conclude that Mesopotamian texts too provide evidence of people “suffering the meaning of life.”