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1 - Literature in the Ancient Near East and the Bible

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2020

By
Steve A. Wiggins
Edited by
Calum Carmichael
Calum Carmichael
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

In the broad scope of Western Literature, the Bible fits squarely within what is called Ancient Near Eastern literature. This article surveys the literature of antiquity by examining three separate pieces from three separate cultural contexts. The Gilgamesh Epic represents the literature of a large and affluent Mesopotamian empire. The Baal Cycle considers a serial poem from the small but influential city-state of Ugarit in northwestern Syria. The Mesha Stele, or Moabite Stone, stands for a single literary piece from the small and relatively provincial kingdom of Moab. Each of these documents is summarized with an eye toward literary finesse and the fluidity of texts. The larger question of how to define literature based on such diverse exemplars as these is also raised, with the understanding that literature was written to be shared. Ancient texts, including the Bible, are misunderstood when they are treated as final forms.

Keywords

Baal CycleGilgamesh EpicMesha SteleMesopotamiaMoabite Stonetextual fluidityUgarit
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Literature , pp. 7 - 25
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Further Reading

Bryant, John, The Fluid Texts: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen, Editorial Theory and Literary Criticism (Ann Arbor, MI, 2002).Google Scholar
Culler, Jonathan, Literary Theory, a Very Short Introduction (New York, 1997).Google Scholar
Damrosch, David, The Buried Book: The Loss and Recovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (New York, 2007).Google Scholar
Dearman, Andrew, ed., Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 2 (Atlanta, 1989).Google Scholar
George, Andrew, The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian (New York, 1999).Google Scholar
Gibson, J. C. L., Canaanite Myths and Legends, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1977).Google Scholar
Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, The Epic of Gilgamesh (Stanford, 1989).Google Scholar
Mroczek, Eva, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (New York, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tigay, Jeffrey H., The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Wauconda, IL, 2002).Google Scholar
Wyatt, N., Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and His Colleagues, The Biblical Seminar 53 (Sheffield, 1998).Google Scholar

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