The Chaldean Account of Genesis

About this book

A clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia tells a story of a great flood, startling nineteenth-century readers who knew a similar account from Genesis. George Smith examines these inscriptions as evidence of an older world of creation stories.

Working from cuneiform texts and fragments, he reconstructs Babylonian traditions about gods, origins and catastrophe. His scholarship belongs to the early years of Assyriology, when new discoveries could radically change familiar biblical discussions. The gaps and damaged lines are part of the drama: an ancient narrative returning in pieces after thousands of years.