Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 12:2 (Spring 1971)
Article: Atra-Ḫasþs: A Survey
Author: James R. Battenfield

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GJ 12:2 (Spr 71) p. 3

Atra-Ḫasþs: A Survey

James R. Battenfield

Teaching Fellow in Hebrew
Grace Theological Seminary

[James R. Battenfield earned the B.A. degree at San Diego State College, and the B.D. and Th.M. at Talbot Theological Seminary. He taught for two years at Talbot Theological Seminary and pursued graduate study at U.C.L.A. He is presently taking work toward the Th.D. degree at Grace Theological Seminary.]

New discoveries continue to revive interest in the study of the ancient Near East. The recent collation and publication of the Atra-ḫasþs Epic is a very significant example of the vigor of this field, especially as the ancient Near East is brought into comparison with the Old Testament. The epic is a literary form of Sumero-Babylonian traditions about the creation and early history of man, and the Flood. It is a story that not only bears upon the famous Gilgames̆ Epic, but also needs to be compared to the narrative of the Genesis Flood in the Old Testament. The implications inherent in the study of such an epic as Atra-ḫasþs must certainly impinge on scholars’ understanding of earth origins and geology.

The advance in research that has been conducted relative to Atra-ḫasþs is graphically apparent when one examines the (ca. 1955) rendering by Speiser1 in comparison with the present volume by Lambert and Millard.2

Although Atra-ḫasþs deals with both creation and flood, the present writer has set out to give his attention to the flood material only. Literature on mythological

genres

is voluminous. Therefore the present writer will limit this study to a survey of the source material which underlies Atra-ḫasþs, a discussion of its content and its relation to the Old Testament and the Gilgames̆ Epic.

GJ 12:2 (Spr 71) p. 4

Source Material

The source material behind the present edition has been a long time in coming to the fore. The great amount of energies that have been expended on this research will hardly be reflected in this brief study; however, the main lines of endeavor can be traced.

One may surmise that the Atra-ḫasþs epic flourished in Babylonian civilization for some 1,500 years. At the time of Alexander the Great, when Hellenism figuratively and literally buried what was left of Mesopotamian cultural influence in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, Atra-ḫ...

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