Endnote 12 – When God Sleeps

The best and most complete edition of the Atrahasis myth is by Wilfred G. Lambert and Alan R. Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). Composed during the Old Babylonian period (1950–1550 B.C.) out of prior Sumerian, traditions, Atrahasis represented the standard or “pan-Mesopotamian” view of creation. The better known Enuma Elish, composed later (c. 1100 B.C.), was a specifically Babylonian adaptation of this older creation tradition (see Lambert, “The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of T. J. Meek, ed. W. S. McCullough [Toronto, 1964], pp. 3–13).