1964/01/01 by M. E. L. Mallowan · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Marine and environmental studies #Ancient Egypt and Archaeology #Cuneiform #Mesopotamia #Historicity (philosophy) #Flood myth #History #New Testament #Old Testament #Latvian #Ancient history #Literature #Classics #Philosophy #Archaeology #Art #Linguistics #Law #Political science
paper · doi:10.2307/4199766
openalex publication_date 1964/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
During the last decade hydrographers, geographers, and geologists have applied their specialised knowledge to the geophysical systems which condition the life of man in the Mesopotamian plain. While their various contributions have directly and indirectly focused attention on the authenticity of the Flood, some historical data which are relevant to it have also been discovered. It therefore seems opportune for an archaeologist to reopen a discussion which now has an easy approach through two excellent monographs by Alexander Heidel and André Parrot. The former elucidates the relationship of the accounts in the Book of Genesis to the earlier cuneiform sources from which the Old Testament story was only indirectly derived; the latter has discussed the historicity of the Flood on more general grounds, and believes that the Old Testament account was derived from the cuneiform by the Patriarchs some time after the eighteenth century B.C. when they sojourned in Mesopotamia.