Lost in Translation, Presumption, and Interpretation

This book investigates the Mesopotamian roots of two key monotheist characters, Adam and Noah, and their stories, through an exhaustive reading of relevant texts from the ancient literature; it includes original Arabic transliterations, and Arabic and English translations of sections from Akkadian and Sumerian inscriptions, and the Hebrew Genesis. The common, biblical beliefs in an initial, single human creation, and a subsequent survival of a punishing, catastrophic flood were among the key forming pillars of the Near East monotheist religions. The other key pillar was, arguably, the belief in the existence of a one, supreme god and creator. However, neither the two stories of human creation and catastrophic flood, nor the belief in one supreme god, were originally introduced by these monotheist religions. Key inscriptions from ancient Mesopotamia have clearly indicated that various versions of these beliefs were commonplace for thousands of years before. Despite the differences in details, and at times ambiguities, the monotheist faiths seem to have derived their defining themes from one source: early Mesopotamian mythology. Unfortunately, several key inscriptional facts supporting this hypothesis were lost in the current transliterations, translations, and interpretations of the ancient texts. The work presented in this book attempts to highlight these historical facts. This book introduces and discusses new, original Arabic transliterations, and Arabic and English translations for about 250 line entries from The Babylonian Creation Epic--Enuma Elish (~1750-1200 BCE), The Adapa Epic (~1700 BCE), The Sumerian Creation Myth --Eridu Genesis (~1600 BCE), and Genesis of the Hebrew Old Testament. It also included the author's original Arabic transliterations, and Arabic and English translations for about 350 line entries from the Standard Babylonian edition of The Epic of Gilgamesh (~1300-1000 BCE), which were published back in 2016.