Further Notes on the So-Called Epic of Paradise

In JAOS 36, pp. 140-145, Dr. Stephen H. Langdon has criticised my review (ibid. pp. 90-114) of his 'Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood and Fall of Man,' and seeks by means of text corrections to maintain his thesis that his document contains a description of Paradise, the ejection of mankind by a flood, and the deliverance of a certain pious person who became an agriculturist and was eventually cursed by the god Enki. Accepting many of Dr. Langdon 's textual emendations-it is still impossible to see how he has altered my interpretation of the text as a whole. He may show that the cassia plant was not the death-plant and, as will appear from the following review of his criticisms, he may have improved the lucidity of the text in places, but he has certainly not broken down the interpretation of the crucial Obv. i., describing the condition of the land as a waste place desolated by drought instead of, as he believes, a Paradise on earth. Upon this first column the correct understanding of the entire poem depends. Through the courtesy of Dr. Jastrow, I have been able to comment on some of his and Dr. Chiera's emendations, based upon their recent collation of the text

Ancient history · Art · Art history · EPIC · Literature · Paradise · Ancient Near East History · History · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution