Before the Church · c. 1700 BC
The Atrahasis Epic
Anonymous
What it is
The lesser gods strike over the work of digging the canals, so humanity is made from clay mixed with the blood of a slain god to take the labour. Then people multiply and their noise keeps Enlil awake, and he sends plague, drought, and finally the flood — from which one man is warned to build a boat.
Why it lasted
The full arc of creation to flood in one narrative, in the same order as Genesis 1 to 9. It supplies the closest Mesopotamian frame for reading the primeval history, and the sharpest contrast: the gods drown humanity for making noise, not for wickedness.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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