What if the narratives of Noah, the Tower of Babel, and even Creation itself were not original to the Bible?
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Eckart Frahm at Yale University, one of the leading voices in the study of Mesopotamian history and texts, to take a look at interactions and overlap between Mesopotamian myths and the Hebrew Bible.
In our conversation we cover:
• The parallels between the epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's flood narrative
• How Babylonian creation myths could have shaped the account we have in Genesis
• The political and religious forces that helped shape God for ancient Israel
• Legal codes like Hammurabi's continuity with biblical law
• How ideas of exile, empire, and inter-cultural borrowing might have also contributed to monotheism
All cultures come to revisit and rewrite one another's traditions, from myth to theology, from trauma into identity. If you are interested in where these traditions began for some of the Bible's most recognisable stories, this is a must listen.
Eckart Frahm is the John M. Musser Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Yale University. His research focuses on Assyrian and Babylonian history, cuneiform texts, and ancient Mesopotamian literature, religion, and politics. His latest book, Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire (2023), won the Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award and has been widely translated.
Frahm has authored numerous books on Assyriology, including studies on Sennacherib’s inscriptions, Babylonian and Assyrian text commentaries, and cuneiform constellations. He co-directs the NEH-funded Cuneiform Commentaries Project and holds editorial roles in major academic series and journals. At Yale, he oversees cuneiform research at the Peabody Museum and organizes the Assyriological Seminar series.
Before Yale, he taught at Heidelberg and worked with cuneiform collections worldwide. He has also contributed to archaeological excavations and training programs for Iraqi scholars. His extensive publications are available at his Yale Academia profile.
