Anne's Reviews > The Seven Tablets of Creation

I guess this is somewhat niche.
I don't even know who would need a review for this book but that's never stopped me before.



So you're getting more than just the Enuma Elsih here.
The introduction and foreword are L.W. King's explanations for the reasoning behind why he and other archaeologists and historians who were translating the Enuma Elish back in 1902 and still piecing together new parts of the puzzle that were coming to light.
I'm assuming we probably have more pieces now but it was interesting to see the working theories for what they had and how they got there.

The blurb & cover for the e-book I bought is different from what I could find on Goodreads, so I thought I'd add them here.



Enuma Elish, the Babylonian version of the story of creation, predates much of the Book of Genesis. Passed down orally for generations until finally being recorded on seven clay tablets, this epic was discovered by 19th-century archeologists among the ruins of the Library of King Ashurbanipal in modern-day Iraq. Translator and editor L.W. King has divided the Seven Tablets of Creation into two volumes, which are combined in this book. In Volume 1, readers will find the English translation of each of the seven tablets, plus sections on the composition of the poem, parallels in Hebrew literature, and the reconstruction and arrangement of the text. In Volume 2, readers will find other accounts of the history of creation, an index, a glossary, and numerous indices and appendices. Religious scholars and anyone interested in human origins will enjoy King's translation of and commentary on this classic, first published in 1902. British classical scholar LEONARD W. KING (1869-1919) was Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum and professor of Assyrian and Babylonian archaeology at the University of London, King's College. He also wrote Babylonian Magic and Sorcery (1896) and A History of Sumer and Akkad (1910).

Also, that cover is a bit of nothing to do with the Mesopotamian Creation story but looks shockingly like Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors Bible story. I'm...befuddled.



The Kindle edition I read had all kinds of weird errors and punctuation mistakes, so that was a tad annoying.
BUT!
A lot of the footnotes King left were in different languages. Like, this is a book for people who know their shit and he wasn't interested in translating every little thing for peasants like myself.
But the AWESOME thing about Kindle is that you can highlight something in German or French or whatever language you can't read in, and it will translate it into English.
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boom, bitch!
I had never used that feature before this book, so I didn't know what I was missing out on. It was also great to be able to hit the link for the footnotes and have them pop up in a little box instead of searching around with your eyeballs in a physical copy.
I think those features make the e-reader the way to go for books like this, but I know that type of thinking may be considered blasphemy in some circles.
However, my old eyes are tired and if I can't listen to an audiobook, then I appreciate the ability to make the font as GIGANTIC as necessary so I don't have to use my squint-o-vision.



As I work my way through ancient myths, some of the books are hit or miss and I think the edition I got was mostly a 'miss', especially if you're looking for just the story spelled out for you.
I thought it was neat in its own way but I wouldn't recommend this one.