‘Let your name be …’: The change of the names of Israel’s ancestors in light of the Atra-ḫasīs myth

Abstract

The divine act of changing the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob in the book of Genesis is paralleled by hitherto unnoticed similar cases of renaming specific protagonists in the Babylonian epic of Atra-ḫasīs: the goddess Mami/Bēlet-ilī and the Flood hero Ziusudra/Ūta-napištim. A careful comparison of these instances of name changing reveals striking thematic parallels and important ideological differences.

Keywords

Atra-ḫasīs Bēlet(-kala)-ilī Flood Genesis Mami Mesopotamian literature personal name Ūta-napištim Ziusudra

1. Introduction

In the Ancient Near East, the name of a person, an animal, or an object was seen as an integral part of its essence, social role, and religious status. Giving a name to a person amounted to creation of a new reality and destiny. With humans, this was done not only when a child was born, but also on those occasions when new realities of power and dominion were forged, such as marriage, acquisition of a slave, or a person’s entry into the service of a god or a king.¹

In the Neo-Assyrian period, the practice of granting a new name was extended to vassal kings who submitted to the king of Assyria.² Normally, the old names of those kings are not mentioned in the Assyrian sources, as demonstrated in the instances of two vassal rulers named Šarru-lū-dāri, ‘May the king be eternal’. One of them had been the king of Ashkelon in the late 8th century BCE, when a certain Ṣidqā, probably his brother, expelled him from the throne and revolted against Assyria upon the death of Sargon II in 705 BCE. Four years later, Sennacherib reinstalled him as the king of Ashkelon. The second Šarru-lū-dāri was the king of Ṣiʾnu in the Eastern Delta of Egypt (probably to be identified with Pelusium), who was installed on the throne by Esarhaddon and subsequently reinstalled by Ashurbanipal.³

Although the original names of these rulers are not known, it is hardly possible that their parents would have given them an Akkadian name commonly borne by Mesopotamian officials entering royal service, which expresses a pious wish for the king’s well-being. Rather, the name must have been assigned to them later by their Assyrian overlords. In the case of the king of Ashkelon, he may have received his new name while still a prince, perhaps when he was held hostage at the Assyrian court.⁴ This explanation is implausible for the king of Ṣiʾnu, since no part of Egypt was subject to Assyrian overlordship before Esarhaddon’s campaign of 671 BCE. Consequently, this Šarru-lū-dāri was most likely crowned and renamed by Esarhaddon during that very campaign.⁵

Another Egyptian ruler given a new name by his Assyrian overlord was Nabû-šēzibanni (‘Nabû, save me!’), a son of Necho I of Sais, whom Ashurbanipal appointed to rule Athribis in the Delta, effectively confirming his status as the crown prince. This prince had an Egyptian name, Psamtik, under which he was to found the Saite dynasty of Egypt upon his father’s death in 664 BCE; exceptionally, his Egyptian name is mentioned in Ashurbanipal’s royal inscriptions with reference to the period when he managed to free himself from Assyrian domination.⁶ It is not clear whether it was Ashurbanipal or Esarhaddon who gave him his Assyrian name.

The Hebrew Bible reflects both the general notion of naming as an act of dominion and its specific expressions in the political sphere. In the Yahwistic creation story in Gen. 2.4b–25, all the animals and the birds are brought before Adam, who calls each by its name, only to realize that he can find no partner for himself among them—so Yahweh creates a woman from Adam’s own body, and he duly gives a name to her as well (vv. 18–23).⁷ Later in the book of Genesis, Pharaoh gives Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah (Gen. 41.45). In the book of Kings, the last kings of Judah are renamed by their imperial overlords: Eliakim is called Jehoiakim by Necho II of Egypt, and Mataniah is renamed Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia (2 Kgs. 23.34; 24.17). In the book of Daniel, the chief eunuch of the Babylonian king gives new names to Daniel and his companions Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; those names are Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, respectively (Dan. 1.6).

The names given to Daniel and his companions reflect the complex ethno-linguistic landscape of Achaemenid and Hellenistic Mesopotamia during the period in which the book of Daniel was composed. Belteshazzar is Akkadian Balāṭ-šarri-uṣur, ‘Protect the life of the king!’, the names Shadrach and Meshach appear to be Iranian—meaning ‘Brightness’ and ‘A small sheep’, respectively—and Abednego is probably a corruption of Abed-Nebo, a Northwest Semitic version of the Babylonian name Arad-Nabû, ‘servant of Nabû’.⁸ Joseph’s new name is Egyptian, even though different interpretations have been suggested for its grammatical structure and meaning.⁹ In contrast, the names given to Jehoiakim and Zedekiah are Hebrew and Yahwistic. It seems that by conferring these names upon the rulers whom they installed on the throne of Judah, the kings of Egypt and Babylonia intended to assert that Yahweh himself approved their sovereignty over those local vassals.¹⁰ Remarkably, the Hebrew Bible mentions Jehoiakim and Zedekiah by the new names given to them by the foreign conquerors (2 Kgs. 23.35–24.6; 24.18–25.7; Jer. 1.3; 21.1; 22.18; etc.). In contrast, it is doubtful whether the two kings named Šarru-lū-dāri, of Ashkelon and Ṣiʾnu, used this Assyrian name in their native languages, and with regard to Nabû-šēzibanni/Psamtik I of Sais it is certain that he used the traditional Egyptian five-component royal name in his own records.¹¹

In none of the above instances, however, do we have a narrative account connecting the new names given by the dominant power to the past deeds or future destiny of those on whom they were bestowed. In contrast, such connections are explicitly drawn in the most famous episodes of name changing in the Hebrew Bible, where the dominant power involved is not a human being but Yahweh himself.¹² In one of those episodes, narrated in Gen. 17 and belonging to the Priestly source of the Pentateuch, the names of Abram and Sarai were changed to Abraham and Sarah.¹³ The reason for the change of Abraham’s name is mentioned explicitly: ‘No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations’ (Gen. 17.5). A similar statement is made with regard to Sarah (vv. 15–16).¹⁴ With regard to Jacob, the book of Genesis preserves two distinct narratives regarding the change of his name to Israel. Only the first of those, commonly ascribed to the Yahwistic source¹⁵—Gen. 32.23–33 (ET 32.22–32)—mentions the reason for the change: ‘Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed”’ (v. 28).¹⁶ This is nothing more than a folk etymology, as the name Yiśraʾēl, Israel, derives from the verb śrr ‘to rule’ with El as its subject, rather than from śrh/śry ‘to strive, contend’ with El as its object.¹⁷ But the very mention of the reason for the name change is significant, and interestingly, no such reason is given in the Priestly version of Jacob’s renaming in Gen. 35.9–13.¹⁸

Remarkably, in the Babylonian myth of Atra-ḫasīs one finds two protagonists whose names were changed by the gods. In one episode, attested in several manuscripts from the Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian periods, the birth goddess Mami is renamed Bēlet-kala-ilī, ‘Lady of all the gods’, when she was about to create humankind to relieve the gods of their labor. In another episode, attested only in a Late Babylonian version of the final part of the epic, dealing with the Flood, the ancestor figure Ziusudra receives the Akkadian name Ūta-napištim, ‘He who found life’.¹⁹ In the following, we will present these epic episodes and discuss their implications for the biblical passages involving the name changes of Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob.

2. The renaming of the birth goddess in the myth of Atra-ḫasīs

The earliest Mesopotamian literary source in which a protagonist is given a new name is the Sumerian myth Lugal-e, known from a large number of manuscripts dating to the Old Babylonian period (20th–16th centuries BCE), as well as from an Akkadian translation, attested in both bilingual and monolingual manuscripts spanning about a thousand years from the Middle Assyrian to the Hellenistic period.²⁰ The myth narrates the victory of the god Ninurta over the mountains, personified as an active demonic force (á-sàg), but subsequently reduced to a kind of stone-pile (ḫur-saĝ). While Ninurta was fighting the mountains, his mother, the goddess Ninmaḫ, ‘Exalted Lady’, went to the Ešumeša temple and recited a ritual lament over him, which helped him prevail over the mountains (ll. 368–388).²¹ In recognition of her help, Ninurta changes her name to Ninḫursag, ‘Lady of the mountains’:

Lady, since you came to the mountains,

Ninmaḫ, since you entered the rebel lands for my sake,

Since you did not keep far from me when I was surrounded by the horrors of battle,²²

The pile which I, the hero, have piled up—

Let its name be ‘Mountain’, and may you be its Lady;

Now that is the destiny decreed by Ninurta.

Henceforth people shall speak of Ninḫursag. So be it.

(Ll. 390–396)²³

In the Babylonian creation myth Enūma eliš, composed most likely in the late second millennium BCE, after Marduk has vanquished the sea-monster Tiāmat and has been crowned by the gods as their king, he is given the name Lugaldimmerankia, ‘King of the gods of heaven and earth’ (Enūma eliš V: 109–114, 151–154).²⁴

Composed in the early second millennium BCE—that is, sometime between Lugal-e and Enūma eliš—the Old Babylonian myth of Atra-ḫasīs narrates how the birth goddess Mami was named Bēlet-kala-ilī, ‘Lady of all the gods’:²⁵

They (the gods) heard this speech of hers,

They ran together and kissed her feet, (saying,)

‘Formerly we used to call you Mami,

Now let your name be Lady-of-All-the-Gods’.

(Atra-ḫasīs I: 246–248)²⁶

The speech to which the gods refer is pronounced by Mami (ll. 237–243), after she mixed clay with the blood of the god Wê-ila, who had been slaughtered by the gods in order to have his mind, ṭēmu, present in the newly created humans (ll. 208–226). After receiving her new name, Mami proceeds to nip off fourteen pieces of clay, from which seven men and seven women will be created. They will give birth to humankind. The purpose of man was to dig canals, a hard labor undertaken until then by the minor gods (ll. 249–260). The lines leading up to this episode, including the change of Mami’s name, are preserved in the major textual witness to the first tablet of Atra-ḫasīs (ms. A)—the first of the three tablets recorded by the scribe Ipiq-Aya in Sippar in the 17th century BCE—as well as in several other manuscripts dated from the Old Babylonian to the Neo-Assyrian periods. Although the actual creation of humankind is preserved only in Neo-Assyrian versions (the other manuscripts break off before this episode or at its very beginning), narrative logic strongly suggests that it was present in the Old Babylonian version as well.²⁷

In contrast to the new names given to Ninmaḫ and Marduk, which commemorate a victory or another kind of tour de force, Mami’s new name comes not only as an homage to her role in releasing the minor gods from their arduous labor and setting them apart from humans, but also—from the point of view of the author of the myth—to salute her for securing the future of human race. The renaming of Mami marks therefore a promise for the continuous existence of two species.

3. The renaming of the Flood hero

An episode in which the name of the human protagonist of the Atra-ḫasīs myth is changed is preserved only in a small fragment of a manuscript dated to the Late Babylonian or the Achaemenid period, the 6th–4th centuries BCE. This fragment, MMA 86.11.378A, measuring 6.5 x 5.6 x 2.4 cm and kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was published by Ira Spar and Wilfred G. Lambert about two decades ago.²⁸ Based on Lambert’s careful calculations, the tablet, when complete, had a peculiar format: two wide columns on the obverse and three narrower columns on the reverse. This unique arrangement should probably be understood as an unsuccessful attempt to produce a copy of the story of the Flood from an unknown original.²⁹ The script, however, is clear and confident.

Currently known as ms. z of the Flood story, the fragment describes the chief god Enlil trying to annihilate humankind by means of a plague, which corresponds to an earlier part of the myth of Atra-ḫasīs.³⁰ On the reverse, the gods accuse Enlil of bringing the Flood, which drove the gods to starvation, as their temples were deserted, instead of using other measures to limit human over-population. The passage ends with the optimistic statement: ‘From now on, let no Flood be brought about! Verily, let the people last for ever and ever!’ (col. v, 13′–14′).³¹

Then, after a horizontal dividing line, comes the happy end, the final divine-human reconciliation. Enlil, enraged after realizing that some humans have survived the Flood (as one can infer from parallel versions of the story), climbs the Ark, holds the hands of the Flood hero, and addresses him as follows:

You, Zisudra, (from now on) let [your name] be Ūt-napištim.

[Your] son, your wife (and) your daughter [will not know(?)] sorrow of heart.

You will become like a god; [you will receive] life.

(Col. v, 17′–19′)³²

Enlil warmly clasping the human hero’s hands and touching his forehead as a gesture of acceptance is truly singular. No less exceptional are Enlil’s words: nowhere else in all of Mesopotamian literature do we find a god changing the name of a human being. This epiphanic scene is the culmination of the story. The Flood hero has reached a liminal stage: no longer is he exclusively human, for he has become ‘like a god’. At this transitional point, the new name given him by Enlil marks this dramatic transformation.

Against the backdrop of the renaming of several major gods in Mesopotamian literature, surveyed above, the giving of a new name to the Flood hero is perhaps less surprising, for it marks a kind of apotheosis. And yet, Ūta-napištim was only ‘becoming like a god’; despite receiving a new name, he retains his humanity. What, then, does his new name imply?

Prima facie, the old name Ziusudra and the new name Ūta-napištim seem quite similar.³³ Both contain the key element of ‘life,’ represented by the logogram zi.³⁴ But neither is a direct translation of the other.³⁵ Following George, Ūta-napištim means ‘He (or I) found life’, while Ziusudra means ‘Life (of) long day(s)’.³⁶ The main difference between the two personal names is grammatical: Ūta-napištim contains a finite verbal form, whereas Ziusudra is verbless, a nominal construction. This observation calls for a deeper analysis.

In our view, the concept of ‘life’ in the two names is not identical. In Ūta-napištim, the finite form ūta, from (w)atû ‘to find’, stresses that ‘life’ is inseparably connected to one person—the bearer of the name. Other similar names with (w)atû, collected by George, bolster this interpretation.³⁷ By contrast, ‘life’ in Ziusudra is not inherently attributed to the bearer, as the name does not contain a personal constituent serving as the grammatical subject. Thus, the two names of the Flood hero, replacing each other in the Late Babylonian version of the myth, denote two different notions of eternity. ‘Life’ in Ūta-napištim stands for personal immortality, the deathlessness of an individual, whereas in Ziusudra it implies the everlasting life of the species by means of continuous reproduction, one generation after another.

The new name that Enlil gives to Ziusudra in ms. z of the Flood story affirms his and only his new status as an immortal being, similar to the gods. No less importantly, it also stresses that for the rest of his family—and consequently, for all humankind—eternity is not attainable on the individual level, but only on the level of the species, through sexual reproduction.³⁸

4. The renaming of Israel’s ancestors

How does the change of the names of Mami/Bēlet-kala-ilī and Ziusudra/Ūta-napištim compare to the renaming of Israel’s ancestors in the book of Genesis?³⁹ With regard to Jacob, the pre-Priestly version of the story of his renaming presents this event as a result of personal achievement: ‘Then he said,⁴⁰ “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed”’ (Gen. 32.29 [ET 28]). As mentioned above, the derivation of the name Israel from a verb meaning ‘to strive’ is artificial, and this name means properly ‘God (El) rules’ or ‘God (El) judges’.⁴¹ Yet, the wrestling contest between Jacob and the divine agent introduced in v. 25 (ET 24) is crucial for the episode, and its connections with the royal ideology of ancient Mesopotamia, including the wrestling of Gilgamesh, the paradigmatic king, with Enkidu at the beginning of the Gilgamesh epic, have been pointed out by several scholars.⁴² In this regard, the pre-Priestly version of the story of Jacob receiving his new name shows similarities with the renaming of Ninmaḫ in Lugal-e and of Marduk in Enūma eliš.

In contrast, in the Priestly narrative Jacob’s new name is oriented to the future rather than to a past event:

God said to him, ‘Your name is Jacob; no longer shall you be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.’ So he was called Israel. God said to him, ‘I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you’.

(Gen. 35.10–12)

The divine promise connected here to the change of Jacob’s name is triple: offspring, royalty and land. The importance of these three elements has been underscored by Daniel Diffey.⁴³ Of the three, it is the emphasis on offspring that most directly relates to the renaming of the goddess Mami and the Flood hero in the Atra-ḫasīs myth.

The same three themes of offspring, royalty and land are also prominent in the Priestly story of the renaming of Abram and Sarai as Abraham and Sarah in Gen. 17. Both Abraham and Sarah are promised that gôyīm ‘nations’ will come forth from them (Gen. 17.4–6, 16). Joel Baden rightly observed that this term ‘connotes specifically the political aspect of nationhood’ and that ‘nationhood in the political sense has two requirements: a dedicated territory and a populace to inhabit it’.⁴⁴ The institution of kingship formed the axis of political organization in the ancient Near East, and thus the promise of kingship connects the promises of offspring and land.

Since ‘a nation and a company of nations’ (gôy uqĕhal gôyīm) figure in God’s promise to Jacob, Baden took this as a reference to two distinct political units—kingdoms—to be populated by Jacob’s descendants: Israel and Judah.⁴⁵ Thus, although Jacob seems to have been originally a variant name for the northern kingdom of Israel,⁴⁶ and the pre-Priestly narrative in Gen. 32:23–33 does not go beyond establishing the equivalence between these names, the Priestly source in Gen. 35:9–13 subsumes Judah, as a kingdom, within Jacob’s progeny. Although the land promised to Jacob and the political rule over it, as manifested in the institution of kingship, was divided between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was a fundamental unity between them expressed in the notion of both being Jacob’s offspring.

With regard to Yahweh’s promise to Abraham in Gen. 17, Baden observed that here, the reference to ‘nations’ bears the same meaning as in the Priestly promise to Jacob: ‘P is referring to the future kings of Israel, in both the northern and southern kingdoms’.⁴⁷ Yet, the promise to Abraham in Gen. 17 also has more universalistic implications. The covenant of circumcision, which is a practical expression of the promise, is applied also to Ishmael, even if it cannot be implemented at the prescribed age of eight days, as Ishmael is already thirteen years old (Gen. 17.25–26).⁴⁸ Furthermore, Ishmael is also promised to become a great nation, gôy (Gen. 17.20). Isaac, Abraham’s son with whom God’s covenant will be perpetuated (Gen. 17.19, 21), is of course to become the father of both Jacob and Esau, the progenitor of the Edomites.⁴⁹

Indeed, Gen. 17 belongs to an intermediate stage in a series of concentric circles through which, in the Priestly concept of history, God’s covenant with man is both narrowed and raised to a new level: from an original covenant with all of mankind struck with Noah after the Flood, through the covenant with Abraham, to the covenant with Jacob-Israel and his descendants.⁵⁰ The change of the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 17.5, 15–16) marks God’s covenant with Abraham, and here, again, the theme of offspring is prominent. As with the Priestly narrative of the renaming of Jacob, the giving of new names to Abraham and Sarah bears more similarity with the renaming of Mami and the Flood hero in the myth of Atra-ḫasīs.

5. Conclusions

While in the foregoing discussion we grouped the giving of new names to Mami and the Flood hero together, there is an important difference between the two: the former is a goddess, whereas the latter, although granted immortality like the gods, remained human. Moreover, while the new name given to Mami—Bēlet-kala-ilī, ‘Lady of all the gods’—does not relate directly to the themes of offspring and eternal life (despite her being a birth goddess and the one who brought humankind into existence), the names of the Flood hero engage with these themes. Consequently, the giving of a new name to the Flood hero provides a closer parallel to the Priestly accounts of the renaming of Jacob, Abraham, and Sarah, as the latter are markedly focused on the promise of offspring.

However, the epiphanic change of the Flood hero’s name from Ziusudra to Ūta-napištim in the Late Babylonian ms. z of the Flood story reflects a dynamic opposite to the one that comes to expression in the Priestly source of the Pentateuch. The renaming of the Flood hero marks a shift from eternity granted to all humankind by means of procreation to personal immortality attained by the hero alone. Even though the implication that the Flood hero will become the new progenitor of humankind remains in place, it is not made explicit in a way similar to the emphasis on offspring in Yahweh’s promises to Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob on the occasion of their renaming in the Priestly source.

What moved the scribe who produced the Late Babylonian manuscript of the Flood story to introduce an episode of explicit renaming of the story’s main human protagonist? Was he influenced in this by the new name given to Mami—an episode which, as noted above, is present in all versions of the Atra-ḫasīs myth from the Old Babylonian period onwards? Naturally, we can only guess whether this was indeed the case. Yet, it stands to reason that both the Late Babylonian scribe and his colleagues who copied and modified the Mesopotamian Flood story and the authors of the different sources embedded in the Pentateuch engaged with earlier works of cuneiform literature and developed their own literary creations in dialog with those. The notion of a new name being granted by a divine power to mark a new stage in a protagonist’s life or mission is part of a common cultural background shared by biblical sources with Mesopotamian literature.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Nathan Wasserman

1.

: 28–32).

2.

In addition to the more common custom of renaming a conquered city, often in honor of the gods of Assyria or the king who conquered it (). A similar practice is reflected in the Hebrew Bible in episodes such as the renaming of the northern city of Laish by the Danites who conquered it as Dan (Judg. 18.29), the renaming of the fortress of Jerusalem by David as the City of David (2 Sam. 5.7–9), and Joab’s warning to David to take command of the conquest of Rabbah of the Ammonites, ‘lest I myself take the city and it is called by my name’ (2 Sam. 12.28; here and below, translations of biblical texts follow the NRSVUE, unless noted otherwise)

3.

On these rulers see Onasch (1994: 38–41); Schmidt (2009–10); : 1248–49).

4.

: 354).

5.

Onasch (1994: 40) mentions the possibility that Šarru-lū-dāri of Ṣiʾnu was an Assyrian official rather than a local Egyptian potentate, but concludes that it is unlikely. Šarru-lū-dāri is mentioned, along with Necho—apparently the king of Sais—in an oracular query to the sun-god concerning a visit or a campaign to Egypt by the Assyrian chief eunuch Ša-Nabû-šū (, no. 88, obv. 6, 9, rev. 7). The query does not include a date, but belongs probably to the period between Esarhaddon’s initial conquest of Egypt in 671 BCE and his death two years later.

6.

On Psamtik, better known by the Greek version of his name, Psammetichus I, see Onasch (1994: 40, 51, 58); : 881).

7.

For the act of naming as an exercise of control in this context, see, e.g., von Rad (1972: 83); : 228).

8.

For this interpretation of the names, see : 30–31).

9.

: 224–26).

10.

: 205).

11.

On the royal name of Psamtik I, see : 214–15).

12.

Other notable mentions of the giving of names to individual humans by Yahweh, with an accompanying explanation of the meaning and implications of those names, concern the children whose birth was prophesied by Isaiah: Immanuel, ‘God is with us’ (Isa. 7.14–17), and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, ‘The spoil speeds, the prey hastens’ (Isa. 8.1–4). However, in these instances, the names were to be given to the children on their birth, and were not intended to replace or to be used alongside prior names.

13.

For the common understanding of Gen. 17 as part of the Priestly source, see, e.g., von Rad (1972: 197); : 256).

14.

The morphological and semantic aspects of the name changes from Abram to Abraham and from Sarai to Sarah elude a definitive explanation, but it seems that the newly added element h was understood by the Priestly author as a marker of plurality, corresponding to the abundant progeny promised to the couple ().

15.

See, e.g., von Rad (1972: 320), and more reservedly, Westermann (1985b: 515), who admits some post-Yahwistic additions in this episode. In contrast, ascribes Gen. 32.23–33 to the Elohistic source.

16.

The mysterious character with whom Jacob strove and who gave him his new name in the Penuel episode in Gen. 32.23–33 is not named, but ‘the narrator’s opinion is under all circumstances that in and behind this “man”, this nocturnal assailant, Yahweh himself was most directly at work with Jacob’ (von Rad 1972: 324; and see also, e.g., : 104).

17.

18.

For the ascription of this episode to the Priestly source, see, e.g., von Rad (1972: 338–39); : 552).

19.

The longer forms of these names—Ziusudra and Ūta-napīštim—properly represent their lexical and grammatical structure, and hence will be used throughout this article, except in quotations; however, shorter forms, Zisudra and Ūt-napištim, are also attested (see : 152–53).

20.

For the known manuscripts of Lugal-e, about 200 in total, see : 2:1–23. The myth was probably composed in the reign of Gudea of Lagash, in the late 22 century BCE (van Dijk 1983: 1:1–9; 2:1).

21.

For the text of these lines, see : 1:97–100.

22.

Here, the goddess’ standing in the temple is equated with actual presence in the vicinity of the battlefield.

23.

munus kur-šè i-im-ĝin-ne-en-na-gim / nin-maḫ nam-mu-šè ki-bal-a mu-un-ku₄-re-en-na-gim / mè ní-ḫuš-ba ri-a-ĝá la-ba-an-sù-dè-en-na-gim / ur-saĝ-me-en gu-ru-um-ĝar-ra-ĝá / hur-saĝ mu-bi ḫé-em za-e nin-bi ḫé-em / ì-ne-éš nam-tar-ra-nin-urta-ka / u₄-da nin-ḫur-saĝ-di-šè ur₅ ḫé-en-na-nam-ma-àm (van Dijk 1983: 1:100–101). English translation adapted from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, ETCSL ().

24.

Lambert (2013: 102–7). This act of name-giving precedes the famous fifty names of Marduk, listed in Tablet VII of Enūma eliš, but some of those names, of course, also point to his royal status, such as Lugalabdubur, ‘King of the sea’s foundations’, and Pagalguenna, ‘Foremost of all the lords’ (ll. 91–94; : 128–29, 489).

25.

The standard Old Babylonian version of the Atra-ḫasīs myth was recorded on three tablets by the scribe Ipiq-Aya of Sippar in the reign of Ammī-ṣadūqa of Babylon, in the late 17th century BCE (Lambert and Millard 1969: 31–33; for the activity of this scribe, see van Koppen 2011). Yet, another partial Old Babylonian copy, containing text that runs parallel to parts of Tablets II and III of Ipiq-Aya’s recension, and an additional short excerpt from the myth, have been published by : 16–27, pls. V–X). Both were recorded in the region of Larsa in the 20th–18th centuries BCE. A new edition of the myth of Atra-ḫasīs, based on new manuscripts and accompanied by a philological and literary commentary, is currently being prepared by Michael P. Streck (Leipzig) and Nathan Wasserman (Jerusalem).

26.

išmûma annīam qabâša / iddarrūma unaššiqū šēpīša / pānammi Mami nišassiki / inanna Bēl[et]-kala-ilī lū šumki (: 60–61).

27.

For the text of this episode, see : 60–63).

28.

Spar and Lambert (2005: 195–201, pls. 59–60). For a recent edition with a commentary, see : 99–103).

29.

The fragment is closer to the Neo-Assyrian version of the story of the Flood and to the Flood narrative in Tablet XI of the Gilgamesh epic than to the Old Babylonian recensions of Atra-ḫasīs (Spar and Lambert 2005: 196, 200; : 100).

30.

: 14).

31.

ištu ū[mimm]a ay iššakkun abūbu / u nišī [lū] dārā ana dāriš (: 100–101).

32.

att[ām]a Zisudra lū Ūt-napištim [šumka] / mā[rka ašš]atka u māratka tādirti libbi lā [īšû (or: īdû)] / [l]ū šumâtma itti ilī balāṭu ┌ x ┐ [x (x)] (Wasserman 2020: 101–102). The 2 sg. stative form šumât, derived from the verb ewû/emû ‘to become’, points to Ziusudra attaining an immortal status similar to that of the gods, even though the preposition itti ‘with’ is used here instead of the expected kīma ‘like’. This is a kind of reversal of the situation famously expressed in the first line of Atra-ḫasīs, inūma ilū awīlum. The interpretation of that line was the subject of a debate between Wilfred G. Lambert and Wolfram von Soden, which focused on the noun awīlum. Lambert and Millard (1969: 43 with commentary on p. 146) took awīlum as a locative with a comparative function (‘like men’), while von Soden interpreted awīlum as a nominative singular: ‘Als die Götter (auch noch) Mensch waren’ (von Soden 1994: 618). For an overview of the entire discussion see Shehata (2001: 23–25) and . We side with von Soden, namely that awīlum is a nominative rather than locative form. Yet, contrary to von Soden’s translation, we attribute to awīlum a metaphorical force—cf. Moran (1987: 247, n. 7), and especially Streck (1999: 97–98, no. 112) who explained that the metaphor (in the nominative case) in the Old Babylonian recension was replaced by a comparison using kī ‘like’ in the Neo-Assyrian recension. Hence, the views of Wasserman (2003: 93, with n. 138), and Loesov (2004: 197), who followed Lambert, should be abandoned. Similarly, narūqum in the Old Babylonian letter published by Ziegler (2016) is a metaphor in the nominative case without a comparative function.

33.

As is well known, the main protagonist of the Mesopotamian Flood story bears different names across the multiple versions of the composition: Ziusudra in the Sumerian version of the myth (edited by Civil 1969), Atra-ḫasīs in the Old Babylonian Akkadian version, and Ūta-napištim in the Flood story told in Tablet XI of the Gilgamesh epic. In two cases, the author of Tablet XI of Gilgamesh even (absentmindedly?) calls his hero by his Old Babylonian name, Atra-ḫasīs, instead of Ūta-napištim (: 706–7, 716–17, ll. 49, 197).

34.

In the Gilgamesh epic, Ūta-napišti(m) is normally spelled logographically, ud-zi (see, in extenso, : 152–53).

35.

It should be noted that direct translation from Sumerian to Akkadian is a known literary device in Akkadian literature; one clear example is erṣet lā târi, an appellation for the netherworld, which directly mirrors Sumerian kur-nu-gi₄.

36.

: 152–53).

37.

: 153).

38.

The status of Ūta-napištim’s wife is somewhat puzzling. There is no indication that she also entered the divine realm, but she does live alongside her immortal husband in Pī-nārātim according to Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, which describes the Flood. Ūta-napištim’s sons, who are mentioned as entering the boat and thus saved from the Flood (Gilgamesh XI: 85–86), disappear later. It stands to reason that, being mortal, they died in the meanwhile.

39.

A brief allusion to such comparison, concerning Ziusudra and Abraham, was made by : 103).

40.

This is a literal translation of Hebrew wayyōʾmer. The subject of this verbal form is clearly the mysterious ‘man’ (ʾîš)—a divine agent—mentioned in v. 25 (ET 24); see above, n. 16.

41.

See . In this name, the element El is more likely the personal name of the traditional supreme god of Canaan than the generic noun ‘God’, but the matter is irrelevant for the present discussion.

42.

Hamori (2011); Nõmmik (2016: 230–34); : 50–52).

43.

44.

: 8).

45.

: 110).

46.

As pointed out by Na’aman (2014: 112). However, for pertinent criticism of Na’aman’s view of the entire Jacob narrative as originating in exilic and post-exilic Judah, see : 145–50).

47.

: 110).

48.

On circumcision in Gen. 17 see, recently, .

49.

For a comparison between the episodes recounting the name change of Abraham and Jacob in Gen. 17, 32.23–33 and 35.9–13, which points out the more universalistic approach of the Priestly passages, see : 37–40).

50.

de Pury (2000: 172–73); Schmid (2011: 5–9). The concept of three concentric circles of God’s covenant in the Priestly source goes back to .

References

Alcoloumbre

(2010) Quand les vainqueurs nomment les vaincus: Regards midrachiques sur une pratique ancienne. In: Masson

Wolkowicz

(eds), La force du nom: Leur nom, ils l’ont changé. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, pp. 193–213.

Baden

(2013) The Promise to the Patriarchs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Baker

(2011) Šarru-lū-dāri. In: Parpola

et al. (eds), Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, vol. 3/II. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, pp. 1247–50.

Civil

(1969) The Sumerian Flood Story. In: Lambert

Millard

, Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 138–45, 167–72.

Coote

(1972) The Meaning of the Name Israel. HTR 65: 137–46.

Demsky

(1999) Double Names in the Babylonian Exile and the Identity of Sheshbazzar. In: Demsky

(ed), These Are the Names: Studies in Jewish Onomastics, vol. 2. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, pp. 23–40.

de Pury

(2000) Abraham: The Priestly Writer’s ‘Ecumenical’ Ancestor. In: McKenzie

Römer

Schmid

(eds), Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible, Essays in Honour of John Van Seters. BZAW 294. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 163–81.

Diffey

(2011) The Royal Promise in Genesis: The Often Underestimated Importance of Genesis 17:6, 17:16 and 35:11. Tyndale Bulletin 62: 313–16.

Frahm

(2001) Nabû-šēzibanni. In: Parpola

. et al. (eds), Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, vol. 2/II. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, pp. 880–82.

10.

George

(2003) The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

11.

George

(2009) Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection. Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 10. Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press.

12.

Hamori

(2011) Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story. JBL 130: 625–42.

13.

Hendel

(1997) The Epic of the Patriarch: The Jacob Cycle and the Narrative Traditions of Canaan and Israel. HSM 42. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

14.

Krause

(2018) Circumcision and Covenant. Biblica 99: 151–65.

15.

Lambert

(2013) Babylonian Creation Myths. Mesopotamian Civilizations 16. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

16.

Lambert

Millard

(1969) Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

17.

Levin

(2022) Jakobs Kampf am Jabbok (Genesis 32, 23–33). In: Maskow

Robker

Bruhn

(eds), Kritische Schriftgelehrsamkeit in priesterlichen und prophetischen Diskursen: Festschrift für Reinhard Achenbach zum 65. Geburtstag. BZAR 27. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 47–58.

18.

Loesov

(2004) I-nu-ma-i-lu-a-wi-lum. In: Kogan

et al. (eds), Babel und Bibel 1: Ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament and Semitic Studies. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, pp. 183–202.

19.

Mizrahi

(2002) The Derivation of Abraham’s Name (Gen 17:5). Tarbiz. 71: 337–52 (in Hebrew).

20.

Moran

(1987) Some Considerations of Form and Interpretation in Atra-ḫasīs. In: Rochberg-Halton

(ed), Language, Literature and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner. American Oriental Series 67. New Haven: American Oriental Society, pp. 245–55.

21.

Muchiki

(1999) Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic. SBL Dissertation Series 173. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

22.

Na’aman

(2009) Ashkelon under the Assyrian Empire. In: Schloen

(ed), Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, pp. 351–59.

23.

Na’aman

(2014) The Jacob Story and the Formation of Biblical Israel. Tel Aviv 41: 95–125.

24.

Nõmmik

(2016) Jacob at the Jabbok and Royal Ideology. In: Kämmerer

Kõiv

Sazonov

(eds), Kings, Gods and People: Establishing Monarchies in the Ancient World. Acta Antiqua Mediterranea et Orientalia 4, AOAT 390/4. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 225–37.

25.

Onasch

H-U

(1994) Die assyrischen Eroberungen Ägyptens, Teil 1: Kommentare und Anmerkungen. Ägypten und Altes Testament 27/1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

26.

Pongratz-Leisten

(1997) Toponyme als Ausdruck assyrischen Herrschaftanspruchs. In: Pongratz-Leisten

Kühne

Xella

(eds), Ana šadî Labnāni lū allik: Beiträge zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen. AOAT 247. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, pp. 325–43.

27.

Porzia

(2022) Le peuple aux trois noms: Une histoire d l’ancien Israël à travers le prisme de ses ethnonymes. OBO 298. Leuven: Peeters.

28.

Radner

(2005) Die Macht des Namens: Altorientalische Strategien zur Selbsterhaltung. SANTAG 8. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

29.

Schmid

(2011) Judean Identity and Ecumenicity: The Political Theology of the Priestly Document. In: Lipschits

Knoppers

Oeming

(eds), Judah and Judaeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, pp. 3–26.

30.

Schmidt

(2009–10) Šarru-lū-dāri. In: Streck

(ed) Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, vol. 12. Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 79.

31.

Shehata

(2001) Annotierte Bibliographie zum altbabylonischen Atramḫasīs-Mythos Inūma ilū awīlum. Göttinger Arbeitstexte zur Altorientalischen Literatur 3. Göttingen: Seminar für Keilschriftforschung.

32.

Spar

Lambert

(2005) Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium B.C. Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2. Turnhout: Brepols.

33.

Starr

(1990) Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. State Archives of Assyria Studies 4. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.

34.

Streck

(1999) Die Bildsprache der akkadischen Epik. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 264. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

35.

van Dijk

JJA

(1983) LUGAL UD-ME-LÁM-bi NIR-ĜÁL: Texte, traduction et introduction. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill.

36.

van Koppen

(2011) The Scribe of the Flood Story and His Circle. In: Radner

Robson

(eds), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

37.

von Beckerath

(1999) Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen. Münchner Archäologische Studien 49. Mainz: von Zabern.

38.

von Rad

(1934) Die Priesterschrift im Hexateuch: Literarisch untersucht und theologisch gewertet. BWANT 65. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

39.

von Rad

(1972) Genesis: A Commentary. OTL. Rev. edn. Tr. Marks JH. Philadelphia: Westminster.

40.

von Soden

(1994) Der altbabylonische Atramchasis-Mythos In: Hecker

et al. (eds), Mythen und Epen, II. Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments III/4. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, pp. 612–45.

41.

Wasserman

(2003) Style and Form in Old Babylonian Literary Texts. Cuneiform Monographs 27. Leiden: Brill.

42.

Wasserman

(2020) The Flood: The Akkadian Sources—A New Edition, Commentary and a Literary Discussion. OBO 290. Leuven: Peeters.

43.

Westermann

(1985a) Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Tr. Scullion JJ. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

44.

Westermann

(1985b) Genesis 12–36: A Commentary. Tr. Scullion JJ. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

45.

Wöhrle

(2021) Jacob from Israel and Jacob from Judah: Reflections on the Formation and the Historical Background of the Jacob Story. In: Hensel

(ed), The History of the Jacob Cycle (Genesis 25–35): Recent Research on the Compilation, the Redaction, and the Reception of the Biblical Narrative and Its Historical and Cultural Contexts. Archaeology and the Bible 4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 135–53.

46.

Yoreh

(2004) Jacob’s Struggle. ZAW 117: 95–97.

47.

Ziegler

(2016) Aqba-Hammu et le début du mythe d’Atram-hasis. Revue d’Assyriologie 110: 107–26.