This is pretty durned meta! Several British newspapers including The Telegraph and Daily Mail boast headlines declaring: “Babylonian god used ‘fake news’ to trick Noah into building his Ark, claims new translation of 3,000 year-old tablet.” The article is actually about a new translation of the Gilgamesh epic and while few scholars of the ancient Middle East would dispute that Genesis’ account of The Deluge was largely influenced by, ya could say derived from, this part of ancient Mesopotamian scripture to state that a Babylonian god had dealings with Noah is clearly fudging things — in an article talking about fudging things!
Ultimately, if you drill down, the basic news that Cambridge University researcher Dr Martin Worthington has come up with an updated translation/interpretation of lines from Gilgamesh, one of the earliest examples of human literature IS pretty damned exciting. The fact that it apparently depicts some deliberate trickery of human society, sorta striking. But framing this as an early example of “Fake news” and having a Babylonian deity apparently addressing a Jewish patriarch — pandering. So – get to it and clickety click click!
thanks to Soror Amy for the tip!
