Suffering in Babylon
Ludlul bel nemeqi and the Scholars, Ancient and Modern
By (author) A. Lenzi
Suffering in Babylon comprises a series of studies on Ludlul bel nemeqi. Part One examines the modern scholarship surrounding the poem’s textual reconstruction and translation. Ludlul exists today as a composite text, pieced together over the last 180 years from dozens of cuneiform tablets and fragments from various archaeological sites. With these disparate sources, Assyriologists have reconstructed three quarters of the poem’s original text, which is here translated anew with extensive epigraphic and philological notes. Part Two explores the historical contexts of the poem and its reception among first-millennium scribes. Whether the poem’s protagonist is the historical Subsi-mesre-Sakkan or not, his experiences as described in the poem provide insight into the worldview and concerns of the ancient scholars among whom the poem’s author was counted, likely from the ranks of the exorcists. The protagonist’s experience with divine revelation sheds light on those scholars’ divinatory worldview. The anatomical and pathological vocabulary used to describe his suffering compares well to the vocabulary in exorcism texts. The ritual failures he experiences reflect the poem’s institutional agenda. And the structure and language of his first person account shows intertextual connections with incantation prayers, a genre distinctive to exorcism. The poem’s subsequent incorporation into various scribal curricula and tablet collections demonstrates the poem’s cultural stature among first-millennium scribes, who wrote a commentary on Ludlul and used the text in the creation of others. Part Three offers a comparative study that bridges the ancient and modern scholarly horizons. Drawing on both ancient and modern scholarship, it compares the protagonist’s experience of the alu demon with the clinical condition known today as sleep paralysis. The book’s underlying goal is to illustrate the potential of a multi-perspectival approach to Akkadian literature that acknowledges the contexts of both ancient and modern scholars involved in producing meaningful readings of this ancient literary gem.
- By (author) A. Lenzi
Other Titles in this Series
Oral et écrit dans l’Antiquité orientale: les processus de rédaction et d’édition
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 26 et 27 mai 2016
Volume 291
Garments of the Gods
Studies on the Textile Industry and the Pantheon of Sippar according to the Texts from the Ebabbar Archive
Volume 218
Gottliche Korper – Gottliche Gefuhle
Was leisten anthropomorphe und anthropopathische Gotterkonzepte im Alten Orient und Alten Testament?
Volume 270
Das Lob der Schöpfung
Die Entwicklung ägyptischer Sonnen- und Schöpfungshymnen nach dem Neuen Reich
Volume 219
Prophetisme et Alliance
Des Archives royales de Mari a la Bible hebraique. Mit einem Vorwort von Manfred Weippert. Recueil d'etudes edite par Stephan Lauber et Hans Ulrich Steymans
Volume 271
Oedipe et le Cherubin
Les sphinx levantins, cypriotes et grecs comme gardiens d'Immortalite
Volume 248
The Power of Images
The Poetics of Violence in Lamentations 2 and Ancient Near Eastern Art
Volume 297
Le Decalogue et l’histoire du texte
Etudes des formes textuelles du Decalogue et leurs implications dans l'histoire du texte de l'Ancien Testament
Volume 207
Représenter dieux et hommes dans le Proche-Orient ancien et dans la Bible
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 5 et 6 mai 2015
Volume 287
Kultprostitution im Alten Testament?
Die Qedeschen der Hebraischen Bibel und das Motiv der Hurerei
Volume 221
Bilder als Quellen – Images as Sources
Studies on ancient Near Eastern artefacts and the Bible inspired by the work of Othmar Keel
Volume 6
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