Thorkild Jacobsen – författare

The people in ancient times the phenomenal world was teeming with life; the thunderclap, the sudden shadow, the unknown and eerie clearing in the wood, all were living things. This unabridged edition traces the fascinating history of thought from the pre-scientific, personal concept of a "humanized" world to the achievement of detached intellectual reasoning. The authors describe and analyze the spiritual life of three ancient civilizations: the Egyptians, whose thinking was profoundly influenced by the daily rebirth of the sun and the annual rebirth of the Nile; the Mesopotamians, who believed the stars, moon, and stones were all citizens of a cosmic state; and the Hebrews, who transcended prevailing mythopoeic thought with their cosmogony of the will of God. In the concluding chapter the Frankforts show that the Greeks, with their intellectual courage, were the first culture to discover a realm of speculative thought in which myth was overcome.

The eminent Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen, author of Treasures of Darkness, here presents translations of ancient Sumerian poems written near the end of the third millennium b.c.e., including a number of compositions that have never before been published in translation. The themes developed in the poems—quite possibly the earliest poems extant—are those that have fascinated humanity since the time people first began to spin stories: the longings of young lovers; courage in battle; joy at the birth of a child; the pleasures of drink and song.

The "dynastic chronicle" here termed the Harab myth (CT XL VI, no, 43) presents a new theme in Mesopotamian mythology, that of succeeding generations of gods who come to power through parricide and live in incest with mother, sister, or both. This copy of the text is Late Babylonian with a mixture of Assyrian and Babylonian forms. Transliteration and translation are followed by an extensive commentry which discusses several motifs germane to the reconstruction and interpretation of the myth. Sources, background and cross-cultural comparisons are also provided. The Harab myth may be briefly described as a "genealogy of cosmic moral."