Bible Verse Lookup
Ancient Near-Eastern Parallels.
However important the immediate crisis for shaping the biblical book, it is profoundly conditioned also by existing oral and literary convention, not only within Israel itself but also in the wider ancient Near-Eastern world. Particularly important are comparative materials from Mesopotamia (Pritchard 1969: 455–63, 611–19; >M. E. Cohen 1988 ). Assessments range from McDaniel (1968), who plays down the alleged Sumerian influence, to Gwaltney (1983), who argues that returning exiles brought back and applied Mesopotamian models.
