Eridu Genesis

A fragmentary Sumerian account of antediluvian kingship and flood catastrophe, used in Corpus Witness as comparative Ancient Near Eastern literature.

The Eridu Genesis is a fragmentary Sumerian account of cities before the flood, antediluvian kingship, and a flood catastrophe. The copies used by scholars are early second millennium BCE witnesses to older tradition, at medium confidence. Corpus Witness places it with Enuma Elish and Atrahasis as comparative material for Genesis. It was never a Jewish or Christian canonical book. A fragment’s survival in Sumerian is existence evidence for that Mesopotamian tradition. It does not create a canonical status in the matrix.

Never a book of Jewish or Christian canons. Comparison is historical and literary, not a claim that it was “removed” from the Bible.

Date

Early 2nd millennium BCE copies of older traditions (medium confidence)

Confidence

medium

Languages

Sumerian

Traditional authorship

Anonymous Sumerian scribes

Authorship note

Sumerian origins and flood account; not Scripture in any Jewish or Christian tradition

• Nippur flood tablet · Eridu Genesis tablet

  Old Babylonian copies of a Sumerian story · Sumerian · Sumerian origins tablet

  The text often called the Eridu Genesis is a Sumerian story of origins, the founding of cities, and a flood, known from tablets found at Nippur and copied in the Old Babylonian period. It is fragmentary. English readers meet it through the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature and related public-domain translations. It is ancient Mesopotamian literature. It is not a manuscript of Genesis, and it was not received as Jewish or Christian Scripture. A flood narrative in Sumerian and a flood narrative in Hebrew can be compared without treating one tablet as a biblical book.

• lists noncanonical

  Jewish biblical canon

  the Eridu Genesis is ancient Mesopotamian literature on clay tablets. Jewish communities did not receive it as a book of the Torah or of the wider Tanakh. Readers compare its creation or flood scenes with Genesis because the themes overlap. Comparison is not reception of the Mesopotamian poem as Scripture. No Jewish canon list names the Eridu Genesis. The Hebrew Bible’s own flood and creation narratives are the texts synagogues read.

• lists noncanonical

  Early Christian canon lists

  Early Christian churches did not read the Eridu Genesis as a biblical book. Their Old Testament was the Jewish Scriptures in Greek or, later, in Latin revision, not the Akkadian or Sumerian tablet series. No festal letter, Muratorian list, or North African council names the Eridu Genesis. Modern scholars set the poem beside Genesis. That comparison belongs to ancient Near Eastern study. It is not early Christian canonical reception.

• ProtestantNot applicable

  Sumerian origins/flood text, never a Protestant Bible book.

• CatholicNot applicable

  Sumerian origins/flood text, never a Catholic Bible book.

• OrthodoxNot applicable

  Sumerian origins/flood text, never an Orthodox Bible book.

• EthiopianNot applicable

  Sumerian origins/flood text, never an EOTC Bible book.

• TanakhNot applicable

  Comparative Mesopotamian literature, not Tanakh.

• LXXNot applicable

  Not a Septuagint book.

• Early ChristianNot applicable

  Not a Christian scriptural book.

• Second TempleNot applicable

  Older Sumerian origins/flood text used only for comparison.

No council, confession, or canon list in this dataset names Eridu Genesis. Tradition status is recorded in the section above.

• Shared tradition · Genesis 6–9 ↔ Sumerian flood

  Low confidence — disputed or tentative.

  The Sumerian Eridu Genesis includes a flood. Comparison with Noah is thematic. The tablet is not a source citation inside Genesis.

No dated canon event in this dataset is tied to Eridu Genesis.

• English translation of the Sumerian Eridu Genesis flood/origins tradition from ETCSL and related public-domain collections. Comparative Ancient Near Eastern literature, not a biblical canon book.