The Babylonian Disputation Poems

In The Babylonian Disputation Poems Enrique Jiménez studies a group of ancient Babylonian poems that feature discussions between animals and trees. Using intertextual parallels and comparison with similar works in other literatures, he espouses a new classification of the Babylonian disputation poems as parodies. After examining neighboring traditions of literary disputation, he argues that the Babylonian poems influenced them, and that some may have been translated from Akkadian to Aramaic, from Aramaic and Syriac to Arabic.

In addition, The Babylonian Disputation Poems provides editions of several previously unpublished Babylonian disputations, such as Palm and Vine and the Series of the Spider. It also offers the first edition of the latest known Babylonian fable, The Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren.

“The present book is an exemplary model for editing and commenting upon ancient texts, and almost every approach has been taken into account.” -Markham J. Geller, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019)

Enrique Jiménez, PhD (2013), Complutense University Madrid, is Senior Editor at the Cuneiform Commentaries Project (Yale University). He specializes in literary and scholarly texts from first millennium BCE Babylonia, and has published several articles on the topic.

“The present book is an exemplary model for editing and commenting upon ancient texts, and almost every approach has been taken into account. Apart from accurate critical editions, the author provides detailed discussions of the genre, Sitz im Leben, style, and reception history of disputation poems in general and of each individual text. Detailed remarks elucidate individual philological points, such as the identification of the laurel tree, which add great interest to general discussions of theory.”
- Markham J. Geller, in Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2019