Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition

Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition is a book by Leonard William King, first published in 1916. Written by a British Museum Assyriologist at the height of early Near Eastern archaeology, it examines how Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths—creation epics, flood narratives, royal ideology, and cosmogony—intersect with, and diverge from, stories preserved in the Hebrew Bible.

King sets out the cuneiform and Egyptian evidence in plain terms and weighs points of contact without sensationalism, making this a grounded introduction to comparative mythology, biblical studies, and ancient history. Beyond surveying famous texts like creation and deluge traditions, he places them in their historical setting, from Sumerian and Akkadian sources to Pharaonic conceptions of order and kingship.

The result is a careful, skeptical synthesis that helps readers see where borrowing, parallel development, or shared Near Eastern cultural horizons may explain similarities. For students of Old Testament background, Assyriology, Egyptology, myth and religion, or ancient Near Eastern literature, this remains a concise, readable gateway to debates that shaped twentieth-century scholarship and still inform discussion today.