Parmenides in Babylon: A Dialogue on Tunnel Vision

There is a strange, structural parallel between the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and On Nature, a long philosophical poem bythe ancient Greek thinker Parmenides. Both poems depict the main character passing through the gate by which time flow into our mortal world. On the other side of this gate, the character receive a divine revelation, but the revelations move in opposite direction: towards an embrace and a rejection of time, respectively. Inspired by Johannes Haubold’s approach to Greek-Babylonian parallels, this paper explores the conceptual structures, similarities, and differences that are revealed by this and other links between Parmenides and various works of Babylonian literature. Without claiming that Parmenides had any direct knowledge of cuneiform sources, I will argue that a comparison between the two can resolve several problems in his famously puzzling philosophy. Both Parmenidesand Babylonian poetry counterpose human and divine perspectives to explore the former’s faults, and while the conclusions they reach are radically different, their starting point is identical: they begin their philosophical journey from the threshold between the mortal world and the world beyond time.

Co-sponsored by the Departments of Classics, Comparative Literature, and Near Eastern Studies