SOURCE: “The Biblical Book of Lamentations in the Context of Near Eastern Lament Literature” in Scripture in Context II: More Essays on the Comparative Method, edited by William W. Hallo et al., Eisenbrauns, 1983, pp. 191-211.

In the following essay, Gwaltney summarizes the history of Mesopotamian laments, analyzes their forms, and argues that the gaps in the record that caused Thomas F. McDaniel (see excerpt above) to reject the notion of Sumerian influence on Lamentations have now been bridged.

1. Introduction

The biblical book of Lamentations has enjoyed a surprising renewal of interest in recent years. In extensive studies over the past twenty years the text, philology, and theology of Lamentations have received the lion's share of attention.¹ Other questions remain unanswered, however. What are we to make of the five compositions comprising Lamentations in terms of poetic analysis? May we reconstruct these compositions in a metrical pattern as Biblica...