ELI TADMOR
About
Eli Tadmor is an Assyriologist—a scholar of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)—and specializes in Assyrian and Babylonian literature.
After receiving a BA from Tel-Aviv University in 2018, he went on to graduate studies at Yale University, where he received a PhD in Assyriology in 2024.
He is currently under contract with Yale University Press to write Erra: An Ancient Myth in a New Translation. The book concerns the Erra Epic—a Babylonian poem telling how Erra, a god of war and pestilence, nearly annihilated humanity out of rage on account of them holding him in contempt. Set to contain a new translation of the composition along with essays shedding light on the text and its world, the book aims to bring Erra to a broad public readership for the first time in more than two thousand years.
Eli can be reached at eli@tadmor.us
Work
Articles
1) Erra's Human Form, Kaskal Nuova serie 2 (2025), 35–48.
2) Counting Lines in Erra, JAOS 145/2 (2025), 369–79.
3) More Than a Single Truth: Polyvalence in Gilgamesh’s Dreams of the Meteorite and the Axe, Kaskal 20 (2023), 71–82.
4) Erudite Savagery: Intertextuality in Ashurbanipal’s Account of the Siege of Babylon, JNES 82/1 (2023), 43–58.
Notes
1) Goring of the Land in Erra and Naram-Sin, NABU 2025/4, 188–89.
2) On the Logic of Name Substitution in the Assyrian Version of Enuma Elish, NABU 2025/3, 135–36.
3) Winnowing Down the Syntactical Possibilities of a Key Assertion in the Marduk Ordeal, NABU 2025/3, 136–37.
4) The Shared Use of the Address ‘You, Man!’ in Erra and Ezekiel NABU 2025/1, 49–50.
Book Reviews
1) of Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Epic of Creation (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), JNES 84/2 (2025), 385–89.
2) of The Shape of Stories: Narrative Structures in Cuneiform Literature (Brill, 2023), JAOS 145/3 (2025), 648–51.
Jewish Work
1) Why Should an Atheist Care About Torah? Shabtai.tv, essay.
2) The Day of Shabbat: An Exhibition, Yale University Old Campus, September 5th, 2025 (Image selection, text composition).
Hebrew Work
1) Not to Drown in the Toxic Puddle of the Self: On Tsulul by Guli Dolev-Hashiloni, Hamusach (December 2025), book review.
3) Once Upon a Time in the East, Assyriology blog appearing on the website of Haaretz.
4) The Exile is the Body: Two Poems After W.B. Yeats, Ho! 25 (2023), 232–33.
5) On the Word, Translation of Hebrew Poem originally published in Ho! 25 (2023), 232.
6) Go Out to Battle, O Valiant Erra!, Ho! 22 (2022), 13–15, translation of Erra I 6–63.