The apkallus were the great culture-heroes of preflood knowledge. They were the divine sages of a glorious bygone era. Babylonian kings claimed to be descended from the apkallus and other divine figures from before the flood. The collective claim was that glorious Babylonia was the sole possessor of divine knowledge, and that that empire’s rule had the approval of the gods. The biblical writers and later Jews disagreed. They saw Babylonian knowledge as having demonic origins—in large part because the apkallus themselves were so intertwined with Mesopotamian demonology. The Babylonian elite
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