George Aaron Barton (12 November 1859 – 28 June 1942) was a Canadian author, Episcopal clergyman, and professor of Semitic languages and the history of religion.

Barton became a minister in the Religious Society of Friends and continued his education at Haverford College, completing a MA in 1885.

He taught in Rhode Island from 1884 to 1889, then earned a PhD at Harvard and became a professor of Semitic languages at Bryn Mawr College in 1891.

His many publications cover a wide range of topics in areas such as biblical studies, religion, and linguistics along with translations of Sumerian cuneiform tablets.

[4] He notably translated a set of Sumerian tablets recovered in 1896–1898 by the University of Pennsylvania's excavation at Nippur initially labelled as "Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions", including creation myths known as the Barton Cylinder and the Debate between sheep and grain.