THE BIBLE AND BABYLON III — THE WORLDWIDE FLOOD IN THE DAYS OF NOAH

A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE BIBLICAL AND MESOPOTAMIAN  FLOOD ACCOUNTS

The Akkadian tablets deal with the same situation as do the Sumerian tabletS, as we will see in the comparison between Genesis 6-8 and the Mesopotamian flood accounts. The account in Genesis chapters 6–8 is presented in the left column of table 1.1, and the Mesopotamian accounts in the right column.[1] The letter A refers to the Epic of Atrahasis, G refers to the Epic of Gilgamesh, E refers to the Enuma Elish, and S refers to the Sumerian tablet I have translated.

Table 1.1 Similarities between the biblical and babylonian Flood accounts.

6:1, 5, 7: And men began to increase in number on the surface of the ground. . . . And God saw that man’s wickedness was great on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time. . . . Then Yehowa said: “The humans, whom I have created, I will wipe from the surface of the earth.	A: The people spread over the land, and they multiplied. The land was bellowing like a bull. Because of their noise, the god could not rest. Enlil heard their noise, and he spoke to the great gods. “The noise of the humans has disturbed me, and I cannot sleep because of their noise. Cut off supplies for the people.[2]
6:17: Look, I will bring a flood of water upon the earth, in order to destroy all flesh under the heavens that has the spirit of life; everything on the earth will perish.	A: Mami, the midwife of the gods, said: “In the assembly of the gods, how did I command total destruction together with them? It is enough that Enlil has brought an evil command. Like Tiuru, he uttered evil words . . . it has hurt me that I have listened to their noise.[3] A: “The flood that you order me to send, actually what is it?” . . . The gods ordered a complete destruction.[4] S: The destruction of the children of men cannot be stopped — the last judgment according to the words of the assembly (of the gods). The words that are spoken by An, Enlil and Ninursag — about the destruction of the kingdom….
6:14: Make for yourself a vessel (or, chest) of gopher tree; make chambers in the vessel, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.[5]	G: Six units[6] of pitch I melted in the oven, and three units of asphalt I brought into the vessel.[7]
6:16: You shall make a roof for the vessel and finish it within one cubit upward.	A: It must have a roof, just as the earth covers the fresh water below us; so the sun shall not see inside it. You shall build roofs over it at the top and at the bottom. [8]
6:15: This is how you shall make it: The vessel shall be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. You shall make a roof for the vessel and finish it within one cubit upward. You shall set a door on the side of the vessel, and make it with a lower, a second, and a third deck.	G: Its floor was 3,600 square meters. Its sides were 120 cubits in height; the sides of its deck were of equal length, 120 cubits each. I laid out its structure and drew a pattern of it. I provided it with six decks, thus dividing it into seven levels. The inside of it I divided into nine compartments. I drove plugs into it, to keep the water out. I looked at the punting poles and stored up the supply. The vessel was finished before sunset.[9]
6:19–22: And of every living creature of all kinds of flesh you shall bring two of each into the vessel, so they can live with you; male and female they shall be. Of the flying creatures according to their kinds, of the animals according to their kinds, of all the animals that move on the ground according to their kinds—two of each you shall bring in to you, so they can live. And you shall take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten—you shall gather it to yourself, and it shall serve as food for you and for them. And Noah did everything that God had commanded—he did just that.	A: He caught and brought on board winged birds, the domestic animals of the field, and the wild animals of the steppe. He let them walk into the boat.[10] G: I loaded the vessel with what I had: The silver I had, I loaded on it, the gold I had, I loaded on it. All the offspring of living beings that I had, I loaded on it. I let all my family and the people in my house first enter the vessel. Then I let all the beasts of the field and the animals of the field and the craftsmen enter the vessel.[11]
7:1, 4, 16: And Yehowa said to Noah . . . For after seven days I will let it rain upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. And I will wipe out all living creatures that I have made from the surface of the ground. . . . The animals going in were male and female of every sort of flesh; they went in just as God had commanded him. And God shut the door behind him.	G: Shamash had set a stated time:  “In the morning I will let loaves of bread shower down, and in the evening a rain of wheat! Go inside the boat, and close the door!” The time had arrived. In the morning he let loaves of bread shower down, and in the evening a rain of wheat. I watched the weather—the weather was frightful to behold! I entered the vessel and closed the door.[12]
7:11, 12: In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the springs of the great deep were opened, and the holes of the heaven were open. And it rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights.	G: When the dawn came, black clouds arose from the horizon. Adad rumbled inside the clouds, and Shullat and Hanish are at the front; they bear his throne over the mountains and the cultivated land. Errakal pulled out the mooring poles, and Ninurta went forth and made the dikes overflow. The Anunnaki lifted up the torches, lighting up the land with their flare. The rage of Adad reached up to the heaven; all that was light became black. He crushed the lands as a pot of clay. The first day the tempest blew. It went forth, and the water flooded over the land. Like a battle it came over the people. The brother could not see his brother, and the people could not be recognized in the torrent. S: All the destructive gales and storms were gathered; the windstorms reached all the big cities. G: The gods were frightened by the Flood; they retreated and ascended to the heaven of Anu. The gods lay down outside, crouched like dogs. Ishtar cried out like a woman in childbirth; Belet-ili, who had a sweet voice, lamented: “The old times have turned into clay, because I spoke evil in the assembly of the gods. How could I speak evil in the assembly of the gods? I am the one who gave birth; these people belong to me. And now they fill the ocean like fish.” The Anunnaki gods were weeping with her; their faces were wet with sorrow, when they wept. Their lips were parched, as with fever. Six days and seven nights came the storm and flood that flattened the land. When the seventh day arrived, the storm subsided and the flood ended. The water, that had writhed like a woman in labor, was calm; the storm was still, and the flood ended. I looked at the weather, and everything was calm. All the people had turned into clay.[13] A: Seven days and seven nights lasted the bad weather, the storm, and the flood.[14]
8:4, 6: And in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month the vessel came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.	G: The plain was as flat as the roof of a house. I opened a window and the sunlight fell upon the side of my face. I fell to my knees and sat weeping; tears were streaming down the side of my face. I looked around in all directions, and in fourteen places I could see land. On Mount Nimush the boat landed, and it could not move. [15] S: When the windstorms had lasted for seven days and seven nights, and the destructive storm had tossed the huge boat about in the deep waters, the sun came forth and illuminated earth and heaven. Ziusudra made an opening in the huge boat, and the sun with its rays penetrated its inner parts
8:6–12: After the end of forty days Noah opened a window in the vessel he had made. He sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could not find a resting place for the sole of its feet, and therefore it returned to him in the vessel, because the water were upon the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, took it and brought it to himself inside the vessel. He waited seven days more, and he sent out the dove from the vessel. The dove returned to him in the evening, and look! in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah understood that the water had abated from the earth. He waited seven more days and then he sent out the dove. But it did not return to him again.	G: When a seventh day came, I sent forth a dove and released it. The dove went off, but came back to me; because it could not find any place to land, it returned. Then I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off, but came back to me; because it could not find any place to land, it returned. Then I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off and saw that the waters were receding. It found food and flew about; it was strutting, and it did not come back to me.[16]
8:20, 21a: Then Noah built an altar for Yehowa. He took some of all the clean animals and the clean flying creatures, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. Then Yehowa smelled a restful odor.	G: Then I sent out everything in all directions and made sacrifices. I offered incense with the mountain as a temple tower. Seven and seven vessels I put in place; reed, cedar, and myrtle I put beneath them. The gods smelled the savor; the gods smelled the sweet savor, and they gathered like flies around the sacrifice.[17] S: Ziusudra prostrated himself before the sungod, and the king slaughtered great quantities of oxen and sheep.

We find the following similarities between Genesis 6–9 and the Mesopotamian accounts:

1. One god/gods decided that the Flood should come.

2. One god ordered a man to build a vessel in order to survive.

3. One god gave a description of the measures, stories, and compartments of the vessel.

4. The vessel was covered with pitch—Akkadian kupru; Hebrew kop

5. Different kinds of winged creatures, animals and beasts were brought on board.

6. One god set the time for the cataclysm.

7. The door of the vessel was shut.

8. The cataclysm lasted for a particular time, and all humans except those in the vessel were exterminated.

9. The vessel came to rest on a big mountain.

10. A window in the vessel was opened, and birds were sent out. The first two birds came back to the vessel, but the third did not return.

11. When the earth became dry, the survivors went out of the vessel and offered sacrifices.

12. The god/gods smelled the sweet odor of the sacrifices.

[1]. The Hebrew, Akkadian and Sumerian texts are translated by me, if other translators are not mentioned.

[2]. Lambert and Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, 73. (II, I, 2-9).

[3]. Ibid., 73. (III, iii, 36–43).

[4]. Lambert and Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, 85, 89. (II, 7, 45; II, 8, 34).

[5]. Utnapishtim used 3,600 units of raw bitumen and 3,600 units of pitch when his boat was built (Tablet XI). The Akkadian word for pitch is kupru, a cognate of the Hebrew word koper. The only place koper is used in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Genesis 6:14, where God tells Noah to coat the vessel with pitch. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, other words are used for substances made of bitumen: hēmār (“tar”) in Genesis 11:3; 14:10; Exodus 2:3, and zæpæt (“pitch”) in Exodus 2:3 and Isaiah 34:9. The use of the cognate words kupru and koper in this case suggests a relationship between the two accounts.

[6]. The word shār refers to 3,600, and three times this number may refer to 5 tons, according to Westenholz and Westenholz, Gilgamesh Enuma Elish: Guder og mennesker i oldtidens Babylon (Gilgamesh Enuma Elish Gods and Men in ancient Babylon), 127.

[7]. Gilgamesh XI, 65, 66.

[8]. Atrahasis III, I, 31.

[9]. Gilgamesh XI, 57–66, 76.

[10]. Atrahasis II, 35–38.

[11]. Gilgamesh XI, 80–85.

[12]. Ibid., 81–88.

[13]. Gilgamesh XI, 96–134.

[14]. Atrahasis III, 163.

[15]. Gilgamesh XI, 135–143.

[16]. Ibid., XI, 146–156.

[17]. Ibid., XI, 156–162.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE FLOOD  

Even though there are several differences in the details—in the measures and stories of the vessel, the name of the mountain where the vessel came to rest, etc., there are so many striking similarities that it is hardly possible that the accounts could have different origins.

Therefore, there are three possibilities: 1) The Genesis account borrowed from the Mesopotamian accounts, or 2) the Mesopotamian accounts borrowed from the Genesis account, or 3) all accounts are based on a common source.

I will first look at the age of the accounts. The Sumerian Flood tablet is believed to have been written some time in the early 2nd millennium BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, and Atrahasis are believed to have their origins in the 18th century BCE.  But the extant cuneiform tablets with the accounts are not older than the 8th century BCE. When was the account in Genesis 6–9 written? According to the chronology of the Bible, Moses lived in the 16th century BCE. God commanded him to write down “the Law” (Exodus 17:14; Joshua 8:31). The five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were known as “the Law” (Luke 24:27, 44) and are ascribed to Moses. According to Genesis, Noah lived through the Flood almost 800 years before Moses was born, so what was the source of Moses’ account of the Flood? There are several possibilities.

George and A.R. Rendsburg have written about the Biblical Flood. One premise behind their views regarding the Mesopotamian accounts is that the Flood accounts are mythological—no worldwide flood has ever occurred. [1] One possible source for Moses could have been oral tradition, first given by Noah and his family. Another possible source could have been inspiration from God, just as in the case with the creation account.

A third possibility is that written accounts of historical events before the time of Moses existed, and Moses used such accounts. The fact that the words “this is the history of. . . .” occur eleven times in Genesis (Gen. 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2) could support the existence of written sources. The Flood is included in “The history of Noah” that starts in 6:9 and ends in 9:29. There is no evidence in favor of the view that the written Mesopotamian Flood accounts are older than the Genesis account, and that the writer of Genesis borrowed from the Mesopotamian accounts. Conversely, there is no evidence that Akkadian scribes had copies of Hebrew accounts similar to Genesis 6–9, and that they borrowed from Hebrew accounts. Thus, it is likely that both accounts have a common source.

While there are very close similarities between the Mesopotamian accounts and Genesis 6–9, there are also great differences—which I call “quality differences.” This is clearly seen if we compare the accounts in the light of the following questions: Why were human beings created? Why was it decided to exterminate humans and animals by a flood? What were the results of the Flood?

The Genesis account is monotheistic. Jehova created the man and woman with the purpose of having children who would fill the earth with descendants (Genesis 1:28). They should cultivate the ground and make the whole earth like the garden of Eden (Genesis 1:28, 29; 2:15). The prospect for each family was to live forever on the earth; the only reason why some should die was that they violated God’s laws (Genesis 2:16, 17).

One spirit creature decided to challenge Jehova, and he caused the first two human beings to break God’s law; thereby, they and their offspring had to die. Later, other spirit creatures joined in the rebellion against God. About sixteen hundred years after the creation of the first humans, the earth was filled with violence because almost all humans grossly violated the laws of God. So, the reason why Jehova would cause the worldwide Flood (Genesis 6:11–13) was that wicked people were ruining the earth. Only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and the animals in the vessel, survived the Flood.

The human family got a new start and received the same blessing as the first two humans (Genesis 9:1–2). The purpose of God had not changed (Malachi 3:6), and in due time, the earth will be like the garden of Eden, and populated with perfect humans who will live forever upon the earth.

The Babylonian accounts are polytheistic. Atrahasis tells that some of the lower gods, the Igigi gods, toiled hard for forty years in the great marsh-district. They murmured and complained because of the hard work, and at last they surrounded Enlil’s temple and attacked it. The gods convened, and Enki suggested that humans be created so they could do the hard work instead of the Igigi-gods. The flesh of man was made from the blood of a slain god mixed with clay, and the flesh had spirit.[2] The goddess Nintu declared that she had taken the yoke of hard toil from the gods and placed it on the humans. During a period of twelve hundred years, the humans became numerous, and the noise they made was so great that Enlil was not able to sleep. Therefore, Enlil said:

The noise of the humans has disturbed me; I am not able to sleep because of their noise. Stop the distribution of food to the humans; let the plants that can still their hunger be few.[3]

Adad, the god of the weather, caused no rain to fall, and no water to come up from the earth; the result was famine for three years. The humans were advised to bring sacrifices to the gods. Therefore, Adad sent rain and dew, and he and Enki brought an end to the famine. When Enlil’s plan to decimate or exterminate the humans failed, he became a laughing stock in the assembly of the gods. This assembly decided now to send a flood to exterminate the humans,[4] and Enki had to swear that he would not help the humans again. Enki did not keep his oath, and he advised Atrahasis (“the exceedingly wise one”) to build a boat in order to survive the Flood.

Adad was roaring from heaven, and he caused the great cataclysm, by which the noise of the humans ceased. But the gods had not anticipated the fierceness of the catastrophe, and we read:

They heard the noise from the flood, and the horror of the gods increased. Enki was stunned, when he saw his sons thrown down before him. The lips of Nintu, the great mistress, were shivering. The great Annunaki-gods were seated without saying anything: they were deprived of their sacrifices that were their food and drink. The goddess (Nintu) saw it, and began to cry. . . . Her heart wept, and she was sobbing; she cried out because of her burning sorrow. The gods wept together with her because of the land. She was filled with despair, and she was thirsting for beer.[5]

Not only did the humans do hard work in behalf of the gods, but their sacrifices of flesh, grain, and beer served as food and drink for the gods. When the humans were exterminated, the gods did not get their food and drink, and that was the reason why they cried. However, Atrahasis survived the catastrophe, and he brought sacrifices to the gods. They gathered as flies around the sacrifices, and now they could again have food and beer. But the great Annunaki-gods were angry. They had committed themselves to an oath that no human being should be kept alive, and they accused Enki of bad behavior in the assembly of the gods because he had broken his oath and let Atrahasis survive.

I cannot imagine that the sublime account of Genesis, where the Flood is a part of the purpose of Jehova to remove the effects of the revolt of wicked spirits and wicked humans against his dominion, and to make the earth a beautiful garden where humans can live forever, is borrowed from the mythological Mesopotamian accounts.

Atrahasis and Gilgamesh contain a degraded account: There are many intrigues among the different gods, and they are depicted almost as humans who work in the marshes on earth. They complain and murmur because of their plight, and the humans are created to do the work for them. The gods neither anticipate the consequences of the creation of humans nor the extermination of them. The gods are again portrayed almost as humans; they eat meat and grains that are offered, and they drink beer. So, when the humans are exterminated, the gods are deprived of food and drink. They weep because of this, and they have a great fear for the cataclysm.

 We cannot see any grand purpose in this account as we can in the Genesis account. But if there was a worldwide Flood with only one family of survivors, the Mesopotamian accounts would fit the interpretation of this catastrophe by people who worshipped many gods and who did not have knowledge of the reason for the catastrophe. Therefore, we can conclude that the Mesopotamian accounts are a distortion of real events in the setting of the polytheistic religion of Babylon, whereas the account in Genesis, chapters 6–9, is a true report of the same events.

The accounts of the worldwide flood in the Bible and on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets are so similar that they cannot have originated separately from one another. There is no evidence for borrowing from the Mesopotamian accounts to the Hebrew account, vice versa. The most likely explanation is that the worldwide Flood occurred, and one of those who survived wrote down what happened. When the humans were spread to different countries after the Flood, (Genesis chapter 10) they took the account with them. In Mesopotamia, the account was adjusted to fit their polytheistic and mythological religion, while the Hebrews who worshipped the one God, Jehova, kept the original account.

[1]. Most scholars hold this view today. See George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, 70, and Rendsburg, “The Biblical flood story in the light of the Gilgamesh flood account,” 117.

[2]. This description is based on Athrahasis I, 225–230. The word translated as “spirit” is etēmmu, which refers to the ghost of a dead person. The relationship between the flesh and the spirit is not clearly expressed, but because the spirit goes out of the man when he dies, according the Mesopotamian view, it seems that the spirit was in the flesh.

[3]. Atrahasis II, 7–9.

[4]. Ibid., II, viii, 34.

[5]. Atrahasis III, iii 23–32; iv 12–16.

 

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