The Great

Flood

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Ancient Flood Stories

• One of the most famous Biblical stories• Also one of the most debated • Ancient Near Eastern texts speak of a great

flood• Compare them to the Biblical flood• Which came first? – The chicken or the egg?

Objective

Ancient TextsGenesis 6-9 Epic of Atrahasis

Gilgamesh Epic Sumerian King’s List

The world is evil, God wants to destroy it

However one man found favor in God’s eyes

God decided to keep humankind alive through Noah

Told Noah to build an ark to escape the terrible flood that would destroy the earth

Noah escapes death with his wife, children, and pairs of every animal in the world

Genesis 6-9

Noah sends out a bird four times to see if the water’s had receded

Once off the ark, Noah built an altar to God

God was moved and promised to never destroy the planet by water again

The rainbow is the sign of that promise

Genesis 6-9

•Similar: Only other creation story (apart from Genesis) to follow history from pre-human existence to the flood.

A Babylonian epic tale of the primeval history of

man

•Difference: In Genesis, humans are not created to do God’s work but to be in relationship with him

Humans are created to alleviate the lower gods

work

•Difference: The Biblical flood was not because of overpopulation and indeed after the flood Noah and his sons are commanded to be fruitful and multiply

The humans became too numerous and the gods

wanted to wipe them out

•Similar: God tells Noah of the flood

However, one god decides to warn a man named

Atrahasis

The Epic of Atrahasis

•Similar: God also tells Noah to build an ark. Both stories even give the dimensions and materials for the ark.

The god tells Atrahasis to build an ark to escape the

flood

•Similar: Noah also makes an altar to sacrifice to God

Once off the ark, Atrahasis makes a sacrifice to the gods

•Similar: Noah’s sacrifice is pleasing to God.

Atrahasis then finds favor in the gods eyes

•Different: God gives Noah and his family new laws but it is not to hinder them and stop their population but to allow them to prosper

The gods then devise new laws to keep the population of

the humans in check

The Epic of AtrahasisContinued

“Details in these stories, such as the placing of animals in the ark, the landing of the ark on a

mountain, and the sending forth of birds to see whether the waters had receded, indicate

clearly that these stories are intimately related to the biblical story and indeed, that the

Babylonian and biblical accounts of the flood represent different retellings of and essentially identical flood tradition” -Tikua Simone Frymer-

Kensky

The Epic of AtrahasisContinued

The Epic of GilgameshThe gods call a flood down on

earth to destroy itSimilar: God brings the flood down on earth to destroy it.

One god warns Utnapishtim and tells him to build

a reed boat

Similar: God warns Noah and instructs him to

build an ark

Difference: The god was not supposed to war the

man. God wanted a righteous man to

continue his people.

He is told to bring every animal into the boat and the

dimensions in which to build the boat

Similar: God instructs Noah to bring all animals into ark and the

dimensions of the ark.

When the flood comes it becomes so fierce that even the gods are frightened

Difference: God is not frightened, he is in control! He made the flood

come and he can make it go away.

The Gilgamesh Epic

The Epic of GilgameshIt rains for 7 days and 7

nights

Similar: Noah is on the boat for 7 days when the rain & floods start.

Once the waters recede his boat

lands on Mt. Nimush

Similar: The ark lands top of Mt. Ararat.

Utnapishtim releases both a dove and raven to test if

the waters have receded enough

Similar: Noah likewise sends out both a dove and raven testing the

same thing

Utnapishtim sacrifices a sheep

once off the boat & he finds favor in the

gods eyes

Similar: Noah likewise makes a sacrifice to God & God is pleased

The Gilgamesh EpicContinued

The Sumerian Kings List

• Similar: In the Bible the genealogies show that men lived much longer before the flood. Unnaturally long.

Before the Flood, men’s lives were very long.

Men lived to be thousands of years old

• Similar: After the flood the people in the Bible also had much shorter life spans

After the flood men’s life spans where

drastically shorter.

The Sumerian King’s List

•As a result, the ancient writers remembered this event as the Great Flood and recorded it as thus.

Theory: A catastrophic flood that went from the Mediterranean sea to the

Black Sea

•As a result, this may not be the flood that the ancient writers were remembering

Criticism: While it is agreed that this flood

probably did happen it is debated how much

impact it actually had

Black Sea Deluge

Theory: The ancient flood story myths were already well established when the Israelite’s came up with their story

The account of Noah was intended as a theological response to those myths

Israel was showing the other cultures how Yahweh is different from those pagan gods

THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION

There was an actual cataclysmic world flood that killed every human being, plant, and animal on the planet other than Noah and his family and the animals he had on the ark with him.

Paul affirms this when he says, “through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water”. 2 Peter 3:6

AN ACTUAL HISTORICAL EVENT

Noah's family continued to populate for about a 100 years when the incident at the tower of Babel happened and the people were split apart.

They were given different languages and began to spread apart over the land

As these people grew apart in their own languages they told the story of the Great Flood.

As they remembered the events that happened of their ancestor Noah they started interpreting through their own establishing cultures and languages.

As and they grew apart from Yahweh they attributed the story to their own gods and formed their own heroes to set them apart from their ancestors.

REMEMBERING THROUGH THE GENERATIONS

When it comes down to it, it is not a huge deal in our faith whether Noah actually walked the earth or that it was simply intended for theological meaning

Either way, the important thing is the theological meaning

Yahweh was establishing himself as different than the other gods of the land

He loved his people and just waned them to follow him

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