Welcome back.
We’re going to continue talking about the ancient Israelites, the Hebrews.
We’re going to talk about the flood stories in this session, comparing and contrasting
the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh with the Genesis story of Noah.
In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood is seen as a turning point in history.
It’s the moment when the gods and humanity sort of go their separate ways.
Before the flood, the Babylonian gods had been enraged by the noise that the humans
made; this disturbed the god’s slumbers, and for this frivolous reason they decide
to destroy the world.
One of the gods arranged for his favorite human, Ut-Napishtim, to be spared.
In the Gilgamesh epic, the hero of the flood, Ut-Napishtim, directs Gilgamesh, who is seeking
immortality, to discover a plant that grows at the bottom of the sea.
Gilgamesh, indeed, dives into the sea to obtain this plant, but as he brings it back to land
a serpent snatches it away from him thus robbing Gilgamesh of immortality.
Again, we see the serpent here in Gilgamesh, and of course, we have a very famous serpent
in Eden as well.
Do we not?
Gilgamesh corresponds with Genesis.
The occasion is the same.
The gods have decided on a flood.
Again, because of mankind’s rambunctiousness and noisiness, and in Genesis, of course,
it’s from man’s wickedness and his sin.
The principles are the same.
One man and his family are to be saved, Ut-Napishtim in Gilgamesh and of course, Noah in Genesis.
The revelation of the flood in both stories is the same; it’s announced by the deities.
A construction of the ark is dictated by a deity in both stories.
Animals are taken aboard according to both stories.
The end of the flood is determined by birds.
You’ll remember in Genesis Noah releases I believe, a dove, the dove continues to come
back to the ark because there’s nowhere to land, and then finally of course, as the
waters recede, the dove finds a place to perch and build a nest and he does not return, letting
Noah know that the flood waters are receding and there’s land available.
In both stories the ark comes to rest upon a mountain.
In both stories a pleasing sacrifice to the gods concludes the stories.
In Gilgamesh it says the gods smelled the savor, the gods smelled the sweet savor, the
gods crowded like flies around the sacrifice.
And of course, in Genesis 8:21 – And the Lord smelled sweet savor and the Lord said
in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man’s sake.
So you see, there’s just an astounding number of similarities here.
Now within the Genesis story itself, ignoring Gilgamesh for a moment, there are a number
of complications or discrepancies.
Well, I’ll go through them and you can make up your own mind what they are.
There’s a different number of animals, or type of animals, to be brought onto the ark.
In Genesis 6:19 and in 7:15-16 the animals taken aboard the ark are one pair of each
species, but in Genesis 7:2 the distinction is made between clean animals – of which
there will be seven pairs – and unclean animals – of which there will be one pair.
In Genesis 7:4 the flood is caused by rain.
In Genesis 7:11 and 8:2 it says that the fountains of the abyss and the floodgates of the sky
were opened.
So there are these discrepancies, these duplications.
Now I should point out here a book that came out.
It’s probably been twenty years now.
It’s called, Noah’s Flood, and it’s by two geologists.
I don’t remember their first names; Ryan and Pittman are their last names.
They formulate a theory here that tries to give a scientific account for the great flood
stories, these myths that circulate throughout the Middle East and Ryan and Pittman’s theory
runs something like this.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of seven thousand years before the Common Era, the Bosporus
land bridge there that separates the Black Sea from the Aegean and the Mediterranean.
Now due to seismic activity, and perhaps rising sea levels at the end of the Ice Age, created
sufficient pressure to break that narrow Bosporus land bridge, of course, the city of Istanbul
is built on the Bosporus.
This Bosporus bridge burst and the salt water of the Aegean and Mediterranean flowed through
that channel and turned what had been a fresh-water lake into the Black Sea that we know today.
These two scientists speculate that this could have been the actual events that gave rise
to a social memory of a great flood.
If you can imagine, the newly Neolithic people, settled people living around this fresh-water
lake, having experienced this catastrophic flood that probably killed many of them.
But those that live further out on the periphery survived it.
They could hear it coming.
They could see the water level rising.
They probably gathered up their chickens and cattle and their children and they skedaddled,
going in a number of different directions – south into Turkey, into Central Asia,
into Europe – taking the flood stories with them.
So this is a very interesting and plausible account for how the flood myths actually began.
Now these various discrepancies obviously do not bother the biblical author or authors.
He sort of interweaves them together and then does not have any, ostensibly has no concern
about these discrepancies, and I’ve seen a number of explanations for this.
One historian said that the biblical author found in this legend a suitable means for
illustrating a deeply religiously-held conviction, the conviction that evil is requited by a
just God, who is at the same time, a God of mercy.
The Gilgamesh Epic has the ark landing on Mount Nisir; this is south and east of Mount
Ararat, where the legendary ark of Noah lands.
We’ve talked about the inconsistencies, the number of animals and various things.
There’s a couple of differences though between Gilgamesh and Noah that are worth pointing
out.
The biblical account has morality as a factor for the flood.
This is not so in Gilgamesh.
You’ll remember in Gilgamesh it’s the fact that humans are noisy and rambunctious
that causes the gods to wipe them out.
In the Genesis account, Noah is chosen for his righteousness.
It does not tell us why, in the Gilgamesh account, why Ut-Napishtim is chosen.
There’s a covenant in the Genesis account.
You remember the rainbow, God’s promise not to do this again.
We don’t see this in Gilgamesh either.
Of course, this covenant stresses a relationship between God and the ancient Hebrews.
How do we explain these differences that we’ve been looking at here?
The most plausible explanation is that the Hebrew story is taken from the Mesopotamian
story, the story of Gilgamesh.
It could be that both stories are borrowed from an even earlier, unknown source.
This is entirely plausible.
Evidence that Genesis borrowed from Gilgamesh – we believe the Gilgamesh story to be much
older.
That’s the first factor.
Other factors that suggest that Genesis borrowed from Gilgamesh – well, greater societies
tend to influence lesser societies.
The great city states of Mesopotamia probably exerted a cultural impact on small people
like the Hebrews.
Flooding is typical in Mesopotamia with the Tigress and the Euphrates, and of course,
flooding is not typical in Canaan, where you have the river Jordan, which is more like
a creek that you would see here.
Archeologists have found layers of silt in the Sumerian remains.
This indicates the Tigress and the Euphrates had jumped their banks and had left layers
of silt on the land.
Of course, Gilgamesh is well known throughout the entire region and has been translated
into many languages.
There was a Gilgamesh tablet found at Megiddo in northern Israel, so we can see the spread
of this ancient story of the flood.
In north Megiddo, another tablet closer to Syria, has been discovered – a tablet describing
the Gilgamesh epic.
And of course, Abraham himself originates in Mesopotamia and then of course, goes to
Egypt and then to Canaan and I suppose it’s plausible that he brought the Gilgamesh story,
this sort of epic tale of the flood, he brought it with him when God commanded him to leave
Sumer and to travel westward.
So I’m going to stop there with the flood stories.
We’ll do a couple of more things with the Hebrews and Genesis.
We’ll talk about the Tower of Babel and how that has ties to ancient Sumer as well.
So we’ll stop there for today and we’ll pick it up again.
Thank you.