Comparing the Biblical and Babylonian Stories of the Flood
Beside the narrative of the Flood given to us in Genesis, and the pictorial representation of it preserved in the star figures, we have Deluge stories from many parts of the world. But in particular we have a very striking one from Babylonia. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, already alluded to, the eleventh tablet is devoted to an interview between the hero and Pir-napistim, the Babylonian Noah, who recounts to him how he and his family were saved at the time of the great flood.
This Babylonian story of the Deluge stands in quite a different relation from the Babylonian story of Creation in its bearing on the account given in Genesis. As we have already seen, the stories of Creation have practically nothing in common; the stories of the Deluge have many most striking points of resemblance, and may reasonably be supposed to have had a common origin.
Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, in his celebrated lectures Babel and Bible, refers to this Babylonian Deluge story in the following terms:—
"The Babylonians divided their history into two great periods: the one before, the other after the Flood.
[171]Babylon was in quite a peculiar sense the land of deluges. The alluvial lowlands along the course of all great rivers discharging into the sea are, of course, exposed to terrible floods of a special kind—cyclones and tornadoes accompanied by earthquakes and tremendous downpours of rain."
After referring to the great cyclone and tidal wave which wrecked the Sunderbunds at the mouths of the Ganges in 1876, when 215,000 persons met their death by drowning, Prof. Delitzsch goes on—
"It is the merit of the celebrated Viennese geologist, Eduard Suess, to have shown that there is an accurate description of such a cyclone, line for line, in the Babylonian Deluge story. . . . The whole story, precisely as it was written down, travelled to Canaan. But, owing to the new and entirely different local conditions, it was forgotten that the sea was the chief factor, and so we find in the Bible two accounts of the Deluge, which are not only scientifically impossible, but, furthermore, mutually contradictory—the one assigning to it a duration of 365 days, the other of [40 + (3 x 7)] = 61 days. Science is indebted to Jean Astruc, that strictly orthodox Catholic physician of Louis XIV., for recognizing that two fundamentally different accounts of a deluge have been worked up into a single story in the Bible."
The importance of the Babylonian Deluge story does not rest in anything intrinsic to itself, for there are many deluge stories preserved by other nations quite as interesting and as well told. It derives its importance from its points of resemblance to the Genesis story, and from the deduction that some have drawn from these that it was the original of that story—or rather of the two stories—that we find imperfectly recombined in Genesis.
]The suggestion of Jean Astruc that "two fundamentally different accounts of a deluge have been worked up into a single story in the Bible" has been generally accepted by those who have followed him in the minute analysis of the literary structure of Holy Scripture; and the names of the "Priestly Narrative" and of the "Jehovistic Narrative" have, for the sake of distinctness, been applied to them. The former is so called because the chapters in Exodus and the two following books, which treat with particular minuteness of the various ceremonial institutions of Israel, are considered to be by the same writer. The latter has received its name from the preference shown by the writer for the use, as the Divine name, of the word Jehovah,—so spelt when given in our English versions, but generally translated "the Lord."
There is a very close accord between different authorities as to the way in which Genesis, chapters vi.-ix., should be allotted to these two sources. The following is Dr. Driver's arrangement:—
| Priestly Narrative. | Jehovistic Narrative. |
| | |
| | Chap. | Verse. | | Chap. | Verse. |
| Genesis | vi. | 9-22. | Genesis | vii. | 1-5. |
| | vii. | 6. | | 7-10. |
| | 11. | | 12. |
| | 13-16a. | | 16b. |
| | 17a. | | 17b. |
| | 18-21. | | 22-23. |
| | 24. | | viii. | 2b-3a. |
| | viii. | 1-2a. | | 6-12. |
| | 3b-5. | | 13b. |
| | 13a. | | 20-22. |
| | 14-19. | |
| | ix. | 1-17. | ] |
The Priestly narrative therefore tells us the cause of the Flood—that is to say, the corruption of mankind; describes the dimensions of the ark, and instructs Noah to bring "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female." It further supplies the dates of the chief occurrences during the Flood, states that the waters prevailed above the tops of the mountains, that when the Flood diminished the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat; and gives the account of Noah and his family going forth from the ark, and of the covenant which God made with them, of which the token was to be the bow seen in the cloud.
The most striking notes of the Jehovistic narrative are,—the incident of the sending out of the raven and the dove; the account of Noah's sacrifice; and the distinction made between clean beasts and beasts that are not clean—the command to Noah being, "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." The significant points of distinction between the two accounts are that the Priestly writer gives the description of the ark, the Flood prevailing above the mountains, the grounding on Mount Ararat, and the bow in the cloud; the Jehovistic gives the sending out of the raven and the dove, and the account of Noah's sacrifice, which involves the recognition of the distinction between the clean and unclean beasts and the more abundant provision of the former. He also lays emphasis on the Lord's "smelling a sweet
savour" and promising never again to
]smite everything living, "for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth."
The chief features of the Babylonian story of the Deluge are as follows:—The God Ae spoke to Pir-napistim, the Babylonian Noah—
"'Destroy the house, build a ship,Leave what thou hast, see to thy life.Destroy the hostile and save life.Take up the seed of life, all of it, into the midst of the ship.The ship which thou shalt make, even thou.Let its size be measured;Let it agree as to its height and its length.'"
The description of the building of the ship seems to have been very minute, but the record is mutilated, and what remains is difficult to translate. As in the Priestly narrative, it is expressly mentioned that it was "pitched within and without."
The narrative proceeds in the words of Pir-napistim:—
"All I possessed, I collected it,All I possessed I collected it, of silver;All I possessed I collected it, of gold;All I possessed I collected it, the seed of life, the whole.I caused to go up into the midst of the ship,All my family and relatives,The beasts of the field, the animals of the field, the sons of the artificers—all of them I sent up.The God Šamaš appointed the time—Muir Kukki—'In the night I will cause the heavens to rain destruction,Enter into the midst of the ship, and shut thy door.'That time approached—Muir Kukki—In the night the heavens rained destructionI saw the appearance of the day:I was afraid to look upon the day—I entered into the midst of the ship, and shut my door
At the appearance of dawn in the morning,There arose from the foundation of heaven a dark cloud:
The first day, the storm? . . . .Swiftly it swept, and . . . .Like a battle against the people it sought.Brother saw not brother.The people were not to be recognized. In heavenThe gods feared the flood, andThey fled, they ascended to the heaven of Anu.The gods kenneled like dogs, crouched down in the enclosures.
The gods had crouched down, seated in lamentation,Covered were their lips in the assemblies,Six days and nightsThe wind blew, the deluge and flood overwhelmed the land.The seventh day, when it came, the storm ceased, the raging flood,Which had contended like a whirlwind,Quieted, the sea shrank back, and the evil wind and deluge ended.I noticed the sea making a noise,And all mankind had turned to corruption.
I noted the regions, the shore of the sea,For twelve measures the region arose.The ship had stopped at the land of Nisir.The mountain of Nisir seized the ship, and would not let it pass.The first day and the second day the mountains of Nisir seized the ship, and would not let it pass.
The seventh day, when it cameI sent forth a dove, and it left;The dove went, it turned about,But there was no resting-place, and it returned.I sent forth a swallow, and it left,The swallow went, it turned about,But there was no resting-place, and it returned.I sent forth a raven, and it left,The raven went, the rushing of the waters it saw,It ate, it waded, it croaked, it did not return.I sent forth (the animals) to the four winds, I poured out a libation,I made an offering on the peak of the mountain,[176]Seven and seven I set incense-vases there,In their depths I poured cane, cedar, and rosewood (?).The gods smelled a savour;The gods smelled a sweet savour.The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer.Then the goddess Sîrtu, when she came,Raised the great signets that Anu had made at her wish:'These gods—by the lapis-stone of my neck—let me not forget;These days let me remember, nor forget them for ever!Let the gods come to the sacrifice,But let not Bêl come to the sacrifice,For he did not take counsel, and made a flood,And consigned my people to destruction.'Then Bêl, when he came,Saw the ship. And Bêl stood still,Filled with anger on account of the gods and the spirits of heaven.'What, has a soul escaped?Let not a man be saved from the destruction.'Ninip opened his mouth and spake.He said to the warrior Bêl:'Who but Ae has done the thing?And Ae knows every event.'Ae opened his mouth and spake,He said to the warrior Bêl:'Thou sage of the gods, warrior,Verily thou hast not taken counsel, and hast made a flood.The sinner has committed his sin,The evil-doer has committed his misdeed,Be merciful—let him not be cut off—yield, let not perish.Why hast thou made a flood?Let the lion come, and let men diminish.Why hast thou made a flood?Let the hyena come, and let men diminish.Why hast thou made a flood?Let a famine happen, and let the land be (?)Why hast thou made a flood?Let Ura (pestilence) come, and let the land be (?)'"[176:1]
]Of the four records before us, we can only date one approximately. The constellations, as we have already seen, were mapped out some time in the third millennium before our era, probably not very far from 2700 b.c.
When was the Babylonian story written? Does it, itself, afford any evidence of date? It occurs in the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the theory has been started that as Aquarius, a watery constellation, is now the eleventh sign of the zodiac, therefore we have in this epic of twelve tablets a series of solar myths founded upon the twelve signs of the zodiac, the eleventh giving us a legend of a flood to correspond to the stream of water which the man in Aquarius pours from his pitcher.
If this theory be accepted we can date the Epic of Gilgamesh with much certainty: it must be later, probably much later, than 700 b.c. For it cannot have been till about that time that the present arrangement of the zodiacal signs—that is to say with Aries as the first and Aquarius as the eleventh—can have been adopted. We have then to allow for the growth of a mythology with the twelve signs as its motif. Had this supposed series of zodiacal myths originated before 700 b.c., before Aries was adopted as the leading sign, then the Bull, Taurus, would have given rise to the myth of the first tablet and Aquarius to the tenth, not to the eleventh where we find the story of the flood.
Assyriologists do not assign so late a date to this poem, and it must be noted that the theory supposes, not merely that the tablet itself, but that the poem and
]the series of myths upon which it was based, were all later in conception than 700
b.c. One conclusive indication of its early date is given by the position in the pantheon of Ae and Bêl.
Ae has not receded into comparative insignificance, nor has Bêl attained to that full supremacy which, as Merodach, he possesses in the Babylonian Creation story. We may therefore put on one side as an unsupported and unfortunate guess the suggestion that the
Epic of Gilgamesh is the setting forth of a series of zodiacal myths.
Any legends, any mythology, any pantheon based upon the zodiac must necessarily be more recent than the zodiac; any system involving Aries as the first sign of the zodiac must be later than the adoption of Aries as the first sign, that is to say, later than 700 b.c. Systems arising before that date would inevitably be based upon Taurus as first constellation.
We cannot then, from astronomical relationships, fix the date of the Babylonian story of the Flood. Is it possible, however, to form any estimate of the comparative ages of the Babylonian legend and of the two narratives given in Genesis, or of either of these two? Does the Babylonian story connect itself with one of the Genesis narratives rather than the other?
The significant points in the Babylonian story are these:—the command to
Pir-napistim to build a ship, with detailed directions; the great rise of the flood so that even the gods in the heaven of
Anu feared it; the detailed dating of the duration of the flood; the stranding of the ship on the mountain of
Nisir; the sending forth
]of the dove, the swallow, and their return; the sending forth of the raven, and its non-return; the sacrifice; the gods smelling its sweet
savour; the vow of remembrance of the goddess by the lapis-stone necklace; the determination of the gods not to send a flood again upon the earth, since sin is inevitable from the sinner. To all these points we find parallels in the account as given in Genesis.
But it is in the Priestly narrative that we find the directions for the building of the ship; the great prevalence of the flood even to the height of the mountains; the stranding of the ship on a mountain; and the bow in the clouds as a covenant of remembrance—this last being perhaps paralleled in the Babylonian story by the mottled (blue-and-white) lapis necklace of the goddess which she swore by as a remembrancer. There is therefore manifest connection with the narrative told by the Priestly writer.
But it is in the Jehovistic narrative, on the other hand, that we find the sending forth of the raven, and its non-return; the sending forth of the dove, and its return; the sacrifice, and the sweet savour that was smelled of the Lord; and the determination of the Lord not to curse the earth any more for man's sake, nor smite any more every living thing, "for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." There is, therefore, no less manifest connection with the narrative told by the Jehovistic writer.
But the narrative told by the writer of the Babylonian story is one single account; even if it were a combination ]of two separate traditions, they have been so completely fused that they cannot now be broken up so as to form two distinct narratives, each complete in itself.
"The whole story precisely as it was written down travelled to Canaan,"—so we are told. And there,—we are asked to believe,—two Hebrew writers of very different temperaments and schools of thought, each independently worked up a complete story of the Deluge from this Gilgamesh legend. They chose out different incidents, one selecting what the other rejected, and vice versa, so that their two accounts were "mutually contradictory." They agreed, however, in cleansing it from its polytheistic setting, and giving it a strictly monotheistic tone. Later, an "editor" put the two narratives together, with all their inconsistencies and contradictions, and interlocked them into one, which presents all the main features of the original Gilgamesh story except its polytheism. In other words, two Hebrew scribes each told in his own way a part of the account of the Deluge which he had derived from Babylon, and a third unwittingly so recombined them as to make them represent the Babylonian original!
The two accounts of the Deluge, supposed to be present in Genesis, therefore cannot be derived from the Gilgamesh epic, nor be later than it, seeing that what is still plainly separable in Genesis is inseparably fused in the epic.
On the other hand, can the Babylonian narrative be later than, and derived from, the Genesis account? Since so many of the same circumstances are represented in
[]both, this is a more reasonable proposition, if we assume that the Babylonian narrator had the Genesis account as it now stands, and did not have to combine two separate statements. For surely if he had the separate Priestly and Jehovistic narratives we should now be able to decompose the Babylonian narrative just as easily as we do the one in Genesis. The Babylonian adapter of the Genesis story must have either been less astute than ourselves, and did not perceive that he
had really two distinct (and "contradictory") narratives to deal with, or he did not consider this circumstance of the slightest importance, and had no objection to merging them inextricably into one continuous account.
It is therefore possible that the Babylonian account was derived from that in Genesis; but it is not probable. The main circumstances are the same in both, but the details, the presentment, the attitude of mind are very different. We can better explain the agreement in the general circumstances, and even in many of the details, by presuming that both are accounts—genuine traditions—of the same actual occurrence. The differences in detail, presentment, and attitude, are fully and sufficiently explained by supposing that we have traditions from two, if not three, witnesses of the event.
We have also the pictorial representation of the Flood given us in the constellations. What evidence do they supply?
Here the significant points are: the ship grounded upon a high rock; the raven above it, eating the flesh of a stretched-out reptile; a sacrifice offered up by a person,
]who has issued forth from the ship, upon an altar, whose smoke goes up in a cloud, in which a bow is set.
In this grouping of pictures we have two characteristic features of the Priestly narrative, in the ship grounded on a rock, and in the bow set in the cloud; we have also two characteristic features of the Jehovistic narrative, in the smoking altar of sacrifice, and in the carrion bird. There is therefore manifest connection between the constellation grouping and both the narratives given in Genesis.
But the constellational picture story is the only one of all these narratives that we can date. It must have been designed—as we have seen—about 2700 b.c.
The question again comes up for answer. Were the Genesis and Babylonian narratives, any or all of them, derived from the pictured story in the constellations; or, on the other hand, was this derived from any or all of them?
The constellations were mapped out near the north latitude of 40°, far to the north of Babylonia, so the pictured story cannot have come from thence. We do not know where the Genesis narratives were written, but if the Flood of the constellations was pictured from them, then they must have been already united into the account that is now presented to us in Genesis, very early in the third millennium before Christ.
Could the account in Genesis have been derived from the constellations? If it is a double account, most decidedly not; since the pictured story in the constellations is one, and presents impartially the characteristic features of both the narratives.
]And (as in comparing the Genesis and the Babylonian narratives) we see that though the main circumstances are the same—in so far as they lend themselves to pictorial representations—the details, the presentment, the attitude are different. In the Genesis narrative, the bow
set in the cloud is a rainbow in a cloud of rain; in the constellation picture, the bow
set in the cloud is the bow of an archer, and the cloud is the pillar of smoke from off the altar of sacrifice. In the narratives of Genesis and Babylonia, Noah and
Pir-
napistim are men: no hint is given anywhere that by their physical form or constitution they were marked off from other men; in the storied picture, he who issues from the ship is a centaur: his upper part is the head and body of a man, his lower part is the body of a horse.
As before, there is no doubt that we can best explain the agreement in circumstance of all the narratives by presuming that they are independent accounts of the same historical occurrence. We can, at the same time, explain the differences in style and detail between the narratives by presuming that the originals were by men of different qualities of mind who each wrote as the occurrence most appealed to him. The Babylonian narrator laid hold of the promise that, though beast, or famine, or pestilence might diminish men, a flood should not again sweep away every living thing, and connected the promise with the signets—the lapis necklace of the goddess Sîrtu that she touched as a
remembrancer. The
picturer of the constellations saw the pledge in the smoke of the sacrifice, in the spirit of the words of the
]Lord as given by Asaph, "Gather My saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." The writer in Genesis saw the promise in the rain-cloud, for the rainbow can only appear with the shining of the sun. The writer in Genesis saw in Noah a righteous man, worthy to escape the flood of desolation that swept away the wickedness around; there is no explanation apparent, at least on the surface, as to why the designer of the constellations made him, who issued from the ship and offered the sacrifice, a centaur—one who partook of two natures.
The comparison of the Deluge narratives from Genesis, from the constellations, and from Babylonia, presents a clear issue. If all the accounts are independent, and if there are two accounts intermingled into one in Genesis, then the chief facts presented in both parts of that dual narrative must have been so intermingled at an earlier date than 2700 b.c. The editor who first united the two stories into one must have done his work before that date.
But if the accounts are not independent histories, and the narrative as we have it in Genesis is derived either in whole or in part from Babylonia or from the constellations—if, in short, the Genesis story came from a Babylonian or a stellar myth—then we cannot escape from this conclusion: that the narrative in Genesis is not, and never has been, two separable portions; that the scholars who have so divided it have been entirely in error. But we cannot so lightly put on one side the whole of the results which the learning and research of so ]
many scholars have given us in the last century-and-a-half. We must therefore unhesitatingly reject the theory that the Genesis Deluge story owes anything either to star myth or to Babylonian mythology. And if the Genesis Deluge story is not so derived, certainly no other portion of Holy Scripture.
