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| Woolley during an excavation campaign in Mesopotamia |
Hailed at first as true evidence of the Flood, Woolley’s discovery was gradually reinterpreted. Historian Robin Lane Fox acknowledges that it "remains a pinnacle of Archeology, but Woolley’s interpretations recommend us caution." In Fox's opinion, the caution implies disconnecting Woolley's find from the biblical Flood, because "from 1929 on, the Flood Woolley found shrank and became more and more local until it did not spread over more than 100 thousand square kilometers.” The shrinkage was due to the discovery that several floods occurred in different parts of this huge area at different times. So Fox concludes that "there is no reason to attribute the origins of Mesopotamian and Hebrew accounts of the Flood to a specific flood. It is likely that the Hebrew fiction developed from Mesopotamian legends"(Fox, Robin Lane. The Bible - truth and fiction. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993. pp 202-203).
By these statements we can realize how controversial the biblical Flood remains. There is no consensus about its relationship with a particular historical event. And the absence of such a consensus is interpreted by historians and archaeologists as a sign that the biblical event is a fiction.
But while Woolley’s discovery cannot be taken as evidence of the Flood itself, it seems we can associate it with the general context of the biblical event. If we look closely to the text, we realize that the Bible places the Flood in a broader context, which begins with the union of the children of God with the daughters of men in Genesis 6:2.
The fact that this union comes right after the mention of the 500 years of Noah’s life, in Genesis 5:32, has led some interpreters to understand that it took place a lot of time after the birth of the ark’s builder. But the truth does not seem to be such, since each new story, in Genesis 1-11, is introduced by a narrative retreat. The creation account, in chapter 1, ends with the divine rest on the seventh day, when man already existed. However, the following verses, instead of continuing from that point, return to the time when man did not exist and narrate the creation of Adam from another perspective (Gen. 2: 4).
This same sort of retreat occurs every time the narrator changes from one to another account, in chapters 1 through 11. For example, chapter 4 ends with a list of Cain’s descendants, but 5 does not proceed from that point. It rather returns (the second time) to the day in which God created man. Similarly, chapter 10 ends with the spread of nations through the earth, while the 11th returns to the construction of the Tower of Babel which occurred before.
It is no different with the Flood story found in Genesis 6 through 9. Chapter 5 closes with the mention of the 500 years of Noah’s life, and the begetting of his children Shem, Ham, and Japheth. However, instead of continuing from this point, chapter 6 returns to the period when men began to multiply on the earth. This is not this the time of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but of Adam’s early descendants, who had "sons and daughters", shortly after the birth of Enosh.
The setback to that remote time is of great importance, because it allows us to establish the time when the Flood story really begins. It does not begin when God predicts the Flood to Noah, but in the early days of humankind, when men began to multiply on the earth and the children of God espoused the daughters of men. In the words of Genesis: "And when men began to multiply on the surface of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose" (Gen 6: 1-2).
The unfair union of the children of God with the daughters of men is the starting point of the story of Noah, as the biblical account shows that God became angry with it, and decided to reduce the span of human life to 120 years: "And the Lord said: My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is flesh; and his days shall be one hundred and twenty years "(Gen 6: 3).
The meaning of the 120 years in this verse is considered one of the most obscure statements of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Scholars wonder if it indicates that the extension of human life was reduced to 120 years, or if in 120 years humanity would be wiped out by the Flood, according to verse 7 that says: "I will destroy the man I have created from the surface of the earth, both man and the animals, reptiles, and birds of the air; for I repent to have made them."
The first interpretation goes against the fact that the lives of the patriarchs only reached less than 120 years in the last chapter of Genesis: "Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household; and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years" (Gen 50:22). All biblical characters whose deaths are quoted before Joseph lived more than 120 years. They generally lived hundreds of years. Therefore, if the saying of God in Genesis 6:3 referred to the span of human life, it took more than two millennia to be fulfilled.
But to say the truth, the 120 years were clearly established as a consequence of the illicit union of the sons of God with the daughters of men (Gen 6:2-3), while the Flood was the result of the multiplication of violence on earth (Gen 6:5-7). By this distinction, the Bible seems to teach us that different causes led to different consequences. So that it is not proper to consider the 120 years as a mere period between the illicit union and the Flood, but as the very consequence linked by God to the first.
Given such interpretive difficulties, we have no better alternative than clinging to the clear meaning of the verse that reads: "His days will be one hundred and twenty years" (Gen. 6: 3). In Genesis, whenever the word "days" is followed by "years", as in 6:3, the intention is to designate the length of a lifetime. In 5:5, we read that "the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years." Of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob it is said: "The days of Abraham's life were one hundred and seventy-five years" (Gen 25:7), "The days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years" (Gen 35:28), and "Pharaoh asked Jacob, How old are you? Jacob answered: The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years "(Gen 47: 8-9).
In all these cases, the word days followed by a number of years indicates the extension of a lifetime. So, the meaning of the term in Genesis 6:3 must be the same. One hundred and twenty years there mean the life of a human individual. God's intention in setting that limit was to ensure that his spirit [Hebrew ruach, breath of life] would not remain for longer periods in man, since "he is flesh" (Gen. 6: 3). The struggle of the spirit against the flesh already outlined, and should be limited so that man would not succumb to it.
Of course, this does not mean that the hundreds of years of the patriarchs, in Genesis 5 and 11, are literal. Such ages are not of individuals, but of clans, families and peoples. I am unable to develop this point longer here, but would refer those interested to the texts "And Methuselah?" and "The age of Adam", published in lobaomorais.blogspot.com.br 02/13/13 and 11/29/12.
The Flood story is preceded by the illicit union of the sons of God with the daughters of men (Gen. 6: 1-3), because God's widespread displeasure with humanity began at that time. And if it started so early, we can conclude that the divine judgment of the people involved in those errors began at the same time, and that the witnesses of the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates, which took place at that time, interpreted them as such judgments.
The oldest known Mesopotamian floods are exactly those Woolley discovered. They occurred between 4,000 and 3,000 B. C. As the Bible puts the birth of Noah about 3,200 B. C., it is possible to understand that those floods occurred during his life, and may have been interpreted as a sign that the patriarch needed to build the ark before a greater disaster fell upon the earth. If it was so, Noah did not build his ship without having seen anything like the Flood that God told him about. He rather saw, experienced or heard about several of them.
Although Noah’s Flood should not be mistaken with any of the smaller ones that happened between 4000-3000 B. C., it belonged to the context formed by them. A string of major disasters occurred in the place where Noah and other patriarchs of Genesis 5 probably inhabited.
To be sure, it is useful to recall that the territory of Eden was "on the east side," as we read in Genesis 2:8. From the point of view of the narrator, east is east of the Holy Land, since no other space co-ordinates are given in the text. Without other references of space, we must adopt the position that the narrator and the recipients of his text had, that is, Palestine, in order to understand the meaning of the east side on which the territory of Eden stayed.
As Genesis 3:23-24 says that God expelled man from Paradise, "to till the ground from which he had been taken [...] and placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden [...] to save the way of the tree of life", we must conclude that, after leaving the garden, Adam went east. Cain, on his turn, when he withdrew the presence of the Lord, also went to the "land of Nod, east of Eden" (Gen 4:16).
If the garden God planted was in Eden, since the text says it was "a garden in Eden" (Gen 2:8), when Adam was expelled from it, he did not come out of Eden, but of the garden. Cain was the first who did so, since he moved not to the east of the garden, but to Node, which remained on the "east of Eden" (Gen. 4:16).
Several events are thus located successively in the east: Eden was east of the Holy Land, Adam went east, when he left the Garden of Eden, and Cain went east of Eden. This brings us very close to Mesopotamia, and induces us to understand the facts of Genesis 4-9 transpired in that region.
If both Adam and Cain and their descendants lived in Mesopotamia and neighborhoods, there is no mistake in associating Noah’s Flood with Woolley’s discoveries in that region, especially with the floods that occurred between 3200 and 2900 B. C. It can be archeologically proven that these events occurred both in the place and time in which Noah lived. And it becomes unlikely that such a coincidence of time, place and facts was not due to a real association.
I wonder if these data do not suggest another turn in the interpretation of Woolley’s findings. If they do not reconnect the Flood to those findings, and thus reinforce the idea that the terrible catastrophe is not fiction, but a fact, although the details of the Genesis narrative have been gilded to highlight the faithfulness of Noah to God and thus inspire faith.
In the Middle Ages, the pieces of the cross of Christ that were sold worldwide were enough to build many arks, and the pieces of Noah's ark were enough to build many cities. Similarly, there are still those who look for the remains of the ark on Mount Ararat. From time to time, some do not blush in announcing they have found them. More than one ark were located there, in recent years. But that does not mean no serious research on the Flood is carried out, or that it remains pure legend. I still think the crux of this research lies on the findings of Woolley and his successors. But there is evidence in other relevant fields that also give support to it. In the next article, we will discuss the literary records of a devastating Flood that shook ancient Mesopotamia.
