However, these interpretations have strong imaginative content, since the tales were composed at much different times., and cannot be testimonies of a single event. Unless someone demonstrates that the memory of floods was deposited in the collective unconscious of multiple nations, and inspired so many authors to compose narratives that resemble one another, one cannot identifiy an echo of a universal event in them. And if the tales are memories of a great thaw that ocurred over a longer time, why hundreds of flood reports do not remember the ice that preceeded the waters? Why speak of floods, but not of glaciers? It is easy to see why neither the theory that links the Flood texts to glaciations, nor that which associates them to a universal Flood that ocurred at one time have good foundation.
But if we take the archaeological findings of Leonard Woolley, Max Mallowan and others as evidence of regional floods that did not occur simultaneosly, we can possibly link them with the stories that stemmed from the same places. Three stories in particular stand out as more probably related to the floodings that occurred in the Ancient Orient: the Sumerian account of the Flood, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Flood mentioned in the Indian poem Mahabharata. It is worth examining them to see if they can be related to Woolley's findings.
The Sumerian story of the Flood was written around 1600 B. C. It begins with the mention of eight kings, who ruled the Mesopotamian cities before the Flood (BRIEND, Jacques "Reporting the Sumerian flood" In Creation and the Flood - According to the texts of the Ancient Near East. 2nd ed., Sao Paulo: Paulus, 2005. p. 77). After entering the names of these sovereigns, the stone tablet of the story adds, "Then the Flood occurred" (Op. cit. "The antediluvian kings". pages 55-56). In the terms it was described, the Flood narrated by the Sumerians seems to have reached all mankind, because only the hero Ziusudra and the sages with him survived.
However, the most famous extra-biblical version of the Flood is not the Sumerian, but the Babylonian, which is contained in the eleventh book of the Epic of Gilgamesh, dated 1750 B. C. This epic chronicles the adventures of Utnapshitim in a ship that survived a Flood which buried all men. Just as the Sumerian story, the Epic assigns general scope to the Flood: "The Flood ceased / I looked at the time: It was quiet / and all living beings had become clay" (Epic of Gilgamesh. In Creation and the Flood - according to the texts of the Ancient Near East. 2nd ed, Sao Paulo: Paulus, 2005. p 62).
But the similarities between the Babylonian epic and Genesis go far beyond this particular point. The dimensions of the ship built by Utnapshitim, the Babylonian Noah, are comparable to the biblical ark: "I traced the border lines/ its surface [area] was a field [3,600 square meters] / its walls were 10 perches [60 meters] high" (op. cit. 55). The use of bitumen in the construction of the ship also recalls Genesis: "I poured three times 3,600 measures of refined bitumen in the oven / 3 times 3,600 measures of crude bitumen within" (idem, 65). The landing on a mountain at the end of the Flood is another point of similarity: "The sea calmed down / the bad wind ended / the Flood ceased / [...] The vessel reached Mount Nicir" (idem, 140). Utnapshitim sent a raven and a dove to see if the waters had decreased, before leaving the ship: "I sent out a dove and let her go/ the dove went and returned / she did not find where to land / I sent out a raven and let him go/ he went and / seeing the flow of water / ate, crawled, and did not return"(idem. 150). The Babylonian hero offered sacrifices to the gods for having been saved: "I offered a sacrifice / I made an offer / expanded on the floor of the mountain / I raised seven vessels of libation / at their feet I put cane, cedar and myrtle" (idem, 155). The gods were pleased with the sacrifice: "The gods felt the odor / they felt the good odor/ the gods, like flies gathered around the sacrificer" (op. cit. pages 155, 160).
So many points in common with the biblical text cannot be due to chance. Nor is there reason to invoke the supernatural to justify them. To explain the common points it is enough is to presuppose the dependence of one of the texts to the other, ie, that one of the authors used the work of the other to write his account. Either Genesis 6-9 depends on the Babylonian epic, or the dependency occurs in the opposite direction. As the Mosaic authorship of Genesis cannot be overstated, and there is strong evidence that the biblical book was composed in the sixth century B. C., it is more likely that the author of the biblical narrative used the babylonian epic.
We know that the vast library of Ashurbanipal was built in the seventh century B. C. Since the Jews went captive to Babylon at the end of that centuty, they may have found the famous epic in the library built by Ashurbanipal. The possibility sounds even more plausible when we are informed that, in modern times, the epic was discovered in the ruins of that library.
Let us proceed to the third story that seems to be closely related to Genesis. The accounts included in the Indian epic Mahabharata originated around 800. C. (Wikipedia. Mahabharata). Among them, there is one which tells the resolution of Brahma to destroy humanity. To preserve our seed from destruction, Brahma decided to save an individual, Manu, and warned: "All stable and movable things belonging to the terrestrial nature will be drowned and suffer complete destruction. You must build a strong, solid ship, and get on board with seven sages. Great saint, take into the ship all seeds which received their names from the twice-born men [the Brahmans]."
The Indian text beautifully reports that, after the construction of the ship, it was "agitated by fierce winds, and waved on the water like a drunken woman [in her way]. Neither the land nor the regions of heaven or the space between them could be seen. All things became water. A big fish, however, dragged Manu's ship to the Himalayas."
Holger Kersten published a famous book on the relationship between the Bible and Indian traditions. Although several theses of his book were taken more from imagination than from evidence, there are data that need to be weighed. One of them suggests the influence of ancient Hebrews in North India. It is worth remembering what Kersten wrote about this point:
"Noah’s descendants and the territories in which they were established are listed in chapter 10 of Genesis. At the end, the account adds: 'and the border of the Canaanites extended [...] to Lhasa' (Gen. 10:19). Lhasa is the capital of Tibet [...] The connection between ancient Israel and Kashmiri [located in northern India] can be best demonstrated in the field of linguistics. The Kashmiri language is different from all other Indian languages [...] It suffered a great influence from Hebrew. Abdul Azad writes: 'The language of Kashmir derives from Hebrew. According to tradition, in remote past, the Jewish people lived in those parts'"(KERSTEN, Holger. Jesus lived in India. 24th Ed., Rio de Janeiro: Best Seller, 2007. pages 71,77).
As the Mahabharata was composed about two centuries before Genesis, we may conclude the exchange between Jews and Hindus led the author of the poem to relate the Flood to the supreme God, who in those regions was known as Brahma. And as no influence occurs in only one direction, the Indian story of the Flood, once drafted, was recognized by the Jews as similar to old traditions of their own people.
The writer of Genesis demonstrates an incredibly vast erudition. A proof of this is the list of nations in chapter 10 of his book. It is generally accepted as one of the most complete lists of ancient nations we know of. Therefore, the author of Genesis did not have lack of information about other nations. It is not impossible that someone with his profile knew the Indian tradition of the Flood. If that was the case, the Jewish writer of Genesis may have concluded that the Indian and Babylonian accounts of floods referred to a single fact. And as his faith was monotheistic, nothing could be more natural for him than to conclude that the religious differences between the two reports should be solved in favor of monotheism.
When he contacted the Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia, the author or editor of the Book of Genesis reinterpreted it in monotheistic terms, because of the similarities with the Indian story, which he knew and that was based on the act of Brahma. If this occurred, the monotheistic reinterpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh was not taken from nothing, but from the authority due to the greater antiquity of the Indian version of the Flood.
Why the biblical author did not reinterpret the details of the epic, as he did with its supernatural background? Why did he choose to preserve them? He probably did so, because he considered the facts of the Epic of Gilgamesh to be historical. They did not conflict with the narrative of the great Flood the Jews had preserved. So, there was no reason for the Jewish author to exclude the facts of the Epic from the biblical text, but only to eliminate the polytheistic meaning they had.
After the excavations we talked about in the previous text, which were conducted in the twenties of the last century, "Sir Max Mallowan, digging at Nimrud (Calah), proposed a revision of Woolley’s theory. He attributed the biblical Flood to a different alluvial level in Mesopotamia. While scientists considered Woolley’s Flood to have happened around 3500 B. C., Professor Mallowan proposed the layer that gave rise to the Mesopotamian story was the one dated 2900 B. C." (www.dialogue.adventist.org/ articles/09. Accessed 27/12/2008).
It is to be noted that the oldest level of floodings discovered by Mallowan is located in Shuruppak, which is portrayed as the last antediluvian city in the Sumerian story of the Flood. After the mention of Shuruppak, the Sumerian narrative asserts: "Then the Flood occurred ". According to the Bible, the year 2900 B. C., that is, the time when Shuruppak was flooded, is situated in Noah's life. So, if it was not the biblical Flood, the destruction of Shuruppak belonged to the context in which the patriarch lived.
In short, we have no need to explain the biblical Flood by the theory of glaciation, as many contemporary scholars still do. The findings of Woolley and Mallowan, associated with the Sumerian, Babylonian and Indian Flood reports form a more acceptable framework for the biblical catastrophe than that which emerges from the glaciation theory. Of course, it is not necessary to accept all interpretive links I have described. If we only accept the dependence of Noah’s story to that of Utnapshitim, and the dating of the Shuruppak flooding around 2900 B. C., we are already brought to the time and place of Noah. It does not seem that this link breaks hermeneutical rules, but that it points to real events that the biblical account preserved.
There is, however, a central point in these associations, which have been little discussed so far: the local character of the floods discovered by Woolley and Mallowan, which opposes to the universal scope of the event narrated in the Sumerian, Babylonian and Indian traditions. This point will be addressed in the next text, which will also focus on the biblical text.
