Flood myth or biblical fact: Should believers swallow the Noah story?

This is a thoughtful discussion of the Flood myth and its origins.....

Flood myth or biblical fact: Should believers swallow the Noah story?

The flood story could not have happened as described in Genesis, and it's suspiciously like the Epic of Gilgamesh

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.626855

How should a Jew of faith relate to the Noah story, given that it clearly couldn't have happened as related in Genesis?

For one thing, there is no geological or archaeological evidence that a flood covered the world’s landmasses up to Mount Ararat in the mountains of Armenia. Also the notion that each animal species in the world, or even a fraction of them, could be housed within an ark strains credibility.

Also, the Noah story bears a more than passing resemblance to a number of ancient flood myths.

The earliest-known flood legend is a Sumerian one written about 4,000 years ago, in the 17th century B.C.E. It relates how King Ziusudra was warned of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood, and was instructed to build a large boat. A later version of this story, the "Atrahasis Epic", stars a man named Atrahasis.

But the most well-known Mesopotamian flood story, found in Nineveh while excavating the library of King Asshurbanipal, is the Epic of Gilgamesh. (The flood story comprises only a small part of this epic and is thought to be a version of the Atrahasis Epic.)

Common to the Mesopotamian and Judaic flood stories is that the gods decide to drown errant mankind, but to save one person (and his family) on a ship. He brings animals on board to save them from the deluge. After the flood, the boat alights on top of a mountain, birds are released to determine if the land has dried, and the hero then emerges and offers sacrifices.

Keeping the faith

Among believers, the most common approach is to ignore the whole story. Questioning the veracity of the Bible and suggesting mythological sources for the Noah story are an attack on faith itself. What possible purpose can a religious person achieve by engaging in these issues?

But there is a second approach, which is to consider both the Noah story and the Gilgamesh myth to have arisen from reality. One popular theory is that they relate to a catastrophic flood that created the Black Sea. However, the Bible goes to great lengths to point out that this was a global flood that destroyed all of humanity and animal life, not a localized one. Plus, it is difficult to imagine how a flood in the area of the Black Sea could have covered the mountains of Armenia.

There is yet a third approach: To accept that the Noah story is nonfactual – but that this in no way detracts from the authenticity and divine origin of the Torah.

Polemic against paganism

Two Jewish biblical scholars who took this third approach were Umberto Cassuto and Nahum Sarna, both writing in the mid-1900s. Both academicians opposed biblical source criticism, believing in a single authorship of the Bible, although neither was prepared to say this was God (which detached both writers from the orthodox world of biblical interpretation).

To Cassuto, these flood stories were so much part of the culture of the early Israelites that the Bible was unable to ignore them, and a flood story was therefore incorporated into the Bible after removal of all pagan concepts.

Sarna’s approach is more compelling. He regards the early stories in Genesis as polemics against Mesopotamian paganism and its way of life.

In other words, Sarna postulates, the Bible "republished" a mythological story that people at that time were familiar with, but substituted Jewish values within them.

Here are some examples of how biblical values were inserted into the ancient legend.

At a very basic level, Mesopotamian culture was a very pessimistic one. Their mythology teaches that humanity was created solely for the benefit of the gods and to do their hard work. Famine, sickness, and even global destruction were methods of population control brought about on the whim of the gods. Hence, the Atrahasis myth tells us:

And the country became too wide, the people too numerous,
The country was as noisy as a bellowing bull.
The gods grew restless at their clamor,
Ellil …….. addressed the great gods:
“The noise of mankind has become too much for me,
I am losing sleep over their racket.
Cut off food supplies to the people!”

The Noah story, by contrast, emphasizes that a single God, and not a multitude of gods, controls the forces of nature.

Moreover, the fate of the world is determined not by the random whim of the gods but by the morality of its inhabitants. God is the model for righteousness, and man can follow in His path: “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9)

Only when humanity believes that life is more than a gamble and has trust in its deity can mankind “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land” (Genesis 9:1) and engage in the sustained scientific and societal progress that characterizes a globe with a biblical worldview. Hence, after the flood, God promises never again to subject the world to absolute destruction, and His covenant is attested to by a rainbow joining heaven and earth: "I have set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth" (Genesis 9:11-13).

In these biblical passages, says Sarna, the Torah is attacking the paganism of Mesopotamia, the pessimism of its worldview, and its belief in a random world.

Immortality, the forbidding pit and heaven

The second example of how Jewish values were inserted into the flood myth touches on life after death. The hero of the Gilgamesh myth, a monarch, is distraught when a close friend dies and seeks to return him to life. Much of the myth is related to this search. King Gilgamesh makes contact with the flood hero Atrahasis, since Atrahasis has gained immortality from the gods as a result of his surviving the flood.

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http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.626855

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Mesopotamian mythology indicates the issue of mortality caused considerable angst in ancient times, no doubt because death did not lead to the Jewish ascent to a celestial realm (Ecclesiastes 12:7), but to descend to a grim and forbidding pit. After many adventures, Gilgamesh realizes that achieving immortality in this world is impossible and that his immortality rests with the constructions he has done for his city.

The Noah story does not address this issue, perhaps because it is already addressed in the Garden of Eden story. In this allegory, Adam is a product of the earth (“adama” in Hebrew), and to earth he is destined to return. Man did once possess immortality, but this was lost because of human nature.

Nevertheless, the Garden of Eden and Tree of Life still exist, although guarded by the flaming swords of cherubim. From these enigmatic verses, Jewish tradition fathomed that there is a heavenly Garden of Eden, thereby softening the frightening reality of mortality.

An exquisite monotheization

A third way in which the story is de-paganized, lies in the exquisite monotheistic resetting of the tale.

The biblical flood describes God’s control over the “fountains of the great deep” (Genesis 7:11), primeval waters that burst forth to inundate the entire earth. But in the Mesopotamian version of the tale, no single god is credited with orchestrating the flood. In fact, the gods are distraught at the destruction that they have collectively brought to the world:

The flood roared like a bull,
Like a wild ass screaming the winds howled…..
Anu went beserk…..
The goddess (Anu) watched and wept….
Nintu wept and fueled her passions…

The full thrust of the biblical flood was for 40 days. Many numbers in the Bible have meaning: the number 40 may signify God’s intimate protection in preparation for a new beginning. Individual providence of this nature was unheard of in the pagan world, since never were the gods interested in individuals. Not surprisingly, therefore, no number of religious significance for the duration of the flood can be found within the Atrahasis and Gilgamesh flood myths.

Speaking snakes and monotheistic refits

Monotheism was a new and radical idea in the ancient Near East, and the Torah was its manifesto. A monotheistic refit of a mythological story was one way by which the Bible chose to promulgate its revolutionary ideas.

However, one needs to appreciate what Sarna and Cassuto have done. They have allegorized the Noah story (just as they allegorized other early stories of Genesis).

There is much in the Bible to support this allegorical approach. Even when the Bible was written, people would have realized that a garden where the three main rivers of the Near East joined together was not a reality then, and probably had not been a reality in the past. Rather, it was a representation of all the fertility of the known world.

There was also never a speaking snake. It was a representation of evil and possibly the supernatural world of the occult.

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However, allegorizing the Torah was not the direction that Jewish tradition wished to go, for many reasons.

If the Noah story is an allegory, then there is an obvious question as to whether Noah really existed. And if Noah was fictitious, then what about Abraham and Moses? With good reason, Jewish tradition could never accept the non-historicity of Noah, the patriarchs and the greatest of all prophets Moses.

In fact, the Gilgamesh Epic is also a larger-than-life story based on a real man named King Gilgamesh, who ruled Sumerian Uruk – today in Iraq - in 2700 B.C.E.

But where does allegory end and history begin, since the allegorical and historic parts of the Torah are merged together to present a coherent narrative? Allegory also involves free interpretation. However, it is but a small step to freely interpret the halakhic sections of the Torah; this could destroy the very foundations of traditional Judaism.

Allegorizing parts of the Bible is not apologetics. Nor does it negate the Divine origin of the Torah. Rather, it is an exciting way of biblical interpretation that opens the door wide for new and original insights (bible-pedia.org). Some of these may be off the mark, but others will be intellectually satisfying and religiously uplifting.

Admittedly, for the person of faith who is not prepared to accept the first few chapters of Genesis as historic fact, there are theological stumbling blocks ahead. But many will readily accept this challenge.

 

It is a retelling of a Sumerian story, one that is probably describing the Black Sea flood. It has no bearing on religion, for Noah story is meant as a story of lesson, you will find that most stories in the Bible/Torah are a mix of historical events mixed with moral lessons. This is how history was written prior to very modern times.

 

Wrong location.. and the Black Sea Flood was very slow moving... People had weeks and months to move away with their livestock.

 

I thought we hashed much of this out months ago......

 

1. When you read the Bible, you must read everything as if it is the infallible word of god, because that's the way everything in the Bible was intended.

2. How do you go from the Black Sea Flood to Noah's Flood?

 

I believe that massive floods did occur in the deep past and these floods generated these global myths. One such flood was when the Mediterrenean burst into the Black Sea. Another one could have occurred when glaciers retreated in Canada and a massive lake poured into the oceans. The other source could be extreme weather events which to the superstitious people of the Bronze Age had to be explained by creating a mythology. The flood in the Bible was impossible globally.

 

Judaism has never been a faith of literal interpretation.

 

You understand the even Moses doesn't read the Bible that way in the Bible right?

There are people in search of a historical touchpoint for the flood story.

 

The Black Sea Flood was a very slow moving flood..

The advance and retreat of Glaciers is well documented in geology.. Saudi Arabia had shallow inland seas and was more savannah like at some point in history.

To me.. the most likely basis for the flood story is a flood in the Euphrates river basin that swept barges carrying grain, beer and livestock out into the Persian Gulf and as far as the Bahrain archipelago.

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That certainly seems true to me.. and they sure don't seem to agonize over the Bible being literal history/science.

 

Not so sure you can discount the Black Sea flood that easily. James Cameron has found a lot under the sea recently. I would have loved to see it happen. But think about the people that lived in the basin prior to the flood. They must have known they were below sea level yet still lived there. It would be like living under a dam yet not knowing anything about how it was made, if it was sound and so on. Your guess though only describes one flood story, the world is filled with them.

 

If you can accept that an omnipotent entity created everything from nothingness, then you can easily overlook a few dubious details about a flood.

 

Well Well, we finally agree on something.

 

More likely about floods in the Euphrates River Basin.. Evidently happened every few years and ultimately built the delta..

 

Every book in the Bible contradicts every other book in the Bible in one way or another.

 

Euphrates River Basin.

 

Yep. I expect the flood story and stories about Atlantis were on a very similar nature and origin. It was not a period rich in dry history as we know it today, but rather one of myths spun to teach moral lessons, and at times later recorded and maintained in some manner for posterity.

The Old Testament and Torah are basically a compendium of such tales, with the New Testament being another compendium, but in that instance of a mix of a specific sun-based mythology and various moral teachings in the form of letters and other religious writings. The Apocalypse looks like something drug-induced, and perhaps it was, though it also contains many celestial elements and concerns itself with astrological "signs" in the sky based on the sun, moon, constellations, and perhaps the other wandering stars, i.e. planets, as well. One common theme shared by those later NT stories and teachings, though, is the situation of Israel at that time in relation to the occupying Romans and their attempts to tax and interfere culturally and religiously. They didn't take well to having the caesars, men regarded as deities rather like the pharaohs of Egypt, interfering in their religious practices.

I find this stuff very fascinating, how historical events were interpreted and reimagined in zealous religious terms. Consider, for instance, this interesting history of the "Abomination of Desolation":

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/nero.html
The notion of the Antichrist first finds expression in Daniel, where at the end time "the king of the north" (11:40) shall appear, defeating some nations and sparing others, persecuting the saints and putting many to death. In the Jewish Temple shall be placed "the abomination that maketh desolate" (11:31), and he shall "magnify himself above every god" (11:36). The figure here is that of Antiochus VI (Epiphanes), the king of Syria who captured Jerusalem in 167 BC and desecrated the Temple by offering the sacrifice of a pig on an altar to Zeus ("the abomination of desolation," I Maccabees, 1:54). In seeking to Hellenize the Jews, Antiochus forbade their religious practices and commanded that copies of the Law be burned, all of which is related in the apocrypha of I Maccabees (1:10ff) and by Josephus in the Antiquities of the Jews (XII.5.4).

Attributes of the Antichrist also have been applied to Pompey the Great, who profaned the Temple by entering the Holy of Hollies after his conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BC and is called "the dragon" in the pseudepigraphic Psalms of Solomon (2:29), another epithet applied to the Antichrist (as it was to Nero in the Sibylline Oracle V).

Caligula, too, recalls the Abomination of Desolation, when, at the apocalypse, the Antichrist will be enthroned in the Temple. When, in AD 40, it was reported that Jews had demolished a statue of Caligula erected in his honor, he ordered that his image, "a colossal statue gilt all over" (Philo, CCIII), be placed in the Temple, itself, to be enforced by Petronius, the governor of Syria. There were plaintive supplications that the command be revoked, and Petronius asked that it be annulled, while delaying as much as possible the completion of the statue. The artists were admonished "to take plenty of time, so as to make their work perfect, since things which are done in a hurry are very often inferior, but things which are done with great pains and skill require a length of time" (CCXLVI). Agrippa, too, at an sumptuous banquet for the emperor, intervened and managed to have Caligula rescind the order. When the letter of Petronius arrived, Caligula, incensed at the presumption of the governor, ordered his suicide. The command was not received, however, before news of Caligula's own death (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.8; War of the Jews, II.10; Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius, XXX-XLII).

 

Interesting info on the abomination of desolation.

 

Partial list of flood myths:

Ancient Near East[edit]

Sumerian[edit]
Sumerian creation myth

Babylonian (Epic of Gilgamesh)[edit]
Gilgamesh flood myth

Abrahamic religions (Noah's flood)[edit]





The Deluge, c. 1896–1902, by James Jacques Joseph TissotGenesis flood narrative Noah's Ark
Islamic view of Noah


Classical Antiquity[edit]
Ancient Greek flood myths

Medieval Europe[edit]

Irish[edit]
Lebor Gabála Érenn – Cessair

Modern era folklore[edit]

Finnish[edit]
Finnish flood myth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths

 

exactly - it's a retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh story !
The Gilgamesh Flood

In reality, it was Utnapishtim’s flood, told in the 11th tablet. The council of the gods decided to flood the whole earth to destroy mankind. But Ea, the god who made man, warned Utnapishtim, from Shuruppak, a city on the banks of the Euphrates, and told him to build an enormous boat:


‘O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu:
Tear down the house and build a boat!
Abandon wealth and seek living beings!
Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings!
Make all living beings go up into the boat.
The boat which you are to build,
its dimensions must measure equal to each other:
its length must correspond to its width.’5

 

There is some proof that the real king of Shuruppak sold grain and hauled it down river on barges that broke loose in a river flood in 2900 BC.

Below there is information on some 600 global flood myths from several continents.


http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mitos_creacion/mitos_diluvio.htm

 

What about the "flood" of modern man, out of Africa, when all other mankind actually DID die in a real extinction???

 

Yes,...
Genesis was a response to this well known and accepted Myth of the time.
The idea of a boat and flood of water was used as metaphor for what actually occurred as an extermination of all mankind, like Neanderthals, for instance.

Only the three racial stocks of Ham, Japheth, and Shem were survivors.

 

It's a fact that about 12000 years ago when the glaciers from the last ice age start to melt there was a global flood.


Problem is that the Bible claims that earth is 6000 years old;not to mention that Hebrew religion wasn't discovered until 4 something thousands years ago.

There are ruins like puma punku build with impossible precision out of stone that only diamond tools can cut 12000 years ago. It's destroyed by what appears to be a flood

it may prove atlantis was real.

Maybe humanity used to be more advanced 12 thousand years ago. Otherwise how would you explain puma punku. They perused knowlege and hence after many years of retelling the flood story Hebrews religion retold it in their version of thing....even though they never experienced it

 

They didn't all die, There was no massive extinction of humankind... You are trying to conflate human migrations with the flood story.

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Most ancient cities were not flooded nor is there any evidence of a flood footprint... Jericho wasn't flooded nor Egypt nor Anatolia..

 

Genetic studies have supplied a convincing answer to the first question: Our modern human ancestors evolved in Africa, then swept across Eurasia beginning some 60,000 to 50,000 years ago. Now, a pair of American archaeologists claim to have uncovered the route those early Homo sapiens took on their way to populating the planet.

By following the broken trail of stone tools that modern humans left behind like bread crumbs marking their path, researchers propose that our ancestors took a circuitous path through Arabia, pausing there for some 50,000 years when it was a green oasis. Then they journeyed on to the Middle East, where they first encountered Neanderthals.

continued.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...s-modern-humans-arabia-emiran-nubian-origins/