Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Before we launch into the story of Noah, the ark, the flood, and his sons, we need to deal with an underlying issue related to language and tradition. First, let’s talk about the word “myth.” Try Google searching topics related to myths, like, “myths about dieting” or “myths about sex” or “myths about aging” or “myths about sex while dieting and aging” and you will begin to notice that in our casual use of the term myth, we equate it with falsehood. If it’s a myth it’s not true. But that does a disservice to the term, which actually relates to a literary device or form that, while fictional, is actually striving in many cases to communicate truth. Myth doesn’t mean false. In fact, great truths have been communicated through myths. Some of Jesus’ greatest truths were communicated through stories he made up – fictional characters of a father and his two sons, or a Good Samaritan. To say that the story of Noah and the Ark was a Jewish myth causes some to stumble a bit because it’s in the Bible. And if it’s in the Bible, it must be true (not a myth), right?
This idea that God essentially wrote the Bible using the hands of humans has a fancy name to impress your friends, Plenary Inspiration, which asserts that the Bible (at least originally) is exactly how God wanted it to be. In addition to that, the loudest branch of Christianity in the United States for the last 125 years or so said that “real” Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant (without error) and infallible (incapable of being wrong). Add it all together, and when you open up the Bible and read the first chapters, you might therefore conclude that God created the heavens and the earth in week, with a literal Adam and Eve and talking snake, and eventually a guy named Noah saving the animals and humans from extinction with an ark he was told to make by God, and that all of it is literally, historically, and factually accurate.
That way of thinking about the Bible, however, is very Western and relatively new. Judaism is an Eastern religion and is very old – the ancient rabbis did not view the Bible the way we do. They were very comfortable with creating and using myths and embellishing historical accounts for theological purposes. They were not writing for us, with our hyper-critical sensitivity to detailed accuracy. They were wanting to convey their theological perspective to the world, and primarily for their own adherents. If you have a problem with thinking about the Bible this way, you have a problem with more than me – you have a problem with the actual writers who gave the Bible to you. As you reflect on this, you may end up having a much bigger problem with those who set you up for this problem in the first place – the publishers and leaders who demanded that the Bible be looked at in a very particular way, and added threat if you didn’t. That stifling of questions and ideas is in direct opposition to the spirit of Jewish scholarship, which is what informed Jesus and Paul’s approach. Viewing parts of the Bible in their appropriate genre – sometimes myth or fiction – does not rob it of authority. In fact, appreciating and embracing the genre strengthens it.
The story of Noah and the Ark (Genesis chapters 6-9) was written in response to other stories emerging from surrounding cultures about a great flood that actually did happen. In the Nerd Out Notes below, you can read descriptions of some of those stories. Did a flood actually cover the entire earth? That is entirely unlikely. To the original people who experienced some sort of major flood, however, that’s how it seemed. Remember that our knowledge of the curvature of the earth is a new discovery in perspective. None of the biblical writers had a cosmology that included a spherical earth. When these ancient people looked around when such a flood took place, their report would be that the whole earth was covered, because that’s as far as they could see. They did not consider the fact that they could not actually see the ends of the earth – just their end of their earth. Lots of cultures tried to explain why the gods would allow or cause such an event. Remembering that Genesis is the story of beginnings for the Jewish people, we need to ask what the story meant for them, and also what they weren’t trying to communicate.
Pete Enns, author of Genesis for Normal People, notes:
The first thing that helps us take off our modern glasses is to recognize that (1) Israel’s neighbors also had flood stories very similar to the biblical one, and (2) Israel’s flood story was written after these other stories (as we saw with the creation story in Genesis 1). These older versions come from ancient Sumeria, Assyria, and Babylon. It seems there really was a catastrophic flood at some point in the far distant past (some archaeologists say around 2900 B.C.) in the ancient Near East. And different cultures in that region gave different reasons for why it happened. (50) Let’s remember that for ancient Israel, as for other cultures, this deathly flood had to be explained somehow. And the Israelites gave an explanation that said something loud and clear about how their God was different from the other gods. Their God isn’t touchy and grumpy; he has standards he expects his created beings to uphold. For God to have killed all life on earth must mean that his standards have been violated across the board. Or, as the writer of the story puts it, “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (6:5). So, God wiped the slate clean and started over by choosing Noah, the righteous one, as the new beginning. (54)
In the story of creation, the biblical authors wanted to paint God as one who brought order out of chaos. We hear that echoed in the Flood story – water again covered the surface of the earth, and God restored it to order. This was a cosmic do-over. While we may get stuck on a lot of questions along the way about what the meaning of unleashing the flood in the first place says about the character and nature of God, this was not the original author’s leading purpose. Their statement is simply that God is the one powerful enough to do this, was motivated from a place of holiness, and yet was also driven by grace. Some ancient Midrash on the story submit the idea that it was actually Noah’s sons who built the Ark, and Noah spent that century warning everyone else to prepare, presumably inviting them to be saved as well (but to no avail). Noah, in this regard, becomes a graceful second Adam who doesn’t fall into the temptation of disobedience which leads to death, but gets it right and lives (along with his family and the rest of the animals).
The ark is built, the animals get onboard, the flood happens, every breathing thing dies except for those on the ark, and eventually, the water subsides and Noah and company start over. God hangs up his bow of wrath pledging never to destroy the earth again. It’s the colors of the rainbow, letting us know God is inclusive right there in the beginning! Everything is perfectly restored. Until it isn’t.
The story takes a weird turn. Enough time passes for Noah to plant a vineyard, harvest the grapes, and make wine. Apparently, it was a good vintage, because he got ripped. So ripped that he ended up going to bed naked in his tent. His son, Ham, went into the tent, perhaps to check up on his dad, and saw that he was naked and cracked up. Instead of covering him up right away, he thought it would be fun to let his brothers Shem and Japheth in on the discovery. His brothers, however, didn’t want to see their dad’s junk on full display, and instead walked in backwards with a blanket to cover him up. When Noah woke up, he was incensed, and cursed Ham. Remember that in the story of Adam and Eve there was a curse delivered around the subject of nakedness? The serpent issued the temptation which, when indulged, led to shame associated with nakedness. Here we are all over again.
The writers of Genesis tell us in this account (Genesis 9:18-29) that Ham was the father of Canaan. This anachronism is one nod to the fact that this was written way past the earliest remembrance of Israel’s history since Canaan didn’t exist yet – this is told in retrospect to people who knew the most important thing about Canaan to every Israelite: Canaan was the sworn enemy in days of old. Israelites hated Canaanites. They warred against Canaanites. The wrote against Canaanites. They forbid intermarriage with Canaanites. It was totally okay to speak terribly of Canaanites. You get the idea. Now, in the story of Noah, we are given an explanation of where they came from, and why it was okay to treat them so poorly: their genesis was the DNA of Ham the disobedient son. A disobedience to God. As a cursed people, their mistreatment was therefore warranted and eventually even ordained by those claiming to speak for God.
This story eventually became a foundation for affirming the peculiar institution of American slavery. American slaveholders were biblically justified to mistreat this particular ethnic group because it was ordained by God. In The Great Stain: Witnessing American Slavery, Frederick Douglass was remembered for his weighing in on such an abuse of scripture:
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”
What are we left with? If we take the story as simply as it was offered, and with its original intent, we can go home hearing our long-suffering Jewish ancestors remind us that God is really powerful, and truly graceful, even when it seems like the rains will never end. We are not alone, and our suffering is not because God is trying to destroy us.
Since we live now, however, we may want to ask some questions of ourselves, like…
· How do we make sense of chaos and destruction in our time – what kind of theology are we holding?
· How have we limited our understanding of this story due to the influences of American Christianity?
· How have we justified our mistreatment of others (attitudes and behaviors), perhaps even using scripture for our support?
May we all embrace the love of God proclaimed in this complex story. May we all take time to delve into the complexity of our perspectives, that we would never find ourselves using this story to justify our own prejudices in our time.
Nerd Out Notes…
Add these books to your reading list for reference on Genesis: Pete Enns, Genesis for Normal People by Pete Enns, which brings excellent academics with very approachable writing (he is fun to listen to and read); and In the Beginningby the great historian Karen Armstrong, which offers a Midrash approach to the texts.
From the Yale Anchor Bible Dictionary:
NOAH AND THE ARK This entry consists of two articles. The first focuses on the biblical hero of the Flood (Gen 5:28–9:29) who later became the subject of Jewish and Christian legend. The second article focuses on the ark itself and the claims through the ages that its remains have survived.
THE HERO OF THE FLOOD
A. Introduction
1. Name
2. Flood Heroes in Other Ancient Literature
B. Noah in Judeo-Christian Tradition
1. Hebrew Bible
2. Apocrypha
3. Genesis Apocryphon
4. New Testament
5. Pseudepigrapha
A. Introduction
In the genealogical reckoning of Gen 5:28–29, Noah is introduced as a son of the 182-year-old Lamech. Noah stands at the end of the era that is now to be destroyed, the era that has lasted more than 1,500 years since the beginning of the world when the first human couple was created.
According to the genealogies of Genesis 4 and 5, there have been 7–10, depending on how we count them, generations starting with that of Adam and Eve up to Noah’s generation. However, the narrative tradition hurries through the same 1,656 years in just three generations, beginning with that of Adam and Eve, followed by that of Cain and Abel, and now of Noah and his family. Then the Flood sweeps over—only Noah’s family is saved, because “Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his time; with God Noah walked” (Gen 6:9). Thus, Noah is the one who is saved, guarded by the covenant of the rainbow, and in turn is destined to save humanity. He is the father of the new era; he is the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, whose offspring are going to repopulate the entire world after the Flood (Gen 10:1–32). Noah is an epoch divider figure as well as a bridge between the quasi-mythological history and a more humanly accountable history.
In these early chapters of Genesis a complex image of Noah emerges. The later chapters and books variously refer to Noah specifically by name or obliquely by alluding to many aspects of Noah and the Flood Story. In the following sections the major significance of Noah and his ancient counterparts and some of the more obvious references and allusions to him are examined.
1. Name. No firm etymology for the name Noah (Heb Nōaḥ, Gk Nōe) has been established, but it is generally derived from the verb root nwḥ, to rest, settle down, repose, etc.; thus “Noah” may mean “to rest.” Whatever “Noah,” spelled consonantally as nḥ, may have meant originally, the genealogy (Gen 5:29) gives us a folk etymology that Noah (nḥ) is to bring us comfort (nḥm, Piʿel, to comfort, console: Nipʿal, to be sorry, console oneself); thus nḥ is associated aurally to nḥm, making Noah the bringer of comfort (nḥm) from labor (derived from ʿśh) and toil (derived from ʿṣb).
It is not fortuitous that when the Flood Story introduces Noah, these very same roots, nḥm, ʿśh, and ʿṣb, are repeated in the same order: “And the Lord was sorry [nḥm] that he had made [ʿśh] man on the earth and it grieved [ʿṣb] him to his heart”—(Gen 6:6).
The wordplay involving nḥm continues; “And the Lord said, ‘I will blot out [mḥh] man whom I have created’ ” (Gen 6:7). Here the two key consonants ḥ and m are reversed. The wordplay still goes on as “Noah [nḥ] found favor [ḥn] in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6:8); note here the two consonants of the name are also reversed. Furthermore, Noah begets a son named Ham (ḥm, Gen 6:10), relating assonantally to nḥm, “comfort,” but substantially to ḥms, “violence”; “and the earth was corrupt in the eyes of God and the earth was filled with violence [ḥms]” (Gen 6:11). “Noah” (nḥ) and “violence” (ḥms) are picked up again in Gen 6:13 and the wordplay extends to the word mḥwṣ, “outside,” in Gen 6:14, as Noah is to “pitch it (the ark) with pitch inside and outside [mḥwṣ].”
Moreover, observe that Ham is introduced soon after the initial episode of the story, namely, the sexual involvement of the sons of gods with the daughters of men (Gen 6:1–4), and then he finds himself in a sexual offense against Noah at the final episode of the story (Gen 9:18–29). These two episodes of sexual intrigue frame the story, and Ham is closely associated with both of them.
The notion of mḥh, “blotting out,” as a result of the Lord’s “regret” (nḥm) terminates in the central episode of the devastating flood destruction (Gen 7:17–24), where that verb is used both actively and passively: “and he blotted out [ymḥ] every living thing that was upon the face of the ground … and they were blotted out [ymḥw] from the earth” (Gen 7:23). The idea of the name Noah, “rest,” is fittingly echoed where the ark securely rests (tnḥ) after 150 days of water ordeal, yet the dove (ywnh) could not find the place to rest (mnwḥ) its foot (Gen 8:9).
Many words that are loosely associated with the name Noah are used in a cluster at the beginning of the story. These same words are then distributed in strategic positions throughout the story, helping to unify the story and to make it unmistakably Noah’s Flood Story.
2. Flood Heroes in Other Ancient Literature. a. Mesopotamian. Noah as the Flood hero has many counterparts in ancient literature. To begin with, the Sumerian and Akkadian genealogical material as well as the epic tradition preserved various names of the righteous Flood hero, who stands exactly at the same relative position in world history as Noah, that is, at the end of the mythological, primeval historical era, ushering in a new, more concretely historical era. The Flood, thus, serves as an epoch divider. The main difference between Noah and his Mesopotamian counterparts is that Noah dies, while the other Flood heroes seem to gain immortality (Cohen 1974). See FLOOD.
(1) The Sumerian Deluge Story. The Sumerian counterpart of Noah is Ziusudra (meaning “life of prolonged day(s)”), the son of Ubartutu of Shuruppak. He is the Flood hero and epoch divider who becomes immortal. This is known from both the genealogical tradition found in the Sumerian king list (Jacobsen 1939) and from the narrative tradition as preserved in the Sumerian Deluge Story (ANET, 42–44; Civil 1969).
The 6-column text of the Sumerian Deluge Story is badly broken; the major portion of each column is gone. Only about one fourth (approximately 70 out of 300 lines) of the story remains, and even that is preserved imperfectly. But the text includes more than the Flood Story. In column 1, there appears to be one or two episodes of earlier destructions of humankind long before the Flood. The text also recalls the creation by Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursag of the black-headed people, i.e., the Mesopotamians. The kingship and civilization are established, and the name of five antediluvian cities, which we know from the Sumerian King List and to which different gods are assigned, are listed in column 2. The pious king Ziusudra is praying in column 3 and the impending flood is announced in column 4. The Flood rages, Ziusudra is saved, and he offers a sacrifice in column 5. The earth is repopulated and Ziusudra becomes immortal and lives in Dilmun in column 6. The rest of the tablet is broken off.
(2) Gilgamesh XI The best preserved Mesopotamian Flood narrative, however, is found in Tablet 11 of the Akkadian Gilgamesh epic. It provides so far the clearest parallel to Noah’s flood story. The creator and magician god Enki/Ea cleverly communicates to Utnapishtim (for the meaning of the name, see below), whose nickname is Atrahasis (meaning “exceedingly wise”), about the impending disaster and instructs him to build a cubical ship with six stories and nine sections and to save himself and his family. The Flood rages for seven days; everyone dies except the Utnapishtim family, the seed of all living creatures, and all the craftsmen. The ship rests on the top of the Mount Nasir, a bird is let out to check the water level, and Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice over which the hungry gods gather like flies. Utnapishtim is granted immortality by the gods. According to Anne D. Kilmer (1987b) we perhaps can even recover a rainbow covenant motif from the enigmatic passage describing Ishtar’s colorful necklace of lapis lazuli and her promise:
Then she [Nintu] approached the big flies
Which Anu had made and was carrying …
Let these flies be the lapis around my neck
That I may remember it [every (?)] day [and forever (?)]
(Atrahasis, 3.5.46–6.4)
The parallel passage in Gilgamesh is:
When at last the Great Goddess arrived,
She lifted up the great flies [jewels] which Anu had made light-heartedly[?]
“These gods—verily [by] the lapis round my neck and I shall not forget
These days—surely I will remember forever and not forget.”
(Gilgamesh XI 162–169)
Enki then chastises Enlil for sending the most destructive flood instead of a less severe disaster, such as a lion or a famine, to “diminish mankind.” In response Enlil makes Utnapishtim immortal.
The Flood hero himself, reluctantly at first, narrates this Flood Story to Gilgamesh, who is questing immortality and thinks that he too may obtain it by consulting Utnapishtim. Thus the rest of the Gilgamesh Epic offers no contextual parallel to Genesis, except for some isolated verbal and motif similarities.
(3) The Atrahasis Epic. However, the Atrahasis Epic, though the Flood portion of the text (Tablet III) is quite damaged, presents a narrative account of the Mesopotamian primeval history that parallels Genesis 1–11 inclusively. The Flood Story in Atrahasis (approximately 405 lines) is more than twice the size of the Gilgamesh flood story (approximately 190 lines). Although they seem to tell the same story (cf. Utnapishtim is identified as Atrahasis, “Exceedingly Wise,” in Gilgamesh XI.187), the function of the Flood in these two epics is quite different; in Atrahasis it is a population control measure and an epoch divider, whereas in Gilgamesh it explains how immortality was once granted to a mortal. A synoptic outline of the Atrahasis Epic and Genesis 1–11 is as follows:
Atrahasis
Genesis 1–11
A. Creation of Mankind
(Tablet I.1–248)
(Gen 1:1–2:25)
Summary of Work of Gods
Summary of Work of God
Creation of Mankind
Creation of Mankind
B. People’s Numerical Increase
(I.249–415)
(2:4–3:24)
Attempt to Decrease Numbers
Adam and Eve
Threat of Death by Plague
Near Death
C. Second Attempt to Decrease
Double Story (II i.1–vi.55)
(4:1–5:32)
1. Threat of Death: Drought
1. Cain and Abel
2. Severer Means
2. Lamech’s Taunt
D. Final Solution
(II vii–II vi.40)
(6:1–9:29)
Atrahasis’s Flood
Noah’s Flood
Salvation in Boat
Salvation in Tēbâ—Ark
E. Resolution
(III vi.41–viii.18)
(10:1–11:32)
Compromise between Enlil and Enki
Dispersion—Abram Leaves Ur
“Birth Control”
Exodus Motif
The Atrahasis Epic begins with the creation of humankind because the labor-class gods are fed up with the heavy tasks imposed on them by the management-class gods, and they make much “noise,” especially against the chief god, Enlil. As a result, the mother goddess Mami and magician god Enki create procreating people as a substitute for the laboring gods. The people multiplied so much in 1,200 years that they made a great “noise,” to the annoyance of Enlil. Enlil tries to exterminate them first by a famine, then 1,200 years later by a drought, and finally, yet another 1,200 years later, by the flood. Three times Enlil’s plans are foiled by Enki and his faithful worshipper Atrahasis. Now the thrice failing and furious Enlil convenes a divine assembly where a post-Flood compromise is reached among gods to limit the expanding population. At least three such population control measures (Kilmer 1972) are suggested, presumably by Enki and Mami:
Moreover, a third category let there be among people;
Let there be among people bearing women and barren women!
Let there be among people the pāšittu-demon;
Let him snatch the baby
from the lap of the woman who bore it!
Place Ugbabtu-priestess, Entu-priestess,
and Igiṣı̄tu-priestess;
Let them be taboo and
Thus cut off child-bearing!
(Atrahasis III vi.52?—vii.9)
Note Genesis 1–11 topically parallels the Atrahasis Epic but reaches exactly an opposite conclusion. Whereas the Atrahasis Epic suggests “birth control” as means to curb human population, Genesis offers “dispersion” as means to accommodate the expanding population in response to the initial blessing of Gen 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Out of the dispersion of Gen 11:1–9, who but Adam, the first Hebrew, emerges.
Atrahasis may have received immortality in the end. We cannot be sure because of the broken text, but his longevity, known from the unbroken part of the epic and spanning over three generations of 1,200 years each, is extraordinary. This gave rise to the following speculation.
(4) The Enki and Ninmah Story. The longevity of Atrahasis has led to the thought that Atrahasis may be the first man, or at least the first baby. This speculation is based on a Sumerian story called “Enki and Ninmah” (Benito 1969), which deals with the creation of people in two stages (Kikawada 1983). Note in the following story of Enki and Ninmah, the same topics and motifs as in Genesis 1–2 and Atrahasis I.1–351 are found, i.e. in the first stage humanity is invented for the purpose of work, to have dominion over the other living beings (Gen 1:26), and to bear the toil of the gods (Atrahasis I.191), and in the second stage specific persons, Adam and Eve (Gen 2:7, 22) and seven pairs of people (Atrahasis K 3399+3934, Obverse iii 9–13), are created and destined to be self-propagating by establishing marriage (Gen 2:24, Atrahasis I.300–1).
The Enki and Ninmah story begins after the goddess Nammu gives birth to gods who work in different regions of the world. When the work becomes too severe for the worker gods, they complain to the manager gods. The creator god Enki first tries to ignore the complaint by sleeping, but mother Nammu persuades Enki to create “substitutes,” namely humanity, for worker gods. Nammu decrees the fate of the new creature; goddess Ninmah imposes work on humankind. Gods become very happy; and have a big feast where Enki and Ninmah get drunk. That is the first stage of creation.
In the second stage, Ninmah proposes a people-making contest to Enki, one to create and the other to decree fate. Ninmah begins and she creates from clay six (could be seven, see Lambert and Millard 1969) creatures with some physical weaknesses. Enki decrees fates for them:
Ninmah’s Creature
Enki’s Decree
1. One with weak arm
Court officer
2. One with blinking eyes
Singer
3. One with weak feet
?
4. One with uncontrollable semen emission
Made safe
5. One barren
Appointed to harem
6. One sexless person
court officer
All these creatures of Ninmah are appointed to appropriate stations in the society—hence they gain independence and livelihood. The apex of the second stage is the creation of the procreating woman and her first baby, Umul, who was miraculously sired by Enki, the magician god himself. An irony of this story seems to lie in the fact that Ninmah the mother goddess does not recognize a baby:
She [Ninmah] approached Umul and asked him questions
[but] he did not know how to speak,
She offered him bread for his nourishment
[but] he did not reach out for it,
On the … [his] heart could not rest,
he could not sleep,
Standing up he could not sit down,
could not lie down,
a house he could not build[?]
food he could not eat,
Ninmah said with a stammer to Enki,
“The man you have fashioned is neither alive nor dead, he cannot carry anything.”
(Enki and Ninmah 96–101)
Then Enki advises her to hold him on her lap and assures her that Umul, having Enki’s “form,” will be a pious man. By the bringing forth of the first baby the model for human procreation is established by Enki, who instructs Ninmah, saying, “pouring the semen of an erected phallus in a woman’s womb, that woman will conceive in her womb.”
If the Enki and Ninmah story and the Sumerian deluge story are viewed in succession, they together seem to offer a tantalizing parallel to the whole of the Atrahasis Epic (Kilmer 1976). For this reason, Atrahasis is suspected of being the first baby. The other link between Atrahasis and the first baby lies in the meaning of the names. The first Sumerian baby’s name, given at birth, is Umul, “my day [of death] is far”—suspiciously a longevity name! Note that Atrahasis’ other name is Utnapishtim, reading here as ūta-napištim, “I have found life”—a longevity name given at the “end” of life when he is made immortal (Gilgamesh XI.193–95). Perhaps it is even better to read his full name, Utnapishtim the Distant, as um-napištim-rūqi, meaning “day of my life is long,” which would give us a still closer parallel to the Sumerian hero. Note that the name of the hero in the Sumerian deluge is Ziusudra, which means “life of prolonged day(s)”—a longevity name as well. Mesopotamian Noahs all have longevity names. In sharp contrast (Cohen 1974) to these names, Noah (nḥ)may signify eternal “Rest” or “Repose” in Sheol (cf. Isa 57:2 and Job 3:17).
b. Indo-European. (1) Iranian. The Avesta, in Vendidad Book 2 of the Iranian tradition, preserves a Zoroastrian counterpart to Noah, called Yima/Yama, the first man and first king (Christensen 1943), entrusted with government as well as religion. Yima helps expand the overburdened earth in three stages to accommodate the increasing population. He lives through 1,200 years until he is directed by Ahuramazda to prepare for an impending flood resulting from the melting snow. Ahuramazda gives Yima detailed instructions on how to make an enclosure in the mountain to save himself and “the seed of small and large cattle and the mortals and dogs and birds and the red burning fire” (Vendidad 2.25). The end of the story takes on an eschatological tone and it appears as though Yima is still in the enclosure even at the present time. From this story, too, we can recover the overall outline of the primeval history. Yima, like Noah, stands at the demarcation point between the primeval era and the new age to come.
(2) Indian. From India we can observe the Flood hero in both the genealogical and narrative traditions. He is either the seventh (or fourteenth) Manu, the last sage of the primeval era. In genealogical material Manu Vaivasvata stands at the end of the primeval epoch that is terminated by the Flood. The succeeding epoch has a different form of social structure which is reflected in a different type of genealogy (Thapar 1976). The antediluvian genealogy is a linear type wherein only one leader in a given period is accounted for, as in Genesis 4 and 5. After the Flood, the style of genealogy changes to the branched type wherein all the contemporary leaders and their relatives are recorded, i.e., to describe a family tree as in Genesis 10. The same Manu, in a narrative tradition, is saved from the Flood by a giant horned fish, which he found when it was little and helped by giving it successively bigger containers in which to grow. Thus, Manu Vaivasvata, like Noah, is the hero of the epoch-dividing Flood.
(3) Classical. Another Indo-European flood tradition is found in Greco-Roman literature, featuring righteous Deucalion and his pious wife Pyrrha, the best example of which is preserved in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This Flood Story is placed in the same relative position in the early history of humankind as in the Mesopotamian tradition and Genesis.
The Metamorphoses begins with creation, followed by deterioration of the world in four stages from the Golden Age of the righteous to the Iron Age of evil. Jove then intends to get rid of the evil; he tries this in three stages. First, the household of evil, Lycaon, is blasted by a thunderbolt. Next, Jove wants to do the same thing to the whole earth but he is dissuaded because of the fear that heaven would be burnt up as well. In the third and final stage Jove sends the Flood from which the righteous couple, Deucalion and Pyrrha, are saved; after the Flood the earth is repopulated for the new epoch.
A scholiastic commentary on Homer’s Iliad. (Il. 1.5, on Dios boulēn) preserves a progression of topics similar to that found in Metamorphoses. The commentary also alludes to and summarizes the lost composition by Stasinos, entitled Cypria, whose emphasis is on the unburdening of the overpopulated earth in three stages. The motif of overpopulation brings this tradition close to the Mesopotamian and the biblical traditions.
B. Noah in Judeo-Christian Tradition
Both in the Old and New Testaments as well as in the intertestamental literature there are references to Noah. The following are some obvious examples and some speculative specimens.
1. Hebrew Bible. a. Exodus 1–2, 15 Moses is an obvious Noah figure, perhaps even a double Noah figure, in the book of Exodus, although Abraham emerges as an even earlier reflection of the Noah figure in the Sodom and Gomorrah story (cf. 2 Peter 2:5–6 section of this article).
The Hebrew people, now located in Egypt, must go through the threefold trial and tribulation of Pharaoh’s effort to diminish their number; note the very close parallel to the outline of the Atrahasis Epic as well as that of Genesis 1–11. First, taskmasters are set up to impose hard work on the Israelites, but the harder they oppress the Israelites, the more the Israelites “multiply” (Exod 1:12, cf. 1:7 where “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” of Gen 1:28 is already echoed and amplified). Then, Pharaoh orders that the infant sons are to be killed by the two midwives Shiprah and Puah. When this plan too fails, the third trial is commanded by Pharaoh, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile!” (Exod 1:22). This is the Flood in miniature: Moses is saved in the ark (tēbâ), the Hebrew word used exclusively for Noah’s ark.
The connection is underscored by the language (cf. Exod 2:3 and Gen 6:14), for this is the only time the word tēbâ is used outside of Genesis 6–9. The way in which the ark is built is the same in both instances: the one for whom the ark is made, the material of which it is built, and the number of times it is to be “pitched with pitch” are all designated in the same order. Out of this water ordeal there emerges an adult Moses, a hero for the new age, another Noah.
Moses along with the children of Israel, however, goes through another epoch-dividing Flood as depicted in Exodus 15. Here the war imagery of the Lord as a Man of War dominates, but the Flood as the means of salvation for Israel and that of epoch divider is also present. While the pharaoh’s army is drowned in the upsurging waters, Moses and Israel emerge as a new entity to be feared among the neighbors such as Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Canaan. A new era for Israel thus begins. Note the change in the form of genealogical reckoning (cf. Thapar 1976) as well. After Noah’s Flood up to this point the genealogy has been of the branched type accounting for the lines of brothers and sisters, but now it reverts to the linear type of reckoning, accounting again only for the main line of leadership.
The war image associated with the Noachian Flood is recoverable from the rainbow. Remembering that the biblical Hebrew does not have a special word for “rainbow,” what we have in Gen 9:12, 14, 16 is the expression “a bow [the weapon] in the cloud,” suggesting, perhaps, that the Lord is declaring a truce after a war by resting his bow in the cloud.
In the following section only a few prophetic reflections of Noah material are brought out, although there may be many other allusions that are hidden in unsuspected places.
b. Isaiah 54 The important verses here are 9 and 10, which read:
For this is like the days of Noah to me,
As I swore that the waters of Noah
Should no more over the earth,
So I have sworn
that I will not be angry with you
and will not rebuke you.
For the mountain may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love
shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace
shall not be removed,
says the Lord,
who has compassion on you.
Along with Noah the Flood and covenant are recalled by Isaiah for the people who are afflicted and not comforted (nḥm, Isa 54:11), reminding them of the everlasting kindness and great compassion of God (rḥmh, Isa 57:7, 8). Isaiah plays on the folk etymology of the name Noah, i.e., nḥm of Gen 5:29, and adds rḥmh, “compassion,” to the continuing wordplay.
Isaiah renames the covenant, changing it from the “everlasting covenant” (Gen 9:16), to the “covenant of peace” in Isa 54:10. This may be seen as a commentary on the rainbow. It is based on a further play on the name Noah (nḥ), especially in reference to Isa 54:15–17 in which the Lord has caused the smith to blow (npḥ)the fire of coals (pḥm) to create weapons. But these weapons will not be used against God’s people. Realizing that Hebrew has no special word for rainbow, we understand that the Lord hangs the bow on the cloud, as a sign of the covenant and as a gesture of peace after a battle.
c. Jeremiah 31 In the context of the everlasting covenant, Jeremiah 31 may be appreciated in a new light. While Jeremiah’s new covenant (Jer 31:31–34) is explicitly based on the Mosaic covenant, the Noachian covenant may be implicitly referred to in the passage immediately following (Jer 31:35, 36). In it Jeremiah recalls both the creation of sun and moon and the perpetuity of seasons as promised by the rainbow covenant:
Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day,
and who the fixed order of the moon,
and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea and its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name,
“If this fixed order departs from before me,
then shall the descendants of Israel
cease from being a nation
from before me all the days.”
Note that both Isaiah’s reinstatement of the Noachian covenant of perpetual compassion and Jeremiah’s updating of the Mosaic covenant of the Law are described in the cosmic setting of mountains and hills (Isa 54:10) and heaven and earth (Jer 31:37). Both prophets seem to invoke the primeval history, the earliest part of cosmic and human history, for the establishment of a new covenant. Perhaps they are recalling the very beginning of the world when and only when the entire creation is described as “good” and “very good,” insisting upon making the new covenant firmly based on the primeval goodness of the creation (Cf. Hesse and Kikawada 1984).
d. Ezekiel. The Lord’s speech to the Son of Man (Ezek 14:12–20) demands righteousness for salvation, recognizing no act of supererogation. Noah, Daniel, and Job are singled out as exemplary men of righteousness in sinful ages. Ezekiel sees the three men as having survived extraordinary ordeals by their own righteousness.
Noah, as the hero of the epoch-dividing Flood, may be hidden at the end of Ezekiel’s first vision (Ezek 1:1–18). The vision moves from “I saw and behold …” (Ezek 1:4) and “I saw … and behold …” (Ezek 1:15) to the audition, “I heard …” (Ezek 1:24). Ezekiel hears seven voices (qwl). One of the seven voices is that of many waters (Ezek 1:14), perhaps of the Flood. The six voices are clustered in two verses (Ezek 1:24, 25). As the seventh voice is about to be heard, Ezekiel makes a flashing allusion to Noah’s Flood by “the bow in the cloud on the day of rain” (Ezek 1:28). The seventh voice, climactically introduced, is none other than the voice of the Lord; and it is heard throughout the rest of the book.
Here, Ezekiel is apparently invoking primeval authority for contemporary speech, as did the poet of Psalm 29 In the Psalm we find the lone reference to the Flood, mabbûl (Ps 29:10), outside of the Noah story (Genesis 6–9).
e. Jonah. Within the ironic reversal of the whole narrative structure of primeval history, we find Jonah as another Noah in the episode of the tempest and the great fish. The overall topical outline of the book of Jonah that chiastically parallel Genesis 1–11 (Hesse and Kikawada 1984) is given in the table below.
Jonah
Genesis
A.
Fleeing to Tarshish
A.
Dispersion
Not going to Mesopotamia despite God’s will
1:1–3
Coming out of Mesopotamia according to God’s will
Nineveh
1:2
Babel/Shinʿar
11:1–32
Hebrew
1:9
Abram, the Hebrew
14:13
B.
Flood, nāhār
1:4–15
B.
Flood mabbûl
6–9
Ship of tribulation
1:5
Ship of salvation
Jonah = Dove
Dove
8:10–12
Fish, vessel of salvation
2:1
(Cf. Manu and Fish, Indian myth)
Waves passed over Jonah
2:4
Wind passed over earth
8:1
Tĕhômsurrounds
2:6
Tĕhôm bursts forth
7:11
Bottoms of the mountains
2:7
Tops of the mountains
8:5
Jonah remembered the Lord
2:8
God remembered Noah
8:1
In 40 days …
3:4
End of 40 days …
8:6
C.
Jonah’s anger and
C.
Cain’s anger and
Tôb in causative stem
4:4
Tôb in causative stem
4:7, 9
Driven out before God
2:5
Driven out of God’s face
4:14
Hebel = Abel
2:9
Abel = hebel
4:2
Jonah wants to die
4:4
Cain wants to live
4:13–14
Jonah yšb east of city
4:5
Cain yšb east of Eden
4:16
D.
Gourd and Worm
4:6–7
D.
Tree and Snake
2:5–3:24
Protection from evil
4:6
Cause for evil
3:22
Glad because of gourd
4:6
Tree is delightful
3:6
Worm causes gourd to wither
4:7
Snake entices to eat of tree
3:4–5
Gourd taken away = test
4:7
Tree given = test
2:17
Jonah wants to die because of gourd
4:9
Eat of tree and surely die
2:17
E.
God who care for both
E.
God the Creator of
Men and beasts
4:11
Beasts and men
1:1–2:3
Seven narrative days
seven days of creation
Cf. “God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land”
1:9
Jonah is not only Noah (Jonah 1:4–3:4) but also he is Adam (Jonah 4:6–9), and Abel (Jonah 2:5–4:5). Moreover, we may even visualize Moses when Exod 34:6–7 is restated in Jonah 4:9, “… for I know that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repentest of evil,” or recall Abram when Gen 14:13, 19–22 is echoed in Jonah 1:9, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land,” as an answer to his shipmates.
2. Apocrypha. In the Apocrypha of the OT, references to Noah appear in such books as Tobit, Sirah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. In these books Noah takes a minor part in the list of people who are to be commended.
Tobit’s advice to his son Tobias (Tob 4:3–21) includes an admonition to marry his own kind as did Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Tob 4:12). Neither the Flood nor the covenant is recalled.
In Sir 44:17–18, Noah appears in the long list of praises to the fathers of old, a list that begins with Enoch and ends with Moses. Noah is regarded as a substitute/continuator in the new age and in the remnant left from the Flood which ended because of the covenant.
Wis 4:10 refers to Noah without using his name, for the main interest of the passage lies in the enumeration of the accomplishments of Wisdom. Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, et al. are all alluded to without names. Wisdom saves the earth by “guiding the righteous man’s course by a poor piece of wood.”
3. Genesis Apocryphon. Column II of the Genesis Apocryphon preserves fragments of an episode recounting Noah’s extraordinary birth. Noah is so extraordinary that his father, Lamech, is frightened and doubts the paternity of the child, suspecting one of the Watchers, the holy ones, or the fallen angels (for an Assyriological view on the Nephilim, cf. Kilmer 1987a). Lamech first goes to his wife, btʾnws, who assures him that the child is his, reminding him of her pleasure when the child was conceived. Still discontent, Lamech goes to his father, Methuselah, who in turn proceeds to Enoch, his own father, for explanation. Here the text breaks, but what happens next may be supplied from the pseudepigraphic fragment of the book of Noah (= 1 Enoch 106, see above).
ATRAHASIS
GENESIS 1–11
EXODUS 1–2
MATTHEW 1–3
A. Creation of Man (Tab I. 1–248) Summary of Work of Gods Creation of Man
(Gen 1:1–2:25)
Sum of Work of God
Creation of Man
(Exod 1:1–7)
A Genealogy
(Matt 1:1–17)
A Genealogy
B. Man’s Numerical Increase (I. 249–4 15 Attempt to Decrease Numbers Threat of Death by Plague
(2:4–3:24)
Adam and Eve
Near Death
(1:8–14)
Hard Labor of Hebrews
(1:18–25)
Joseph and Mary
“Virgin Birth”
C. Second Attempt to Decrease: Double Story (11. 1:1–4.55) 1. Threat of Death: Drought
(4:1–5:32)
1. Cain and Abel
2. Lamech’s Taunt
(1:15–22)
1. Two Midwives
2. Severer Means
(2:11–18)
1. 3 Wise Men
2. Infanticide
D. Final Solution (11. 7.–111. 6:40) Atrahasis’ Flood Salvation in Boat
(6:1–9:7)
Noah’s Flood
Salvation in tēbâ
(2:1–10)
Moses and the Nile
Salvation in tēbâ
(2:19–23)
Flight to Egypt
Exodus Motif
E. Resolution (111. 6:4 1–8.18) Compromise between Enlil and Enki
(9:8–11:32
Dispersion-Abram leaves Ur
(2:11–25)
Moses goes out to Midian
(3:1–17)
Baptism of John in River Jordan
“Birth Control”
Exodus Motif
Exodus Motif
Flood Motif
NOA.01. Comparative chart of Primeval History.
4. New Testament. a. Matthew 24:38 and 1:1–3:17 Matthew uses the Flood as an illustration for the eschatological coming of the Son of Man, who will come stealthily without the knowledge of incorrigible sinners. The Flood is seen here as the epoch divider and the Son of Man event will be analogous to it; the Son of Man is another Noah.
For Matthew, Jesus like Moses is another Noah from the outset (Kikawada 1974). In fact, the outline and themes of Genesis 1–11 and Exodus 1–2 as well as the ancient parallel to them can be seen in the first three chapters of Matthew’s gospel. See Fig. NOA.01 All four are relating the primeval history. Atrahasis and Genesis 1–11 are on a macrocosmic scale whereas Exodus 1–2 and Matthew 1–3 are on a microcosmic scale. All four symbolically tell their stories from the very beginning of the world through the epoch-dividing event, and then introduce the new era. In all the biblical examples the dispersion or Exodus motif emerges as a means of salvation in contrast to the Mesopotamian method of salvation, i.e., birth control. The motifs of mass killing of undesirable population and of the “Flood” as an epoch divider are present in all.
Jesus the Savior comes out of the water of salvation. Thereupon, he is met by the dove, linking him to the Flood tradition and making him another Noah.
b. 1 Peter 3:20 In a very enigmatic passage of 1 Peter 3:13–22 in which Peter may be claiming that Christ has preached the gospel to the dead (cf. 1 Pet 4:6), especially to the dead of the time of Noah, the Flood is made analogous to baptism as a means of salvation through water. Quite independently of this passage, however, the baptism of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel can be construed as a miniature Flood bearing the significance of an epoch divider within a miniature primeval history in Matthew 1–3
c. 2 Peter 2:5–6 Peter makes a reference to two Genesis figures, Noah and Lot, both of whom are righteous persons saved from disasters. It is difficult to know how much Peter wished to parallel these figures, but the stories of these two men are astonishingly similar. Consider the following (the present writer owes this observation to his student Hugo Garcia).
The whole area of Sodom and Gomorrah was said to be “like the garden of the Lord” (Gen 13:10); but the people of Sodom were very wicked (Gen 13:13). Despite Abraham’s plea on behalf of the people, they were to be destroyed (Gen 18:16–33). From this point on the parallel with Noah becomes closer. In both the Noah and Lot stories the sex offense episodes, including incest and homosexuality, frame the story and the sequence of events concerning the great disaster and salvation from it provides point-by-point contacts between the two:
Sodom and Gomorrah Story
Noah’s Flood Story
Sex offensive involving “angels” and “daughters”
Angels—homosexual (19:1–11)
Sons of God (6:1–4)
Announcement of disaster because of wickedness
To Lot (19:12–14)
To Noah (6:11–13)
“come in [boʾ]” and “shut [sgr]”
Angels brought Lot (19:10)
All flesh (7:16)
Instructions for salvation of a family
Lot and daughters 19:15–23
Noah family 6:14–18
“Rain”—himṭı̂r 19:24, mamṭı̂r 7:4
Brimstone/fire 19:24
40-day rain 7:4
All die but one family
Lot’s family 19:25–29
Noah’s family 7:21–23
“God remembered”
Abraham instead of Lot 19:29
Noah and animals 8:1
Living outside of city
Cave in hills 19:30
In tent 9:20–21
Drunkenness
Of Lot 19:32–35
Of Noah 9:21
Sex offense—Incest
Father/daughters 19:31–38
Father/son, homosexual 9:22–23
Thematically, note that Lot, like Noah, is the epoch-divider figure who, having experienced the end of Sodom and Gomorrah, ushers in the new generation of Moabites and Ammonites. The major difference, however, lies in the fact that Lot is not a covenant figure as is Noah. The reason for this may be that Noah obeys all that God commands (Gen 6:22; 7:5, 9, 16), whereas Lot twice modifies the angel’s instruction to flee to the hills—initially Lot wants to go to the little city of Zoar because it is closer than the hills, but eventually he settles (nwḥ) in a cave in the hills outside (mḥwṣ) of Zoar because he is afraid of the city! On the other hand, Lot’s cousin Abraham, the intercessor for Sodom and Gomorrah, is a covenant figure whom “God remembers” (Gen 19:29, cf. 8:1, “God remembers Noah”). Abraham vicariously participates in the “rain” of fire that sweeps over Lot’s cities, thus making both Lot and Abraham Noah-like.
d. Hebrews 11:7 In the list of righteous people of faith, Noah is used to illustrate the definition of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Noah’s obedience of the divine instruction to construct an ark saves his household and preserves the seed of righteousness for the new generation. Noah is seen as a bridge between the condemned world and the new age.
5. Pseudepigrapha. a. 1 Enoch 106. Enoch tells the story of Lamech being frightened at the birth of Noah. At birth Noah’s “body was as white as snow and red as a rose; the hair of his head as white as wool and his demdema [an Ethiopic word describing his hair] beautiful; and as for his eyes, when he opened them the whole house glowed like the sun—[rather] the whole house glowed even more exceedingly” (1 En. 106:2). Lamech goes to Methuselah and Methuselah to Enoch; but note that Lamech does not go to his wife for explanation first as he did in the Genesis Apocryphon.
Enoch assures Methuselah that Lamech indeed is the child’s father, revealing the secret that there will be a Flood to destroy wicked humanity. Enoch advises Methuselah to name the child Noah. He will be saved from the disaster along with his three children (1 En. 106:18) and “he will comfort the earth after all the destruction” (1 En. 107:3; cf. 106:18). The folk etymology of the name in Gen 5:29 is reflected here also. Apart from the name and its folk etymology, this pseudepigraphic story, like that in the Genesis Apocryphon, has nothing to do with the Genesis story, although some connections with the Sumerian and possibly with the Babylonian stories may be adduced in terms of the miraculous birth of the Flood hero (see above).
1 Enoch. includes a few more references to Noah. The Most High sends the archangel Uriel to Noah to inform him of the impending Flood, so that Noah may escape the destruction and preserve his seed for the future generations (1 En. 10:2). In 1 Enoch 65, Enoch foretells the destruction of the world and the salvation of Noah in response to Noah’s outcry for help because the earth had “sunk down” or “became deformed” (1 En.65:1). One is tempted to speculate here that a tradition of preflood overpopulation as in the Atrahasis Flood Story and of overburdened earth as in Yima’s Flood Story may be reflected in this passage.
The word of God comes in 1 Enoch 67 and tells Noah that he has been “blameless” and “righteous” (cf. Gen 6:9) and that “the angels are working with wood [making an ark]” (1 En. 67:2). The divine speech also includes an echo of the blessings of Gen 1:28 and 9:1, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” In contrast to this passage, 1 En. 89:1 reports that Noah himself makes the ark, which floats on water to save him.
b. Book of Jubilees. From its own peculiar viewpoint of chronology and law, the Book of Jubilees recounts the history of the world from creation to Moses, with whom the new age of the Law begins. The Flood Story is retold in much greater detail in Jub. 4:28–10:17. Noah also appears in scattered references down to Jub.22:13 in the context of blessing (Jub. 22:24, 27; 22:13) and covenant (Jub. 14:20). Moses, however, replaces Noah as the epoch divider as in the book of Exodus.
Bibliography
Avigad, N., and Yadin, 1956. Genesis Apocryphon. Jerusalem.
Benito, C. A. 1969. “Enki and Ninmah” and “Enki and the World Order.” Diss. Pennsylvania.
Cassuto, U. 1949. Genesis. Vol. 2. Jerusalem.
Christensen, A. 1943. Les Types du Premier Himme et du Premier roi. Archives d’études orientales 14/2. Leiden.
Civil, M. 1969. Sumerian Flood Story. Pp. 138–45 in Atra-hasis, ed. W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard. London.
Cohen, H. H. 1974. The Drunkenness of Noah. University, AL.
Hesse, E. and Kikawada, I. M. 1984. Jonah and Genesis 11–1. AJBI 10:3–19
Humphries, R. 1958. Ovid: Metamorphoses. Bloomington, IN.
Jacobsen, T. 1939. The Sumerian King List. Chicago.
Kikawada, I. M. 1974. Literary Conventions for Primeval History. AJBI 1:3–21.
———. 1983. The Double Creation of Mankind in Enki and Ninmah, Atrahasis I 1–351, and Genesis 1–2. Iraq 45: 43–45.
Kikawada, I. M., and Quinn, A. 1985. Before Abraham Was. Nashville.
Kilmer, A. D. 1972. The Mesopotamian Concept of Overpopulation and Its Solution as Reflected in the Mythology. Or41: 160–77.
———. 1976. Speculations on Umul, the First Baby. AOAT 25: 265–70.
———. 1987a. The Mesopotamian Counterparts of the Biblical Nephilim. Pp. 39–43 in Perspectives on Language and Text, ed. E. W. Conrad and E. G. Newing. Winona Lake, IN.
———. 1987b. The Symbolism of the Flies in the Mesopotamian Flood Myth and Some Further Implications. AOS 67: 175–80.
Lambert, W. G., and Millard, A. R. 1969. Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. London.
Thapar, R. 1976. Genealogy as a Source of Social History. The Indian Historical Review 4.
Wolff, F. 1910. Avesta, die heiligen Buecher der Pasrsen. Strassburg.
Isaac M. Kikawada
NOAH’S ARK
Noah’s ark (Heb tēbâ) was the great boxlike vessel by means of which Noah and his family escaped the waters of the Flood. According to the story, God was dissatisfied with the violence of human creatures and decided to destroy them and cleanse the earth by means of a universal deluge. Because he was a righteous man, Noah was to be the exception. Consequently, God instructed him to construct a huge floatable “box” wherein he and his family could ride out the destructive waters. It was to be made of “gopher wood,” the identification of which is a matter of dispute among modern interpreters [Heb gōper, possibly the same as Gk kyparissos, Eng “cypress”]. The vessel was then to be caulked with pitch (bitumen), divided into three partitioned decks, and provisioned for Noah’s family and for pairs of land and flying animals. When it was completed, rain and subterranean waters devastated the earth for 40 days, covering the tops of the highest mountains. Approximately one year later, when the waters had subsided and the earth had become dry, Noah’s family disembarked atop one of the mountains of Ararat and repopulation of the earth began.
A. Dimensions of the Ark
The size of the vessel is given in “cubits,” the modern estimate for which is approximately 18 inches each. Thus, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high converts into 450 feet, 75 feet, and 45 feet, and this yields a rectangular box which was more suitable for floating than for sailing. Its size is astonishing in comparison with some modern vessels (e.g., the English ship Mayflower was only ninety feet long).
There is reason to suspect that the dimensions reflect a preoccupation with the number 60, as was commonly the case in Mesopotamian mathematics and occasionally that of the Bible. (For example, the ages of the Mesopotamian antediluvians in the Sumerian King List are given in multiples of 602 years and those of the Bible in Genesis 5 are given in multiples of 60 months with the occasional supplement of 7 years.) Thus, the vessel of Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian flood hero of the Akkadian version, is 120 cubits per side. (Allowing 19.7 inches for a Babylonian cubit, this yields 197 feet per side, for a volume about 5 times that of Noah’s boat.) The sides are thus (60 × 2) cubits, a reflection that Mesopotamian mathematics reckons in a place notation of base 60 (in contrast to the English system of base 10). This means that Utnapishtim’s vessel is two ideal (or base) units per side and has an ideal volume of (60 × 2)3. Good fortune, one may suppose, must thereby smile upon it.
The dimensions of Noah’s vessel, likewise, rather than being random or corresponding to actual measurement of Israelite boats, reflects the same idealization. It is 300 (60 × 5) cubits long and 30 (60/2) cubits high. The third dimension, the width, is a curious 50 cubits, but nonetheless the resultant volume is (603× 2) + (602 × 5) cubic cubits.
B. Claims that the Ark has Survived
Prior to the beginning of the Common Era, the claim was being made that parts of the Flood Hero’s boat yet survived and had been seen: “It is said there is still some parts of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Gordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen … [for] use chiefly as amulets” (Josephus, Ant 1.3.6 [1st century, c.e.], quoting the Babylonian priest Berossos [3d century, b.c.e.]). Berossos here speaks of the Sumerian hero, Ziusudra, whom Josephus happily identified with Noah. Thereafter (in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim literature), a number of sites were proposed as the landing place of Noah’s ark, most of which were alleged to have produced wooden remnants: in Arabia (Jabal Judi in the ʾAjaʾ Range), on the headwaters of the Tigris in SE Turkey (Cudi Daǧ/Jabal Judi in the Gordian Mountains), in the Caucasus Range (Mt. Baris), in W Turkey (near the city of Apamea), in N Iran (Alwand Kuh and Mount Demavand), and in NE Turkey (Masis/Aǧri Daǧ).
It is the last of these sites, a majestic mountain (39° 42´ N; 44° 18´ E) which rises dramatically to a height of 16,900 feet above the plain, that modern ark searchers have designated as “Mount Ararat” (a term which the Bible itself, at Gen 8:4, does not use; rather, it speaks of “the mountains of [the kingdom of] Ararat”). See Fig. NOA.02 for map of proposed sites. Although the literature of the native Armenian population knows this peak as the landing place only since the 11th–12th centuries c.e., the claim has recently been made (in newspapers, magazines, books, movies, and television programs) that this is undeniably the biblical site. Such claim has been supported by eyewitness testimony to a boat protruding from a glacier, by photographs, and by pieces of hand-hewn timber which reportedly date to high antiquity (up to 5,000 years of age, which might accord with Archbishop Ussher’s literal biblical chronology which puts the Flood around 2450 b.c.e.; Montgomery 1972; Navarra 1974).
NOA.02. Regional map of proposed sites for “Mt. Ararat.” 1, Jabal Judi in the ʾAjaʾ Range; 2, Cudi Daǧ (Jabal Judi in the Gordian Mountains); 3, Mount Baris; 4, near Apamea, on the Marsyas River; 5, in Adiabene (Pir Omar Gudrun/Pira Magrun); 6, Büyük Aǧri Daǧ/Masis.
None of this alleged evidence for the survival of Noah’s vessel has withstood rigid scrutiny (Bailey 1978; 1989). The eyewitnesses fundamentally contradict each other and some accounts have been shown to be fabrications. The photographs are either now missing or have been denounced as fake. The beams, based upon the best scientific evidence, are to be dated to the 7th century c.e. (Bailey 1977). There is no reason, then, to believe that remnants of Noah’s ark are to be found anywhere in the world (regardless of one’s decision about the historicity of the biblical account of the Flood).
Bibliography
Bailey, L. R. 1977. Wood from “Mt. Ararat”: Noah’s Ark? BA 40: 137–46.
———. 1978. Where Is Noah’s Ark: Mystery on Mt. Ararat. Nashville.
———. 1989. Noah. Columbia, SC.
Montgomery, J. W. 1972. The Quest for Noah’s Ark. Minneapolis.
Navarra, F. 1974. Noah’s Ark, I Touched It. Plainfield, NJ.
Lloyd R. Bailey
From The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary:
Genesis 9:18–29, Curse and Blessing in Noah’s Family
Commentary
On the far side of the flood story, the texts begin to reflect known historical realities. Even more, stories of individuals within a family begin to extend into relationships among larger communities. Although especially evident in chap. 10, such a move occurs within this text (assigned to J): intrafamilial conflicts within Noah’s family (vv. 20–24) lead to communal difficulties among his descendants (vv. 25–27). Noah’s sons may be understood in both individual and eponymous terms, thus preparing the way for the table of nations. Both Noah and Adam remain “typical” characters. Moreover, both their families produce sharp repercussions for their descendants. Even more, the relationships anticipated among the descendants of Noah’s sons apply to various historical situations. The narrative thus serves complex purposes, including typological, ethnological, and etiological issues.
This brief text consists of an unusual admixture of literary types, from genealogy to story to curse and blessing. This multiform text reflects a complex tradition history, which no redactor has smoothed over. Whether a fuller form of this story ever existed remains uncertain. The text presents numerous difficulties, often so intractable that little scholarly consensus has been achieved. What is the nature of Ham’s indecent act? Why is his son Canaan cursed? Why is Canaan to become a slave to his brothers? Why does Noah refer to what his “youngest son” has done, when Ham seems to be the second son (see 7:13; 9:18)? Why are Shem and Japheth aligned?
The redactor may have worked with two different traditions regarding the identity of Noah’s sons: (1) Shem, Japheth, and Canaan; (2) Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Two ways of conceiving the resulting amalgamation are thus: The first has been overlaid by the insertion of “Ham, the father of” (vv. 18, 22); or the second has been overlaid with material about Canaan, based on Israel’s later experience in the land. The latter seems more likely, but uncertainty abounds. No known parallels to this story exist in other ancient Near Eastern literature.
The story is enclosed by brief genealogical notices. Verses 18–19 resume earlier references to the sons of Noah and announce the spreading out of their families (detailed in chaps. 10–11). Verses 28–29 give chronological notes about Noah’s life and death, completing the genealogy of chap. 5. The references to grape-bearing vines and Canaan as a mature grandson make clear that the story takes place many years after the flood. Also, these verses present the first Genesis story in which God does not appear directly.
The story involves the themes of blessing and curse.
1. Blessing pertains to both nonhumans and humans in this text. God’s post-flood blessing begins to take effect amid the world of the curse in all its aspects, hence ameliorating the effects of the curse.
Noah is the first to plant a vineyard and practice winemaking, discoveries ascribed to the gods elsewhere in the ancient Near East. Noah’s skill at farming and crop development provides some relief from being totally at the mercy of what the ground brings forth on its own, so intimated in the words of his father, Lamech (5:29). As such, he stands in the tradition of the family of Cain (4:21–22), founders of other cultural blessings. He also functions as a new Adam, whose original calling was to till the ground and keep it (2:15).
This focus on vineyards and wine may seem a small matter for modern people, but these were important economic realities for Israel, celebrated in the feast of Booths (Deut 16:13–16). Vines, the grape harvest, and wine symbolize God’s blessings of life and fertility (see Pss 80:8–16; 104:15; Isa 5:1–7; 27:2–6; Hos 2:15; 9:10). Blessings can be abused, however; that which makes the heart glad can also promote drunkenness (see the warnings in Prov 20:1; 23:31–35; 31:6–7; Isa 5:11). What is good within God’s creation can be made perverse by inappropriate human behavior.
At another level, the blessing on Shem (v. 26) first hints at God’s blessing of Israel. Shem begins the line that will lead to Abraham, in and through whom this blessing will reach out to all the earth (see 12:1–3).
2. Sin and the Curse. The flood did not rid the world of sin (so 8:21). In this text, sin manifests itself in the effects of drunkenness, disrespect of parents, and familial conflict.
The narrator offers no explicit judgment about Noah’s drunkenness; yet, it opens Noah to victimization and provides the occasion for all the suffering and conflict that follow. He has drunk himself into an unconscious state and lies naked in his tent (see Lam 4:21; Hab 2:15). The theme of nakedness (chaps. 2–3) involves issues of shame and exposure, an issue of no little consequence in Israel, in both religious (Exod 20:26) and social (2 Sam 6:20; 10:4–5) life. The prophets use this same theme to portray Israel’s apostasy (Ezek 16:36) and the resulting divine judgment, in which Israel’s shameful behavior will be exposed for all to see (Isa 47:3; Ezek 16:37–39).
What Noah’s youngest son “had done” has prompted numerous conjectures. Some readers hypothesize about an inappropriate sexual act, from sodomy to incest. Some even appeal to Lev 18:7–8, which condemns “uncovering the nakedness of one’s father,” a reference to sexual activity with one’s mother. Yet, the OT does not normally shrink from “telling it like it is” (see chaps. 18–19). Here the text makes clear that Noah uncovers himself. Moreover, Ham’s seeing his father naked constitutes the problem, as confirmed by the detailed report of how his two brothers make sure they do not (v. 23; a chiasm of v. 22). Yet, the problem involves more than seeing (which may have been inadvertent); Ham errs in what he does with what he has seen. Rather than keep quiet or seek to remedy the situation, Ham tells tales to a wider public. The matter entails not simply a breach of filial piety, but the public disgrace of his father. Parent-child relationships were considered to be of the highest importance in Israel (see Deut 21:18–21, which prescribes capital punishment for sons who rebel).
When Noah awakens from his stupor, he learns what has been done, probably because it is now public knowledge, and speaks his first and only words. The reference to his “youngest son” may mean that earlier references to Shem, Ham, and Japheth (5:32; 6:10; 7:13) do not occur in chronological order. Noah’s blessing and cursing words stand in the tradition of Isaac (27:27–29, 39–40) and Jacob (49:1–27), though one cannot help wondering whether he is overreacting. The curse on Canaan appears most prominent; indeed, his enslavement also becomes part of the blessing of Shem and Japheth. Yet, for Canaan to become a slave of his brothers in an individual sense seems difficult. It almost certainly bears an eponymous force at this point, condemning the wickedness of the Canaanites in advance (see 15:16; Deut 9:4–5). In the blessings of Shem and Japheth (the NIV more literally translates that God is being blessed/praised, as in 24:27, but for unstated reasons), Noah calls for God to act (unlike the curse). The blessings request a future divine action and are not understood to be inevitably effective (see 25:23; chap. 27).
Noah’s cursing of Canaan is most puzzling: He does not curse Ham, but Ham’s son, Noah’s grandson. Perhaps both father and son were responsible in an originally longer text; this telescoping would be a way of involving both. Perhaps the author alludes to the effects of the sins of the parents on the children (see Exod 20:5). More probably, those reading the text in terms of ethnic units as much as individuals would not have made a clear distinction between Canaanites and Hamites (see 10:6). An original reference to Ham was narrowed to one Hamite group, the Canaanites, when they came into conflict with Israel. Not changing the details keeps the Hamite link intact.
Although chap. 10 identifies many peoples in the lineage of Noah’s sons, the author focuses on a narrower range, which is most prominent here: Shem represents the Israelites (but this is unique in the OT); Canaan the Canaanites; Japheth the sea-faring peoples, such as the Philistines; Ham the Egyptians, probably. The first three are the most prominent groups occupying Palestine in the early years of Israel’s life in the land; their relationships may be foreshadowed in these verses. The Israelites and the Philistines entered Canaan from east and west, respectively, in this period, resulting in the subjugation (i.e., enslavement?) of the Canaanites. The blessing regarding Japheth may represent a qualification of the fulfillment of the promise. Japheth’s dwelling in the tents of Shem may mean that Israel does not have the land to itself, but shares it with others, a situation prevailing at various times (as with the Philistines). Ham was the progenitor of nations in the Egyptian orbit (10:6; see Pss 78:51; 105:23–27); Canaan was controlled by (was the son of) Egypt from 1550 to 1200 bce. The various nations in chap. 14 may represent another level of the fulfillment of vv. 25–27, since all three branches of Noah’s genealogy are represented in that conflict.
Reflections
1. The often-cited parallels between this narrative and the Eden story, especially as interpreted through 5:29, make it typical. Noah, a new Adam, takes up the creational task once again in “planting” and tilling the “ground”; his skill leads to a taming of what the ground produces and hence ameliorates the curse (3:17; 5:29). Yet, Noah as the new Adam (and one child) also fails as miserably as the old Adam. Similar themes appear in both stories: nakedness after eating fruit, and intrafamilial conflict, including human subservience and its affect. The curse on the serpent and the ground parallels the curse on Canaan, both of which affect life negatively. Yet, the act of Shem and Japheth in covering the naked one mirrors earlier action of the deity (3:21).
These parallels strongly suggest that, in the post-flood movement to the world of nations, “good and evil” patterns in life persist. God’s work of blessing influences the worlds of human and nonhuman, family and nation; but there are also deep human failures due to the “evil inclination of the human heart” (8:21). This mix of goodness and evil will accompany every human endeavor, whether familial or sociopolitical, and every relationship, whether personal or communal, down through the ages to our own time.
2. It seems incredible that this story could have been used to justify the enslavement of Africans. Suffice it to say that, inasmuch as Canaan among all the sons of Ham, is not the father of a Negroid people (see 10:15–19, where all the peoples listed are Semitic or Indo-European), any attempt to justify the slavery of African peoples is a gross misuse of this text. Regarding slavery in general, however, neither the OT nor the NT condemns this inhumane institution. Various OT laws seek to regulate (never commend) this practice (Exod 21:1–11). And an increasing concern for issues of humaneness may be discerned in later laws (see Deut 15:12–18; Lev 25:39–46). The “enslavement” of Canaanites envisaged in this text probably reflects their later subjugation rather than any practice of slavery.
This text mentions enslavement in the wake of sinful behavior; such a human practice is thus clearly set at odds with God’s creational intentions. As with the sentence in 3:14–19, humans should, appropriately, work to overcome this effect of sin.
3. Noah’s word (no word from God occurs here) about the future of his sons should not be interpreted in fatalistic terms. What happens over the course of history affects what in fact will happen in the aftermath of such a word (see 25:23).
4. The chief point of this text may involve relationships between children and their parents, a negative illustration of the commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” Israelites considered the family of extreme importance in the created order; any deterioration in the quality of family life could only disrupt the creational intentions of God. Such a perspective would be in line with chaps. 3–4, which speak of other familial relationships that have been distorted in the wake of human sin. At the same time, the author has in view broader relationships among peoples and nations, which are profoundly affected by what happens within families. Dysfunctional families affect our communal life together.