I thought it might be fitting to wrap up this series with a short post on Noah’s Ark. I think I’ve provided a faithful understanding of the Genesis story, and how well it coheres with what we know from the natural sciences, but it might be best to briefly give a less extravagant (yet still orthodox) understanding of Noah’s Ark – leaning heavily on work by John Walton and Andrew Loke. I’ll try to keep this post on the shorter side, since I’ve already dumped about 26000 words throughout the rest of this series.
There are two things to show here:
Thesis 1: A fair interpretation shows Ancient Near Eastern Hyperbole, but this does not contradict the Biblical Narrative
Thesis 2: There is some form of historical evidence for a local flood
Thesis 1: A fair interpretation shows Ancient Near Eastern Hyperbole, but this does not contradict the Biblical Narrative
I think that the title of this section more or less says it all but, essentially, hyperbolic language was very common in Ancient Near Eastern writing. We find similar exaggerations elsewhere in the Bible. Similarly:
- The Annals of Sennacherib (who was an Assyrian King), often exaggerated his military victories – claiming to have destroyed 89 cities and 820 villages in Judah (which was likely overstated)
- The Behistun Inscription is a monumental inscription by Darius the Great of Persia, and it details his conquests and suppression of revolts (also exaggerating the number of enemies defeated)
- The Mesha Stele was a Moabite stone inscription by King Mesha of Moab, and it describes his rebellion against Israel – again, exaggerating the number of enemies defeated
Scholars know that the aforementioned are exaggerations through comparative analysis, archaeological evidence, corroborating sources, internal consistency and historical context, but the point to be made is that hyperbolic language is not foreign to Ancient Near Eastern literature. Of course the above are militaristic in nature but, plausibly, one could also see the Ark as a ‘war waged on the corruption of the Earth’.
Therefore, when reading Biblical language, we should ask ourselves what motivations (if any) might the author of Genesis have had for illustrating the flood as such. I, John Walton and other Old Testament Scholars (I am not one, to be clear), think rhetoric.
Quite clearly, the author of Genesis 6:5 intends to get across to the reader that (at the very least) the imago-Dei anatomical humans which (genetically), could have been all of remaining humanity by this point as I have argued in part 2. The point is to show that the world had been overwhelmed by Evil.
The sort of thinking that the Ancient Near East is the entire world likely does carry on into the New Testament.
For example, Acts 2:5 could be supposing that Jews come from ‘every nation under heaven’, and Paul claims in Colossians 1:23 that he is proclaiming the gospel that has been proclaimed to ‘every creature under heaven’. With similar language being used in Genesis 7:19 – “all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered”, I think we have sufficient reason to believe that the author of the flood narrative is using hyperbolic language to convey a true event.
Now, interpretatively speaking, we must note that such a position can still be maintained as an orthodox Christian. I am simply suggesting that the author intended more to convey a theological message rather than a historically-accurate one, and that such was the cultural norm of the day. Considering the author is writing in the period where hyperbolic language is normal for historical texts, along with numerology littered throughout, I don’t think this is an irrational position.
Thesis 2: There is some form of historical evidence for a local flood
It might come as a surprise to some, but multiple Ancient Near Eastern accounts detail flood stories of their own sort. One such example would be the Epic of Gilgamesh. John Currid, a scholar who has compared the two in his work ‘Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament’, notes these similarities between the accounts:
| Epic of Gilgamesh | Genesis |
| Divine Warning of doom (lines 20-26) | Divine warning of doom (6:12-13) |
| Command to build ship (lines 24-31) | Command to build ark (6:14-16) |
| Hero constructs ship (lines 54-76) | Noah builds ark (6:22) |
| Utnapishtim loads ark, including his relations and animals (lines 80-85) | Noah loads ark, including his family and animals (7:1-5) |
| The gods send torrential rains (lines 90-128) | Yahweh sends torrential rains (6:17; 7:1-12) |
| The floods destroy humanity (line 133) | The floods destroy humanity (7:21-22) |
| The flood subsides (lines 129-132) | The flood abates (8:1-3) |
| The ship lands on Mount Nisir (lines 140-144) | The ark settles on Mount Ararat (8:4) |
| Utnapishtim sends forth birds (lines 146-154) | Noah sends forth birds (8:6-12) |
| Sacrifice to the gods (lines 155-161) | Sacrifice to Yahweh (8:20-22) |
| Deities bless hero (line 194) | Yahweh blesses Noah (9:1) |
It’s quite clear that with how well the details parallel, along with the structure and flow, that such overwhelming similitude cannot be explained as a result of mere chance or simultaneous invention.
One might suggest any of:
- The two sources copied one another
- The two used the same original source
- They are separate accounts of the same event
(2) and (3) are quite plausible, and are not mutually exclusive. The Eridu Genesis is a Sumerian flood account that existed before either the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Genesis account. Since this is the case, this might provide evidence against (1).
Furthermore, it should be noted that the story of the Biblical flood is still markedly different in some respects from some of its contemporary counterparts. For example, the other sources tend to be more polytheistic (which is the case in Eridu Genesis), and the flood story of the Epic of Atrahasis gives the justification for the flood being something as silly as disturbing the sleep of the gods. This is a drastically different picture to the much more strictly monotheistic Genesis story, which quite directly points the blame at man’s corruption.
In terms of candidates, considering that my model is quite relaxed when it comes to affirming (temporally) exactly when the Patriarchs of Genesis emerge, I don’t really think it’s necessary to propose an exact date, but there are some potential candidates that some archaeologists have discovered, such as the:
- Flood at Ur: Archaeological excavations at the ancient city of Ur, led by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, uncovered a significant flood layer. This flood is believed to have occurred around 2900 BCE.
- Flood at Shuruppak: Excavations at Shuruppak, another ancient Mesopotamian city, revealed evidence of a major flood around the same period. Shuruppak is particularly interesting because it is associated with the Sumerian flood hero Ziusudra, who parallels Noah in many ways.
- Flood at Kish: Similar flood deposits were found at Kish, dating to around 2900 BCE. These findings suggest that a large flood affected multiple cities in the region.
I have already affirmed in the previous section that the authors need not be talking about all anatomical humans, and considering the hyperbolic language used, possibly not even all imago-Dei humans). Therefore, I think I can hold to this being a historical event, simply on the reasons already given.
This has been a monumental project, that I’ve really enjoyed working on over three-or-four months. I think it’s been really helpful to give a (hopefully) strong and coherent understanding of the start of the Genesis story and show that it doesn’t conflict with modern findings. There was one topic that I thought about including in this section (the Nephilim) but I don’t think there’s much need, considering that my interpretations doesn’t lead to any theological issues ensuing from that topic. Further, its such an obviously unsettled issue that it didn’t make much sense to say much about a topic that would take months to research.
I hope this has been useful for anyone – whether you’re curious about the faith, wanting to learn about it, or just genuinely stumbled here by accident – let me know what you think below!
Thanks,
Rookie
P.S: I think the next series is going to be even longer but i’ll be taking a short break, so expect the next post in about 6 weeks! 😊
Sources:
- The Lost World of the Flood – John Walton
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict – Josh and Sean McDowell
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