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A Babylonian Myth Helps Us Understand the Story of Noah

 


In my previous email, There is a Limit to Evil Actions, I described “humans being like clouds of flies swarming to do violent and evil things.” For the exiles from Judea living in Babylon in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, “swarming like flies” had a special meaning. They were familiar with a famous Babylonian myth called the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was very popular and part of public celebrations that they would have seen annually. The history of the Babylonian story begins with five Sumerian poems dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BCE).[i] It was being told three hundred years before Abraham was born.

 

It also contains a “Flood Story.” In this story, the flood happened because the “council of gods” simply decided to destroy mankind for no particular reason. They swore each other to secrecy and didn’t want people to know what was going to happen. But Ea, the god who made humans, warned a man from Shuruppak (a city on the Euphrates River). Ea also gave the man specific instructions about how to build an enormous boat, that was sealed with pitch.

 

When the man finished the boat, animals, some people, and the man and his family entered it. Suddenly, a mighty force was unleased. Winds and water destroyed all life on earth. The gods were completely surprised by what they saw and realized they had no power over it.

 

The gods were frightened by the flood,
and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.
The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.
Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,
the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed
. . .

the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief(?),
their lips burning, parched with thirst.

 

The storm lasted for six days and seven nights. When it stopped a raven was sent out and did not return. Then the man allowed the animals and people to leave the boat. He also sacrificed a sheep.

 

The gods smelled the savor,
the gods smelled the sweet savor,
and collected like flies over a (sheep) sacrifice.

 

Instead of sharing the sacrifice, the gods swarmed like flies over it, eating as much as each god could get. What did they do after flood? There were more arguments, quarrels and mutual recriminations among the gods!

 

In the Bible story humans acted like the Babylonian gods!

 

As time passed, people lost the connection of Bible stories to this Babylonian story, as well as others that are clearly hinted at in Bible stories. The Epic of Gilgamesh is completely silent on the matter of why the gods decided to cause the flood. The uncertainty about the moral aspects of the Great Flood in the pagan myths is not accidental. Although the gods often encouraged ethical behavior, it was not their exclusive or even primary interest. Their primary interest was themselves.[ii]

 

The Hebrew Bible leaves no doubt as to God’s motivation. He is not a remote deity, inactive and ineffective. After creating the world, He did not remove Himself from humanity and leave man to his own devices. This God Bible established a universal moral standard through His actions -- the TOV Standard. The highest values of the God in the Bible are related to the ways humans treat other humans.

 

God expects all humans to protect human lives,

preserve human lives, make human lives more functional,

and increase the quality of life for humans.

 

In the Hebrew Bible, individual acts that do these things are called acts of TZEDAQAH.

 

The opposite of TOV (good) is RAH (evil) – acts that destroy lives, harm lives, make lives less functional, and decrease the quality of life. In the Bible’s Flood Story, the entire population of the earth became like clouds of swarming flies doing evil to each other. The flood happened because of what people were doing to each other.

 

God spotted acts of TZEDAQAH Noah was doing.

That’s why God saved him and his family.

 

Below are two important lessons we learn from the Bible’s Flood Story:

 

Even though the society was actively engaged in evil,

God continued to search for anyone doing acts of TZEDAQAH.

 

An individual cannot undermine the moral basis of society

without endangering the very existence of civilization.

 

The Flood in the Bible, at first appears to be divine retribution against the entire society, but what appears to be collective retribution on the part of God is, in the final analysis, really divine retribution against each guilty individual. [iii]

 

Choose Life by Doing Acts of TZEDAQAH,

Jim Myers

 

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

[ii] Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel by Nahum M. Sarna; (© 1966 by the Melton Research Center of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Schocken Book, New York, NY); p. 52.

[iii] Understanding Genesis; p. 52.

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