Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Mr. Litwak has brought up some interesting points. How does one determine
priority, was Genesis' account before or after the Utnapishtim myth of the
flood ?  This question has been addressed before in the scholarly
literature, and answered.

Humanist scholars have determined that Genesis as we have it today in its
"final form" is not earlier than 560 BCE. This is surmised from 2 Kings'
(25:27) ending to the national history. There is disagreement amongst
scholars as to how old "the relics" are that have been preserved within this
linear history of the world and Israel.  The JPDS adherents posit parts of
Genesis to be written in Solomon's time, the 10th century BCE. Conservative
scholars believe Moses wrote Genesis sometime in either the 16th or 15th
century BCE.

Genesis' Massoretic Text's chronology, suggests the flood is dated some 1656
years after the creation (cf. p.581, Vol.1, S.J. De Vries, "Chronology of
the OT," G.A. Buttrick, Ed., The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible,
Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1962, ISBN 0-687-19270-6). Taking Ussher's rough
calculation of the beginning of creation being about 4000 BCE in round
numbers, we arrive at a flood occuring about 2344 BCE. Moses is dated circa
1440 BCE (the Exodus), so the flood is conceived of as occuring at least 900
years before the Exodus.

Heidel has argued that the Sumerian version of the Gilgamesh epic dates from
2000 BCE, but it preserves much older material (p.15, Alexander Heidel, The
Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, University of Chicago,1946,1949
[1993], ISBN 0-226-32398-6)

Many scholars have identified Genesis' Lud with Lydia, which first appears
in Assyrian records no earlier than the 7th century BCE. This fact suggests
that Genesis cannot be any older than this period.  Genesis lists Nineveh
first, and in so doing suggests the city may have been "number one" in
Assyria. Yet Nineveh did not become the capital of Assyria until 705 BCE
under Sennacherib; earlier Calah had been the capital, and before Calah it
was the city of Asshur (which is curiously not even mentioned by Genesis).
So, we have Sumerian fragments of Gilgamesh dated 2000 BCE and Genesis
dating between the 8th-5th centuries BCE (as per my research on Madai's
Japhethic descent being a preservation of the 6th century BCE Athenian Greek
Medus myth).

The Sumerian scenario has the Babylonian Noah (variously called in later
versions, Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Utnapishtim) tearing down his house of
"reeds" and building a boat to save his family on the advice of a god who
has warned him of the flood being planned to destroy mankind. This flood
hero is associated with the city of Sippar in lower Mesopotamia.

Archaeologists have uncovered very ancient flood deposits of various depths,
dated to different periods throughout Lower Mesopotamia. In every case
Microsopic analysis of the silt revealed it was freshwater, laid down by the
flooding Tigris/Euphrates rivers.  Their conclusions were that there never
was a universal world flood that covered the tops of the mountains as
portrayed in Genesis (7:19-20). These were merely embellishments of later
ages. The Sumerian boat made of reeds was transformed in later Babylonian
myths into a huge wooden-sided cube or box to save the Babylonian Noah and
his animals (cf. pp.32-40, John Bight, "Has Archaeology Found Evidence of
the Flood ?" G. Ernest Wright & David Noel Freedman, eds., The Biblical
Archaeologist Reader, Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1961).

John Bight concludes:
"How then did the Hebrews in Palestine get their Flood tradition ? Two
alternatives present themselves. (1) They learned it from the Canaanites in
Palestine, who, in turn, learned it from Mesopotamia...(2) The second
alternative...the ancestors of the Hebrews in Palestine brought the story
with them when they migrated from Mesopotamia in the Patriarchal Age. "
(p.40, Bight)

Archaeology assures us there was no universal flood covering the mountain
tops in 2344 BCE as claimed by Genesis (7:19-20). No saltwater flood
deposits exist universally covering the ANE world of that time period in
Egypt, Canaan, Syria, or Mesopotamia. Canaan is not a region prone to
devastating flooding, but lower Mesopotamia is, so the flood myths would
more likely arise in the latter area.

All the best,

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany