• Read Scripture Background
• READING THE SCRIPTURE
• Different strands

• Reading the Scripture
• UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURE.

1. What do you find interesting about the story?

Write your own answers down before going to some of mine.

 

2. What do you think the authors were trying to communicate?

What tone of voice?

A stock report?

Children’s story

An eyewitness account

A sermon

Your choice

3. What images of God does it provide us.
   Write some of your own before going to some of mine.

Bible Background (taken from Journey through the Bible, Christian Board of Publications, 1995, p. 12)

1. The story of the great flood in the days of Noah begins with the terrible spread of violence in the world. The first human pair—the man and the woman—disobeyed God and had to leave the garden. Cain was the first murderer. Violence kept spreading, to such an extent that the text in Genesis 6 shows a human community in which every thought of the human heart was only evil all the time!
2. This background to the flood shows human beings disobedient to the will of God and on the way to destroying God’s good creation. The flood is God’s way of cleansing the earth and making a fresh start. That is a quite different understanding than we have from the non-biblical Babylonian flood story. There, the gods in heaven quarrel and cause violence to spread throughout heaven and earth. Finally, one of the gods decides to destroy all human kind out of malice, and without letting anyone on earth know until it is too late. One of the friendly gods, however, lets the Babylonian hero, Utnapishtim (often called the Babylonian Noah), know about the coming flood. Utnapishtim keeps this information secret from everyone except his immediate family. They escape the flood in his great boat.
3. In the bible, Noah is identified as a righteous person, one who does the will of God. The instructions from God to build the ark are carried out publicly, openly, it seems. According to tradition, Noah did all that he could to warn the evildoers of his day that they should repent and turn from their evil ways. But the sinners of earth only laughed at Noah for building such a massive boat on dry land!
4. This story of the flood has literary unevenness, showing that there were separate traditions with differing details. According to one tradition, for example, only one pair of animals entered the ark and was saved (Genesis 6:18-22;7:8-9). The other tradition indicates that there were seven pairs of clean animals (ritually clean, suitable for sacrifice) and one pair of unclean ones (Genesis 7:1-5). Stories about a great flood are known from many religions and traditions. They show how important the symbolism of water is for religion. Water is essential to life and a very positive reality, but it is also a reality of such massive power and danger that it can also symbolize death.
5. Floods were common in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers in Babylonia, but of course the biblical flood, like the well-known Babylonian story in which Utnapishtim was the hero, was understood as a cosmic flood, one that destroyed all of life except that preserved in the ark. Like the creation stories, these flood stories are best understood as religious texts that should not be taken literally. There are, of course, groups that continue to look for the remains of Noah’s ark on the mountains of Ararat.
6. The story of the sending out of the birds and of the ark’s finally coming to rest on land is memorable and gripping. The first thing that Noah and his family do when they leave the ark is worship God and make an offering of the animals and the birds that had been with them on the ark. And God declares that there will never again be a destructive flood like this one. Even though humankind does fail God and engage in violence, God will never again resort to such a step as this cosmic flood.
7. The covenant is made not only between God and Noah and his family. Every living creature on the face of the earth is to have the assurance that God will not again bring devastation on the earth that causes all life to cease. This is a remarkable text. We note that the covenant is with all living beings, not just with human beings, and with all human beings, not just with the people of Israel. The Bible insists that God is the God of all earth’s peoples and the God of all living things.
8. The sign of the covenant is the rainbow, God’s great arc in the sky, visible for all to see. This probably means that the story should be understood as a sign that God’s covenant is a covenant with the natural world as well as with the world of living things. Indeed, the text says that the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant between the deity and the earth itself (Genesis 9:13).
9. The creation stories and the flood stories belong together. According to biblical faith, God is the Creator and Preserver of all the creation. Human beings, created in God’s image, share a unique responsibility with God to care for the creation, see to its needs, and keep the whole of the creation wholesome and peaceful. While the stories make clear that human beings fail God terribly by not living up to their covenant bond, God remains merciful and forgiving, ready to offer another chance, and never going back on the divine promises. Human beings can and do damage one another. They can and do damage God’s creation. But God is faithful. The rainbow, often appearing just when storms are very threatening and frightening, is the testimony of God’s faithfulness. Whenever we see a rainbow, it is a good thing for us to recommit ourselves to do our part in caring for and renewing God’s good creation.

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When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

"I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive.

"Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."

everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.

"Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth--so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth."

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.

"As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

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The "Epic of Gilgamesh:" An Outline

OF THE BABYLONIAN VERSION WITH COMMENTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY


The only nearly complete version of the story called The Epic of
Gilgamesh comes to us from the collection of the 7th century BCE
Assyrian king named Ashurbanipal. The original from which the
Assyrian version was copied was composed in Old Babylonian times
but was based in legends and stories from older Sumerian sources
about a real King of the city of Uruk on the Euphrates River.
This epic is the most important literary product of  Ancient
Mesopotamia. 


                               OUTLINE


EPISODE 1. Gilgamesh and the Coming of Enkidu [Tablets 1-2]

           A. Gilgamesh as Builder, Adventurer

           B. Creation of Enkidu, his Seduction

           C. Gilgamesh meets Enkidu: Their Battle and Friendship


EPISODE 2. The Raid into the Land of Humbaba (Huwawa) [Tablets 3-5]

           A. Preparations: Objections of Enkidu and the Elders

           B. At the Gate to the Forest: The Dream of Gilgamesh

           C. The Death of Humbaba

           D. The Return to Uruk


EPISODE 3. The Bull of Heaven [Tablet 6]

           A. Ishtar [Inanna] offered herself to Gilgamesh. He
insulted her with a catalog of her errors and references to her
treatment of her previous consorts. Gilgamesh's refusal of the
goddesses' offer may well have been motivated by a reluctance to
challenge the authority of the current "King of Kish." Marriage
to Inanna was the means by which one King asserted his
claim to kingship of all Sumer.

           B. Ishtar's Anger. She rose to Heaven and threatened
to open the Gates of Hell unless the High God Anu [An] did not
send the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh.

           C. Death of the Bull of Heaven. Ishtar/Inanna demanded
the death of Gilgamesh, but he was protected by Utu, so the Gods
decided that Enkidu must die in his place.


EPISODE 4. The Death of Enkidu [Tablets 7-8]

           A. Enkidu Dreams of the Gods in Council

           B. The Vision of the Underworld

           C. Gilgamesh must face his own mortality

           D. A bio-theology of  Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, we are
told, was one-third man and two-thirds god. Such a divsion is
incomprehensible in terms of modern biology, but seems not to
have concerned the ancients. Gilgamesh's father, Lugalbanda, was
a God, "the divine Lugalbanda," who ruled Uruk for more than a
thousand years. His mother was a temple priestess. Priests and
priestesses are human in origin, but in ritual situations they
take on the aspect of the god or goddess they serve. The Essence
of the Goddess descended into Gilgamesh's mother and she became
Her Hierodule; she became both Goddess and Woman. As  such she
augmented the divine portion of her son but also bequeathed to
him the mortal one-third of his ancestry, thus assuring his
eventual death.


EPISODE 5. The Search for Immortality [Tablets 9-10]

           A. The Journey to the Garden of Dilmun

           B. The Episode with the Barmaid

           C. Utnapishtim


EPISODE 6. The Story of the Flood [Tablet 11]

           A. Marduk/Enlil Decides to Destroy Man

           B. Ea/Enki Informs Utnapishtim, King of Shurrupak

           C. The Boat, the Storm, the Flood

           D. After the Flood: The Chastisement of Marduk/Enlil
and his Promise not to send another Flood. Utnapishtim and his
wife were immortalized for their role in saving mankind. They were
then confined to the island of Dilmun to spend Eternity in isolation.


EPISODE 7. The Return to Uruk [End of Tablet 11]

           A. The Plant of Rejuvenation; the Serpent

           B. The Walls of Uruk: the human route to immortality


NOTE: Some versions of the Epic contain a Tablet 12. This is an
older and dramatically different version of "The Death of
Enkidu." It presents a view of Enkidu's death and the reasons
therefor which is not consistent with the "Epic's" spiritual
framework. Like the story of "Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish," it was
not a part of the preserved Epic.

[See the following for more information.]

     John Gardner and John Maier, GILGAMESH. Based on the Sin-
          leqi- unninni version from Old Babylonian times.

     Alexander Heidel, THE GILGAMESH EPIC AND OLD TESTAMENT
          PARALLELS. Most copies of the "Epic" included in "Read-
          ings" texts are taken from Heidel's book.]

     Herbert Mason, GILGAMESH. A VERSE NARRATIVE. [This version is
          the most widely available, but I do NOT recommend it
          because it presents an anachronistic spiritual frame-
          work for Utnapishtim's story.]

     Nancy K. Sandars, THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH. [A basic version
          with a good introduction.]

     Jeffrey H. Tigay, THE EVOLUTION OF THE GILGAMESH EPIC. [An
          excellent historical study of the development of the
          Epic with translation]

     Robert Silverberg, GILGAMESH. [A novel based on the Gilga-

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In an article called New Evidence of Great Flood Found Black Sea Suggest People Lived on Ancient Coast, written by Randolph E. Schmid on September 13, 2000 for the Associated Press, he reports :

Artifacts found at the bottom of the Black Sea provide new evidence that humans faced a great flood, perhaps that of the biblical Noah, thousands of years ago, the discoverers say.

Remnants of human habitation were found in over 300 feet of water about 12 miles off the coast of Turkey,

Fredrik Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania, chief archaeologist for the Black Sea project, said from the ship, ``This find represents the first concrete evidence for the occupation of the Black Sea coast prior to its flooding.''

Many ancient Middle Eastern cultures have legends of a great flood, including the Bible story of Noah.

Columbia University researchers William Ryan and Walter Pittman speculated in their 1997 book ``Noah's Flood'' that when the European glaciers melted about 7,000 years ago, the Mediterranean Sea overflowed into what was then a smaller freshwater lake to create the Black Sea.

Ballard, a National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said he had studied shells found along the ancient coastline and found two types. One group is an extinct type of freshwater shell, while the second is from saltwater shellfish.

The saltwater shells date back 6,500 years, while the freshwater shells all date to 7,000 years ago and older.

``So,'' he said Tuesday, ``we know that there was a sudden and dramatic change from a freshwater lake to a saltwater sea 7,000 years ago.

``And we know that as a result of that flood a vast amount of land went underwater.

``And we now know that that land was inhabited. What we don't know is who these people are, we don't know how broad their settlements were ... ''

Ballard said his team, using remote-controlled underwater vessels with cameras, located a former river valley beneath the sea and in that valley was a collapsed structure, including some preserved wooden beams that had been worked by hand.

The structure was ``clearly built by humans,'' and was characteristic of stone-age structures built 7,000 years ago in the interior of Turkey, Ballard said.

It contained a stone chisel and two other stone tools with holes drilled through them, he said, adding that nothing has been removed from the site.

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The narrative concerning Noah in Genesis 9:20-27 belongs to a different cycle, which seems to be unrelated to the Flood story. In the latter, Noah's sons are married and their wives accompany them in the ark; but in this narrative they would seem to be unmarried, nor does the shameless drunkenness of Noah accord well with the character of the pious hero of the Flood story. Three different themes may be traced in Genesis 9:20-27: first, the passage attributes the beginnings of agriculture, and in particular the cultivation of the vine, to Noah; second, it attempts to provide, in the persons of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, ancestors for three of the races of mankind and to account in some degree for their historic relations; and third, by its censure of Canaan, it offers a veiled justification for the later Israelite conquest and subjugation of the Canaanites. Noah's drunkenness and the disrespect it provokes in his son Ham result in Noah's laying of a curse on Ham's son Canaan. This incident may symbolize the ethnic and social division of Palestine: the Israelites (from the line of Shem) will separate from the pre-Israelite population of Canaan (which is depicted as licentious), who will live in subjection to the Hebrews.

© 1999-2000 Britannica.com and Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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The Israelite tribes during the period of the guidance and leadership of Moses and Joshua mainly had to contend with nomadic tribes; in their contacts with such groups, they absorbed some of the attitudes and motifs of the nomadic way of life, such as independence, a love of freedom to move about, and fear of or disdain for the way of life of settled, agricultural, and urban peoples.

The Canaanites, with whom the Israelites came into contact during the conquest by Joshua and the period of the Judges, were a sophisticated agricultural and urban people. The name Canaan means "Land of Purple" (a purple dye was extracted from a murex shellfish found near the shores of Palestine). The Canaanites, a people who absorbed and assimilated the features of many cultures of the ancient Near East for at least 500 years before the Israelites entered their area of control, were the people who, as far as is known, invented the form of writing that became the alphabet, which, through the Greeks and Romans, was passed on to many cultures influenced by their successors--namely, the nations and peoples of Western civilization.

The religion of the Canaanites was an agricultural religion, with pronounced fertility motifs. Their main gods were called the Baalim (Lords), and their consorts the Baalot (Ladies), or Asherah (singular), usually known by the personal plural name Ashtoret. The god of the city of Shechem, which city the Israelites had absorbed peacefully under Joshua, was called Baal-berith (Lord of the Covenant) or El-berith (God of the Covenant). Shechem became the first cultic centre of the religious tribal confederacy (called an amphictyony by the Greeks) of the Israelites during the period of the judges. When Shechem was excavated in the early 1960s, the temple of Baal-berith was partially reconstructed; the sacred pillar (generally a phallic symbol or, often, a representation of the ashera, the female fertility symbol) was placed in its original position before the entrance of the temple.

The Baalim and the Baalot, gods and goddesses of the Earth, were believed to be the revitalizers of the forces of nature upon which agriculture depended. The revitalization process involved a sacred marriage (hieros gamos), replete with sexual symbolic and actual activities between men, representing the Baalim, and the sacred temple prostitutes (qedeshot), representing the Baalot. Cultic ceremonies involving sexual acts between male members of the agricultural communities and sacred prostitutes dedicated to the Baalim were focussed on the Canaanite concept of sympathetic magic. As the Baalim (through the actions of selected men) both symbolically and actually impregnated the sacred prostitutes in order to reproduce in kind, so also, it was believed, the Baalim (as gods of the weather and the Earth) would send the rains (often identified with semen) to the Earth so that it might yield abundant harvests of grains and fruits. Canaanite myths incorporating such fertility myths are represented in the mythological texts of the ancient city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) in northern Syria; though the high god El and his consort are important as the first pair of the pantheon, Baal and his sexually passionate sister-consort are significant in the creation of the world and the renewal of nature.

The religion of the Canaanite agriculturalists proved to be a strong attraction to the less sophisticated and nomadic-oriented Israelite tribes. Many Israelites succumbed to the allurements of the fertility-laden rituals and practices of the Canaanite religion, partly because it was new and different from the Yahwistic religion and, possibly, because of a tendency of a rigorous faith and ethic to weaken under the influence of sexual attractions. As the Canaanites and the Israelites began to live in closer contact with each other, the faith of Israel tended to absorb some of the concepts and practices of the Canaanite religion. Some Israelites began to name their children after the Baalim; even one of the judges, Gideon, was also known by the name Jerubbaal ("Let Baal Contend").

As the syncretistic tendencies became further entrenched in the Israelite faith, the people began to lose the concept of their exclusiveness and their mission to be a witness to the nations, thus becoming weakened in resolve internally and liable to the oppression of other peoples.

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