According
to the account given in Genesis[1],
God had come to regret creating man and the Earth due to his corruption and
iniquity. It was due to this displeasure
that God decided to destroy man and all creeping things on the face of the
Earth. However, Noah managed through his
righteousness to find grace with God and gained a covenant that he and his
family would not be destroyed in the flood[2]. Along with his family, Noah was commissioned
by God to save a selection of all the animals of the Earth. Contrary to the popular belief that there was
two of every animal saved, the account in Genesis states that there was two of
every unclean animal to be saved, but seven of every clean animal and fowl[3]. These were saved so that the Earth may be
repopulated following the destruction of the wicked. The flood lasted[4]
for a period of one year and ten days[5]. At the end of the flood, Noah used birds to
test if the floodwaters had receded to a point that everything could leave the
ark[6]. When the dove failed to return on the third
release, Noah knew that it was safe to leave the ark.
The
story of the flood indicates that the relationship between people and God is
similar to that of a loving parent and disobedient children, where God has the
role of the parent and the people that of children. Have been pushed to the limits of what
disobedience He could tolerate, God chose to help His children (the people) the
best way he could; by removing them from the Earth before they could do any
more harm to themselves, and starting over with Noah and his family. The authorship of Genesis is credited to
Moses, who is purported to have been a prophet of God. Assuming that this is accurate, the
authorship of Genesis can be taken as coming from both a record keeping point
of view as well as that of an instructional and warning nature.
When
comparing the flood in Genesis with the Epic of Gilgamesh and of Atrahasis,
there are a lot of similarities. In all
three stories, the populace of Earth is destroyed by flood due to the people
angering a god. However, in both
Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, there are multiple gods, whereas in Genesis there is
just one. Also, in Genesis, the cause of
God’s anger was the peoples iniquity, as opposed to the other two, which was
the loudness of the people keep the god Ellil awake[7]. The flood in Gilgamesh only lasted for seven
days; in Genesis it was a year and ten days.
Taking
the recorded dates of when Genesis, Atrahasis, and Gilgamesh were written,
Atrahasis would seem to be the oldest, at approximately 1700BC[8],
where as Genesis, even though it is recording an event that supposedly took
place in 2300BC, was reputedly written by Moses, which puts it as being written
at around 1400BC.
Bibliography
Atrahasis.
Tablet I.vii, II.i, III.i-vii.
Weekly Readings
Gilgamesh.
Tablet XI.i-iv Weekly Readings
The
Holy Bible. (King James Version) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, Salt Lake City,
1989.
[1]
Genesis 6:5-7
[2]
Genesis 6:18
[3]
Genesis 7:2-3
[4]
From the beginning of the rain until the return of the dove.
[5]
Starting in Noah’s six hundredth year, second month, and seventeenth day and
abating in his six hundred and first year, second month and twenty-seventh
day. Genesis 7:11 & 8:13-14.
[6]
Genesis 8:7-12
[7]
Atrahasis
[8]
Atrahasis
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