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Loading...In response to my posts on the Pentateuch, several readers have asked about how other myths from other cultures of the Ancient Near East may have influenced the biblical writers (and the story tellers who passed along the traditions before them). Among other things, other religions of the region had stories of creation and the flood that were very similar to what you can find in the book of Genesis. What do we know about these?
Here is what I say about two of the regional myths of the flood, again, in my bextbook The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.
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The Gilgamesh Epic
In 1853 several fragments of a different ancient text were discovered in the ruined palace of ancient Nineveh. The texts, also written in cuneiform script, were deciphered by George Smith. Since then they have been recognized as containing one of the great epics of ancient literature, named after its lead character, a king of the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia named Gilgamesh. Numerous other fragments of the epic have since been discovered and pieced together. They tell the story of this great hero, Gilgamesh, especially in his relationship with a one-time wild and uncivilized, but now tamed, companion Enkidu.
The epic is highly episodic, going from one adventure to the next, but there are many striking parallels to what can be found in the Primeval History of Genesis, for example in the tale of the Garden of Eden. One portion of the epic
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It’s interesting that the flood myths have someone building a boat to save the human race. If there really was a particularly devastating flood event, then those involved knew there was no boat and that they survived by other means–higher ground, on the roof of a structure, etc… That makes me wonder if, at least, the first flood myth was meant to be read as a fictional story and not to be taken as literal truth.
Is seems like the writers of Genesis didn’t understand the difference between fact and fiction or they’ve blurred fact and fiction either intentionally or unintentionally. Do you know of any scholarship about ancient peoples’ understanding of the truth versus an imaginary tale?
There’s no way to know about the Hebrew Bible. In terms of other cultures, you might try Paul Veyne’s Did the Ancient Greeks Believe Their Myths?
Your ending explanation seems on target to me.
Dio Chrysostom was part of the Second Sophistic school of Greek philosophers which reached its peak in the early 2nd century. He was considered as one of the most eminent of the Greek rhetoricians and sophists by the ancients who wrote about him, such as Philostratus,[11] Synesius,[12] and Photius.[13]
academia.edu has this title: Jesus the Philosopher and Sophist. Two classical views on Christianity and Jesus: Galen and Lucian of Samosata
Compare Chrysostom’s Discourses to the New Testament.
Sophist: 1.a paid teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece, associated in popular thought with moral skepticism and specious reasoning. a person who reasons with clever but fallacious arguments
= = =
Dr. Ehrman why is there a connection between Christianity and sophists?
Second, is academia.edu reputable among scholars?
What advantage did the Jews gain from {being against} their wise king? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished {by Rome, in the year after Rome had four emperors}. … [He is not dead]
because of the new laws he laid down.
–Mara Bar Serapion, circa 170 C.E
[Christians] are all brothers the moment they … deny the Greek gods and begin worshiping that crucified sophist and living by his laws.
–Lucian of Samosata, circa 170 C.E.
{A sophist during the first century and prior was a category of teachers who specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching excellence, or virtue. With the biblical Jesus being a sophist, Christianity has evangelized excellence and virtue for millennia.}
And, I just got back from a library. Dio’s discourses seem to be good. I flipped some pages in each of the five volumes before borrowing them from the library.
1. Yes, Christian literary elite were influenced by the Second Sophistic; 2. I don’t really know.
Thank you. As I read as many of Dio Chrysotom’s discourses as I have time to read, I hope to find something or some things. What’s up first are discourses on kingship (four of them), a Libyan myth, Diogenes or tyranny, virtue, servants, the Trojan discourse. I’ll glance at the Euobean and the Istmian discourses.
Then there are four more books in this series. (He has 80-something discourses. This volume has the first 11.)
But would you say “Noah’s” Flood story was based on a specific local flood, or on one of the older myths?
Probably an older myth I would assume. But certainly whoever wrote it knew about floods.
Ancient myths give us a great glimpse into how ancient peoples reasoned. For example, the reason so many cultures have dragon myths is that people probably came across dinosaur fossils and they speculated that giant dragon-like creatures wander or once wandered the earth. Without our modern scientific understanding of the world, the ancient mind connecting dinosaur fossils to dragons isn’t totally unreasonable. The same is probably the case with ancient flood myths. Ancient people came across the fossils of sea creatures — fish, mollusks, whales, etc. — on land, even as high as mountain tops (the same fossils that would lead men such as Charles Lyell to develop, instead, modern theories of geology) and those ancient people, being completely ignorant of our modern understanding of plate tectonics, must have concluded (quite reasonably in light of their ignorance) that these sea creatures must have made it onto land via some great flood. Ancient people would see sudden down pours and flash floods that could easily raise a river dozens of feet in a day, so they sensibly extrapolated that if it were to rain for days and days then the water level could continue to rise and rise and rise, eventually flooding all visible land. They also assumed that since rain comes from the sky, and the gods live in the sky then the gods are responsible for when and how much flooding occurs. So it’s a perfectly reasonable series of conclusions (considering their scientific ignorance): A) The gods control the rains, B) the rains cause flooding, C) there are sea creature fossils on the land and mountains D), therefore, the gods must have completely flooded the earth at some point. And that’s seed that sprouted into the ancient flood mythology.
An article that shows a great example of how sea creature fossils can wind up on mountain tops.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/12/us/whale-fossils-high-in-andes-show-how-mountains-rose-from-sea.html
Dr. Ehrman, You mention that probably there was no flood as such. Just myths caused by occasional floods. I recall that in “Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations” by Dr. Fagan (The Great Courses) he says something to the effect that around 10,000 years ago Europe was covered by sheets of ice and the sea level was about 370 feet lower. What is now England was attached to Europe, etc. What is now the Black Sea was (and this is speculation) a valley or at most a small lake. When the ice melted the sea levels rose and at some point water started flowing very rapidly from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea. In a matter of weeks or perhaps a couple of months the level reached what it is now. Many people would have drowned but, even worse, this was at the time when man was changing from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Displaced they would have to cultivate (clearing land first) somewhere else, wait for seeds to grow, etc. Many more would have starved than died from the rising waters. Anyway, since I took this course I’ve come to believe this to be the origin of the flood myths.
No, I’m not denying that the myths were based on experiences of, or at least knowledge about, floods, but it would be hard to date any of the myths to 10,000 years ago.
Does it make sense that this could be a story the Jews were exposed to–maybe in the Babylonian captivity–and repurposed? In genesis, God has a stronger reason for wiping out humanity, unspecified wickedness and cruelty rather than noisiness. Also, unlike the gods of Babylon, the God of Israel/Judah repents of causing the flood and makes a covenant never to do so again. In a way, the nearly identical story serves to demonstrate a contrast in the character of God and the gods.
I’ve read something like this, but cannot remember where, so I’m not sure if I’ve got it as the author intended.
Yup, it’s ceratinly possible.
I’m no expert, but I would assume it would be perfectly reasonable to speculate that if the Flood myth was known in Babylon then it must have been known throughout the Mesopotamian region. The version we get in the Hebrew Bible could simply be an alternate version of a common regional myth that was repurposed for the theological agenda of the Bible writers/redacters. (cf. Arthurian legends in the Middle Ages)
But many very different stories could be told about floods, and many have. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that the biblical account was influenced by the Sumerian legends, or that they had a common source they both drew upon? I doubt very much anybody floating at sea would actually have used birds to find out if there was land nearby (the bird might fly back just hoping to get fed–migrating birds rest on ships all the time, often very far out at sea–it doesn’t prove anything). Possible the same idea occurred independently in different cultures, but this seems a bit too similar to be coincidence.
Yes, I think so.
Hello Dr Ehrman,
Some people believe that there may have been a massive flood in that area, big enough to be thought of as global to the people of that era. A quick google search shows the details. If true it could explain where these “myths” came from.
Yes, and the massive eruption on what is now the island of Santorini could have (I once read) caused the temporary parting of the Red Sea, leading to that part of the story of Exodus.
The fact is, much of what happens naturally on this planet can seem miraculous when you don’t understand the underlying causes. Or even if you do.
But I doubt many (any?) of the biblical stories were written down by people who actually witnessed them, or even talked to people who had. Many would have witnessed floods and other natural disasters, though. Nature can seem very much like an angry god at times–because that’s what it is. And not without cause, I’d say.
Reader’s of today’s blog might have an interest in going to the NPR website and reading today’s article entitled “Life-Size Noah’s Ark to Open Amid a Flood of Skepticism.” The article is much more interesting than it seems. What a sop-opera with lots of money involved and I mean “lots.”
Yeah, it’s about 2 1/2 hrs. from where I live. It’s been a controversial endeavor ever since it started. I’m planning on seeing it later this month.
A massive flood of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys could quite easily be mythologized. The perspective of ancient peoples surely was far more localised than current times and so one can imagine their ‘world’ being flooded and that leading to the tale that the whole earth was inundated.
We now have a rich source of humour such as the apologetic lion approaching Noah and observing that “we lost it and ate one of the gazelles. Did you pack more than two?”
When is your next lecture on the west coast Bart ?
None scheduled just now!
?Well schedule some ! I want to see you sir !
Ready for the next flood:
Biblical Noah’s Ark Encounter Opened July 7 in Kentucky
http://www.smobserved.com/story/2016/07/07/travel/biblical-noahs-ark-encounter-opened-july-7-in-kentucky/1582.html
Just want to say something.. Same with image of Zeus either the artist went to heaven and seen Zeus or the king came to earth and showed his face… Same with Jesus, either the artist went to heaven and seen Jesus or……. Now who looks like Jesus and or Zeus is the question guess we can start there ? Looks the same as image and looks the same as walks the same… Just randomly blogging…
How did we get any images ? John the Baptist ? Bacchus?
And another thing gospel of the Thomas line 30 Jesus was probably saying more than I am with them… Was problably saying I am related to them ! JK ? Jesus sure is a mystery.. Or is he ? Now Dionysian mysteries was a mystery ? I wonder if Apollo ever played music for Dionysus ? I think I remember that some where? And John the Baptist picture by leanardo similar to his Bacchus painting just as the pope carries his staff as Dionysus carried his thrysus … Random blogging and thinking out loud is all !!!
If I may allow me to recommend a recent book on this subject entitled THE ARK BEFORE NOAH:DECODING THE STORY OF THE FLOOD by Dr Irving Finkel, an Assyriologist with the formidable title of “Assistant Keeper of ancient Mesopotamian script, languages, and cultures” at the British Museum. Not a dry dusty tome but a very entertaining readable account,
https://www.amazon.com/Ark-Before-Noah-Decoding-Story/dp/0345804392/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Although I don’ t have the date at my fingertips, for Noah’s flood, there was recently afloat an expedition that went around the Black Sea (partly approved and somewhat off the cuff but OK with Russia’s powers) looking for evidence of the Mediterranean flowing into what was at the time a fresh water lake of sorts, now the Black Sea. It did prove to be true that over 2 or 3 weeks time, suddenly the Med Sea began to flow over into the fresh water lake down a cliff and rose the water level up significantly to what it is now. The fresh water from Russia is still flowing out into the Med Sea, but the salt water flows into the Black Sea on top of it as well. Fresh water fish below as I remember, salt water above. This would have flooded the entire area of villages, cities, inhabitation around the lake when it happened, gradually, 2 feet a day I think maybe (or less). Possibly Noah and his family and buddies lived there around the lake where they could grow wine and other crops, did animal husbandry. (Due to a draught in the Near East , having migrated North.) It must have been an Eden land. When Noah saw the water falling over the cliff, maybe he did hear God’s whisper in his ear— get busy with a boat.
Great flooding does happen still down in Iraq of course. The people live sometimes on the rivers in big reed barges with all their goats and cattle, children, etc. on board even have sod on the barges. Barges are covered over with reed roofs and bitumen keeps them water resistant. (Sadam Hussein was out to evict these people and destroy them but they are still there – the Marsh Arabs, some worship John the Baptist. Manacheans ‘ I will make you “fishers” of men,” as SJB said in their gospels. The cattle go back out on the shores when the floods subside. (Swim too!)
I saw an ancient drawing of a round Noah type boat too – Noah’s boat in the Near East was/is reputedly round and has 3 stories, full of all kinds of animals, birds, etc. Just like our arks–but round and tall up!! k
Did the Hebrew scribes actually plagiarize the ancient Near Eastern writings almost entirely claiming it as their own creating a history for the Israelites that was not historical?
I don’t think literary influence would be the same as plagiarism.
Is it literary influence when all stories are taken from other cultures and just the names and a few details are changed? Is that allowed in college?
I think the problem is that since the invention of printing and then copyright laws, there is a very, very different sense of what is appropriate borrowing and what not. Ancients simply didn’t have the exact sense we have (though they certainly knew about plagiarism; but usually it was not borrowing themes or stories, but literally stealing someone else’s words)
I’ve got a question. Did the original authors of those texts (Gilgamesh, Atrahasis and Genesis) consider them to be literal history, or just fictional accounts of some mythological events? Or maybe they didn’t distinguish between the two at all?
I’m afraid we have no way of knowing.
Dear Professor, this topic is amusing! it is because it may be easier for your school of thought to believe that an ocean once existed over the Grand Canyon because some scientist have found fossil record of aquatic life on the top and walls of the now arid canyon area, that is between 8000 – 2000 feets above the current sea level, than the biblical and non biblical record of a global flood. it is also interesting because as a local ‘myths’ or legend, there exist a similar history or ‘fable’ that there was a god, called the god of the rainbow, who once flooded the earth or ‘my local flood plain’ to cleanse that locality ( the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria lives 2000km away from the middle-east) Anyway i assume logically that the prevalence different account or perspective of a similar story around the world gives credence to the possibility of that ‘once upon a time’ an event occurred, that a flood or flooding occurred as an act of the gods. The more interesting part is that the collation of all the story seems to converge at a similar point in time in history.
i also noted that given, like i assume is the general agreement between Science and humanities, that all human races descended from same evolutionary or common ancestor, it is not far-fetched to conclude that the flood story is not the make-up of the bible or of the other sources, and that it varied over time as a result of the genealogical branching of the human races, but also of the culture and language of transmission.
So it is easy for me to assume, or rather present that since the flood is not an exclusive account of the bible and because of the account from the various human family tree branches, the story became varied over time, but its a possibility or rather it is a true event of history.
To illustrate, going back 10 generations of my ancestry to one particular ancestor and placed side by side with another descendants who is also of the 10 generational step down, of the said ancestor, we did not agree on some very fundamentals of that our patriarch. To drive the point home properly, my current branch of the family calls him ‘A’, and believed he lived in a village called ‘X’, and that he was a prince and worked as a smith, while my ‘distant’ cousin called him ‘O’ and referred to him as a trader who is constantly on migration. Today we have only a large piece of land, through the tenure history, to arrive at the conclusion that we are referring to the same person, actually our story of that patriarch is so divergent that it took years of legal mediation and traditional tracing for all the families involved, over 200 now, from different contemporary town, to now agree that we all descended from that man, yet we all still hold on to our different story about him, and that may never change since our different story were handed down to us by our more recent ancestor, who gave accounts of what they were told or what they witness as our history, as true, nothing but the truth.
my point is that the bible cannot lay exclusive claim to the flood story, the ‘victim’ is not the ancestors of the bible writers alone, and the story cannot be the same for all the descendant, since the descending culture and belief also varied with the progression of time, the personality of each branching, and the record keeping civilization of each of the branches of descendant.
What is more? just like you explained in one of your articles about the historical Jesus, that the lack of historical record or extra biblical record of Jesus history is not proof that Jesus did not exist, as much the lack of extra records did not disprove that Pilate, Josephus or Socrates are real person. it in turn imply that the agreement in record among various but varied cultures and religions that there was a global or an act of god flood, which took place in the past, is an outstanding verification that something of that nature happened in the past. At least my traditional people in western Nigeria also agree that such an event took place.
More so Scientist have concluded that there is enough water on earth to submerge Mount Everest 7 miles under if all the water forms become liquid.
Lastly, would it be right to assume that agnostics believes that Humans are the only form of intelligent life in the universe?
LOLZ!….
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That is interesting. Can you cite a source for that scientific ‘conclusion’?
My presentation was based on scientific speculation of what may happen if all water forms condenses into liquid and the earth crust is sufficiently flatten or an asteroid fall to fill up the depths of the oceans. You may want to seek for my premise from the national geographic website or from hollywood fiction/movies. This however is not to substantiate for the cause of the biblical recorded global flood but to show that some scientist or scientific thinker agree on the plausibility of a global flood to the magnitude described in the bible, given the abundance of water on planet earth and natural or physical event that may prompt such occurrence.
I’m leaning more toward pantheism than anything else right now. I believe the universe is intelligent and we’re a result of that. I don’t think humans are the highest form of intelligence either. If we were, we could literally control the universe instead of it controlling us.
Humans aren’t even the only form of intelligent life on the planet!
And these days I’m beginning to wonder if they are an intelligent form of life on the planet….
I don’t know your source for claiming the water could rise enough to submerge Everest. That’s very different than the information at geology.com.
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/
They project that a melting of all the world’s ice-sheets would raise sea levels about 60 meters. There is an interactive map to show the dramatic changes to the coastlines of the world. However, this also shows that only a small fraction of the dry land would ever be submerged.
“Lastly, would it be right to assume that agnostics believes that Humans are the only form of intelligent life in the universe?”
I don’t know about Bart – but I’m also an agnostic, and *of course* I don’t believe humans are “the only form of intelligent life in the universe”! At this particular moment, we may or may not be the only form of life with our type and degree of “intelligence” – we have no way of knowing. But considering the immensity of the universe, I doubt it.
Bart, how do fundamentalists on an scholarly academic level stick to the authenticity of the christian Noah story if its known by historians that other stories such as Gilgamesh were written prior to the biblical account? I know the average fundamentalist just assumes everyone copied from the christian bible. If the evidence says otherwise how do they still justify that there story was the correct original one? its puzzling…
They probably maintain that there really was a flood and traditions about it survived in a number of locations around the world; the version of the Hebrew Bible may have been *written* later, but that doesn’t mean that it is not the “correct” version. It simply had circulated orally longer than the others.
It can be entertaining to speculate about what historical events might have underlain myths like Noah’s Flood, but we always need to be careful not be distracted from the point here.
This isn’t mere rain falling on the Earth; rather they are the Waters of Chaos breaking in upon the world.
Or to put this another way, the story of The Flood is about nothing so trivial as the flooding of the whole world. Rather it is about the destruction of the entirety of Creation, of the complete universe.
Yes indeed! That’s completely right (note: both water from above and water from below: the world is returning to the chaos that existed before God separated the waters above and below with a firmament in Genesis 1)
I remember being intrigued by the4 claim that other cultures, like some in North America, had accounts of the great flood. As nearly as I can tell, though, these are not really flood stories, they are the kind of creation stories that anthropologists call “earthdiver” stories.
It is also noteworthy that the bible did report the cause of the flooding. It rained non stop for 40 days and 40 nights: 960 hours around the ‘globe’ and it took 150 days for the water to run off. This is not an event that has reoccurred so that we can make accurate observation of such an event, but at least mankind around the world, in different locations have experience the impact of what could happen if it were to rain intermittently for just 4 days. I mean even in arid places like the Sahara desert, that is, I’m cannot speculate extensively on the other conditions that can contribute to such an extensive flooding such as the land terrain: run off systems; local water deposits or strength of wind. If I may I will like this audience to research and speculate on what could possibly occur if a category 5 hurricane was to persist non stop for a week on the north amirican sub-continent.
In this connection and according to the many legends around the world e.g. the one I cited in my initial comment, the people also believed that they migrated to Africa from somewhere in the Middle East and so too the stories which they transmitted through oral traditions as myths legend superstition, but as truth from their ancestors.
Also it is instructive to note some other facts connected to this biblical narrative e.g. The extent of human occupation or migration at Noah’s time which according to biblical chronology is not more than 2000 years after creation, and which may be limited to the Mediterranean area and not further that 1000 km inward in any direction, that is, the implication or understanding of the word earth or ‘surface of the earth’ may not imply the ‘globe’ but may refer to the then entire human occupation which may be limited to the ‘Middle East’
Apart from the strikingly similar flood stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the book of Genesis, do you know of any other stories in the Bible that appear to be based on or inspired by earlier non-biblical accounts from different cultures?
Yup! E.g., the creation story of Genesis 1 and the Enuma Elish. I’ll be talking about all this in my upcoming lecture course In the Beginning.