Noah’s Lark

3 Comments

This podcast deals with the myth of the great flood. It begins with a consideration of why modern expeditions do not find anything (nothing to be found), and considers the reasons the story is so appealing to present-day readers. The Sun Pictures productions on the flood story are reviewed, along with the story of the hoax played on Sun in their 1992 made-for-television movie. The history of the flood story is briefly narrated, beginning with George Smith’s 1872 discovery of the Mesopotamian flood story, back to Atrahasis and the Eridu Genesis from Sumer. The flood story is one of the earliest religious stories known.

3 thoughts on “Noah’s Lark”

  1. Qohelet

    You mentioned that the ANE flood myths share a common concern about having a moral story. I have a problem finding a moral to the story of Atrahasis, where Enlil drowned the humans for breeding like rabbits and becoming too noisy. 🙂

    BTW, AiG posted an M.A. thesis about the relationship (or complete, utter lack thereof) between the Noachian deluge and the earlier flood epics. What are your thoughts on her research?

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    • Steve Wiggins

      I think the moral of Atrahasis is “keep the stereo down!”

      I’ll need to spend a little time on AiG’s disquisition, but my first scans do not inspire confidence. Any thesis that starts out with the conclusions already decided is not really a thesis at all. I’ll let you know if I have any revelations as I read it!

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  2. Henk van der Gaast

    I see a direct parallel… One god hears the creation and is offended and one god sees the creation and is offended. Gods being the human constructs that they are, always behave the same way.. Just like we do.

    My take is and has always been that the genesis myth was redacted by either microcultural influences and story lines via a developing El/Baalistic/Yahwitsic cult. Even worse, cobbled together around 600BCE during captivity rehashing creation stories to include cultural claptrap developed around Sargon (the wise?). They probably never heard of Sargon but the mosaic myth fit beautifully.

    I realise its a personal posit but Isiah and Josiah.. Ezra and the Torah start fitting on very neat pages.

    This reduces King David to King Arthur and Ezra to St Bede.

    Historical allegory is fun but its a pity that at times the source material is so well interpreted and accepted that a radical hammer (like the many in the religio-philosophical world) lies outside of the realm of reasonable interpretation.

    My take isn’t even accepted by me, but its great to kneecap somebody with; What if the Exhilic Judah were the Juddin? What if they took their pseudo history back to somewhere they weren’t really divine lease holders in the first place?..Even from the Bible one could infer that from Judah’s original sin, Judah had no place in the scheme of things and clearly in the rehash we call the Exodus, Judah sticks its unwanted nose in the meddling governance of the nation.

    Having said that, could it be even slightly possible that the Judaic acceptance of punishment is redacted back into the texts they, themselves, may have redacted?

    Frankly, if the over arching Daniel can be overwhelmingly pictured as a fractious literary content and what many describe as the very loopy Ezekiel being a damn fine scribe.. where does the new prophetic literature stand… where does the old history stand? Was Canaan just a reflection of a mish mash of Yahwistic and Baalistic culture? We know El and Asherah certainly had influence on the local thought. What of Dagon then? Did he really live on to the accepted Arabic world as long as 650 CE?

    I appeal to dismiss the content of the above but to accept its deliberate circularity as a posit. That, my friends, is the bible and if you don’t see the things that shouldn’t be there, you haven’t read it too closely.

    If you don’t see the redact in what we call modern history, you shouldn’t even read the daily paper.

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