Gen. 6-9 The Flood –

Flood stories are not unique to Biblical Text

• Atrahasis and Gilgamesh myths have similar characteristics
  • Epic parallels
    • *etiology – rainbow
    • *commissions of Gen.1
• Atrahasis myth – Atrahasis builds an arch to escape over population because the God’s were becoming too noisy
• Gilgamesh – copies were found over the Ancient Near East.  Gilgamesh was half god and half human.  In the story Bilgames builds an arch just as Noah did.
• The flood shows the effect of disobedience of everyone throughout the earth.
• Turning back to Genesis we see God has regrets about what was created
  • Gen 6: 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
  • This is an example of counter testimony.  Here we see God changing God’s mind out of experience
  • There are at least 300 stories of a universal Flooding
  • There are no rivers that would have been able to flood Ancient Israel
  • Palestine always had a dry clement
    • All of this suggest that the flood story was taken from other sources
    • We notice that Noah did not argue for the salvation of humanity
    • Society will be renewed by Noah and his sons in Gen 9:1-2, 6b
    • Although this is a story of tragedy because God rids the earth of everyone besides of Noah we still see a covenant that God is keeping which is symbolized by the rainbow.