The son of Enosh, through whom the pure lineage continued, was Cainan ("little Cain"); some scholars take the name to mean "metalsmith." Cainan's son was Mahalal-El ("praiser of god"). He was followed by Jared ("he who descended"); his son was Enoch ("consecrated one"), who at age 365 was carried aloft by the Deity. But three hundred years earlier, at age sixty-five, Enoch had begotten a son named Methuselah; many scholars, following Lettia D. Jeffreys (Ancient Hebrew Names: Their Significance and Historical Value) translate Methuselah as "man of the missile."
Methuselah's son was named Lamech, meaning "he who was humbled." And Lamech begot Noah ("respite"), saying: "Let this one comfort us concerning our work and the suffering of our hands by the earth which the deity hath accursed."
Humanity, it appears, was undergoing great deprivations when Noah was born. The hard work and the toil were getting it nowhere, for Earth, which was to feed them, was accursed. The stage was set for the Deluge—the momentous event which was to wipe off the face of Earth not only the human race but all life upon the land and in the skies.
And the Deity saw that the wickedness of Man
was great on the earth,
and that every desire of his heart's thoughts
was only evil, every day.
And the Deity repented that He had made Man
upon the earth, and His heart grieved.
And the Deity said:
"I will destroy the Earthling whom I have created
off the face of the earth."
These are broad accusations, presented as justifications for drastic measures to "end all flesh." But they lack specificity, and scholars and theologians alike find no satisfactory answers regarding the sins or "violations" that could have upset the Deity so much.
The repeated use of the term flesh, both in the accusative verses and in the proclamations of judgment, suggest, of course, that the corruptions and violations had to do with the flesh. The Deity grieved over the evil "desire of Man's thoughts." Man, it would seem, having discovered sex, had become a sex maniac.
But one can hardly accept that the Deity would decide to wipe Mankind off the face of Earth simply because men made too much love to their wives. The Mesopotamian texts speak freely and eloquently of sex and lovemaking among the gods. There are texts describing tender love between gods and their consorts; illicit love between a maiden and her lover; violent love (as when Enlil raped Ninlil). There is a profusion of texts describing lovemaking and actual intercourse among the gods—with their official consorts or unofficial concubines, with their sisters and daughters and even granddaughters (making love to the latter was a favorite pastime of Enki). Such gods could hardly turn against Mankind for behaving as they themselves did.
The Deity's motive, we find, was not merely concern for human morals. The mounting disgust was caused by a spreading defilement of the gods themselves. Seen in this light, the meaning of the baffling opening verses of Genesis 6 becomes clear:
And it came to pass,
When the Earthlings began to increase in number
upon the face of the Earth,
and daughters were born unto them,
that the sons of the deities
saw the daughters of the Earthlings
that they were compatible,
and they took unto themselves
wives of whichever they chose.
As these verses should make clear, it was when the sons of the gods began to be sexually involved with Earthlings' offspring that the Deity cried, "Enough!"
And the Deity said:
"My spirit shall not shield Man forever;
having strayed, he is but flesh."
The statement has remained enigmatic for millennia. Read in the light of our conclusions regarding the genetic manipulation that was brought to play in Man's creation, the verses carry a message to our own scientists. The "spirit" of the gods—their genetic perfection of Mankind—was beginning to deteriorate. Mankind had "strayed," thereby reverting to being "but flesh"—closer to its animal, simian origins.
We can now understand the stress put by the Old Testament on the distinction between Noah, "a righteous man ... pure in his genealogies" and "the whole earth that was corrupt." By intermarrying with the men and women of decreasing genetic purity, the gods were subjecting themselves, too, to deterioration. By pointing out that Noah alone continued to be genetically pure, the biblical tale justifies the Deity's contradiction: Having just decided to wipe all life off the face of Earth, he decided to save Noah and his descendants and "every clean animal," and other beasts and fowls, "so as to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth."
The Deity's plan to defeat his own initial purpose was to alert Noah to the coming catastrophe and guide him in the construction of a waterborne ark, which would carry the people and the creatures that were to be saved. The notice given to Noah was a mere seven days. Somehow, he managed to build the ark and waterproof it, collect all the creatures and put them and his family aboard, and provision the ark in the allotted time. "And it came to pass, after the seven days, that the waters of the Deluge were upon the earth." What came to pass is best described in the Bible's own words:
On that day,
all the fountains of the great deep burst open,
and the sluices of the heavens were opened....
And the Deluge was forty days upon the Earth,
and the waters increased, and bore up the ark,
and it was lifted up above the earth.
And the waters became stronger
and greatly increased upon the earth,
and the ark floated upon the waters.
And the waters became exceedingly strong upon the
earth and all the high mountains were covered,
those that are under all the skies:
fifteen cubits above them did the water prevail,
and the mountains were covered.
And all flesh perished....
Both man and cattle and creeping things
and the birds of the skies
were wiped off from the Earth;
And Noah only was left,
and that which were with him in the ark.
The waters prevailed upon Earth 150 days, when the Deity
caused a wind to pass upon the Earth,
and the waters were calmed.
And the fountains of the deep were dammed,
as were the sluices of the heavens;
and the rain from the skies was arrested.
And the waters began to go back from upon the Earth,
coming and going back.
And after one hundred and fifty days,
the waters were less;
and the ark rested on the Mounts of Ararat.
According to the biblical version, Mankind's ordeal began "in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month." The ark rested on the Mounts of Ararat "in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month." The surge of the waters and their gradual "going back"—enough to lower the water level so that the ark rested on the peaks of Ararat—lasted, then, a full five months. Then "the waters continued to diminish, until the peaks of the mountains"—and not just the towering Ararats—"could be seen on the eleventh day of the tenth month," nearly three months later.
Noah waited another forty days. Then he sent out a raven and a dove "to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground." On the third try, the dove came back holding an olive leaf in her mouth, indicating that the waters had receded enough to enable treetops to be seen. After a while, Noah sent out the dove once more, "but she returned not again." The Deluge was over.
And Noah removed the covering of the Ark
and looked, and behold:
the face of the ground was dry.
"In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, did the earth dry up." It was the six hundred and first year of Noah. The ordeal had lasted a year and ten days.
Then N
oah and all that were with him in the ark came out. And he built an altar and offered burnt sacrifices to the Deity.
And the Deity smelled the enticing smell
and said in his heart:
"I shall no longer curse the dry land
on account of the Earthling;
for his heart's desire is evil from his youth."
The "happy ending" is as full of contradictions as the Deluge story itself. It begins with a long indictment of Mankind for various abominations, including defilement of the purity of the younger gods. A momentous decision to have all flesh perish is reached and appears fully justified. Then the very same Deity rushes in a mere seven days to make sure that the seed of Mankind and other creatures shall not perish. When the trauma is over, the Deity is enticed by the smell of roasting meat and, forgetting his original determination to put an end to Mankind, dismisses the whole thing with an excuse, blaming Man's evil desires on his youth.
These nagging doubts of the story's veracity disperse, however, when we realize that the biblical account is an edited version of the original Sumerian account. As in the other instances, the monotheistic Bible has compressed into one Deity the roles played by several gods who were not always in accord.
Until the archaeological discoveries of the Mesopotamian civilization and the decipherment of the Akkadian and Sumerian literature, the biblical story of the Deluge stood alone, supported only by scattered primitive mythologies around the world. The discovery of the Akkadian "Epic of Gilgamesh" placed the Genesis Deluge tale in older and venerable company, further enhanced by later discoveries of older texts and fragments of the Sumerian original.
The hero of the Mesopotamian Deluge account was Ziusudra in Sumerian (Utnapishtim in Akkadian), who was taken after the Deluge to the Celestial Abode of the Gods to live there happily ever after. When, in his search for immortality, Gilgamesh finally reached the place, he sought Utnapishtim's advice on the subject of life and death. Utnapishtim disclosed to Gilgamesh—and through him to all post-Diluvial Mankind—the secret of his survival, "a hidden matter, a secret of the gods"—the true story (one might say) of the Great Flood.
The secret revealed by Utnapishtim was that before the onslaught of the Deluge the gods held a council and voted on the destruction of Mankind. The vote and the decision were kept secret. But Enki searched out Utnapishtim, the ruler of Shuruppak, to inform him of the approaching calamity. Adopting clandestine methods, Enki spoke to Utnapishtim from behind a reed screen. At first his disclosures were cryptic. Then his warning and advice were clearly stated:
Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu:
Tear down the house, build a ship!
Give up possessions, seek thou life!
Foreswear belongings, keep soul alive!
Aboard ship take thou the seed of all living things;
That ship thou shalt build–
her dimensions shall be to measure.
The parallels with the biblical story are obvious: A Deluge is about to come; one Man is forewarned; he is to save himself by preparing a specially constructed boat; he is to take with him and save "the seed of all living things." Yet the Babylonian version is more plausible. The decision to destroy and the effort to save are not contradictory acts of the same single Deity, but the acts of different deities. Moreover, the decision to forewarn and save the seed of Man is the defiant act of one god (Enki), acting in secret and contrary to the joint decision of the other Great Gods.
Why did Enki risk defying the other gods? Was he solely concerned with the preservation of his "wondrous works of art," or did he act against the background of a rising rivalry or enmity between him and his elder brother Enlil?
The existence of such a conflict between the two brothers is highlighted in the Deluge story.
Utnapishtim asked Enki the obvious question: How could he, Utnapishtim, explain to the other citizens of Shuruppak the construction of an oddly shaped vessel and the abandonment of all possessions? Enki advised him:
Thou shalt thus speak unto them:
"I have learnt that Enlil is hostile to me,
so that I cannot reside in your city,
nor set my foot in Enlil's territory.
To the Apsu I will therefore go down,
to dwell with my Lord Ea."
The excuse was thus to be that, as Enki's follower, Utnapishtim could no longer dwell in Mesopotamia, and that he was building a boat in which he intended to sail to the Lower World (southern Africa, by our findings) to dwell there with his Lord, Ea/Enki. Verses that follow suggest that the area was suffering from a drought or a famine; Utnapishtim (on Enki's advice) was to assure the residents of the city that if Enlil saw him depart, "the land shall [again] have its fill of harvest riches." This excuse made sense to the other residents of the city.
Thus misled, the people of the city did not question, but actually lent a hand in, the construction of the ark. By killing and serving them bullocks and sheep "every day" and by lavishing upon them "must, red wine, oil and white wine," Utnapishtim encouraged them to work faster. Even children were pressed to carry bitumen for waterproofing.
"On the seventh day the ship was completed. The launching was very difficult, so they had to shift the floor planks above and below, until two-thirds of the structure had gone into the water" of the Euphrates. Then Utnapishtim put all his family and kin aboard the ship, taking along "whatever I had of all the living creatures" as well as "the animals of the field, the wild beasts of the field." The parallels with the biblical tale—even down to the seven days of construction—are clear. Going a step beyond Noah, however, Utnapishtim also sneaked aboard all the craftsmen who had helped him build the ship.
He himself was to go aboard only upon a certain signal, whose nature Enki had also revealed to him: a "stated time" to be set by Shamash, the deity in charge of the fiery rockets. This was Enki's order:
"When Shamash who orders a trembling at dusk
will shower down a rain of eruptions–
board thou the ship, batten up the entrance!"
We are left guessing at the connection between this apparent firing of a space rocket by Shamash and the arrival of the moment for Utnapishtim to board his ark and seal himself inside it. But the moment did arrive; the space rocket did cause a "trembling at dusk"; there was a shower of eruptions. And Utnapishtim "battened down the whole ship" and "handed over the structure together with its contents" to "Puzur-Amurri, the Boatman."
The storm came "with the first glow of dawn." There was awesome thunder. A black cloud rose up from the horizon. The storm tore out the posts of buildings and piers; then the dikes gave. Darkness followed, "turning to blackness all that had been light;" and "the wide land was shattered like a pot."
For six days and six nights the "south-storm" blew.
Gathering speed as it blew,
submerging the mountains,
overtaking the people like a battle....
When the seventh day arrived,
the flood-carrying south-storm
subsided in the battle
which it had fought like an army.
The sea grew quiet,
the tempest was still,
The 12th Planet Page 37
