The Ark Before Noah

by Irving Finkel

  Genesis source J (short version)

  1. No ark description

  2. J1 seven pairs of clean; one pair of unclean; seven pairs of birds J2 one pair of clean; one pair of unclean; one pair of birds; one pair of creepers

  3. Rain only

  4. Flight tests: raven, dove, dove, dove

  5. No landing spot mentioned

  Genesis source P (long version)

  1. Ark description

  2. One pair of every kind of living thing

  3. Fountains of deep and rain

  4. No flight tests

  5. Landing spot: mountains of Ararat

  6. Sacrifices; promise; rainbow

  The fact that J contributes nothing at all about the Ark itself must mean that the Ark coverage was somehow ‘better’ or more appropriate in P’s version, and taken over completely; it cannot be taken that J omitted the principal component of the story, but merely that nothing on that subject was taken from J. Perhaps J’s source included more technical details about boat-building than suited the biblical narrative, much as the abundant coracle hard data in the Ark Tablet over which we have been labouring was reduced to a succinct line or two in first-millennium BC Gilgamesh. The reverse situation applies with the equally crucial flight tests, apparently omitted by P, probably due to J’s having a fuller or more suitable version that was taken up en bloc.

  Source J is itself an amalgam of two quite separate animal number traditions, as we have seen in the previous chapter. The ‘original’ idea was surely one male and one female of every species, as found in P. J is closer to Old Babylonian Atrahasis in including birds which (as far as we can see) do not occur in the other cuneiform sources. Only the Ark Tablet attests to the two-by-two tradition in cuneiform, but now we know it was there in Babylon.

  J mentions only rain but P, closer to Gilgamesh XI, describes flood and rain, and here again it is likely that two background traditions are involved. J’s source, rather than having no mountain landing at all, more likely presented an unfamiliar Babylonian name, while the resonance of mountainous Ararat in the far north offered by P made its choice obvious to a Judaean. We can go no further here.

  The Hebrew text as we have it is a highly moulded literary production formed out of parts of two primary and different strands of Hebrew flood literature. These two sources, having been woven together, are no longer complete, but can be comprehended as distinct once they are ‘resuscitated’. Omissions and editorial processes do not disguise that J and P were not identical.

  In my view these very differences are likely to reflect distinct cuneiform versions of the Flood Story. These varying background tablet versions almost certainly recounted the Babylonian Atrahasis story rather than that of Gilgamesh. The classic biblical story of Noah and the Flood in Hebrew thus preserves for us the shadowy ghosts of what we can think of as ‘Cuneiform Tradition J’ and ‘Cuneiform Tradition P’.

  How it was possible for Hebrew redactors to convert those tricky impressed wedges to elegant inked Hebrew is the subject of the following chapter.

  11

  The Judaean Experience

  ‘The horror of that moment,’ the King went on,

  ‘I shall never, never forget!’

  ‘You will though,’ the Queen said,

  ‘If you don’t make a memorandum of it.’

  Lewis Carroll

  The previous chapter has, I hope, demonstrated that the story of the Flood in the Bible came into Hebrew from an older story in Babylonian cuneiform. We have seen, too, that the stories of the infants Moses and Sargon in their respective coracles reflect a similar borrowing, and that there are other elements in the Book of Genesis in particular (the Great Ages of Man) that suggest the same process. How was it, then, that the ancient story of the Flood and the Ark could pass from Babylonian cuneiform into biblical Hebrew?

  On the whole, people have run away from this question. The pith of the problem concerns the transmission of written text from one ‘difficult’ type of script to another, that is, Babylonian cuneiform to alphabetic Hebrew, and to answer it we need to establish plausible circumstances in time and place, an explanation of why it happened at all, and a convincing mechanism to allow it. In as much as these problems have been faced at all with regard to the Flood Story there have been, broadly speaking, two approaches.

  The first approach sees the Flood Story as having survived independently from the second millennium BC onwards both in Babylon and among the Hebrews, deriving from a shared ancestor. In other words, Abraham at Ur will have known the Flood story, and the narrative will have been passed down from that time as part of Hebrew oral, and ultimately written, tradition. In my opinion the textual parallels between Gilgamesh XI and the Genesis account are too close to represent the fruit of two long, independent streams. We can see, for one thing, that the Babylonian story in cuneiform circulated in different forms and with considerable variation over that interval (more than one thousand years) and was not itself an unchanging single tradition. Given this background, and the span of time involved, I think that the Hebrew account would have ended up as a very different construction, telling the same basic story with similar components, perhaps, but recognisibly the outcome of a separate history.

  The other approach has been to assume that the Exile in Babylon exposed the Judaeans to stories current among the home populations. Here some kind of literary osmosis is apparently thought to have operated whereby people who are in the same place as people who know a story – in this case downtown Babylon – somehow ‘pick it up’. According to this theory, Babylonians simply liked telling foreigners the story – or, perhaps, it got into the drinking water! Leaving aside the intrinsic improbability, such undemonstrable processes likewise would not produce Hebrew narrative that would parallel the carefully structured literary account that we know from Gilgamesh XI.

  The two-part solution proposed here came into the writer’s head in the middle of a crowded public lecture entitled ‘New Light on the Jewish Exile’ given in the British Museum on the evening of Thursday 26 February 2009. It was the consequence of my having spent the preceding two years or more thinking and writing about Babylon in preparation for the exhibition ‘Babylon: Myth and Reality’, which ran in the British Museum from 13 November 2008 to 15 March 2009. Round and round went the materials, ancient voices in Babylonian, Aramaic and Hebrew, like spun clothes in a washing machine. It was not until the exhibition was almost over and the lecture programme that accompanied it nearly completed, that the simple idea presented here articulated itself.

  The place and time for the encounter with the cuneiform tradition must be at Babylon during the period of the Babylonian Exile, when the Judaeans were actually there. This basic idea has been proposed by many people and thus is nothing astonishing, although there are certainly new considerations to be clarified.

  The explanation must be that the borrowing took place when the Hebrew Bible, created out of existing Judaean documents, was first being put together, and narratives about very early times were needed. This is, as far as I know, a new idea.

  The mechanism was that certain crucially placed Judaeans learned to read and write cuneiform, and so became directly familiar with the Babylonian stories for themselves, which they recycled for their own purposes with new messages. This too, as far as I know, is a new idea.

  Can the validity and cohesion of this four-part argument be convincingly demonstrated?

  To do so we need briefly to look at how the Judaeans ended up in Nebuchadnezzar’s capital in the first place, to try to imagine the effect that this experience had on them, and see how and why the Great Ages of Man, the Flood Story and the Baby in the Boat were absorbed at that time into their own literary tradition. There are some really wonderful cuneiform tablets to help us with this plan, mostly in the British Museum.

  Why were the Judaeans in Babylon?

  On the morning of 16 March 597 BC, Jehoiachin, the eighteen-year-old king of Judah, woke in Jerusalem to find the
army of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, encamped round his city. According to the Bible:

  Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done. At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it, and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it. Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him. In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner … He carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisans – a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left. Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land. The king of Babylon also deported to Babylon the entire force of seven thousand fighting men, strong and fit for war, and a thousand skilled workers and artisans. He made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

  2 Kings 24:8–17; see also 2 Chronicles 36:9–10

  Judaea was strategically placed on a much broader stage – sandwiched between the superpowers of Babylon and Egypt – and Nebuchadnezzar’s military behaviour was concerned with far wider issues than come across in the biblical record.

  The surrender of young Jehoiachin meant the first stage of the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. The consequences were thus incalculable. It is no exaggeration to say it was to affect the history and progress of the world from that moment onward.

  Uncle Zedekiah, whom the Babylonians installed in his stead, flirted disloyally with the Egyptians, and the second campaign meant punitive destruction in full by Nebuchadnezzar’s storm troopers under no-nonsense Nabuzaradan a decade later in 587/6 BC. The temple was robbed of all its venerated contents and destroyed, the city was laid waste, and the story ended in the wholesale deportation of the royal Judaean family, the government and administration, the greater part of the military, and all useful craftsmen, artisans and other personnel to Babylon. The lifeblood of the country in terms of intellect, intelligence and ability was snatched away.

  For the Babylonians this operation was standard military procedure. It swelled the royal coffers, put a permanent stop to difficulties with a troublesome native dynasty, and meant extensive human resources were incorporated into their kingdom, strengthening the army, helping with building and construction, and producing high-class goods. The deportees, after the most formidable journey, came face to face in two big waves with the ancient, superpower culture of their conquerors. The impact of this experience must have affected all aspects of their lives. It was during the traditional seventy years of exile that followed – (in fact it was fifty-eight calendar years, from 597–539 BC) – that the Judaeans were directly exposed to a new world, new beliefs and cuneiform writing and literature. It was also at this crucial time that they became familiar with the Babylonian story of the Flood, the boat-builder and his Ark.

  In addition to the passage above from the Hebrew Bible, we have Nebuchadnezzar’s own account of the first Jerusalem campaign in the form of the standard Babylonian court chronicle, which records occurrences throughout a reign by day, month and year. This particular tablet runs from Nebuchadnezzar’s accession until his eleventh regnal year, giving therefore the Babylonian view of the first Jerusalem campaign described in the biblical Books of Kings and Chronicles, which took place in his seventh year (597 BC).

  The seventh year: in the month Kislev the king of Akkad [i.e. Babylon] mustered his army and marched to Hattu [i.e. Syria]. He encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of the month Adar he captured the city (and) seized its king [Jehoiachin]. A king of his own choice [Zedekiah] he appointed in the city (and) taking the vast tribute he brought it into Babylon.

  Nebuchadnezzar’s Chronicle, rev.: 11–13

  Nebuchadnezzar’s Court Chronicle, the back view which describes the capture of Jerusalem.

  (picture acknowledgement 11.1)

  Nebuchadnezzar’s Chronicle for the second campaign has not come to light but we hear all about what happened from the prophet Jeremiah:

  In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon …

  So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard …

  Jeremiah 39:1–14; see also Jeremiah 52:3–23

  In 2007 Michael Jursa, an Assyriologist from the University of Vienna, made a stunning new discovery in the British Museum among trayfuls of unexciting-looking and (to tell the truth) slightly soporific business documents of the Nebuchadnezzar period.

  Nabu-šarrussu-ukin deposits his gold.

  (picture acknowledgement 11.2)

  This is how this particular tablet reads in English:

  Regarding 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-šarrussu-ukin, the Chief Eunuch, which is entrusted to Arad-Banitu the eunuch, which he sent to [the temple] Esagil: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esagil. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Aplaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni.

  Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

  There were many eunuchs in the Neo-Babylonian court but only one Chief Eunuch at a time, so we know that Nabu-šarrussu-ukin who served under Nebuchadnezzar must be the same person as Jeremiah’s ‘Nebo-Sarsekim’. We can be sure that the biblical title conventionally translated ‘chief officer’ literally means Chief Eunuch, for rab-sarīs is the Hebraised form of Babylonian rab ša-rēši, ‘chief eunuch’.

  The tablet came to public attention quietly. Having been a colleague and friend of Jursa for many years it is my habit to stroll past his desk when he is on a visit in our Students’ Room – the magnificent Victorian library where we house all our tablets – and ask patronisingly whether he has managed to find anything at all interesting over the last week, or whether he has encountered any difficult cuneiform signs with which a more experienced colleague might be able to help. Usually this sort of enquiry provokes little more than a sigh, but on this occasion he mentioned that he had found a tablet mentioning Nebo-Sarsekim, rab sarīs, one of Nebuchadnezzar’s chiefs of staff named by Jeremiah as being at Jerusalem. This was not in the least bit soporific, and off I rushed to muster all the forces in the kingdom to make sure somehow or other that anyone who had ever read the Bible knew that an individual mentioned in the text had been found on a clay tablet in the British Museum inscribed in cuneiform writing. Before long it was Michael who had to face the camera.

  What is extraordinary about this tablet is that one previously unnoticed individual recorded among other names in the Old Testament (and not a king) should suddenly emerge as a real person; we see him going about his business, sending underlings to pay gold into the temple in 595 BC, fourteen years before the second Jerusalem campaign, when – because of his high political office – he no doubt came face to face with troublesome Jeremiah himself.

  Putting together the cuneiform evidence, by the way, including an extraordinary document in Istanbul called Nebuchadnezzar’s Court Calendar, we can actually draw up – with apologies – a more accurate list of Nebuchadnezzar’s five highest-ranking officers than Jeremiah could manage, for we know of these people Assyriologically:

  Nergal-š
ar-usur

  Nabu-zakir

  Nabu-šarrussu-ukin

  Nabu-zer-iddin

  Nabu-šuzibanni.

  The names and titles, perhaps alien-sounding, suffered understandably in transmission. What is interesting is the Judaean urge to record by name for posterity the specific individuals who were responsible for the destruction of their temple and city.

  State Records in Hebrew

  The Books of Kings and Chronicles give good historical material in chronological order, but what is really of concern to them is whether a given king was god-fearing, idol-rejecting and, generally, a ‘Good Thing’, or the opposite. Diagnostic data to this end are excerpted from longer accounts which were available to the compilers at that time and incorporated into the Bible. The Old Testament not infrequently names the source from which information has been derived. There are two versions of the curriculum vitae of ‘Good King’ Jehoshaphat, for example. The first concludes:

  As for the other events of Jehoshaphat’s reign, the things he achieved and his military exploits, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

  1 Kings 22:45

  The parallel reads:

  The other events of Jehoshaphat’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Annals of Jehu son of Hanani, which are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

  2 Chronicles 20:34

  The reader is thus referred to source accounts rather in the manner of a modern footnote with references; i.e.:

  1 For fuller details on this period see the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah; cf., with additional material, the Annals of Jehu son of Hanani, in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

  The Israelite source was evidently more detailed than the Judaean. Both must have been court chronicles of the type produced for the kings of Babylon, recording political deeds, religious activities and military accomplishments by day, month and year, and, like the Babylonian examples, free of any assessment of the king’s morals or behaviour. That was for the Bible to provide. The sources excerpted for the biblical histories will have been written in Hebrew script on leather or parchment scrolls and safeguarded in the royal chanceries of the houses of Israel and Judah.