Volume Opening Heaven's Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, its Context, and Reception 9781463234775

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Opening Heaven’s Floodgates

Biblical Intersections

12

This series explores biblical literature as a product and a reflection of the world in which it was produced. In addition to studies that take an historical approach, monographs and edited collections also examine the biblical text from alternative perspectives, including social-scientific, theological, literary, and cultural studies approaches.

Opening Heaven’s Floodgates

The Genesis Flood Narrative, its Context, and Reception

Edited by

Jason M. Silverman

9

34 2013

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2013

‫ܘ‬

9

ISBN 978-1-61143-894-9

ISSN 1943-9377

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Opening heaven’s floodgates : the Genesis flood narrative, its context, and reception / edited by Jason Silverman. pages cm. -- (Biblical Intersections) 1. Bible. Genesis, VI, 9-XI, 32--Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Silverman, Jason M. editor. BS1235.52.O64 2013 222’.1106--dc23 2013022029 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Tables and Illustrations ......................................................................... vii Acknowledgments ................................................................................... xi Abbreviations ......................................................................................... xiii Noah’s Flood as Myth and Reception: An Introduction ................... 1 Jason M. Silverman It’s all in the Name: Reading the Noah Cycle in the Light of its Plot Markers ................................................... 31 Elizabeth Harper Sifting the Debris: Calendars and Chronologies of the Flood Narrative .................................................................. 57 Philippe Guillaume Flood Calendars and Birds of the Ark in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q252 and 4Q254a), Septuagint, and Ancient Near East Texts.................................. 85 Helen R. Jacobus “Woven of Reeds”: Genesis 6:14b as Evidence for the Preservation of the Reed-Hut Urheiligtum in the Biblical Flood Narrative ..................................................113 Jason Michael McCann Major Literary Traditions Involved in the Making of Mesopotamian Flood Traditions .........................................141 Y. S. Chen It’s a Craft! It’s a Cavern! It’s a Castle! Yima’s Vara, Iranian Flood Myths, and Jewish Apocalyptic Traditions ...........................................191 Jason M. Silverman Flood Stories in 1 Enoch 1–36: Diversity, Unity, and Ideology .....231 Ryan E. Stokes

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OPENING HEAVEN’S FLOODGATES

Somewhere Under The Rainbow: Noah’s Altar and the Archaeology of Cult in Ancient Israel .......................249 Dermot Nestor “Go-4-Wood”: The Reception of Noah’s Ark in Ark Replicas....291 Paul Brian Thomas Comparative Theology and the Flood Narrative: The Image of God.......................................................................325 Máire Byrne The Deluge, Written Differently: André Chouraqui’s Distinctive Rendering of the Flood Narrative (Genesis 6:5–9:17) ..........345 Murray Watson The Flood of Genesis: Myth and Logos. A Philosophical Examination ....................................................369 J. Haydn Gurmin Wicked Hearts, Grieving Heart: The Musical Afterlife of the “Flood Narrative” in the Nineteenth Century ............399 Siobhán Dowling Long After Me, the Rapture: Eschatological Rhetoric and the Genesis Flood narrative in Contemporary Cinema ...........................................................433 Egon D. Cohen and Rivka T. Cohen Environmental Perspectives on the Genesis Flood Narrative ......461 Cathriona Russell The Flood Narrative: A Polysemy of Promises...............................487 Amy Daughton Responses: A Response (I) ......................................................................................511 Walter Brueggemann Inundated ...............................................................................................521 Philip Davies

TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER 2A Table 1: Synopsis of Flood days and dates in comparative biblical and biblically-related texts Table 2: Noah’s Flood in a 360-day calendar according to Chuytin Table 3: 150 days of mighty waters in different calendars Table 4: Number of days from the resting of the ark to the disembarkment in Sabbatical months Table 5: From the Ark’s rest to disembarkment, LXX dates and sabbatical calendar Table 6: The year of the Flood Table 7: Chronology of the births and deaths of the antediluvian ancestors in years before the Flood

CHAPTER 2B Table 1a: Five biblical dates with 4Q252 Table 1: Flood Calendars and Birds of the ark Table 2: Full Chronology of flood in 4Q252 Table 3: Noah’s flood in a 27-day month with LXX dates

CHAPTER 4 Table 1: Generational schemes Table 2: A Comparison of Antediluvian Sections Table 3: Motif of seeking life

CHAPTER 8 Fig 1. The “Schagen” and “Dordrecht” Arks. Official Press Photo. Courtesy of Ark van Noach. Fig. 2. “Dordrecht” Ark. Photo by Jason M. Silverman

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CHAPTER 12 Fig 1: Coloratura singing Fig 2: Prayer of Petition Fig 3: Noé’s Steadfast faith Fig 4: Noé’s prayer Fig 5: Sela’s Faithlessness Fig 6 (1): Saint-Saëns’s motifs

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of Man. — G. K. Chesterton (Introduction to the Book of Job, 1907)

‫עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ‬ ‫ולהג הרבה יגעת בשר‬ Making many books has no end And much study is weariness of the flesh — Qoh 12:12

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Opening Heaven’s Floodgates has had a long journey from incipient idea to finished manuscript, and numerous friends and scholars have aided it along its way. Although no list could be complete, a few deserve special recognition. First thanks goes to Emma England, who encouraged and vetted the idea and suggested a few of the contributors which appear in the following pages. The flood narrative has long been her “child,” and it is hoped she will enjoy reading this collection. Special thanks are also due to Caroline Waerzeggers, who allowed me time for editing work alongside my duties as part of her BABYLON research project. I am also grateful for the advice and help provided by the publishing staff at Gorgias, first Katie Stott and then Melonie Schmierer-Lee, who eased some of the burdens which come with an edited volume and were more than accommodating for the delays in the process. Lastly, this volume could not have happened without the excellent work of all the contributors and the respondents. They have remained congenial despite the many days locked together on the ark. I hope they are content with the final product. JMS Leiden January 2013

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ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD AbS-T AcOr ‘Ag. Ber. AmAnt AnBib ANE Ant AOAT APOT AS ASJ ASOR ASTI AUSS BA BAIAS BASOR BDB

BdJ BFC

The Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Field numbers of texts excavated at Tell Abu Ṣalabikh Acta Orientalia Aggadat Bereshit American Antiquity Analecta biblica Ancient Near East Josephus, Biblical Antiquities Alter Orient und Altes Testament Charles, R. H. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 Vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913. Assyriological Studies Acta Sumerologica American Schools of Oriental Research Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute Andrews University Seminary Studies Biblical Archaeologist Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius as Translated by Edward Robinson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966. La Bible de Jérusalem La Bible en français courant xiii

xiv Bib BiSe BJS BK BKAT BM BN BSOAS BASOR BT BWANT BZAW CAD CBQ CBS CDL CEJL CM ConBOT CRRAI CSSH CThM CTR DJD DSD ED FAT Gen. Rab. HBT

OPENING HEAVEN’S FLOODGATES Biblica The Biblical Seminar Brown Judaic Studies Bibel und Kirche Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament Tablets in the collections of the British Museum Biblische Notizen Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Brockman Tablets Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Beihefte zur Zeitscrift für die altestamentliche Wissenschaft The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (16+ vols, 1962–) Catholic Biblical Quarterly Tablets in the collections of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Capital Decisions Ltd Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature Cuneiform Monographs Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series Compte rendu de la Recontre Assyriologique Internationale Comparative Studies in Society and History Calwer Theologische Monographien Criswell Theological Review Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Dead Sea Discoveries Early Dynastic Forschungen zum Alten Testament Genesis Rabbah Horizons in Biblical Theology

ABBREVIATIONS HO HR HSMS HTR HUCA HZ I IEJ IOS JAEI JAF JANER JAOS JBL JCS JCT JESHO JIES JNES JNSL JQR JQS JSJSup JSNTSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSPSup JSS JWCI KD

xv

Handbuch der Orientalistik History of Religions Harvard Semitic Monograph Series Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Mary Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism: the Early Period. HO. Leiden: Brill, 1975 Israel Exploration Journal Israel Oriental Studies Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections Journal of American Folklore Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Comparative Theology Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Indo-European Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Qur’anic Studies Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Institutes Kerygma und Dogma

xvi LB LCL LHBOTS LXX MA MB MLBS MMA MT NA NAT NB NETS NINO NIV NJB NLT NovT NRSV NTS OB OBC OBO OLA Or OTP OtSt PBS PEQ

OPENING HEAVEN’S FLOODGATES Late Babylonian Loeb Classical Library Library of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Septuagint Middle Assyrian Middle Babylonian Mercer Library of Biblical Studies Tablets in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Masoretic Text Neo-Assyrian Noahide Apocalyptic Template Neo-Babylonian New English Translation of the Septuagint Nederlands Institute voor het Nabije Oosten New International Version of the Bible New Jerusalem Bible New Living Translation Novum Testamentum New Revised Standard Version of the Bible New Testament Studies Old Babylonian Orientalia Biblica et Christiana Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Orientalia lovaniensia analecta Orientalia Charlesworth, James H, ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 Vols. New York: Doubleday, 1983–5. Oudtestamentische Studiën Publications of the Babylonian Section, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania Palestine Exploration Quarterly

ABBREVIATIONS PFT Pirqe R. El. PRSt PSD RA RART RevQ RIMB RIME RlA RS RSB RStR SANT SB SBE SBLABS SBLDS SBLSP SBTS SemeiaSt SJOT SMANE SNTSMS SOR SOTSMS SP SpTU SR

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Persepolis Fortification Tablets Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer Perspectives in Religious Studies The Sumerian Dictionary of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale Religion and the Arts Revue de Qumran Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Period Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatisch Archaologie Museum siglum of the Louvre and Damascus (Ras Shamra) Ricerche Storico Bibliche Religious Studies Review Studien sum Alten und Neuen Testaments Standard Babylonian Sacred Books of the East Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Sources for Biblical and Theological Study Semeia Studies Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Sources and Monographs on the Ancient Near East Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Serie orientale Roma Society of Old Testament Monograph Series Samaritan Pentateuch Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk Studies in Religion

xviii STDJ SWBA TA Tanḥ TBN TOB TL TSAJ TSS TWOT UCBC UCOIP UMB UMB VT VTSup WBC WUNT Yal. YOSR ZA ZAW ZDMG ZDPV

OPENING HEAVEN’S FLOODGATES Studies in the Texts of the Desert of Judah Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series Tel Aviv Midrash Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu. Themes in Biblical Narrative Traduction oecuménique de la Bible Tell Leilān Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum R. Jestin, Tablettes sumériennes de Shuruppak conservées au Musée de Stamboul, Paris 1937 Harris, R. Laird, et al. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody, 1980. Tablets in the collections of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications University (of Pennsylvania) Museum Bulletin University Museum Bulletin Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplement Series Word Biblical Commentaries Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Yalqut Yale Oriental Series, Researches Zeitschrift für Assyriologie Zeitschrift für die Altestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der Deutschen morganlandischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins

NOAH’S FLOOD AS MYTH AND RECEPTION: AN INTRODUCTION JASON M. SILVERMAN LEIDEN UNIVERSITY

When the rat fell down into the seams of the planks of the ark and gnawed at them, God inspired Noah to strike the lion between its eyes, and a male and a female cat came out from its nose and attacked the rat.1

The story of Noah’s passage through a divinely decreed deluge on an ark is one of perennial interest, as attested by the wealth of popular and academic works that discuss it. In-depth study of the sources, contexts, and reception of the Genesis flood narrative can lead one to fascinating places—from supposedly lost Books of Noah, through children’s Bibles, to the aetiology of felines.2 The backgrounds and uses of the account in Genesis intersect many of the sub-disciplines that today abound within biblical studies and its cognate fields. Modern biblical studies is enriched by the many perspectives and methodologies available to it, yet all too often they fail to interact fully with each other—in particular, the traditional “historical-critical” studies of the ANE and the more Muhammed al-Tabari, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-al-mulūk (translated by F. Rosenthal, The History of al-Tabari, 1:357). 2 On the Books of Noah see, most recently, Stone, et al. eds., Noah and His Books. On the reception in children’s Bibles, see England, “‘The Dove, the Rainbow, and the Unicorn’.” On the aetiology of felines, see the quote from al-Tabari above. 1

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recent attention to modern reception tend to defend their own corners, sometimes with mutual hostility. This situation is unfortunate, as interdisciplinary approaches can raise new questions and make connections otherwise hard to see. The flood story as found in Genesis is an excellent passage to highlight the potential usefulness of a broad array of approaches, as is apparent from reading the studies in this volume. Beyond the rather trendy academic concern for “interdisciplinary” work, there are two important considerations within biblical studies as a discipline that justify this volume’s approach to the flood narrative. The first consideration is the meaning and role of myth and the ways in which it functions and is transmitted within and between cultures. Noah’s ark is often described as a “flood myth” with numerous parallels around the world,3 but what is a myth? How was myth understood when it was shared in its original cultures? How does myth impact the reading of the narrative? The second consideration is the related concept of “reception” itself. A broader understanding of this term than is sometimes used can eliminate the unnecessary dichotomy between historical-critical and reception-critical factions.

WHAT IS MYTH?4 What does it mean to call the Genesis flood narrative a “myth”? Although some biblical scholars still seem to use “myth” as a convenient antonym for “history,”5 there is a smorgasbord of more or less useful perspectives on mythology. Several helpful summaries of the schools of thought on mythology are already available.6 One can quickly dismiss the pan-solar interpretations of E.g., Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, A1010–20; Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 399–406. 4 A much earlier (and oral) form of this overview was presented at the EABS Graduate Symposium, 8–10 April 2011 in Maynooth, Ireland. The author is grateful for the critiques given there. 5 E.g., Arthur, A Smooth Stone, 278. 6 Ogden, “Mythology,” 946–956, is sadly deficient, as is Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Caspo, Theories of Mythology and Bowie, The Anthropology of Religion, chapter 10 (pp. 267–304) are better. 3

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Friedrich Max Müller and his ilk7—although astral beliefs were certainly important. Nor must one be concerned with distinguishing between myths, folklore, and fairy-tales, as such attempts are never particularly sustainable and may be a Western oddity anyway.8 While important insights are available from ritual theory,9 structural theory,10 and psychological theories,11 they all nevertheless ultimately fall short. For an amusing overview of the 19th century controversies over Solar interpretations, see Dorson, “The Eclipse of Solar Mythology,” 25–63. A more general discussion of Friedrich Max Müller and his type of analysis is available in Sharpe, Comparative Religion, 35–46. The most entertaining critique remains the essay published at Trinity College Dublin which used Max Müller’s methodology to prove that Max Müller himself was a solar myth. See Littledale?, “The Oxford Solar Myth.” The essay is merely autographed as “Δ,” but Dorson claims the author was Rev. R. F. Littledale (Dorson, “The Eclipse of Solar Mythology,” 55). 8 Thompson, “Myths and Folktales,” 170, 174–175; Bowie, Anthropology of Religion, 268; Puhvel, Comparative Mythology, 3. 9 For a statement of the theory, see Raglan, “Myth and Ritual,” 122– 135. For a discussion of its appearance in biblical studies, see Ogden, “Myth in the OT,” 958–959. The ritual school of mythology argues that ritual and myth are the same thing, and that all known myths were originally connected with a ritual regardless of present knowledge of such. As Burkert has noted, ritual and myths can indeed be mutually supportive, but that does not make them indivisible (Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, 56–58). Few contemporary biblical scholars attempt to ritualize everything in the Bible, although Wyatt still seems to think ritual is the ultimate source of myths (Wyatt, ‘There’s such Divinity doth Hedge a King’, 164). 10 A summary of the concept from the structural doyen can be found in Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” 81–106. For an adjusted attempt to apply the theory to biblical studies, see Carroll, “Myth, Mythology, and Transformation in the Old Testament,” 301–312. Structuralists, the most important of whom was Claude Lévi-Strauss, want to move beyond the surface meaning of a myth to the social patterns which can be discerned through analysis of binary pairs. While structuralism provides a useful prompt to look for greater cultural patterns, its over-reliance on binary oppositions and tendency to ignore 7

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So, how should one deal with stories like that of Noah?12 Ogden defines myth as a traditional, oral story involving superhuman characters of remote antiquity.13 This definition would exclude myths like Faust or Don Juan and would be difficult to apply to the mythology of kingship. It might even exclude Enoch and Noah. Further, the emphasis on orality might make its application in a textual setting problematic. Lincoln defines myth as “ideology in narrative form.”14 This definition is in keeping with the “ideological turn” in recent critical thinking, but it is both too restrictive and too general. First, whatever functions to which myth can secondarily be applied do not necessarily define or account for myth as such. One may suspect that many, if not most, myths exist and circulate prior to the particularity of individual myths limits its value. Further, despite the common recourse to complex mathematic-like formulas, conclusions can be rather banal—Carroll argues that a Lévi-Straussian approach to Susanna, Judith, and Esther shows concern over adultery! (Carroll, “Myth, Mythology, and Transformation,” 304–312). 11 A number of theorists have attempted to apply wildly divergent psychological theories to the origin or interpretation of myth (Freud, Jung, Campbell, and in a different way, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien). While these kinds of interpretations hold out the possibility of explaining recurrent patterns and tale-types, many of them—besides being mutually incompatible—are in the final analysis non-falsifiable or overly subjective. See Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction, 91–108; Caspo, Theories of Mythology, 80–131; Bowie, Anthropology of Religion, 284–290; Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, 40–49; Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” 313–400. Nevertheless, Thompson argues that ubiquity of myth must indicate that it answers some sort of human psychological need, albeit not necessarily in the way the psychological theorists have tried to describe them (Thompson, “Myths and Folktales,” 171). 12 For a variety of views, see the introduction (1–12) of Larson, et al., eds., Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, with its parade of problematic definitions; Bowie, The Anthropology of Religion, 267–304; Caspo, Theories of Mythology; in the context of apocalyptic, Grabbe, “Introduction and Overview,” 20; Breslauer, “Mythology, Judaism and,” 1812–1833. 13 Ogden, “Mythology,” 949. 14 Lincoln, Theorizing Myth, ix, 207.

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their use in a particular ideology. More importantly—and this may just be personal prejudice—the term “ideology” is too inherently negatively loaded to function as a proper a priori construct. “Ideas” or “perspectives” would carry fewer connotations of deliberate falsehood. Despite this restrictive nature, the definition is so broad as to include just about all human discourse; indeed, Lincoln himself notes that his students use his own definition against him in class, calling all scholarship “ideology in narrative form.”15 A category so broad and so connotatively negative is not a useful starting place for so critical a term. Puhvel claims that “in myth are expressed the thought patterns by which a group formulates self-cognition and selfrealization, attains self-knowledge and self-confidence, explains its own source and being and that of its surroundings, and sometimes tries to chart its destinies” and that “legends, folktale, fairy-tale” are “debased forms” of myth.16 Although Puhvel’s definition is preferable to the previous two, with the exception of the bit on folklore, the items it lists make it difficult to use and are too heavily biased towards cosmogonic and aetiological myths. However, his emphasis on the interpretation of reality could be a more profitable way forward. In lieu of the problematic understandings discussed above, one can instead understand myth as the following: “A myth is an attempt to understand and impart meaning to reality in narrative and symbolic form without regard to empiricist concerns.”17 This definition focuses on function and thus is not limited to cosmogonic/theogonic myths, an approach reflecting how “nongonic” myths function symbolically and meaningfully in the same manner. Although appealing to function like the structuralists and early anthropologists, it does not limit function merely to group formation. The qualifier “without regard to empiricist concerns” highlights two aspects. First, myth and history are not

Lincoln, Theorizing Myth, 207. Puhvel, Comparative Mythology, 2, 3, respectively. 17 This definition was previously posited in Silverman, Persepolis and Jerusalem, chapter 6 and appendix 3. 15 16

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dichotomous—they simply relate differently to empirical evidence. Second, a story’s mythic and historical natures are independent. Modern societies, just like ancient societies, have stories which function mythically. The myths of George Washington’s character in America or of the 800 years of English oppression in Ireland have the same culturally-defining and orienting function as the myths of Athena or Abraham. When these modern stories are told not as historiography but as explanations for the way things are or ought to be, they are myths. It is this function that is important— the teller is not concerned with the evidence per se but with how it explains and imparts meaning to reality, and thus the story’s function is mythic regardless of what the teller thinks of the story’s historicity. Indeed, in some cases, a story’s perceived historicity can be used to justify its normativity. At the same time, this definition transcends specific genre categories, the only generic necessity being narrative. Narrative here means something slightly broader than “story” but less comprehensive than what someone like Walter Fisher or Bruce Lincoln mean by “narrative.”18

HOW DID MYTHMAKERS UNDERSTAND MYTH? If myth is defined as given above, how does that influence the way one reconstructs what myths meant to the original mythmakers? “Myth” was not the original form of “historiography” or “science” like 19th century scholars thought. Besides being rather Eurocentric and condescending, the evidence for advanced Babylonian science and for competing Greek philosophies of myth suggests that mythmakers are/were well able to understand the difference between empirical statements and myths. Indeed, Hesiod even puts the following claim in the mouth of the Muses in his Theogony: “We know how to speak many false things (ψεύδεα) as though they were true, but we know, when we will, to utter true things (ἀληθέα).”19 Even if some myths were sometimes taken as literally factual by Fisher, Human Communication as Narration; Lincoln, Theorizing Myth. In other words, it encompasses more than plot, but less than everything. 19 Hesiod, Theogony, lines 27–28 (trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White). Also cited by Lincoln, Theorizing Myth, 3. 18

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groups and individuals, that is not in itself a large difference between early myths and myths in our contemporary society. This requires consideration of what kind of discourse or mindset is implied by the use of myth. Caspo and Lincoln understand myth purely in terms of instrumentality: people create and tell myths to control those to whom they tell them; Lincoln has attempted to provide tools for analyzing a myth’s instrumentality.20 While it is true that myths can and have been used in the service of propaganda, only a rather thoroughgoing cynicism could maintain that every myth is always and only used as propaganda. It would seem fair, however, to analyze the viewpoints implicit in a myth and to assess whether or not it is in fact being used to advance an interested perspective. Nevertheless, that certainly cannot exhaust the way one reads myth; any genre or medium can be used in the service of persuasion or coercion. Several other thinkers understand myth in a radically different way. C. S. Lewis, in his Experiment in Criticism, understands myth by the effect it has on the hearer or reader. For him, a myth is a kind of story that evokes the numinous and a disinterested fascination, and these kinds of stories exist for their own sake, not for any instrumental purpose.21 For him this means that exactly which stories classify as myths will vary depending on the reader; what strikes one person as fascinatingly numinous may not strike another as such. Nevertheless, Lewis thinks myths survive the test of time due to this attempt to explain a hidden aspect of reality. J. R. R. Tolkien, in a paper given in the 20s, argues that myths offer “satisfaction of certain primordial human desires,” the most important of which for him is the creative impulse combined with a sense of the unveiling of hidden reality.22 Thus, like Lewis, Tolkien sees in myth an attempt to peel back the layers of normal human understanding. However, he also includes consideration of humankind’s creative nature, what Fisher has called the homo 20

Caspo, Theories of Mythology, 278–279; Lincoln, Theorizing Myth, 150–

159. 21 22

Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, 40–49, 52, 65. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” 326, 334–336, 386–387.

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narrans.23 Thielicke also appeals to myth’s attempt at “a transcending of the merely objective and hence partial aspect of reality.”24 In attempting to understand whether the form of myth is tied to its transcendental nature or not, Thielicke notes that even Plato resorts to creating his own myths after rejecting traditional Greek ones.25 All of these interpretations presuppose the idea that logical discourse is not sufficient for explaining all aspects of reality, and that myth is attempting to communicate the numinous or the transcendent element of reality. While particular theological ideas are certainly involved in each of the above scholars’ ideas, the idea of a transcendent reality need not be out of place in evaluating the type of discourse represented by myth. Neither must an attempt to understand the kind of discourse represented by myth—and thereby to understand what mythmakers meant and mean by them—imply resorting to 19th century canards about mythopoetic thinking. The early forms of such theorizing were based on the ideas of an inherently illogical, animistic nature of “savages,” a view effectively critiqued many times.26 Nevertheless, recognizing that human creations such as myth and poetry offer a different kind of expression than other kinds of discourse informs how they are/were understood in practice. An interest in meaning, the “big questions”—whether this is labelled “transcendent” or not—is surely something which mythmakers, theologians, and poets share.27 In his discussion of the “Semantics of myth,” Wheelwright makes a distinction between what he calls “steno-language” and Fisher, Human Communication as Narration, xiii, 18. Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith: Prolegomena, 1:74. 25 Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith, 1:75–76. Also noted by Nagy, “Can Myths Survive?,” 246. 26 This is actually one of the main points behind Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Part two of Lincoln’s study focuses particularly on racist aspects of such theories, Lincoln, Theorizing Myth. 27 An interest in “big questions” is not limited to myth, despite Wyatt’s attempts to make it so. It is interesting that Wyatt, The Mythic Mind, 171, fails to recognize “drear meaninglessness” as an interpretation of a “big question” related to human history. 23 24

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“expressive language.”28 Steno-language is language which attempts to be precise and logical, like mathematics; expressive language attempts to integrate values and emotions into the communicative act.29 Wheelwright’s concept of “expressive language” parallels Fisher’s idea of “good reasons” within his “narrative paradigm.”30 For Wheelwright, a myth is expressive language with “enough transcendental reference,” or what he calls a “diaphor,” which is the “blending of meaning, significations, and participation.”31 So far, Wheelwright’s ideas parallel the views of Lewis, Tolkien, and Thielicke. But he goes one step further in a way which may be profitable for conceptualizing how myth is and has been used by people, particularly within a religious context. He argues that myth lies on a dialectic between “truth-commitment” and “stylization,” or between pure superstition and pure allegory.32 The myths which are most effective are those which “fall somewhere between these extremes: they invite some degree of assent, but less than full intellectual commitment.”33 In a phrase reminiscent of Gadamer, he describes the mindset of myth as one of “serious playfulness.”34 Wheelwright’s model is sophisticated, with fruitful potential for the study of myth. Myths are narratives and remain as such, yet they point beyond themselves, and both aspects are relevant to the user’s understanding of them. This dialectic is simultaneously blatantly obvious and commonly over-looked. For example, consider Kreitzer’s attempt at reading Moby-Dick: he rather tentatively suggests the white whale might be more than just a Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 157. In biblical studies, Bryan has attempted to bring to attention a similar sort of distinction in precision and style. See Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality, 29–31. 29 Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 162–163. 30 Fisher, Human Communication as Narration, xii–xiii, 109, 119. 31 Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 157–159. 32 Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 165–167. 33 Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 166. 34 Wheelwright, “The Semantic Approach to Myth,” 167. Gadamer is well known for his understanding of interpretation as a “game.” See Gadamer, Truth and Method. 28

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whale.35 Surely a no-brainer? But in his subsequent analysis, he loses sight of the fact that the whale functions within the context of a narrative about whaling. Literarily, Moby-Dick remains a whale; it is only behind the words that audiences catch a glimmer of Melville’s vision of human obsession and finitude. Melville’s work is renowned for its metaphorical resonances, but much of its distinctive power would be lost if translated from a sperm whale to a Chihuahua. Wheelwright’s formulation, therefore, should aid in understanding both the complexity and the variation likely involved in the use and interpretation of myths; one should not assume that all users either believed them literally or merely allegorized them.36 Further, it will be necessary to assess individual community dynamics when attempting to understand how a particular myth fits within the total picture.37

MYTH IN BIBLICAL STUDIES Above it was posited that a myth is primarily a kind of hermeneutic (i.e., “A myth is an attempt to understand and impart meaning to reality in narrative and symbolic form without regard to empiricist concerns”) which falls somewhere on a dialectic between truthcommitment and stylization with a reference to transcendence. What does this mean when an exegete or historian of religion studying a text comes across a myth, a mythic motif, or a mythic allusion? The first issue is the question of comparative mythology and origins; the second is the way myth is used in a text; the third is the overall meaning the previous two imply for a text, and the implications of that for the author and intended audience.

In his essay “Moby-Dick: Encountering the Leviathan of God” in Kreitzer, The Old Testament in Fiction and Film. 36 After developing these views on Wheelwright’s essay, the present author was delighted to find a similar assessment of his usefulness in McDowell, “From Expressive Language to Mythemes,” 38–39. 37 Cf. the comments Nagy makes about variation between communities and which he posits within Greek use of mythos itself. Nagy, “Can Myths Survive?,” 240–242. 35

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Comparison and Origins A rather important aspect of myth is the question of how to deal with myths which appear in Jewish literature and in cognate literatures; when the same or similar myths appear in multiple texts from the ANE, what does that mean for interpretation? Are they all simply reflexes of a general cultural milieu? Was the motif borrowed from one culture or region to another, or is the myth simply reflective of common human answers to common human questions? Take, for example, the pattern typically known as the Chaoskampf, or a god’s combat against chaos, often personified as a dragon or serpent. This has been a popular subject for biblical scholars at least since Gunkel.38 This motif is particularly complex as many if not all of the ANE mythologies had a cycle that could be characterized under this rubric—Marduk versus Tiamat, Ba‘al or Anat versus Yam or Mot, Apollo versus the Python, Yahweh and Leviathan, Thraētaona and Aži Dahāka. While widespread and with many common features, there are still particularities in each attested version. The difficulties such numerous parallels present are not always fully acknowledged. In the Hebrew Bible, passages which are typically understood to refer to a Chaoskampf occur in the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah, to only name a few.39 Gunkel famously argued that this idea was borrowed during the exile from Babylonia.40 The subsequent discovery of the Ugaritic texts convinced the majority of scholars that the myth should be seen as Israel’s Canaanite heritage.41 On the other hand, rather than pointing directly to the Ugaritic parallels, Yarbro Collins only appeals to a general Semitic and Greco-Roman mythic pattern in her famous discussion of Revelation.42 The way one nuances these parallels does make a Gunkel and Zimmern, Creation and Chaos. E.g., Ps 74:12–15; 89:9–10; 104:26; Job 26:12–13; Job 41; Isa 27:1; 51:9–10. 40 Gunkel and Zimmern, Creation and Chaos. 41 E.g., Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 118–144; Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea. 42 Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, 2. 38 39

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difference in how one assesses a particular text using the Chaoskampf theme. For example, consider the brief appearance of the theme in Ps 104:26. In the psalmist’s praise of Yahweh’s creation, he describes the ocean thus: ‫שם אניות יהלכון ׃ לויתן זה יצרת לשחק בו‬ There ships go to and fro/Leviathan that you formed to frolic in it.

In this verse, Leviathan is merely one of God’s creatures, not a primaeval opponent. If one uses the posited hermeneutical definition of myth, then this particular use’s interpretation is important. If this is viewed as taking up old Israelite traditions with which its original audience would have been familiar, then either one must understand Israelite tradition as having altered significantly from the Ugaritic version or that the Psalmist is inverting the audience’s expectations. If one posits that the psalmist is borrowing Ugaritic ideas, then the use of the altered myth becomes almost a critique of Ugaritic religion. Which scenario one chooses will significantly impact one’s placement of the psalm in the development of Hebrew thinking. It also impacts the use of similar themes in the apocalypses. If it has been a continuous part of Israelite tradition, then its use is not so overly noteworthy, and the Ugaritic parallels merely help moderns understand motifs otherwise opaque. If not, then its use represents a “revival” of sorts which must be explained. A further complication comes when attempting to identify allusions or references to the Chaoskampf. A principle coming from folkloric studies is the idea of metonymy, or “catch phrases,” whereby a key word or phrase can condense and conjure up otherwise unmentioned mythic themes or narratives, as when the Voluspá alludes to the story of Odin’s loss of an eye merely with the kenning “Fjölnir’s pledge.”43 When one lives within a society where something is broadly current, then picking up references can be easy. Most readers will know from where “my kingdom for a

Niditch, Oral World and Written Word, 10–20; for the Scandinavian poem, see Voluspá §27 (Hollander, The Poetic Edda, 5). 43

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horse” derives.44 Since the culture of the Hebrew Bible is no longer current, catching such parallels can be more difficult. This is especially true for the myriad of traditions that can be associated with the Genesis flood narrative (creation, chaos, ritual, Eden, to name but a few potentials).

Use in Texts One of the primary reasons for determining the question of comparison and sources for a myth is to determine how a myth is used and interpreted in a given text, whether the myth interprets the text or if the text interprets the myth. What does the use of the myth say about the author’s view of reality? Is the myth used for its narrative value, its “religious” value, or both? The re-use of the flood myth in apocalyptic literature makes these considerations highly pertinent. A text can utilize myth in at least two different ways, and scholarship on the apocalypses has often conflated these two: typological and predictive. Myths can be used as a way of interpreting an event or person: this is like or foreshadowed by that. A good example of this is the common use of Exodus motifs to describe a return from exile,45 or in depicting a prophet like Moses.46 Here myth is used to explain or characterize something else, much like an elaborate metaphor. As described by Burkert, “Myth usually takes what has happened once as a model for what is now.”47 However, myth can also be used predictively: an example would include expectations of a second Elijah.48 These two uses are quite distinct, but often conflated in discussion of myth in the apocalypses. There is no reason why typological (or aetiological) use of myth need lead to predictive use of myth. A case in point is the “Endzeit wird Urzeit” trope and its often associated Chaoskampf motif. When one investigates these, it is Shakespeare’s Richard III. This example highlights the care one needs to take in investigating such references: few people when using this phrase intend any in-depth analysis of the play itself. 45 E.g., Goldingay, Message of Isaiah 40–55, 264. 46 E.g., O’Kane, “Isaiah: a Prophet in the Footsteps of Moses,” 29–50. 47 Burkert, “The Logic of Cosmogony,” 91. 48 E.g., Mal 4:5; Mark 9:11; Matt 11:14; 17:10. 44

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appropriate to ask whether they are being used typologically or predictively. Is the imagery of Urzeit hyperbolic or prognostic? Is the situation like a return to chaos or predicting an actual return of chaos? The two are cognitively very different even if literarily they can be quite difficult to distinguish. Both of these types of utilization are interpretive: they attempt to paint the text’s topic in light of a more transcendent reality as the author sees that to be. The choice quickly offered above, between narrative interest and religious value, may be a false dichotomy in the latter respect. Sometimes a story is rhetorically the best way to communicate an idea, and for the biblical texts, those ideas are often classifiable as religious.

Overall meaning of Text for Author/Audience Having briefly queried mythology and the use of myth in literary criticism, the implications for the overall meaning of the text remain, both in terms of the original authors’ intentions and the implied audience, as well as for subsequent readers. The use of a myth implies that the material is in someway “traditional” or a general part of the contemporary culture, yet the emphasis on the interpretive nature also suggests the potential for genuinely novel understandings of that tradition. While structuralist approaches to myth would suggest that these myths by needs must reinforce social norms, again the potential for novelty implies a further potential for subversion, meaning that while a myth may be communally supported, it is not necessarily communally supportive. Beyond these rather general observations, the presence of myth cannot be used to determine the kind of author or community implied by a given text. Myths by their very nature are “Sitz-im-Leben-less,” prone to traveling, morphing, and lasting over long periods of time. As briefly noted above in the discussion of the Chaoskampf, certain interpretations of the myth have implications for the likely expectations encountering a particular use of a myth. But the usefulness of such depends on a broader historical reconstruction; it cannot lead to firm answers on its own. Lastly, in terms of what myth says about a text’s view of reality, Wheelwright’s concept of playfulness and Tolkien’s appeal to human creativeness can be useful. Humans have an innate urge to create new things, just as they have a need to understand their

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world. These two impulses are not necessarily confined to separate boxes, and they interact in complex ways. Perhaps the appearance of myth or of mythic themes within a text should be a signal for exegetes to consider how a text might be playing with these two human impulses: being neither systematic metaphysics, scientific historiography, nor pure frivolity.

WHAT IS RECEPTION? This volume contains essays exploring the Genesis flood narrative from long-established methodologies as well as much newer ones. In particular, the biblical studies guild has seen the increasing popularity of so-called reception methodologies. The arrival of these newer methods has prompted bitterness, amounting to mutual recrimination and delegitimatization of methods deemed to be in the “other” camp. This situation is both unfortunate and unnecessary. It can be overcome by a broader understanding of what “reception” is and of what the field of biblical studies does. All human creations not confined solely to dusty wardrobes must be received by an audience.49 This means, in short, that all biblical studies is the study of reception.50 There are at least five ways in which biblical scholars study reception: 1) tradition history, which is the reception of previous traditions and myths; 2) redaction history, which is the reception of previous texts and genres;51 3) exegesis and hermeneutics, which is the scholarly reception of the final form of biblical texts; 4) that which is normally called reception, i.e., the re-uses of the Bible in various communities and media; and 5) theology, which is the reflection of believing communities on their reception and application of the Cf. Silverman, “Pseudepigraphy, Anonymity, and Auteur Theory,” 538–540. 50 This claim is intended in a different sense from the “intertextuality” theory of Derrida and Kristeva, in which meaning forever dissolves into an abyss of regressive referents. For another call to re-define “Reception Studies,” albeit from a different perspective, see Boer, “Against ‘Reception History.’” 51 For the confusion that has reigned among the relevant terminology, see van Seters, “An Ironic Circle.” 49

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biblical text. While all of these subfields have changed in popularity over time, all do analogous work and are mutually enlightening. Tradition History. The study of ways a biblical text uses previous traditions is self-evidently a study of reception, albeit in a way in which that which was received must often be reconstructed. Biblical studies has long explored the ways theological traditions (Zion, enthronement, Chaoskampf) have been reformed and reused by the biblical writers. For over a century the recognition of ANE parallels has influenced the way myths are identified and understood within biblical texts. These are all studies of how the biblical writers used and reformed pre-existing traditions. Redaction History. Even the technical source-critical and redaction-critical methodologies are involved in the study of reception. Whether it is of a previous edition of the same book or widely divergent sources (JEDP, anyone?), the study of redaction is the study of the textual reception of previous texts. All too often such exercises have failed to engage with the ways meaning was changed between the first and subsequent texts. One only needs to recall the excess plethora of confused editors sometimes posited for biblical texts and the confusion over what an editor is to see the dilemma.52 A recognition that this is a form of reception could widen the metholodological horizons used for such studies. Exegesis and Hermeneutics. Scholarship itself is inherently a form of reception, one which attempts to be thorough and critical. The inevitability of interpretation and of receiving within a context is the well-known basis of the philosophical school of Hermeneutics, one that began its career in the service of reading the Bible.53 The traditional tasks of biblical exegesis have been to establish the historical and contextual meaning of a given biblical text. What this means in practice is that biblical scholars must themselves receive the text, scholarship on the lexicon, grammar, historical and literary contexts, and make an informed, critical reading. Whether this is done within a tradition which highlights

E.g., the excellent observations by van Seters, “An Ironic Circle.” A good overview of the history is given in Schmidt, Understanding Hermeneutics. 52 53

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the diachronic or synchronic aspects of the text,54 the fact of reception remains. Both reconstructions of the authors’ intended meanings and readings using brand new lenses are, of course, forms of receiving the text.55 Re-uses of the Bible. When the term “Reception Studies” is used, it often means the use of the Bible in music, film, theater, literature, and so on. This field is as broad as the kinds of human media that exist, but in principle the basic premise is the same as in the other forms of biblical studies. A text (or other medium) is read closely and critically, and with attention to the ways it receives, shapes, transmits, and alters previous biblical texts. This applies equally to studies of the Bible at Qumran as it does to Internet chat fora. However, understanding the basics of the biblical texts— history, language, genre—means the scholar can better appreciate the changes and continuities found in the receiving media. Theology and Philosophy. Although both theology and Western philosophy have had a long history of interaction with the Bible and ideas drawn from it, the ways in which the traditions of theology and philosophy have received the Bible are often forgotten by biblical scholarship. The attempt to integrate ideas and traditions from the Bible with contemporary worldviews and modes of thought is no less a form of reception than any other biblically cognate field. The ways these other disciplines attempt to systematize, categorize, and apply concepts drawn (i.e., received) from the Bible can in turn inform other reading enterprises. From the perspective of biblical studies as reception, the various subdisciplines have much to offer each other in terms of new perspectives, insights, and even methodology. The interplay of the contemporary with the ancient is the very essence of biblical studies in all its shades. The discipline would do well to try to attend to this dialectic deliberately rather than attempting to dichotomize it. The combination of essays contained in this volume self-consciously attempts to do so.

54 55

Or self-consciously both, as does Sweeney, Tanak. In this, agreeing with Boer, “Against ‘Reception History.’”

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THIS VOLUME The essays and structure of Opening Heaven’s Floodgates provide examples of scholarly approaches to the Bible and encourage the authors and readers to consider how these divergent methodologies shed light on one another and on the Genesis flood narrative itself. The volume contains new essays representing the above gamut of styles of research. Furthermore, where possible, particular topics less commonly included within edited volumes on the flood narrative were commissioned. The volume concludes with two distinct reactions to the implications of these studies as a collection. The first four essays represent literary and historical-critical approaches to the Genesis flood narrative itself. In an excellent opening salvo, Harper argues for a narratological reading of the flood narrative within Noah’s lifespan, paying close attention to the ways the plot does (and does not) develop. Guillaume takes an historical approach to the story in Genesis, seeking to elucidate what the text and its versions show about calendars in Second Temple Judaism. He attempts to argue that this method highlights both the variety in the extent traditions as well as the value of calendrical information as a control. Jacobus takes up the issue of Jewish calendars from a contrasting perspective and explores how the Judaean groups behind the Dead Sea Scrolls reused received calendrical traditions for a variety of purposes. Comparing the Judaean material to Mesopotamia like Jacobus, McCann argues that the Genesis flood narrative is an allegory for the Jerusalem temple, and that this ought to be reflected in English translation. Since the publishing of the Akkadian flood story by Smith, comparative studies have been crucial to the understanding of the version in Genesis.56 The next two essays in this volume provide historical and comparative mythological contexts for the Genesis narrative. No study of the Genesis flood narrative is possible For overviews of the history see the surveys, Hess, “One Hundred Fifty Years of Comparative Studies on Genesis 1–11,” 3–26 and Tsumura, “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood,” 25– 57, both reprinted in Hess and Tsumura, eds., “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”. 56

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without awareness of the Mesopotamian traditions. Chen provides a new study of the ways the flood tradition changed over time within Mesopotamian literary history. Silverman explores the less often noted Iranian parallel, using this to explore the question of mythic influences on later Jewish traditions. The Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized biblical studies, as already seen in the study by Jacobus. Stokes further explores the early reception of the flood narrative within the various traditions found at Qumran, especially the Book of Watchers. He critiques the tendency to move directly from use of myth to historical setting, but still sees the interpretation as sociologically significant. Archaeology and material culture are indispensable tools for the study of religion and for biblical studies, and the essays by Nestor and Thomas provide very different perspectives on material aspects related to the Genesis narrative. Nestor explores the problematic nature of the archaeology of cult and the attempt to relate it to the account of cult as found within the biblical texts, starting with Noah’s altar. Thomas takes up the issue of the material reception of the text in modern times, exploring the ways the biblical text has been used to advance (interested) exegesis via ark-building. The flood narrative has long been read within a theological context, and the next essay considers the story within the context of comparative theology. Byrne compares different ways the Genesis narrative reads from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic perspectives, with a focus on the narrative’s depiction of God as a creator. For most readers, the flood narrative can only be encountered through textual translation. Watson brings up the relevance of translation studies through the discussion of one, unique translator. “Translation” need not be limited to texts, however. Western culture has long used the Bible within a variety of media, and the next three essays describe reverberations in very different media and contexts. Gurmin explores how the mythic story of the flood can be translated into Western philosophical discourse. Dowling Long demonstrates how differently two 19th century oratorios interpreted the narrative, both in their scores and their librettos. Cohen and Cohen explore how the flood has provided material for catastrophe films and contemporary American society. The last two essays represent two different modern approaches to the flood narrative, seeking to interpret the text from explicitly contemporary perspectives. Russell uses ecological

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and ethical perspectives to explore what the flood narratives says about human action and the environment. Daughton takes her departure from Ricoeur to argue that the flood narrative offers several ethical promises based on a “logic of superabundance.” The volume concludes with two critical, synthetic overviews. Brueggemann is taken with the collective emphasis on a broad swathe of tradition, and is particularly keen to highlight the ways the narrative resists reductive readings. He notes the irony that both staunchly “conservative” and “historicist” readings equally lose the richness available. For him, the idea of lament over the flood is a crucial theme, and it calls us to a more profound engagement with the text. Davies, on the other hand, is more taken with the cacophony of perspectives, but he still finds the spectacle great entertainment. He plays as Aristophanes to the flood narrative, and finds ways in which the collection offers up ironies and tensions. Again, a simplistic reading is unsatisfactory, but for entirely different reasons. It is hoped that the above collection will please you, the reader, with its deluge of new insights into the flood and into the discipline of biblical studies. However, should your reception of Opening Heaven’s Floodgates cause you to strike your forehead in despair, perhaps it will at least spawn unexpected things.

WORKS CITED 57 AND INTRODUCTORY FLOOD BIBLIOGRAPHY al-Tabari, Muhammed. Tārīkh al-rusul wa-al-mulūk. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. The History of al-Tabari 1: General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989. Alter, Robert. Genesis. New York: Norton, 1996. Amihay, Aryeh. “Noah in Rabbinic Literature.” Pages 193–214 in Noah and His Book(s). Edited by Michael E. Stone, Aryeh Amihay, and Vered Hillel. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010.

This introductory flood bibliography includes contributions from E. Harper. 57

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Anderson, Bernhard W. “From Analysis to Synthesis: The Interpretation of Gen 1–11.” JBL 97 (1978): 23–39. Anderson, Jeff S. “The Social Function of Curses in the Hebrew Bible.” ZAW 110, no. 2 (1998): 223–237. Arthur, David. A Smooth Stone: Biblical Prophecy in Historical Perspective. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001. Bailey, L. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Baumgart, Norbert Clemens. “Die grosse Flut und die Arche.” BK 58 (2003): 30–36. ———. “Gen 5,29—ein Brückenvers in der Urgeschichte und zeigleich ein Erzählerkommentar.” BN 92 (1998): 21–37. Berman, Samuel, A., trans. Midrash Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu: An English Translation of Genesis and Exodus From the Printed Version of Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu with an Introduction, Notes, and Indexes. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV, 1996. Best, Robert M. Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra Epic: Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth. Fort Myers, FL: Enlil Press, 1999. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. New York: T&T Clark, 2011. Boer, Roland. “Against ‘Reception History’.” Bible and Interpretation Website. May 2011. No pages: http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/boe358008.shtml Bosshard-Nepustil, Erich. Vor uns die Sintflut: Studien zu Text, Kontexten und Rezeption der Fluterzählung Genesis 6–9. BWANT 5. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005. Bowie, Fiona. The Anthropology of Religion. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Brichto, Herbert Chanon. The Names of God: Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Brodie, Thomas L. Genesis as Dialogue: A Literary, Historical and Theological Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982. Bryan, David. Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality. JSPSup 12. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Burkert, Walter. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.

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Burstein, Stanley M. The Babyloniaca of Berossus. SMANE 1.5. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1978. Cargill, Robert R. “Forget about Noah’s Ark: There was no Worldwide Flood.” Bible and Interpretation Website. May 2010. No pages: http://www.bibleinterp.com/ articles/flood357903.shtml Carroll, Michael P. “Myth, Mythology, and Transformation in the Old Testament: The Stories of Esther, Judith, and Susanna.” SR 12, no. 3 (1983): 301–312. Caspo, Eric. Theories of Mythology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Cassuto, Umberto. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part 1 From Adam to Noah Genesis I–VI:8. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1944. Repr. Jerusalem: the Magnes Press, 1961. ———. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part II From Noah to Abraham Genesis VI 9–XI 32. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1949. Repr. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1964. Clines, David J. A. “Theme in Genesis 1–11.” CBQ 38, no. 4 (1976): 483–507. Cohn, Norman. Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and others. Oxford World Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Davidson, Richard M. “The Genesis Flood Narrative: Crucial Issues in the Current Debate.” AUSS 42, no. 1 (2004): 49–77. Davila, James R. “The Flood Hero as King and Priest.” JNES 54, no. 3 (1995): 199–214. Day, John. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Dimant, Devorah. “Noah in Early Jewish Literature.” Pages 123– 150 in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible. Edited by Michael E. Stone and Theodore A. Bergren. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998. Dorson, Richard M. “The Eclipse of Solar Mythology.” Pages 25– 63 in Myth: A Symposium. Edited by Thomas A. Seboek. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965.

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Dundes, Alan, ed. The Flood Myth. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Emerton, John A. “An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis Part I.” VT 37, no. 4 (1987): 401–420. ———. “An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis: Part II.” VT 38, no. 1 (1988): 1–21. England, Emma. “‘The Dove, the Rainbow, and the Unicorn’: 170 Years of the Flood Story Retold for Children in Words and Pictures.” PhD. Diss., University of Amsterdam, 2012. Fisher, Walter R. Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action. Studies in Rhetoric/ Communication. Columbia, SC: University of SC Press, 1987. Freedman, H., and M Simon, translators. Genesis Rabbah: Midrash Rabbah: Genesis I. London: The Soncino Press, 1939. Fretheim, Terence. “Genesis.” Pages 321–674 in Genesis–Leviticus. Edited by L. E. Keck. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “The Atrahasis Epic and Its Significance for Our Understanding of Genesis 1–9.” BA 40, no. 4 (1977): 147–54. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G Marshall. Second, Revised ed. London: Sheed & Ward, 1999. Garsiel, Moshe. Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns. Translated by Phyllis Hackett. Originally published as Midreshe Shemot Ba-Mik’ra. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1987. Repr. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991. George, Andrew. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Vol 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews: Bible Times and Characters From the Creation to Jacob. 7 vols. Translated by Henrietta Szold. America: The Jewish Publication Society, 1913. Reprint. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ———. The Legends of the Jews: Notes to Volumes I and II: From the Creation to Exodus Vol. V America: The Jewish Publication Society, 1925.

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Goody, Jack. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Gunkel, Hermann and Heinrich Zimmern. Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: a religio-historical study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12. Reprint. Translated by K. William Whitney, Jr., The Biblical resource series. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006. Gunkel, Hermann. Genesis. Translated by Mark E Biddle. 3rd ed. MLBS. Originally published as Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910. Repr. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997. Habel, Norman, and Shirley Wurst. The Earth Story in Genesis. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Haleem, M. A. S. Abdel. “The Qur’anic Employment of the Story of Noah.” JQS 8, no. 1 (2006): 38–57. Hendel, Ronald S. “Tangled Plots in Genesis.” Pages 35–51 in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman. Edited by Astrid B. Beck, Andrew H. Bartelt, Paul R. Raabe, and Chris A. Franke. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. Herion, Gary A. “Why God Rejected Cain’s Offering: The Obvious Answer.” Pages 52–65 in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Friedman. Edited by Astrid B. Beck, Andrew H. Bartelt, Paul R. Raabe, and Chris A. Franke. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. Hess, Richard S. and David T. Tsumura, eds. “I Studied Inscriptions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1–11. SBTS 4. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994. Hiebert, Theodore. The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Hollander, Lee M. The Poetic Edda Translated with Introduction and Explanatory Notes. Second ed. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006. Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Originally published as Der Implizite Leser. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1974.

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Jacob, Benno. Das erste Buch der Tora, Genesis. Berlin: Shocken Verlag, 1934. Repr. New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1974. Kaminski, Carol M. “Beautiful Women or ‘False Judgment’? Interpreting Genesis 6.2 in the Context of Primaeval History.” JSOT 32 (2008): 457–473. Kass, Leon R. The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis. New York: Free Press, 2003. Kingsley, Sean. “From Carmel to Genesis: A Neolithic Flood for the Holy Land?” BAIAS 26 (2008): 75–93. Kissling, Paul J. “The Rainbow in Genesis 9:12–17: A Triple Entendre?” Stone-Campbell Journal 4, no. 2 (2001): 249–261. Kreitzer, Larry J. The Old Testament in Fiction and Film: On Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow. BiSe 24. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994. Lambert, W. G. and A. R. Millard. Atra-ḥasīs: the Babylonian Story of the Flood with the Sumerian Flood Story. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. “The Structural Study of Myth.” Pages 81– 106 in Myth: A Symposium. Edited by Thomas A. Seboek. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. Lewis, C. S. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Lewis, Jack P. “Noah and the Flood: In Jewish, Christian and Muslim Tradition.” BA 47, no. 4 (1984): 224–239. ———. A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature. Leiden: Brill, 1978. Lincoln, Bruce. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Littledale, R. F.? “The Oxford Solar Myth: A Contribution to Comparative Mythology.” Kottabos: a College Miscellany 5: Michaelmas Term (1870): 145–154. Loewenstamm, Samuel E. “The Waters of the Biblical Deluge: Their Onset and Their Disappearance.” Pages 297–312 in From Babylon to Canaan: Studies in the Bible and Its Oriental Background. Edited by Samuel E. Loewenstamm. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1992. Marks, Herbert. “Biblical Naming and Poetic Etymology.” JBL 114 (1995): 21–42. Martinez, F. Garcia and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, eds. Interpretations of the Flood. TBN 1. Leiden: Brill, 1998.

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McDowell, John H. “From Expressive Language to Mythemes: Meaning in Mythic Narratives.” Pages 29–45 in Myth: A New Symposium. Edited by Gregory Allen Schrempp and William F. Hansen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002. McEvenue, Sean E. The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer. AnBib 50. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istitutio Biblico, 1971. Miller, Patrick D. Genesis 1–11: Studies in Structure and Theme. JSOTSup 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1978. Moberly, R. W. L. “On Interpreting the Mind of God: The Theological Significance of the Flood Narrative (Genesis 6– 9).” Pages 44–66 in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays. Edited by J Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe, and A. Katherine Grieb. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008. ———. The Theology of the Book of Genesis. Old Testament Theology 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Morgenstern, Julian. “A Note on Genesis 5:29.” JBL 49, no. 3 (1930): 306–9. Nagy, Gregory. “Can Myths Survive?” Pages 240–248 in Myth: A New Symposium. Edited by Gregory Allen Schrempp and William F. Hansen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002. Neusner, Jacob. Genesis Rabbah: Parashiyyot One Through Thirty-Three on Genesis 1:1 to 8:14. Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic commentary to the book of Genesis: A new American translation. Vol. I. BJS 104. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985. Niditch, Susan. Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996. Nothaft, C. P. E. “Noah’s Calendar: The Chronology of the Flood Narrative and the History of Astronomy in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Scholarship.” JWCI 74 (2011): 191–211. Ogden, Robert A., Jr. “Myth in the OT.” in ABD, 4: 956–960. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. ———. “Mythology.” in ABD, 4: 946–956. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Parunak, H. Van Dyke. “A Semantic Survey of NHM.” Bib 56 (1975): 512–32.

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Peters, Dorothy M. Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies in Antiquity. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2008. Petersen, D. L. “The Yahwist on the Flood.” VT 26, no. 4 (1976): 438–46. Poulssen, N. “Time and Place in Genesis V.” OtSt 24 (1986): 21– 33. Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Raglan, Lord. “Myth and Ritual.” Pages 122–135 in Myth: A Symposium. Edited by Thomas A. Seboek. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. Rashi. Genesis. Translated by James H Lowe. London: Hebrew Compendium Publishing, 1928. Rendtorff, Rolf. “Genesis 8,21 und die Urgeschichte des Jahwisten.” KD 7, no. 1 (1961): 69–78. Sarna, Nahum M. Genesis. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Schmidt, Lawrence K. Understanding Hermeneutics. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2006. Segal, Robert A. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Sharpe, Eric J. Comparative Religion: a History. 2nd ed. London: Duckworth, 2003. Shaviv, Samuel. “The Polytheistic Origins of the Biblical Flood Narrative.” VT 54, no. 4 (2004): 527–548. Silverman, Jason M. “Pseudepigraphy, Anonymity, and Auteur Theory.” RART 15 (2011): 520–555. ———. Persepolis and Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic. LHBOTS 558. London: T&T Clark, 2012. Speiser, E. A. Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes. 2nd ed. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Stone, Michael E. “Mount Ararat and the Ark.” Pages 307–16 in Noah and His Book(s). Edited by Michael E. Stone, Aryeh Amihay, and Vered Hillel. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010. Stone, Michael E., Aryeh Amihay, and Vered Hillel, eds. Noah and His Books. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010. Street, Daniel R. “As It Was in the Days of Noah: the Prophets’ typological Interpretation of Noah’s Flood.” CTR 5, no. 1 (2007): 33–51.

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Strus, Andrzej. Nomen-Omen. AnBib 80 Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978. Sweeney, Marvin A. Tanak: a Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012. Thielicke, Helmut. The Evangelical Faith: Prolegomena: The Relation of Theology to Modern Thought-Forms. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997. Thompson, Stith. “Myths and Folktales.” Pages 169–180 in Myth: A Symposium. Edited by Thomas A. Seboek. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. ———. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Rev. ed. 6 vols. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1955–58. Tolkien, J. R. R. “On Fairy-Stories.” Pages 313–400 in Tales From the Perilous Realm. London: HarperCollins, 2008. Tumanov, Vladimir. “All Bad: The Biblical Flood Revisited in Modern Fiction.” Arcadia–International Journal for Literary Studies 2007, no. 42 (2007): 84–97. Turner, Laurence A. Announcements of Plot. JSOTSup 96. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990. ———. Genesis. Readings: A New Biblical Commentary. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. van Ruiten, J. T. A. G. M. “The Flood Story in the Book of Jubilees.” Pages 66–85 in Interpretations of the Flood. Edited by F. García Martínez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Van Seters, John. “An Ironic Circle: Wellhausen and the Rise of Redaction Criticism.” ZAW 115, no. 4 (2003): 487–500. von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis: A Commentary. Translated by John H. Marks. rev 9th ed. Originally published as Das Erste Buch Mose: Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958. Repr. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973. Wallace, Howard N. “The Toledot of Adam.” Pages 17–33 in Studies in the Pentateuch. Edited by J. Emerton. Leiden: Brill, 1990. Waltke, Bruce K. Genesis: A Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001. Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15. WBC. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Translated by John J. Scullion. 2nd ed. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener

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Verlag, 1974. Repr. London: SPCK, 1984 and Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994. Wheelwright, Philip. “The Semantic Approach to Myth.” Pages 154–168 in Myth: A Symposium. Edited by Thomas A. Seboek. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1965. Witte, Markus. Die biblische Urgeschichte: redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26. BZAW 265 Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998. Wolde, Ellen van. Words Become Worlds, Semantic Studies of Genesis 1– 11. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Wyatt, Nicolas. ‘There’s such Divinity doth Hedge a King’: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt on Royal ideology in Ugarit and Old Testament Literature. SOTSMS. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. ———. The Mythic Mind: Essays on Cosmology in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature. Bible World. London: Equinox, 2005. Yarbro Collins, Adela. The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation. Reprint. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001. Zlotowitz, Meir, and Nosson Scherman, eds. Bereishis Genesis: A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized From Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources. Vol 1a Artscroll Tanach Series 1977. Repr. New York: Mesorah, 1980.

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME: READING THE NOAH CYCLE IN THE LIGHT OF ITS PLOT MARKERS ELIZABETH HARPER DURHAM UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT To open this collection, a literary approach is taken to the flood narrative, and the story is examined in the light of its core plot markers. In final-form, the Noah Cycle begins with Noah’s birth at 5:28 and ends at 9:28. In this context, the flood story becomes a richer, nuanced, and more perplexing story. On the surface it appears a simple tale of sin and judgment with clear plot-markers in the divine speeches (Gen 6) which are apparently fulfilled exactly as predicted. However, when the Cycle begins in Gen 5 readers gain a different perspective. In 5:29 Lamech claims that his son Noah “will comfort us from our burdensome manual labor, from the soil which YHWH has cursed.” This raises great expectations of Noah, yet two verses later Lamech dies and shortly after, all living things expire in the flood. Is it cold comfort, then, that Noah ends up bringing to “us”? In the light of this more enigmatic plot marker, the reader may notice word plays, fresh themes, and inter-textual connections lying just beneath the surface of the tale. Is the focus on Noah or the cursed soil? Is it a tale of judgment or cleansing? Why the temple allusions? Does the flood achieve anything? The reader is left to ponder to what extent the plot markers enlighten or complicate the reading.

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INTRODUCTION Noah’s Ark still appeals as a colorful children’s toy, but otherwise it is a story much out of favor. It is, after all, historically ridiculous and even morally reprehensible. While it provides a fine example of source divisions for introductory biblical classes, exciting scholarly work seems to lie elsewhere. This is not new. Genesis 6–9 has had a checkered reception history. It receives little mention in the Hebrew Bible but became a firm favorite in the apocalyptic scenarios of 1 Enoch and Jubilees. The Church Fathers gave it a different makeover as allegory of the church—ark of salvation. In the earliest days of geology it explained fossils, until such views were discredited. In the nineteenth century it was the bedrock of a different “science”— source critical divisions and comparative religion. However, while European scholars still generate a few historical-critical monographs on Noah, Anglophone studies have largely moved to other hermeneutical pursuits. Structuralism and the examination of plot, character, points of view, and such like, began the “new” literary interests. A range of reader-response approaches (e.g., feminist, ecological, and postcolonial), post-structuralist readings, deconstructionism, intertextual studies all followed. Hardly any have been systematically applied to Gen 6–9. There have been a few attempts at a chiastic analysis, but these are aimed more at the Documentary Hypothesis debate. There have been some ethical readings, but all with a distinctly modern focus. Whereas the readerly perspective was once that of a traumatized victim suffering an earth-shattering disaster who sought solace in the story, now the reader is an external ethicist critiquing the theology of a judgmental deity who destroys the innocent with the guilty. These aside, recent studies have commonly jumped from Gen 2–3 to Babel or the patriarchs. With the exception of the growing interest in its reception history, as evidenced in this volume, there has been little recent Anglophone engagement with the story. Even so, Noah’s flood may not be as straightforward as has been assumed and literary methods might offer more than an ethical reader-response approach, important as that may be. This article, therefore, begins the volume with a fresh reading of the final-form narrative. In questioning familiar insights, it is hoped that this latest reception might interact with the diverse receptions

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which follow. The specific literary interest chosen is plot, or more particularly, the fate of plot expectations raised by the story.

THE BIRTH OF A PLOT One of the first tasks of literary readers is to find the start of the unit to be studied. Where one begins colors the reading, but it is far from clear where the flood narrative, in its received form, commences. Some wish to start with the ‫ תולדת‬in 6:9, “These are the generations of Noah.” This is the classic mark of a new section in Genesis. However, 6:5–8, where God first decides to blot out humanity, seems so closely linked as to be an important prologue. Then there are the enigmatic sons of elohim taking daughters of adam in 6:1–4. In the final form should this also be part of our reading? Scholars debate these verses but few look further back to an inauguration in the very different genre of genealogy in Gen 5. Nonetheless, a birth is a very good opening and Noah’s story is framed by his birth in 5:29 and his death 9:28. Moreover, 5:29 interrupts the genealogy with a pronouncement: Lamech lived 182 years and he begot a son and he called his name Noah saying, “This one will comfort us from our work and from the pain of our hands, from the ground which YHWH cursed.”1

Anyone reading 5:29 in canonical context could surely assume that the next story will flesh out this pronouncement. In literary terms, Lamech’s words act as a plot marker, a phrase that raises expectations of what will follow. For initial readers, plot markers engender expectations of the forthcoming plot and influence the reading.2 They appear to provide a map and compass to be closely followed through the twists and turns of the plot. Such guidance, Translations are my own unless otherwise stated. Many plot markers are deliberately created to mold the reading experience, but individual readers can also find expectations never envisaged by authors. Here authorial intention is irrelevant; the concern is with expectations potentially raised by the text and how these might affect the reading. 1 2

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though, may be illusory, for plot markers can be undermined, reversed, or reinterpreted to create suspense and plot twists. Plot markers are not, therefore, to be seen as an outline of the actual plot. They do create expectations but provide no guarantee of fulfillment. No more so than 5:29. For those who know the story it is hard to see how Noah ever comforts Lamech from the painful labor of the cursed ground. For returning readers such obstructed plot markers do more than simply enable plot twists. Certainly, returning readers can relive vicariously the initial expectations spiced by the irony of knowing they will be thwarted. However, at a deeper level any unfulfilled plot-markers provide a paradox to be resolved. Can an overturned plot marker still be a real indicator of plot? Does it harbor some type of teasing truth? Genesis 5:29 certainly provides returning readers with plenty of riddles. It differs markedly from the Priestly characteristics of the stylized genealogy. It seems to refer to the non-P (formerly called J) curse on the ‫( אדמה‬3:17 soil/ground, henceforth adamah), it uses the tetragrammaton, and it shares vocabulary with other non-P passages (comfort, pain, ground, curse 3:16–19, 6:5–7). Historical-critical scholars have, therefore, long debated its original location and date. For our purposes, though, it is now securely located in 5:29, where, intentionally or otherwise, it raises enigmatic expectations for the narrative that follows. Although Noah’s name is of uncertain etymology, one thing is clear to a Hebrew speaker: Lamech in 5:29 is linguistically challenged. As the rabbis pointed out long ago, there is an errant ‫( מ‬m): The name has no bearing on the interpretation… and the interpretation has no bearing on the name. Either the scripture should have said, “This one will give us rest,” or the text should have said, “He called his name Nahman,” for “this one will give us relief.”3

The name is more like ‫( נוח‬nuaḥ/rest) than ‫( נחם‬niḥam/comfort). Some rabbis speculated that Noah was a pseudonym to hide his

3

Gen. Rab. I XXV:2.

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35

real name from sorcerers,4 while last century, more prosaically, it was suggested that P suppressed a J “Nahman” in favor of Noah.5 Many more scholars, from as early as Rashi have preferred to emend the text.6 After all, it makes sense to dream of rest from toil. So maybe the Septuagint’s “this one will allow us to rest from our work” is more original. Nevertheless, to be grammatically correct, Lamech ought to have said, “he will give rest to us,” which makes for a more complex emendation. Can readers be sure, though, that 5:29 is attempting a philological or etymological explanation of Noah’s name? Might the ‫ נחם — נח‬mismatch be a deliberate paronomasia, a sophisticated literary pun? The verse is awash with the mem sound and the nû rhyme. And the root ‫ נחם‬will play an important role in the story to come. But why might Lamech attribute ‫ נחם‬over ‫ נוח‬to Noah? ‫נחם‬ (comfort) is not, I suggest, a kind of English sympathy, i.e., “there, there, isn’t life tough, now grin and bear it.” It is more concrete and practical. It changes things. Mourners gain ‫ נחם‬when they can find pleasure in life again (Gen 24:67). In other circumstances ‫נחם‬ involves the restoration of fortunes and the overthrow of what causes discomfort (Ps 86:17). In particular, ‫נחם‬, in connection with divine judgment, involves restoration and reconciliation with God (Zech 1:17, Isa 51:3). Lamech, it seems, is not just hoping for another pair of hands on the farm. He dreams of his painful labor overthrown, maybe, even, of the end of the curse, of divine judgment set aside. Even if readers take ‫( נחם‬comfort) seriously, they need not, therefore, abandon ‫( נוח‬rest), for Noah’s name cannot help but recall the verb. Both semantic fields beckon the reader. Thus, on the surface, Lamech juxtaposes Noah with comfort to make a daring and provocative statement, maybe even to suggest that Noah will relieve the world of the curse on the adamah. Then, interwoven into the shadows of this claim there is a hint of rest, the very opposite of harsh toil and tenuous insecurity. This audacious Ag. Ber. 38; Yal. I 42; see Ginzberg, The Legend of the Jews, I:146. Morgenstern, “A Note on Genesis 5:29.” 308. 6 Rashi, Genesis, 5:29. 4 5

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hope, though, is somehow elusive, present yet absent, asserted yet undermined. Comfort is what is claimed, but the linguistic mismatch grates. What if Lamech’s faith in Noah is as forced and ill-fitting as his naming? And, as for the hope of rest, it hovers but never linguistically materializes. Will Noah fall between the two, neither comfort nor rest? Lamech’s potent hopes are seemingly insecure ones. This, though, is only the start of the uncertainties of the verse. Lamech wants “comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands, from the adamah which the LORD cursed.” Is Lamech distinguishing work from toil? Or is this a hendiadys, an epexegetical waw or a parallelism of greater specification, a kind of intensified redefinition of work as painful manual labor? Will Noah solve work in general or only toilsome struggle? And what of that triple ‫ מן‬preposition? Are all three uses the same or can they be translated differently? Are they a ‫ מן‬of separation (“away from”), or origin (“out of”), a causal ‫מן‬ (“because of”) or a temporal one (“after, since”)? Two recent translations demonstrate some of the differences: Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands. (NRSV) He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed. (NIV)

Maybe the preposition can only be understood when the type of comfort Noah brings is discovered. Once again the verse becomes suggestive, but opaque. Moreover, the Hebrew speaker may have spotted another potential deficiency in Lamech’s grammar. The phrase is normally ‫( נחם על‬cf. Job 42:11). Why the unusual preposition? And the ambiguities go on. Who is this us/we/our of Lamech’s claim? Is it Lamech’s immediate family, or his contemporaries generally? Is it the genealogical ancestors of Gen 5? Or the descendants yet to be born? Is it a generic “we,” i.e., the whole human race? Or is the narrator really addressing the reader? And is this an assertion, or even a prophecy? Is the Pi‘el imperfect a bold indicative claim: “This one WILL comfort us…” or is it merely the prayer of a melancholic father, a wistful jussive “may he bring comfort”?

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37

The more this returning reader puzzles over the statement the more open-ended it becomes.

THE PLOT THICKENS Continuing reading, it takes only 2 verses for the first plot complication: “and Lamech died” (5:31). There has been no mention of comfort and now the “us/we/our” group no longer contains Lamech. For first-time readers there is still hope, perhaps a flashback will reveal how Lamech was comforted. Indeed the births of 5:32 precede 5:31 chronologically and might begin the answer. Returning readers know better. Lamech receives no further mention and no obvious relief. Either Lamech was wrong, or the “us/we/our” must be read more generically. Readers next encounter the intriguing episode of the ‫( בני־אלהים‬sons of elohim) taking the daughters of adam, producing mighty offspring, males of the name (6:1–4). For returning readers especially, the pericope provides yet another insoluble plot puzzle. Is this evidence of the wickedness of Noah’s world? If so, judgment seems to occur in 6:3 without need of the flood. Perhaps it is a digression to clear up some ancient ancillary issue concerning the semi-divine heroes, a kind of narrative delay to heighten suspense. Or perhaps the historical-critics are right and an accident of redaction, an alien insertion, stumbles the reader. Accident or not, readers will seek connections. Genesis 6:1, like the genealogies, seems evidence of the fulfillment of the divine command to multiply (1:28), a command surely hampered by painful birth labor (3:16)—the woman’s curse. Is it significant that 6:1 mentions the ‫אדמה‬, the cursed adamah as 5:29 reminded readers not the ‫ארץ‬ (earth)? Will the curse somehow taint the procreative fulfillment of 1:28? Moreover, might returning readers discern irony? The sons of elohim look on the earth and see good (6:2) where God will see only evil (6:5), and their sons of name will not, in the end, bear the name (‫ ) ֵשׁם‬of Elohim for that belongs to another new-born son of name (5:32) – Shem (‫ ֵשׁם‬/name), son of Noah. However, the greatest plot shock awaits in 6:5: YHWH saw that the evil of the adam was great in the earth, and every form of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil every day.

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Things, it seems, are far worse than Lamech anticipated. Perhaps he hoped that God would relent and release the curse now that Adam, who caused it, had died.7 Not so. God regrets his creation and has had enough. Lamech’s “we” group faces more than a struggle with the cursed adamah. They are to be blotted out from the whole face of that adamah (6:7). Can Noah bring comfort from that? Astute returning readers might even notice that 6:6–7 is full of echoes of 5:29: 6:6–7 And YHWH regretted (‫ )נחם‬that he made (‫ )עשׂה‬the adam on the earth and it pained (‫ )עצב‬him in his heart. And YHWH said “I will blot out the adam which I made from the face of the adamah… for I regret (‫ )נחם‬that I made (‫)עשׂה‬ them. 5:29 …this one will comfort (‫ )נחם‬us from our making (‫ )עשׂה‬and from the pain (‫ )עצב‬of our hands, from the adamah which YHWH cursed.

In almost identical vocabulary the world receives the very opposite of what readers expect. Ironically ‫ נחם‬heralds not comfort but regret which leads to destruction. Has 5:29 failed? Did Lamech miss the plot? Misunderstanding Noah’s name, did he also misunderstand Noah’s purpose? Wallace even suggests that Lamech’s utterance should be classified as one of those evil thoughts of 6:5, a statement of rebellion. Lamech wants Noah to comfort what God has cursed.8 Readers need not be so pessimistic for plot twists are to be expected, things get worse before they get better. Perhaps they need to hold tight to the plot marker and have faith in the map. Indeed at this darkest moment, a ray of light occurs. In 6:8 Noah, absent since 5:32, suddenly finds favor in the eyes of YHWH. Could it possibly imply that the first person to receive comfort in the pain of his work is God? Now that would be a plot twist! Meticulous readers might even note that favor (‫ )חן‬is a palindrome Zohar Hadash Bereshit 24b, see Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, V:102. Based on Gen 5:5, Noah is the first born after Adam’s death. 8 Wallace, “The Toledot of Adam,” 28–29. 7

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

39

of Noah (‫ )נח‬and the verse begins …‫נח מ‬. It seems that tenuous hope remains and the plot has only just begun. Having reintroduced Noah, the narrative suddenly breaks off and starts again with the ‫ תולדת‬formula (6:9). Is this a sourcecritical hiatus or might it serve to recall the genealogy? Readers now learn that Noah is the first (and only) avowedly righteous man in the primaeval narrative. Such a description bolsters the hope of 6:8. Even if only relative to this generation, righteousness befits one who is to bring comfort to others and cause God to re-evaluate his curse. The nature of the comfort Noah must secure is much greater than Lamech envisaged, but perhaps Noah has the qualities to rise to the occasion and fulfill his father’s dreams. Sadly, the reader’s comfort does not last long, for the P plot now plunges back into its downward spiral. The evil of 6:5 is reasserted as corruption and ‫( חמס‬ḥamas/violence 6:11) and it is not just the adam but the whole earth that is corrupted. Adam, who was supposed to fill the earth with progeny, has filled it with violence. If the resonances of Shem (name) were observed in 6:4, how much more does ḥamas recall another of Noah’s just mentioned sons: Ham, who will later do violence to Noah’s honor (9:22–24).9 Noah (‫ )נח‬and Ham (‫)חם‬, brought together, remind one of ‫נחם‬. Once more ‫ נחם‬is equivocal, suspended between the rest of Noah and the violence of Ham. On the one hand ‫ נחם‬can be comfort akin to rest (5:29) and on the other it can be regret related to violence (6:7).10 Moreover, in this chapter the ḥeth and mem combination has little positive contribution. It can be found in the evil thoughts of 6:5 (‫)מחשׁבת‬, the disastrous divine regret (‫ נחם‬6:6–7), the decision to blot out (‫ מחה‬6:7) and the violence (‫ חמס‬6:11) which fills the earth.11 The story could do with less m. Would that Lamech had prophesied ‫( נוח‬rest) and not ‫( נחם‬comfort). So far this reading of the plot in relation to the 5:29 plot marker has oscillated between complications that deepen the Garsiel, Biblical Names, 86. “Biblical Naming and Poetic Etymology,” 28. 11 Strus, Nomen-Omen, 159 9

10Marks,

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narrative problems and subtle allusions that revive hope. Now, hardly has God uttered his all-encompassing destructive determination (6:13) than he appears to undermine that very intention with the command to create a ‫( תבה‬henceforth tebah 6:14). Has Noah, at least in part, caused God to modify his judgments? It is not clear what exactly Noah is to make. The verses are full of curious vocabulary and grammar and, as this volume shows, many and varied are the “arks” envisaged by reception history.12 For any first-time reader, with no inkling yet of a flood, a tebah might be quite incomprehensible. The only other occurrence is in Exod 2:3 where it is a small papyrus container made watertight. Noah’s tebah is to be made of ‫( גפר‬gopher 6:14), a hapax legomenon, usually assumed to be a type of wood. It is apparently to have “nests” (rooms? reeds?13 6:14) and it is to have a ‫( צהר‬sohar, 6:16), another hapax that translators have variously taken to be a window, door, oil lamp, deck, covering or, in the LXX, “gatherings.” Then something (the prenominal suffix has no clear referent) is to be finished up to a cubit on top (6:16). Finally Noah is to make “lowests, seconds, and thirds.” Pity poor Hebrew readers who cannot tell that these are (according to English translation) prosaic boat-building instructions! However, what Hebrew readers may recognize, that English readers miss, are potential temple allusions. ‫( גפר‬gopher) rhymes with ‫( כפר‬kopher) with which the tebah is to be ‫( כפר‬kphr covered?) inside and out. Despite the near universal translation, this is not the Hebrew for “pitch.” ‫ כפר‬is a covering in contexts of atonement and propitiation, or a “ransom” to redeem life. This atonement-related tebah is to be made a hyperbolic 300 x 50 x 30 cubits, the same height and width but three times the length of the palace in 1 Kgs 7:2. For many readers, this divine giving of dimensions echoes the tabernacle and temple construction narratives, the creation of holy sanctuaries. The use of “lowest, seconds, and thirds” similarly recalls the temple levels (1 Kgs 6:6–8). And maybe the “cubit” of 6:16 is the piece of temple 12 13

Thomas, “Go-4-Wood” in this volume. McCann, “Woven-of-Reeds” in this volume.

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architecture mentioned in Isa 6:4. Might initial readers envisage Noah making the earliest temple, a massive sanctuary in which he can make atonement for the violence of the world?14 Such would be an appropriate construction for a righteous patriarch who walks with God, and comfort, indeed, for God and humanity. One thing is certain: if Noah is to bring rest from work (5:29) he is not, himself, to have rest. God who regrets what he has made (6:7) now turns “make” into an imperative. Is it through work that work will be relieved? Readers cannot yet tell, although they will be told firmly and frequently that Noah makes it (6:22, 7:3,16). He did all that was commanded. Will this obedience reverse Adam’s disobedience? Will Noah’s making make comfort for “us”? Only after these obscure instructions does God finally reveal how he intends to blot out the earth. All flesh is to be swept away in a ‫( מבול‬mabbul), yet another rare word glossed as “waters upon the earth” (6:17). The explanation is emphatic and gives the third reiteration of God’s all-encompassing destructive intentions. With this ringing in their ears, first-time readers get their first truly positive news. God is to establish a covenant with our hero and bring him, his family, and pairs of all living things into the tebah to keep them alive (6:19–21). Is this, then, the fulfillment of Lamech’s hopes? Noah is to be the one who will keep alive his scion of Lamech’s family and a representative pair of all living things in the face of God’s next curse upon the earth. The plot, however, is not even half complete and nothing has actually happened. All is only anticipated, and God, the key actor is oscillating between divergent statements. The plot is still on its downwards spiral, so perhaps readers should reserve judgment. Rather than fulfillment, maybe this is a sign that Noah can qualify God’s plans, another reminder not yet to abandon the plot marker but anticipate its greater fulfillment in some unforeseeable way.

A PLOT MARKER DROWNS A greater danger to our 5:29 plot marker has, however, occurred in Gen 6 than simply predictable plot complications that make 14

Cf. McCann, “Woven-of-Reeds” in this volume.

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fulfillment seem ever more remote. The problem with Gen 6 is that it provides a whole set of new plot markers. Unlike Gen 5:29, these are bold, stark and unequivocal. Their very volume threatens to drown out the elusive expectations of Lamech. These alternative plot markers come from the three speeches that dominate this first section. Each makes essentially the same point: the earth is thoroughly evil, God has decided to destroy all living things, and yet, paradoxically, nothing is to be lost, representatives of everything are to be saved. The three speeches are not, though, identical. The first speech (6:5–9) stresses the divine reaction to evil with only the merest hint of hope and its unique contribution is insight into the emotional life of YHWH. It is not judgment, but regret and pain/grief that motivates what follows. The second and longest of the speeches (6:13–21) more evenly balances destruction and salvation. The evil is made more specific and God’s reaction intensified and finally revealed as flood. So, too, the hope of salvation is more explicit, in the detailed, if obscure, tebah which, under divine covenant, will save all living creatures and provide them with food. In the final speech (7:1–4), in inverse to the first, the motivating problems are only implicit and the emphasis is on salvation: the righteousness of Noah, the preservation of seed. Like Lamech’s utterance these speeches raise expectations of what is to come:   

the adam, and all living things will be blotted from the adamah (6:7, 7:4);15 that is, God will make an end to all flesh and it will expire (6:13, 17);16 God will achieve this through a mabbul, which will involve waters on the earth (6:17);17 starting in 7 days there will be rain for 40 days and 40 nights (7:4);18

Explicitly fulfilled at 7:23, also implicitly by 7:21, 22. Explicitly at 7:21, implicitly by 7:22–23. 17 Explicitly at 7:6b, 7:10, implicitly by 7:11, 7:17a. 18 Explicitly at 7:10,12, implicitly by 7:17. 15 16

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43

God will establish a covenant with Noah, and his family will enter the tebah (6:18);19 pairs of all living things will also enter and be kept alive (6:19–20);20 in fact seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals shall enter (7:2–3).21

Savvy first-time readers may never fully trust these new plot markers, for even divine intentions can go astray. Human beings have a propensity for hindering God’s designs, and God himself can frustrate his own plans. So such readers may still sit on the edge of their chairs. Returning readers, however, know that what God promises, God does indeed do. For such readers, trained by 5:29 to look below the surface, this change may be puzzling. All elements of plot surprise have been forestalled. There is not even space for dramatic irony, for all is also revealed to Noah. Where then is the plot tension? Is the suspense in waiting two more chapters to discover if the flood has eradicated humanity’s evil inclinations? Returning readers, battling with 5:29, might doubt whether the flood plot could really be that straightforward. The threefold repetition makes the overall message of these plot markers unmistakable, but through the minor changes and differing perspectives the final form has levels of complexity which gives space for just such readerly questions. Moreover, the speeches considerably delay the plot. A whole chapter has passed and all readers have had are words: words of Lamech, words of God. Is anything going to happen in this story? Of course it is not entirely true that nothing has happened so far. The narrator has twice said that Noah did as commanded (6:22, 7:5), but the narration is terse, stylized, and the action compacted almost to the point of invisibility. Given the size of the task entrusted to Noah and the biblical propensity for enumerating command and fulfillment (cf. Gen 1) readers might have expected a little more detail. Instead, the focus remains on God. In yet Explicitly at 7:7, 7:13 although covenant is not mentioned. Explicitly at 7:8–9, 14–16, implicitly by 7:22. 21 Explicitly at 7:8–9, 7:14–16 although the number 7 is not reiterated. 19 20

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another reversal of 5:29, Noah, set up to be some mighty hero, has so far been given no personality, no speech, no initiative. He is a recipient but never a respondent. He is characterized as righteous and obedient, yet he has remained in the shadows, a flat foil for God. Reaching 7:6 the action finally begins and Noah becomes a subject in his own right, while God, who has dominated the story, fades out. Indeed, observant readers might notice that although God stridently claimed that he would cause the flood, it is the mabbul and the waters that actually create it. The center of attention now moves from the divine perspective to a worldly one. Henceforth the narrator stands on a rapidly disappearing adamah and God is obscured. As already noted, the plot unfolds just as anticipated. Nonetheless, the reader, alert to slight deviations and subtle changes, might notice, for instance, that there is no mention of covenant when 6:18 is fulfilled or of Noah explicitly bringing in the animals (6:19, 7:2). Are these significant? Certainly the narrator continues to allow Noah only the barest minimum of on-stage activity. He still has no emotions, no voice and no independent actions. This is in a marked contrast to the Babylonian Atraḫasīs whose heart is breaking and who, in his distress, is vomiting bile.22 Instead the enumeration of the animals takes up more reading space than Noah. Alongside these minor, but possibly significant, deviations are the elements unpredicted by the plot markers. For instance readers might note that simple rain becomes, through the opening of heaven’s windows (7:11), a cosmological or even mythological event. Such details are not inimical to the plot markers. Indeed, it is the norm for biblical stories to flesh out plot markers with greater detail and unforeseen elements. It is much more surprising that this is the exception rather than the rule in the flood. Another elaboration causes more confusion. Nothing prepares readers for the prolific dating in the narrative, more excessive than any other biblical tale. Why is the narrator suddenly so interested in times? Why does the flood start on 17th of the 22

Atra-ḫasīs III:ii.

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

45

second month, forty days after the beginning of the year (7:11)? How does the 150 days of the water’s force fit (7:24) with the forty days of rain (7:4)? Is this some hidden calendrical data as intimated by Guillaume?23 Or do the dates have a more symbolic purpose? Does, for instance, the rare phrase in 7:6 indicate that Noah, son of 600 years, is no longer son of deceased Lamech (5:30) who will now never see the fulfillment of his dream? The dating, which is to become even more complicated in chapter 8 is yet another puzzle for readers. A further surprise is the sudden naming of Shem, Ham, and Japheth at 7:13. Elsewhere they are simply Noah’s sons. Is this a roll call of all that enters the tebah, or a festal procession, as some suggest,24 or does it strike a more ominous note? The man of name (Shem) enters the ark, but so too does the man of violence (Ham). Will this undermine all the cleansing work of the flood? In Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the potential for violence and curse, for enmity even between brothers, enters the tebah and is preserved for the world beyond. The entering of the tebah may be a moment of salvation, but it is no solution to the problem. However, can readers even be sure they have understood the problem? If the story is about sin and judgment, as so often assumed, why does God never address the sinners directly? The speeches might mirror the prophetic judgment oracles in structure (statement of sin and divine reaction) but not in addressee. Adam is advised in detail of his wrongdoing (3:14–19), and Cain even gets a right of reply (4:10–15). Both were duly cautioned (2:17, 4:7) but the flood adam is neither warned nor advised of their failings. This moral lacuna troubled the rabbis who assigned Noah a fruitless prophetic ministry.25 Could it be that such readers are mistaken? Instead, might the predominance of animals, earth, and water at the expense of Noah and the adam be significant? Might the choice of Guillaume, “Calendars and Chronologies of the Flood Narrative,” and cf. also Jacobus in this volume. 24 Roll call: Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis Part II, 88; Festal Procession: Westermann, Genesis, 436. 25 Gen. Rab. XXX:7. Tanḥ 5, Pirqe R. El. 23 see Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, I:153. 23

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‫( מחה‬6:7, 7:23), a verb for the eradication of a stain, the dissolving

of dirt, the washing of dishes hint at a theme of cleansing and purification of corrupted earth, more than corrupted humanity? And, in the washing away of the violence might God also blot out the curse upon the adamah? Are the hopes of 5:29 completely blotted out by the end of chapter 7 or is there just enough allusion to keep them alive? By the end of chapter 7 the reconciliation of God, humanity, and the adamah which Noah was meant to achieve certainly looks almost impossible. There is no longer adam, and no more adamah. Only Noah and those with him remain. At least with no adamah there is no hard toil and a year’s rest, of a sort, for Noah.

THE PLOT REVERSES The waters prevail over the earth for 150 days and then God remembers Noah. The plot now turns, the waters retreat and the adamah reasserts itself. But what becomes of the plot markers at this decisive point? Those dominant markers of the divine speeches as good as died, alongside all living things, at 7:23. With the few caveats above, they were all fulfilled and now offer little further guidance. Are readers then, like Noah, left rudderless on a sea of text unsure of how to reach land? Perhaps not. Readers now have half a narrative to mold their plot expectations. To use the earlier analogy, they have a feel for the lie of the land. The fulfillment of the divine announcements allows readers freedom to develop their own expectations. For instance, readers may anticipate that the flood, having achieved its goal, might soon end. They might also wonder if God’s grief has been comforted, if the violence has been truly blotted out and whether such catastrophic floods will happen again. The human assumption that stories have coherence and rationale raises expectations that these plot enigmas will somehow be solved. The first half of the narrative also offers itself as a new plot marker. Readers may recognize that the demise of the flood is the

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47

inverse of its rise.26 On one level this provides a satisfying parallel, which might intimate justice, control, and order. On another level, anything that interrupts the expected chiasm, such as the incident of the birds (8:6–12) and Noah’s sacrifice, catches the attention and offers readers an enigma for contemplation. The chiastic structure is not, though, the only marker that may be influencing readers. Now that the vigorous plot markers of Gen 6 are discharged, 5:29 is able to reassert itself. With the reappearance of the adamah, Lamech’s hopes come back into view. From a plot perspective there is no doubt that 8:1 is a significant turning point, the decisive peripeteia moment. Much has been written about God’s remembrance of Noah as the lynch pin for this change. For those being guided by 5:29 ‫( נחם‬comfort) and ‫( זכר‬remember) have striking similarities—both imply that appropriate action will follow upon a cognitive event; both are used in lament pleas and reassurances of exilic salvation (Ps 106:45). Moreover, implied in the passage is the possibility that Noah has somehow influenced God. If remembering Noah can reverse a flood, maybe a curse, too, can be reversed. And the good news for readers is that once again the juxtaposition of Noah and God is salvific. Such readers might also notice that those mem (m) words, ‫נחם‬ (comfort/regret), along with ‫( חמס‬violence) and ‫( מחה‬blotting out), disappear from the story. It is as if the waters have washed away Lamech’s errant mem that should have brought comfort, but brought violence, regret, and blotting out. In its place ‫( נוח‬rest), which has for so long been hovering in the background, begins to materialize. The subsiding of the waters is interrupted to inform readers that the first thing to find rest is the tebah on the seventeenth of the seventh month. How appropriate that a date which would later fall in the Feast of Sukkôt (Lev 23:34–43) is the date of rest for this prototype booth which shelters all living creatures as they move from the old evil world into a promised land. Moreover, the wordplay alludes to Noah’s presence, shut up inside. Noah, the one 26

156.

Anderson, “From Analysis to Synthesis,” 433; Wenham, Genesis,

48

ELIZABETH HARPER

to bring comfort or possibly rest, is at last brought to rest by the tebah. Or does the tebah find rest because Noah is within? Much energy has been expended on locating the mountains of Ararat where the tebah finds rest. Fewer people have stopped to ponder “why Ararat”? If the aim was emblematic tall mountains, why not cite the more usual Lebanese Mountains (Jer 18:14; Ps 133:3)? In the light of the wordplay of 5:29 another explanation presents itself. Ararat (‫ )אררט‬evokes ‫( ארר‬to curse). Does the tebah—evocative of temple and atonement, a place of mercy and ransom, containing Noah the one to relieve the world of the curse—now bring rest upon Mt Cursed? The observant Israelite might even note that this is seven days after the Day of Atonement (Lev 23:26–43). Is this, finally, some real hope? Or might more cynical readers wonder what cursed mountains are doing in the postdiluvian, apparently cleansed world? Certainly the next appearance of rest is ambivalent. The dove finds no rest, for the waters have not yet diminished from the adamah. The only rest to be had is in returning to the rested tebah and the extended hand of Noah, the man of rest. This, though, is not the rest that the dove seeks. The hopes of returning to the adamah remain unfulfilled. The tide may have turned, but Noah, who can, apparently, see nothing, does not know it. The incident of the birds brings a narrative delay and exposes Noah’s restlessness. Readers who hear in “rest” an echo of 5:29 might also notice other resonances. The words “hand,” “adamah,” “make” all highlight that the comfort Lamech sought, rest within one’s own adamah, is still awaiting fulfillment. Noah’s toil in making the tebah and his outstretched hand to take the dove are not enough. Moreover, earthly taking has, to this point, been far from positive. Eve took of the fruit (3:6), God fears that Adam might take of the tree of life (3:22), the adamah took Abel’s blood (4:11), the sons of elohim took the daughters (6:2). Is Noah’s sending forth his hand (8:9) in some way redemptive of these takings? Or has Noah, too, inherited the desire to grasp? So the 5:29 plot marker continues its ambivalent progress and eventually the waters do abate and the face of the adamah is dried up. God calls forth Noah and all the enumerated living creatures and commissions them, in echoes of Gen 1, to be fruitful and multiply. The flood is over and finally Noah shows initiative without any divine instruction. He builds an altar and offers burnt

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offerings.27 The smell of that “restful” (‫ )ניחח‬scent, Noah’s one solo act, heralds the end of the activity and launches the concluding speeches. The tebah has rest, the dove has rest, and in the sacrifice, maybe even God has rest. The only ones without rest are “we,” the human beings with whom Lamech identified. There is, as yet, no certain rest from the curse on the adamah.

THE DENOUEMENT So readers have arrived at the denouement, where everything ought to be resolved. Indeed, that which Gen 6 foretold has been done and then systematically undone. The flood has blotted out all the violent corruption with which humanity has filled the earth and, as if we were back at the start of Gen 4, one family is sent out to multiply and fill the earth anew. There is, though, much still to be answered. Will humanity once again fill the land with violence? There is Shem of Name but there is also Ham of violence. There is rest but also cursed mountains. Has the flood achieved anything? The answer, it seems, will lie not in the plot action but in the concluding soliloquies. God does not delay in reassuring the readers. His speech begins with an emphatic negative “I will no longer (and never more)” (8:21). However, it is noteworthy that God’s initial promises are to the land and all living creatures (8:21). Only after the seasonal patterns for the earth have been guaranteed (8:22) does God turn his attention directly to human beings in Gen 9. There, after a re-blessing and the pronouncement of certain commands, God finally, explicitly, promises freedom from floods (9:11, 15). A promise embedded in an elaborate covenant and signed by a bow (what bow? a rainbow, a warrior’s bow, the bow of the sky’s dome…?). Nevertheless, in this ambiguous story there is predictable equivocality in God’s emphatic promise. Is it a unilateral covenant or preconditioned on fulfillment of the commands (9:1–7)? Is it a promise never to destroy the earth again or only never to do so by Cf. Daughton, “The Flood Narrative: A Polysemy of Promises” in this volume 27

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flood? The most unexpected complication, however, is the qualification in 8:21. The earth will not be diminished “on account of the adam, for the form of the heart of the adam is evil from youth.” The language of 6:5 is immediately recognizable. The state of the human heart, the very thing which caused God so much grief and engendered such devastation, suddenly no longer forms a basis for God’s destructive activity. Not only does this raise questions about the nature of God, it implies that humanity is completely unchanged by the flood. Has the flood, then, achieved nothing? Is it a disastrous failure of an experiment? Or are we to see its achievement more in a change in God, who, henceforth, reconciles himself to living with a troublesome world, to finding alternatives to endless floods?28 Or, might we see the land and the animals as the real beneficiaries? The evil inclination is but a sub-clause qualification to a promise addressed not to adam but adamah. In Gen 3–6 the land was so often the scapegoat of humanity’s evil, but now its future is secured. God will never again make it bear humanity’s judgment. Allowing that the benefits of the flood lie elsewhere, must one be resigned to hopelessness for humanity? Is there nothing, here, for the violent tendencies passed on, through even the most righteous father, to his progeny? Even if the flood was never designed to deal with human nature, its aftermath might offer some answer.29 A new start awaits Noah’s family in a purified world, and into that new start God inserts a circumscribed permission to eat meat and a prohibition on blood shedding. These commands offer humanity new boundaries within which to live, reinforced by covenant ties. As a result of the flood, covenant and command (later to become Torah) enter the world. Without this, the world might indeed fall back into its antediluvian despair; with this the evil inclination might, possibly, be overcome, or at least contained. Thus the speeches of the denouement do, indeed, offer some sort of resolution for the problem set up in Gen 6, but what of 5:29? Lamech’s speeches have not turned out to be boldly prophetic, instead, at best, wistful hopes that lie just beneath the 28 29

Brueggemann, Genesis, 82. Frymer-Kensky, “The Atrahasis Epic,” 151.

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story’s surface. Constantly thwarted, they echo through the text, resurrecting themselves just when they seem most lost. Forever teasing, they beckon readers to look deeper, to take nothing at face value. So even now in the denouement there is no obvious answer but maybe hints of a solution. Are the dreams fulfilled generally in the new start afforded to humanity? Thanks to Noah, humanity has survived this latest “curse” and lives to fight again. Moreover, the flood has wrested from God a covenant and some sort of reconciliation to the evil inclination. In place of curse, God again blesses humanity (9:1). Noah has, perhaps, achieved much, but what of Lamech’s specific hopes? What of comfort from painful manual labor on account of the cursed adamah? What of the dream of the end of the curse, of divine judgment set aside? Genesis 8:21a is yet another oddly phrased sentence in this story. “I will no more ‫ קלל‬the adamah.” To ‫ קלל‬someone is to despise and revile them, a censured activity (Ex 21:17) never, elsewhere, ascribed to God. Moreover, nowhere in the story does God ‫ קלל‬the adamah. This puzzle creates space for readers to recall that ‫ קלל‬is often a word pair with ‫( ארר‬to curse cf. Gen 12:3). Is God thereby implicitly recalling 3:17? Does 5:29 strengthen this link? Might God, even, be claiming that he will no longer consider the adamah accursed? Certainly thistles and thorns remain, a lasting reminder of the original curse, but is the accursed status lifted? In societies where cursing has performative power, a curse inflicts concrete misfortune upon its victim but also renders them accursed, a kind of taint on their being that is contagious and excludes them from the community.30 Did this accursed state of the earth, then, contribute to the unacceptability of Cain’s offering?31 In washing the adamah of its corruption did the flood also purify this accursed status, or at least ameliorate the curse in some way?32 Were Lamech’s specific hopes right after all?

Anderson, “The Social Function of Curses,” 228. Herion, “Why God rejected Cain’s offering,” 52. 32 Rendtorff, “Genesis 8,21.” 30 31

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Not all readers are convinced. For Gunkel33 the flood is a tale of destruction not of comfort. The allusions can only be accidental and inconsequential. So does 5:29 still stand in abeyance at the end of the flood? The Noah cycle continues and maybe this plot marker too, still waits a finale. Life begins again, and Noah becomes a man of the adamah (9:20), in a verse almost as enigmatic as 5:29. Does 9:20 say, “Noah began to farm and plant a vineyard” or “Noah the farmer was the first to plant a vineyard”? Does it make a difference? At least there is a clear link between Noah and working the adamah. Does this herald the resolution of 5:29? Some rabbis thought so. The verse proved that Noah was an agricultural inventor. He relieved the painful toil of working the soil with one’s bare hands by inventing the plough, the scythe, and the hoe.34 When Lamech spoke of relief from the work of his hands, he did indeed mean relief from working the soil with his hands. If this seems a little too creative, then readers can always fall back on Noah discovering wine. There is nothing like a large glass at the end of the day to ease those aches and pains (Ps 104:15).35 Proverbs 31:7 even suggests that those in bitter distress should drink to forget their poverty and misery. Perhaps that third preposition in 5:29 should indeed be read as “out of” the cursed land Noah will bring comfort. And yet, if 5:29 finds its comfort in wine, why are the vocabulary connections so much weaker than in the flood narrative? If planting a vineyard is comfort, why does the text not say so more clearly? And if wine is joy why does 9:20 introduce a story of drunkenness, shame, and curse? Genesis 9:21–27 has more affinity with the negative biblical perspectives—drunken Lot (Gen 19:30–38) and drunken Amnon (2 Sam 13:28; cf. Prov 20:1 and 30:4–5). No sooner has God stopped cursing than Noah takes up the art. So much for Noah offering his sons comfort and rest! It is no wonder rabbis berated Noah for planting vines instead of

Gunkel, Genesis, 55. Tanḥ 11, Rashi, Genesis, 5:29, see Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, I:147. 35 Speiser, Genesis, 61, von Rad, Genesis, 136. 33 34

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olives.36 And even if wine brings comfort for a few short hours, tomorrow we toil again. Is that all that Lamech’s dreams amount to? Perhaps 9:20 shows instead that the curse is already ameliorated? Noah plants, harvests, and drinks. No sign of hard labor!37 Or, perhaps it is merely a necessary prerequisite for a prurient Ham, so linked to ḥamas violence, and evil, which does indeed seem to have survived the flood. Now the cycle is indeed at an end. 350 years after the flood Noah dies (9:29). The plot is complete and there is no further chance to find comfort. Has 5:29 proved a trustworthy plot marker? Has Noah brought comfort in the salvation of a remnant from the flood curse, and the relief of a new beginning which through covenant and command might contain the primordial violence? More specifically is his comfort from the cursed adamah in the joy of wine, or in some amelioration of that curse? Or do Lamech’s dreams, so full of hope yet so insecure in expression, lie in tatters? Perhaps the reader needs to return and read again, pondering the subtleties and searching ever deeper for the comfort which remains as elusive as the meaning of 5:29. There was never any guarantee that the plot markers would be reliable. Indeed, markers apparently quickly fulfilled, such as those found in Gen 6, may serve only to make the reader suspicious, while seemingly unfulfilled plot markers, as in 5:29, leave the audience reading solutions between the lines. Either way, the story’s plot markers both enrich and complicate the reading experience.

WORKS CITED Anderson, Bernhard W. “From Analysis to Synthesis: The Interpretation of Gen 1–11.” JBL 97 (1978): 23–39. Anderson, Jeff S. “The Social Function of Curses in the Hebrew Bible.” ZAW 110, no. 2 (1998): 223–37. Gen. Rab. I:XXXVI:3. Some rabbis even claimed that this happened all in one day. Tanḥ 13, Pirqe R. El. 23, see Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, I:167. 36 37

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Berman, Samuel, A., trans. Midrash Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu: An English Translation of Genesis and Exodus From the Printed Version of Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu with an Introduction, Notes, and Indexes. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV, 1996. Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta, GA: John Knox, 1982. Cassuto, Umberto. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part 1 From Adam to Noah Genesis I–VI:8. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1944. Repr. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961. ———. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part II From Noah to Abraham Genesis VI 9 - XI 32. Translated by Israel Abrahams. 1949. Repr. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1964. Dalley, Stephanie, Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “The Atrahasis Epic and Its Significance for Our Understanding of Genesis 1–9.” BA 40, no. 4 (1977): 147–54. Garsiel, Moshe. Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns. Translated by Phyllis Hackett. Originally published as Midreshe Shemot Ba-Mik’ra. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1987. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews Vol. I. Translated by Henrietta Szold. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1913. ———. The Legends of the Jews Vol. V. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1925. Gunkel, Hermann. Genesis. Translated by Mark E Biddle. 3rd ed. Originally published as Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910. Repr. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997. Herion, Gary A. “Why God Rejected Cain’s Offering: The Obvious Answer.” Pages 52-65 in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honour of David Noel Friedman. Edited by Astrid B. Beck, Andrew H Bartelt, Pul R Raabe, and Chris A Franke. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. Jacob, Benno. Das erste Buch der Tora, Genesis. Berlin: Shocken Verlag, 1934. Repr. New York: KTAV, 1974. Lambert, W.G. and A.R. Milliard Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

55

Marks, Herbert. “Biblical Naming and Poetic Etymology.” JBL 114 (1995): 21–42. Morgenstern, Julian. “A Note on Genesis 5:29.” JBL 49, no. 3 (1930): 306–9. Neusner, Jacob. Genesis Rabbah: Parashiyyot One Through Thirty-Three on Genesis 1:1 to 8:14. Vol. I Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic commentary to the book of Genesis: A new American translation. BJS 104. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985. Rashi. Genesis. Translated by James H Lowe. London: Hebrew Compendium Publishing, 1928. Rendtorff, Rolf. “Genesis 8,21 und die Urgeschichte des Jahwisten.” KD 7, no. 1 (1961): 69–78. Speiser, E. A. Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes. 2nd ed. AB. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Strus, Andrzej. Nomen-Omen. AnBib 80. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978. von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis: A Commentary. Translated by John H. Marks. rev 9th ed Originally published as Das Erste Buch Mose: Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1958. Repr. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973. Wallace, Howard N. “The Toledot of Adam.” Pages 17–33 in Studies in the Pentateuch. Edited by J. Emerton. Leiden: Brill, 1990. Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15. WBC. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Translated by John J. Scullion 2nd ed. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974. Repr. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994. Zlotowitz, Meir, and Nosson Scherman, eds. Bereishis = Genesis: A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic, and Rabbinic Sources. Vol. 1a. Artscroll Tanach Series 1977. Repr. New York: Mesorah Publications, 1980.

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES OF THE FLOOD NARRATIVE PHILIPPE GUILLAUME UNIVERSITY OF BERN ABSTRACT The first part of the article traces remains of a chronological system based on the 364-day calendar. It suggests that this early version of the flood counters the notion that the original biblical flood lasted one year and was based on an archaic 360-day calendar. The second part discusses the place of the flood in relation to the ages of the antediluvian fathers, showing that the differences in the Greek and Hebrew traditions are the result of contradicting views concerning the number of ancestors who survived the flood.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE FLOOD AND HELLENISTIC CHRONOGRAPHIES With a dozen chronological indicators, the Flood Narrative (FN) is the third building block in the overall architecture of biblical time. The first block in Gen 1 sets the seven-day week as the foundation of the biblical calendar. The ages of the antediluvian ancestors at first procreation in Gen 5 is the second block. It establishes the number of years between Creation and the flood. The FN is the third block. It introduces months and becomes a playground for number games which set different turning-points during the flood at significant dates or at significant numbers of days. Number games may not be congruent with the gravitas expected from modern scholars, but any “close” reading of the FN cannot avoid 57

58

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

being lured into calculating dates and comparing different calendars. Calendars and chronologies were crucial to their ancient colleagues who eventually combined the biblical data with chronologies from Ctesias, Berossus, and Greek lists; Hellenistic chronographers synchronized the Jewish past with the data provided by Egyptian, Babylonian, Athenian, and Argive data to establish comprehensive world chronicles.1 The synchronization of Noah’s flood with those of Utnapishtim and Xisuthrus was a major consequence of the translation of the Septuagint and had a similar impact. It secured a place for the Hebrew Bible on the thriving intellectual scene of Hellenism. Compared to the time of writing of most of the texts of the Hebrew Bible, interest in chronologies and chronographies was a late phenomenon. Before the end of the first millennium BCE, calendars were the primary focus of the biblical writers. Despite the clockwork regularity of Gen 1, the inventors of the seven-day week were aware of the impossibility of dividing the length of the yearly cycle of the sun into a full number of days or weeks. No calendar could dispense of periodic intercalations if they were to remain in sync with the seasons. The huge lifespans of the antediluvian ancestors in Gen 5 stress the dangers of inaccurate calendars symbolically with a number of names evoking increasingly violent behaviors: Jared “Going-Down,” Methuselah “Man-at-Arms,” Lamech “Sword.” While Gen 6:13 states that the flood was caused by interpersonal violence (‫)חמס‬, Jub. 6:32–38 specifies that the decay (‫ )שׁחת‬mentioned in Gen 6:12 as the primary cause of the flood was violence against the sacred rhythm of time. In the Wacholder, Eupolemus, 106–24; Bickerman, “Demetrios,” 357. For the date of the Flood, Seder ‘Olam follows the MT, Jubilees follows the SP. The LXX’s date (2242) is the basis for most other chronologies but with variations: Demetrius (2264), Clement (2148), Africanus (2262). Josephus followed the LXX for the antediluvian era (Ant. I.82–88) and the MT for Noah’s descendants (Ant. I.148–150). Dicaearchus (ca 300 BCE: fr. 57 ed. Wehrli) dated the first pharaoh to 3719 BCE, Manetho dated the reign of the first Pharaoh in 4244 BCE. Erathostenes dated the Greek flood ca 2400 BCE (FGH 241 fr. 1c.) while Josephus, Ant. 1.13 dated the creation ca 5000 BCE. 1

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 59 absence of intercalation, years were too short and resulted in overaging, hence the excessive lifespan of the antediluvian ancestors in Gen 5. Different calendars use different method to lengthen their mean year in order to somewhat match the length of the solar year. The first part of the present contribution argues that the use of a 360-day calendar in the FN was secondary to that of a 364-day calendar. Several hints to the use of this sabbatical calendar are retrieved and a hypothetical sabbatical structure is proposed. In the second part, the FN is discussed in relation to the list of ancestor ages in Gen 5 which identifies several calendars in the FN and explains some oddities in Gen 7–8 as the result of the superposition of these calendars. In trying to break fresh ground, I avoid the common division of the narrative between J and P.

THE CALENDARS OF THE FLOOD NARRATIVE More than One Calendar Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible are the textual traditions in greater disagreement as they are in Gen 5–8. Besides the different ages of the antediluvian fathers in Gen 5, the MT and the SP transmit different dates for the events of the flood from the LXX. The LXX, the Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q252), and the Vulgate present their own mix of dates from the different textual traditions (Table 1).2 These variations are the likely result of the use of different calendars. The Book of Jubilees is particularly revealing in this respect as it presents three stages of disembarkation when Gen 8:18 has only one. The events are spread over two weeks to reconcile different biblical schemes.3

The table is an extension of the tables in Jacobus in this volume and Jacobus, “New Light.” 3 VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 35–6; van Ruiten, Primaeval History, 197– 223. 2

60

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME Table 1: Synopsis of Flood days and dates in comparative biblical and related texts4

Gen

MT/ SP

LXX

Jubilees

4Q252

Vulgate

7:11

Rain starts

17 II 600

27 II 600

17 II (Jub. 5.23–4)

17 II 600, 17 II Day 1

7:12

Days of rain

40 days 40 days

40 days (Jub. 5.25)

40 until 26 III, Day 5

40 days

7:24; 8:3

Waters swell

150

5 mths =150 days (Jub. 5.27)

150 days until 14 VII, Day 3

150

150

Waters abate

Ark rests 2 days, (Jub. Days 4 5.28) and 5

8:4

Ark rests

17 VII 27 VII Waters 17 VII, abate 1 Day 6 IV–1 VII (Jub. 28– 29)

8:5

Mountain 1 X tops

8:6

Raven/ Window

End of End 40 days of 40 days

8:8

Dove 1

7 days

1 XI

27 VII

1X (5.30)

+ 40, 1 X, 1 X Day 4

n/a

End of 40 End of days. 40 days Window only. 10 XI, Day 1

7 days n/a

7 days [17 XI]

7 days

The dates are given in DD/MM/YY (year of Noah’s life). The months are in Roman numerals. 4

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 61 Gen

MT/ SP

LXX

Jubilees

4Q252

Vulgate 7 days

8:10

Dove 2

7 days

7 days n/a

24 XI, Day 1

8:12

Dove 3

7 days

7 days n/a

7 days 1 XII, Day 1

8:13ab Waters

1 I 601 1 I 601

Earth visible 1 I, waters disappear (5.30)

End of 3[1] days 1 I 601, Day 4

8:14

Earth dried

27 II

27 II

17 II (Jub. 5.30)

17 II

8:18

Disembark No

No date

27 II, beasts (Jub. 5.32) 1 III, Noah (Jub. 6.1)

17 II, Day 27 II 1, end of 364 days

drying Ark uncovered

date

1 I 601

The unfolding of the flood is measured out with exact dates or with specific numbers of days, but the Greek and Hebrew texts rarely agree on these time markers, as though the writers interpreted God’s silence over the duration of the flood (Gen 7:1–4) as a license to introduce their own time-reckoning methods in the text.5 All traditions mark the beginning of the flood with the date of the commencement of the rain on the seventeenth day of month two (17 II). The LXX alone has the rain start on day twenty-seventh day of month two (27 II). It is often claimed that the flood lasts a whole year. The notion of a whole year is explicit Blenkinsopp, Creation, 134 reads this silence as increasing the dramatic tension that is finally relieved when God remembers Noah and the Ark. 5

62

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

in 1 Enoch 106:15 and in 4Q252.6 It is implicit in the dates of the LXX (27 II to 27 II), but in the MT, SP, and Vulgate, the flood lasts one year and 10 days. These ten extra days are the likely result of the use of different calendars, which begs the question of which were these calendars and which came first. For Hendel, the better text is preserved in 4Q252 and Jubilees and the secondary readings are those of the MT, LXX, and other recensions.7 Zipor suggests instead that the various traditions reflect “the struggle between the various milieus where lunar and solar calendars were in power.”8 To understand the logic of each system and identify specific calendars, I start with the 150 days that appear twice in the Flood Narrative. Chyutin and the 150 Days of Mighty Waters The ark rests on the same day of the month as when the rain began, on 17 VII (MT, SP, 4Q252) or 27 VII (LXX). Jerome’s Vulgate follows the MT for the beginning of the rain and the LXX for the ark’s rest. Except in the Vulgate, the 150 days of mighty waters in Gen 7:24; 8:3 and 4Q252 1 i 8–9 correspond to the interval between the beginning of the rain and the ark’s rest, provided that these five months have thirty day each (5 x 30 = 150 days). Only Jub. 5:27 explicitly equates 150 days with five months. A calendar in which five months yield 150 days is a 360-day year calendar (12 x 30 days). Against the notion that 150 days is simply a round number,9 a 360-day calendar is known in Mesopotamia10 and DJD XXII, 198–9: “the earth dried up on the first day of the week, on that day Noah went forth from the ark at the end of a complete year of 364 days, on the first day of the week, in the seventh (vacat) one and six (vacat) Noah from the ark at the appointed time, a complete year (vacat) and Noah awoke from his wine…” For a translation and discussion of 4Q252, see Jacobus, “Analysis.” 7 Hendel, “4Q252,” 78. 8 Zipor, “Flood Chronology,” 210. 9 Zipor, “Flood Chronology,” 210. 10 Brack-Bernsen, “360-Day Year,” 83–100; Englund, “Timekeeping,” 121–85. 6

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 63 it is attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Aramaic zodiac calendar, 4QZodiac Calendar and Brontologion (4Q318).11 Chyutin suggests that the remains of an “archaic” 360-day calendar may be discerned in the Genesis text, and he rearranges the chronology of 4Q252.12 He takes the second mention of 150 days in Gen 8:3 as a second period of 150 days after the ark came to rest, rather than a mere repetition of Gen 7:24. Reckoned with the 30-day months of a 360-day calendar, this sets the end of this second period 300 days after the beginning of the rain, provided, as is the case in every textual tradition, that the 40 days of rain until the ark lifts off (Gen 7:12) are included in the first 150-day period rather than added to them. The second 150-day period is subdivided into two equal parts: 75 days between the Ark’s rest and the emergence of the mountain-tops and another 75 days, at the end of which, however, nothing significant occurs. Table 2: Noah’s Flood in a 360-day calendar according to Chyutin Ark boarded

10 II 600

Dove 2nd sending

+7

10 II 601

Rain starts

17 II 600

Dove 3rd sending

+7

17 II 601

Ark rests

+ 150

17 VII 600

Mountain-tops

+ 75

1 X 600

End of second 150-day period

+ 75

17 XII 600

Raven sent

+ 40

27 I 601

Dove first sent

+7

3 II 601

Forty days after the end of the second 150-day period, Noah opens a window and sends the raven out (Gen 8:6). The first flight of the Greenfield and Sokoloff, “Astrological Text,” 517; DJD 36, 259– 274; Albani, Zodiakos in 4Q318, 3–42; Albani, “Horoscopes,” 300; Jacobus, “Jewish Zodiac,” 365–96. 12 Chuytin, Role, 132–5. 11

64

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

dove occurs seven days after the raven’s. The second flight of the dove would then be 354 days (150 + 150 + 40 + 7 + 7) after the beginning of the flood (a whole lunar year), and the third flight of the dove would occur 361 days after the beginning of the flood, a whole year in a 360-day calendar (Table 2). The end of the second 150-day period appears somewhat artificial since it is not marked by any particular event in the biblical story. Chyutin’s scheme also ignores the end of the FN (Gen 8:9– 18), in particular the two dates given after the final flight of the dove: the removal of the cover of the Ark set at the significant date of New Year (1 I 601) by all textual traditions, and the day when the soil has dried and the Ark is vacated (Gen 8:14). As the second 150-day period differs from the biblical account, the sending of the raven and the first sending of the dove occur on dates that differ from the dates given in the biblical account and these dates that do not carry any particular significance. Therefore, Chyutin’s system reflects either an earlier form of the FN or a later one. Chyutin opts for the first option and claims that the 360-day calendar he discovered is archaic. Is it possible to substantiate this claim? The main achievement of Chyutin’s addition of this second 150-day period is that the second sending of the dove occurs on the same date (10 II 600 and 10 II 6001) as the boarding of the Ark and the third sending of the dove occurs on the same date (17 II 600 and 601) as the beginning of the rain (Table 2).13 The downside is that half of the dates disagree with the biblical dates and these different dates (17 XII, 27 I and 3 II) do not seem to carry any significance. Moreover, the reckoning of a second 150-day period is redundant for a demonstration of the use of a 360-day calendar in the FN. The first period is enough for that purpose since, as Jub. 5:27 states, they presuppose five thirty-day months. Nevertheless, Chyutin’s work spurs two historical questions. First, which 360-day calendar stands behind the 150 days of Gen 7:24; 8:3? Second, how archaic is it?

13

See also Wenham, “Coherence,” 336–48.

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 65 The Egypto-Achaemenid calendar and its Avestan predecessor To answer the first question, Chyutin’s purported “archaic” 360day calendar can be set in the context of the Egyptian calendar which was adopted by the Achaemenid administration in the days of Xerxes I (486—464 BCE). Xerxes’s reform (exact date unknown) equalized the month lengths of the Avestan calendar and reduced the number of additional days from ten to five. Before it was reformed by Xerxes, the Avestan year comprised seven summer months of 30 days (210 summer days) and five winter months of 29 days (145 winter days). Ten additional days were added at the end of the year to bridge the gap between the lunar and the solar yearly cycles: 210 + 145 = 355 + 10 = 365.14 An extra day was intercalated to one of the winter months at periodic intervals to make up for the missing quarter day and obtain a mean 365.25-day year. As noted above, the reform in the days of Xerxes abandoned the notion of long summer months and short winter months and adopted the Egyptian model with its 30-day months throughout the year. In this way, the year amounted to 360 rather than 355 days. Five rather than ten epagomenal days had to be added at the end of each year for a total of 365 days = (12 x 30) + 5.15 The question now is which of these two calendars the 150days in the FN reflects? Were they to reflect the Avestan calendar before Xerxes’s reform, it could indeed be considered archaic. Testing the 150 days against the Avestan and Xerxian calendars Table 3 lays out the 150 days month by month according to their length in each calendar. If the sum of days thus obtained equals 150, it can be inferred that the 150 days are based on the corresponding calendar. The count according to the Sabbatical calendar is shown as well, as this calendar comes in the discussion later. 14 15

Hintze, “Return,” 99–122. de Blois, “Persian Calendar,” 39–54.

66

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME Table 3: 150 days of mighty waters in different calendars (exclusive/inclusive counting methods) From 17 II

III

IV

V

VI

To 17 VII

Total

Sabbatical calendar

13/14

31

30

30

31

17

152/3

Avestan calendar

13/14

30

30

30

30

17

150/1

Xerxes’s reformed calendar

13/14

30

30

30

30

17

150/1

Table 3 uses the dates of the MT and SP (17 II to 17 VII), but the LXX’s dates (27 II to 27 VII) obviously yield the same amount of days. The Vulgate’s dates (17 II to 27 VII) yield greater numbers and need not be considered here. With a sum of 150 days obtained with an exclusive count (counting the first day as day zero as we do), it is clear that the 150 days of mighty waters fit the 360 + 5 days of the EgyptoAchaemenid calendar. They also fit the Avestan calendar if the period of mighty waters occurs during the long summer-months (30 instead of 29 days for the winter months). That it is the case is deduced from the removal of the cover of the ark at the head (‫ )ראשׁון‬of year 601 (1 I) “when the waters had dried from the land” (Gen 8:13). I take this as an indication that month I is the month in which the spring equinox occurs. In this case, the 150 days of mighty waters can be obtained with both the Avestan and with Xerxes’s Egypto-Achaemenid calendar. As both yield the same number of days between the beginning of the rain and the resting of the ark, it is impossible to demonstrate that the calendar presupposed by the 150 days is older than the days of Xerxes. Were one to follow Chyutin with a second set of 150-days, at least some of these five months would be winter months. One 29day month would be enough to prevent five months yielding 150 days. While it is clear that the period of 150 days between the beginning of the rain and the resting of the Ark cannot reflect the sabbatical system, are they older than Xerxes’s days? According to Chyutin, who dates this archaic calendar between 5000 and 4000

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 67 BCE,16 there is no doubt that it can be much older than Xerxes. But in light of calendars which are well attested in use during the Persian era, when it is common to set the composition of the FN, the chronology of the biblical flood may have been based first on the sabbatical calendar rather than on the Egypto-Achaemenid calendar. The 364-day or Sabbatical Calendar In light of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, it has been suggested that a 360 + 4-day calendar was used in Second Temple Judaism.17 In favor of this approach, one could argue that it reflects the Avestan and Egyptian models with their epagomenal days added at the end of the year. While a relation between the Avestan and the sabbatical schemes is likely, it is not as a 360 + 4 epagomenal days that a 364day year makes the most sense. A yearly sum of 364 days is the basic principle of a perpetual calendar based on a whole number of weeks. This is the biblical calendar par excellence since the Bible starts right off as a delineation of this calendar (Gen 1:1–2:3). As a calendar unit, the day is the first ever creation (Gen 1:5). As the smallest unit, the day is common to all calendars since the day-night alternation is the one which impresses itself most on our senses. At the center of the Creation narrative, Day 4 omits the month in the list of calendars units (Gen 1:14). Instead of the month which reflects the cycle of the moon, on Day 7 Elohim sets up the Sabbath as the crown of Creation, the only creature both blessed and declared sacred (Gen 2:3). The sabbatical calendar is used consistently throughout the entire Bible, except in the Book of Esther.18 Since Judaism does not follow the biblical calendar, some scholars still consider the existence of the sabbatical calendar fallacious.19 The evidence is overwhelming, however. After the seven-day week, Enoch’s Chuytin, Role, 9. Sacchi, “Two Calendars,” 128–39; Sacchi, “Measuring Time,” 95– 118; Boccaccini, “Solar Calendars,” 311–28; Cryer, “360-Day Calendar,” 116–22. 18 Jaubert, Date; Beckwith, “Significance,” 54–66. 19 Wacholder and Wacholder, “Patterns,” 1–40. 16 17

68

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

lifespan sets the mean year at 365 days.20 The intercalation of the 364-day calendar long remained an unresolved issue. Since Annie Jaubert’s work, progress has been made and we are not reduced to mere conjecture any more.21 It is true that the Bible is not explicit on the matter of intercalation, but the relevant data can be read between the lines and the result can be verified by very simple mathematics. The intercalation of a whole week every seventh year (the so-called sabbatical year of Lev 25:4) produces a mean year of 365 days (Gen 5:23–24). The addition of another whole week every twenty-eighth year produces a mean year that is closer to the present reckoning of the yearly solar cycle than the 365.25 days our Julian calendar obtains with a 29th of February added every fourth year.22 Often decried as impractical or utopian, the sabbatical calendar is a functional method of precise time reckoning that achieves an impressive level of accuracy and regularity. Two Seasons and a Raven If the context in which the biblical flood stands is taken into account, the week introduced in Gen 1 as the basic unit of the sabbatical calendar can be expected to have been used in the FN. The introduction of the 150-days is likely to have obscured the weekly count of the first part of the flood by focusing instead on months. The sabbatical structure may have been less disturbed in the second part of the narrative. The days between the Ark’s resting and the disembarkation are tabulated according to the sabbatical calendar (Table 4):

Guillaume, Land and Calendar, 54–55. VanderKam, Calendars; Glessmer, “Qumran Scrolls,” 213–78. Saulnier, Variations, 244–5. 22 Guillaume, Land and Calendar, 60. 20 21

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 69

Table 4: Number of days from the resting of the ark to the disembarkation in Sabbatical months (Gen 8:4–14) VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

I

II

Total

17VII to 27 II (MT/SP)

13/ 14

30

31

30

30

31

30

27

222/3

27VII to 27II (LXX/Vulgate)

3/4

30

31

30

30

31

30

27

212/3

As month IX and month XII have an extra day, 222 days (inclusive count) elapsed according to the dates of the MT/SP. At first sight, this figure bears no significance, but reckoned in weeks 222 days correspond to two sabbatical seasons (13 weeks + 13 weeks) plus the forty days of the raven’s search (Gen 8:6): 91 + 91 + 40 = 222 days. The problem, however, is that in the biblical text as it stands the forty days between the sending of the raven and the first sending of the dove obviously occur before disembarkation. To add them to these hypothetical sabbatical seasons one has to postulate an earlier chronology in which two seasons elapsed between the Ark’s rest and the emergence of the first mountains. This is hypothetical since there is no evidence for such a count. Rather than dismissing these 222 days as coincidental, they may provisionally be taken as the remnants of a sabbatical version of the flood chronology. If other clues can be retrieved from the narrative, they would add weight to the sabbatical hypothesis. Such a clue is found in the structure of the narrative itself. Despite the redundancy resulting from the insertion of the 150 days, it is fairly clear that the forty days between the emergence of the first mountains and the opening of the Ark’s “window” (Gen 8:6) correspond to the forty days of rain between the splitting of the sources of heaven and the moment the Ark became waterborne (Gen 7:12, 17). Assuming a chiastic structure, the two sabbatical seasons that supposedly passed between the resting of the Ark and the emergence of the highest mountain-tops would be reflected in a corresponding slot in the first part of the narrative. There, the only time measure is the 150 days after the forty days of rain and the Ark’s resting. Did these 150 days replace a period of two sabbatical seasons of an earlier version?

70

PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

The Flood as Suspension of Time At this point, it is tempting to claim that the 150 days result from the revision of an earlier sabbatical chronology with 40 days of rain followed by two sabbatical seasons (2 x 91 days) of swelling waters until the Ark ran aground, another two seasons until the first mountains emerged, and again 40 days until the crow was sent. In fact, this is probably too neat a solution as another puzzle of the flood chronology must be accounted for. Consider the two years that are not accounted for in the age of Noah’s sons. According to Gen 5:32, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth when he was 500 years old. One hundred years later, the flood wiped out the land when Noah was 600 years old (Gen 7:6, 11). Presumably, his sons were 100 years old when they boarded the ark. Two years after the flood, Shem engendered Arpachshad at the age of 100 years (Gen 11:10), although one would expect him to be 102 years old two years after the flood. If Shem was 100 years old at the beginning and at the conclusion of the flood, he did not age during his stay in the ark. The same oddity applies to Noah who was 600 at the beginning of the flood, lived 350 years after the flood and died at age 950 (Gen 7:6; 9:28–29), instead of 951. Chronologists deal with the discrepancy in different ways.23 The translators of the LXX solved the problem by considering Japhet as the elder in Gen 10:21 so that Shem could be born two years later. This is clearly a lectio facilior that has no support in the Hebrew text. The anomalous ages signal the presence of a Larsson, “Chronology,” 405. Cryer, “Interrelationships,” 248 considers that Shem was born at some point after Noah’s 500 th year. For Stenring, Enclosed Garden, 89 the genealogies indicate the time of conception (hence the Hiphil), not the time of birth. Therefore one year must be added to every fathering year to get the actual birthdate. According to Borgonovo, “Significato,” 161, the two-year difference reveals that the value of the Jubilee is 50 years instead of 49 (49 x 2) +2 = 100, although the genealogies are based on the sabbatical calendar which supports a 49-year Jubilee. Hughes, Secrets, 18 considers the two years after the flood are a secondary addition. Other suggestions: Westermann, Genesis, 1:42–7; Gardner, Calendar, 243. 23

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 71 chronological hiatus that is best understood when two common notions are resisted; that the flood was a de-creation24 and that it lasted one year. The flood was not a return to the primaeval chaos. It spared the fish and other creatures that had no breath and may have been considered innocent of bloodshed since they had no blood. Nor were the dome and the luminaries created on Days 2 and 3 to fix time and seasons annihilated. Rather than uncreation, the flood was some kind of time-lock. While the Ark was afloat and the waters were wiping out all breathing life, time virtually came to a halt. Creation held its breath until the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. The concept of a suspension of time is explicit in the Proto-Evangelion of James to signify that the birth of Jesus did not alter Mary’s virginity.25 The theme is expressed as the disappearance of day and night at the end times (4 Ezra 7:39–43). It is found at the root of the term “solstice,” the moment when the sun appears to stand still before reversing to the opposite direction. In Gen, the anomalous ages of Noah and Shem indicate that time was suspended during the flood. Claiming that time was suspended during the flood would moot all chronological discussions, unless it applies to a particular part of the story only. This is where the 150 days of Gen 7:24 and 8:3 come back to the fore. They would have been inserted precisely where a previous version of the narrative postulated a gap. A time gap makes sense the moment the Ark became waterborne. Instead of counting 150 days, I suggest that the time until the Ark rested was a no-time. The time gap was preceded by 40 days of rain. It was followed by two seasons during which the waters abated until the maintain tops emerged. After another forty days, the crow was sent out.

Pace Currid, Ancient Egypt, 113–17; Blenkinsopp, Creation, 141–2. Bovon, “Suspension,” 226–37 notes that the theme of the suspension of time was associated to that of the freezing of movements and silence, especially at the birth or death of a hero or a divine intervention. 24 25

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The Duration of the Flood The hypothesis presented in the previous paragraph presupposes a chiastic structure that helps make sense of some redundant features. While the dates supplied for the onset of the rain and for the Ark’s rest are geared to reflect the five months implied by the 150 days of Gen 7:24; 8:3, they supersede the previous mentions of seven-day and forty-day periods. As it stands the text is clearly overloaded. If the 150-days are now filling the time-gap discussed in the previous paragraph, this time gap can be traced by reckoning the duration of the flood in weeks with the Sabbatical calendar. Before the Ark was afloat, the rain poured for forty days. The moment the Ark started floating, time stopped. The clock started ticking again the moment the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Table 5 computes the next days until the disembarkation according to the dates in the LXX and the Vulgate (27 VII till 27 II) with the sabbatical calendar: Table 5: From the Ark’s rest to disembarkation, LXX dates and sabbatical calendar Month Numbers of days

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

I

II

Total

3

30

31

30

30

31

30

27

212

Adding the initial forty days of rain to these 212 days amount to 252 days or 36 weeks: 6 × 6 × 7 days. The hexadic number (6 × 6) of full weeks is significant. With a time-gap in its center, the flood lasts 36 weeks, a symbolic multiplication of the number 6 as the cipher for destruction, while the number 7 indicates the persistence of creation within the duration of the flood itself. A Sabbatical Structure The implications of the time-gap being clarified, a hypothetical “archaic” structure of the FN can be reconstructed to integrate the various hints collected so far from the wreckage, adding one more hypothesis to the deluge of studies of the flood chronology without which a volume on the biblical flood would not be complete. The flood proper begins when the rain starts pouring and ends when Noah’s family and the animals leave the Ark. According to the chiastic structure postulated here, the FN is framed by two

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 73 weeks, one between the boarding of the Ark and the beginning of the rain (Gen 7:4) and another one after the crow is sent out: Boarding the Ark 7 days Rain 40 days Ark water-borne Time gap Ark rests Two seasons? Mountains emerge 40 days Crow sent 7 days Disembarkation This structure is hypothetical, but it takes into account the sabbatical context of the FN and it accounts for the absence of aging experienced by Noah and Shem in the Ark. Having discussed calendars, I now turn to chronologies.

NOAH’S FLOOD IN THE GENESIS CHRONOLOGY The Year of the Flood The year of the flood is computed by adding up the age of begetting of the first child of all the ancestors in Gen 5: 1–32. In the MT and the Vulgate, the year of the flood is 1656 anno mundi; the LXX flood year, 2242; and the SP flood year, 1307 (Table 6).26 The SP presents an almost regular decrease in the first begetting ages and lifespans. The LXX transmits the largest variations with exactly one century for most of the first begetting ages of the SP, except for Lamech for whom there is no agreement Tables in J. Hughes, Secrets, 7 and 12, but note the misprint p. 7 where the center column reproduces SP’s dates instead of LXX’s while and the right column lists LXX’s not SP’s data. See also, van Ruiten, Primaeval History, 126–28. 26

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at all.27 By contrast, the LXX’s lifespans agree almost entirely with the MT’s except, again, for Lamech. The number and the scale of the deviations increase as one gets closer to the flood, a phenomenon that may be partly explained as adjustments to avoid having ancestors die after the flood. Table 6: The year of the Flood MT/Vulgate

LXX

SP

Adam

130 + 800 = 930

230 + 700 = 930

130 + 800 = 930

Seth

105 + 807 = 912

205 + 707 = 912

105 + 807 = 912

Enosh

0090 + 815 = 905

0190 + 715 = 905

0090 + 815 = 905

Kenan

0070 + 840 = 910

0170 + 740 = 910

0070 + 840 = 910

Mahalalel

0065 + 830 = 895

0165 + 730 = 895

0065 + 830 = 895

Jared

0162 + 800 = 962

0162 + 800 = 962

0062 + 785 = 847

Enoch

0065 + 300 = 365

0165 + 200 = 365

0065 + 300 = 365

Methuselah

0187 + 782 = 969

0167 + 802 = 969

0067 + 653 = 720

Lamech

0182 + 595 = 777

0188 + 565 = 753

0053 + 600 = 653

Noah’s age at Flood

0600

0600

0600

Flood year

1656

2242

1307

The year of the flood is a crucial element for Jewish chronographers who reckoned the number of years from creation to their own time by adding the year of the flood after creation to the age of Abraham (Gen 12:4; 25:7), the date of the Exodus (12:40), the date of the foundation of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 6:1), the chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (1 and 2 Kgs), and the seventy years of the exile until Cyrus’s edict (Jer 25:12; Zech 1:12; 7:5).

27

Summarized in Miano, Shadow, 74–6.

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 75 As stated in the introduction, the calendars came before the chronographers. For the study of calendars, the chronology of events from creation to the flood are as significant as the year of the flood. The Flood and the Survival of the Giants Genesis 5, contrary to Gen 11 as transmitted by LXX and MT,28 supplies the number of years each antediluvian ancestor lived after the birth of his first son. From their birth-date and life span, Table 7 plots the sequence of event from creation to the flood according to the MT, LXX, and SP. The cross after the names indicates the year of their death. Table 7: Chronology of the births and deaths of the antediluvian ancestors in years before the Flood29 Events MT

SP

LXX

1

Adam 1656

Adam 1307

Adam 2242

2

Seth 1526

Seth 1177

Seth 2012

3

Enosh 1421

Enosh 1072

Enosh 1807

4

Kenan 1331

Kenan 982

Kenan 1617

5

Mahalalel 1261

Mahalalel 912

Mahalalel 1447

6

Jared 1196

Jared 847

Adam† 1312

7

Enoch 1034

Enoch 785

Jared 1282

8

Methuselah 969

Methuselah 720

Enoch 1120

9

Lamech 782

Lamech 653

Seth† 1100

10

Adam† 726

Noah 600

Methuselah 955

11

Enoch gone 669

Enoch gone 420

Enosh† 902

12

Seth† 614

Adam† 377

Lamech 788

28 29

The SP supplies the lifespan of the post-diluvian ancestors. Based on Miano, Shadow, 70–71, Table 3.1 for MT, LXX, and SP.

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PHILIPPE GUILLAUME

Events MT

SP

LXX

13

Noah 600

Seth† 265

Enoch gone 755

14

Enosh† 516

Enosh† 167

Kenan†

15

Kenan† 421

Kenan† 72

Noah 600

16

Mahalalel† 366

Mahalalel† 17

Mahalalel† 552

17

Jared† 234

Jared† 320

18

Lamech† 5

Lamech† 35

Flood

Methuselah† 0

Jared† 0 Lamech† 0 Methuselah† 0 Methuselah† 14 after flood

The MT sets Enoch’s miraculous departure after the first ever death, Adam’s.30 Adam’s death thus initiated the process of decay (‫ )שׁחת‬that brought about the flood (Gen 6:11). The ancestors die in the same order they were born. The birth of Noah occurs between the second and third deaths. The SP has the ten patriarchs born before Enoch’s departure and the departure followed by the death of Adam and of the other forefathers in the order of their birth except for the last three. The Book of Jubilees elaborates on this sequence to heighten Noah’s status as a new Adam.31 Enoch’s departure marks the turning point, the onset of decay, and the beginning of the series of deaths which culminates in the death of three (rather than one) ancestors in the flood. Hence, the SP has fewer reservations than the MT in identifying the antediluvian patriarchs with the corrupted generations. The Greek translation of the flood narrative stays very close to the Hebrew text as we know it from the MT to the extent that it produces very odd Greek phrases.32 Yet, the LXX displays much Jub. 4:29 states that Adam was the first who was buried in the earth. Peters, Noah Traditions, 77. 32 See Wright, “Noah,” 137–42. 30 31

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 77 greater deviations from the MT’s chronological data than does the SP. The flood of the LXX occurs 606 years later than in the MT and lasts exactly one year, from 27 II 600 to 27 VII 601. This is commonly understood as a correction to MT’s 17 II to 27 II one year and 10 days.33 In the Greek text births and deaths are interspersed: Adam and Seth die in the fifth and seventh generations respectively and Enoch departs at a later stage although he does so earlier in the LXX than in the other systems. This puzzle led Augustine to suggest that the Jewish translators deliberately corrupted their text to baffle the Christians.34 On the basis of previous studies, David Miano considers that the SP and MT were corrected to avoid survivors of the flood other than those in Noah’s family. Yet, he admits that this explanation is not sufficient to account for the deviations transmitted by the LXX.35 In the SP, Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech all die in the year of the flood. In the MT, only Methuselah dies in the flood year; but in the LXX, Methuselah survives the flood by 14 years (Table 7).36 According to Miano, who finds evidence of revision in the data, this was an oversight during the correction process in the LXX to ensure that the ancestors did not live beyond the deluge year.37 However, van Ruiten suggests that it was not important for the LXX chronogenealogists to ensure that all the patriarchs died before the flood.38 It is also possible that the lifespan data were so designed to create a mathematical pattern between the patriarchs in the MT, SP, and the LXX39 (notwithstanding that they did not outlive the flood). One might, therefore, argue that 14 years, being a seven number, echoes Lamech’s MT lifespan of 777 years. All textual traditions agree that Elohim took Enoch in his 365th year (Gen 5:32). His lifespan is by far the shortest; 365 is the Wright, “Noah,” 141. Grafton, “Chronology,” 65–82. 35 Miano, Shadow, 69–72. 36 van Ruiten, Primaeval History, 128; Miano, Shadow, 69–72. 37 Miano, Shadow, 76. 38 van Ruiten, Primaeval History, 128. 39 Jacobus, “Curse,” 207–32. 33 34

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number of whole days in the solar year, and due to its distinctive length, commentators agree that this association is significant.40 It is one hint to the intercalation of the sabbatical calendar.41 According to Peters, Enoch probably survived the flood by walking with Elohim. And the giants survived thanks to their height: they would have been taller than the flood waters.42 Had they been standing on the highest mountain peaks, their heads would have risen above the 15 cubits of water that covered them (Gen 7:20). A number of deviations from the MT reveal the production of a coherent sub-text. In Gen 6:4, the translator has only one category of giants (γίγαντες) while the Hebrew distinguishes between the Nephilim (‫“ )נפלים‬who were in the land in these days” and the Giborim (‫“ )גבורים‬who were of old men of renown.” While the MT does not clarify the relationship between the Nephilim and the Giborim, the LXX translator describes Nimrod and the inhabitants of Canaan as “giants” (Gen 10:8–11; Num 13:33) suggesting that some giants survived the flood.43 In the LXX the demonstrative pronoun in Gen 6:3 may imply that YHWH limits the lifespan of “these men” (ἀνθρώποις τούτοις) to 120 years whereas in the MT the limit applies to humanity in general (‫)אדם‬. Hence, the reduction of the lifespan of “these” men only in the LXX opens the possibility that some humans in the LXX version lived much longer, so that Methuselah, the ancestor with the longest lifespan in the MT and the LXX, could survive the flood. The apparent discrepancy of the survival of Methuselah in the LXX may be understood as the result of a conversation with the LXX Giant traditions.

CONCLUSION The flood is interwoven with the genealogies of the antediluvian ancestors. The variations in chronogenealogies in the different recensions underlie the use of different calendars by the various Gardner, The Genesis Calendar, 9. See above and Guillaume, Land and Calendar, 54–55. 42 Peters, Noah, 47. 43 Stuckenbruck, “Angels,” 356–58. 40 41

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 79 editions of the flood narrative. The problem is that each textual tradition conveys more than one phase of textual development. Hence, no one textual tradition reflects the original system. The chronology of the flood attracted the interest of generations of chronologists to the point that it became so overloaded that the narrative logic capsized. Neither the original story nor all of its different stages can be recovered, but bits can be collected from the flotsam. A few matching fragments have been pieced together: 







Methuselah’s survival of the flood in the LXX and the major variants for the ages of Jared and Lamech are the result of deliberate strategies that were transmitted with great care across the centuries. Nothing proves that the original flood excluded the survival of ancestors other than Noah’s family. The 222 days obtained by the inclusive count of the dates of the MT/SP suggest that the raven belongs to an early 364-day year system (two sabbatical seasons plus 40 days) while that the dove reflects a later phase. In light of the different order and role of the birds studied by Helen Jacobus in this volume, the existence of such a version of the FN is likely. The time gap implied by the 36 weeks between the same period with the LXX’s dates confirm that the Greek text cannot be dismissed as secondary to the MT. The remains of a sabbatical chronology surface here and there in both the Greek and the Hebrew traditions and suggest that the notion that the flood lasted a whole year is not axiomatic. In light of this early Achaemenid date, Chyutin’s archaic calendar corresponds to the Egypto-Achaemenid calendar adopted after the calendar reform in the days of Xerxes. From the vantage point of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is indeed archaic, but from the vantage point of the growth of the Pentateuch, it belongs to one of the last stages of literary production.

Hypothetical as they are, these points underline the importance of biblical chronologies, and the chronology of the flood in particular, for the study of the development of the biblical text and its rewriting in the centuries before and after the turn of the era. Despite the difficulties involved, calendars and chronologies deserve

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attention as the simple mathematics involved provide the kind of external controls that are missing in historical-critical exegesis. Yet, the entanglement of calendars was fatal to the story. The FN ended up like the Ark, a large wreck, precious to treasure hunters and archaeologists alike. As literary archaeologists, we run the risk of enjoying the safe irrelevance of the present flood of academic publications, throwing, what Kingsley Amis called in Lucky Jim, pseudo-light on non-problems. The FN, however, is full of real chronological problems. Evading its chronological challenges under the pretext that “it is possible to discover in the text whatever we wish, for the figures are flexible and can be made to fit all sorts of numerical combinations”44 is refusing to take the text seriously. As a wreck sitting on a high peak rather than at the bottom of the abyss, the biblical FN deserves more attention. On a more theological level, the chronologies of the FN remind us that the Sabbath, and thus the time that runs between Sabbaths, is the only creature God deems holy in Genesis. Time is precious. Ours is measured.

WORKS CITED Albani, Matthias. Der Zodiakos in 4Q318 und die Henoch-Astronomie. Leipzig: Forschungsstelle Judentum Theologische Fakultät, 1993. ———. “Horoscopes in the Qumran Scrolls.” Pages 279–330 in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment. Edited by Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Beckwith, Richard T. “The Significance of the 364-day Calendar for the Old Testament Canon.” Pages 54–66 in Calendar, Chronology and Worship. Edited by R. T. Beckwith. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Bickerman, Elias “The Jewish Historian Demetrios.” Pages 347–58 in Studies in Jewish and Christian History. Leiden: Brill, 1980. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Creation, Uncreation, Re-creation: a Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. London: T&T Clark, 2011. 44

Cassuto, Genesis, 248.

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 81 Boccaccini, G. “The Solar Calendars of Daniel and Enoch.” Pages 311–28 in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception. Vol. 2. Edited by John J. Collins and Peter Flint. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Borgonovo, G. “Significato numerico delle cronologie bibliche e rilevanza delle varianti testuali (TM–LXX–SAM),” RSB 9 (1997) 139–67. Bovon, F. “The Suspension of Time in Chapter 18 of Protoevangelium Jacobi.” Pages 226–37 in Studies in Early Christianity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991/2003. Brack-Bernsen, L. “The 360-Day Year in Mesopotamia,” Pages 83– 100 in Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East. Edited by J. M. Steele. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007. Cassuto, U. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1964. Chyutin, M. The Role of the Solar and Lunar Calendars in the Redaction of the Psalms. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2002. Cryer, F. H. “The Interrelationships of Gen. 5,32; 11,10–11 and the Chronology of the Flood (Gen. 6–9).” Biblica 66 (1985): 241– 261. ———. “The 360-Day calendar Year in Early Judaic Sectarianism,” SJOT 1 (1987): 116–22. Currid, J. D. Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1997. de Blois, F. “The Persian Calendar.” Iran 34 (1996): 39–54. Englund, R. K. “Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia.” JESHO 31 (1988): 121–85. García Martínez, F. “Interpretations of the Flood in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pages 86–108 in Interpretations of the Flood. Edited by F. García Martínez and G. P. Luttikhuizen. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Gardner, B. The Genesis Calendar: The Synchronistic Tradition in Genesis 1–11. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001. Gleßmer, U. “Calendars in the Qumran Scrolls.” Pages 213–78 in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years. Edited by Peter Flint and James C. VanderKam. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Greenfield, J. and M. Sokoloff, “An Astrological Text from Qumran (4Q318) and Reflections on Some Zodiacal Names,” RevQ 16 (1995): 507–25.

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Grafton, A. “The Chronology of the Flood.” Pages 65–82 in Sinflut und Gedächtnis. Edited by M. Mulsow and J. Assmann. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2006. Guillaume, Philippe. Land and Calendar. LHBOTS 391. New York: T&T Clark, 2009. ———. “The ‘Semitic Week’, a Legacy of Achaemenid Zoroastrianism.” in Religion in the Persian Period: Emerging Judaisms and other Trends. Edited by D. Edelman, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, and Philippe Guillaume. Munich: ORA Verlag, forthcoming. Hendel, R. S. “4Q252 and the Flood Chronology of Genesis 7–8,” DSD 2 (1995) 72–79. Hintze, Almut. “The Return of the Fravashis in the Avestan Calendar.” Pages 99–122 in Literarische Stoffe und ihre Gestaltung in mitteliranischer Zeit. Edited by D. Durkin-Meisterernst, C. Reck and D. Weber. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2009. Hughes, J. Secrets of the Times. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990. Jacobus, Helen R. “The Curse of Cainan (Jub. 8.1–5): Genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 and a Mathematical Pattern,” JSP 18 (2009) 207–32. ———. “A Jewish Zodiac Calendar at Qumran?” Pages 365–96 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context. Edited by C. Hempel. Leiden: Brill, 2010. ———. “New Light on Flood Calendars in 4Q252, the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint,” in A View from a Bridge. In honour of Annie Jaubert (1912–1980) II. Edited by B. Lourié et al. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, forthcoming. ———. “An analysis of Noah’s Calendar Traditions in 4QCommentary A (4Q252) and the Septuagint.” Forthcoming. Jaubert, A. The Date of the Last Supper. Trans. I. Rafferty. New York: Alba House, 1965. Larsson, C. “The Chronology of the Pentateuch,” JBL 102 (1983): 401–9. Miano, D. Shadow on the Steps. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Peters, D. M. Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2008. VanderKam, James C. Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time. London: Routledge, 1998.

SIFTING THE DEBRIS: CALENDARS AND CHRONOLOGIES 83 ———. The Book of Jubilees. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. van Ruiten, J. T. A. G. M. Primaeval History Interpreted: the Writing of Genesis 1–11 in the Book of Jubilees. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Sacchi, Paolo. “The Two Calendars of the Book of Astronomy.” Pages 128–39 in Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History. Trans. W. J. Short. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990. ———. “Measuring Time among the Jews: the Zadokite Priesthood, Enochism and the Lay Tendencies of the Maccabean Period.” Pages 95–118 in The Early Enoch Literature. Edited by Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins. JSJS 121. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Saulnier, S. Calendrical Variations in Second Temple Judaism. New Perspectives on the ‘Date of the Last Supper’ Debate. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Stenring, K., The Enclosed Garden. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1966. Stuckenbruck, L. “The Angels and Giants of Genesis 6:1–4 in Second and Third Century BCE Jewish Interpretation,” DSD 7 (2000): 354–77. Wacholder, Ben Z. Eupolemus. A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College, 1974. Wacholder Ben Z. and S. Wacholder, “Patterns of Biblical Dates and Qumran’s Calendar: The Fallacy of Jaubert’s Hypothesis,” HUCA 66 (1995): 1–40. Wenham, G. J. “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” VT 28 (1978): 336–48. Westermann, Claus. Genesis. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1984. Wright, Benjamin G. III, “Noah and the Flood in the Septuagint.” Pages 137–42 in Noah and His Books. Edited by M. E. Stone, A. Amihay and V. Hillel. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010. Zipor, M. A. “The Flood Chronology: too many an accident,” DSD 4 (1997): 207–10.

FLOOD CALENDARS AND BIRDS OF THE ARK IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS (4Q252 AND 4Q254A), SEPTUAGINT, AND ANCIENT NEAR EAST TEXTS HELEN R. JACOBUS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON ABSTRACT This essay reassesses the suggestion that the reason the raven is missing from the flood chronology of 4Q252 (Commentary on Genesis A) may be due to scribal error. I expand on the idea that the raven was deliberately excised for calendrical purposes. Furthermore, other deluge traditions concerning the birds of the ark are explored and it is claimed that these can be identified in both 4Q252 and 4Q254a (Commentary on Genesis D).

INTRODUCTION This paper explores why the calendar of the deluge in Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252)1 omits the raven and only uses the flights of Editio princeps: Brooke, “4Q254a. Commentary on Genesis A,” 185–207, pl. 12–13; Brooke, “The Thematic Content of 4Q252,” 34, 39– 40; Commentaries: Hendel, “4Q252 and the Flood Chronology of Genesis 7–8,” 71–9; Lim “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran Text (4Q252),” 288–98; Falk, The Parabiblical Texts, 120–130. Other text and translations: Trafton “Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252=4QCommGenA=4QPBless),” 203–219; García Martínez and 1

85

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the dove. Furthermore, the study reviews the flood calendar in the Septuagint (LXX), which differs from the version in the Masoretic Text (MT) and Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). It suggests that 4Q252 shows how the flight of the birds is a key component in computing the two biblical flood calendars. The role of the raven in the flood narrative in Commentary on Genesis D (4Q254a)2 is also considered. The study argues that the eschatological raven in 4Q254a is possibly exegeting the LXX version of the raven’s story. Finally, it explores comparative flood stories from other ANE sources that may have influenced elements of the deluge calendar of 4Q252 and the narrative of the raven in 4Q254a.

THE KEY DATES The main dates of the calendar of 4Q252 follow four of the five given dates of the flood in the MT/ SP (the beginning of the rains, Gen 7:11; the resting of the ark, Gen 8:4; the visibility of the mountain tops, Gen 8:5; and the uncovering of the ark, 8:13), but not the disembarkment (Gen 8:14). The Qumran flood calendar does not follow the main dates of the deluge calendar in LXX Gen 7:11–8:14, apart from the uncovering of the ark, Gen 8:13, the only one of five dates in the LXX deluge calendar upon which all the texts agree (see Table 1a).

Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1: 500–503; Translation only: Abegg, “Commentaries on Genesis 4Q252–254a,” 352–353; Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 461–462. 2 Brooke, “Commentary on Genesis D (4Q254a=4QCommGen D),” 235–239; Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 233–236, pl. 16.

FLOOD CALENDARS AND BIRDS OF THE ARK

87

Table 1a: The 5 biblical dates with 4Q252 correspondences3 5 dates

Events

MT/SP

LXX

4Q252

Gen 7:11

Rains begin

17 II 600

27 II 600

17 II 600

Gen 8:4

Ark rests

17 VII 600

27 VII 600

17 VII 600

Gen 8:5

Mountain tops

1 X 600

1 XI 600

1 X 600

Gen 8:13

Ark uncovered

1 I 601

1 I 601

1 I 601

Gen 8:14

Disembark

27 II 601

27 II 601

17 II 601

Below, the full chronology of the flood calendar text in 4Q252 is given in the left hand column. It is aligned with the corresponding text in MT Gen 7:11–8:14, and LXX Gen 8:7. The calendrical elements in the Qumran text are typographically defined to make these expansions from Genesis easier to identify. The birds of the flood calendar are highlighted by shading (see Table 1). Table 1: Flood calendars and birds of the ark in Genesis and 4Q2524 4Q252 1 col i, 3b–col ii, 5

Gen 7:11–8:14

3b. And (the) waters of (the) flood were upon the earth. (Gen 7:10b) [Extended word-space] In the Year of the six hundredth year 4. of Noah’s life, in the second month, on (Day) One of the week, on the seventeenth of it. (Gen 7:11a). On that day

Gen 7:11: In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of heaven were opened.

5. all (the) fountains of (the) great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened (Gen 7:11b) and there was rain upon 6. the earth for forty day(s) and forty 7:12: And the rain was upon the earth

3 Key: the months are stated in roman numerals followed by the year of Noah’s life. 4 Translation of 4Q252, Brooke, “4Q252 Commentary on Genesis A,” 193–200; my translation of MT. LXX: Hiebert, Genesis, 10–11.

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HELEN R. JACOBUS

4Q252 1 col i, 3b–col ii, 5

Gen 7:11–8:14

night(s) (Gen 7:12) until the twentysixth of the 7. third month, Day Five of the week. ……………………………………… ………… And the waters swelled upon the earth one hundred and fifty day(s) (Gen 7:24) ……………………………………… ………… 8. until the fourteenth day in the seventh month (Gen 8.4a) on the third {day} of the week. And at the end of a hundred

forty days and forty nights.

9. and fifty day(s) (Gen 8:3b) the waters decreased (Gen 8:3b) two days, Day Four and Day Five, and on the Sixth Day ……………………………………… ………… 10. the ark came to rest on the mountains of Hurarat; i[t was the] seventeenth of the seventh month (Gen 8:4). ……………………………………… ………… 11. And the waters continued to decrease until the [ten]th month (Gen 8:5a). On (day) one of it, Day Four 12. of the week, the tops of the mountains appeared. (Gen 8:5b).

And it was at the end of forty day(s) (Gen 8:6a) when the tops of the mountain[s] had become visible 13 [that] Noah [op]ened the window of the ark (Gen 8:6b), Day One of the week, that is, day ten 14. of the elev[enth] month. And he

7:17: And the Flood was forty days upon the earth; the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted above the earth. ……………………………………… ……………. 7:24: And the waters swelled upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. 8:3: …and after the end of 150 days the waters diminished. 8:4: And the ark rested in the 7th month, on the 17th day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. ……………………………………… ……………. 8:5: And the waters decreased continually until the 10th month: in the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 8:6: At the end of 40 days Noah opened the window of the ark… 8:7: and he sent out a raven, and it went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from upon the earth LXX 8:7: and he sent out the raven to see if the water had subsided, and after it had gone out it did not return until the water was dried up from the earth. 8:8: And he sent out a dove… to see if the waters had decreased from off the face of the ground. 8:9: But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to

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4Q252 1 col i, 3b–col ii, 5

Gen 7:11–8:14

sent the dove (Gen 8:8a) to see whether the waters had abated (Gen 8.8b) but it did not 15. find a resting place and came back [to] the ark (Gen 8:9a). And he again waited a[nother] seven days, 16. and he sent it out again (Gen 8:10) and it came back to him and a plucked olive leaf was in its beak (Gen 8:11a). [This was day twenty-] 17. four of the eleventh month, on the (Day) One the wee[k. And Noah knew that the waters had abated] 18. From upon the earth (Gen 8:11b). And at the end of anoth[er] seven days [he sent out th]e [dove and it did not] 19. return again (Gen 8:12); it was Day O[ne of the twelfth] month, [on {Day} One] 20. of the week.

him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth…

And at the end of thir[ty -one days from sending forth the dov]e when it did not 21. return again (Gen 8:12b), the wat[ers] dried up [from upon the earth and] Noah removed the covering of the ark 22. and looked and behold[ the surface of the ground had dried up] (Gen 8:13b)On (Day) One of the first month (Gen 8:13ab)

8:12: And he waited another seven days and he sent out the dove, and she did not return to him again

Bottom margin

8:13: … in the 601st year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the

8:10: And he again56waited another seven days and again he sent the dove from the ark. LXX: 8:10: And when he had waited yet another seven days, again he sent forth the dove from the ark, 8:11: and the dove returned towards the time of evening and behold! in her mouth a fresh olive leaf; so Noah knew the waters had decreased from upon the earth. LXX 8:11: and the dove went back to him toward evening, and it had an olive leaf, a dry twig, in its mouth, and Noe knew that the water had subsided from the earth.

LXX 8:12: And when he had waited yet another seven days, he sent forth the dove, and it did not continue to turn back to him any more.

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4Q252 1 col i, 3b–col ii, 5

Gen 7:11–8:14

4Q252 Col ii 1. in Year Six Hundred and One (Gen 8:13aa) of the life of Noah [extended word space]65 And on the seventeenth day of the second month 2. the earth dried up (Gen 8:14), on (Day) One of the week. On that day Noah went out (Gen 8:18a) from the ark at the end of a 3. complete year of three hundred and sixty-four days, on the (Day) One of the week, in the seven 4. vacat one and six vacat Noah from the ark to a set time, a full 5.year vacat

waters were dried up… and Noah removed the covering of the ark. 8:14: and in the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry.

The 4Q252 calendar gives days of the week to the deluge in Gen 7–8. In addition, 4Q252 scaffolds a 364-day calendar known from the Dead Sea Scrolls onto the MT/ SP version of Genesis. Whether it is exegeting the biblical text or superimposing an ideal theological calendar from Second Temple Judaism onto a different calendar is a valid question.7 The answer in this paper is the former. Genesis Expansions in the Qumran Flood Calendar Well before the 364-day calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls were published,8 Annie Jaubert had proposed that the Qumran group followed an “ancient Jewish calendar” of 364 days. The year 56 The first mention of “again” is omitted in MT biblical translations by the Jewish Publication Society (2003) and Today’s New International Version (2006). 65The extended word space is clear on the image: see DJD 22, plate 12 (PAM 43.253). See Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library (PAM M43253, Plate 668 {Feb 1960}); or PAM M42185 (Sept 2007) (4Q252 line 3b) http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-280839 7 I thank C. Philipp Northaft for asking it at my presentation on calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and group identities in Second Temple Judaism, at a research seminar at University College London on 1 February 2012. 8 Editio princeps: Talmon et al, Qumran Cave 4: XVI. Calendrical Texts.

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divided by seven produces 52 weeks.9 This schematic year is subdivided into four 13-week seasons of 91 days each, an arrangement that makes a fixed liturgical calendar possible. Each 91-day quarter consists of two months of 30 days, and a third month of 31 days (in Months III, VI, IX and XII). In Jaubert’s reconstruction of the calendar, the Sabbath and the festivals fall on the same day of the week each year in perpetuity. Following Barthélémy,10 she found that the year began on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday), in accordance with the creation of the luminaries (Gen 1:14–19). Month I, day 1 and the first day of each new season: Months I, IV, VII, X, began on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday).11 The days of the week were numerical, commencing with Day 1 (Sunday), although the calendar began on Day 4 (Wednesday). Brooke highlights the fact that the structure of the 4Q252 calendar chronology means that the 150 days is “two days short of the biblical date of the ark coming to rest of the seventeenth of the seventh month”(4Q252 1 i 7–10).12 The author of 4Q252 appears to be drawing attention to the ambiguity in the biblical text which could be interpreted to understand that the end of 150 days is a different time to the ark coming to rest on 17/VII/600 (Gen 8:3–4). The date of 14 VIII 600, Day 3, for the “until” ‫ עד‬date of 150 days of swelling waters (4Q252 i line 8aa), has been carefully calculated according to the 364-day paradigm. The Qumran chronology itself spells out that there is a “two-day” interlude between the decreasing of waters at the end of 150 days, 14 VII 600, Day 3 (Tuesday) and 17 VII 600, Day 6 (Friday) (4Q252 i lines 9–11), when the ark comes to rest upon the mountains of Hurarat.13 9 Jaubert, “Le calendrier des Jubilés et de la secte de Qumrân. Ses origines bibliques,” 250–64; Subsequently, idem, “Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine,” 35–61; idem, “La date de la dernière cène,” 140–73; idem, La date de la cène: calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne; idem, The Date of the Last Supper. 10 Barthélémy, “Notes en marge de publications recéntes sur les manuscrits de Qumrân,” 199–203. 11 Beckwith, “The significance of the 364-day calendar for the Old Testament canon,” 69–82. 12 Brooke, “The Thematic Content of 4Q252,” 39. 13 Jaubert, “Le calendrier des Jubilés et de la secte de Qumrân. Ses origines bibliques,” 258, 260 (note that Jaubert discussed and predicted the two-day discrepancy in Noah’s calendar here, in 1953, some 43 years

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HELEN R. JACOBUS

4Q252 has not included the flight of the raven, apparently omitting Gen 8:7, an event that is ambiguous with regards to time: is the raven sent out on the same day that Noah opens the window of the ark on 10 XI 600 (4Q252 i 13–14)? Bernstein thinks that is “reasonable to assume” that that is the case because the dove is first sent out seven days later on, discussed below.14 It is interesting that any mention of sending out of the raven is entirely missing from that event in 4Q252,15 particularly given that the narrative on the raven’s flight in Gen 8:7 MT and Gen 8:7 LXX differs, and the bird appears in 4Q254a. Lim suggests that the absence of the raven in 4Q252 i 12–14 may be a deliberate scribal omission at the compositional stage because it adds nothing to the chronology, or it is accidental, due to homoioarcton.16 However, there may be other explanations for its exclusion, particularly, as we shall see, the raven is a major character in the ANE versions of the story, it has a colorful dramatic role in the MT/SP and LXX, and it has an important mission of its own in 4Q254a. It is noteworthy that the flood chronology of 4Q252 does not include any extraneous information; it is tightly focused on periods of time and the calendar of Gen 7:11–8:14.17 It may be, therefore, that for the author of 4Q252 the raven is superfluous to the calendar. This could be the case if the author has interpreted from the MT/SP, LXX that the raven was sent out on the same date that Noah opened the window of the ark (MT/ SP; LXX Gen 6–7), as Bernstein suggests, or if it was deliberately omitted because the day of its flight was uncertain, or for other reasons, as shall be discussed.18 It is evident that 4QCommentary on Genesis A (4Q252) is interpreting the Genesis flood chronology texts where time-related ambiguities exist. According to the sequence of events in all biblical versions, the first flight of the dove (Gen 8:8–9; 4Q252 i 14) before it was published); Lim, “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran Text (4Q252),” 292, 297–298. 14 Bernstein, “4Q252: From Re-Written Bible to Biblical Commentary,” 8, n. 29. 15 See also Wenham “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” 339. 16 Lim, “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran Text (4Q252),” 293 and n.19. 17 Brooke, “The Thematic Content of 4Q252,” 38–9. 18 This idea is explored further, below, in: “Comparative stories of the ark birds and the raven.”

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93

probably takes place seven days after Noah opened the window of the ark (Gen 8:6b; 4Q252 i 13). The Qumran text smoothes out the literary problem in Genesis where the biblical text states that “Noah waited again” for “another” seven days before sending out the dove for a second time (4Q252 i 15–16; MT/ SP, LXX Gen 8:10), without having contextualized the first waiting period of seven days between the opening of the window and the dove’s first flight. 4QCommentary A exegetes Gen 8:10 by telling us that the dove’s first flight was on 17 XI 600. (Curiously, the standard English translations of the MT translate “Noah waited” instead of “Noah waited again” see footnote to Gen 8:10 in Table 1. This MT translation error introduces the ambiguity that the dove’s first flight took place on the same day that Noah opened the window of the ark, a problem that does not exist in the biblical texts). The date of 17 XI 600 is in line with the date of the ark coming to rest on 17 VII 600, the beginning of the rains on 17 II 600 and the earth drying on 17 II 601(4Q252 ii 1b–2). Whether the raven went out (Gen 8:7) on the same day that Noah opened the ark’s window on 10 XI 600, or on the same day as the dove’s first flight seven days later, or simply because the date of the raven’s flight is more open to interpretation, its presence in 4Q252 is not required. The event serves no purpose at this point in the author’s version of the flood chronology; the dates of 10 XI and 17 XI have already been taken care of. However, the raven is clearly not forgotten by the fact that it is given a leading part to play in the story in 4Q254a after the disembarkation, as we shall see. The time-scale of events in the 4Q252 flood calendar is summarized in Table 2.

94

HELEN R. JACOBUS Table 2. The full chronology of the flood in 4Q252 Noah’s 600th year

601st

I

II

III IV V VI VII VIII IX

W

F

Su

W

F Su

W

F

2 Th

S

M

Th

S M Th

3 Fri

Su

T

F

Su T

4

M W

1

X

XI

XII

I

II

Su

Mt tops

F

Dove (3)

Cover removed

F

S

M

Th

S

M

Th

S

F

Su

T

F

Su

T

F

Su

S

M

W

S

S

M

W

S

M

W

S

M

5 Su

T

Th

Su Tu Th Su

T

Th

Su

T

Th

Su

T

6

M

W

F

M W F

M

W

F

M

W

F

M

W

7

T

Th

S

T Th S

T

Th

S

T

Th

S

T

Th

8

W

F

Su

W

W

F

Su

W

F

Su

W

F

F Su

9 Th

S

M

Th

S M Th

S

M

Th

S

M

Th

S

10 F

Su

T

F

Su T

F

Su

T

F

Window open

T

F

Su

11

S

M

W

S

M W

S

M

W

S

M

W

S

M

12 S

T

Th

Su

T Th Su

T

Th

Su

T

Th

Su

T

13 M

W

F

M W F

M

W

F

M

W

F

M

W

14 T

Th

S

T Th S

150d

Th

S

T

Th

S

T

Th

15 W

F

Su

W

F Su

W

F

Su

W

F

Su

W

F

16 Th

S

M

Th

S M Th

S

M

Th

S

M

Th

(364)

17 F

Rains begin

T

F

Su T

Ark rests

Su

T

F

Dove (1)

T

F

Earth dry

18 S

M

W

S

M W

S

M

W

S

M

W

S

M

19 Su

T

Th

Su

T Th Su

T

Th

Su

T

Th

Su

T

20 M

W

F

M W F

M

W

F

M

W

F

M

W

21 T

Th

S

T Th S

T

Th

S

T

Th

S

T

Th

22 W

F

Su

W

F Su

W

F

Su

W

F

Su

W

F

23 Th

S

M

Th

S M Th

S

M

Th

S

M

Th

S

24 F

Su

T

F

Su T

F

Su

T

F

Dove (2)

T

F

Su

25 S

M

W

S

M W

S

M

W

S

M

W

S

M

26 Su

T

40d

Su

T Th Su

T

Th

Su

T

Th

Su

T

27 M

W

F

M W F

M

W

F

M

W

F

M

[MT]

28 T

Th

S

T Th S

T

Th

S

T

Th

S

T

Th

29 W

F

Su

W

F Su

W

F

Su

W

F

Su

W

F

30 Th

S

M

Th

S M Th

S

M

Th

S

M

Th

S

31

T

T

T

[T]

FLOOD CALENDARS AND BIRDS OF THE ARK

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SYNOPSIS OF A HYPOTHETICAL FLOOD CALENDAR IN THE SEPTUAGINT Brooke has shown that 4Q252 has a literary textual alignment with the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX.19 This sub-section introduces the theory that 4Q252 might have been aware of a different calendar of the LXX deluge, and therefore, there were alternative solutions to the dates of the flights of the birds.20 The suggestion is here put forward that the LXX calendar consists of 12 or 13 months of 27-days each. The reason for this hypothesis is that: a) there are no calendrical dates in the Bible later than the 27th of a month;21 b) the date occurs three times in the LXX deluge chronology, out of all proportion to elsewhere in the Bible (LXX Gen 7:11, 8:4, 8:14); c) it is also highlighted in the MT (Gen 8:14), and; d) Josephus refers to the water level decreasing until the end of the month (LXX Gen 8:14: 27 II 601).22 When one superimposes the dates of the deluge, it is clear that most events take place at lunar phases, if the 27-day months were lunar months that excluded the two to three days of darkness at the end of each month. The text states that the waters increased for 150 days (LXX Gen 7:24, 8:3), but no date is given (in comparison: 4Q252: 14 VII). Without a date, we are free to reckon that 150 days from 27 II 600 (LXX Gen 7:11) is 15 VIII in 27-day months.23 We are here interpreting the ark coming to rest on the 27th day of the seventh month (LXX Gen 8:4) as meaning the seventh month from the beginning of the flood on 27 II 600, counting Month II as the first month of the flood; therefore, the ark rests in calendrical Month VIII. The end of the 150 days of rain and the ark coming to rest are thus also treated as separate events, as they are in 4Q252.

19 Brooke, “Some Remarks on 4Q252 and the Text of Genesis,” 25; Brooke, E Pluribus Unum: Textual Variety and Definitive Interpretation in the Qumran Scrolls, 111–112. 20 The details of the proposed LXX calendar and the flight of the birds is explicated in Jacobus, “An Analysis of Noah’s Calendar Traditions in 4QCommentary A (4Q252) and the Septuagint.” 21 Outside the Deluge calendars there is 4 Reigns (Kaige) 25:27= (MT) 2 Kings 27. 22 Josephus, Ant. I. 90. 23 Counting exclusively from 27 II 600.

96

HELEN R. JACOBUS Table 3: Noah’s Flood in a 27-day-month calendar with LXX dates Noah’s 600th year

I

II

III

IV

601th year

V

VI VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

Mt tops^

1

I

II

Cover removed

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 40d rains end

13

40d/ open; raven and dove (1)

14 150d*

15 16 17 18 19 20

Enter ark

7d dove (2)

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Rains begin§

Ark rests **

7d dove (3)

Earth dry

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§ LXX 7:11: “the second month, on the twenty-seventh of the month.” * LXX 7:24, 8:3: the waters lasted 150 days (no date given). ** LXX 8:4: “And in the seventh month on the twenty-seventh day of the month” here interpreted to mean in the seventh month from the start of the rains, since we are now in Month VIII. ^ LXX 8:5: “Waters decreasing until the tenth month, then in the eleventh [calendrical] month [which is the tenth month from the beginning of the rains], on the first of the month, the mountain tops appeared.” Compare, in the MT, the mountain tops appeared on Day 1, Month X.

A similar calendrical ambiguity is seemingly being addressed in LXX Gen 8:5: the waters decreased until the 10th month, and then in the 11th [calendrical] month, the mountain-tops were visible on 1 XI 600. In comparison, the mountain peaks appeared on 1 X 600 in both the MT (Gen 8:5) and 4QCommentary Genesis A (4Q252 i 11). Month XI is the 10th month from the beginning of the flood in calendrical Month II 600. This is a possible explanation for the one-month difference in the date for this event in the LXX alone. The different chronology of the bird’s flights in the proposed LXX calendar is outlined in Table 3. These calculations presuppose that at the opening of the window of the ark (Gen 8:6), the flight of the raven, and the first flight of the dove took place on the same day (Gen 8:7–8). The dates line up with one version of the 27-day month calendar; by comparison, in 4Q252 the opening of the window and the first flight of the dove take place with seven days between them. Although the question of scribal error in the Qumran text cannot be ruled out, the omission of the raven in 4Q252 may also reflect a layer of literary transmission that works with the author’s carefully calculated calendar and chronology. The role of the raven in 4QCommentary on Genesis D is continued in the next sub-section.

THE RAVEN’S STORY: 4Q254A FRAG 3 LINES 1–5 The reference to “the raven” in Commentary on Genesis D (4Q254a) is a departure from the traditions in ANE and biblical literature. 4Q254a consists of three small fragments: fragment 3 (see below) contains two lines reflected in 4Q252 (probably col ii line 1). It mentions the 17th of the month (4Q254a frag 3 line 1) and a statement that Noah exits the ark at the appointed time (line 2),

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HELEN R. JACOBUS

echoing 4Q252 ii 4. Two extant, fragmentary lines on the raven (line 4–5) follows a blank line (line 3).24 4Q254a Frag 3 lines 1–525 ‫ לחודש‬vacat ‫ עשר‬vacat ‫ ב[שבעה‬.1 ‫[] [] [ נוח יצא מן התבה ימים ימימה‬.2 vacat .3 [‫ העו[רב ויצא וישוב להודיע לדורות הא]חרונים‬.4 ‫[] [ ] [ לפניו כי העו]רב[ יצוא יצא ויש]וב‬.5 4Q254a Frag 3 lines 1–5. Translation26 1. on the] seven (vacat) teenth (vacat) of the month 2. [ ] [ ] Noah went forth from the ark at the appointed time year by year 3. vacat 4. […the ra]ven; it went out and returned to tell the l[ast] generations 5. [ ] [ ] before him. Because “the raven surely went out and returned” [Gen 8:7b]

It appears at first sight that the chronological order is different to that in Gen 8:7–8:19: that the flight of the raven comes after the exit from the ark.27 However, 4Q254a frag 3 lines 4–5, on the raven itself, may be an exegetical commentary on Noah’s disembarkation ‫( נוח יצא מן התבה‬4Q254a 3 2a) by picking up the threads of the Hebrew text that the raven returned (Gen 8:7b).28 4Q254a 3 2a appears to be a slight revision of the equivalent phrase in Gen 8:18a.29 The text may be interested in the raven’s setting forth ‫ויצא‬ 24 See Dead Sea Scrolls digital library. PAM. M42360 (Jan 1957). http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-281211 25 Transcription, Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 235, pl. 16. 26 Modification of Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236. 27 4Q254a frags 1–2 places “the dove” before the measurements of the ark (lines 1–4). 28 Bernstein thinks that “it may represent an extra-biblical addition explaining the further fate of the raven postponed so as not to interrupt the flood narrative,” in Bernstein “Noah and the Flood at Qumran,” 218– 9. My theory does not suggest that the story has a particular extrabiblical source per se, but that it also arises organically from the exegetical process. 29 Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236.

FLOOD CALENDARS AND BIRDS OF THE ARK

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in 4Q254a 3 4 and the infinitive absolute ‫ יצוא יצא‬in 4Q254a 3 5b, by pointing out that the raven and Noah are connected by the verb ‫ יצא‬in 4Q254a 3 2a and Gen 8:18a. 4Q254a 3 5b refers back closely to the Hebrew text of Gen 8:7b, on the flight of the raven, “it went out and returned” (‫)ויצא יצוא ושוב‬. In 4Q254a 3 4b, the raven “went out and returned to tell the l[ast] generations” (]‫הא[חרונים‬

‫)העו]רב ויצא וישוב להודיע לדורות‬.

The close association between 4Q254a 3 2a (Gen 18.8a), 4Q254a 3 5 (Gen 8:7b) with 4Q254a 3 4b may qualify it as a pešer-like commentary (a form of biblical interpretation in Second Temple Judaism using the biblical proof text as the basis for an exegetical interpretation).30 The eschatological term, the “Last Generations”31 is found in the Damascus Document (CD A col. i lines 11–12), and in the singular (last generation) in Pešer Habakkuk (1QpHab vii 2) and Pešer Micah (1QpMic frags 17–18 lines 3–5).32 There is a scholarly discourse on whether the Last Generations were those living now, or to come in the short-term future when the End of Days would arrive.33 The idea that the raven went out and returned (4Q254a 3 4), mirroring the exit of Noah from the ark (4Q254a 3 2a), could suggest that the Last Generations were with Noah. They may have represented the remnant from an apocalyptic catastrophe; or the Last Generations were those in the Covenant.34 Alternatively, did the raven time-travel from the Last Days of the Eschaton to past generations and then return to those in the Eschaton, to bring them a message from those generations, or vice versa? In Mesopotamian texts of the flood, to be discussed below, the deluge tradition was a cataclysmic event marking a clear See Lim, Pesharim. Brooke prefers “the subsequent or latter generations,” see, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236. 32 Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236; see also Collins, The Use of Sobriquets in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 43. 33 Steudel, “The Development of Essenic Eschatology: Introduction and Methodological Questions,” 83–86; so Stegemann, The Library at Qumran, 117, 128–9; Steudel, “‫ אחרים הימים‬in the Texts from Qumran,” 225–46; Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 64–70. 34 Peters, Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity, 162; Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236b. 30 31

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division between two periods: the antediluvian and postdiluvian world.35 Our raven may be a messenger between the equivalent of these two times in Second Temple Judaism: before and after the Eschaton. Another question is whether the possible Qumran commentary on Gen 8:7b is clarifying this half verse in the Hebrew Bible, or its parallel in the LXX, since Gen 8:7b in the MT and the LXX (so Vg) are different.36 In MT Gen 8:7, Noah sent out the raven and “it went out and returned until the waters dried from upon the earth.” One interpretation could be that it went flying out across the waters and returned again and again, back and forth repeatedly, until the earth was dry.37 In the LXX, Noah sent out the raven “to see if the water had subsided [not in MT], and after it had gone out it did not return until the water had dried up from the earth.”38 This suggests that in the LXX version the raven took just one return journey, going out and coming back when the earth was dry. As Brooke notes, in 4Q254a the raven returns.39 But when? Does the Qumran raven return constantly back and forth until the earth is dry (MT Gen 8:7)? Or just once when the waters had dried from the earth (LXX Gen 8:7)? Furthermore, does the raven come back to Noah after the earth is dry in the MT/SP, or does it then fly forth as a free bird? The position of the raven narrative in 4Q254a after a blank line immediately following Noah’s going out may suggest that the author has completed the raven’s story in the LXX, rather than the MT, version. The 4Q254a text may imply that when the earth is dry, Noah leaves the ark and the raven reappears from his journey after circling a world of endless water (LXX Gen 8:7). Since it was omitted in 4Q252’s flood chronology, the raven may have flown when Noah opened the window (Gen 8:6–7a), as Bernstein suggested, and returned only after the egress from the ark, and not before, in 4Q254a. This scenario may better fit 4Q254a 3 4 than the notion that the text is an exegetical comment on the raven 35 Hämmerly-Dupuy, “Assyro-Babylonian and Sumerian Flood Stories,” 59. 36 Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236. 37 NRSV, and Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation. 38 Translation, A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS). Hiebert, Genesis, 10. 39 Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236.

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finally ceasing to go back and forth until the water had dried from upon the earth (MT Gen 8:7bc). Furthermore, the Commentary on Genesis D may provide an aetiological explanation for the raven’s cawing—(Q: Why does the raven make so much noise? A: Because it is telling the Last Generations about the flood)—integrated into eschatological philosophy. Brooke points out that Philo comments on the raven’s ability to speak, “(as though) indicating something hidden”; Philo also notes that the bird is seen as a “heralding” and “fulfilling creature.”40

AN APPOINTED TIME: 4Q254A FRAG 3 LINES 1, 2B AND 4Q252 The arrangement of the text prior to the blank line 3, 4Q254a 3 1– 2, concerns the date of the exit from the ark itself. These lines bear a written intertextual similarity with 4QComm Gen A (4Q252 frags 1 and 3 ii 1b, 2d, 4c, 5a), the end of the flood chronology. The extended word spaces in 4Q254a frag 3 line 1, between “seven” and “teenth” and “of the month” appear to mirror the blank words spaces in 4Q252 frag 1 col ii line 4 (see Table 1) on either side of the number “one and six.”41 This suggests that as well as probably agreeing on the date of the seventeenth as the date that the earth dried (so 4Q252 1 ii 1), there may be a connection between the two texts. Furthermore, the reference to Noah’s exit “at the appointed time (‫)מועד‬, year by year” (4Q254a 3 2b) and Noah’s leaving the ark “at the appointed time (‫ ;)מועד‬a complete year” (4Q252 1 ii 4–5), seems to indicate, certainly in 4Q254a, that Noah’s disembarkation would be marked as an annual festival.42

40 Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis, Q. 35 (Gen 8:7). (Translated by Marcus), 114; Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236. 41 Brooke, “The Thematic Content of 4Q252,” 41, suggests that if the blank spaces here were left with the intention that they would be filled in by another scribe, “the last of them might have contained some phrasing concerning Noah’s atoning for the land.” This idea does not take into account the interesting similarity of presentation of the data in a comparable manner in 4Q254a. 42 Brooke, “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D,” 236.

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COMPARATIVE STORIES OF THE ARK: BIRDS AND THE RAVEN According to versions of the deluge published in the 19th century attributed to Berossus, a 4th–3rd century BCE historian, teacher, and astronomer,43 Xisuthus sent out “birds” from the vessel at three intervals; the types of birds are not specified. The first time, they did not find any food or rest for their feet and returned to him again. After an interval of some days he sent them forth a second time, and they returned with their feet tinged with mud.44 On the third trial they did not come back, and Xisuthus judged that the earth had appeared above the waters. The pattern is thus: 1) Returned; 2) Returned with mud on their feet; 3) Did not return. The dove in the biblical versions and 4Q252 reflects this pattern of behavior; the mud on the birds’ feet serving the same purpose as the dove returning with the “plucked olive leaf” (MT Gen 8:11b, so 4Q252 i 16b) or, “an olive leaf, a dry twig”45 in its mouth (LXX Gen 8:11b) to inform Noah that the waters were receding. In the retelling by Josephus, the raven is the first bird to be sent out and appears to have returned just once without a time delay.46 Josephus does not have a time gap of seven days between the raven’s flight and the first flight of the dove, but a seven-day gap between the dove’s first flight and its return with marks of clay and an olive branch in its mouth.47 Josephus cites Berossus as stating that a part of the vessel still remains in Armenia, in the 43 Verbrugghe and Wickersham, Berossus and Manetho, 14–15; Müller Fragmente Historicum Graecorum (FHG), frags 1–25. The Berossos tradition was preserved by Alexander Polyhistor (c. 65 BCE), Abydenus (2 nd or 3rd century CE), Eusebius, Bishop of Caesaria (c. 260–340 CE), and George Syncellus, Chronological Excerpts, 39–40 (Adler and Tuffin, The Chonography of George Synkellos, 52–53). 44 Smith reprinted “The Chaldean Account of the Deluge,” in The Flood Myth, 29–48, at p. 43 cited from I. P. Cory’s Ancient Fragments, 26–29. The birds (undistinguished) narrative comes from Abydenus preserved in Eusebius, Chronicle 10 (online, checked 2012); also Syncellus, Chron, 39 (Adler and Tuffin, The Chonography of George Synkellos, 52–53). 45 Translation, Hiebert, Genesis, 10. 46 Josephus, Ant. I. 91 (trans Thackeray, 42–45). 47 Josephus, Ant. I. 91–92. (LXX Gen 8: 11c)., Thackeray, 44–45 note b; Müller, FHG, ii 501. So Syncellus, Chron. 53–56, Eusebius, Chron. (Polyhistor) 7 and (Abydenos) 10. The mud is absent from the account of the birds in Philo, Questions on Genesis II: 35–42 (trans. Marcus, 114–119).

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mountains of the Cordyeans, and that people come to scrape bits of the pitch to use as healing amulets.48 Similar reports are also witnessed in non-biblical ancient sources.49 In another account of the deluge attributed to Berossus,50 the three birds, in order of being sent out, are: the dove, the swallow, and the raven (the same order as those in Gilgameš, below). The dove returned because she could not find a resting place; the swallow also came back; then the raven was sent out but began feeding on corpses floating on the water, wandered away, and did not return. An early Christian version of the deluge reflects a merging of a putative Babylonian-Greek tradition with influences from the Hebrew Bible. In it, the crow found corpses, does not return, and the dove is sent out to find him. In this Gnostic text translated by Minov, Nu [Noah] sends out the crow first, and the dove brings back an olive branch: The crow went out and found a corpse; he ate of it and forgot what Nu had commanded him to do. So Nu, after that, sent out the dove and [thus] spoke to her: “Go see if there is calm in the world, and where the crow is that I sent out before you.” Then the dove went out and found the crow that was standing over a corpse and eating it. She saw the olive tree, on Mt Qardun, whose leaves had sprung up out of the water. The dove gathered [a little branch]51 and brought [it] to Nu, so he could know in his soul that calm has descended. Thus Noah cursed the crow and blessed the dove.52

The Gnostic text turns the narrative into a fable of the two different birds, without any specified time units. It also calls to attention the contrast in the biblical text in which the dove did not return to Noah after the waters receded, it answers what happened to the raven during its absence (a possible reading derived from the Josephus, Ant. I. 93, op.cit. Eusebius, Chron (Abydenos) 10 and (Polyhistor) 7; Syncellus, Chron, 55 (good luck charms). 50 George Smith repr. “The Chaldean Account of the Deluge,” 45–46. 51 The LXX Gen 8:11: “a dry twig”; the Armenian version of the Hebrew Bible has “dry stick,” Philo, Supplement I. Questions and Answers on Genesis (trans. Marcus, 19 note k). 52 Minov, “Noah and the Flood in Gnosticism,” 225. 48 49

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LXX tradition), and it informs us about the apparently hardy horticultural properties of the olive tree under water. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš flood narrative may be the most relevant ANE text for the stylistic features of the flood calendar and chronology of 4Q252, and the raven in 4Q254a. The Gilgameš Tablet XI 128–132 is, like 4Q252, also structured in time: the deluge lasts for six days and seven[?] nights: For six days and [seven] nights, there blew the wind, the downpour, the gale the Deluge, it flattened the land. But the seventh day when it came, the deluge ended. The ocean grew calm, that had thrashed like a woman in labour, the tempest grew still, the deluge ended.53

In a nearby pericope, in a similar chronological order, the boat runs aground on the mountain of Nimuš for seven days (Gilgameš Tablet XI 142–149).54 The formulaic poetry at this point in Gilgameš may be reflected in the counting of the two days before the ark comes to rest on the mountains of Hurarat in 4QComm Gen A (4Q252). In both texts this section has a repetitive, staccato literary style; there is a verbal rhythm whereby days are counted in pairs, unembellished, leading to a pause followed by a definitive action being performed on the final day in the series. 4QCommentary on Genesis A (4Q252) i 9–10: two days, the fourth day and the fifth day. And on the sixth day the ark came to rest on the mountains of Hurarat. Gilgameš Tablet XI 128–132 On the mountain of Nimush the boat ran aground, Mount Nimush held the boat fast, allowed it no motion. One day and a second, Mount Nimush held the boat fast, allowed it no motion, a third day and a fourth, Mount Nimush held the boat fast, allowed it no motion, a fifth day and a sixth, Mount

53 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 93. A similar motif occurs in other versions of the Flood, in segment D of MS 2855 and Ash.1923.444: “7 days, 7 nights/ the flood swept over the land/ the big boat was rocked by waves and windstorms/…” see Jacobsen, Sumerian King List, 58–59, cited in Friberg, Remarkable Collection, 239. I thank Samuel Chen for this reference. 54 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 93.

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Nimush held the boat fast, allowed it no motion. The seventh day when it came, I brought out a dove, I let it loose. 55

The day-counting at 4Q252 i 9–10 is situated at a similar point in the narrative as the enumeration of the days in Gilgameš. The pair of days of the week, Day 4 and Day 5 in 4QCommGen A, are the interim between the end of the 150 days of the swelling waters and the ark coming to rest on the mountains of Hurarat (4Q252 i 9–10). It is also apparent from the contrast between the two texts that in Genesis the biblical ark coming “to rest” ‫ ותנח התבה‬on the mountains of Ararat (Gen 8:4b) has been given a verb to echo the name of Noah (4Q252 i 10b: ‫)נחה התה‬, thereby changing the mood of the story from its ANE source. In Gilgameš, the boat has become stuck and is struggling to free itself from Mt Nimuš (Gilgameš Tablet XI, 142–146); the anthropomorphized ark is at the antithesis of rest. Interestingly, the theme of the bird or birds being unable to find a place to rest, land, or perch during the flood is a motif in the Berossus source mentioned above and in Gilgameš. The episode has been emphasized and greatly extended in the Bible (Gen 8:9) from the ANE versions of the story with the additional imagery that the dove could not find “a resting place for the palm of her foot,” (‫( )מנוח לכף רגלה‬Gen 8: 9a), a phrase, again, highlighting the verbal noun-pun on the name of Noah as “comfort.”56 There is an additional, visually iconic mirroring scene of Noah’s hand tenderly bringing in the dove (Gen 8:9c). 4Q252 i 15a preserves the verbal-noun-pun on Noah’s name (‫)מנוח‬, and does not mention the bird’s foot, nor the counter-point visual motif of Noah’s handling of the dove, presumably because they are not calendrically important. The dove’s first flight in 4Q252 i 15 bears more similarity to the description of the flights of the dove and the swallow in Gilgameš (Tablet XI 148–153), than to the scene in Gen 8:9, that is, there is no embellishment with regards to being unable to find a place to rest. 4QCommentary on Genesis A (4Q252) col i 13–16 13. [that] Noah [op]ened the window of the ark (Gen 8:6b), Day One of the week, that is, day ten

55 56

George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 93. See Elizabeth Harper’s contribution to the volume.

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HELEN R. JACOBUS 14. of the elev[enth] month. And he sent the dove (Gen 8:8a) to see whether the waters had abated (Gen 8.8b) but it did not 15. find a resting place and came back [to] the ark (Gen 8:9a). And he again waited a[nother] seven days, 16. and he sent it out again (Gen 8:10) and it came back to him and a plucked olive leaf was in its beak (Gen 8:11a).

The order of the birds in Gilgameš: dove, swallow, raven (Tablet XI 148–156) is the reverse of the biblical text, which comprises a raven first followed by three flights of the dove (Gen 8:7–12). Gilgameš Tablet XI. 148–156. Translation. The seventh day it came, I brought out a dove, I let it loose: off went the dove but then it returned, There was no place to land, so it came back to me. (XI. 150) I brought out a swallow, I let it loose; Off went to swallow but then it returned, There was no place to land, so back it came to me. I brought out a raven, I let it loose: Off went the raven, it saw the waters receding, (XI. 155) Finding food, bowing and bobbing,57 it did not come back to me. MT Genesis 8:6–8:12 8:6: …at the end of 40 days Noah opened the window of the ark 8:7: and he sent out a raven, and it went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from upon the earth 8:8: And he sent out a dove to see whether the waters had abated from off the face of the earth. 8:9: But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth… 8:10: And he waited another seven days and again he sent the dove from the ark.

57 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh, 890 (to hold the tail raised; possible jerky movement of an animal when feeding: head down, tail up); Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 114: “it ate, preened (?), lifted its tail and did not turn round.”

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8:11: and the dove returned… in her mouth a plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew the waters had decreased from upon the earth. 8:12: And he waited another seven days and he sent out the dove, and she did not return to him again.

In both 4Q252 and Gilgameš the episode is written formulaically, but in Gen 8:10, 12, as well as in 4Q252, the formula comes in the repetition of the seven days between flights within a calendar. In Gilgameš, the dove and the swallow are repeated formulaic stanzas, without a calendar. Furthermore, the flights of the birds are separate to the opening of a window in the ark in Gilgameš, an event which takes place chronologically before the boat runs aground (Tablet XI, 137). This is interesting with respect to 4Q252 i 13, where Noah opens the window of the ark and the raven is not mentioned at this juncture and nor does it appear at all. If the author of the 4Q252 deluge calendar did not associate the opening of the window of the ark with same day as the flight of the raven because of his familiarity with an ANE version of this story, this could be another explanation for the bird’s absence. As said, in the biblical versions the raven has no role to play in the calendar (Gen 8:7), it is actually unclear whether it is sent out on the same day that Noah opens the window of the ark (Gen 8:6), and if the first flight of the dove also takes place on the same day (Gen 8:8). Furthermore, it is not explicit whether the dove returns on that day or another day, finding no rest for the palm of her foot (Gen 8:9). The raven is given a completely different story in Gilgameš to the dove and the swallow: it never returns from his flight because he sees the water recedes, and it reacts in a series of three movements, possibly connected with the eating quickly that describe its physical character (Tablet XI. 155–156). The Gilgameš raven appears in the story just once, like the other birds. The time period is unclear: the dove is released on the seventh day that the boat is grounded (Tablet XI.147–148), but when are the swallow and raven sent out? The ambiguous spacing out of seven days in Gen 8:7–8 would seem like a faithful following of the ambiguity in Gilgameš (XI. 148–156), and the non-return of the raven in Gilgameš XI.155 seems to be echoed in MT Gen 8:7 and LXX Gen 8:7 in their different ways, and resolved eschatologically in 4Q254a. The raven in 4Q254a 3 4 also performs three actions (it went, it returns, it tells), but rather than being purely descriptive of its animal qualities, this raven is serving a literary function. It exegetes Noah’s going forth from the ark in Gen 8:18a, and its ability to

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speak, telling the “Last Generations” in 4Q254a 3 4b, is laden with Second Temple social-anthropomorphism. It is a crescendo, a finale, a powerful completion to the flood story, and it also fits the nature of the bird: its noisiness. In sum, traditions of the story from the ANE are more interested in the raven than are the biblical texts (and 4Q252 which omits it). In the ANE sources, the raven does not return; early Christian texts also favor a non-returning raven. The biblical tradition in the MT version, the LXX, and 4Q254a seem to have introduced the principle of a raven that does, in fact, come back. When surveying the comparative material, it is striking to realize that there is no need for the raven to return at all after the earth dried (the biblical dove did not come back). 4Q254a in its exegesis has given the eschatological raven a reason to return, thereby, perhaps, adding a Second Temple theological thread to Gen 8:7 in both the MT version and LXX story. This missing narrative, of where the raven went is, interestingly, dealt with in non-biblical stories. The plucked olive leaf brought by the dove on her second return home (MT Gen 8:11: also, “dry twig,” LXX Gen 8:11) may be originally biblical, an alternative to the tradition of the muddy feet of birds, in the putative Berossus narrative. 4Q254a gives the black bird an important purpose, despite its being an unclean animal. The principle of a sequence of birds’ reconnaissance flights in different ancient sources seems to be iconic. The 15th and 16th days of the seventh month (Days 4 and 5 of the week) in 4Q252 i 9–10 suggests that the composer of the Qumran text may have been influenced by the literary style of a similar section of the Gilgameš tradition, whether directly or indirectly, separately from the Hebrew or Greek bibles. Similarly the raven, as the last bird who is sent out and who performs a series of three actions in 4Q254a echoes the final position in the sequence of flights, and the energy of the raven in Gilgameš. Its actions in the Dead Sea Scrolls have no precedent in the biblical flood narratives. To conclude, the 4Q252 flood calendar provides tantalizing didactic riddles while also clarifying ambiguities in the chronology of the MT/SP deluge. The Gilgameš tradition does not connect the flight of the birds with the opening of the window. The raven returns in the LXX when the earth is dry. It plays no further part in the story until it comes back to Noah. It is unclear whether the raven in the MT/SP remains with Noah after the waters dried. 4QCommentary on Genesis A clarifies the ambiguity of whether the dove was first sent out when Noah opened the window in Gen 8:8

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by the use of an ascribed calendar date and it describes the Genesis dove’s flights in terms of their given calendar dates. There appears to be no need of the raven in the 4Q252 deluge chronology because the biblical text does not mark any time periods for the raven; the bird has no calendrical function, therefore it has no place in the 4Q252 dating system. Furthermore, given that the position of Gen 8:7 in the biblical chronology is uncertain, the raven, as a datum point, rather than as a dramatic character, could be discarded. The raven returns in 4Q254a, echoing the LXX tradition. Here, the scribe creatively exegetes the story in a similar way to that of the pešarim, and he introduces an ideological addition to the text that reflects the physicality of the Gilgameš raven. Due to the raven’s importance in all related texts it seems unlikely that the bird was accidentally overlooked in 4Q252. This analysis also suggested that the chronology of the flood in the LXX may be based on a lunar calendar of 27-day months; that theory is explored arithmetically and textually elsewhere. It is possible that the intricately detailed 4Q252 deluge chronology may help us to piece together various backgrounds behind different biblical flood calendars. The ambiguities involving the flights of birds, the opening of the window, and the time period between the end of the swelling waters and the ark coming to rest in the biblical narratives may reflect ANE traditions of the flood chronology that have been transmitted in the 4Q252 calendar. It would seem that there were cross-cultural influences in the different biblical flood chronologies in the related narratives in the 4Q252 flood chronology and 4Q254a frag 3. Thus, the author or authors of the Qumran flood narratives in 4Q252 and 4Q254a frag 3 took their inspiration and creativity from an eclectic range of literature and scientific thought, possibly transmitted from earlier periods, and wove them into an exegetical calendar.

WORKS CITED Abegg, M. G. “Commentaries on Genesis: 4Q252-254a,” Pages 352–353 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Adler, W. and P. Tuffin. The Chonography of George Synkellos: A Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Barthélémy, R. P. “Notes en marge de publications recéntes sur les manuscrits de Qumrân.” Revue Biblique 59 (1952): 199–203. Beckwith, Roger T. “The significance of the 364-day calendar for the Old Testament canon.” Pages 69–82 in L’église des deux

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Alliances: Mémorial Annie Jaubert (1912-1980). Edited by B. Lourié, A. Orlov and M. Petit. Christian Orient and its Jewish Heritage 1. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2008. Bernstein, M. “Noah and the Flood at Qumran,” Pages 199–231 in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by D.E. Parry and E. Ulrich. STDJ 30. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Brooke, G. J. “The Thematic Content of 4Q252.” JQR NS 85:1–2 (1994): 33–59. Brooke, G. J. “4Q252. Commentary on Genesis A.” Pages 185– 207, pl. 12–13 in Qumran Cave 4:XVII, Parabiblical Texts, Part 3. Edited by G. J. Brooke et al. DJD 22. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. ———. “4Q254a. 4QCommentary on Genesis D.” Pages 233– 236, pl. 16 in Qumran Cave 4:XVII, Parabiblical Texts, Part 3. Edited by G. J. Brooke et al. DJD 22. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. ———. “Some Remarks on 4Q252 and the Text of Genesis,” Textus 19 (1998): 1–25. ———. E Pluribus Unum: Textual Variety and Definitive Interpretation in the Qumran Scrolls. Pages 107–122 in The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Historical Context. Edited by Timothy H. Lim. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. ———. “Commentary of Genesis D (4Q254a=4QCommGen D).” Pages 235–239 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Texts with English Translations. Volume 6: Pesharim, Other Commentaries and Related Documents. eds. J. H. Charlesworth and H. W. Rietz. PTSDSSP, 6b. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Collins, John J. Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. London: Routledge, 1997. Collins, M. A. The Use of Sobriquets in the Dead Sea Scrolls. LSTS 67. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Dalley, S. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Falk, D. K. The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls 8/ LSTS 63. London: T&T Clark, 2007. Friberg, J. A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. New York: Springer, 2007. García Martínez, F. and E. J. C. Tigchelaar. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. 2 Vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997–1998. George, A. The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin, 2003.

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———. The Babylonian Gilgamesh: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Hämmerly-Dupuy, D. “Assyro-Babylonian and Sumerian Flood Stories.” Pages 49–60 in The Flood Myth. Edited by A. Dundes; Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1988. Hiebert, R. J.V., trans. Genesis. Pages 1–42. A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hendel, R. S. “4Q252 and the Flood Chronology of Genesis 7–8: A Text-Critical Solution.” DSD 2.1 1995: 71–9. Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Sumerian King List. AS 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939. Jacobus, Helen R. “An Analysis of Noah’s Calendar Traditions in 4QCommentary A (4Q252) and the Septuagint.” In a View from a Bridge. In Honour of Annie Jaubert (1912–1980) II. Edited by B. Laurié et al. [forthcoming] Jaubert, A. “Le calendrier des Jubilés et de la secte de Qumrân. Ses origines bibliques,” VT 3 (1953): 250–64. ———. “La date de la dernière cène,” Revue de histoire des religions 146 (1954): 140–73. ———. “Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine.” VT 7 (1957): 35–61. ———. La date de la cène: calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne. Paris: Gabalda, 1957. ———. The Date of the Last Supper. Trans. I. Rafferty. Staten Island, NY: Alba, 1965. Lim, T. H. “The Chronology of the Flood Story in a Qumran Text (4Q252).” JSS 43 (1992): 288–98. Lim, T. H. Pesharim. Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls 3. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. Marcus R., trans. Philo, Supplement I. Questions and Answers on Genesis. LCL. London: Heinemann, 1953. Minov, S. “Noah and the Flood in Gnosticism.” Pages 215–236 in Noah and His Book(s). Edited by M. E. Stone, A. Amihay and V. Hillel. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Müller, K. Fragmente Historicum Graecorum (FHG) 2. Paris: Didot, 1841–1870. Peters, D. M. Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity. SBLEJL 26; Leiden: Brill, 2009. Smith, G. “The Chaldean Account of the Deluge,” 1873. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 2: 213– 234, pages 29–48 in The Flood Myth, cited from I. P. Cory’s

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Ancient Fragments, “26–29.” Edited by A. Dundes; Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1988. St. J. Thackeray, H., trans. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews. LCL. London: Heinemann, 1958. Stegemann, H. The Library at Qumran. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Steudel, A. “‫ אחרים הימים‬in the Texts from Qumran.” RevQ 16 (1973): 225–46. ———. “The Development of Essenic Eschatology: Introduction and Methodological Questions.” Pages 79–86 in Apocalyptic Time. Edited by A. I. Baumgarten. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Talmon, S., J. Ben-Dov and U. Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4: XVI. Calendrical Texts. DJD 36. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2001. Trafton, J. L. “Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252= 4QCommGenA=4QPBless).” Pages 203–219 in Hebrew and Aramaic in Greek texts with English Translations., Vol. 6B, Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents. Edited by J. H. Charlesworth et al. Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Verbrugghe, G. P. and J. M. Wickersham, Berossus and Manetho Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Vermes, Geza. The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. London: Penguin, 1998. Wenham, G. J. “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative.” VT 28 (1978): 336–348.

“WOVEN OF REEDS”: GENESIS 6:14B AS EVIDENCE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE REED-HUT URHEILIGTUM IN THE BIBLICAL FLOOD NARRATIVE JASON MICHAEL MCCANN TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN ABSTRACT This essay is set within the wider framework of a thesis that the image of the ark of gopher wood is to be understood as a mythological re-presentation of the Jerusalem temple. The objective of the present article therefore is to explore a single piece of literary evidence which shall, in an accumulative manner, assist in the substantiation of the whole. By a thorough examination of the translation of ‫( קנים‬Gen 6:14b) it shall be shown that its somewhat anomalous rendering as “rooms” or “compartments” betrays an ancient error in translation. Such an inaccuracy is most likely due to the gradual loss of the mythological presuppositions of the author. Consequently this work shall survey both the traditions of translation and the mythological background of the biblical flood narrative in order to demonstrate that the primordial reed hut temple of Mesopotamian tradition is preserved in the Genesis account. The presence of which shall be shown to be evinced in the ‫ קנים‬vocabulary.

INTRODUCTION The flood myth accounts preserved in the Mesopotamian Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs contain the closest narrative parallels to the 113

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flood myth recorded in the biblical book of Genesis. As is the case in the biblical version, in both Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs it is a god who acts to warn humanity of an impending calamity by delivering word to the flood-hero, Ūta-na’ištim and Atraḫasīs respectively, instructing them to build a boat for the preservation of life.1 There is, to be sure, little doubt that the Gen 6–9 redaction was both aware of these antecedent traditions and utilized them for source material. Detailed and thematically full productions of this flood myth are attested to early in the recorded history of Mesopotamia, suggesting a long oral tradition of the same prior to the development of writing. Sumerian versions of the Epic of Gilgameš date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (2100– 2000 BCE) and the most ancient Akkadian texts date to c. 2000– 1500 BCE. Whilst the five Sumerian texts reference the journey of Gilgameš to Ūta-na’ištim, they lack any explicit inclusion of it; colophonic details date the Babylonian version of Atraḫasīs to the reign of Ammi-saduqa (1702–1682 BCE), but fragments of the myth have been dated to the OB period. It is probable that the flood account preserved in the Epic of Gilgameš was reproduced verbatim from a, now lost, intermediary version of Atraḫasīs.2 Subsequent editorial alterations are therefore likely to have produced the epic in its present arrangement. The intention of this present work is to identify a specific mytheme package, composed of meaning-bearing bundles, which was presupposed by the authors of the earlier written myths (the Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs) and demonstrate that the same is preserved in the biblical flood narrative. In order to achieve this end the elements of this heretofore hypothetical package shall be identified in ancient cultural contexts across the geographical spread of the Neolithic farming revolution, and reaching in time from that period, through the development of ANE city state cultures, to the present via the myths and tribal customs. By exploring the parallels between the Genesis account and the Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs this essay will show that the Neolithic Gilgamesh XI:1 and Atraḫasīs III:1. Cf. Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 30, 110. 2 Tigay, Evolution of the Epic, 238–239. 1

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myth package is preserved in its entirety in the biblical version of the deluge myth.

IDENTIFYING THE NEOLITHIC PACKAGE Mesopotamian flood myth traditions are unanimous and specific with regard to the locus of the divine theophany warning the floodhero of the gods’ decision to destroy mankind. On tablet III of the Atraḫasīs myth the protagonist is warned in a dream of the gods’ pronouncement to destroy the land with a flood at a reed-hut. One must assume this reed-hut to be a temple, an assumption supported by Leo Oppenheim.3 In like manner Ūta-na’ištim in the Gilgameš Epic performs the priestly function of slaughtering oxen and offering daily ovine sacrifice.4 He is also located at the reed-hut temple at the moment of theophany, and within the text he is explicitly identified with Atraḫasīs in the address of Ea to Ellil.5 Each epic situates the event of divine communication and cataclysm at the antediluvian reed-hut temple, the Urheiligtum (primaeval shrine) wherein the hero has a sacerdotal function. Gilgameš XI recounts: Far-sighted Ea swore the oath (of secrecy) with them, so he repeated their speech to a reed hut, ‘reed hut, reed hut, brick wall, brick wall, listen, reed hut, and pay attention, brick wall: Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubara-Tatu, dismantle your house, build a boat.’6

Likewise the counterpart of this monologue in the Atraḫasīs myth has the god Enki communicate the warning to his servant Atraḫasīs. This is done by means of the reed-hut temple which apparently functions as the vehicle, through which the voice of the deity reaches the flood-hero: Make sure you attend to the message I shall tell you! Wall, listen constantly to me! Reed hut, make sure you attend to all Oppenheim, “The Mesopotamian Temple,” 158–168. Gilgamesh XI. ii. 5 Gilgamesh XI. iv. 6 Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 110. 3 4

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JASON MICHAEL MCCANN my words! Dismantle the house, build a boat, reject possessions, and save living things.7

Identical loci of the theophany and the cataclysm in both of these accounts are neither incidental nor indicative of element duplication. Rather the retention of the reed-hut Urheiligtum is an essential ingredient within a mythological package which, by the Late Neolithic, as shall be seen below, had spread along the latitude of the agricultural zone of settlement from Central Africa to India. It cannot now be known with exactitude when the fusion of the flood myth and the primaeval shrine occurred, but that its product is evident in Gilgameš XI and Atraḫasīs III indicates that the two elements are components of a single myth package. Without any ostensible associations with the flood myth (discussed in relation to the Neolithic package below) the earliest references to the reed-hut in Mesopotamia are found represented in stone bas-relief. One such example from Tutub (Tell Khafajah), now housed at the National Museum of Iraq, is a basin-shaped vessel of green hard-stone decorated with a relief of bulls and reed-temples.8 Such iconography is interesting in that Marduk (whose name in Akkadian means “the young or solar bull” and who is the Chaoskampf hero of the Enûma Eliš) vanquishes the chaos-sea monster, Tiamat, and after standing upon her corpse establishes his temple—the primaeval shrine. An early Sumerian (c.2500 BCE) depiction of the sacred calf, described as the “lunar bull” by Joseph Campbell,9 has the beast smiling benignly from its anthropomorphized face while stepping, with its right foreleg, on a small mound. The mound, representative of the sacred mountain or the ομφαλος (the umbilical cord between heaven and earth),10 is known from a multitude of texts, including the aforementioned Babylonian Enûma Eliš, to symbolize the body Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 29–30. Image numbers 363 and 364 (IM 24361): http://bagdad.iam.pl/ en/site/iraq_national_museum_objects/sumerian,page=4&step=25 (accessed December 2nd 2011). 9 Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 54. 10 Fontenrose, Python, 109. 7 8

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of the slain mother-goddess.11 By way of an excursus on the psychoanalytical work of Otto Rank,12 Campbell describes how in the course of the development of urbanization and the ideology of kingship the transformation of the placid lunar deity into the warrior solar god would have better suited the ambitions of kings and the urban elite. Thus the very image of this transformed lunar bull is adopted in the presentation of Marduk and his victory, as solar bull, over the mother-goddess, He shot an arrow which pierced her belly, split her down the middle and split her heart, vanquished her and extinguished her life. He threw down her corpse and stood on top of her. 13

With consideration to the aforementioned myth package of flood and primaeval shrine, and in consideration of the present argument, the sacred bull too must be enumerated as an integral component of this set. Albeit more serene, the Egyptian creation myth of Amun bears out this flood, bull, and shrine complex in theme and in detail. According to this myth the autogenic creator Amun, also frequently represented by the bull, rises from Nu, the chaotic watery deep.14 Not finding a suitable place to rest his feet the god Amun forms the primordial earth mound upon which he erects his seh. Discussing the adoption of Mesopotamian temple architecture in First Dynasty Egypt, Barry J. Kemp describes the seh (or “tent-shrine”) as “the architecture of temporary structures built of wooden frames covered partially or wholly with plain wooden panels or with sheets of woven matting or bound reeds.”15 His inference of contact between Egypt and Mesopotamia during the Gerzean culture (Negada II period, 3500–3200 BCE), for which there is a growing corpus of evidence, supports the argument that this myth package was shared between these two areas at least as early as the Late Neolithic and therefore prior to the development of writing. Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 54. See: Rank, Der Mythus. 13 Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 253. 14 Johnston, “Genesis 1 and Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths,” 182. 15 Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 144. 11 12

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Kemp concludes (in agreement with Oppenheim’s conclusions regarding the development of the temple in Mesopotamia)16 that even as the materials and construction of Egyptian temple architecture became more sophisticated the temple, even as late as the Ptolemaic period, was imagined as a stone reincarnation of the simple reed-hut.17 At the heart of this conservatism lies what is identified as the Egyptian fixation on the ideal type. To better illustrate the strength of this desire to imitate or reproduce the ideal one need only examine the proliferation of rustic and agricultural representations of the afterlife in tomb decoration within urban contexts. The same may be said for the preservation of less practical forms of hieroglyphic scripts for cultic and court use. With regard to the preservation of the ideal in the Egyptian ideology of the temple Kemp points to a number of examples, stretching over the history of Egypt, to demonstrate the tenacity of this tradition. Progressing from the earliest (First Dynasty) examples of the reed-woven seh, he sites numerous votive representations and the famous Old Kingdom examples to be found on Khufu’s funerary boat and in Queen Hetep-heres’ tent.18 Drawing attention to the peculiarity of the reed-hut temple early in Egypt’s dynastic period he points out that brick architecture was, by the First Dynasty, already well established. Kemp’s identification of the seh incorporated into New Kingdom ritual boats is corroborated by Pearce Paul Creasman and Noreen Doyle: In some cases, the shrine encases the hull; that is, only stern and sternpost appear. These instances may represent shrines fitted with finials to give the appearance of a boat. Although excavation has revealed no examples of these boat-shaped shrines, two such finials—a matching set of stem and stern of New Kingdom date—are known.19

Due to its identical function and the fact that the hieroglyph symbolizing it was a reed-woven tent, this New Kingdom boatOppenheim, “The Mesopotamian Temple,” 158–168. Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 154. 18 Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 144. 19 Creasman and Doyle, “Overland Boat Transportation,” 17. 16 17

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shrine, or kariy, must be identified with the seh. The direct association of the “floating” kariy with the myth of the primaeval waters, fascinating as it is, is the task of another article. Even when Egyptian temple architecture progressed, as with the kariy, the permanent stone-built temple maintained its seh hieroglyphic representation. Not only did the temple preserve its ideal in writing, it did so also in masonry. In a description of the architecture within the temple complex at the Step Pyramid of Netjerikhet (Djoser), Kemp highlights three distinct styles of later temple architecture which are influenced by the ideal of the reed-shrine. Each of these styles (distributed between more than twenty-six separate temples) incorporates the reed-hut motif in one form or another. The most frequent example is the carving in stone of bundles of reeds, reedmatting and tied reed ends intended to evoke the architecture of the reed shrine. Some temples reduce the tied-reed motif to a pictorial representation known as the kheker-frieze. One late example, “Temple T,” dating to the Twenty-fifth or Nubian Dynasty (c. 747–656 BCE), has an encircling façade which mimics the appearance of the reed shrine in stone with the corners marked with stone-carved reed bundles topped with the kheker-frieze.20 Contemporaneous with Temple T is the mausoleum of Amenirdis I, the god’s wife of Amun, at Medinet-Habu, where the innermost ναός (a tent-shrine encased in a stone shrine) was known as the sehnetjer (“the tent of god”). Moreover, this architectural appeal to the ideal type is present at the end of Pharaonic Egyptian history in the Ptolemaic period. For two reasons there is a marked emphasis in the reed-woven ideal type at this time. Firstly, Ptolemaic Greek interlopers were keen to legitimize their right to rule by arrogating the most archaic traditions of Egypt. Also, Ptolemaic Egypt was in the midst of a Kulturkampf, wherein the religious establishment of Egypt perceived a serious threat to its traditions and, following the principle that ideology arises from conflict of ideology, sought to bolster its influence by appealing to the ideal type. A consequence of this dynamic is witnessed in the architecture and texts of the temple of

20

Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 148–151.

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Horus at Edfu (273 BCE).21 In form, there is a clear attempt to present the structure as a stone replica of the tent-shrine whilst the temple texts on the interior walls link the edifice with the original reed-hut temple which was situated in myth at the “seat of the first occasion.”22 Again this is an allusion to Amun’s creation of the earth mound from Nu and the foundation of the primaeval shrine or Urheiligtum. Along with the temple text’s self-referential use of seh these buildings were representations of the ideal: It helps to reinforce the view that these primaeval buildings were seen as the timber and reed constructions of which the Ptolemaic Edfu temple was a reincarnation in stone. 23

SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE OF REEDS As naturally occurring materials, it is beyond doubt that the earliest settled human communities utilized timber and reed for the construction of domestic and animal dwellings. Yet it is clear from the myths and the evidence of modern archaeology that the image of the most basic shelter became an icon of the primaeval shrine. The Nkoya of modern Zambia (a people who understand their remote origins to have been within the southern Ancient Egyptian sphere of influence in the Sudan) retain in their sacred architecture a traditional meme relating to the reed-temple which echoes that present in the Mesopotamian and Egyptian myths. Wim van Binsbergen, after careful examination of the mythological parallels between the ANE and sub-Saharan Africa, proposes an “Aggregative Diachronic Model” of myth diffusion. This model sees the possibility of a “Pandora’s Box” (a proto-myth package) of a few basic mythological themes that were diffused out of central Africa into Asia. Here they underwent further development in the context of agrarian and early city-state civilization, before returning,

For the inscriptions at Edfu see Brugsch, Thesaurus Inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum, I. For the most accepted chronology for that period, see von Beckerath. Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten. 22 Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 153. 23 Kemp, Ancient Egypt, 154. 21

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by the same process of myth diffusion, to central Africa.24 In setting out the parallels between the myths of the Nkoya and Ancient Eurasia it becomes apparent that something rather closely resembling the Egyptian and Mesopotamian flood myth and the bull and shrine complex are present in the mythologies of the Nkoya and other cultures throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The spread of the bull and shrine complex to the Nkoya is suggested by their oral traditions, their ceremonial reed-woven architecture and their traditional reed mat. Van Binsbergen rejects the assumption that this mat was a mere item of bedding. Instead he argues, on the basis of the Ancient Egyptian custom of reed-mat burial, that this Nkoya reed mat was more likely a movable shrine containing the relics of tribal ancestors. This possibility of a portable reed-mat shrine more closely relates the mythic practice of the Nkoya with the cultic seh of Egypt. Further supporting the idea of myth diffusion from the ANE into central Africa is the presence of the divine address to the sacred bark in the mythology of the Nkoya. It is Van Binsbergen himself who draws the close comparison between the oral traditions of the Nkoya in the Likotalya Bankoya25 and the above quoted Mesopotamian mythic accounts of the theophany at the reed-hut temple. According to the Likotalya Bankoya the Humbu26 sought to destroy the Sheta (the ancestors of the Nkoya). The last remaining Sheta people, the brothers Luhamba and Katete, are hidden by the Mbunze people in a bark container and a reed-mat respectively. Their lives are spared when the Mbunze say to the pursuing Humbu,

van Binsbergen, “Further Steps Towards an Aggregative Diachronic Approach.” 25 These oral traditions were first collected and written down by the first Christian missionaries among the Nkoya. They were edited into their present format by Win van Binsbergen in 1988. See: van Binsbergen, Tears of Rain, 68f. 26 The Humbu are a people who live a few hundred kilometres north of the Nkoya in the Congo-Zambezi. The chief of the Humbu bears the hereditary title, Mwaat Yaamv (“Lord of Death”). 24

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JASON MICHAEL MCCANN If the bark container had been a person it would have heard, “Do you hear, bark container?” Also, if the reed mat had been a person it would have heard, “Do you hear, reed?”27

It is not until one considers the practices of the Toda tribal community of present day southern India that the symbolic significance of the reed itself comes into sharper focus. If the myths of the Nkoya in Zambia demonstrate the continuation of the bull and shrine complex on the south-western periphery of the ANE, the Toda of the isolated Indian Nilgiri plateau may represent the most easterly known diffusion of this complex. According to recent ethnographic and anthropologic research the miniscule Toda population (numbering not much more than eight hundred persons) is genetically distinct from its closest tribal neighbours in the Nilgiri hill country, and shares its closest genetic affinity with Greek Cypriots.28 The Toda people live in small hamlets, known as munds, consisting of a few arshes (reed-woven houses). Every mund has a hundi, a pen in which the community buffalo herd is kept after grazing. At some distance from the community, for reasons of ritual purity, the priest lives in a palivarsh, a reed-woven dairy temple. This is similar in design to the arsh but its construction is more strictly moderated. In spite of the absence of any oral or recorded tradition, the fact that their material culture exemplifies the bull and shrine complex, coupled with the genetic evidence of their historic relationship with the ANE, implies the reasonable inclusion of the Toda in any estimation of the spread of this Neolithic myth package. The reeds required for the construction of the Toda dairy temple (the Palivarsh), unlike those used for the common house (the Arsh), are specific and cannot be substituted by any other species of grass or reed. This is noted by Biley E. Menon and Chitra Biley in their survey of Toda architecture: Unlike the huts, the materials and techniques used for the temple are strictly irreplaceable and for this reason even the 27

Likota Iya Bankoya 7:1–4. See Shimunika, Likota Iya Bankoya, 21–

28

Vishwanathan et al. “Insertions/Deletions Polymorphism,” 873–

2. 887.

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grass and reeds used for its construction are specific species from different parts of Nilgiri Biospehere. The wooden façade is replaced by a stone façade with sacred motifs in the case of the temple.29

This suggestion that it is the reed itself which is sacred, and not simply the reed-built structure, is supported by Michael B. Dick in his examination of the Neo-Sumerian cuneiform ritual tablet (CBS 8241) kept in the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. His comment on the third line of this temple consecration or “opening the mouth of a divine statue” text is of interest. The line in translation reads: “Pure reed, reed of the pure canebrake” is recited.

Here Dick accepts the reed, along with the tamarisk and the cedar (all three are listed in the tenth line), as an ideal symbol for this theologoumon consecrating the temple or the statue as sacred loci linking heaven and earth; “For all three had their roots in the Apsû and their heads in the heavens.”30 Taking this cultic conception of the reed as a naturalistic representation of the nexus joining heaven and earth, together with the specificity of the reed species required by Toda tradition for their cultic architecture, we are brought once again to the arguments of Oppenheim (in relation to Mesopotamia) and Kemp (in relation to Egypt). Even with the availability of more sophisticated materials and construction methods, the temple (as a re-presentation of the Urheiligtum) had to somehow embody the primaeval shrine not only in its primitive form but in its elemental fabric. Furthermore, this elemental association of the reed with the primaeval shrine was an early component of the Neolithic bull and shrine complex which spread with agriculture across a longitudinal tract identified by Jared Diamond as the “Eurasian Mediterranean Zone,”31 stretching from Egypt and North Africa in the west, Menon and Biley, “Toda Architecture; A Study.” Permission was given by Biley Menon to cite this study for academic purposes in a private email, dated March 15, 2011. 30 Dick, “A Neo-Sumerian Ritual Tablet in Philadelphia,” 279. 31 Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, 138–142. 29

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through the Near East, to north-western India in the east. That certain naturalistic mythemes (in this case the bundling of flood, mound, reed, shrine, and bull motifs in a single complex) were intimately related to and transmitted together with the technology of agriculture is a thesis borne out both by Campbell and British archaeologist Barry Cunliffe. The individual elements of these mythemes, moreover, in order to preserve their meaning as cultural memes are transmitted in packages or bundles as Claude LéviStrauss notes: The true constituent units of a myth are not the isolated relations but bundles of such relations and it is only as bundles that these relations can be put to use and combined so as to produce meaning.32

REED-HUT TEMPLE IN GENESIS It is precisely in light of these considerations that the apparent lack of the reed-hut or primaeval shrine in the Genesis flood account demands closer inspection. Genesis 6–9 preserves every constituent unit of the myth bundle present in its Mesopotamian antecedents: theophany, hero, flood, boat and primal mound, with the obvious exception of the reed-hut Urheiligtum.33 This is not to say, however, that the temple is absent per se. On the contrary, the ark in itself functions repeatedly as a type of the temple. At the divine instruction to build an ark, other than echoing the earlier Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs versions, the biblical details pertaining to its construction (Gen 6:15–16) create an immediate parallel with the description of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem (1 Kgs 6:2–10).34 Exact measurements in cubits are specified for the length, width

Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” 431. In the flood account of the Hebrew Bible (Gen 6–9) it is Elohim (Gen 6:13) or Yahweh (7:1) who is the God to speak, Noah is the floodhero who is instructed to erect an ark (6:14), and the mountains of Ararat (8:4) function as the primal mound. 34 Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 420. 32 33

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and height of both structures.35 Both structures conform to the tripartite structure typical of Late Bronze and Iron Age temples of the region, a three part division evinced even in the tent of meeting (Exod 26:33–27:19) which, along with the ark of Gen 6:14–16, is the only other construction commanded by Yahweh.36 Further, it is at the moment of leaving the ark, after the retreat of the waters, that the ark becomes the place of ritual sacrifice (Gen 8:20–21).37 Taken as a whole, these points (its evocation of the Jerusalem temple, its tripartite structure, and its being a place of sacrifice) leave little doubt that the ark was intended to be understood as a type of the temple. There is, however, no overt allusion to the reed or the reed-hut temple, central as they are to the prior transmission of this mytheme. The theophany of Gen 6, rather than to the reed-hut as in the above quoted myths of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs, is addressed to the hero directly: And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth” (Gen 6:13 NRSV).

According to Gen 6:15 the ark was to be three hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in width and thirty cubits in height, and the temple described in 1 Kgs 6:2 was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 36 Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 420. 37 In sacrificing the clean animals Noah is presented as a priest of Yahweh. This priestly function is a characteristic of the flood-hero in the Mesopotamian traditions. Atraḫasīs intercedes on behalf of the people during periods of draught and famine and at an outbreak of šuruppudisease (Atraḫasīs I.7–8). He carries the “maššakku-offering along the river pasture” and performs evening sacrifices (Atraḫasīs II.3). Similarly Gilgameš slaughters oxen and offers daily ovine sacrifice (Epic of Gilgamesh XI.2). Cf. the discussion on Noah’s offering in the essay “Somewhere Under the Rainbow” by Dermot Nestor included in this volume. 35

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Notwithstanding this modification the presence of so many shared details between the Genesis and Mesopotamian accounts all but conclusively points to a common tradition behind all three. It is therefore most surprising that the reed-hut is not to be found here where one would most expect to find it in any myth derived from this ANE bundle. Where both the Epic of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs connect the dismantling of the reed-hut with the instruction to build a boat, it is not so in Genesis, Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch (Gen 6:14 NRSV).

This apparent rejection of the reed-hut motif and the innovation of “rooms” (heretofore unattested in the flood myth tradition) by no means support the argument that the Genesis flood narrative is a unique literary invention. On the contrary it is indicative of the development of myth. Such tales mutate naturally to better suit the ideological requirements of the time and place of their retelling. In order for myths to remain relevant in constantly changing sociopolitical and historical settings it is imperative that in retaining something of their archaic authority they assume characteristics which are more prosaic and contemporary to ensure their translatability. Grant Morrison, the Scottish comic writer, known for his successful runs on Superman (2005–2008) and Batman (2006– 2009), captures this necessity for culturally relevant makeovers when he writes of the arrival of heroes in response to crisis in our present reality.38 Like the transformations in the modern superhero genre (as the mythology of modernity), the details of ancient mythology morphed in response to circumstance to meet the needs of each generation without making the complete transition from one thing to another. The bundle which gave it meaning remained intact. Thus in the biblical account the quantity of gods may be rationalized (albeit with the creation of a somewhat more capricious or schizophrenic deity) to meet the requirements of a development toward monotheism, so long as the divine element of the bundle is maintained.

38

Morrison, Supergods, xvi.

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Yet in appearing to omit the reed-hut from the myth and introducing “rooms” to the ark, the biblical account might be considered to have distinguished itself from the earlier traditions. Not only does this apparent redaction remove one of Lévi-Strauss’ meaning-bearing units, it also innovates. For if the translation of ‫ ִקנִ ים‬as “rooms” (in Gen 6:14b) is to be trusted, then a new component has been introduced, as neither the Epic of Gilgameš nor Atraḫasīs, in their highly detailed descriptions of the construction of the boat, make mention of the inclusion of rooms. There are, however, a number of problems with the biblical version (as it exists in translation) which might open a way to resolving this issue. Gilgameš XI and Atraḫasīs III contain extended narrative descriptions of the specific details of the boat’s construction. This detail is paralleled in the biblical account: This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark on its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks (Gen 6:15–16 NRSV).

Other than the obvious correlation here with the temple of Solomon in 1 Kgs 6:2–10, as mentioned above, the given quantities and specific measurements stand in sharp contrast to the unspecified number of rooms. Westermann and others have commented that the information given, with particular attention to the finishing of the roof and the absence of any quantification or location for the rooms, renders the narrative “incomprehensible” and “not sufficient to permit a detailed reconstruction.”39

DISCUSSION Taken in their totality the sections Gen 6:14 and Gen 6:15–16 appear to represent a natural division between the building materials or components of the ark and the specifications for its assembly. Such is at least alluded to in the words “This is how you are to make it,” at the beginning of the second section (Gen 6:15a). 39

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 420.

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Had this division be accepted as a working hypothesis it would cause “rooms” to be an anomaly in its present location. Any attempt to rectify this consequence by relocating the inclusion of rooms to the next section would be to simply shift the anomaly; as the rooms lack the quantification and dimensions characteristic of the elements in the second section. This instruction to include rooms in the ark is an oddity, yet it is an oddity only insofar as it is a problem in translation. By offering an alternative to this vocalization and translation of ‫ ִקנִ ים‬it may be shown that “rooms” is but the effect of a Septuagint (LXX) mistranslation, perpetuated by the Latin Vulgate (Vg) and dovetailed into the most influential vernacular translations. It may also be seen that the reed-hut motif is in fact preserved in a holophrastic manner in the Hebrew original. In order to begin such a reconstruction a closer inspection of the use of the Hebrew consonantal construct ‫ קנים‬in the Hebrew Bible is required. An examination of its use, roots and cognates throughout the Masoretic Text (MT) shall shed greater light on meaning intended by the author. Further to this a close study of the content and narrative structure of the construction of the boat in the Epic of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs will permit, by comparison, the rehabilitation in the biblical text of the reed-woven Urheiligtum, therefore completing the Neolithic bull and shrine complex. Before such a proposed reconstruction can begin it is important to outline some of the problems of translation in order to show that an alternative reading of the text is at least possible. This is to say that from the moment of its completion the final redaction of the Genesis text entered into “the stream of tradition,”40 ensuring that over the centuries it was studied and copied repeatedly along with other texts produced by its scribal culture. In the course of such a prolonged process of reproduction and translation there exists a considerable margin for inadvertent and ideological scribal corruption. The greater threat to the original or authorial intention of a text is posed by the very act of translation. This inherent danger is described by Jaroslav Pelikan in pointing the preservation of a problematic LXX translation in the New Testament (Heb 1:7): 40

Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 13.

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Because the Greek word for “messenger” of any kind was angelos and the word for “wind” could mean “spirit,” the sentence in the Psalms “He makes the winds His messengers” comes out in the Greek translation as “He makes his angels spirits.”41

It is possible then to see that translation, as interpretation, has the power to alter the intended meaning of a text. Therefore it is possible too that the anomalous inclusion of “rooms” in the ark may reflect another such problem in translation. Both the Vaticanus (fourth century CE) and Alexandrinus (fifth century CE) codices of the LXX agree in their translation of the ‫ִקנִ ים ַּת ֲע ֶׂשה‬ ‫ת־ה ֵּת ָבה‬ ַּ ‫ ֶׂא‬of Gen 6:14b to the Greek “νοςι ς ποι εις τ ν ι τ ν.” In so doing the translators of the LXX employ the noun “νοςι ς” to express the Hebrew ‫ ִקנִ ים‬, assuming this to be the same vocabulary found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible; meaning either “a brood” or “a bird’s nest.”42 This text, however, is unique in that it is the only point in the LXX where the noun νο ιά is employed in a context where the intended meaning is patently at variance with “brood” or “nests.” Moreover, the Greek provides no hint of an alternative reading, and yet in his 1851 translation of the LXX (Codex Vaticanus), Lancelot C. L. Brenton renders the text thus: Make therefore for thyself an ark of square timber, thou shalt make the ark in compartments, and thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

In his agreement with the “rooms” of the Authorized Version and in order to avoid the peculiar inclusion of “nests” in the ark it is likely that Brenton sought the clarification of the Vg, wherefrom he derives “compartments” from the Latin mansiunculas (“small dwellings”).43 Thus in order to solve the problem of “nests” the Vg Pelikan, Whose Bible Is It?, 58. See ‫ ֵּ;קן‬Ps 84:3, ‫ ִ;קנֶׂ ָך‬Jer 49:16 and ‫קנו‬:ִ Hab 2:9 43 It is important to note that the Codex Amiatinus (early eighth century CE), the earliest surviving copy of the complete Vulgate, agrees with the Clementine Vulgate in the translation of the LXX Gk νο ιας to the Latin mansiunculas. See La Bibbia Amiatina. 41 42

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has opted for a functional equivalence in its translation, therefore transmitting a secondary meaning with the intention of capturing the sense of the sentence. Faced with the same problem, it is possible that the translators of the Authorized Version came to their inclusion of “rooms” independently, but its immense influence in Western Christian history likely meant that the Vg was included among the “originall tongues” referenced in the 1611 preface. That the Vg, the Authorized Version, and Brenton were able to derive a secondary meaning from the Greek vocabulary may indicate that the proverbial baby was thrown out with the bath water. The LXX translators, themselves aware of the problem of “nests,” and possibly mindful of a prior mythological context, may have intended something more nuanced. The consonantal form ‫קנים‬, pointed ‫ ִקנִ ים‬in MT of Gen 6:14b, has to be obtained from the root ‫ ֵּקן‬if indeed it is to carry the sense of “nests.”44 In this manner the term is relatively rare in the Hebrew Bible, occurring no more than twelve times.45 Its functional translation to “rooms” in the Vg demonstrates that this use of the form is unique in the MT. In light of the fact that every other occurrence of this form in the Hebrew Bible carries the literal or figurative sense of “a bird’s nest,” it is unlikely that the Hebrew author intended the secondary meaning expressed in the mansiunculas of the Vg translation. The likelihood that the redactors of Genesis would employ the term ‫ קנים‬in such a unique and secondary manner further diminishes when one considers the frequency of more common alternatives.46 This extensive lexicon, BDB, 890. For example this can be found in its absolute form in Isa 10:14, and with suffixes in Deut 32:11. 46 A number of examples may suffice: ‫ח ֶׂדר‬, ֶׂ the intimate, interior, private rooms of the home (Prov 24:4; Isa 26:20); ‫יָ ִצ ַּיע‬, used poetically of ones “bed” or “couch” (Gen 49:4; Job 17:13) is derived from the formal “side-chamber” of a temple as in 1 Kgs 6:5, 10. Cf. “A couch or bed of wedlock or concubinage” BDB, 426–427. A less private interior “room,” “dining area” or “roof-chamber” is the ‫ע ִליָ ה‬,ֲ which functions mundanely as a familial space (1 Chr 28:11; Jer 22:13, 14) and mythologically, as in Ps 104:3, where it is the “chambers” or “storehouses” of the sky. In 44 45

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taken with the oddity of an unspecified number in an otherwise highly detailed instruction, renders the secondary sense in the Hebrew untenable. The diacritic markings are not original to the text,47 and so the naked consonantal form ‫ קנים‬may therefore be found with some frequency throughout Exodus and Ezekiel. There are a total of thirteen occurrences of ‫ קנים‬in the Torah, all of which are to be found in Exodus, save for the single occurrence in Gen 6:14b.48 Outside of the Torah there are only another five occurrences of the ‫ קנים‬construct, all of which are in Ezekiel.49 Of these eighteen incidences only the ‫ קנים‬of Ezek 2:10 can be shown not to belong to the same root as that in Gen 6:14b, and may therefore be rejected from further consideration here.50 The remaining sixteen examples are of particular interest because they are derived from the root ‫ ָקנֶׂ ה‬, “a stalk” or “a reed.” This noun is seen in its singular and absolute form (Gen 41:5, 22) in the account of Pharaoh’s dream in the Joseph narrative. These sixteen occurrences of ‫קנים‬ are powerfully reminiscent of the dismantling of the reed-hut temple and the construction of the boat in the Mesopotamian myths in that they are all occasions where the “reed” is intimately related to the measurement and construction of a sacred place. This possibility of reading the ‫ קנים‬of Gen 6:14b as an ark woven-ofreference to an enwalled and therefore secluded space is the ‫ ֵּ;צ ָלע‬a term derived from “rib,” and employed almost exclusively in Ezek 41 in the sense of “rooms encircling the temple like ribs.” More commonly there is the feminine noun, ‫ל ְׁש ָכה‬,ִ found some fourteen times in the singular and thirty one times in the plural denoting “room(s).” 47 Originally the Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants and vowel letters. The vowel pointing, known as “Tiberian vocalizations,” currently accepted for Biblical Hebrew was introduced by the Masoretes after the fifth century CE. These scholars are thought also to have standardized various dialectical differences. 48 See Exod 25:32 (1), 33 (1), 35 (4); 37:18 (1), 19 (1), 21 (4). 49 Ezek 2:10; 42:16, 17, 18, 19. 50 From the context of Ezek 2:10 it can be concluded that ‫ קנים‬in that instance is the plural form of the root ‫“( ִקינָ ה‬elegy” or “dirge”) and thus ‫( ִקינִ ים‬but read ‫)קנִ ים‬, ִ and is therefore unrelated to the ‫ ִקנִ ים‬of Gen 6:14b.

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reeds places the Genesis flood account well within the bull and shrine complex present in the Mesopotamian Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs. This ‫“( ָקנִ ים‬woven of reeds”) vocalization allows for the reading: Make yourself an ark out of resinous wood. Make it with reeds and caulk it with pitch inside and out (Gen 6:14 NJB).

Westermann emphatically refuses any such vocalization and reading on the premise that it has “No foundations, as the parallels in Gilg. XI show clearly.”51 This remains to be seen. For Westermann and other detractors it is merely incidental that the theophany occurs at the reed-hut temple. Thus, in order to show that the reed-hut is indeed present (albeit in a holophrastic sense) in the proposed ‫ ָקנִ ים‬vocalisation of Gen 6:14b it will have to be demonstrated also that there is a mythic significance in the building materials themselves. As noted above it may be reasonable to see in the elements of Gen 6:14 a list of building materials, before the ֶׂ ‫ֲע ֵּצ‬ assembly instructions of Gen 6:15–16; therefore recording ‫י־גפר‬ (“gopher wood”), ‫“( ָקנִ ים‬reeds”), and ‫“( כ ֶׂפר‬bitumen” or “pitch”) as the required materials. Rather than refusing a parallel with the Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs, as Westermann insists, such a convincing reading of the Gen 6:14 creates a tantalizingly tight parallel with the Mesopotamian flood myths. Gilgameš XI presents a list of the exact same materials, and in the same order as this reconstructed Genesis version, indicating a dependence on the latter by the former: The carpenter brought his axe, The reed-worker brought his stone, The young men [ ]52 [ ] oakum, The children carried the bitumen, The poor fetched what was needed.53 Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 420. Square brackets indicate short gaps in text due to the damage of the clay tablets. 53 Gilgameš XI.1, see Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 111. 51 52

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Despite the damage to the text on the third and fourth lines, three elements are clearly discernible: wood (inferred by the carpenter), reeds (obviated by the “reed-worker” and “his stone”), and bitumen. It is improbable that “the poor” of the final line “fetched” other, unnamed materials, as the events of the preceding lines indicate that other unskilled laborers brought the quantities of named materials required by the tradesmen. “Oakum,” a fibrous material used for caulking wooden ships, at the end of the fourth line relates the fourth line to the activity of “the children” in the fifth. This, along with the general activity of “the poor” in the sixth line, might shed light on the lost content of line three, as it appears to be creating a parallelism. “The young men” are most likely acting in an auxiliary capacity to the benefit of either the “carpenter” or the “reed-worker.” This analysis would appear to be supported by account presented in Atraḫasīs: The elders [ ] The carpenter [brought his axe,]54 The reed-worker [brought his stone,] [A child brought] bitumen. The poor [fetched what was needed.]55

Again to be found here, and in the same order, are the elements (with the same inferences) as proposed for Gen 6:14b and Gilgameš XI: wood, reeds, and bitumen. It is unlikely, considering the shared vocabulary and structure of Gilgameš XI and Atraḫasīs III, that “the elders” of the first line contributed any other material to this equation. Further to this, and with no attempt at parallelism in the Atraḫasīs account, it is unlikely that “the young men” of Gilgameš XI added anything. There can be little doubt that the ‫“( ָקנִ ים‬woven of reeds”) vocalization of Gen 6:14b places the single missing meaningbearing unit back into the bundle of the bull and shrine complex thus relating it perfectly with the Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs. This relationship, which resituates the biblical flood narrative

54 55

Text inside square brackets is restored, often from parallel versions. Atraḫasīs III.2, see Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 30.

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within the wider framework of the diffusion of the Neolithic myth package of the ANE, may be tabulated as follows: Genesis 6:14b

Gilgameš XI.1

Atraḫasīs III.2

Wood Reeds Bitumen

Wood Reeds Bitumen

Wood Reeds Bitumen

Considered thus, like a Latin square or a Sūdoku puzzle, ‫ קנים‬being vocalized ‫ ָקנִ ים‬can be well defended. The reading “woven of reeds” makes better sense within the context of mytheme development and historical diffusion. It would appear to be the case therefore that it is Westermann’s argument, keen as it is to point out the lack of correlation between the Mesopotamian myths and the biblical flood account, which itself lacks any foundation. To his refusal to accept any parallel between these two traditions it can be shown now that it may indeed be read as an ark woven of reeds in keeping with the mytheme bundle described by Lévi-Strauss. It is altogether probable that, with further research, support will be found for this reading from a naturalistic and holophrastic reading of “nests,” the most common type of which is a cup-shaped structure of twigs (in many ways synonymous with reeds), leaves, mud and feathers.56 Here it becomes entirely probable that in translating the Hebrew to “nests” the LXX intended this to function as a linguistic pointer to the earlier myth complex, a tradition vaguely understood within the context of the Ptolemaic and Persian worlds of the Greek translators and Hebrew redactors, but foreign and unknown to (or forgotten by) the Latin west.

CONCLUSION As the vocalization ‫ ִקנִ ים‬in Gen 6:14b stands in the MT it provides for the LXX translation νοςι ς (“nest”), allowing for the secondary meaning of mansiunculas (“small dwellings”) in the Latin Vg. In their search for clarification of obscure Hebrew terms, the translators of the Authorized Version and other more recent translations in the vernacular naturally followed the tradition of translation set by the 56

Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia (London, 2006), 1346.

“WOVEN OF REEDS”: GENESIS 6:14B

135

LXX and the Vulgate, so rendering ‫ ִקנִ ים‬as “rooms.” As a functional translation this reading works, as it is not incomprehensible. The acceptance of such a reading of the text, however, demands that the flood myth, as it is presented in Gen 6– 9, diverges in content from its nearest ANE cognates. Both the Epics of Gilgameš and Atraḫasīs agree that the theophany takes place at the reed-hut Urheiligtum, and that the boat was built from the reed material of the dismantled reed-hut. The effect of the “rooms” reading of Gen 6:14b is that this mytheme is wholly removed from the Genesis flood narrative with the redactors becoming both censors and innovators. By removing this element from the myth the biblical authors have apparently disjoined the Genesis text from a mytheme tradition that has its roots in prehistory, and has spread with agriculture from North Africa, through the Near East and into India. Campbell’s mytheme theory is hereby supported by the archaeological evidence that certain mythological motifs, finding their origins in the earliest farming myths, have been passed from generation to generation as memes, thus evolving in detail while tenaciously preserving their essential content. The preservation of mythemes, according to Lévi-Strauss, depends greatly on their transmission as bundles, wherein the elements may mutate in detail so long as the bundles of contents remain unchanged. A survey of the bull and shrine complex (the mytheme bundle to which the flood myth belongs) demonstrates that while from place to place, and over time, the features of the myth evolve to meet constantly shifting cultural demands, the constituent components of the bundle (which provide meaning)57 remain intact. It may be seen in the temple architecture of Ancient Egypt—from the beginning of the dynastic period to the Ptolemaic period—and in Oppenheim’s assessment that the ideal type of temple in Mesopotamia forever remained the primaeval reed-hut shrine. Certainly, the preservation of the reed-hut in Gilgameš XI and Atraḫasīs III bears this out. Where in a period when architecture had become more sophisticated the reed-hut temple plays such a crucial role in the telling of the myth. 57

Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” 431.

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The oddity of the reed-hut’s exclusion from the present vocalization of the Genesis text, especially since it is alluded to elsewhere in the Torah and the Hebrew Bible,58 calls for a closer scrutiny of the ‫ קנים‬construct. It is evident from its use in Exodus and Ezekiel that the ‫ קנים‬construct (used as “reeds” from the root ‫ ) ָקנֶׂ ה‬is inextricably linked to the fabric and measurement of sacred space—themes that are represented in Gen 6–9 as well as in its Mesopotamian antecedents. While Claus Westermann finds no parallel in the Mesopotamian mythic traditions to permit a wovenof-reads reading of the Genesis text, a closer examination of the narrative demonstrates that with the inclusion of the “reeds” element the Genesis flood account contains some surprisingly tight parallels with the elements of the Mesopotamian narratives. It can be seen that not only is this reed an essential ingredient in the construction of the ark, but that it contains the same list of building materials, and in the same order as they are listed in Gilgameš XI and Atraḫasīs III. It must then be concluded that this possible reading of Gen 6:14b was not simply a happy coincidence, but was in fact the intended purpose of the author and redactor. The fact that the reed-hut is referenced in such a fuzzy and incidental fashion merely demonstrates the familiarity with which the intended readership had with this mytheme. As an essential and meaning-bearing unit of the flood narrative bundle there was no need, in the mind of the author, to draw attention to it. Thus in its translation into linguistic groups wherein the mytheme package was either forgotten or alien it is quite likely that it would have been corrupted in the process of translation. The likelihood of such a corruption is only increased with the availability of similar Hebrew consonantal constructs. What then does this mean for the contemporary reader of the biblical texts? To begin with it demonstrates firmly that the text in question was produced within a continuum of mythic memory that Reed is a significant component in the rescue story of the infant Moses (Exod 2:3), and the entire bull and shrine package is referenced in the event of Gideon’s destruction of his father’s altar of Baal (Judg 6:25– 27); where Yahweh is the deified bull, and the reed (as the nexus between heaven and earth) is represented by the Asherah pole. 58

“WOVEN OF REEDS”: GENESIS 6:14B

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connected the scribal traditions within Jerusalem and Persian period Yehud to a line of transmission reaching back to the prehistoric Ur-myths. Not only in terms of time does this link the biblical texts to the process of development and diffusion, but also to place and geographical spread. Elements of this same myth package can be seen in various stages of development along the Near East: from India, through Mesopotamia, the Levant and on to Egypt. It has been shown also how fragments of this bull and shrine complex, with the attendant sacredness of the reed and the reed-hut shrine, reached south along the Nile and were carried into sub-Saharan Africa by various people groups who have preserved this complex in their oral and cultural traditions. Moreover, it can be shown that the complexity to which this myth bundle developed in Genesis was a result of similar changes to the basic bundle in the neighbouring regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. By a prolonged process of emulation, innovation and ideological conflict the scribal redactors of the biblical tests gave life to their own mythic and cultic identity in the formation of the Torah and the Hebrew scribal traditions. One obvious outcome of this is that the biblical texts must be considered as part of a wider whole; the recorded story of human civilization, within the zone of diffusion, from incipient farming communities to sophisticated city states and empires.

WORKS CITED Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907. Brugsch, H. Thesaurus Inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum, Vol. I: Astronomische und astrologische Inschriften altaegyptischer Denkmäler. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1883. Campbell, Joseph. Primitive Mythology. The Masks of God. London: Souvenir Press, 1969. Reprinted 2000. ————. Occidental Mythology. The Masks of God. London: Souvenir Press, 1964. Reprinted 2001. Cotter, David W. Genesis. BeritOlam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003. Creasman, Pearse Paul, and Doyle, Noreen. “Overland Boat Transporatation during the Pharaonic Period: Archaeology and Iconography.” JAEI 2 (2010): 14–30.

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Cunliffe, Barry. Europe Between the Oceans 9000 BC–AD 1000. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Dalley, Stephanie. Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and Others. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Rev. ed., 2000. Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 years. London: Vintage Books, 1998. Dick, Michael B. “A Neo-Sumerian Ritual Tablet in Philadelphia.” JNES 64, no. 4 (2005): 271–280. Ellwood, Robert. Myth. Key Concepts in Religion. London: Continuum, 2008. Fontenrose, Joseph E. Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and its Origins. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959. Gates, Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. London: Routledge, 2003. Johnston, Gordon H. “Genesis 1 and Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths.” Bibliotheca Sacra 165 (2008): 178–94. Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge, 2007. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, “The Structural Study of Myth.” JAF 68, no. 270 (1955): 428–444. Luigi, G. G., et al, eds. La Bibbia Amiatina / “The Codex Amiatinus.” Riproduzione integrale su CD-Rom del manoscritto / Complete Reproduction on CD-Rom of the Manuscript Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Amiatino I, SISMEL. Florence: Edizione del Galluzzo, 2000. Menon, Biley E. and Biley, Chitra. “Toda Architecture: A Study Trip to the Nilgiris.” Idea Design. http://ideadesign.org/ wp-content/uploads/2011/12/TODA-ARCHITECTUREA-Study-by-Biley-Chitra.pdf Morrison, Grant. Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero. London: Random House, 2011. Oppenheim, Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Rev. Ed. Completed by Erica Reiner. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977. Oppenheim, Leo. “The Mesopotamian Temple.” Pages 158–168 in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, Vol. 1. Edited by G. Ernest Wright. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1977.

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Pelikan, Jaroslav. Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scriptures though the Ages. London: Pelican Books, 2006. Rank, Otto. Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden. 2nd edition. Leipzig: Franz DeutickeVerlag, 1922. Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. London: Penguin Books, 1964. Reprinted 1980. Shimunika, Johasaphat Malasha. Likota Iya Bankoya. Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1988. Tigay, Jeffrey H. The Evolution of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Van Binsbergen, Wim. “Further Steps towards an Aggregative Diachronic Approach to World Mythology, Starting from the African Continent.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Comparative Mythology, Beijing, The People’s Republic of China, May 10–14, 2006. ————. Tears of Rain: Ethnicity and History in Central Western Zambia. London: Kegan Paul, 1992. Van De Mieroop, Marc. A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Van Der Toorn, Karel. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Vishwanathan, H. et al. “Insertions/Deletions Polymorphism in Tribal Populations of Southern India and their Possible Evolutionary Implications.” Human Biology 75, no. 6 (2003): 873–887. von Beckerath, J. Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten. Münchner ägyptologische Studien 46. Mainz: Von Zabern, 1997. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1–11. Translated by John J. Scullion SJ. Continental Commentaries. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994.

MAJOR LITERARY TRADITIONS INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF MESOPOTAMIAN FLOOD TRADITIONS* Y. S. CHEN WOLFSON COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ABSTRACT With ample relevant textual sources in diverse genres coming from different historical periods, Mesopotamian Flood traditions are ideal for literary-historical research. This article traces the evolutionary trajectories of several major strands of Mesopotamian literary traditions, some of which have been largely overlooked in previous scholarship, in order to examine how they contributed to and were in turn shaped by the Flood traditions. This article reveals the continuities and changes brought about by the Flood I would like to acknowledge Wolfson College, University of Oxford, for providing a fellowship for me to conduct research. Unless stated otherwise, citations of Sumerian sources follow The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk. Citations of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic and its recensions are based on Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Citations of different versions of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic are based on George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (vol. 1; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). The abbreviations used in this article follow the conventions set forth on the website (see under abbreviations) of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI): http://cdli.ucla.edu. Transliteration of cuneiform signs follows the CDLI preferred sign readings. *

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Y. S. CHEN traditions in Mesopotamian literary history. It also uncovers important mechanisms and procedures through which the Flood traditions were produced. Most importantly, this article is intended to show that literaryhistorical research on the Flood traditions needs to be conducted in the larger context of Mesopotamian literary history and production. The frequent convergence and interaction between the Flood traditions and other major literary traditions during the course of their composition and transmission suggest that one cannot tackle the history of the Flood traditions without grappling with the history of the related traditions.

INTRODUCTION While interpretative and theological studies explore the meaning and use of biblical and Mesopotamian traditions concerning the primaeval flood catastrophe (or the Flood),1 literary-historical studies investigate the process through which the traditions emerged and evolved in biblical Israel and ancient Mesopotamia. Such investigation helps uncover the source materials used and the conceptual and literary mechanisms involved in the composition and transmission history of the traditions. Moreover, the investigation helps situate the Flood traditions within the larger context of literary history and production in the ANE world. In biblical studies, literary-historical investigation on the biblical Flood traditions is conducted principally through critical analysis of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis in order to identify the earlier sources embedded in the biblical text and to ascertain the historical relationship between these sources and how they were redacted into the canonical form.2 A number of studies also attempt to compare the biblical sources with a few Mesopotamian sources in order to elucidate the historical This article uses “flood” in a generic sense, while reserving “Flood” for the specialized meaning “the primaeval flood catastrophe.” 2 E.g., McEvenue, The Narrative Style; Westermann, Genesis; Lohfink, “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichte,” 183–225; Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis. 1

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relationship between the two groups of sources and the larger cultural milieu in which the biblical sources developed.3 Literary-historical research on Mesopotamian Flood traditions is facilitated by an increasing number of relevant textual sources. With ample relevant textual sources in diverse genres coming from different historical periods—from the early part of the OB period (ca. 2000–1600 BCE) to the Hellenistic period (ca. 330–141 BCE), the Flood traditions are one of the best documented cases for literary-historical research in Assyriology. Given that there are a number of major literary sources involved in the development of the Flood traditions, it is expected that a literary-historical study will help not only unravel the development of these traditions, but also shed light on Mesopotamian literary history in general.4 However, most literary-historical studies on the Flood traditions in Assyriology tend to focus on a few narrative and chronographic sources, such as the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, the Sumerian Flood Story, the Standard Babylonian version of the Gilgameš Epic, and the Weld-Blundell 444 (W-B 444) version of the Sumerian King List (SKL). Methodologically, a comprehensive approach to data collection and analysis is needed.5 The data should include not only the textual sources which contain extensive narratives about the Flood or brief allusions to this motif, but also any sources in which flood terminology, especially the Sumerian term a-ma-ru or the Akkadian term abūbu, is found. Literary-historical research on the Flood traditions also needs to be more systematic so that it may recover various stages of growth of the traditions, from the conception of the Flood motif to the composition of the motif’s various mythological and chronographic representations and their subsequent transmission.6 How the Flood motif emerged and distinguished itself from the long-standing figurative and mythical E.g., Westermann, Genesis, 1974; Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,” 513–29. 4 See Hallo, “Information from before the Flood,” 194–9; Tigay, Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, 214–40. 5 As suggested by Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 14. 6 As advocated by Hallo, “New Viewpoints on Cuneiform Literature,” 13–26. 3

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usage of flood terms in Mesopotamian literary traditions, already noted by a few scholars,7 has not been examined in depth. Modern scholarship often fails to differentiate between the figurative use of flood terms (especially a-ma-ru and abūbu) and the use of the terms to signify the Flood motif in Mesopotamian sources.8 Though various chronographic representations of the motif have been observed,9 the diversity of mythological representations of the motif has barely been explored. It is generally assumed that the Flood narrative as found in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic is the oldest extant mythological representation of the Flood, from which all other Mesopotamian Flood narratives or allusions derived. But this assumption is now being challenged on the basis of different mythological Flood traditions recently identified in Sumerian sources.10 Furthermore, the literary traditions involved in the making of the Flood narratives such as the Atra-ḫasīs Epic or the Sumerian Flood Story, initially examined by Lambert and Millard11 and Jacobsen12 respectively, have received almost no further major treatment. Neither has how these source traditions interacted with one another during the development of the Flood traditions and were in turn affected by the latter traditions been examined systematically.

Scholars such as van Dijk, “Le motif cosmique dans la pensée sumérienne,” 32; idem, LUGAL UD ME-LÁM-bi NIR-ĜÁL, 33; Hallo, “The Limits of Skepticism,” 195–9; idem, “Information from before the Flood,” 173; Westenholz, “Symbolic Language in Akkadian Narrative Poetry,” 198–200; and Liverani, Israel’s History and the History of Israel, 235 have noted that the Flood motif emerged from the figurative and mythical usage of flood terminology. 8 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 1:36–7 for discussion. 9 See Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List; Finkelstein, “The Antediluvian Kings,” 39–51. 10 Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 244–5; idem, “The Flood Motif,” 167–86. 11 Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 1–28. 12 Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,” 513–29. 7

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To fill the above scholarly gaps, this article is intended to examine how different strands of Mesopotamian literary traditions were involved in the making of the Flood traditions. The examination will focus primarily on the OB period as the most formative period for the development of the Flood traditions. It is during this period that the first and classical representations of the Flood are found. To trace the emergence and development of the Flood traditions, a large body of textual sources from the ED III period (ca. 2600–2350 BCE), in which the first substantial corpus of literary texts in Sumerian is found,13 to the OB period has to be combed through.14 Thus far the following major strands of literary traditions, mostly Sumerian, involved in the making of the Flood traditions have been identified. Several of these traditions, such as the Instructions of Šuruppak and the city laments, have largely been overlooked in previous literary-historical research.

FIGURATIVE AND MYTHICAL TRADITIONS ABOUT THE FLOOD Among the textual sources from the ED III period to the OB period (and indeed throughout the rest of Mesopotamian literary history), the flood terms (Sumerian: a-MAR, a-ma-ru, a-ma-ru12, ama2-ru, a-ma2-uru5, e-ma-ru, ma2-uru5, mar-uru5, uru2, uru5, uru18; Akkadian: abūbu, biblu, bibbulu)15 were used figuratively and mythically in the majority of cases.16 In figures of speech, the terms were employed in various constructions of similes and metaphors. The earliest literary text from Mesopotamia dates to archaic Ur, i.e., ED I period (ca. 2900 BCE). The text is “so far largely incomprehensible” (Alster, “Scribes, Sages, and Seers,” 47). 14 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” vol. 2, for the data collected with philological and textual commentaries. 15 For orthographical and semantic studies on the flood terms, see CAD A I 77–81; PSD A I 109–14; Eichler, “Mar-URU5: Tempest in a Deluge,” 90–4; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 34–54. 16 For usages of the flood terms, see Hallo, “Information from before the Flood,” 173–81; Westenholz, “Symbolic Language in Akkadian Narrative Poetry,” 183–206; Streck, Die Bildersprache; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 55–120. 13

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The flood can function as both the signifier and the signified in these figurative constructions. Overall, the image is frequently used to illustrate the invincible power or wrath of mythical beings and human rulers, particularly in Sumerian divine and royal hymns, or the devastating effects of the power and wrath, as seen in Sumerian compositions dealing with catastrophe. As a convention in Mesopotamian literary traditions, the flood frequently occurs in clusters with other meteorological images and with the images of animals and battle. In its mythical meaning, the flood can refer to the meteorological catastrophe controlled, unleashed or evoked by divine or mythical beings and human rulers through mythical forces. In this sense, the flood is often represented as a mythical weapon or a destructive agent waging war at the behest of the mythical and human protagonists against their opponents. In a few instances, the flood is actually portrayed as a mythical being or monster, e.g., the Lament for Uruk (LW) 3.3; Lugale 82–3. The figurative and mythical traditions concerning the flood flourished particularly during the Ur III period (ca. 2112–2004 BCE) and Isin-Larsa period (ca. 2017–1763 BCE). This seems to have largely to do with the development of divine and royal hymns and compositions dealing with catastrophe during these periods. It is in these compositions that the flood and other meteorological images are used most often. The development of the figurative and mythical traditions culminated towards the end of the Ur III period and the early part of the Isin dynasty, when the flood and other meteorological topoi were used with an unprecedented degree of density and frequency in the city laments and Isin royal hymns for portraying the collapse of the Ur III dynasty and its turbulent aftermath. The figurative and mythical traditions have left a significant imprint on the Flood traditions. This can be observed from the fact that even when the Sumerian term a-ma-ru and the Akkadian term abūbu began to take on the specialized meaning “the primaeval flood catastrophe” in certain literary sources since the OB period, vestiges of the figurative and mythical traditions in the usage of the terms can still be discerned in these sources. Lines 1–4 of the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta

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u4-ul-li-a-ta u4-ub-ba til-la-[a-ta] | gig-re be2-re ĝi6 ba-su3-[da-ata] | mu-su3-da mu ba-ši-[su3-da-a-ta] | eĝir a-ma-ru ba-ĝar-ra[a-ta] After the days of yore had come to an end, after nights had become remote from those distant nights, after years had become remote from distant years, after the Flood had swept over

can be adduced as an example. Given the literary context of the mythological prologue indicating the primaeval time of origins,17 ama-ru in this passage is the first textual evidence of the Sumerian flood term exhibiting the meaning “Flood.” However, the term still seems to be used metaphorically in this text to symbolize a recent historical crisis around the time of Ur-Ninurta as a mythical occasion out of which he was selected by the gods to be the ruler for restoring order.18 Ample evidence of the figurative and mythical traditions in the usage of abūbu and the portrayals of the Flood can be found in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic and the Standard Babylonian version of the Gilgameš Epic. Streck19 has already noted that the figurative depiction of the Flood likened to a bull can be found in OB Atraḫasīs III iii 15–17 [abūb]u kīma lî išabbu | [kīma p]arî nā’eri | [x x (x)ni]m šāru [The Floo]d bellowed like a bull, [like] a whining wild ass the winds [howled].20 Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 109; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 205–9. 18 See van Dijk, “Le motif cosmique,” 32. For a similar metaphorical usage of a-ma-ru, see Ur-Namma C 57–9; Year Name 22 of Ibbi-Suen; IšmeDagan A 118–23, which, however, contain no mythological prologue. 19 Streck, Die Bildersprache, 59. 20 The animal imagery with which the flood is often associated in Sumerian traditions is the lion (e.g., Gudea Cylinder A iv 18–19; Gudea Cylinder B ix 21–2). But juxtaposition of the flood image and the bull or ram image can be found in Šū-Suen D 2–4 17

x ⌈mar⌉-ru10 ug gal šen-šen-na ru-ru-gu2 | a2-ĝal2 uĝ3 erim2 X uru2 gul-lu a2-dam saḫar-re-eš gi4 | dnin-urta am gal gu4-si-AŠ

dnin-urta ⌈RA⌉.SU

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The association between the Flood and a mythical monster is alluded to in OB Atra-ḫasīs II vii 42–7 where Enki responded to the gods who tried to bind him with an oath in order to bring about the Flood: abūbu ša taqabb[âninni] | mannu šū anāku [ul īde] | anākūma ullada [abūba] | šipiršu ibašši it[ti denlil] “the Flood that you are commanding [me], who is it/he? I [do not know]. Am I to give birth to [a Flood]? That is the business of Enlil.”

The Akkadian word ullada (G Dur. 1 cs of walādu “to give birth,” plus the ventive) suggests that the Flood is referred to here by Enki as a personal being.21 More specifically, the depiction of the flood monster in the image of the Anzu bird is found in OB Atra-ḫasīs III iii 7–12 [anzû ina ṣ]uprīšu [ušarriṭ] šamā’ī | […… m]ātam | [kīma karpati r]igimša iḫpi …

bad3 gal ⌈ŠU.KAD4-ŠU.KAD4⌉-e “Ninurta … flood/tempest, great lion, fierce opponent in battle! Mighty one, who … the enemy peoples, destroyer of cities, who turns the settlements into dust! Ninurta, great wild bull, a battering ram who … great walls!”

Kilmer, “Fugal Features of Atraḫasīs,” 127–39; idem, “Visualizing Text,” 211, views the abūbu in the Atra-hasīs Epic as a monster being created. The same Akkadian verb walādu is used in the NA recension of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic K 3399 + 3934 (S) obv. iii 18 for the establishment of the birth ritual of human beings: akkī ālittu ulladūma “and when the pregnant woman gives birth.” In LW Segm. E 13, the flood monster is described as a-ma-ru du6!(ki) al-ak-e “a flood dashing the hoe on the ground.” According to kirugu 1 and kirugu 3 of the same composition it had different fearsome bodily features (if the descriptions refer to the same monster) and was given birth by An and Enlil: LW Segm. A 9 an den-lil -bi ba-an-u -tu-uš-[a …]-gin e-ne ba-si “When An and Enlil had 2 3 7 3 given birth to it, that one resembled? …” It was later called upon by Enlil to destroy the Land of Sumer (Segm. E 11–27). 21

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[Anzu with] his talons [rent] the heavens. [He …] the land and shattered its noise [like a pot].22

The animal imagery of the parallel lines in SB Gilgameš XI 106–8 is different: ša dadad šuḫarras⌈su⌉ ibā’u šamê | [mi]mma namru ana ⌈da⌉[’u]m[mat] uttēru | [irḫ]iṣ māta(kur) kīma(gin7) alp[i(gu4) …] x iḫp[īša] The still calm of the Storm God passed across the sky, all that was bright was turned into gloom. Like an ox [he] trampled the Land, he smashed [it like a pot].

The Flood epic also shares with the Sumerian figurative tradition the tendency to associate or juxtapose the flood image with other images of destruction—even when these images may not go together in reality—in order to create a fearsome and overwhelming atmosphere. The association of the meteorological images with the battle scene, which is prevalent in the figurative tradition,23 can be observed in the monologue of the divine narrator at the end of OB Atra-ḫasīs III viii 12–13 têretiš[ka] | ušabši

The name of Anzu is partially preserved in the NA recension BM 98977 + 99231 (U) rev. 16–17: 22

[anz]û ina ṣuprīšu šamê ⌈u⌉[šarriṭ] | [x x m]āta kīma karpati milikša isp[uḫ] “Anzu with his talons [rent] the heavens; [he …] the land like a pot, he scattered its counsel.”

For depictions of the flood monster in the image of the Anzu bird in Sumerian figurative traditions, see LW Segm. E 17–20 ĝeš-nu11-bi nim ĝir2-re anzumušen-gin7 igi ⌈su3⌉-ud-bi bar-re-dam | gu3bi mir-mir-ra-am3 izi bar7-a kur-re su3-su3-u3-dam | eme-bi ga-an-ze2-erra-am3 u3-dub2 šeg3-ĝe26 kalam-ma dar-re-dam | a2-bi anzumušem maḫ dub3 bad-re6 niĝ2-nam nu-e3-am3 “Its glint (of its eyes) shall be lightning that flashes far like the Anzu bird. Its voice shall rage—a blazing fire that extends as far as the nether world. Its tongue shall be a flame, raining embers, that sunders the Land. Its wings (lit. arms) shall be the majestic Anzu bird that nothing can escape when it spreads wide its knees” (see also Gudea Cylinder A iv 18– 19).

E.g., the Curse of Agade (Curse Agade) 100–19, 155–9; the Lament for Sumer and Ur (LSU) 75–6, 166, 377–88; the Lament for Ur (LU) 210–24, 243–5; LW Segm. E 51–74, 78–111. 23

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qa[bla] “At [your] decree I set battle in motion,”24 which clearly refers to the Flood (see III viii 9, 18). Westenholz notes that this passage follows the figurative tradition in which the images of qablu(m) “battle” and abūbu/a-ma-ru “flood/Flood” are “inextricably intertwined,”25 that is, as battle can be likened to flood, so can flood be likened to battle. Both Westenholz and Streck further view SB Gilgameš XI 122 ana ḫulluq nišīya qabla aqbīma “(How) I (Bēlet-ilī) declared a war to destroy my people?” as a parallel to OB Atra-ḫasīs III viii 13. As observed by Streck,26 the same figurative association between battle and flood/Flood also occurs in OB Atra-ḫasīs III iii 12 […… ittaṣâ] abūbu | [kīma qabl]i ⌈e⌉li nišī ibā’ kašūšu […] the Flood [set out], the cataclysm passed over the peoples [like a battle]; SB Gilgameš XI 110–11 ḫanṭiš izīqamma x[…]ši šadâ(kur)a ⌈a⌉[būbu?] | kīma qabli eli(ugu) nišī (uĝ3)meš uba’’û [kašūšu] Quickly it blew and the [Flood …] the east wind, like a battle [the cataclysm] passed! over the peoples;

and XI 131 te?-riq? šu-u2 a-bu-bu qab-la “it was relenting, the Deluge, in respect of battle.”27 The juxtaposition of the flood image and the image of fire or burning in the destruction of the land or cities as represented in the Sumerian tradition28 can be found in SB Gilgameš XI 104–5 danunnakkī iššû dipārāti | ina namrīrīšunu uḫammaṭū mātum “The Anunnaki bore torches aloft, setting the land aglow with their Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 165 suggest that the divine narrator may be the mother goddess in the epic. 25 Westenholz, “Symbolic Language in Akkadian Narrative Poetry,” 197; see also Streck, Die Bildersprache, 113. 26 Die Bildersprache, 59, 106–7. 27 So MS J ; George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 711, n. 26 1 28 Curse Agade 131; LSU 79, 159, 168, 171; LU 187–8, 192, 201, 227, 239–40, 259–60, 377; the Lament for Eridu (LE) (the Ur version) Segm. A 8; LW Segm. E 18–19, 71, 91. 24

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brilliance.” The description here in the Gilgameš Epic is obviously metaphorical, to symbolize the lightning that boded the coming storm. Apart from the above examples in which the flood term is used or the Flood event is portrayed figuratively, the Flood episode in the OB version of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic also contains other figures of speech: Ea instructed Atra-ḫasis to cover his boat with a roof like the Apsû (III i 29); Anzu shattered the noise of the Land like a pot (III iii 10); the destroyed human beings have filled the river like dragonflies (III iv 6); the destroyed human beings have put in to the bank of the river like a raft (III iv 8, 9); and the destroyed human beings and the famished gods like flies (III iii 19?, 44; III v 35, 46; III vi 2).29 Both the usage of the term abūbu for “the Flood” and its literary context, especially in terms of its association with various images, in the Flood epic suggest that the epic in many ways follows the figurative and mythical usage of flood terminology in earlier literary traditions. There are, however, two major differences between the Babylonian epic and the earlier traditions in terms of the usage of flood terminology: (1) While the flood in the earlier traditions most often serves as the signifier and occasionally as the signified in similes or metaphors, the Flood in the epic only serves as the signified in the figurative process, except probably for OB Atra-ḫasīs II vii 44–6 where the flood term may signify the mythical monster. This avoidance of using the flood term as the signifier indicates that the author of the epic made a conscious attempt to part with the prevalent practice in the literary conventions of the time, so as not to present the Flood as a simile or metaphor, but as an actual, albeit still mythologized, meteorological catastrophe. By comparison, the persistent influence of figurative usage of the flood term can be observed in the OB version of the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Suen (iv 8′–9′ kīma abūbu mê ša ibbašû | ina nišī [(x)] maḫriāti “Like the Flood of water that arose among the first peoples”) Outside of the Flood episode, cases of figurative language can also be found in the Atra-hasīs Epic and the Standard Babylonian version of the Gilgameš Epic; see Streck, Die Bildersprache, 251–4; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 55–120, 371–81. 29

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where the author still used the flood term as the signifier in a simile even when the term has gained the specialized meaning “the primaeval flood catastrophe.” (2) Whereas most of the usages of flood terminology in the earlier traditions refer to flooding that either took place in historical times or in a mythical realm, the flood term in the Flood epic deals with a primaeval catastrophe which by its cosmic scale wiped out the entire antediluvian world. So the Flood in the epic distinguishes itself not only by its unparalleled scale, but also by its temporal or chronographic uniqueness. The development of these distinct characteristics of the Flood took a literary and conceptual process in Mesopotamian mythology and historiography during the OB period (see below).

LITERARY TRADITIONS DEALING WITH THE PRIMAEVAL TIME OF ORIGINS The primaeval time of origins is represented in various genres of ancient Mesopotamian literary traditions, e.g., mythological compositions, hymns, disputations, didactic compositions, and chronographies. In terms of distribution within each individual composition, representations of the primaeval time can occur in the prologue or sporadically in different sections of the main body of a composition. In many cases, the primaeval time is the subject of the entire composition. The primaeval time can also serve as either the background or foreground of the main events of a composition. The length of descriptions of, or references to, the primaeval time can be either brief or elaborate.30 Attested as early as the ED III period, traditions about the primaeval time exhibit continuities and changes in Mesopotamian literary history. Emerging from the OB period, the Flood traditions, which represent the Flood as a primaeval event, follow earlier traditions in terms of the motifs, stylistic devices and

Streck, “Die Prologe der sumerischen Epen,” 189–266; Ferrara, “A Hodgepodge of Snippets,” 47–66; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 154–246. 30

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structures used for depicting the primaeval time.31 The motif of the creation of human beings for relieving gods of their toil in the Atraḫasīs Epic, for example, can already be found in several Sumerian compositions (e.g., Enki and Ninhursag, Lugale, the Song of the Hoe). Natural and economic crises, such as drought and famine, and how the crises were resolved in the primaeval time are common motifs (e.g., the Barton Cylinder, Lugale, How Grain Came to Sumer). Conflicts and contests among deities or mythical beings are also themes frequently found in Sumerian compositions (e.g., Lugale, Enki and Ninmah, Enki and Inana). And the primaeval era being the time when destinies or patterns of things were fixed is probably the most pivotal concept underlying both the Sumerian mythological compositions and the Flood epic. However, the emergence of the Flood tradition also involves innovation, both in terms of style and content, in how the primaeval time is represented in Mesopotamian (particularly Sumerian) literary traditions.32 From the ED III period to the OB period, and even to the latter half of the first millennium BCE, mythological compositions frequently used the three-tier adverbial formula u4-re-a …, ĝi6-re-a …, mu-re-a … “In those days …, in those nights …, in those years…” and its variants to introduce the primaeval time. The first primaeval event introduced by this formula is often either the mythical union/separation of heaven and earth, or the determination of fates.33 In other cases, the choice See Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 1–28; Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,” 513–29; Clifford, Creation Accounts, 74–82; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 154–246. 32 See Chen, “The Flood Motif,” 158–89. 33 From the ED III period, see the Barton Cylinder i 1–14 (Alster and Westenholz, “The Barton Cylinder,” 18–26); AbS-T 256a (UCOIP 99, No. 280) i 1–6; AbS-T 279 + 293 (UCOIP 99, No. 283) i 1–3; AbS-T 252 (UCOIP 99, No. 389) i 1–10; and TSS 79 i 1–5 (Biggs, “The Abū Ṣalābīkh Tablets,” 81; Krebernik, “Die Texte aus Fāra,” 322). From the OB period, see Enki and Ninmah 1–3; Enki’s Journey to Nippur 1–3; Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld (Version A) 1–5; How Grain Came to Sumer 1–2. From the LB/Seleucid period, see SpTU 3 67 1–10 (Dietrich, “ina ūmī ullûti,” 67; Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 141). 31

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of the first primaeval event is dictated by the main subject of a composition. Chronographic traditions, such as the SKL, in their earliest attestation from the Ur III period used the temporal clause nam-lugal an-ta e11-da-ba “When kingship descended from heaven” as the conventional formula for introducing the primaeval time, with the mythical institution of kingship as the first primaeval event. Since the early OB period, as the extant textual evidence shows, the temporal expression eĝir a-ma-ru ba-ur3-ra-ta “After the Flood had swept over” became one of the stylistic and temporal devices for introducing the primaeval time in mythological and chronographic sources. Initially, in some cases, this temporal expression related to the Flood was still subsumed under the traditional stylistic and temporal devices (e.g., the Instructions of UrNinurta; the Death of Bilgames; the W-B 444 version of SKL [lines 1 and 40]; the Sumerian Flood Story). But gradually, in some instances, the temporal expression related to the Flood was given priority over the traditional devices (e.g., Inana and the Numun-Grass; the W-B 444 version of SKL [lines 40 and 41]; the Rulers of Lagaš). The rising popularity of the Flood motif during the OB period can also be discerned on the basis of the fact that some mythological compositions began to refer to the Flood as the first event in their recounting of the primaeval time (e.g., the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta; Inana and the Numun-Grass; the Death of Bilgames; the Rulers of Lagaš). In the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta, the Flood preceded the instalment of Ur-Ninurta as the first king.34 In Inana and the Numun-Grass, the Flood seems to be identified with the primaeval storm which was traditionally used to depict the mythical union/separation between heaven and earth—the cosmic beginning. In the W-B 444 version of SKL, though the Flood follows the institution of kingship in the first world order, it is presented as the first event that ushered in the new world order before the reinstitution of kingship. In the Rulers of Lagaš, the Flood must have been regarded as the most monumental event in the primaeval time of origins so that other primaeval events or traditional motifs were relegated to positions after the Flood in the 34

See Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 109.

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temporal and narrative sequence.35 In short, when the Flood motif first emerged in Sumerian literary traditions during the OB period it represented an innovative stylistic and temporal device for introducing the primaeval time as well as a new literary motif marking the (re-)beginning of time. During the OB period, diverse mythological traditions related to the Flood developed: those from Isin which exalted Enlil, Ninurta and the Isin ruler Ur-Ninurta (the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta 1–4); those from Uruk(?) which exalted Inana, her spouse Dumuzi, and their protégés (Enmerka and the Lord of Aratta 564–76; Inana and the Numun-Grass 1–21); and the tradition from Eridu which exalted Enki and his protégé the Flood hero (the Death of Bilgames, the MêTuran version, 68–75 // 158–69; the Atra-ḫasīs Epic; the Sumerian Flood Story; Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian version of the Gilgameš Epic). It is the Flood myth from Eridu that became most popular in Mesopotamian literary traditions. This myth was part of the mythological and historiographical developments that shifted the focus from what had taken place after the Flood to what had taken place before the Flood. Various constructions of antediluvian history were made in both mythological and chronographic sources. The Flood began to be treated in some sources no longer as the mythological background but as part of the foreground of the main subject of a composition.36 The original Flood story became elaborated over time,37 and eventually led to the composition of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic in the midOB period. The ingenious contribution of the Babylonian epic lies in the ways it adapted and re-organized different previous traditions. These include mythological motifs regarding the primaeval time of origins (e.g., the first story in Enki and Ninmah), themes related to contests between deities (e.g., the second story in Enki and Ninmah), elements from didactic and critical literature (see See already van Seters, “Myth and History,” 53. On the background (Hintergrund) and foreground (Vordergrund) of Mesopotamian mythological compositions, see Streck, “Die Prologe der sumerischen Epen,” 251–5; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 121–246. 37 See Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 32. 35 36

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below), portrayals of catastrophe from the city laments (see below), and the Flood story.38 The epic arranges the traditional materials into a well-sequenced and sweeping narrative that culminates in the Flood story. Thus the Flood has become not only part of the foreground of the epic, but also the climactic event in the epic (also the Sumerian Flood Story).

The Instructions of Šuruppak The Instructions of Šuruppak is a Sumerian composition which comprises a set of instructions a father gives to his son on how to succeed in life and work. The text is attested in many versions from different historical periods and different Mesopotamian sites.39 The earliest versions we have are from the ED III period: the Abū Ṣalābīkh version (AbSt) and the Adab version (Adab). The OB version is an adaptation of the ED III versions.40 The most obvious additions in the OB version are the mythological prologue (lines 1–3) and the name of the Flood hero Ziusudra identified as the son receiving the instructions (lines 7–8, 10).41 AbSt 1–5 ĝeštu2 inim-zu [ka]lam [t]i-la | [šuruppak U]R2.[A]Š [ĝeš]tu2 inim-zu kalam ti-la | šuruppak dumu na [n]a-mu-ri | dumuĝu10 na ga-ri | GIŠ.PI.[TUG2] ḫe2-m[a]-ak The intelligent one, the wise one, who lived in the land, the man from Šuruppak, UR2.AŠ; the intelligent one, the wise one, who lived in the land, the man from Šuruppak, gave instructions to his son: “My son, let me give [you] instructions. Let attention be paid to them! (cf. AbSt 16′, 26′, 46′, 146′–7′, 171′)42 Some of the source traditions for the Atra-ḫasīs Epic have already been noted by Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 23; Clifford, Creation Accounts, 74–82, and Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 143, n. 48. 39 See Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 47–53. 40 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 250–61 for a comparison of the ED III and OB versions. 41 As also observed by Milstein, “Reworking Ancient Texts,” 46–8. 42 See Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 176. 38

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Adab Segm. 1.1–9 [ĝeštu2-tuku inim-galam inim-zu-a]m6 | [kalam-m]a [ti]-la-am6 | [šurupp]akki [U]R2.AŠ | [ĝeš]tu2-[tu]ku inim-[galam inim]-zuam6 | [kalam-m]a [ti-la-am6] | [šuruppakki] UR2.AŠ | dumu-nira na na-ri-ri | [dumu-ĝu10 na ga-ri] | GIŠ.PI.[TUG2] ḫe2-m[a]ak The intelligent one, the one of artistic words, the wise one, who lived in the land, the man from Šuruppak, UR 2.AŠ; the intelligent one, the one of artistic words, the wise one, who lived in the land, the man from Šuruppak, UR2.AŠ, gave instructions to his son: “My son, let me give [you] instructions. Let attention be paid to them!” (cf. Adab Segm. 2.7)43 OB version of the Instructions of Šuruppak 1–12 u4 re-a u4 su3-ra2 re-a | ĝi6 re-a ĝi6 bad-ra2 re-a | mu re-a mu su3-ra2 re-a | u4-ba ĝeštu2-tuku inim-galam inim-zu-a kalam-ma ti-la-a | šuruppakki ĝeštu2-tuku inim-galam inim-zu-a kalam-ma ti-la-a | šuruppakki-e dumu-ni-ra na na-mu-un-ri-ri | šuruppakki dumu ubar-tu-tu-ke4 | zi-u4-su3-ra2 dumu-ni-ra na na-mu-un-ri-ri | dumu-ĝu10 na ga-ri na-ri-ĝu10 ḫe2-dab5 | zi-u4su3-ra2 inim ga-ra-ab-d[u11] ĝizzal ḫe2-em-ši-ak | na-ri-ga-ĝu10 šu nam-bi2-bar-re | inim du11-ga-ĝu10 na-ab-ta-bal-e-de3 In those days, in those far remote days; in those nights, in those far-away nights; in those years, in those far remote years; in those days, the intelligent one, the one of elaborate words, the wise one, who lived in the land; the man from Šuruppak, the intelligent one, the one of elaborate words, the wise one, who lived in the land; the man from Šuruppak, gave instructions to his son; the man from Šuruppak, the son of Ubār-Tutu; gave instructions to his son Ziusudra: “My son, let me give instructions; let my instructions be taken! Ziusudra, let me speak a word to you; let attention be paid to them! Don’t neglect my instructions! Don’t transgress the words I speak!” 44

The above opening lines of the didactic composition played a significant role in the development of antediluvian history among 43 44

Ibid., 196. Ibid., 56–7.

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Mesopotamian literary traditions. Attempts at interpreting the protagonists’ identities and family relationship, especially as described in the phrase šuruppak UR2.AŠ in AbSt 2 and šuruppakki UR2.AŠ in Adab Segm. 1.3, 6, led to diverse constructions of the last antediluvian dynasty in different sources. In the OB version, UR2.AŠ is identified with Ubār-Tutu, the name of the father of the man of Šuruppak: šuruppakki dumu ubar-tu-tu-ke4 zi-u4-su3-ra2 (lines 7–8a). Note the added genealogical qualification dumu “son of” in front of Ubār-Tutu and the inserted name Ziusudra for the son receiving the instructions. Thus the OB version presents three generations in the didactic scenario: Ubār-Tutu the grandfather, the man from Šuruppak who gave the instructions, and Ziusudra who received the instructions.45 The adding of the genealogical framework to the protagonists involved in the didactic scenario by the OB version is a result of the influence from the chronographic sources which began to construct the antediluvian dynasty since the OB period.46 According to the following comparisons, all these ancient sources tend to follow three genealogical schemes: Table 1: Generational Schemes I. One-generation scheme: Ubār-Tutu W-B 444 (SKL) 32–5

MS 2855 (SKL) 19

In Šuruppak, Ubār-Tutu was king;

Ubār-Tutu

He reigned

reigned

18,600 years

36,000 years

One king reigned 18,600 years

See Galter, “Ša lām abūbi,” 281; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 255–61. 46 Wilcke, “Philologische Bemerkungen,” 202; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 260. 45

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II. Two-generation scheme: Ubār-Tutu and Ziusudra UCBC 9– 1819 (SKL) 14–17

The Dynastic Chronicle 11–13

Berossos Book 2, F3

[(In) Šuruppak

In Šuruppak

A Chaldean from Larankhos,

Ubār-]Tutu

Ubār-[Tutu] was king.

Otiartes

[reigned … years

[He reigned …]

reigned eight saroi.

SB Gilgameš IX 6; X 208; XI 23

After the death of Otiartes, Ziusudra,

Ziusudra,

Xisouthros

UDnapišti/the man from Šuruppak,

son of] Ubār[Tutu]

son of [Ubār-Tutu,

his son

son of UbārTutu

reigned 18,000+ … years

reigned … years]

reigned eighteen saroi.

Two kings, the dynasty [of Šuruppak, reigned … years.] III. Three-generation scheme: Ubār-Tutu, the man from Šuruppak, and Ziusudra W-B 62 (SKL) 15–17

OB version of the

Instructions of Šuruppak 7–8

The man from Šuruppak,

The man from Šuruppak,

son of Ubār-Tutu,

son of Ubār-Tutu,

(reigned) 28,800 years. gave instructions to Ziusudra,

Ziusudra,

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son of the man from Šuruppak,

his son.

(reigned) 36,000 years. Two kings from Šuruppak.

The one-generation scheme in the two versions of SKL, W-B 444 in the Ashmolean Museum and the more recently published MS 2855 in the Schøyen Collection,47 seems unusual because of its omission of Ziusudra.48 The two-generation scheme comprising Ubār-Tutu and his son known as Ziusudra seems to have occurred at a date earlier than the three-generation scheme consisting of Ubār-Tutu, the man from Šuruppak, and Ziusudra.49 In the above schemes, the geographic expression “in Šuruppak,” the epithet “the man from Šuruppak,” and the name “Ubār-Tutu” all developed on the basis of the expression šuruppakki UR2.AŠ or šuruppak UR2.AŠ in the opening lines of the ED III versions of the Instructions of Šuruppak.50 The introductory lines of the Instructions of Šuruppak also played a vital role in the composition of the Flood story from Eridu. The opening lines in Enki’s instructions to the Flood hero prior to the catastrophe, for instance, are reminiscent of those in the father’s instructions to the son in the didactic source: ED III version of the Instructions of Šuruppak (AbSt) 4–5 dumu-ĝu10 na ga-ri | GIŠ.PI.[TUG2] ḫe2-m[a]-ak “My son, let me give [you] instructions, let attention be paid to them!” (// Adab Segm. 1.8–9)51 OB version of the Instructions of Šuruppak 9–10 dumu-ĝu10 na ga-ri na-ri-ĝu10 ḫe2-dab5 | zi-u4-su3-ra2 inim gara-ab-d[u11] ĝizzal ḫe2-em-ši-ak See Friberg, Babylonian Mathematical Texts, 236–39. As suggested by Finkelstein, “The Antediluvian Kings,” 47–8 and Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 267–83, such omission may be deliberate for ideological reasons (see discussion below). 49 See George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 155. 50 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 262–7. 51 Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 177. 47 48

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“My son, let me give instructions; let my instructions be taken! Ziusudra, let me speak a word to you; let attention be paid to them!”52 OB Atra-ḫasīs III i 18–21 šipra ša aqabbûku | šuṣṣir atta | igāru šitammianni | kikkišu šuṣṣirī kala siqrī!ya “Observe the message that I will speak to you: Wall, listen to me! Reed wall, observe all my words!”

The Sumerian Flood Story (CBS 10673 + CBS 10867) 154– 155 iz-zi-da inim ga-ra-ab-du11 inim-[ĝu10 ḫe2-dab5] | na ri-ga-ĝu10 ĝizz[al ḫe2-em-ši-ak] “Side-wall, let me speak a word to you; [let my] word be [taken]; [let atten]tion [be paid] to my instructions.” SB Gilgameš XI 21–3 kikkiš kikkiš igār igār | kikkišu šimēma igāru ḫissas | lu2šuruppakû mār(dumu) mubara-dtutu “Reed fence, reed fence! Brick wall, brick wall! Listen, O reed fence! Pay heed, O brick wall! O man of Šuruppak, son of Ubār-Tutu.”

Both the Atra-ḫasīs Epic and the Sumerian Flood Story seem to follow the repetitive style of the OB version of the Instructions of Šuruppak. All the above compositions about the Flood agree that the instructions were communicated through a fence or a wall because Enki was bound by an oath not to assist humankind. The motif was first attested in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, then the Sumerian Flood Story, and finally elaborated in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic. However, the Gilgameš Epic differs from the Atra-ḫasīs Epic and the Sumerian Flood Story in that it gives away the identity of the human recipient of Enki’s instructions by inserting lu2šuruppakû mār(dumu) mubara-dtutu “‘O man of Šuruppak, son of Ubār-Tutu’” in the Flood story, which suggests that the author of the SB version was familiar

52

Ibid., 57.

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with the Instructions of Šuruppak, probably the Akkadian translation of it.53 The critical wisdom expressed through the Nothing-is-ofValue passage in lines 252–3 of the Instructions of Šuruppak, niĝ2-nam nu-kal zi ku7-ku7-da | niĝ2 nam-kal-kal-en niĝ2-e me-kal-kal “Nothing at all is of value, but life should be sweet tasting. Don’t appreciate things (too much); (because then) things will evaluate you (i.e., you will become dependent on their evaluation),”54 may resonate with Enki’s instructions to Atra-ḫasīs before the coming of the Flood in OB Atra-ḫasīs III i 22–3 ubbut bīta bini eleppa | makkūra zērma | napišta bulliṭ “Destroy your house, build a boat, spurn property and save life.” The parallel passages to OB Atraḫasīs III i 22–3 in SB Gilgameš XI 23–6 demonstrate an even closer connection between the Flood story and the Instructions of Šuruppak with the identification of the Flood hero as “the man from Šuruppak, son of Ubār-Tutu” in the Gilgameš epic. Furthermore, the characterizations of the father giving the instructions as ĝeštu2 inim-zu “the intelligent one, the wise one” (AbSt 1–2) and ĝeštu2-tuku inim-galam inim-zu-am6 “the intelligent one, the one of artistic words, the wise one” (Adab Segm. 1.1, 4) in the ED III versions of the Instructions of Šuruppak seem to have influenced the representations of the Flood hero. The name Atraḫasīs (matra-ḫasīs) in the Flood epic means “one (who is) preeminent in wisdom,” which corresponds to the descriptions of the father giving the instructions in the Instructions of Šuruppak.55 Note that the Akkadian word ḫasīsu (n. “ear; wisdom”) or ḫassu (adj. “clever, wise”) is lexically equivalent to the Sumerian terms ĝeštu2 and ĝeštu2-tuku (n. “ear; wisdom”; adj. “wise”),56 as already indicated by the use of ĝeštu2 for ḫasīs by the scribe of the NA recension of the Flood epic: [bēl t]ašīmti matra-ḫasīs(geštu2) amēlu “the George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 154, 879. Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 96–7. 55 Cf. the rendering of the expression ĝeštu inim-zu in AbSt 1, 2 2 according to Biggs, “The Abū Ṣalābīkh Tablets,” 78: “The [most] intelligent, the [most] knowledgeable in word.” 56 See Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 189, who equates ĝeštu with 2 ĝeštu2-tuku. 53 54

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sagacious one, the man Atra-ḫasīs” (K 3399 + 3934 [S] rev. iv 17, v 27). By describing the one receiving the instructions as wise, the Flood epic appears to differ from the Instructions of Šuruppak. However, if one takes into account the fact that Enki, the one giving the instructions in the Flood epic and whose role parallels that of the advice-giving father in the Instructions of Šuruppak, is the god of wisdom par excellence in Mesopotamian culture, it then seems that the representation of the didactic scenario in the Flood epic may not totally contradict that of the Instructions of Šuruppak. The author of the epic portrays both Enki, the one who gave the instructions, as well as his perceptive human servant the Flood hero as wise. The reliance of the different strands of the Flood traditions on the Instructions of Šuruppak in their attempts to construct antediluvian history has to do largely with the antiquity of this didactic tradition and the city of Šuruppak—today’s Fara.57 While contributing to the development of the Flood traditions, the didactic tradition was in turn transformed. The normal agrarian family setting,58 in which the didactic scenario took place, was converted into the last antediluvian dynasty, with an extended genealogical structure. And the son receiving the instructions was identified as the Flood hero and the last antediluvian ruler (see the OB version of the Instructions of Šuruppak).

The Sumerian King List The antiquity, prolonged transmission and widespread influence of the SKL are well attested in Mesopotamian textual traditions. At least seventeen copies, most of which date to the OB period, have been found from different sites of Mesopotamia and its periphery, including Nippur, Isin, Kiš, Larsa, and Susa. Though the earliest copy of SKL is from the Ur III period,59 the origin of this chronographic tradition may be traced back to as early as the Krebernik, “Die Texte aus Fāra,” 238–43. Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 19; Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 26, 33. 59 See Steinkeller, “An Ur III Manuscript,” 269. 57 58

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Sargonic period. During its prolonged transmission history, the SKL has gone through different stages of editing and expansion.60 In addition to its various manuscript traditions, influence of the SKL has been identified in other major Mesopotamian literary traditions, such as Curse Agade,61 LSU,62 Ur-Namma C,63 Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,64 and the Ballade of Early Rulers.65 Regardless of the speculations that the Flood traditions may be found in the SKL prior to the second millennium BCE, all the earliest copies of SKL that contain the Flood motif or the antediluvian section are from the OB period. The opening lines of the Ur III copy and some OB copies of SKL, e.g., BT 14,66 do not contain the motif or the antediluvian section. This indicates the Flood traditions did not emerge in the SKL until the OB period.67 The SKL played a crucial role at different stages of development of the Flood traditions. When the flood catastrophe was first regarded as a primaeval event in Sumerian traditions, its temporal relationship with other primaeval events (e.g., cosmogony, the institution of kingship) was ambiguous and fluid. The event seems to be associated with the cosmic beginning (cosmogony), as depicted in Inana and the Numun-Grass. But once the Flood entered into the SKL, its temporal relationship with other primaeval events was gradually defined on a linear and chronographic timescale. The Flood was eventually considered as the climactic event that brought the early world establishment to an end while ushering in the second beginning (W-B 444 version of See Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List; Edzard, “Königslisten und Chroniken,” 77–86; Vincente, “The Tall Leilān Recension,” 234–70; Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 101–14. 61 See Cooper, The Curse of Agade. 62 See Michalowski, “History as Charter,” 237–47; idem, Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur. 63 See Flückiger-Hawker, Urnamma of Ur. 64 See Mittermayer, Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata, 86–9, 308–9. 65 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 313–16. 66 See Klein, “The Brockmon Collection Duplicate,” 77–91. 67 Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 8–11, 247–344; see also Milstein, “Reworking Ancient Texts,” 49–57. 60

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SKL). This historiographical development of the Flood as a double-duty event is a result of a shift in focus during the development of the motif: from what had taken place after the catastrophe to what had happened before it. Various attempts were made to construct antediluvian dynasties in chronographic sources. The SKL provided a model both in content and style with which antediluvian traditions began to take shape as an extension of the king list proper into primaeval history.68 On the basis of the extant textual sources, one may roughly delineate the following stages of development of antediluvian chronographic traditions. (1) Initially the traditions may merely consist of a simple list with only factual data about antediluvian rulers and the length of their reigns in their cities (e.g., W-B 62 version of SKL). (2) Different descriptive formulae were added for the total number of rulers (with the length of their reigns) in each dynasty, change of dynasty, and introduction of single rulers and the first ruler of each dynasty. (3) The antediluvian section and the king list proper (now the Among the extant chronographic sources, the following have preserved the antediluvian section: W-B 62 (Langdon, H. Weld-Blundell Collection [vol. 1]); W-B 444 (Jacobsen, the Sumerian King List); Ni2 (Kraus, “Zur Liste der älteren Könige von Babylonien,” 29–60); Berossos (Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker [vol. 3]; Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus; Verbrugghe and Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho); IM 63095 (Finkelstein, “The Antediluvian Kings,” 39, 45, 47); UCBC 9-1819 (ibid., 40); the Dynastic Chronicle (Lambert, “A New Fragment from A List of Antediluvian Kings,” 271–80; Finkel, “Bilingual Chronicle Fragments,” 65–80; Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 126–34); and MS 2855 (Friberg, Babylonian Mathematical Texts, 236–8). Apart from these sources, P5 (Poebel, Historical Texts) and TL (Vincente, “The Tall Leilān Recension,” 234–70) must originally contain the antediluvian section. In addition, it is uncertain whether the following sources originally contained the antediluvian section: G (de Genouillac, Premières recherché archéologique à Kich I-II); L1 + N1 (Legrain, Historical Fragments [PBS XIII]; Kraus, “Zur Liste der älteren Könige,” 29–60; Kramer, “A Fulbright in Turkey,” 3–56); P6 (Poebel, Historical Texts, 81; Civil, “Texts and Fragments,” 79–80); Su2 (Scheil, “Listes Susiennes des dynasties de Sumer-Accad,” 147–66); Su3 + Su4 (ibid.). 68

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postdiluvian section) were joined. Different descriptive formulae in the antediluvian section were further adapted and correlated with those of the king list proper. The introductory formula following that of the original king list (nam-lugal an-ta e11-de3-a-ba “When kingship descended from heaven”) and the concluding remark about the Flood (a-ma-ru ba-ur3-«ra-ta» “The Flood swept over”) were added to the antediluvian section. The new introductory formula (eĝir a-ma-ru ba-ur3-ra-ta “After the Flood had swept over”) was inserted in front of the king list proper (e.g., W-B 444 version of SKL). (4) At the latest stages, the antediluvian section was further expanded with materials borrowed from various sources that deal with antediluvian history and the Flood story (e.g., the Dynastic Chronicle, Berossos).69 Representations of the Flood and the antediluvian section in the SKL have influenced other literary traditions in ancient Mesopotamia. As already noted by Jacobsen,70 lines 88–9, 92–7, 202–5 of the Sumerian Flood Story depend on a chronographic source similar to the W-B version of SKL (lines 1–40).71 Table 2: A Comparison of Antediluvian Sections W-B 444 (SKL)

The Sumerian Flood Story (CBS

(1) [nam] lugal an-ta e11-de3-aba

(88) [u4 x] x nam-lugal-la an-ta e11-de3-aba

10673 + CBS 10867)

For the development of antediluvian traditions in the SKL, see Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List, 1–68; Kraus, “Zur Liste der älteren Könige,” 29–60; Finkelstein, “The Antediluvian Kings,” 39–51; Hallo, “Beginning and End of the Sumerian King List,” 52–7; Galter, “Ša lām abūbi,” 269–301; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 325–40. 70 Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List, 65, n. 119. 71 Another literary composition dealing with the Flood which the W-B 444 version of SKL has influenced is the Rulers of Lagaš. While following the SKL phraseologically and conceptually in some respects, the Lagaš composition also diverges from the SKL in significant ways (see Sollberger, “The Rulers of Lagaš,” 279–80; Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, 146; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 2:325–9). 69

MAJOR LITERARY TRADITIONS When kingship descended from heaven

167

[When…] of kingship descended from heaven, (89) men maḫ ĝešgu-za nam-lugal-la an-ta e11-a-ba when the exalted crown and throne of kingship descended from heaven,

2) eriduki nam-lugal-la kingship was in Eridu. (3–38) (list of five antediluvian cities and eight antediluvian kings)

(92–7) (list of five antediluvian cities assigned to their patron gods)72

* inclusion of antediluvian cities and kings and their succession

* omission of other antediluvian kings and their succession

* omission of Ziusudra as the last antediluvian king and the Flood hero

* inclusion of Ziusudra as the only antediluvian king and the Flood hero

(39) a-ma-ru ba-ur3-«ra-ta»

(202) a-ma-ru ugu kab-du11-ga ba-an-daab-ur3-e

Then the Flood swept over.

The Flood swept over the capitals. (203) u4 7-am3 ĝi6 7-am3 After, for 7 days and 7 nights,

(40) eĝir a-ma-ru ba-ur3-ra-ta After the Flood had swept over,

(204) a-ma-ru kalam-ma ba-ur3-ra-ta the Flood had swept over the land,

In terms of the names and order of the antediluvian cities (Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar, and Šuruppak), the Sumerian Flood Story seems to have borrowed from W-B 444 or a similar king list tradition (see Jacobsen, “The Eridu Genesis,” 526). But the way in which the cities were presented and the idea that these cities were assigned to their patron gods are at variance with W-B 444. These features do not seem to have originated in the Sumerian Flood Story; instead, they may have been adapted from earlier Sumerian traditions such as LSU. 72

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Y. S. CHEN (205) ĝešma2 gur4-gur4 a gal-la im-ḫul tuku4-tuku4-a-ta and waves and windstorms had rocked the huge boat.

(41) nam-lugal an-ta e11-de3-a- (206–61) (the survival and apotheosis of ba the Flood hero Ziusudra being and when kingship descended repeatedly called king) from heaven, (42) kiški nam-lugal-la kingship was in Kiš.

The above comparison indicates that though the Sumerian Flood Story has adopted some similar phraseologies and factual data regarding antediluvian history as found in the SKL, it diverges from the SKL with regard to the presentation of antediluvian rulers. On the one hand, the W-B 444 version of SKL presents eight antediluvian kings (Alulim and Alalgar in Eridu; Enmeluanna, Enmegalanna and dDumuzi in Bad-tibira; Ensipazianna in Larak; Enmedurana in Sippar; Ubār-Tutu in Šuruppak) while omitting Ziusudra as the last antediluvian king. On the other hand, the Sumerian Flood Story only presents Ziusudra while omitting other antediluvian kings. With the survival of Ziusudra as the antediluvian king, there was no need for the reinstitution of kingship as seen in the SKL. The above two presentations seem to be based on two dialectically different political frameworks.73 See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 267–83. That Ziusudra was omitted in the SKL may have to do with the political/ideological framework of the chronographic source that emphasizes dynastic discontinuity and the transient nature of kingship. In such a framework, a royal survivor from the previous dynasty who was granted eternal life would be very problematic. The Sumerian Flood Story, however, follows the royal ideology that emphasizes the durability of kingship, as reflected especially in royal hymns from the Ur III and IsinLarsa periods. During these periods, the incumbent ruler was often portrayed as deified and blessed with prolonged life or reign (e.g., UrNamma D 17; Šulgi B 190–1, 194–5; Ibbi-Suen C 20 19–20, 43, 61, 68–9; Šuilīšu A 66; Išme-Dagan B 32, 43, 64). The different conceptions of the 73

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Sumerian City Laments and Isin Royal Hymns The corpus of the city laments emerging from the Isin-Larsa period basically comprises five Sumerian literary compositions: LSU, LU, LE, LW, and the Lament for Nippur (NL). These compositions portray the destruction of various major cities in Sumer and Akkad and the region as a whole at the time of collapse of the Ur III period and its aftermath. The portrayals of destruction in the laments in many respects follow similar depictions in Curse Agade and Ur-Namma A from the Ur III dynasty, except that the representations in the laments are more elaborate in style and form. Together these compositions dealing with catastrophe share many topoi and motifs in common that are in dialectical opposition to those found in royal hymns and inscriptions from the Ur III and Isin-Larsa periods. What are depicted as being destroyed in the compositions dealing with catastrophe are almost exactly the same as what were depicted as being achieved by the rulers praised in the hymns and inscriptions.74 Furthermore, the destruction is also represented as an inversion of the creation and institution of civilization as portrayed in Sumerian mythological compositions about the primaeval time of origins. The literary representations of destruction of Sumer and Akkad in the city laments played a significant role in political legitimation during the Isin-Larsa period. The Isin rulers, such as Išme-Dagan and Ur-Ninurta, were presented as restorers of cosmic and social order in their royal hymns. The use of the episode on destruction as preparation for the praise of Išme-Dagan who was projected as the divinely chosen agent of restoration in LW and NL attests to the manipulation of the destruction-restoration ideology through combining the lament and royal hymn genres during the Isin dynasty.75 nature of kingship in the SKL and the Sumerian Flood Story are understandable. While the former sought to legitimize the newly established dynasty in place of the previous regime, the latter strove to prolong the existing reign. 74 See Flückiger-Hawker, Urnamma of Ur, 28–58; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 352–3. 75 Tinney, The Nippur Lament, 23–5.

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The depictions of destruction and restoration in the city laments and Isin royal hymns made a vital contribution to the development of the Flood story or epic. The Flood epic to a large extent has simply followed the literary conventions and conceptual patterns of the Sumerian literary traditions. With regard to the scope and effect of destruction, though all having the tendency to depict catastrophe in cosmic proportions, the texts in question mostly restrict themselves to the Mesopotamian setting in the specific geographic references they give. Curse Agade, Ur-Namma A, and the city laments represent the disasters as having taken place within Sumer and Akkad, or in the Land (kalam) of Sumer. The Flood epic is no exception, see the references to mātum = kalam (OB Atra-ḫasīs II i 2, 3; ii 8, 22); the Tigris and Euphrates (OB Atra-ḫasīs I i 25–6); the five antediluvian cities: Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar, Šuruppak (the Sumerian Flood Story 93–97); Ki-ur, the goddess Ninlil’s shrine within Enlil’s temple E-kur in Nippur (the Sumerian Flood Story 151); and Šurrupak, “the [city that] is situated on the [banks] of the Euphrates” (SB Gilgameš XI 11–12). Of these geographic references, the Tigris and Euphrates are also the general setting in the city laments (see LSU 25, 38, 61, 94; LW Segm. E 25). Eridu, Ki-ur, and E-kur are also frequently mentioned in the city laments. The removal of kingship, which is a pivotal motif in Curse Agade 66–9, Ur-Namma A, LSU 17, 19, 28, 55, 99–100, 366–9, is also found in the Sumerian Flood Story 160 nam-lugal-bi bala-bi x [……] “its kingship, its reign …” The Sumerian Flood Story 158–9 ditil-la inim pu-uḫ2-ru-[um ……] | inim du11-ga an den-[lil2-la2-ka …] are presumably verbatim quotations of LSU 364–5 di-til-la inim pu-uḫ2-ru-um-ma-ka šu gi4-gi4 nu-ĝal2 | inim du11ga an den-lil2-la2-ka šu bal-e nu-zu “The verdict, the word of the divine assembly cannot be reversed. The word pronounced by An and Enlil knows no overturning.”

Also line 160 of the Sumerian Flood Story (quoted above) was partially patterned after LSU 369 (nam-lugal-bi bala-bi ba-gid2-e-de3 ša3 kuš2-u3-de3 “its kingship, its reign, has been so long that it has exhausted itself”).

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The outbreak of plague, which was the first attempt at destruction of the human race by the gods in OB Atra-ḫasīs I 352– 416, may find its parallels in the city laments, e.g., LW Segm. A 25 unuki-ga teš2-bi a-ba-a ib2-ta-an-⌈gu7?⌉-[(x) x] gig a-ba-a in-[ga-x (x)] “Who devoured all in Unug? Who … sickness too?”

The Sumerian word gig “(to be) sick” in this line parallels with the Akkadian term murṣum “sickness, illness” in OB Atra-ḫasīs I 371 (see also the NA recension K 3399 + 3934 [S], rev. iv 12, 16, 28). Famine, drought, scarce resources and economic disasters, major aspects of the catastrophe as depicted in the Sumerian compositions (Curse Agade 121–4, 172–87, 233–4, 248–9; UrNamma A 27; LSU 60–1, 88–9, 102, 127–30, 196, 221, 251–3, 293– 6, 303–17, 318–27, 389–91, 498–501; LU 227, 269–74; LE [the Nippur version] Segm. C 17; NL 105–6), are also prominent features in OB Atra-ḫasīs II i–iv. The episode in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic deals with the second attempt of Enlil to suppress human growth and noise by restraining rain and underground water in order to diminish agricultural yields. It is after this attempt being frustrated by Enki and his servant Atra-ḫasīs that Enlil resorted to the use of the Flood. More specifically, both Curse Agade 185–7 and the NA recension of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic K 3399 + 3934 (S), rev. vi 11–15 portray cannibalism. In Curse Agade it was dogs that devoured people, while in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic it was people who devoured one another. Carnage or destruction of human life is another common motif that binds the Flood epic together with the compositions dealing with catastrophe from the Ur III and Isin-Larsa periods: Curse Agade 192, 214, 217–18, 237–41; LSU 254, 301–2, 399–402; LU 164, 212–29, 249, 293, 341; LW Segm. E 1–7, 66, 70; NL 70; OB Atra-ḫasīs II viii 34–5; III iii 37–54, iv 6; the Sumerian Flood Story 38–9, 157, 259; and SB Gilgameš XI 113, 122, 171. The effects of catastrophe are not just restricted to the human sphere, but also extended into the divine realm. The motifs of lamenting and distressed deities and their abandoning of their earthly abodes in the midst of destruction are held in common by Curse Agade 58–62; Ur-Namma A 8–19; LSU 115–62, 174–250, 271–80, 371–7; LU 1–37, 46, 62–3, 70–1, 76–168, 237–329; LE (the Nippur version) Segm. A 11–14, Segm. B 1, 3, 5–15, Segm. C

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26, 28, 30–6; LE (the Ur version) Segm. B 1–6; OB Atra-ḫasīs III iii 25–54, iv 4–15; the Sumerian Flood Story 140–2 (see also 93–7); and SB Gilgameš XI 114–26. As noted above, the laments portrayed catastrophe as an inversion of the creation and the institution of civilization from the primaeval time of origins. Towards the end of the laments, restoration was represented as a further inversion, a “recreation,” so to speak.76 Such dramatic twist of literary representations can be seen in the Flood epic.77 Most interesting, perhaps, are the portrayals of the human agent of petition and restoration in the city laments and Isin royal hymns (LW; NL; Išme-Dagan A 118–23; the Instructions of Ur-Ninurta 1–7),78 which seem to have influenced the representations of the Flood hero. In the laments and hymns, the agent was a royal figure who restored society and civilization from a flood-like disaster, because of which he was granted the prolonged/eternal life or reign from the gods. In the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, there is no indication of the royal identity of the Flood hero. Instead, in several instances he is referred to as ardīšu “his [Enki’s] servant” (OB Atra-hasīs I vii 373, III i 16). But the royal identity of Atra-ḫasīs might have been hinted at in his commanding status and his role as intermediary between Enki and the people. However, in the Sumerian Flood Story the royal status of the Flood hero is repeatedly affirmed (lines 145, 209, 211, 254, 258). Though not explicitly calling the Flood hero a king, SB Gilgameš XI seems to depict him as a royal figure coming from the city Šuruppak (XI 11, 23), the last antediluvian city,79 and as the son of Ubār-Tutu (XI 23), an antediluvian king, according to the chronographic sources mentioned above. In addition, the Flood hero’s royal status is expressed, as also observed by Galter,80 obliquely in SB Gilgameš XI 95–6

See Tinney, The Nippur Lament, 44–5. Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 352–3; 403–10. 78 See also Year Name 22 of Ibbi-Suen (Frayne, Ur III Period, 365). 79 See the W-B 62, W-B 444, and UCBC 9-1819 versions of SKL; the Dynastic Chronicle. 80 “Ša lām abūbi,” 275. 76 77

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ana pēḫî ša ĝešeleppi(ma2) mpuzur-denlil(kur.gal) lu2malāḫi(ma.laḫ4) | ēkalla (e2.gal) attadin adi būšēšu “To the man who sealed the boat, the shipwright PuzurEnlil, I have given the palace with all its goods.”

The motif of granting prolonged/eternal life to the human agent of restoration can be found in the Sumerian Flood Story 256–7 and SB Gilgameš XI 203–4. The motif is not present in the extant OB version of the Atra-ḫasis Epic. Presumably it is not included in the original composition, partly because the Babylonian epic followed the tradition that human mortality was only instituted after the Flood. This implies that Atra-ḫasīs and those who were from the antediluvian era and survived the Flood with him in his boat, unlike those born in the postdiluvian era, were already capable of living forever as long as the gods allowed them.81 Another reason for the motif to be missing in the OB version of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic may have to do with the Babylonian epic’s emphasis on the persistence of the human race rather than the immortality of an individual or a royal figure.82 The Flood story or epic did not totally adhere to the Sumerian traditions, but represented destruction and restoration in unique ways. For instance, the city laments followed the figurative tradition closely and tended to use compound images of destruction to convey devastating effects, thus freely mixing catastrophic weather imagery with plague, drought, famine and As pointed out by George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 507–8, the same idea that death was only instituted after the Flood can be observed in the Death of Bilgames (the Mê-Turan version), 76–7, 166–7. This conception of death differs from the tradition which held that human mortality started from the creation, as seen in the Gilgameš Epic (OB VA + BM iii 1–5; SB Gilgameš X 319–22). 82 That the motif is found in the MB recension of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic from Ras Shamra Ugaritica v. 167 = RS 22.421 rev. 1–4 (Lambert and Millard, Atra-ḫasīs, 132–3) and the NB/Achaemenid fragment of the epic MMA 86.11.378A rev. v 18–19 (see Lambert, “Atra-ḫasīs,” 198–200) seems to be a result of influence from the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic (Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 415–16; see also idem., 2:370–4). 81

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other images of destruction. Though vestiges of mixed images (e.g., flood, fire, battle) can still be found in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, the epic, in its literal representation of catastrophe, began to differentiate images of destruction and thus staged different disasters in series. Overall, the epic is more schematic, consistently using the topos of noise (rigmu or ḫubūru) to structure all the constituent events in a cause-and-effect sequence which culminated in Enlil’s final unleashing of the Flood.83 In another instance, the interruption of cultic offerings as a consequence of catastrophe in the Sumerian traditions has been transformed in the Flood epic into the people’s deliberate withdrawal of devotion from their hostile and unhelpful deities. Instead, as a form of bribery, they redirected offerings to the gods in charge of plague and weather in order to ward off their attacks. While carrying on the theological critique as seen in the Sumerian antecedents (e.g., LSU 340–9) that the gods only jeopardized their own livelihood in destroying their human sources of support, the Flood epic went further and added a satirical scene of the gods suffering severe hunger and thirst upon destruction of their human subjects by the Flood (OB Atra-ḫasīs III v 34–5). This motif of divine hunger and thirst forms a meaningful parallel with the earlier drought and famine human beings suffered as a result of the gods’ punitive actions in Tablets I and II of the OB version of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic. The parallel suggests that if the gods pushed the limits too far in their hostility towards their human subjects they would suffer the same fate.84 That the city laments and royal hymns constitute important literary sources for the composition of the Flood story or epic should not surprise us. This is so not just because the subject See Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 388–94. That the destinies of gods and humankind were interwoven has already been hinted at earlier in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, through the wordplays between ilū and awīlum in the opening line of the epic inūma ilū awīlum “when gods were (like) men” (OB Atra-ḫasīs I 1), in the creation of humankind ilumma u awīlum libtalilū | puḫur ina ṭiṭṭi “that god and human may be mixed together in the clay” (OB Atra-ḫasīs I 212–13), and in the name of the god Aw-ila who was slaughtered for the creation of humankind (OB Atra-ḫasīs I 223). 83 84

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matters of the former traditions (i.e., destruction and restoration) naturally provide inspiration for the latter. Also, in terms of educational background, the authors or scribes of the Flood narratives underwent scribal training in which some of the laments and royal hymns were part of the central curriculum during the OB period.85 Sumerian and Babylonian Compositions about Gilgameš Though the name of Gilgameš is attested in textual sources as far back as the middle of the third millennium BCE, it was not until the end of the millennium when literary compositions about Gilgameš began to emerge in Sumerian writing. These compositions initially perhaps served for the court entertainment and political legitimation of the Ur III rulers who celebrated the heroic exploits of their legendary ancestors in Uruk.86 In spite of their origin presumably rooted in the Ur III period, most of the extant Sumerian literary compositions about Gilgameš are scribal products from the eighteenth century BCE. Temporal and geographic distribution of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic, however, is much wider. First attested in OB textual sources, different versions of the epic are found in MB, NA and LB fragments from Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, and Anatolia.87 The works of Kramer,88 Tigay,89 and George90 have contributed much to our understanding of what and how diverse Sumerian and Akkadian traditions were used for the development of the Babylonian epic.

See Michalowski, Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur, 16– 17; Tinney, The Nippur Lament, 159–72. More recently, van Koppen, “The Scribe of the Flood Story,” 144 notes that the only known copyist of the Atra-ḫasīs Epic during the OB period also copied LU. 86 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 7–8; Michalowski, “Maybe Epic,” 7–25. 87 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 17–54. 88 Kramer, “The Epic of Gilgameš and Its Sumerian Sources,” 7–23. 89 Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. 90 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. 85

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Contrary to earlier scholarly assumptions that the Flood and Gilgameš traditions had been associated with each other in the third millennium BCE,91 research on the literary history of both traditions indicates they were originally separate and only became associated since the OB period when the Flood traditions emerged. The initial discovery of their originally separate existence was made by scholars who noted that the Flood story embedded in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian version of the Gilgameš Epic was only a secondary insertion.92 Indeed, still no evidence of the story can be found in the second millennium BCE sources of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic.93 Nevertheless, scholars generally believe that the long-lived legendary figure, Ūta-na’ištim the Distant (ūta-na’ištim rūqu), from whom Gilgameš sought immortality in the OB fragment OB VA + BM is the Flood hero, despite the fact that the legend surrounding this figure in the Babylonian Gilgameš tradition is alien to the Flood story in certain respects.94 Such belief is based on the assumption that the name, as in the case of UD-napišti(zi) rūqu in the SB version, is the Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian name of the Flood hero Ziusudra (zi-u4-su3-ra2): UD parallels with u4 “day or days,” napišti with zi “life,” and rūqu with su3-ra2 “distant.”95 As will be discussed below, the modern identification of UD-napišti with Ziusudra is based on ancient precedents. Recent research, however, has pointed out some philological and conceptual problems in equating ūta-na’ištim rūqu with zi-u4-su3-

E.g., Mallowan, “Noah’s Flood Reconsidered,” 67–70. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, 19, 214–50. 93 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 18–25. 94 For example, the ale-wife, who was later named Šiduri in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic, and Sursunabu (OB VA + BM) or Ur-šanabi (the SB version), who was the boatman of Ūta-na’ištim/mUD-napišti, through whose help Gilgameš finally reached the legendary hero, are not part of the cast in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic. 95 Clay, Hebrew Deluge Story, 23; Raven, “Selected Passages in Enuma eliš,” 49; Tigay, Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, 229–30; Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 32 91 92

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ra.96 The two names originally represented two distinct literary figures from separate literary traditions. The figures were characterized rather differently in the literary contexts to which they belonged and were associated with different conceptual frameworks and plots. The characterization of Ūta-na’ištim the Distant is shaped by the leitmotif of Gilgameš’s seeking eternal life in the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic, while Ziusudra was connected with the preservation of humanity and civilization in the Sumerian Flood Story. It was only when the two literary traditions were brought together in different Mesopotamian sources since the OB period that the two names were equated and the respective literary figures merged into one. During this process, the two traditions also exchanged their motifs with each other. The convergence of the Gilgameš and Flood traditions is first attested in a Sumerian composition called the Death of Bilgames from the OB period.97 Though both the Flood hero Ziusudra and the Flood story from Eridu are alluded to in this composition, they are not connected with Gilgameš’s pursuit of immortality through a long-lived legendary figure as seen in the Babylonian epic. According to this Sumerian composition, Gilgameš reached Ziusudra in order to obtain antediluvian knowledge for the restoration of civilization destroyed by the Flood.98 The reference to Gilgameš’s journey to Ziusudra is to show that regardless of Gilgameš’s great contributions as a cultural hero, he still could not escape death. The allusions to the Flood story carry a similar function in the tale.99 Despite Gilgameš’s partially divine birth through his goddess mother Ninsun, he was still to be counted as human, thus subject to the human destiny established by the gods George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 152–3; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 292–309. 97 For the text of the Death of Bilgames, see Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi, Gilgameš et la mort; Veldhuis, “The Solution of the Dream,” 133–48. Note that Bilgames is the name of Gilgameš in Sumerian. 98 The Death of Bilgames, the Nippur version, segm. D, 5–11; the MêTuran version, segm. F, 14–22; 108–15. 99 The allusions to the Flood story are only extant in the Mê-Turan version, segm. F, 23–37; 116–30 96

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after the Flood that, apart from Ziusudra, no one would be allowed to live forever again. It is important to note that Gilgameš’s journey to Ziusudra for the restoration of antediluvian civilization and his learning of the ineluctable human fate through Enki’s recounting of the Flood story represent two separate events in Gilgameš’s life: one is listed as part of his heroic exploits, and the other comes only at the very end of his life when his life was judged by the gods. In another Sumerian composition called the Ballade of Early Rulers from the OB period, Gilgameš and the Flood hero Ziusudra are mentioned together. The relevant passage quoted below from this composition is partially based on a Sumerian chronographic tradition (such as the W-B 444 version of SKL) in which Ziusudra is listed as the last antediluvian ruler and Gilgameš as a postdiluvian ruler. The Ballade of Early Rulers 9–14 Where is Alulu, the king who reigned 36,000 years? Where is Entena (= Etana) the king, the man who ascended to heaven? Where is Gilgameš, who, like Ziusudra, sought the (eternal) life? Where is Huwawa, who was caught in submission? Where is Enkidu, whose strength was not defeated(?) in the country? Where are those kings, the vanguards of former days?100

In line 11 [me-a mbil3-ga-meš z]i-u4-su3-ra2-gin7 nam-ti i3-kin-kin “Where is Gilgameš, who, like Ziusudra, sought the (eternal) life?” both Gilgameš and Ziusudra are represented as seeking eternal life. As mentioned above, the motif of seeking eternal life due to Gilgameš’s fear of death is characteristic of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic. Trying to resolve the fear of death differently, the Sumerian tales about Gilgameš traditionally do not seem to have portrayed Gilgameš as pursuing eternal life in its literal sense.101 That the motif appears in the Ballade of Early Rulers indicates the influence of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic upon the Sumerian traditions about

100 101

Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer, 301–2. Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 295–308.

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Gilgameš.102 Just as the legendary hero Ūta-na’ištim the Distant is characterized according to the depiction of Gilgameš in the Babylonian epic, so is the Flood hero Ziusudra perceived as seeking eternal life in the Ballade of Early Rulers. Conceptually, this composition offers the first piece of evidence for the convergence of the two literary figures: Ziusudra and Uta-na’ištim the Distant. In the omens concerning Gilgameš from a MA fragment (A) and a NB fragment (c), it can be observed that Ziusudra, which had served as the Sumerian equivalent to Ūta-na’ištim the Distant in the above Sumerian source during the OB period, was even adopted in the Akkadian sources where the name Ūta-na’ištim/UD-napištim is expected: “[(If) in] the liver the top and the middle parts of the ‘station’ are ‘effaced’ and its base is like […, it is an omen of Gilgameš, who] sought life like Zisudra and [made] the journey to Zisudra […] to his land […].”103 At least from the MB and MA periods onwards, the Akkadian name Ūta-na’ištim began to be adapted according to zi-u4-su3-ra2: UD (u4) became the Sumerian equivalent of ūta (u2-ta) on the one hand, and zi for na’ištim, napištim or napušte on the other. These adaptations can be seen in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic: mUD-napišti(zi) rūqi, mUD-napišti(zi), or mUD-napištim(zi)tim; the Akkadian versions of the Instructions of Šuruppak: mUD-napu[šte] for zi-u4-su3-ra2;104 the NA copy of a group vocabulary: zi-sud3-da = UD-na-puš2-te; and the LB text that goes together with “The Babylonian Map of the World”: [m]⌈d⌉UD-zitim.105 The most salient cases of the convergence of the Flood and Gilgameš traditions, however, are found in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic. In this late version, not only was the Flood episode

See George (The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 16–17) for other cases of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic’s influence on the Sumerian compositions about Gilgameš. 103 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 113–14 104 Alster, The Instructions of Suruppak, 121; Galter, “Ša lām abūbi,” 281. 105 Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, 36; George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 152. 102

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quoted extensively from the Atra-ḫasīs Epic,106 deliberate efforts were made by the author to identify the legendary hero Ūtana’ištim/UD-napišti the Distant in the Gilgameš Epic with the Flood hero. On the one hand, Ūta-na’ištim/UD-napišti the Distant is identified in the light of the family relationship of Ziusudra according to the chronographic traditions and the Instructions of Šuruppak as discussed above: mUD-napišti(zi) mār(dumu) mubara-dtutu “UD-napišti, son of Ubār-Tutu” (IX 6; X 208); lu2šuruppakû mār(dumu) mubara-dtu-tu “O man of Šuruppak, son of Ubār-Tutu” (XI 23). On the other hand, in the Flood episode, the Flood hero is adapted in the light of the characterization of Ūta-na’ištim/UDnapišti vis-à-vis Gilgameš with regard to seeking and finding (eternal) life: balāṭa iš’u “he found life” (IX 76); balāṭa teš’u “you found life” (XI 7); and še’i napšāti(zi)meš “seek life!” (XI 25). If one compares XI 24–6 with OB Atra-ḫasīs III i 22–3, it is obvious that the motif of seeking life was added in the late version of the Gilgameš Epic. Table 3: Motif of seeking Life OB Atra-ḫasīs III i 22–3

SB Gilgameš XI 24–6

ubbut bīta bini eleppa

uqqur bīta bini ĝešeleppa muššir mešrâmma še’i napšāti

makkūra zērma

[m]akkūru zērma

napišta bulliṭ

napišti bulliṭ

“Destroy the house, build a boat!

“Destroy the house, build a boat! Abandon riches and seek life!

Spurn property and save life.”

Spurn property and save life.”

The above analysis shows that the author of the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic was consciously interacting with and adapting different strands of the Flood traditions. Another example of this can be found towards the end of the Flood story (XI 197–204) See Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, 214–40 on adaptation of the Flood episode in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic. 106

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where the episode of the Flood hero’s apotheosis and resettlement as represented in lines 256–61 of the Sumerian Flood Story was adapted and made into the aetiological occasion for the renaming of the Flood hero from Atra-ḫasīs to UD-napištim the Distant.107 Apart from the above Flood traditions, the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic has been substantially influenced by and adapted the representations of the Flood story and the Flood hero in the Death of Bilgames. For instance, the late version has broadly followed the Sumerian composition in using the Flood story to provide aetiological explanations as to why Gilgameš, in spite of his illustrious career (Tablets I and II–VI) and his divine birth (Tablets I–II and X), had failed to obtain eternal life. However, the late version has combined the two separate events in the Death of Bilgames as one: Gilgameš’s journey to Ziusudra to retrieve antediluvian knowledge for the restoration of civilization as part of his illustrious achievements and his learning of the verdict of inescapable death pronounced by Enki at the divine assembly towards the end of his life. Instead of Enki, now it is the Flood hero who recounted the Flood story, at a much greater length, in order to underscore that the granting of eternal life to the Flood hero was due to an unrepeatable circumstance. Because of that, the Flood hero said to Gilgameš in the late version, contrary to the Sumerian composition, that the gods would not be assembled to deliberate whether an exception could be made for a mortal like him (XI 207–8).108 That the above two events in the Death of Galter, “Ša lām abūbi,” 275; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 317–19 108 The divergent representations of the Flood story in relation to Gilgameš’s final destiny in the Sumerian composition and the late version of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic may have sprung from their conceptual differences. The former held the view that each individual’s destiny was to be decided in the divine assembly. But the latter followed the OB version of the Gilgameš Epic (OB VA + BM iii 3–5) that since human mortality had long been determined by the gods at the creation (SB Gilgameš X 319–22; George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 507–8), the gods no longer had to assemble for such matter again. According to the late version, the gods assembled for the case of the Flood hero only because of the 107

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Bilgames were combined into one in the late version is closely tied in with the late version of the Gilgameš Epic’s identification of the Flood hero Ziusudra (to whom Gilgameš traveled to retrieve antediluvian knowledge in the Sumerian Gilgameš tradition) with Ūta-na’ištim/UD-napišti (to whom Gilgameš journeyed to search for eternal life in the Babylonian Gilgameš tradition). The Flood hero, now called by the name Ūta-na’ištim/UD-napišti, carries both the function of transmitting to Gilgameš the antediluvian knowledge for restoring civilization and the function of imparting to the king the lesson on the human conditions. It is important to note that the late version has clearly given priority to the former function while suppressing the traditional emphasis on individual existence and fulfillment as expressed through the carpe diem advice in the OB version of the Gilgameš Epic (OB VA + BM iii 1–15). As a result, the focus of the epic is shifted to a broader concern for civilization and society,109 that despite Gilgameš’s failure to find eternal life he brought back from the Flood hero the knowledge that benefited his city and country (I 37–44).110

CONCLUSION The above study has demonstrated that the emergence and development of the Flood traditions in ancient Mesopotamia were not isolated cultural and literary phenomena but involved several major strands of literary traditions. On the one hand, the Flood traditions had inherited many aspects of previous traditions. The use of flood terminology and the portrayals of the Flood in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic, to a certain extent, still follow the figurative and extraordinary circumstance of the Flood. Thus, while eternal life was still proposed as a faint possibility for Gilgameš in the divine assembly according to the Death of Bilgames, no single thought of that was entertained in the SB version. The late version of the Babylonian Gilgameš Epic appears to be more emphatic than the Death of Bilgames when it comes to the inescapable human fate of Gilgameš. 109 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 504–6; Chen, “Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions,” 319–25 110 Such message is dialectically different from what is presented in the Death of Bilgames (see above).

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mythical traditions that tend to associate the flood image with the images of animals, mythical monsters, and battle. Both the Atraḫasīs Epic and the Sumerian Flood Story also rely considerably on the Sumerian compositions dealing with catastrophe and on the Isin royal hymns in terms of their representations of destruction and restoration and the portrayals of the Flood hero. The Flood epic or story has also inherited traditional motifs, stylistic devices and structures from the Sumerian literary traditions dealing with the primeval time of origins. Both mythological and chronographic sources concerning antediluvian history depend on the opening lines of the Instructions of Šuruppak for their constructions of the last antediluvian dynasty, their characterizations of the Flood hero, and their representations of the communication between the Flood hero Ziusudra/Atra-ḫasīs and his patron deity Enki/Ea. Antediluvian chronographic traditions were able to take shape because of the models provided by the SKL in both content and style. On the other hand, the Flood traditions have not only transformed some of the early traditions but also brought innovations. The avoidance of using the flood term as the signifier in the Atra-ḫasīs Epic clearly indicates the conscious effort of the author of the epic to part with the prevalent practice in the figurative traditions. The emergence of the Flood traditions that represent the flood as a primaeval catastrophe involves innovation, both stylistically and conceptually, in the ways the primaeval time of origins was depicted in Mesopotamian literary sources. The antediluvian section in some versions of SKL is actually an extension of the chronographic tradition into the era before the Flood. Compared with the city laments, the Atra-ḫasīs Epic initiated a more schematic structure in its representations of destruction and restoration, by consistently using the topos of noise to tie all the constituent events in a cause-and-effect sequence which culminated in the Flood. Furthermore, the epic has also given a satirical spin to the motif of interrupted cultic offerings in the midst of catastrophe as found in the Sumerian compositions in order to show the limits of the divine hostility towards their human subjects because of the interdependence of the gods and human beings. It is not just that the earlier literary traditions had contributed significantly to the making of the Flood traditions. The Flood traditions had also played a vital role in the evolution of the earlier

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traditions. The adaptation of the Instructions of Šuruppak on account of the emerging antediluvian chronographic sources by adding the genealogical framework, naming the son receiving the instructions as Ziusudra, and identifying the protagonists in the didactic scenario as the last antediluvian dynasty is a good example. But the most fascinating cases of influence of the Flood traditions are found in the SB version of the Gilgameš Epic. In this source, both the Sumerian and Babylonian Flood mythological and chronographic traditions were absorbed. Further, the legendary hero Ūta-na’ištim/UD-napišti the Distant was identified with the Flood hero Ziusudra. Though the Flood hero is renamed as Ūtana’ištim/UD-napišti the Distant, the motif which Ziusudra is traditionally associated with, i.e., the preservation and restoration of human civilization, has become dominant in the late version of the Gilgameš Epic. Our examination of the making of the Flood traditions in relation to the major literary traditions reveals the frequent convergence and mutual influence among different strands of Mesopotamian literary traditions during the process of their composition and transmission. As can be especially seen in the repeated interactions between Sumerian and Babylonian Flood traditions and Sumerian and Babylonian Gilgameš traditions, the literary histories of these traditions are intertwined to such a degree that it would be almost in vain to tackle one without trying to unravel the others. It is by tracking the intertwined trajectories of these traditions in the larger context of Mesopotamian literary history and production that one may come to a better understanding of development of each individual tradition.

WORKS CITED Alster, Bendt. The Instructions of Suruppak. Mesopotamia. Copenhagen Studies in Assyriology 2. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1974. ———. Wisdom of Ancient Sumer. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005. ———. “Scribes, Sages, and Seers in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Pages 46–63 in Scribes, Sages, and Seers: The Sages in the Eatern Mediterranean World. Edited by Leo G. Perdue. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008. Alster, Bendt, and Aage Westenholz. “The Barton Cylinder.” ASJ 16 (1994): 15–46.

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Biggs, Robert. “The Abū Ṣalābīkh Tablets: A Preliminary Survey.” JCS 20 (1966): 73–88. Burstein, Stanley. The Babyloniaca of Berossus. SMANE 1/5. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1978. Carr, David M. Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Cavigneaux, Antoine, and F. N. H. Al-Rawi. Gilgameš et la mort. Textes de Tell Haddad VI: avec un appendice sur les textes funéraires sumériens. CM 19. Groningen: Styx, 2000. Chen, Y. S. “The Emergence and Development of Sumerian and Babylonian Traditions Related to the Primeval Flood Catastrophe from the Old Babylonian Period.” 2 vols. D.Phil. diss, University of Oxford, 2009. Chen, Y. S. “The Flood Motif as a Stylistic and Temporal Device in Sumerian Literary Traditions.” JANER 12 (2012): 158–89. Civil, Miguel. “Texts and Fragments.” JCS 15 (1961): 79–80. Clay, A. T. A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform and Other Epic Fragments in the Pierpont Morgan Library. YOSR 5 3. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1922. Clifford, R. J. Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and the Bible. Washington D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1994. Cooper, Jerrold S. The Curse of Agade. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1983. Dietrich, Manfried. “ina ūmī ullûti ‘An jenen (fernen) Tagen’: Ein sumerisches kosmogonisches Mythologem in babylonischer Tradition.” Pages 57–72 in Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament: Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherrn von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag am 19. Juni 1993. Edited by Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1995. Dijk, J. J. A. van. “Le motif cosmique dans la pensée sumérienne.” AcOr 28 (1964): 1–59. ———. LUGAL UD ME-LÁM-bi NIR-ĜÁL: Le récit épique et didactique des Travaux de Ninurta, du Déluge et de la Nouvelle Création. Leiden: Brill, 1983. Edzard, D. O. “Königslisten und Chroniken.” RLA 6 (1980–83.): 77–86.

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Eichler, Barry L. “Mar-URU5: Tempest in a Deluge.” Pages 90–4 in The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo. Edited by Mark E. Cohen, D. C. Snell and D. B. Weisburg. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993. Ferrara, A. J. “A Hodgepodge of Snippets: Some Thoughts on Narrative Now and Then.” Pages 47–66 in Approaches to Sumerian Literature: Studies in Honour of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout). Edited by Piotr Michalowski and Niek Veldhuis. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Finkel, Irving S. “Bilingual Chronicle Fragments.” JCS 32 (1980): 65–80. Finkelstein, J. J. “The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet.” JCS 17 (1963): 39–51. Flückiger-Hawker, Esther. Urnamma of Ur in Sumerian Literary Tradition. OBO 166. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Foster, Benjamin R. Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. 3rd ed. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005. Frame, Grant. Rulers of Babylonia from the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (1157–612 B.C.). RIMB 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Frayne, Douglas R. Ur III Period (2112–2004 BC). RIME 3/2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Friberg, Jöran. A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts: Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection. Cuneiform Texts I. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. New York: Springer, 2007. Galter, Hannes D. “Ša lām abūbi: Die Zeit vor der großen Flut in der mesopotamischen Überlieferung.” Pages 269–301 in Von Sumer bis Homer: Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zum 60. Geburtstag am 25. Februar 2004. Edited by Robert Rollinger. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2005. Genouillac, H. de. Premières recherché archéologique à Kich I–II. Paris, 1924. George, Andrew. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Glassner, Jean-Jacques. Mesopotamian Chronicles. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2004.

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Hallo, W. W. “New Viewpoints on Cuneiform Literature.” IEJ 12 (1962): 13–26. ———. “Beginning and End of the Sumerian King List in the Nippur Recension.” JCS 17 (1963): 52–7. ———. “The Limits of Skepticism.” JAOS 110 (1990): 187–99. ———. “Information from before the Flood: Antediluvian Notes from Babylonia and Israel.” Maarav 7 (1991): 173–81. Horowitz, Wayne. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998. Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Sumerian King List. AS 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939. ———. “The Eridu Genesis.” JBL 100 (1981): 513–29. Jacoby, Felix. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Vol. 3. Leiden, 1958. Kilmer, A. D. “Fugal Features of Atraḫasīs: The Birth Theme.” Pages 127–39 in Mesopotamian Poetic Language: Sumerian and Akkadian. Edited by M. E. Vogelzang and H. L. J.Vanstphout. CM 6. Groningen: Styx, 1996. ———. “Visualizing Text: Schematic Patterns in Akkadian Poetry.” Pages 209–21 in If a Man Builds a Joyful House: Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty. Edited by Ann K. Guinan et al. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Klein, Jacob. “The Brockmon Collection Duplicate of the Sumerian Kinglist (BT 14).” Pages 77–91 in On the Third Dynasty of Ur: Studies in Honor of Marcel Sigrist. Edited by Piotr Michalowski. Boston: ASOR, 2008. Koppen, Frans van. “The Scribe of the Flood Story and His Circle.” Pages 140–66 in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Edited by Karen Radner and Eleanor Robson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Kramer, Samuel N. “The Epic of Gilgameš and Its Sumerian Sources.” JAOS 64 (1944): 7–23. ———. “A Fulbright in Turkey.” UMB 17/2 (1952): 3–56. Kraus, F. R. “Zur Liste der älteren Könige von Babylonien.” ZA 50 (1952): 29–60. Krebernick, Manfred. “Die Texte aus Fāra und Tell Abū Ṣalābīh.” Pages 237–430 in Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit. Edited by P. Attinger and M. Wäfler. OBO 160/1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998.

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Lambert, W. G. “Enmeduranki and Related Matters.” JCS 21 (1967): 126–38. ———. “A New Fragment from A List of Antediluvian Kings and Marduk’s Chariot.” Pages 271–80 in Symbolae biblicae et mesopotamicae: Francisco Mario Theodoro de Liagre Böhl dedicatae. Edited by M. A. Beak. Leiden: Brill, 1973. ———. “The Seed of Kingship.” Pages 427–40 in Le palais et la royauté. Edited by Paul Garelli. CRRAI 19. Paris: Geuthner, 1974. ———. “Atra-ḫasīs.” Pages 195–201 in Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art II: Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium B.C. Edited by Ira Spar and W. G. Lambert. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. Lambert, W. G., and A. R. Millard. Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, with the Sumerian Flood Story by M. Civil. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. Langdon, S. The H. Weld-Blundell Collection in the Ashmolean Museum. Vol. 1. Sumerian and Semitic Religious and Historical Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923. Legrain, Leon. Historical Fragments. PBS XIII. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1922. Liverani, Mario. Israel’s History and the History of Israel. Translated by Chiara Peri and Philip R. Davies. London: Equinox, 2005. Lohfink, N. “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichte.” Pages 183– 225 in The Congress Volume: Göttingen, 1977. Edited by J. A. Emerton. VTSup 29. Leiden: Brill, 1978. Mallowan, M. E. L. “Noah’s Flood Reconsidered.” Iraq 26 (1964): 62–82. McEvenue, Sean E. The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer. AnBib 50. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971. Michalowski, Piotr. “History as Charter: Some Observations on the Sumerian King List.” JAOS 103 (1983): 237–47. ———. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989. ———. “Maybe Epic: The Origins and Receptions of Sumerian Heroic Poetry.” Pages 7–25 in Epic & History. Edited by David Konstan and Kurt A. Raaflaub. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2010.

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Milstein, Sara J. “Reworking Ancient Texts: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature.” Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2010. Mittermayer, Catherine. Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata. Ein ungleicher Wettstreit. OBO 239. Fribourg: Academic Press, 2009. Poebel, Arno. Historical Texts. PBS IV 1. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1914. Raven, O. E. “Selected Passages in Enuma eliš and Gilgameš.” AcOr 22 (1955): 28–54. Scheil, V. “Listes Susiennes des dynasties de Sumer-Accad.” RA 31 (1934): 147–66. Sollberger, E. “The Rulers of Lagaš.” JCS 21 (1967): 279–91. Steinkeller, Piotr. “An Ur III Manuscript of the Sumerian King List.” Pages 267–92 in Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien: Festschrift für Claus Wilcke. Edited by Walther Sallaberger et al. OBC 14. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003. Streck, Michael. Die Bildersprache der akkadischen Epik. AOAT 264. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1999. ———. “Die Prologe der sumerischen Epen.” Or 71 (2002): 189– 266. Tigay, Jeffrey. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Tinney, Steve. The Nippur Lament: Royal Rhetoric and Divine Legitimation in the Reign of Išme-Dagan of Isin (1953–1935 B.C.). Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 16. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1996. Van Seters, J. “Myth and History: The Problem of Origins.” Pages 49–61 in Historie Et Conscience Historique Dans Les Civilisations Du Proche-Orient Ancien. Edited by Albert de Pury. Leuven: Peeters, 1989. Veldhuis, Niek. “The Solution of the Dream: A New Interpretation of Bilgames’ Dream.” JCS 53 (2001): 133–48. Verbrugghe, Gerald, and John M. Wickersham. Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Vincente, Claudine-Adrienne. “The Tall Leilān Recension of the Sumerian King List.” ZA 85 (1995): 234–70. Westenholz, Joan G. “Symbolic Language in Akkadian Narrative Poetry: The Metaphorical Relationship between Poetical

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IT’S A CRAFT! IT’S A CAVERN! IT’S A CASTLE! YIMA’S VARA, IRANIAN FLOOD MYTHS, AND JEWISH APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS* JASON M. SILVERMAN LEIDEN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT The myths around Yima’s Vara/War in Iranian tradition—an enclosure to avoid a devastating winter/flood—offer a complex and interesting parallel to the biblical flood narrative, alongside the more commonly acknowledged Mesopotamian parallels. Besides offering an additional comparison and contrast, Yima has a complicated relationship with a variety of mythic traditions, including later Jewish and Christian traditions. Itself potentially influenced by cognate flood traditions, Yima’s Vara demonstrates a similar mythic phenomenology with the Jewish New Jerusalem tradition. The comparison highlights the ways myth can be used for expressing religious ideas, particularly those which looked to Noah as a precursor for the final judgment. Yima’s Vara serves as an apt example of the ways in which parallel myths can both This research was partially conducted under the auspices of the ERC “By the Rivers of Babylon” research project, P.I. Caroline Waerzeggers, Leiden University. The author is grateful to Prof. Albert de Jong for vetting the Avestan sections. All errors remain my own. *

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INTRODUCTION: YIMA In various Iranian traditions, a myth of human survival during a watery cataclysm is attached to a figure known as Yima (Avestan; Old Persian and Sankrit Yama; New Persian Jamšīd). In this tradition Yima builds a Vara (Pahlavi War), “enclosure,” to enable good creatures to survive a disastrous winter-cum-flood. This myth is particularly interesting for the way in which it both partakes of and departs from older Indo-Iranian myths of Yama and other Indo-European traditions.1 The story of Yima’s Vara, however, is more than just another mythological deluge parallel;2 it was probably colored by the Mesopotamian flood myths and has important parallels to later Jewish and Christian apocalyptic traditions. As such, it offers intersections with several essays in this volume and is another interesting test case for the subject of Iranian influence on Judaism.3 An ancient character, Yama, appears in Indic literature as the first man and first mortal, who pioneered the way into the otherworld and subsequently became king first of the dead and later of the blessed.4 The name is linguistically related to the primaeval giant Ymir in Scandinavia, both of which mean “twin.”5 This function as king of the dead is largely absent in Iran except in

“Indo-Iranian” is a particular group of the larger body of languages and traditions known as “Indo-European.” For an overview and introduction, see Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture. 2 Even though flood parallels are themselves of relevance to the Genesis account; cf. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 399–406 (which nevertheless ignores Iran). 3 On the subject of Iranian influence, see Silverman, Persepolis and Jerusalem. 4 For a discussion of Indic Yama and Iranian Yima, see Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §§76–84; Lincoln, “The Lord of the Dead,” 224–241; Humbach, “Yama/Yima/Jamšēd,” 68–77. 5 Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, 1:113. 1

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scattered fragments.6 Instead, Yima became a primaeval, earthly king (sometimes first, sometimes third),7 with associated myths of a golden age and a disastrous sin.8 Stories about Jamšīd are still popular in Iran, largely due to his appearance in Firdausī’s Shahnameh.9 The popularity of Yima within Achaemenid Persia is suggested by the onomastica of the Persepolis Tablets. In the Persepolis Fortification tablets, two names with Yama as a theophoric appear, Yamakka and Yamakšedda.10 The former apparently belonged to at least two individuals, while the latter was a well-known wine supplier.11 Yamakšedda is particularly significant as it is the Elamite rendering of Old Persian *Yama-xšaita (“Shining Yima”),12 linguistic precursor to the modern Jamšīd.13 Yama also Cf. Puhvel, Comparative Mythology, 108–110; Kellens, “Yima et la Mort,” 329–334. 7 In the Zamyād Yašt, the Dēnkard, and the Shahnameh, he is the third king. The Vidēvdāt 2.1–19 implies Yima is the first king, as do the Indic parallels. 8 The sin appears in Yasna 32:8, Yašt 19:30–34. In the latter he is also the king of a golden age, as in the Shahnameh. 9 Note that in Firdausī’s version, Yima is fourth. A complete English translation is available in Warner and Warner, eds, The Shāhnāma of Firdausī (9 vols. Jamšīd is in vol. 1, 129–140). A more recent albeit abridged version is available in Davis, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. 10 Hallock, PFT, 771–772, gives a list of the seventeen relevant tablets. The tablets date to the reign of Darius I. 11 PF 1025 and 1961 have a Yamakka who supplies and receives grain (Hallock, PFT, 297, 569–570), while PF 1943 has a Yamakka who kept cattle at Hadaran (528–529). Yamakšedda is described as “the wine carrier” in PF 1795 and provides wine in all other appearances. 12 The meaning of xšaita is disputed, but Skjærvø notes that the epithet xšaita is shared by both Yima and the sun; see Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §4. Hintze, Zamyād-Yašt, translates the epithet as “den Strahlenden” (174) and “der Strahlende” (191). Dumézil objects to the rendering “shining,” preferring “king.” See Dumézil, The Destiny of a King, 4. Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, 60, notes that it was rendered in Pahlavi as rōšn, “bright,” but on p. 222 translates Yam ī šet as “Yima the royal.” 6

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appears as a name by itself in an unpublished tablet.14 The appearance of *Yama-xšaita shows that royal traditions around Yima (Old Persian Yama) were already known in Parsa by the reign of Darius I. Certainly someone knew of Yima as a royal figure. The explicit myths of the Vara, however, only appear in the Zoroastrian literature. First, the most extensive extant version of the myth, in the Vidēvdāt 2, will be presented and summarized. This version is then contextualized with discussions of the several traditions which can be seen in the passage: the underworld, a catastrophic winter, a terrible flood, ritual, and finally, eschatology. A summary of the Vara tradition leads into a discussion of the New Jerusalem motif in Second Temple Judaism, with which several scholars have posited a connection. These observations are then used to contextualize the question of myth, its influence, and its transmission.

YIMA’S VARA IN VIDĒVDĀT 2 Two myths of Yima are narrated in the second chapter of the text known as the Vidēvdāt or the Vendīdād, “Law Against the Demons.”15 The text exists in Young Avestan with a Pahlavi translation and commentary.16 Skjærvø dates the Avestan text to the late Achaemenid period.17 The text became part of the Boyce, HZ I, 69, sees two homonyms, one meaning “radiant” and the other “prince, lord.” She favors “king” with Yima on p. 92. 13 Hallock, PFT, 772; cf. Benveniste, Titres et Noms Propres, 96; Humbach, “Yama/Yima/Jamšēd,” 68–69. 14 Henkelman, The Other Gods Who Are, 534, 538; cf. 372. 15 English translations of Vidēvdāt 2 are available in Boyce, Textual Sources, 94–96; Anklesaria, Pahlavi Vendidâd, 15–38; Moazami, “The Legend of the Flood in Zoroastrian Tradition,” 55–74; and Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta I, 10–21. The Avestan text (without translation) is available in Geldner, Avesta, Vol 3; Reichelt, Avesta Reader, 37–43. 16 For an introductory overview, see Hintze, “Avestan Literature,” 38– 46. For a list of manuscripts, see Geldner, Avesta, 1:ii, iv–xii, xix–xx. 17 Skjærvø, “The Avesta as Source for the Early History,” 63; cf. idem, “The Antiquity of Old Avestan,” 36–37.

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Zoroastrian liturgy and thus has been preserved.18 The first half of the chapter (§§1–19) describes Yima’s golden reign in which he increased the size of the earth and its population three times. The second half (§§20–43) describes Yima’s building of the Vara; the latter is summarized below. Ahura Mazda holds an assembly of the gods (§20) which Yima attends (§21). Ahura Mazda predicts disastrously bad winters which will kill two-thirds of cattle (§§22–23), the damage of which will be compounded by flooding from the melting snow (§24). Yima is therefore ordered to build a four-sided Vara and fill it with the best specimens of humans, cattle, dogs, fires, and plants (§§25–29). The Vara has three sections (§30), is built from the earth (§§31–32), and contains a variety of sources of artificial light which make a year seem like a day (§§40–41). Zoroaster’s religion is propagated to the Vara’s inhabitants by the Karšipta-bird (§42) and ruled over by Zoroaster’s son, Uruuataṯ.nara (§43). This chapter partakes of an array of traditions, making analysis difficult. Three distinct, primary ideas are detectable in the passage: a tradition of a paradisiacal abode of the dead, a myth of a disastrous winter, and a myth of a world flood. The combination of ancient traditions also leads to ambiguity as to whether the events described are primaeval or eschatological. In addition, an important grammatical difficulty appears in the interpretation of this catastrophe, which has led scholars to divergent assumptions of the story’s origins and significance. In §22 the correct noun described by the adjective “bad” or “wicked” (YAv. aγǝm, Pahlavi wattar) is disputed. Zaehner attached “wicked” to humanity, and thus saw the story as directly parallel to the biblical account.19 Boyce, however, in her History, collocated the adjective with the corporeal world, thus seeing it as a non-Zoroastrian, Babylonian incursion into the myth.20 Nevertheless, her translation of the passage in her

Hintze, “Avestan Literature,” 38–40; idem, “On the Compositional Structure of the Avestan Gāhs,” 36; Geldner, Avesta, 1:xix–xx. 19 Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight, 135; cf. Lindner, “Die Iranische Flutsage,” 213. 20 Boyce, HZ I, 94–95; cf. Reichelt, Avesta Reader, 139. 18

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Textual Sources does not reflect this interpretation.21 Anklesaria attaches “wicked” to winter itself in his translation, while Darmesteter drops the adjective completely.22 More recently, Hultgård affirms the proper reference as the material world, while Skjærvø categorically rejects it.23 The main reason for this divergence is the Avestan text; while the Pahlavi translation renders the clause as ān wattar zamestān rasēt, “a wicked winter will come,” the Avestan is not as clear. The relevant clause (which appears in the section twice) reads auui ahūm astuuaṇtәm aγəm zimō jaŋhənti yahmaṯ haca staxrō mrūrō ziiå.24 “Evil” (aγəm) here is in the accusative case, along with the “material world” (ahūm astuuaṇtәm), while “winter” (zimō)—the ending of which could be interpreted as nominative/accusative plural or genitive singular—is the subject of the verb “will come” (jaŋhənti). A straightforward rendering would read the material world as evil and to be destroyed by the winter(s). It is this reading which caused Boyce to see un-Zoroastrian influence and Hultgård to see in it a reference to the Zoroastrian idea of mixture.25 This is not the only way the text could be read, however. Geldner notes that while six manuscripts give zimō, six also give zəmō (“earth,” nom/acc fem pl).26 Further, jaŋhənti could be understood as future or as imperative,27 and both the reading and meaning of mrūrō are

Boyce, Textual Sources, 95. Respectively, Anklesaria, Pahlavi Vendidâd, 27; Darmesteter, ZendAvesta I, 15–16. 23 Respectively, Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 107; Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §105. 24 For the text, see Geldner, Avesta, 3:10. For a transcription, see Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 107; for translations, see n. above. 25 Boyce, HZ I, 95 and Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 111, respectively. For a discussion of the Zoroastrian concept of the present world as one of a mixture (gumēzišn) of good and evil, see MacKenzie, “Gumēzišn.” Cf. Boyce, HZ I, 231, 286. 26 Geldner, Avesta, 3:10, n. 2 for v. 22. 27 Geldner, Avesta, 3:10, n. 3; Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 113. 21 22

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uncertain.28 Skjærvø therefore understands the text as corrupt and recommends emending it to match the Pahlavi translator’s understanding.29 He also, however, accepts Haug’s translation of “the evil of winter.”30 If translated as “to the material world the evil of winter shall come through a harsh destructive winter,” the general meaning is clear and no emendation is needed.31 Though the textual difficulty of the verse should caution against using it as the crux of a major theory of influence, a few aspects are clear however one translates it. An extraordinary winter is foretold. Since Yima is commissioned to save the best of creation from it, those perishing by implication are inferior. Therefore, the importance of the world being described as “evil” may not be as significant as Boyce claims—already Kellens opines that while the winter was evil and sent by Angra Mainyu, it had the positive effect of killing off his evil creatures (and mitigating the state of “mixture”).32 Skjærvø, on the other hand, thinks that the original mythic chronology set the Vara before Angra Mainyu’s attack on the good world and that this likely was related to Geldner, Avesta, 3:10, n. 5, gives mrūrō, mrirō, mūrō, mirō. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1197, defines it as “freibend, zerstörend, verderblich.” 29 Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §105. 30 Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §105. Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language, 233, translates “evil of winter” both in the Avestan and the “Zend” translations, but gives no commentary on the choice. This takes the –ō ending as the singular genitive rather than the plural nominative. See Reichelt, Awestisches Elementarbuch, 185; cf. 183. 31 Taking aγəm as singular nominative instead of accusative. Reichelt, Awestisches Elementarbuch, 196, takes aγa- as masculine, and thus the nominative singular would require emendation to aγō. However, Karanjia, “Teach Yourself Avesta,” 31, takes aγa- as neuter, meaning that aγəm could be interpreted as nominative singular as it stands. 32 Kellens, “Langues et religions indo-iraniennes,” 732, §11. Thanks to Jonathan Stökl for accessing this reference for me. Cited by Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 111, n. 36. Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien,” 209, in a different context, also sees the catastrophe as sent by Angra Mainyu, even though the chapter does not say so. 28

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overpopulation (like the flood accounts in Egypt, Babylonia, and India).33 Once Ahura Mazda was defined as wholly good, however, this understanding would have been impossible. In any case, an “ethical” understanding of it being the result of human malfeasance as in the normative biblical reading is difficult to sustain. There are five items—three mythic backgrounds and two aspects—concerning Yima’s Vara as it appears in the Vidēvdāt which deserve discussion, before an overall synthesis of the tradition can be given; first, the myth of the underworld abode; second, the myth of a terrible winter; third, the myth of a world flood; fourth, the ritual associations of the Vara; and, lastly, the eschatologization of the Vara. Myth of the Underworld Abode The first constituent tradition is the otherwise lost myth of Yima as the first king of the dead in the netherworld. The story’s links are most explicitly evidenced by the clay from which Yima builds the enclosure (§§31–32, 93). Yima’s stamping into the earth with his heel also implies a subterranean location. This survives more clearly in some Pahlavi traditions (e.g., Mēnōg-ī Xrad 62:16).34 Lincoln understands the image to echo pottery-making and argues that the three levels confirm it is meant as a cavern.35 Further aspects resemble the older Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European afterlife conceptions. Section 25 depicts the Vara as a giant pasture, which not only echoes Yima’s epithet (huuąθβō, “with good herds”), but also the Homeric Elysian Fields and the Germanic Valhalla and Valkeries, all of which are associated with death and contain the proto-Indo-European root for pasture.36 Moreover, the Vara is divided into three divisions of differing sizes (§30). These likely Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §§90–92. Available in West, Pahlavi Texts III, 109–110. 35 Lincoln, “The Lord of the Dead,” 234; cf. Kellens, “Langues et religions indo-iraniennes,” 732, §11. 36 Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European, 722–3. However, Fortson, Indo-European Language, 25, notes that this has been disputed. Note that Yima is also depicted with pastoral instruments in Vd. 2:6, 10. See Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, 220–1. 33 34

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correspond to the three divisions of Indo-European society (priests, warriors, and farmers). Such castes were seen as constituent of society and would have presumably continued into the afterlife.37 The importance of (divinely ordained) social structures—instituted at creation and perpetuated in the afterlife— is a common feature of mythology.38 Lincoln argues that although the classes were created at the beginning of time, some later apocalyptic speculations expected a leveling of the classes.39 In the Vidēvdāt this inheritance has been transformed into a special place within this world, rather than the netherworld, likely due to the shifts which occurred in Iranian religion after the split with the Indo-Aryans.40 As Lincoln notes, Zoroaster’s son, Uruuataṯ.nara (§43), rules over the Vara rather than Yima.41 While Lincoln and others think this is due to Zoroaster’s deliberate demonizing of Yima,42 it could equally derive from Yima’s prominence in other myths, such as his golden reign and downfall (which appear in other Avestan references to Yima).43 Iranian tradition knows of two other self-enclosed, this-worldly “paradises”—the Kaŋha (Avestan; Kaŋdīz or Gang in Pahlavi) and the Airiiana- Vaējah- —and later tradition treated the Vara as a On the divisions, see Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, 227–38; Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos, and Society, 3, 141–62; Dumézil, The Destiny of a King, 48–49. It is worth noting, with Fortson, that this threefold division can be much abused; Fortson, Indo-European Language, 28–9. On the afterlife and its structure, consider the separate fates of warriors and commoners in Norse myths, or the presence of kings of the dead. 38 E.g., Thompson, Motif-Index, 1:245–246 (A1650–9). Cf. Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos, and Society, 3; Puhvel, Comparative Mythology, 113–4, 285; Weber, The Sociology of Religion, 234, cf. 35–7. 39 Lincoln, “‘The Earth Becomes Flat’,” 142. 40 Puhvel, Comparative Mythology, 38–40 (differences on uses from I.E.), 97–116 (esp. 114–5) describes differences with India; Boyce, HZ I, 3–19; cf. Fortson, Indo-European Language, 180, 205. 41 Lincoln, “The Lord of the Dead,” 235. 42 Lincoln, “The Lord of the Dead,” 233; Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight, 135–8; Less extreme, Humbach, The Gāthās of Zarathushtra, 1:18. 43 Especially Yasna 32:8; Yašt 19:33–6. 37

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similar place, to the point that they are sometimes conflated.44 With these two contexts, an appeal to a deliberate, but otherwise sparsely

The Kaŋha is a magnificent fortress on a mountain, and the AiriianaVaējah- is the imagined homeland of the Iranians. Both have numerous associated traditions. Yašt 5.54 (ZA II, 67) has Tusa ask Anāhitā to conquer the Castle Xšaθro-saoka on lofty, holy Kaŋha; cf. 57–8 where the Turanians in Kaŋha ask for the opposite. Yašt 19.4 (ZA II, 288; Hintze, Zamyad, 80) lists Mount Antare.kaŋha. Mēnōg-ī Xrad 27:57–8 (PT III, 64) has an advantage of Siyavaxš as creating Kaŋdīz; 62 lists the “management” of Kaŋdīz among Kai Husrau’s. Mēnōg-ī Xrad 62:2–3, 13–15 (PT III, 108, 109): the sage asks where Kaŋdīz stands, and where Yima’s Vara is, and answers Kaŋdīz is in the eastern quarter, on the frontier of Airiiana- Vaējah-; Yima’s Vara is in Airiiana- Vaējah-, below the earth. Mēnōg-ī Xrad 62:15–19 (PT III, 109–110) describes Yima’s Vara: contains all good creatures, child born to each couple every 40 years, all live three hundred years, and have little pain. Sh. Bundahišn 12.2 (PT I, 35): lists Kaŋdīz among list of mountains, “of which they say that they are a comfort and delight of the good creator, the smaller hills.” Sh. Bundahišn 29.4 (PT I, 116): lists Kaŋdīz, Airiiana- Vaējah-, and Yima’s Vara as places like the Karšuuars. Verse 5 (116–7) says Pešyotanu is the immortal chief of Kaŋdīz and (p. 118) that Uruuataṯ.nara, son of Zoroaster, is over Yima’s Vara. Sh. Bundahišn 29.10: (PT I, 119–20): places Kaŋdīz in the east, many leagues from the bed of the ocean. Sh. Bundahišn 29.14 (PT I, 120) claims Yima’s Vara is in the middle of Pars, in Sruva, thus Yim-kard (what Yima formed) is below Mount Yimakan. Sh. Bundahišn 32:5 (PT 1, 142): Zoroaster’s son, Uxšiiaṱ.ərəta, was an agriculturalist and chief of Yima’s Vara; his third son Uxšiiaṱ.nəmah was commander of Pešiiotanu’s army and lives in Kaŋdīz. Zand-ī Wahman Yašt III.25–26 (PT I, 224–6): Ahura Mazda sends Neryosang and Sroš to Kaŋdīz, formed by Siyavaxš, to summon Pešiiotanu to renew the world. 44

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attested, demonization of Yima is unnecessarily speculative. It is wiser to posit that the Vara’s depiction changed as attitudes towards the afterlife changed. Thus, the Vara retained paradisiacal overtones even when it ceased being paradise itself. Myth of a Terrible Winter It is obvious that the original core of the catastrophe myth was a cataclysmic winter. This form of precipitation is the main object of §§22–4. This idea is at home in the steppes of central Asia, and it is paralleled by the more widely known myth of the Fimbulvetr in Scandinavia, a myth attested in several Norse texts. The Vǫluspå §40 gives a very oblique reference to a tradition of “disastrous” weather.45 The Vǫluspå hin Skamma §15 predicts great snows that kill the gods and are accompanied by upheavals in the sea and the sky,46 and the Vaþrúðnismál 44–45 predicts two human survivors of this winter, hidden in “the hide of Hoddmimír.”47 The most direct reference is in Snorri’s Prose Edda, which describes Fimbulvetr as the first sign of the end, being three harsh winters in a row without summers. Moreover, this is preceded by a period of three winters interspersed with warfare.48 The most direct parallel in Iran to this idea occurs in the Pahlavi texts. In the Iranian text Pahlavi Rivāyat rain and then snow caused by Markošān devastate the earth.49 Like the Norse Fimbulvetr, this winter in Pahlavi Rivāyat 48 is a drawn-out event (3+3 and 4 years, respectively).50 Moreover, the Vǫluspå links Sad Dar 10.6–7 (PT III, 269) links the use of the sacred girdle with the righteous acts of those living in Kashmir, Kaŋdīz, Airiiana- Vaējah-, or Yima’s Vara. Shahnameh, Firdausī’s epic, also discusses Kaŋdīz, where it often appears conflated. See Werner and Werner, Shāhnāma, 2:280–1; 4:195–6, 202–3, 207–212, 245–50. 45 Hollander, The Poetic Edda, 8; Dronke, The Poetic Edda II, 18. 46 Hollander, Poetic Edda, 139. 47 Hollander, Poetic Edda, 50. 48 Young, The Prose Edda, 86; cf. Snorri’s quotation of Vǫluspå §40 on p. 39. 49 48:12–15. Available in Williams, The Pahlavi Rivāyat, 2:80. 50 Cf. Rivāyat 48:12–15.

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the event with a variety of wolfish creatures (Fenrir in particular), just as the Rivāyat does (though the details are significantly different).51 On the basis of this Fimbulvetr parallel Darmesteter saw in Vidēvdāt 2 an original Proto-Indo-European cataclysm which was to end the world.52 Conversely, Reichelt did not connect the Vidēvdāt 2 with Scandinavia and viewed the winter as merely an illustration of the curses against the world created by Angra Mainyu and enumerated in the first chapter of the Vidēvdāt (cf. 1:2–3, 19), one of the prominent curses being winter.53 Hultgård argues that there are in fact two separate mythic winter traditions in the Avesta and Pahlavi texts.54 The former was part of a mythic history, while the latter was the original, eschatological winter known from Scandinavia. On this view, Yima’s Vara is part of a scheme of history such as found in Hesiod and was only secondarily associated with Markošān’s hiemal calamity.55 The brief appearance of Markošān in an Avestan fragment supports the original independence of this tradition.56 While Hultgård contrasts this view with understanding Vidēvdāt 2 as a “climatic myth” like the biblical and Mesopotamian flood stories,57 this is unnecessary—the flood in both Mesopotamian and biblical traditions belongs to “mythic historiography.” The biggest difficulty with the idea of a Proto-Indo-European eschatological winter is the late dating of the two main exemplars, the Scandinavian and Pahlavi texts. Both of these traditions in their

Cf. Rivāyat 48:2–5 (Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 2:79). Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta I, 11. 53 Reichelt, Avesta Reader, 133. 54 Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 114–6. 55 Skjærvø espouses a similar opinion. Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §§93–6. 56 “Fragment Westergaard 8.” Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta I, 251. Markošān is said to have a destruction coterminous with “the army of the Druj (the lie).” Also noted by Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 102. 57 Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 113. 51 52

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extant written forms are essentially medieval.58 Further, both traditions had contacts with Christianity, making it difficult to eliminate suspicions of Christian influence, especially on the work of Snorri. Numerous scholars, however, still think that the strong parallels between Iran and Scandinavia indicate the idea’s antiquity.59 It is not necessary to accept a completely formed ProtoIndo-European hiemal eschatology to accept the motif’s antiquity, and to see it as an important background to Yima’s Vara, whether originally independent of the Markošān version or not. Myth of a Terrible Flood There have been two ways to understand the ancient winter myth as having been adapted to a flood myth in the Vidēvdāt. First, in §24 the catastrophe is compounded by flooding created by the melting snow. Second, the Pahlavi commentary to §22 identified the foretold winter as “which is Markošān” (markošān gowet). This Markošān Darmesteter identified with Hebrew ‫מלקוש‬, “spring rain,” identifying the gloss as a scholastic attempt to co-opt the flood myth.60 Such a borrowing would have had to come from Hebrew or Aramaic, as there does not appear to be a cognate word in Mesopotamia.61 ‫ מלקוש‬appears several times in the Hebrew Bible, often as one of several synonyms for “rain.” Nevertheless, it is not used in the Genesis flood narrative. Genesis 7:11 dates the start of the deluge in the second month, on the 17th day, which For dating of the Codex Regius in which the Scandinavian traditions are primarily found, see Dronke, Mythological Poems, xi. For the dating of the Pahlavi Rivāyat, see Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 1:8. 59 For some arguments to this effect, see Ström, “Indogermanisches in der Völuspá,” 167–208; Hasenfratz, “Iran und der Dualismus,” 44–5; Nielsen, “‘Hver tíðendi eru at segja frá um ragnarøkr?’,” 61–77; Fortson, IndoEuropean Language, 329. 60 Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta I, 16, n. 1; cf. Boyce, HZ I, 95. 61 The closest the present author could find in CAD was mīlu or mil’u for seasonal flooding (Oppenheim and Reiner eds., CAD, 10:1, 69–70; 10:2, 174–176). Presumably these words are linguistically unrelated to ‫מלקוש‬. West, nevertheless, characterizes ‫ מלקוש‬as “Chaldean” (Pahlavi Texts III, 59–60). 58

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could either be about the correct time or perhaps too late for the spring rains in Israel according to the modern Jewish calendar— though the issue of Jewish calendars in the Second Temple period is controversial.62 Beside the fortuitous linguistic similarity (r can be written as l in the Pahlavi script, which was derived from Aramaic script),63 Darmesteter’s assertion is mystifying; it assumes that this word’s appearance in the Pahlavi commentary implies its usage for referring to Noah’s flood in the biblical tradition, but this is unsubstantiated. The present author has been unable to find any Jewish sources which refer to Noah’s flood as ‫ ;מלקוש‬rather, it is referred to as ‫מבול‬.64 Josephus (Ant. I.iii.3) places the flood in the Hebrew month of ‫( מרחשון‬Μαρ ουάνης),65 but does not refer to the spring rain at all. Further, as Hultgård notes, the character of Markošān appears to belong to a separate, perhaps older, tradition related to winter,66 and the Pahlavi name can be derived from marək- “to kill.”67 The Pahlavi gloss should rather be seen as an attempt to draw the Vara story more closely into this separate tradition. Nevertheless, the idea of a heavy snowfall causing destruction through the run-off from melting is in itself quite reasonable (an image which possibly appears in the biblical tradition as well–see See the essays on this topic by Guillaume and Jacobus in this volume. 63 See Hale, “Pahlavi,” 123–5 on the difference between transcription and translation in Pahlavi and the use of Aramaic logograms. For the standard treatment, see MacKenzie, “Notes on the Transcription of Pahlavi,” 17–29; idem, A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, x–xv. Cf. the comment, Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 101, n. 1. 64 Which is the word used in Gen 6:17; 7:6, 7, 10, 17; 9:11, 15, 28. The same word is used in Rabbinic references. Cf. van Bekkum, “The Lesson of the Flood,” 124–133. 65 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities I–III, 36–37. 66 See above; Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 115. 67 Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1145 (“töten, zerstören”). For other forms of the word, see Reichelt, Awestisches Elementarbuch, 105–6, 199, 473, though he does not mention Markōšan. Boyce, HZ I, 290, rather derives it from Mahrkūša, “destroyer.” 62

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Job 6:16).68 Particularly if the root of the winter story is seen as an event in the past,69 then the result of the melting snow would become an obvious expansion to the story. For Iranians living in the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, melting snow would offer an easy way to identify their hiemal tradition with the local flood traditions, just as superficial equations were made between gods of various pantheons.70 Rather than understanding the flood imagery as a “corruption” from either Mesopotamian or biblical traditions, it is better to see this as an easy way for a local tradition to be appropriated to a pre-existing set of Iranian traditions. The flooding adds local color to the story; it also perhaps had the effect of making it slightly more independent from the older traditions of a final winter by changing the nature of the climatic catastrophe (nevertheless, it is worth noting that even the Fimbulvetr includes the rising of the sea over the land).71 Such an adaptation appears to have complicated the associated mythology, even in much later Iranian traditions. In the later Pahlavi Rivāyat the event becomes a mix of rain and snow (48:12–15).72 The Rivāyat has what looks to be an old tradition of a four-year-long winter (of rain and snow), which is awkwardly combined with both the Vara tradition and the Markošān traditions.73 In the Mēnōg-ī Xrad 28:37–41 only rain appears, but the Markošān rains are put into the future and the Vara into the past.74 Thus the coloring adopted in the alluvial plains seems to have survived sporadically in the later tradition.

The phrasing of the verse is obscure, with snow described as “hiding itself” (‫)יתעלם‬. Scott has argued it refers to run-off. See Scott, “Meteorological Phenomena,” 17. 69 Favored by Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 113–4. 70 One thinks of the equation of Zeus with Ahura Mazda or of Mithra with Helios or Apollo, etc. 71 See Vǫluspå hin skamma §15 (Hollander, Poetic Edda, 139). 72 For transliteration and transcription, see Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 1:174–7; for translation, see 2:80–1. Facsimiles of the script are available in 2:343–4. 73 Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 2:80–1, 227. 74 West, Pahlavi Texts III, 59–60. 68

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As an aside, while Windischmann parallels Yima with Noah as first sacrificers,75 he instead appeals to myths around the character of Taxma Urupi for influence of the Mesopotamian flood traditions on Iran.76 In this tradition, warned of a coming deluge, Taxma Urupi buried all the world’s books near Isfahan to save them for posterity. This appears to be a quite independent use of a flood motif. Thus, the flood element in the Vara myth offers an example of the way an older tradition can receive new coloring or emphases when placed into a new context. While it is rash to claim the Vara was a Mesopotamian borrowing, it nevertheless was somewhat changed from inherited winter traditions. Ritual Aspects of the Vara An interesting feature of Yima’s Vara—one which offers a parallel to another thesis in this collection—is the story’s connections with Zoroastrian ritual.77 The most direct is the text’s use as part of an extended ritual held for nine hours from midnight.78 Moreover, beyond the text’s use, the Vara itself carries ritual resonances. After instructing Yima to bring the best of everything into the Vara (§§27–8), Ahura Mazda lists those to be deliberately excluded. Excluded are the humpbacked, the bulging-forward, the impotent, the lunatic, the poor, those with decayed teeth, and the leprous

Cf. the essay by Nestor in this volume. Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, 27, 208–210. Cf. Dumézil, The Destiny of a King, 23–5; Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta I, 384, n. 4. The relevant texts are the Aogəmadaēca 92, Mēnōg-ī Xrad 27:23, and several Islamic historians. The problem of Yima’s sacrifice is a complicated subject all of its own, and it does not appear in the Vidēvdāt in any case. For some arguments, see Duchesne-Guillemin, “On the Complaint of the Ox-Soul,” 101–4; Lincoln, Priests, Warriors, and Cattle, 155–157; Humbach, “Yama/Yima/Jamšēd,” 70–6; Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §§86– 89. 77 See the essay by McCann in this volume. 78 See Hintze, “On the Compositional Structure of the Avestan Gāhs,” 36; idem, “Avestan Literature,” 38–40. 75 76

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(§29).79 Hultgård notes that this list parallels a list of those excluded from the sacrifice (to Anāhitā) in Yašt 5:92–3 (The Yašt forbids enemies, men with fever, liars, cowards, the jealous, women, those who do not sing the Gāthās, lepers, the blind, the deaf, the wicked, destroyers, the cheap, the hump-backed, the bulging-forward, and those with decayed teeth).80 Although the two lists are not identical, they share not only some similar prohibitions but also the feature of mixing physical blemishes and deformities with more ethical concerns (such as lying or jealousy).81 These concerns show that the Vara is about more than the preservation of living being, but that religious values and systems are at stake. The inhabitants of the Vara are those who are ritually pure. Choksy claims that in Young Avestan the root vara- normally denotes an area enclosed for reasons of ritual purity.82 He parallels this usage to Yima’s Vara, which—beside the linguistic affinity— also served to protect a pure region from the forces of chaos or disorder.83 He finds another affinity in that the Vara of Yima has three sections, just as the sacred ritual precinct has three grooves that mark it off from the outside world.84 This list of comparisons is surely more than coincidence. The Vara is at the very least analogous to a ritual space. A word used several times so far in this essay in its normal English usage is “paradise.” As is well known, “paradise” is a Persian loanword (*paridaida-), which was borrowed into Hebrew (‫ )פרדס‬and Greek (παράδεισος), and thence into English. While the Following Darmesteter’s translation (Zend-Avesta I, 17–18). Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 109, n. 23. The text itself is available translated in Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta II, 75–76. 81 As is common for ritual purity laws. Cf. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 49–57. 82 Choksy, “To Cut off,” 26. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1364, only gives “Raum” or “Bezirk,” claiming it is derived from 1var“hüllend bedecken.” 83 Choksy, “To Cut Off,” 26. This dichotomy is quite fitting as the opponent of the Druj is the good principle Aša, which means both “truth” and “order.” 84 Choksy, “To Cut Off,” 29. 79 80

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linguistic origin of the word is undisputed, the nature of the idea and its development occasions much debate. The word appears in two Iranian contexts, the Persepolis Tablets (Neo-Elamite partetaš) and in the Vidēvdāt 3:18 and 5:49 (=7:64; 9:64; Avestan pairi.daēząn pairi.daēzaiiąn). In the former it is a royal domain of disputed nature; in the latter it is the location of a purification ritual.85 While several scholars have seen these two phenomena as materially unconnected,86 Hultgård highlights that both usages have ritual connections, albeit of differing kinds.87 The word pairi.daēzą- in the Vidēvdāt is used for an enclosure to contain the contaminant which death is.88 The first enclosure (3:18) is for a man who carries a corpse alone and the second (5:49) for a woman who gives birth to a stillborn child. The enclosures and accompanying ritual are designed to protect the good creation from contamination by Angra Mainyu’s anti-creation, death— similar in function to Yima’s Vara, though in the opposite direction (in rather than out). Much ink has been spilt on how this Vidēvdāt paradise relates to the Achaemenid walled garden/domain.89 For present purposes, it can only be noted that among its uses, the Achaemenid version also had ritual associations, albeit of a

On the partetaš and pairi.daēzą- see Tuplin, Achaemenid Studies, 80– 131; Henkelman, Other Gods Who Are, 427–441; Hultgård, “Das Paradies,” 1–43; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 442–3; Brown, Israel and Hellas III, 128. 86 E.g., Tuplin, Achaemenid Studies, 116–8, “… the paradeisos remains at best a matter of secular pleasure and at worst one of secular utility” (p. 118); Lincoln, “The Lord of the Dead,” 234, n. 61; Henkelman, Other Gods Who Are, 427, n. 983. 87 Hultgård, “Das Paradies,” 8 (he cites Vidēvdāt 3:18 and 5:49). 88 Vidēvdāt 3:18; 5:49=7:64=9:64 (Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta I, 28, 63, 91; Geldner, Avesta, 3:18, 39, 49). Oddly enough, although Darmesteter translates pairi.daēzą- as “enclosure,” he uses English “paradise” to translate vahištahe aŋhəuš “best existence” in the text (5:61; 7:21; 18:26, 29; Geldner, Avesta, 3:41–2, 49, 112, 115, 116). 89 See the above references. 85

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differing kind.90 The overarching similarity, though, is of a demarcated/constructed space set apart for purity reasons. The ritual associations of the Vara demonstrate the author’s concern with sacred space and purity as issues of major importance to them. Purity is of such import that only things cultically viable are worthy of being saved in the mythic catastrophe. This aspect is particularly striking in comparison with Noah’s mission, which included both clean and unclean animals (Gen 6:19–20; 7:2–3, 8–9). Eschatologization of the Vara The version of the Vara story in the Vidēvdāt contains no ending: the fate of the inhabitants or the length of their stay is left unspecified. In the Zand-ī Wahman Yašn, the exodus of the Vara inhabitants is placed during the eschaton, when the dragon-demon Aži Dahāka is released from his prison under Mount Demavand for final destruction.91 The Pahlavi Rivāyat places the release during the eschaton as well, but there its placement is awkward, appearing to be secondary.92 Another late text, the Dēnkard, is contradictory: the Dēnkard VII.1.24 implies that Yima’s Vara and Markošān’s winter were in the past, while the Dēnkard VII.9.4 places the opening of the Vara in the millennium of Uxšiiaṯ-ərəta.93 Whatever the precise details envisioned for where the Vara fit into the Iranian epic narrative, it is clear that at least by the Sassanian era there was a strong tradition of its eschatological placement. Perhaps, given the strong eschatological nature of Zoroastrianism and the common

Henkelman, Other Gods Who Are, 427–441. III.55 in West’s translation (West, Pahlavi Texts I, 234); IX.14 in both Anklesaria, Zand-Ākāsīh, 78, 127–8 and Cereti, The Zand-ī Wahman Yasn, 167. 92 Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 1:174; 2:80–1, 231, n. 16. 93 Uxšiiaṯ-ərəta was one of Zoroaster’s sons, in the later Pahlavi traditions thought to mark the start of one of the three millennia of history. For English, see West, Pahlavi Texts V, 9–10, 108, respectively. For a transcription and French translation, see Molé, La Legende de Zoroastre, 8–9, 92–93. 90 91

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mythological idea of an occulted harbinger of renovation,94 it was inevitable that the Vara would eventually join the final timeline. Boyce may also be correct when she sees its move from prehistory as a result of the triplication of the Zoroastrian millennial scheme.95 There are three aspects of the Vara as an eschatological idea which merit comment. In all of the Vara chronologies, it offers salvation from a catastrophe, whether one of judgment or the result of evil machinations. The opening of the Vara rejuvenates the good creation, animal and human. As noted above, such an idea has many worldwide parallels. Despite the miraculous aspects of this place, however, it remains this-worldly: cave, mountain, castle, or island, in theory accessible within this world. As noted above, Yima’s Vara is one of three locations in Iranian traditions which are this-worldy paradises, with the Airiiana- Vaējah- and Kaŋha. Particularly in later traditions, these three became confused.96 They function in a similar folkloristic manner and may be reflexes of similar oral traditions. Finally, the exact nature of the Vara remained (increasingly became?) confused between a city and a garden/paradise. In all these aspects, the eschatological Vara functions as a condensation of Zoroastrian eschatological hope—it is a microcosm of the world as it will be sans Angra Mainyu’s influence. This makes it a convenient theme for the explication of good and evil as the writer feels is necessary. It can have this function whether viewed as an event in the past or one to come. For this function, the exact details matter less than the overall trope. Summary of the Vara Tradition Before moving on to Jewish apocalyptic traditions, it is necessary to summarize the features of Yima’s Vara as a complete tradition, Cf. Thompson, Motif-Index, 1:125 (A571.1), 139 (A690, 692); 2:350 (D1960.2). 95 On the triplication of an originally simpler scheme, see Boyce, “On the Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Apocalyptic,” 67–70; idem, “Apocalyptic (that which has been revealed),” 155–6; idem, HZ I, 280–7, 291–3. 96 Boyce, “On the Antiquity,” 65. 94

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separately from its various sources. In its Vidēvdāt form, Yima’s Vara is a this-worldly paradise that is occulted but still relevant— whether as precedence, typology, or eschatology is unclear. The story tells of salvation for the good creation, although that from which it is saved could be judgment or an attack of evil beings. It is a place with ambiguous physical features, being both a city and a garden, a cave and a meadow. It is large (2000 “steps of both feet”), with square walls, and contains structures (perhaps houses).97 It has social structures which mirror this world, though the inhabitants are all ritually pure, attractive, and long-lived, especially so as time there is slower (a year equals a day). This combination of features is intriguing and suggestive when drawn into comparison with another complex of ideas that also appear in the Achaemenid period, the Jewish idea of the New or Heavenly Jerusalem.

THE JEWISH IDEA OF A NEW JERUSALEM At some point in the Persian period, a tradition of a new, heavenly Jerusalem developed within Judaism. The most extensive texts are Ezek 40–48, Third Isaiah (especially 60 and 65), the New Jerusalem Scroll, the Temple Scroll, and Rev 21–22,98 though relevant references Cf. Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, xliii, 222. For a convenient collection of a variety of texts (with analysis), see Aune, “The Apocalypse of John,” 16–29. For a variety of related studies, many touching on issues not discussed here, see: General: Dow, Images of Zion; von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2:278– 300. Ezekiel: Tuell, The Law of the Temple; Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration; Bedford, Temple Restoration, 80–1. Isaiah: Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66; Schramm, Opponents of Third Isaiah, 154–161. New Jerusalem Scroll: Chyutin, The New Jerusalem Scroll; Martínez, “New Jerusalem at Qumran,”; DiTommaso, The Dead Sea New Jerusalem Text. New Temple Scroll: Meier, The Temple Scroll; Swanson, The Temple Scroll, 215–226. 97 98

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to this tradition are scattered throughout a variety of Second Temple period texts, including 1 and 2 Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Ezra, the Sibylline Oracles, and 2 Baruch.99 In no way can it be said that there is a singular eschatological expectation within Judaism, and the same is true for the New Jerusalem and its cognate new heaven and new earth motifs. The New Jerusalem appears in a variety of genres, with a great variety of details, and many of the texts present unique difficulties. Nevertheless, all of the texts plausibly share a “polemical” intention,100 and they can still be analyzed for their commonalities—differences in details can sometimes conceal deeper similarities.101 Myth serves a function of explaining the world as it is and ought to be,102 and, as such, it can often hint at the ideological needs of the authors and cultures of its time. Certainly different situations and perceived traditions shape the Revelation: Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy, 307–318; Fekkes, Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions, 226–78; Mathewson, A New Heaven and a New Earth; Dumbrell, The End of the Beginning, 1–34 (New Jerusalem), 35–76 (New Temple); Hock, “From Babel to the New Jerusalem”; Schellenberg, “Seeing the World Whole”; Lee, The New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation. Various: Fitzmyer, Tobit, 303, 316–7. 99 Texts deemed relevant include: Ezek 40–48; Isa 60:1–22; 65:17–25; cf. 54:11–12; Zech 2:1–5; 14. Tobit 13:16–17; 4 Ezra 7:26–44; 10:25–28, 50–59; 2 Bar. 4:2–6. 1 En. 45:4–6; 53:6; 90:28–36; 91:15–17; 89:1–8 (in the Ethiopic only). 2 En. 65:4–7, 10. Sib. Or. 5:250–2. Jub. 1:17, 26–29. 11QTemple New Jerusalem (includes 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q554, 554a, 555, 5Q15, 11Q18) Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21–22. 100 As Blenkinsopp characterizes Third Isaiah, Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56– 66, 41. 101 For the present author’s thesis of an underlying “apocalyptic hermeneutic” behind divergent apocalypses, see Silverman, Persepolis and Jerusalem, Chapter 7. 102 Cf. Silverman, Persepolis and Jerusalem, 225–6, 239; See the introduction to this volume.

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specific ways any myth is received in any given version. Nevertheless, the functions it serves are often widely paralleled in religious phenomenology, and it is this aspect of the New Jerusalem, rather than the individual variants, which the remainder of this paper explores. The earliest appearances of the New Jerusalem tradition are in Third Isaiah, Ezek 40–48, and Zechariah, and these texts are important sources for the subsequent texts. The dating of all of them is problematic, though there is a general consensus of a Persian period dating for all except Ezekiel.103 Third Isaiah Isaiah 60:1–22 (especially vv. 10–22) and 65:17–25 describe a new Jerusalem in ways which would become especially important. The In general, see Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel, 178–9, 195–6, 223–4; Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow, 70–79. Ezekiel 40–48: Albertz, Israel in Exile, 368–76. Torrey, Pseudo-Ezekiel, notoriously argued for a Hellenistic dating, but today scholars are more inclined towards a Neo-Babylonian or Persian Period dating. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 547–53, sees a complex series of redactions starting from 573 BCE continuing perhaps past 538. Tuell, The Law of the Temple, sees it as from Ezekiel himself plus Persian period redaction (19, n.4; 28–29; 41). Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48, 495–6, appears to accept the given date (ca 573). Third Isaiah: Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 296; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56– 66, 43; Watts, Isaiah 34–66, makes no distinction between Second and Third Isaiah, and sees both as contemporaneous with Sheshbezzar and Zerubbabel (pp. 863–4, cf. 506). It must be noted that his opinion for Third Isaiah is based on the incorrect assertions on p. 864 that Ahura Mazda was both a sun god and depicted in Persian reliefs. This seems to be a mistaken derivation from the following: Strawn, “‘A World Under Control’,” 85–116, esp. 85–7. Zechariah: Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, xi, xli, accept the date markers in the text (Reign of Darius I); Meyers and Meyers, Zechariah 9–14, 15–29 (esp. 26) argue that 9–14 belong between 515 and 445. Stead, The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1–8, 62–8; Petterson, Behold Your King, 2–3. 103

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first poem depicts Arabian traders bringing their wealth to Jerusalem, new walls, perpetually open gates, and the replacement of mundane materials with precious ones. Violence is abolished and YHWH replaces the sun and moon. The second poem describes a new heaven and a new earth, though it quickly focuses upon Jerusalem, wherein people live to 100 and wolves no longer predate the lamb. Both passages draw on old Zion traditions104 and proclaim welfare either hyperbolic or supernatural and Jerusalemcentric. The author uses the renewal of Jerusalem to describe how the people will be pure, peaceful, and prosperous. Ezekiel 40–48 Much longer and fuller of excruciating detail is Ezekiel’s temple vision. An angel (40:3) shows him the temple, Jerusalem, and Israel, but with a decided focus on the temple. Prominent is description of the walls, a motif of measuring, the location and names of gates, and the exclusion of Levites and foreigners from the temple. Chapter 47:1–13 describes a miraculous river which will flow from the temple and nurture trees serving for food and healing. Although Martínez thinks this passage is entirely focused on the restoration of the temple,105 it is unclear what the purpose of this text is. It could be a description of the heavenly temple, eschatological, typological, or a program for restoration. In any case, the author is highly concerned with holiness, the return of the divine presence—and who may access it—and with Zadokite priority. Simon argues the excessive precision is a coping

On the Zion tradition, see Roberts, “The Davidic Origin of the Zion Tradition,” 329–344; idem, “The End of War in the Zion Tradition,” 2–22; von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1: 46–48; 2:155–168; Schreiner, Sion-Jerusalem, Jahwes Königssitz; Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior and the Nations,” 247–250. 105 Martínez, “New Jerusalem,” 280–1. In a quite different sense, also argued by Tuell, The Law of the Temple. Joyce argues it is a heavenly temple cum template. Joyce, “Ezekiel 40–42,” 28–29. 104

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mechanism in the face of trauma, essentially a form of theodicy;106 but the trope of the new Jerusalem enables Ezekiel to expound on what he considers to be most important for a renewed Judaism after the exile.107 Zechariah The New Jerusalem motif appears in both halves of Zechariah. In 2:1–17 an angel again measures Jerusalem, with YHWH again providing the light, but this time he is also its walls. The vision posits the restoration of Israel’s fortunes, its security, and its adoption of foreigners joining Israel as his people. Second Zechariah takes up the New Jerusalem theme in chapter 14. After a judgment day, Jerusalem is renewed without cold or frost, with a river, and the land (except for Zion itself) flattened.108 The nations pilgrimage to Jerusalem and bring it wealth (without joining), and all of Jerusalem is holy. Both texts use the image to address issues of identity and belonging, as well as pre-eminence. The visions from both halves of Zechariah, however, are deeply concerned with the practical application of justice as a prerequisite for the cult.109 Together, these texts provide most of the themes, details and motifs which recur in the New Jerusalem complex in later works. Great expectations for Jerusalem as a sacred place—in language recalling Eden110—is combined with altered relations with the nations. Though the language is poetic and hyperbolic, each text stakes a claim on the way Jerusalem ought to be, here on earth. The tradition clearly had roots in concrete expectations for the restoration of a restored, earthly Jerusalem under the Persians, but Simon, “Ezekiel’s Geometric Vision of the Restored Temple,” 411–438, esp. 434–5. However, Lundquist thinks it is typical of temple ideology. See Lunquist, “Legitimizing Role,” 275. 107 Cf. Levenson, The Theology of the Program of Restoration, 129, 161; Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, 48. 108 Cf. Lincoln, “The Earth Becomes Flat,” 136–153. 109 Foster, “Undoing the Future,” 71–2. 110 Sweeney, Tanak, 339, cf. 58, 60; Miscall, “Isaiah: New Heavens, New Earth, New Book,” 48–55; Dow, Images of Zion, 184–5, 197, 204–5. 106

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the idea of a New Jerusalem outgrew the Zion tradition’s more mundane expectation for protection and blessing. Much more difficult to decide is whether the respective authors had in mind a heavenly template, a future reality, or merely used it as a rhetorical device (or a combination of all three!).111 Nevertheless, it is clear that symbolically much more is at stake than the actual city of Jerusalem; this Jerusalem is a locus for signifying many mythic and religious concerns. These concerns include the status of the nations, divine protection, and purity. Implied are the issues of identity and theodicy. After these texts, expectations were fused into a tradition of hope towards an eschatological Jerusalem. This expectation is attested in a large number of passages, but three are especially significant: the Temple Scroll (11Q19), the New Jerusalem Scroll (in numerous fragments), and Rev 21–22. Shorter descriptions also appear in 4 Ezra 10:25–28, 50–9 and 2 Bar. 4:2–6. Despite significant differences, many common motifs appear. The size of the walls, placement and naming of gates, and the use of precious materials is prominent. Both the Temple Scroll and Revelation list those excluded and portray all of Jerusalem as holy (the entire city being a temple in Revelation). Several texts also imply the new Jerusalem is pre-existent—4 Ezra 7:26 has it occulted for future appearance, Rev 21:2 has it descend from heaven, 2 Bar. 4:2–6 has it shown to Adam, Abraham, and Moses. The details and interests of all these texts are very different. However, each text uses the New Jerusalem as a convenient way to present and condense its understanding of the true nature of Judaism and its eschatological hope. It functions as a symbol of ultimate salvation and thus it is portrayed variously depending on the texts’ understanding of sin, judgment, and salvation. For the Temple Scroll, this is largely related to the proper function of the cult and its purity;112 for Revelation, the perseverance of the persecuted For a discussion of the reading of myth, see the introduction to this volume. 112 Schiffman, The Courtyards of the House of the Lord, xx, 28–31; Wise, “The Eschatalogical Vision,” 169, “concern for purity dominates the concept of the eschaton in the Temple Scroll.” 111

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church;113 and for 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch the struggle to adapt to a Judaism without the temple cult.114 Each text shares a biblically derived New Jerusalem tradition and eschatological expectation, but their attitudes to the natures of sin and salvation are quite divergent. Noticing the relevance of these theological ideas brings the trope of the New Jerusalem back into connection with the Genesis flood narrative, which itself is a paradigm for sin, judgment, and salvation—indeed, Isa 54 prefaced a promise for a renewed Jerusalem with an appeal to the Noahic covenant (54:9). Just as God destroyed the earth by flood and renewed it, so Jerusalem could be destroyed and renewed. That this idea was applicable both to the capital of Yehud and to the eschaton is quite consistent with apocalyptic hermeneutics. Despite the forest of details, reasons, and mechanisms predicated for YHWH’s salvation, the New Jerusalem trope represents the very meat of religion and of religious imagery and myth. The development and variety of the New Jerusalem trope in Second Temple Judaism must be seen in this light—not only the reception of Zion traditions, disappointment with restoration reality, or temple politics, but also the way in which various Jewish writers understood the idea of redemption. For them, the New Jerusalem was the new ark. To understand the significance of this within the world view of these authors, it is interesting to note that there are liturgical connections with the New Jerusalem texts, just like there was with Yima’s Vara. Ben-Daniel and Ben-Daniel argue that all of Revelation, including the temple-less New Jerusalem, reflect the Day of Atonement liturgy, though Mathewson is unwilling to name

This is a major theme, even if persecution was only perceived or expected. E.g., Gundry, “The New Jerusalem People as Place,” 258–9; Slater, “On the Social Setting of the Revelation to John,” 232–256; Pattemore, The People of God in the Apocalypse, 68–116, 197–212. 114 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 31, 35–6, 41; Murphy, The Structure and Meaning of Second Baruch, 2, 9, 71–116. 113

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a specific festival.115 The same has been argued for Isaiah.116 The establishment of centralized cult is certainly significant for Zechariah and Ezek 40–48, even if they are not themselves liturgical.117 Salvation, for the users of the New Jerusalem trope, appears to be highly connected with proper liturgical observance.

VARA, NOAH, AND THE NEW JERUSALEM After this rapid synthesis of the Jewish New Jerusalem tradition, what can be said of its relation with the myth of Yima’s Vara? A direct connection between the two has already been asserted by several scholars. Nearly a century ago Moulton alleged parallels between Noah’s Ark, Yima’s Vara, and John’s New Jerusalem, though without any detailed argumentation.118 In this opinion he was preceded by Böklen and Kohut.119 More recently, Philenko has argued that Yima’s Vara provided the “template” for John’s vision of the New Jerusalem, largely predicated on the disappearance of night in Rev 21:25 and 22:5.120 The parallel has been noted in passing by several other scholars as well.121

Ben-Daniel and Ben-Daniel, The Apocalypse in Light of the Temple, 71, 204; Mathewson, New Heaven, 220, cf. 216; Dumbrell, The End of the Beginning, 71. 116 Goulder, Isaiah as Liturgy, esp. 139–148; 117 Although Tuell argues there is liturgy in Ezekiel, too. See Tuell, The Law of the Temple, 176. 118 Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, 308, 327. On p. 308 he merely appeals to Böklen’s 1902 study and on p. 327 appeals to a general influence on apocalyptic while referring back to p. 308. 119 Böklen, Die Verwandtschaft, 136–144 (“Die eschatologisch ausgeschmückte Paradiesessage”) compares the Yima myths with Jewish and Christian eschatological expectations from several texts; Kohut, “Die talmudisch-midraschische Adamssage,” 63–66. 120 Philonenko, “La Nouvelle Jérusalem et le Vara de Yima,” 139–146, esp. 141. 121 Choksy, “To Cut Off,” 26 parallels the enclosures of Ziusudra, Noah, and Yima, as does Boyce, HZ I, 95; Lindner, “Die Iranische Flutsage,” 213. Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat, 2:230, n. 13, parallels the Vara 115

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All hypotheses of influence ought to demonstrate six criteria: 1) prior dating; 2) plausible historical context; 3) better structural sense; 4) a way to fit the new; 5) discrete particulars; and 6) interpretive change.122 In the present case, criterion 1 is difficult, while criteria 3 and 5 fail. Given the strong antecedents in and the peculiar situation of the restoration in Palestine, it is very difficult to accept a direct, causal influence of Yima’s Vara on the idea of the New Jerusalem. The Zion tradition and hopes for political and cultic restoration provide ample source material without the need for borrowing. Even Philenko’s posited model for Revelation is difficult to accept with the similarities in texts like 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra. The only way to accept it would be if there were really a Judeo-Persian text like that posited by Flusser for the Oracle of Hystaspes and behind Revelation, which is, of course, unverifiable at present.123 A direct, textual “template” for the New Jerusalem trope is unlikely. Nevertheless, there are strong parallels in terms of mythic function and religious phenomenology, and these are worth exploring. Both Yima’s Vara and the various manifestations of the New Jerusalem (and, indeed, of Noah’s ark) share the same “mythic phenomenology,” that is, they have the function of condensing and presenting the authors’ core religious interests in a visualized form. In particular, they enable the authors to describe their understandings of salvation (and who may be saved), of purity and impurity, and of the reason for evil. Such myths gave the authors opportunities to present their world views in a more systematic, unified form than they may have received them, whether textually or orally. The two have similar features in both traditions as well. Both describe their spaces as utopias for their traditional concerns and combine urban and garden-like features. Nonetheless, the texts are often pedantically specific about measurements. Ideal social story with Noah and Gen 6:31. Cf the lists given in Hultgård, “The Great Winter,” 110 and Skjærvø, “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid,” §§106–120. 122 See the proposal in Silverman, “On Cultural and Religious Influence,” 7–8; idem, Persepolis and Jerusalem, 35–6. 123 Flusser, “The Four Empires”; idem, “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” 12–75, reprinted in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 390–453.

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structures are posited, sometimes in terms of heirarchy, sometimes in international relations, and extraordinary lifespans are typically included. Furthermore, both the Vidēvdāt and the New Jerusalem tradition were highly concerned with purity. Lastly, they also share a high susceptibility to eschatologizing trajectories. With this perspective, it may be suggestive that both Iranian and Judaean communities were seeking such mythic vehicles around the time of the Achaemenid Empire, even though they used very different figures and tropes for doing so.

MYTHIC INTERACTIONS: CONCLUSIONS Although it would be imprudent to claim direct influence between any of the mythic tropes in this paper—Vara, New Jerusalem, or ark—they do share a “mythic phenomenology.” Beyond being symbols of salvation in catastrophe, all are vehicles by which authors express core religious ideas and values. All took purity and cult seriously, and all re-formed earlier, received traditions in creative ways to form new syntheses. Such a strategy for religious communication is both quite arresting and prone to miscommunication: ambiguity between past, present, and eschaton is surely a significant feature. Viewing all of these myths together enables one to see how they share a similar function within their original and receiving communities, while having quite a wide array of perspectives and details. These considerations also urge caution in the exercise of comparative mythology and in the study of the transmission and reception of myths. Several brief observations must suffice for conclusions. First, myths can be fruitfully compared, but close attention to particulars needs to be maintained at all times. Parallels in form should not blind one to the native heritage being reshaped in the myth. Second, myths are highly mutable, able to serve very different arguments with only slight changes in the details. One must be supremely careful when positing direct influences in such conditions. Third, myths provide important ways for people to formulate and express religious values and concepts in new and arresting ways, quite apart from more formal discourses. Lastly, the Second Temple/Persian Period was a fruitful and exciting period for Judaean and Iranian traditions, even though its mythology has not always been afforded much respect.

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WORKS CITED Albertz, Rainer. Israel in Exile: the History and Literature of the Sixth Century BCE. Translated by David Green. SBL Studies in Biblical Literature 3. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2003. Anklesaria, Behramgore T. Zand-Ākāsīh: Iranian or Greater Bundahisn: Text and Translation. Bombay: Rahnumae Mazdayasnan Sabha, 1956. Anklesaria, T. Pahlavi Vendidâd (Zand-î Jvît-dêv-dât): Transliteration and Translation in English. Edited by Dinshah Kapadia. Bombay: K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1949. Aune, David E. “The Apocalypse of John and Palestinian Jewish Apocalyptic.” Neotestamenica 40, no. 1 (2006): 1–33. Bailey, H. W. Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books. Rev. ed., Ratanbai Katrak Lectures. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971. Bartholomae, Christian. Altiranisches Wörterbuch. Strassburg: Trübner, 1904. Bauckham, Richard. The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993. Bedford, Peter R. Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah. SJSJ 65. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Ben-Daniel, John and Gloria Ben-Daniel. The Apocalypse in Light of the Temple: a New Approach to the Book of Revelation. Jerusalem: Beit Yochanan, 2003. Benveniste, Emile. Indo-European Language and Society. Translated by Elizabeth Palmer. Studies in General Linguistics. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. ———. Titres et Noms Propres en Iranien Ancien. Travaux de l’Institut d’etudes irannienes de l’université Paris 1. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1966. Berquist, Jon L. Judaism in Persia’s Shadow. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Revised and Enlarged ed. London: Westminster John Knox, 1996. ———. Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 19B. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Block, Daniel I. The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25–48. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Böklen, Ernst. Die Verwandtschaft der jüdisch-christlichen mit der parsischen Eschatologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902.

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Boyce, Mary. “Apocalyptic (that which has been revealed) i. In Zoroastrianism.” Encyclopaedia Iranica 2, no. 2 (1986): 154–157. ———. “On the Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Apocalyptic.” BSOAS 47, no. 1 (1984): 57–75. ———. A History of Zoroastrianism: The Early Period. HO. VIII.1.2.2A.1. Leiden: Brill, 1975. ———. Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism. Textual Sources for the Study of Religion. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002. Brown, John P. Israel and Hellas III: The Legacy of Iranian Imperialism and the Individual. BZAW 299. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001. Cereti, Carlo G. The Zand-ī Wahman Yasn: a Zoroastrian Apocalypse. SOR 75. Rome, 1995. Choksy, Jamsheed K. “To Cut off, Purify, and Make Whole: Historiographical and Eccesiastical Conceptions of Ritual Space.” JAOS 123, no. 1 (2003): 21–41. Chyutin, M. The New Jerusalem Scroll from Qumran: A Comprehensive Reconstruction. JSPSS 25. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Darmesteter, James, trans. The Zend-Avesta, Part I: The Vendidad. 2nd ed. SBE 4. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992. First Pub. Oxford, 1895. ———., trans. The Zend-Avesta, Part II: The Sīrōzahs, Yasts, and Nyāyis. SBE 23. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988. First Pub. Oxford, 1882. Davis, Dick. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. New York: Viking, 2006. DiTommaso, Lorenzo. The Dead Sea New Jerusalem Text: Contents and Contexts. TSAJ 110. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge, 1992. Dow, Lois K. Fuller. Images of Zion: Biblical Antecedents for the New Jerusalem. New Testament Monographs. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Dronke, Ursula. The Poetic Edda II: Mythological Poems. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.

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Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. “On the Complaint of the OxSoul.” JIES 1, no. 1 (1973): 101–104. Dumbrell, William J. The End of the Beginning: Revelation 21–22 and the Old Testament. Moore Theological College Lecture Series. Hambush West: Lancer Books, 1985. Dumézil, Georges. The Destiny of a King. Translated by Alf Hiltebeitel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. Fekkes, Jan, III. Isaiah and Prophetic Traditions in the Book of Revelation. JSNTSup 93. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Tobit. CEJL. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003. Flusser, David. “Hystaspes and John of Patmos.” Pages 12–75 in Irano-Judaica. Edited by Shaul Shaked. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1982. Flusser, David. “The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel.” IOS 2 (1972): 148–175. Flusser, David. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988. Fortson, Benjamin W. IV. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2004. Foster, Robert. “Undoing the Future: The Theology of the Book of Zechariah.” HBT 34, no. 1 (2012): 59–72. Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Vjačeslav V. Ivanov. Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: a Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture, Part 1:The Text. Translated by Johanna Nichols. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 80. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. Geldner, Karl F. Avesta: The Sacred Books of the Parsis. 3 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1896. Goulder, M. D. Isaiah as Liturgy. SOTSMS. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Gundry, Robert H. “The New Jerusalem People as Place, Not Place for People.” NovT 29, no. 3 (1987): 254–264. Hale, Mark. “Pahlavi.” Pages 123–135 in The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas. Edited by Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Hallock, Richard T. Persepolis Fortification Tablets. UCOIP 92. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969. Hasenfratz, Hans P. “Iran und der Dualismus.” Numen 30, no. 1 (1983): 35–52.

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Haug, Martin. Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis. Third ed., Trübner Oriental Series. London: Routledge, 2000. First Pub. 1884. Henkelman, Wouter. The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in ElamiteIranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts. Achaemenid History 14. Leiden: NINO, 2008. Hintze, Almut. “Avestan Literature.” Pages 1–71 in The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran. Edited by Ronald E. Emmerick and Maria Macuch. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009. ———. “On the Compositional Structure of the Avestan Gāhs.” Pages 29–43 in Religious Texts in Iranian Languages: Symposium Held in Copenhagen May 2002. Edited by Fereydun Vahman and Claus Pedersen. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2007. ———. Zamyād-Yašt: Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Beiträge zur Iranistik 15. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1994. Hock, Andreas. “From Babel to the New Jerusalem (Gen 11,1–9 and Rev 21,1–22,5).” Biblica 89 (2008): 109–118. Hollander, Lee M. The Poetic Edda Translated with Introduction and Explanatory Notes. Second ed. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006. Hultgård, Anders. “Das Paradies: vom Park des Perserkönigs zum Ort der Seligen,” Pages 1–43 in La Cité de Dieu/Die Stadt Gottes. 3. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala 19.– 23. September 1998 in Tübingen. Edited by Martin Hengel, Siegfried Mittmann, and Anna M. Schwemer. WUNT 129. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. ———. “The Mythic Theme of the Great Winter in Ancient Iranian Traditions.” Pages 101–120 in Religious Texts in Iranian Languages: Symposium Held in Copenhagen May 2002. Edited by Fereydun Vahman and Claus Pedersen. Historisk-filosofiske meddelelser 98. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2007. Humbach, H., Josef Elfenbein, and Prods Oktor Skjærvø. The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and Other Old Avestan Texts. 2 vols. Indogermanische Bibliothek: Reihe 1, Lehr- und Handbücher. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1991. Humbach, Helmut. “Yama/Yima/Jamšēd, King of Paradise of the Iranians.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 26 (2002): 68–77.

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Josephus. Jewish Antiquities. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray. Jewish Antiquities I–III. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Joyce, Paul M. “Ezekiel 40–42: The Earliest Heavenly Ascent Narrative.” Pages 17–42 in The Book of Ezekiel and Its Influence. Edited by Henk Jan de Jonge and Johannes Tromp. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Karanjia, Ramiyar P. “Teach Yourself Avesta: a Beginner’s Guide to the Script, Grammar, and Language of the Zoroastrian Scriptural Texts.” No Pages. 2011. Online: www.avesta.org/language/Combined_Avesta_Grammar.pdf Kellens, Jean. “Langues et religions indo-iraniennes.” Annuaire du Collège de France 100 (1999–2000): 723–751. ———. “Yima et la Mort.” Pages 329–334 in Languages and Cultures: Studies in Honor of Edgar C. Polomé. Edited by Mohammad Ali Jazayery and Werner Winter. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988. Kohut, Alexander. “Die talmudisch-midraschische Adamssage in ihrer Rückbeziehung auf die persische Yima- und Meshiasage.” ZDMG 25 (1871): 59–94. Lee, Pilchan. The New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation: a Study of Revelation 21–22 in the light of its background in Jewish Tradition. WUNT. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Levenson, Jon Douglas. The Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48. HSMS 10. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976. Lincoln, Bruce. “‘The Earth Becomes Flat’—A Study of Apocalyptic Imagery.” CSSH 25, no. 1 (1983): 136–153. ———. “The Lord of the Dead.” HR 20, no. 3 (1981): 224–241. ———. Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. ———. Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: a Study in the Ecology of Religions. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981. Lindner, Bruno. “Die iranische Flutsage.” Pages 213–216 in Festgruss an Rudolf von Roth zum Doktor-Jubilaum. Edited by E.W.A. Kuhn. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1893. Lunquist, J. M. “The Legitimating Role of the Temple in the Origins of the State.” SBLSP 21 (1982): 271–91.

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Lynch, Matthew J. “Zion’s Warrior and the Nations: Isaiah 59:15b– 63:6 in Isaiah’s Zion Traditions.” CBQ 70, no. 2 (2008): 244– 263. MacKenzie, D. N. “Gumēzišn.” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2002. Available at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gumezisn. ———. “Notes on the Transcription of Pahlavi.” BASOR 30, no. 1 (1967): 17–29. ———. A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Martínez, F. García. “New Jerusalem at Qumran and in the New Testament.” Pages 277–290 in The Land of Israel in Bible, History, and Theology: Studies in Honour of Ed Noort. Edited by J. T. A. G. M. Van Ruiten and J. Cornelis de Vos. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Mathewson, David. A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Meaning and Function of the Old Testament in Revelation 21:1–22:5. JSNTSup 238. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003. Maier, Johann. The Temple Scroll: an Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Translated by Richard T. White. JSOTSup 34. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985. Meyers, Carol L. and Eric M. Meyers. Haggai, Zechariah 1–8. AB 25B. Hartford, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. ———. Zechariah 9–14. AB 25C. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Miscall, Peter D. “Isaiah: New Heavens, New Earth, New Book.” Pages 41–56 in Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Danna Nolan Fewell. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1992. Moazami, Mahnaz. “The Legend of the Flood in Zoroastrian Tradition.” Persica 18 (2002): 55–74. Molé, Marijan. La Legende de Zorastre. Selon les textes Pehlevis. Travaux de l’institut d’études iraniennes de l’Université de Paris 3. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1967. Moulton, James H. Early Zoroastrianism: The Origins, The Prophet, The Magi. London: Williams & Northgate, 1913. Reprinted Amsterdam, 1972. Murphy, Frederick J. The Structure and Meaning of Second Baruch. SBLDS 78. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985.

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Nielsen, Katherine. “‘Hver tíðendi eru at segja frá um ragnarøkr?’: The Debate over Christian Influences in Norse Indo-European Tradition.” JIES 30, no. 1–2 (2002): 61–77. Oppenheim, A. Leo and Erica Reiner, eds. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Vol. 10 (M). 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Pattemore, Stephen. The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure, and Exegesis. SNTSMS 128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Petterson, Anthony R. Behold Your King: The Hope for the House of David in the Book of Zechariah. LHBOTS 513. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Philonenko, Marc. “La Nouvelle Jérusalem et le Vara de Yima.” Pages 139–146 in La Cité de Dieu/Die Stadt Gottes. 3. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala 19.–23. September 1998 in Tübingen. Edited by Martin Hengel, Siegfried Mittmann, and Anna M. Schwemer. WUNT 129. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Reichelt, Hans. Avesta Reader: Texts, Notes, Glossary and Index. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968. ———. Awestisches Elementarbuch. Zweite, unveränderte ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1967. Roberts, J. J. M. “The Davidic Origin of the Zion Tradition.” JBL 92, no. 3 (1973): 329–344. Roberts, J. J. M. “The End of War in the Zion Tradition: The Imperialistic Background of an Old Testament Vision of World Wide Peace.” HBT 26, no. 1 (2004): 2–22. Rudnig, Thilo Alexander. Heilig und Profan: Radaktionskritische Studien zu Ez 40–48. BZAW 287. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000. Schellenberg, Ryan S. “Seeing the World Whole: Intertextuality and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21–22).” PRSt 33, no. 4 (2006): 467–476. Schiffman, Lawrence H. The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll. STDJ 75. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Schramm, Brooks. The Opponents of Third Isaiah: Reconstructing the Cultic History of the Restoration. JSOTSS 193. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Schreiner, J. Sion-Jerusalem, Jahwes Königssitz: Theologie der heiligen Stadt im Alten Testament. SANT 7. Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1963.

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Scott, R. B. Y. “Meteorological Phenomena and Terminology in the Old Testament.” ZAW 64 (1952): 11–25. Silverman, Jason M. “On Cultural and Religious Influence.” Pages 1–12 in A Land Like Your Own: Traditions of Israel and Their Reception. Edited by Jason M. Silverman. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010. ———. Persepolis and Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic. LHBOTS 558. London: T&T Clark, 2012. Simon, Bennett. “Ezekiel's Geometric Vision of the Restored Temple: From the Rod of his Wrath to the Reed of his Measuring.” HTR 102, no. 4 (2009): 411–438. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. “Jamšid i. Myth of Jamšid.” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2008. Available at: http://www.iranica.com/articles/jamsid-i. ———. “The Antiquity of Old Avestan.” Nāme-ye Irān Bāstān 3 (2003–4): 15–41. ———. “The Avesta as Source for the Early History of the Iranians,” Pages 155–176 in The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Edited by G. Erdosy. Indian Philology and South Asian Studies 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. Slater, Thomas B. “On the Social Setting of the Revelation to John.” NTS 44, no. 2 (1998): 232–256. Stead, Michael R. The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1–8. LHBOTS 506. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Stone, Michael E. Fourth Ezra: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortess, 1990. Strawn, Brent A. “‘A World Under Control’: Isaiah 60 and the Apadana Reliefs from Persepolis.” Pages 85–116 in Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period. Edited by Jon L. Berquist. SemeiaSt 50. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Ström, Åke V. “Indogermanisches in der Völuspá.” Numen 14, no. 3 (1967): 167–208. Swanson, Dwight D. The Temple Scroll and the Bible: The Methodology of 11QT. STDJ 14. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Sweeney, Marvin A. Tanak: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012. Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. Rev. ed. 6 vols. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1955–58.

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Torrey, Charles C. Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Original Prophecy. YOS 18. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1930. Tuell, Stephen Shawn. The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40–48. HSMS 49. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992. Tuplin, Christopher. Achaemenid Studies. Historia 99. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1996. van Bekkum, Wout J. “The Lesson of the Flood: ‫ מבול‬in Rabbinic Tradition.” Pages 124–133 in Interpretations of the Flood. Edited by F. García Martínez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen. Leiden: Brill, 1998. von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. Study ed. 2 vols. London: SCM, 1975. Warner, Arthur George and Edmond Warner, eds. The Shāhnāma of Firdausī. 9 vols. London: Routledge, 2000. First Published 1905. Watts, John D. W. Isaiah 34–66. Revised ed. WBC 25. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2005. Weber, Max. The Sociology of Religion. Translated by Ephraim Fischoff. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Translation first published 1969. West, E. W., trans. Pahlavi Texts I: The Bundahis, Bahman Yast, and Shāyast Lā-Shāyast. SBE 5. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. First Pub. Oxford, 1880. ———., trans. Pahlavi Texts III: Dīnā-ī Maīnög-ī Khirad SikandGümānīk Vigār Sad Dar. SBE 24. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. First Pub. Oxford, 1885. ———., trans. Pahlavi Texts V: Marvels of Zoroastrianism. SBE 47. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. First Pub Oxford, 1897. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Translated by John J. Scullion. London: SPCK, 1984. ———. Isaiah 40–66. Translated by David M. G. Staker. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969. Williams, A. V. The Pahlavi Rivāyat accompanying the Dādestān i Dēnīg. 2 vols. Historisk-filosofiske meddelelser 60. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab, 1990. Windischmann, Fr. Zoroastrische Studien: Abhandlungen zur Mythologie und Sagengeschichte des Alten Iran. Edited by Fr. Spiegel. Berlin: Dümmler’s Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1863. Wise, Michael O. “The Eschatalogical Vision of the Temple Scroll.” JNES 49, no. 2 (1990): 155–173.

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Young, Jean I. The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. Zaehner, R. C. The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. History of Religion. London: Phoenix, 2003. Zimmerli, Walther. Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 25–48. Translated by James D. Martin. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

FLOOD STORIES IN 1 ENOCH 1–36: DIVERSITY, UNITY, AND IDEOLOGY RYAN E. STOKES SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ABSTRACT The Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36) retells the Genesis flood story, presenting the great flood and the events that precipitated it as a paradigm for the eschatological age. This early Jewish retelling of the Genesis narrative, however, contains not just one explanation for why God sent the flood upon the earth, but three different explanations. Despite this diversity, the Book of Watchers consistently presents the flood not primarily as a means of punishing the wicked, as in Genesis, but as an act accomplished by God on behalf of the righteous. The authors of the book seem to have understood themselves as victims of evil in need of eschatological vindication and rescue.

INTRODUCTION Of all the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, few if any were as important to Jews of the Second Temple period as the flood story of Gen 6–9. The righteous figure of Noah, the enigmatic “sons of God,” and the idea of such a dramatic event as a universal deluge piqued the interests and excited the imaginations of early Jewish interpreters. This story became much more than a simple narrative about an event that happened long ago to many Jews of this period. For some, especially for those who composed the Enochic Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36), the story became a fundamental paradigm for understanding the world in which they found 231

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themselves. This essay looks at the various ways in which the Book of Watchers appropriates the flood story. In particular, it examines the different reasons that the book offers for why God would flood the earth and will ask what these reasons reveal about the ideology of those who composed this book.

EARLY FLOOD ACCOUNTS When it comes to explaining why God (or gods) would decide to exterminate humankind by means of a great flood, a variety of viewpoints existed well before the third century BCE. According to the Mesopotamian epic of Atra-ḫasīs, which dates to the second millennium before the Common Era, it was the noise (rigmu) of humanity’s growing population that disturbed the god Enlil’s sleep and drove him to drastic measures.1 In an effort to control the earth’s population, Enlil first sends plagues, drought, and famine. After these attempts to quiet humanity’s noise fail, as a last resort, Enlil sends a flood to obliterate humanity altogether.2 The man Atra-ḫasīs, however, survives the disaster, being warned in advance by his god Enki that he should construct a boat. According to the book of Genesis, it is humankind’s wickedness that demands decisive action from God. But even the book of Genesis, with its complex literary history, contains more than one explanation for why God flooded the earth. Source critics Scholars have understood the significance of humankind’s “noise” in the Atraḫasīs epic in various ways. It may be simply that the noise of a growing human population annoys the gods. Some scholars have suggested, alternatively, that the din of humanity is in some way connected with sin or rebellion on the part of humankind. See the summary of the discussion of the meaning of rigmu in Kvanvig, Primeval History, 72–75, who argues that the noise represents the fact not only that humans are too numerous, but that their activity is out of the gods’ control. 2 According to Schmidt, “Flood Narratives of Ancient Western Asia,” 2343, humankind’s noise may also be assumed to be the cause of the flood in the Gilgameš epic and in Erra and Išun. For Schmidt, this noise likely represents humanity’s overstepping its divinely established boundaries. 1

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have long distinguished two literary strata in the Genesis flood account, traditionally assigned the designations P and J or, more recently, P and non-P. These two strata can be differentiated by observing the existence of doublets in the narrative as well as a number of contrasting characteristics, such as different names used for God and different numbers of animals brought onto the ark. Among the contrasting attributes of these literary strata is the specific reason offered by each of them for the flood. According to J (or non-P), YHWH regrets having created humankind and decides to blot them out on account of humankind’s great wickedness. The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:5–7).3

The P material portrays the situation leading to the flood somewhat differently, depicting the flood as God’s response to the earth itself having become corrupt as a result of the violence that humans were perpetrating on it. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth” (Gen 6:11–13).

Given the differing explanations for the flood in the traditions that would have been available to Jews in the third century BCE, it is not all that surprising that the authors of the early Enochic

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from the Bible and Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books are from the NRSV. 3

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literature would have taken liberty in composing their own accounts of the events that preceded the flood.

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE FLOOD

IN THE BOOK OF WATCHERS

The Book of Watchers, although set in the antediluvian period, is from beginning to end an eschatological work. Chapters 1–5 introduce the work by announcing the impending arrival of God accompanied by a host of angels for the purpose of judging the earth. Chapters 6–16 of this work retell the story found in Gen 6:1–4 of the “sons of God” who take human wives and have children with them.4 In the Book of Watchers’s retelling and expansion of the laconic Genesis pericope, the sons of God are angelic beings called Watchers, who agree to violate the boundary between the heavenly and the earthly realms by marrying human women and begetting children by them. This illicit mixing of spirit and flesh creates all sorts of problems for humankind. The hybrid offspring of the heavenly Watchers and the human women are a violent race of giants who, on account of their insatiable appetites, devour all of humankind’s agricultural produce, consume animals The relationship between the Book of Watchers and Gen 6:1–4 is a matter of some disagreement. Most scholars conclude that Genesis contains the earlier form of the narrative, on which the Book of Watchers creatively expands. Milik (The Books of Enoch, 31–32), however, argued the reverse, that Gen 6:1–4 is an abridgment of the watcher story as is found in 1 Enoch 6–11. Barker (The Older Testament Testament, 18–19), more cautiously argues that some of the Enochic writings contain elements of an original myth that has been abbreviated in Gen 6. Similarly, Helge S. Kvanvig (“The Watchers Story, Genesis, and Atra-ḫasīs,” 20–21) raises the possibility that the author of the Book of Watchers had access to some traditions found in Atra-ḫasīs that are not preserved in Genesis. (See also Kvanvig’s most recent analysis of the relationship between Gen 6:1–4, the Book of Watchers, and Mesopotamian traditions in Kvanvig, Primeval History, 373–95.) While it is true that Gen 6:1–4 appears to allude to a larger story that would have been familiar to its readers and that certain elements of this larger story may be found in 1 En. 6–11, it is unlikely that Gen 6:1–4 is based on these chapters of 1 Enoch. 4

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along with their blood, and eventually eat humans themselves. The Watchers also teach humans the forbidden crafts of sorcery, divination, and metallurgy, leading humans into great sin. When the earth cries out to heaven for relief from all of the evils taking place on it, God responds by sending his angels to imprison the Watchers, destroy their children, and deliver the righteous Noah. The Book of Watchers presents the generation of the flood as a paradigm for the final era of human history. Just like the flood generation, the final generation will be one that is characterized by the proliferation of evil. But, just as at the beginning of history, God will intervene to destroy the wicked and to deliver the righteous. Chapters 17–36 narrate Enoch’s journey to the end of the earth, in which the patriarch visits various sites of eschatological import, such as the garden of Eden, the holding chambers of the dead, and the prison in which the rebellious Watchers are being held until the day of judgment. Enoch’s eyewitness account assures the reader that these places do indeed exist and, thus, that a day is coming in which the righteous and wicked will be rewarded according to their deeds.5 The Book of Watchers is one of the earliest portions of 1 Enoch. Although the Book of Watchers is itself the product of a complex process of composition, editing, and further editing, scholars agree that the book had taken its present shape by the end of the third century BCE.6 Scholars also agree that the retelling of Gen 6:1–4 in See Newsom, “The Development of 1 Enoch 6–19,” 323–29, who compares the journey account of 1 Enoch 17–19 with the ANE diplomatic practice of showing off a kingdom’s wealth and strength. This account, according to Newsom, would assure the reader of God’s sovereignty. 6 Charlesworth, “A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists,” 233– 34. Milik, The Books of Enoch, 25, 140, 164, identified two copies of this work among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which he dated paleographically to the first half of the second century BCE. Milik claims that one of these manuscripts (4QEna) was copied from a manuscript dating no later than the third century BCE (141). Possibly composed near the same time as the Book of Watchers, the Book of the Luminaries (1 Enoch 72–82) has been dated by VanderKam to sometime between the early postexilic period and 200– 150 BCE (Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 339–45). 5

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1 En. 6–11 comprises two literary strands.7 The earlier of these tells how 200 Watchers, led by Šemiḥazah, descended to the earth to take human wives and beget children, spawning a monstrous race of giants who oppress humankind. A secondary tradition in the Book of Watchers tells how a particular Watcher by the name of ‘Asael taught humans the art of metallurgy, a craft that gave rise to horrible evils on the earth. Humans employed the knowledge revealed to them by ‘Asael to produce weapons, jewelry, and cosmetics, items which enabled humans to commit acts of violence and sexual immorality on an unprecedented scale.

THE FLOOD AS A RESPONSE TO ANGELIC TRANSGRESSION First Enoch 6–11 contains two explanations for why God decided to send the flood, one belonging to the Šemiḥazah material and the other belonging to the ‘Asael material. Given that both of these are based on a common understanding of the Gen 6:1–4 story, the two explanations for the flood in this section of the Book of Watchers share certain elements. Both of these traditions describe the time before the flood as a time when heavenly beings descended to the earth and brought about conditions that threatened humankind’s very existence. In both of these literary strata, God sends the flood in order to rescue humankind from this situation. In other regards, however, the explanations given for the flood in the Šemiḥazah and ‘Asael material are very different from each other. In the earlier Šemiḥazah strand, humans are the victims of the Watchers’ sexual sin and the Giants’ violent oppression. God sends the flood to rescue the earth from these evils. God commands Michael, “Destroy all the spirits of the half-breeds and See Bhayro, The Shemihazah and Asael Narrative, 11–20; Dimant, “‘The Fallen Angels’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 23–71 (Hebrew); idem, “1 Enoch 6–11,” 1:323–24; Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven,” 197; Newsom, “The Development of 1 Enoch 6–19,” 313–14; Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,” 383–86; idem, “Reflections upon Reflections,” 1:311–12; idem, 1 Enoch 1, 165, 171–72. Cf. the misgivings of John J. Collins (“Methodological Issues,” 1:315–16) about such a distinction, though he has since affirmed it (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 49–50). 7

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the sons of the watchers, because they have wronged men” (1 En. 10:15).8 The flood is a response to superhuman wickedness, namely that of the Watchers’ children, punishing the giants for crimes committed on the earth against humankind and delivering humanity from these monsters’ violent oppression. While the later ‘Asael strand also conceives of the flood as a response to superhuman transgression, it is not the Watchers’ sexual immorality or the giants’ violence that is the problem, but the teaching of ‘Asael. To be sure, like the Šemiḥazah story, the ‘Asael material pertains to bloodshed and sexual immorality. The difference is that the violence and sexual immorality with which the ‘Asael material is concerned is not that perpetrated by the Watchers and their offspring, but that committed by humankind as a result of ‘Asael’s teaching. The flood is necessary to rescue humankind from the forbidden knowledge unleashed on the earth by ‘Asael. God commands Raphael, “And heal the earth, which the Watchers have desolated; and announce the healing of the earth, that the plague may be healed, and all the sons of men may not perish because of the mystery that the Watchers told and taught their sons. And all the earth was made desolate by the deeds of the teaching of ‘Asael, and over him write all the sins” (1 En. 10:7–8).

In the ‘Asael material, humans themselves become transgressors because of the teachings of ‘Asael, blurring the line between superhuman and human culpability for the lamentable situation that brought on the flood. Humans, like the Watchers and their gigantic offspring, are guilty of sexual immorality and violence, among other evils. Although humankind takes part in the Watchers’ transgression, blame for this state of affairs, nevertheless, is place squarely on the shoulders of the Watchers, 1 Enoch 10:9–10, which seems to stem from a later editor, contains an alternative explanation for the giants’ demise. In this passage, God commands Gabriel to destroy the Watchers’ offspring by sending them against one another in a war. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of 1 Enoch are from Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation. 8

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those of ‘Asael in particular. Humankind continues to be portrayed as the victim of the Watchers in the ‘Asael strand. This version of the events leading to the flood is indebted to the Genesis account(s), which connect the cataclysm with human wickedness. At the same time, it follows the Šemiḥazah story, identifying the root of the problem as angelic rebellion. The flood is not depicted primarily as a punishment for wicked humans, but as a means to heal the earth and to rescue humankind from ‘Asael and the other Watchers’ teachings. The line between human and superhuman culpability for the sin that brought about the flood is blurred further in Syncellus’s Greek version of the Book of Watchers. Following the report of ‘Asael instructing the sons of man on how to manufacture weapons, jewelry, and cosmetics, one reads the following statement in Syncellus: “And the sons of men made them for themselves and for their daughters, and they transgressed and led the holy ones astray” (8:1). In Syncellus, the reason that the Watchers engaged in illicit sexual activity with human women was that human women led them astray by means of the knowledge given them by ‘Asael. Although the idea attested in Syncellus’s text, that human women seduced the Watchers, is not found in the other versions of the Book of Watchers and may not be the original reading, neither does it seem to be an accidental corruption. Nickelsburg argues that the statement that women led the holy ones astray in 8:1 reflects an ancient tradition.9 Nickelsburg cites a number of early texts that explain the Watchers’ descent in ways that differ from the Šemiḥazah account. Jubilees 4:15, for instance, says that the Watchers initially came to earth “in order to teach the sons of man, and perform judgment and uprightness upon the earth.”10 The Watchers’ intentions were noble at first. Only later, according to Jubilees, did the Watchers stray into sexual immorality. In the Testament of Reuben, Reuben warns his sons not to fall prey to evil women who seduce men by adorning themselves. Reuben explains, “For it was thus that they charmed the Watchers, who were before

9

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 195–196. Translation of Wintermute, “Jubilees,” OTP 2:62.

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the Flood.” (T. Reuben 5:6).11 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 6:2 also attributes the Watchers’ sin to the alluring practices of human women.12 Although it is not clear whether the authors of the Book of Watchers would have been aware of such accounts of the Watchers’ descent, these traditions contrast sharply with those found in the Book of Watchers in which the Watchers take the initiative in instigating sin. The Watchers’ initiative is especially clear in the Šemiḥazah story, in which the Watchers conspire together to take human wives and beget children by them before descending to the earth (1 En. 6:1–5). In the ‘Asael story as well, humans are the victims of ‘Asael’s teaching. Even in Syncellus’s version of the story, ‘Asael first leads humans astray by teaching them forbidden crafts, and only then do the women seduce the Watchers.13 In the flood story of 1 Enoch 6–11, humankind is the victim in need of rescue.

THE FLOOD AS A RESPONSE TO HUMAN SIN Both explanations for the flood discussed up to this point describe the flood primarily as a response to evils created by superhuman beings. A third explanation for the flood, one in which the Watchers do not bear the brunt of the responsibility, can be found in 1 En. 22. This chapter belongs to the portion of the Book of Translation of T. Reuben is that of Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” OTP 1:784. 12 See also this explanation for the flood in T. Adam 3:5, which will be discussed below. 13 The closest parallel to Syncellus’s version of 1 Enoch 8:1 may be found in the so-called Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90), which Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, 360–1) dates to the late third or mid second century BCE. The Animal Apocalypse recounts the history of the world allegorically. It describes the period before the flood as one in which there were inappropriate relationships between stars, representing Watchers, and cows, representing human women. According to 86:1–4, a single star first descended. Afterward many stars descend and engage in sexual immorality with the cows. This would seem to fit well with the idea that ‘Asael first descended, revealing the secrets of beautification by which human women then allured the other Watchers. 11

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Watchers that narrates Enoch’s journeys to various mythological sites on the earth. In 1 En. 22, as Enoch travels toward the far reaches of the earth, he comes to a mountain with four hollow places in it. Enoch’s angelic guide, Raphael, informs him that these hollow places are the chambers where the spirits of the dead reside until the day of judgment (22:1–3). Enoch also notices in this place a particular spirit making suit and crying out to heaven for justice. When Enoch inquires about the identity of this spirit, Raphael tells him, “This is the spirit that went forth from Abel, whom Cain his brother murdered. And Abel makes accusation against him until his posterity perishes from the face of the earth, and his posterity is obliterated from the posterity of men” (22:7). 14

This passage expands on Gen 4:10, in which God tells Cain that the blood of his slain brother Abel is crying out to God from the ground. It implies that God sent the flood not in response to angelic sin, but to avenge the murder of Abel by his older brother Cain.15 The idea that the flood was a response to the sin of Cain appears in other ancient texts as well. Around the turn of the era, the Wisdom of Solomon would tell the flood story as follows: “But when an unrighteous man departed from [wisdom] in his anger, he perished because in rage he killed his brother. When the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood” (Wis 10:3–4).16

See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 306, on the possibility that 1 En. 22:5–7 is an interpolation. 15 That Cain’s entire line would be obliterated because of Abel’s murder is an idea that contrasts with Jubilees 4:31–32, which says that Cain alone died for his sin. 16 On the date of the Wisdom of Solomon, see Chesnutt, “Solomon, Wisdom of,” 1243. For the idea that the flood was sent in response to 14

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Like the Book of Watchers, Wisdom of Solomon teaches that the flood was God’s answer for the injustice perpetrated against Abel.

THE FLOOD AS A RESPONSE TO BOTH HUMAN AND ANGELIC SIN Also like the Book of Watchers, however, the sin of Cain is not the only explanation given for the flood. Wisdom of Solomon, as well, describes the flood as a means of doing away with the Watchers’ wicked offspring. “For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft…” (Wis 14:6).17 Evidently, the beliefs that the flood was sent as a response to human sin and that it was sent as a response to angelic sin were not mutually exclusive in the minds of ancient authors. At least the tension between them was not so great that a single composition, whether the product of a single author or the product of multiple authors, could offer both of these explanations for the flood. Interestingly, one ancient work, the Christian pseudepigraphon Testament of Adam, eliminates some of the tension created by multiple explanations for the flood by fusing them into one.18 In this work, Adam explains to his son Seth, “You have heard, my son Seth, that a Flood is coming and will wash the whole earth because of the daughters of Cain, your brother, who killed your brother Abel out of passion for your sister Lebuda…” (T. Adam 3:5).19

This passage combines many of the themes observed in the various explanations for the flood considered above. The account of the flood is tied to the sexual activity described in Gen 6:1–4. It is not the Watchers, however, who are said to be responsible for this Cain’s sin, see also Gen. Rab. 22:12 and Ephraem, Commentary on Genesis 3:9. 17 On the giants’ oppression of humankind and their arrogance as the reason for the flood, see also 3 Macc. 2:4. 18 Robinson, “Testament of Adam,” OTP 1:990, dates the Testament of Adam in its present form to the mid-late third century CE. 19 The translation quoted above is that of Robinson, “Testament of Adam,” 994.

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immoral behavior, but human women. That these women are identified specifically as the daughters of Cain associates the flood indirectly with the sin of Cain. As we saw above, culpability for the sin that brought about the flood is shared between the Watchers and humans in the ‘Asael material, especially in Syncellus’s version of the story. When it came to explaining the flood, the reasons offered were not necessarily of their either/or variety, but were often of a both/and kind.

DIVERSITY, UNITY, AND THE BOOK OF WATCHERS’S IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXT In the Book of Watchers, one finds three different explanations for the flood. Two of them explain the flood as a means of rescuing humans from a superhuman threat to their existence. In one case, the threat is a race of violent giants that is spawned by angelic sexual immorality. In the other, the threat is the teaching of the Watchers, especially that of ‘Asael, which is destroying humankind. A third reason given for the flood is not the sin of superhuman beings, but the sin of a human, namely that of Cain who murdered his brother Abel. Those who composed the Book of Watchers had differing notions of what led to the flood. These differing notions, however, do not seem to have been regarded by their authors as mutually exclusive. The authors and editors of the Book of Watchers, though perhaps they preferred to assign blame for the flood to one person or group rather than to another, were satisfied to produce a text in which their explanation for the flood stood merely as one among multiple explanations. Although the diversity exhibited by the Book of Watchers’s various takes on the flood story offers one a glimpse into the thinking of the book’s authors, what is perhaps more telling than those teachings that distinguish the book’s flood traditions from one another is the idea that unifies them. Scholars have attempted in different ways to discern the historical context that lies beneath the Book of Watchers’s retelling of the flood story. Correctly, these scholars interpret the flood story in the book as a paradigm for the final age. The Book of Watchers invites its readers to compare the sins that flourish before the flood (whether those of the Watchers, of the giants, or of Cain) with the sins that the reader observes in their own day. The book also assures its readers that just as God intervened in an extraordinary way to punish the wicked and reward the righteous long ago, so in

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their own day God would do the same. What is less clear is whether one is able to move beyond a general comparison of the flood generation with the authors’ day in order to locate the specific historical context of the Book of Watchers and the specific problem(s) that the book was written to address. George Nickelsburg attempts to do just this, reading the Šemiḥazah story of the semi-divine Watchers and their violent activity against the backdrop of the wars of the Diadochi.20 David Suter also attempts to identify one historical problem addressed by the Book of Watchers, interpreting the book’s condemnation of angelic sexual immorality in chs. 12–16 as a veiled critique of the exogamy practiced in certain priestly circles.21 John Collins, on the other hand, argues that the story’s ambiguity lends it a polyvalence that it allows it to be applied and reapplied in a number of different settings and frustrates any attempts to discern the specific historical circumstances surrounding its composition.22 Whether the Book of Watchers’ ambiguity was intentional on the part of its authors or is simply a consequence of modern interpreters’ chronological and cultural distance from the book’s composition, Collins reluctance to identify a specific historical problem beneath the story seems advisable. Nevertheless, it is possible to make use of the different explanations for the flood offered by the Book of Watchers as windows through which one can view certain aspects of its authors’ ideology. Though the nature of the sin and the identity of the perpetrator(s) vary from one flood tradition in the Book of Watchers to another, all three explanations pertain to the victimization of one person or group by another. In chapters 6–11, the earth cries out to heaven for relief on account of the Watchers and their children, and God intervenes to save humankind. In chapter 22, Abel’s spirit makes suit against Cain until Cain’s line is cut off from the earth. In this regard, the Book of Watchers differs from the earlier flood accounts. The flood in Atra-ḫasīs is supposed to silence Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,” 389–97. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest,” 115–135; idem., “Revisiting ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest,’” 137–42. 22 Collins, “The Apocalyptic Technique,” 91–111. 20 21

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humankind. In Genesis, the flood in sent simply to destroy humankind because humankind is extremely wicked and has corrupted the earth. One man and his family happen to find favor with God and are enabled to survive the deluge. Despite the differences between the various explanations for the flood in the Book of Watchers, each of them in its own way depicts the flood as an act of God, the objective of which was to rescue or to vindicate the righteous, not to punish the wicked.23 Of course, the hope that God would punish the wicked and the hope that God would act on behalf of the righteous are not necessarily incompatible. They may easily be regarded as simply two sides of the same coin. The idea that flood was an act accomplished on behalf of the righteous sufferer, however, is not found in earlier traditions, but is consistently emphasized in the various flood traditions found in the Book of Watchers. And this idea is likely indicative of how the authors of the Book of Wathchers understood their own situation. According to the paradigm presented in the Book of Watchers’ various flood accounts, the final generation is not merely one in which the wicked behave wickedly and can expect to receive their just desserts. It is a generation in which the righteous, a group with which the authors no doubt identify, are themselves victims of evil, or are at least perceived as such by the book’s authors. Nor is the final judgment simply a catastrophic event that the righteous hope to survive. The final judgment is their hope. This understanding of the plight of the righteous and of their hope for God to act on their behalf does not point clearly to the specific historical circumstances that gave rise to the book. The notion that the righteous were victims of sin and in need of God to act on their behalf is certainly compatible, for example, with Nickelsburg’s contention that the book addresses the wars of the Diadochi. Ancient religious thinkers, however, might have perceived themselves as victims of wickedness at nearly any Perhaps a similar understanding of the flood can be observed in 1 Pet 3:18-22. After summarizing the flood story in a fashion that has several points of contact with the Book of Watchers, 1 Pet 3:21a states, “And baptism, which this [i.e., the flood water] prefigured, now saves you.” 23

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moment in history. The Book of Watchers’s flood traditions reveal more about the self-perception of its authors than they reveal about the authors’ specific historical or social circumstances. It is also likely, given the work’s complex literary history, that they reflect a number of different historical circumstances. In some of these circumstances, the authors perceived themselves to be the innocent victims of wickedness, possibly violence, such as Abel and the generation which was oppressed by the giants. In the case of the ‘Asael material, humankind is perceived as a complicit victims, such as humankind under the influence of ‘Asael’s iniquitous teaching. What unifies the work, then, is not a common historical situation, but a common perception of the righteous as victims of evil and in need of God to act in their interest. Employing an assortment of flood traditions, the Book of Watchers transforms a story about God’s punishment of wicked and rebellious humanity into a story of divine deliverance and vindication for the righteous. The Book of Watchers is a book by and for those who perceived themselves to be victims of sin, and it retells the flood story as a promise that one day in the not so distant future God would again act on behalf of the righteous. In one final act of judgment, God will intervene to save the righteous as God saved humankind from the Giants and from the teachings of ‘Asael. In the case of those who have already died, it is hoped that God will hear their spirits’ cry for justice and vindicate them just as God heard Abel’s spirit making suit and destroyed the descendants of Cain.

WORKS CITED Barker, Margaret. The Older Testament Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK, 1987. Bhayro, Siam. The Shemihazah and Asael Narrative of 1 Enoch 6–11: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary with Reference to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Antecedents. AOAT 322. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2005. Charlesworth, James H. “A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists: The Date of the Earliest Enoch Books.” Pages 225–234 in The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar, University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, June

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19–23, 2001 (= Henoch 24). Edited by Gabriele Boccaccini. Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 2002. Chesnutt, Randall D. “Solomon, Wisdom of.” Pages 1242–44 in Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. Collins, John J. “Methodological Issues in the Study of 1 Enoch: Reflections on the Articles of P. D. Hanson and G. W. Nickelsburg.” SBLSP 13 (1978): 1:315–22. ———. “The Apocalyptic Technique: Setting and Function in the Book of Watchers.” CBQ 44 (1982): 91–111. ———. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2 ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Dimant, Devorah. “‘The Fallen Angels’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic Books Related to Them.” Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1974 (Hebrew). ———. “1 Enoch 6–11: A Methodological Perspective.” SBLSP 13 (1978): 1:323–39. Hanson, Paul D. “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6-11,” JBL 96 (1977): 195–233. Kee, H.C. “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.” Pages 775–828 in OTP, vol 1. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. New York: Doubleday, 1983. Kvanvig, Helge S. “The Watchers Story, Genesis, and Atraḫasīs: A Triangular Reading.” Pages 217–23 in The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar, University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, June 19–23, 2001 (= Henoch 24). Edited by Gabriele Boccaccini. Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 2002. ———. Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic (An Intertextual Reading). JSJSup 149. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Milik, J. T. The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Newsom, Carol A. “The Development of 1 Enoch 6-19: Cosmology and Judgment.” CBQ 42 (1980): 310–29. Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6– 11.” JBL 96 (1977): 383–405. ———. “Reflections upon Reflections: A Response to John Collins’ ‘Methodological Issues in the Study of 1 Enoch.’” SBLSP 13 (1978): 1:311–14. ———. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary of the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1– 36; 81–108. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001.

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Nickelsburg, George W. E. and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: a Commentary of the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37–82. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012. ———. 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012. Robinson, S. E. “Testament of Adam.” Pages 989–95 in OTP, Vol. 1. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. New York: Doubleday, 1983. Schmidt, Brian B. “Flood Narratives of Ancient Western Aisa.” Pages 2337-51 in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 4. Edited by Jack M. Sasson. New York: Scribner, 1995. Suter, David W. “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16.” HUCA 50 (1979): 115–135. ———. “Revisiting ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest,’” Pages 137–42 in The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar, University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, June 19–23, 2001 (= Henoch 24). Edited by Gabriele Boccaccini. Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 2002. Wintermute, O. S. “Jubilees: A New Translation and Introduction.” Pages 35–142 in OTP, Vol 2. Edited by James H. Charelsworth. New York: Doubleday, 1985.

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW: NOAH’S ALTAR AND THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CULT IN ANCIENT ISRAEL DERMOT NESTOR AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT This paper takes the mention of Noah’s ark in Gen 8:20 as a test case examining archaeological efforts to reconstruct ritual and religious practice as it pertains to ancient Israel. Drawing on recent work in the discipline of archaeology which seek to reassert the materiality of archaeological remains, it seeks to illustrate how the dominance of textual metaphors and models serves to limit our understanding of how religion was actually experienced in the past. Overcoming this “tyranny of the text” will allow for a richer, more holistic appreciation of the manifold ways that things influence rather than simply reflect particular belief systems. “… close your eyes, tap your heels together three times and think to yourself; there’s no place like home …” —Wizard of Oz

I In stark contrast to the near hysteric levels of anticipation that have accompanied archaeological expeditions in search of Noah’s fabled ark, interest in the altar upon which he offered sacrifice to Yahweh following the life-threatening crisis of the deluge (Gen 8:20) has 249

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been of the more restrained variety. The ark of course constitutes one of the most highly prized artifacts of a biblically inspired archaeology and since the early Church Fathers its location and discovery has ignited the passions of a motley crew of diplomats, geologists, former astronauts, and TV evangelists.1 While the fact that little beyond “solitude, silence, and snow”2 awaited these exhausted pilgrims would appear to confirm the old adage of love before first sight, the enduring vitality of such endeavors testifies to a narcissism, if not neurosis, of an altogether different and more familiar variety. In launching their crusading assaults on “the forbidden mountain,” these modern day “ark-eologists”3 are doing nothing more than attempting to realize Alt’s prophetic claim that biblical archaeology was the “(as yet inadequate) primary source necessary to put the history of Israel’s origins onto a sound footing.”4 Cloaked in the veneer of its scientific credentials it was archaeology that was destined to conjure up the “feet of clay” which might anchor the Biblical claims of Israelite history and religion. The archaeologist’s spade, transfigured from instrumentum mutum to instrumentum vocale, was what would elevate the biblical narratives from the realm of allegory to authorized citations of historical fact. The Holy Grail that allegedly awaited was ample justification and abundant reward for those who clung faithfully to and defended the “doctrine.” Although they certainly suffer the pillorying and gasps of incredulous disbelief that appears to be the universal fate of all who preach an unfashionable creed, the shared conviction of these “raiders” in the revelatory powers of archaeology brings into particular focus two questions that have plagued the discipline of biblical studies since its very inception: the identification of artifacts that relate to a distinctive Israelite identity and the isolation of the Corbin, The Explorers of Ararat. See also, Pleins, When the Great Abyss Opened. 2 Pleins, When the Great Abyss Opened, 9. 3 Ibid. 10. 4 Thompson, “Review of The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement,” 322. 1

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material correlates of its religious behavior. Though they are necessarily related questions and ones which impact upon each other in a variety of ways, it is the latter of the two that is of explicit concern to this paper, namely the identification of Israelite religious activity in the material culture of Palestine.5 II And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. (Gen 8:20–22)

Harsh indeed is the evil inclination (b. Kid 30b) that even the purifying power of the deluge could not cleanse it. Having found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen 6: 8) however, Noah and his select cargo and crew now emerge from the apocryphal ark (‫)תבה‬6 to give praise to God for their salvation. For this purpose Noah builds an altar (‫)מזבח‬, and sacrifices upon it a whole offering (‫)עלה‬7 from amongst the clean animals and birds that sheltered aboard the ark. While the anthropomorphic language that attributes to Yahweh sensations of satisfaction and contentment clearly echo the older Mesopotamian versions of the “flood myth,” the only form of consumption that takes place here is by fire. Of this particular act of piety nothing more is said and having returned to On the question of Israelite ethnicity and its archaeological recovery see most recently, Nestor, Cognitive Perspectives; Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis; Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity. 6 The Hebrew word for “ark” (‫ )תבה‬occurs only twice in the entire Hebrew Bible; here in Gen 6:14 and again in Exod 2:3 where it refers to the receptacle in which Moses’s mother Jochebed (Num 26:59) placed him to save him from the infanticide ordered by Pharaoh. It is interesting, however, that on both occasions the use of the term is connected with salvation from water. 7 In terms of narrative development, this is the first occurrence of the term ‫ עלה‬within the Hebrew Bible. 5

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the toil of an agricultural life that was his father’s occupation before him (Gen 5:28–29), Noah proceeds to succumb to the pleasures of the grape (Gen 9:21). Although one can assume on the basis of the actions of Cain and Abel (Gen 4:3–5) that the edifice constructed by Noah on which to offer his sacrifice was, arguably, not the first altar, nor indeed the last,8 the lack of specific detail surrounding this paradigmatic event serves only to amplify the vagaries that have long defined any archaeology of religious practice. Indeed a straightforward reading of the biblical account of Noah’s actions would appear to offer us very little basis on which to proceed at all. For example, we know very little of the nature and significance of the particular ritual he undertook; we are provided with no description of the edifice upon which this ritual was undertaken; and we have very little by way of direction as to where this took event place. In terms of material evidence for religious activity then, there would appear to be very little beyond smoke and ash. Compounding such difficulties is, of course, the perennial question of the nature of our primary source material, the Hebrew Bible, and its relationship to any archaeological enterprise. The Hebrew Bible presents to its reader a very clear, if not schematic, outline of the history of Israelite religion as something whose origins are to be found in a sequence of historical events and divine revelations which defined it as the “people of God.”9 Within that narrative, the foundations of the nation are seen to lay in its relationship with the one God, Yahweh. Other gods there may well have been, and into the worship of these the Israelites may well have succumbed, but in the eyes of the biblical authors this was, and is always presented as, apostasy. While this image of singular allegiance to its founding deity may well seek to define Israel over and against its wholly polytheistic neighbors whose The biblical text goes on to attribute the construction and or renewal of altars to several figures including Abraham (Gen 12:7; 13:4; 22:3), Isaac (Gen 26:23), Jacob (Gen 33:29; 35:1,3), Moses (Exod 17:15), Solomon (2 Chr 4:1; 1 Kgs 8:22, 64; 9:25), Asa (2 Chr 15:8), Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:14), Hezekiah (2 Chr 29) and Ezra (Ezra 3:3–6). 9 Mayes, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud,” 51. 8

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passions and desires found expression in the worship of various deities, this biblical presentation can, only with a serious loss of understanding, be equated with a history of Israelite religion. This cautionary note is based primarily on the increasingly late dating of much of the biblical literature along with the recognition that these documents constitute partial, often fractured, perceptions on the nature of past societies as opposed to objective, absolute statements of the von Ranke variety.10 Rather than submit to the testimony of “those whose lives were as short and short lived as our own,”11 the minimalist orientation to the Bible pioneered by scholars such as Davies,12 Whitelam,13 Lemche,14 and Thompson15 amongst others, sought to rouse the discipline of biblical studies from its long, self-enforced, theoretical slumber. While certain elements of their critique can be seen traced to the “higher criticism” initially championed within Wellhausen’s Prolegomena,16 the true value of the critical brand of historiography they inaugurated has been to drive that discipline towards what Moore has referred to as a “hyper-focus on methodology.”17 As a slew of publications suggest,18 the desire to move beyond mere description of what happened in an effort to ask why it happened has forced scholars to engage in a critical revaluation of the various von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen, vii. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, 21. 12 Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel; idem, Scribes and Scrolls; idem, The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures; idem, Whose Bible is it Anyway?; idem, Memories of Ancient Israel. 13 Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel. See also, Coote and Whitelam, The Emergence of Israel. 14 Lemche, Early Israel; The Israelites. 15 Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives; idem, Early History of the Israelite People; idem, The Mythic Past. 16 Wellhausen, Prolegomena. 17 Moore, “Beyond Minimalism.” 18 As examples of this methodological focus, Bishop Moore cites the following; Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know; Grabbe, Ancient Israel; Matthews, Studying the Ancient Israelites; Williamson, Understanding the History of Ancient Israel; Barstad, History and the Hebrew Bible. 10 11

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sources at their disposal; archaeological and epigraphic remains, yes, but first and foremost, the Hebrew Bible itself. While there is certainly no comfortable consensus to be found amongst the various scholars who question whether, when, and occasionally how, the biblical text is to be utilized in historical reconstruction, if indeed it is to be considered “history” at all, the rigor and occasional rancor of their efforts testifies to an enduring legacy that has served to recast some of the more fundamental questions within the discipline. Not to be confused with the somewhat anodyne, rhetorical and oft-repeated question that has defined much of Dever’s sprawling œuvre,19 this enterprise embodies a wholly reflexive orientation that asks as much of the scholar as it does the particular evidence he or she might wish to marshal in support of any particular reconstruction. Within the context of a discipline that has long steered a course between the Scylla of “biblical theology” and the Charybdis that is a narcissistic denial of all truth, the imperative of reflexivity20 is not to be understood as the relentless selfquestioning of method in the very movement whereby it is implemented.21 On the contrary it aims to expose, if not control, the concepts, methods and problematics inherited as a consequence of one’s specific location within the academic field and the levels of censorship exercised by disciplinary and institutional attachments. While such “surveillance of the third degree”22 has proven highly successful in overcoming (though not completely exorcizing) the personal invective that occasionally diminishes the significance of any debate, in raising questions about the nature of analysis in biblical studies, minimalism also calls into question the very unit of analysis itself: “Israel.”

The sub-title of Dever’s contribution to edited volume by Silberman and Small, The Archaeology of Israel, says more than enough on this point: Dever, “Philology, Theology and Archaeology.” 20 Bourdieu, “Célibat et condition paysanne”; idem, Leçon sur la leçon; idem, Homo Academicus; idem, The Logic of Practice. 21 Bourdieu, Homo Academicus. 22 Bachelard, Le Rationnalisme appliqué, 77–78. 19

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In many ways it was the publication of Davies’s In Search of Ancient Israel that served to ignite this particularly incendiary topic. Self-consciously styled as an attempt to inaugurate a paradigm shift in the discipline, Davies’s thesis is framed by the deceptively simple, yet equally complex notion that what the biblical text refers to as “Israel” is nothing other than a literary construct, a fiction created by a scribal elite in Persian Yehud with the explicit aim of enforcing and legitimating social, political, religious, and ethnic boundaries.23 Standing in opposition to this “biblical Israel” is “historical Israel,” an Iron Age state of less than two centuries duration that “existed in the northern and central Palestinian highlands.”24 Straddling these false antinomies, and wedding them together in an unholy and self-fulfilling alliance between a constructivist phenomenology of cognitive forms and an objectivist physics of material structures, is “ancient Israel.” While Davies’s identification of this scholarly construct as indicative of an “uncontrolled conflation of social and sociological … [or] folk and analytical understandings,”25 constitutes a significant insight, it is one that has remained largely under-theorized in much recent scholarship. As a construct however, “Ancient Israel” is not simply to be read as an illustration of the degree to which scholars remain devoted to the “semiotic integrity”26 of the biblical text, but rather the extent to which the “linguistic proclivity to favor substance at the expense of relations”27 has permeated both popular and academic discourse. It is this “primary inclination to think the

This thesis was further developed by E. Theodore Mullen Jr. in Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations, and Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries. See also Van Seters, Prologue to History; Blum, Studien. 24 Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel, 16. 25 Wacquant, “For an Analytic of Racial Domination.” See also, Schegloff, “On Integrity in Enquiry.” 26 Aichele, The Control of Biblical Meaning, 6. See also, Sign, Text, Scripture; Aichele, Miscall and Walsh, “An Elephant in the Room.” 27 Wacquant and Bourdieu, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 15. See also, Cassirer, “The Influence of Language.” 23

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world in a substantialist manner”28 which has not only conditioned generations of scholars to submit to the manifest charm of “biblical Israel” as an ontological entity, but to consistently and uncritically accept that “commonsensical” presentation as a frame for their own analysis. As Brubaker has pointed out, this is a deeply entrenched tendency in social analysis and also in moral and political theory that is not just analytically disabling but politically constricting.29 Thus, while the literary account of “biblical Israel” may well be an important resource, especially given the repeated imperative to avail of all the evidence, it is the repeated failure to engineer a break with such familiar, received understandings of everyday life, one’s own and/or those of one’s informants, that inevitably leads research towards fundamentally illusory goals and explanations. Although the heuristic potential of Davies’s tripartite identification has not been lost on recent scholarship,30 it has long been noted that challenges to the biblical meta-narrative of Israelite historical and religious development exist, albeit covertly, within the biblical text itself. For all of its feverish determination to promote the history of Israel and its religious traditions as one founded upon and representative of a covenant faith in the one God Yahweh, and centered on the one place, Jerusalem, the Hebrew Bible acknowledges that there were variations on, and deviations from, this “national religion.” Indeed in many ways it is the abiding legacy of Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis that such transformations have come to light, whatever one is to make of the manner in which he interpreted them. Aside from the various names by which the god of Israel was known (Gen 1:1; Gen 7:1; Gen 49:24; Exod 3:14), we witness such noble characters as the patriarchs worshipping, without reproach, at a variety of sanctuaries and altars

Wacquant and Bourdieu, Invitation, 228. See Nestor, Cognitive Perspectives for a thorough explication. 29 Brubaker, Ethnicity Without Groups. Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity’”; Brubaker, Loveman and Stamatov, “Ethnicity as Cognition.” 30 See in particular, Liverani, Israel’s History. 28

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(Gen 12:7; 13:18; 14:17–20; 28:8–20; 33:8–10);31 we are informed how the ark of the covenant itself rotated between a series of successive sites (Josh 24; 1 Sam 7:15; Judg 18:31; 20:1–2; 21:2–3; 1 Sam 7:1–2); and also how, during the period of the monarchy itself, religious practice was, for a long time, conducted at a variety of locations other than Jerusalem and not all of which were associated with Yahweh (1 Sam 15:12–15; 20:6; 21:1–6; 2 Sam 5:1–5; 21:6; Amos 8:14; Hos 10; 1 Kgs 18; 2 Kgs 10; Jer 7:12). Even the names bestowed by leading biblical figures such as Saul upon their children (1 Sam 14:51; 2 Sam 2:8; 21:8) are, at the very least, to be read as indicative of an attachment to non-Yahwistic religious practices.32 It is largely in recognition of this internal biblical dialogue that much recent scholarship speaks of the religions rather than religion of Israel or indeed Judah. While in many ways such developments serve to epitomize Voltaire’s critique of French history as one populated solely by “kings, ministers and generals,”33 they also testify to an increasingly nuanced engagement with the idea that whatever else it may be, “religion is as much practice as it is the theoretical formulation of the meaning of that practice.”34 Understood as something through which individuals and communities seek to relate themselves to the transcendent, then, scholarly reconstructions of “religion,” and specifically, “Israelite religion” have come to place increasing importance on the diversity of social levels and locales through which this activity may have taken place. Thus, in addition to the national saving history or Heilsgeschichte of Israel whose practice the text firmly and unambiguously seeks to anchor in the environs of While as Edelman has observed, there is never an explicit account of sacrifice being offered at any of these altars, one is left with the question as to why an altar was erected at all if only an invocation of name (‫ )קרא בשם יהוה‬was involved? Edelman, “Cultic Sites and Complexes,” 83. 32 On the general issue of personal piety as expressed through names see most recently, Albertz, “Personal Piety.” 33 Cited by Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 178. 34 Mayes, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud’,” 57. See also, Stavrakopoulou and Barton, “Introduction,” 1. 31

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the Jerusalem temple, scholars have come to acknowledge the significance of modes of religious expression that in many ways are uncoordinated with or unrelated to the salient features of this “national” version. While such studies on the varied social locations of worshippers have brought into critical focus the significance and particulars of familial35 even individual modes religious practice,36 such diversity also functions to undermine any simplistic dichotomy such as has been hypothesized between “Israelite” and “Canaanite”37 or indeed “official” and “popular” religion.38 In illustrating how the religions of Israel and Judah are most profitably understood as dynamic, polysemic entities, studies such as those by Mark S. Smith embrace a “bottom up mode of analysis” to demonstrate how this demonstrably endemic pluralism impacted upon the developing monolatrous or monotheistic Yahwism that comes to expression in the national myth. Within the context of a two sided process of convergence and differentiation, identification and rejection39 which seeks to challenge the syncretistic lens through which much Israelite religious activity has been understood, Smith continuously presses home the image of Yahwism as emerging from within and through rather than wholly against the polytheism that defined Israelite culture. While Yahweh may well have been the “God of Israel” from its earliest days, as Smith’s detailed studies illustrate, it was sometime before Israel was to become the people of Yahweh.40 It is this spectral understanding of Israelite religion then,41 as something which took a multiplicity Meyers, Households and Holiness. See also, the various contributions in Bodel and Olyan (eds.), Household and Family Religion. 36 Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion and also Persönliche Frömmigkeit. 37 Lemche, The Canaanites and their Land. Del Olmo Lete, “La religion cananéenne. ” Niehr, “‘Israelite Religion’.” 38 Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree; Niditch, Ancient Israelite Religion; Berlinerblau, The Vow; Matsushima (ed.), Official Cult and Popular Religion. 39 Smith, The Early History of God, xxiii. Cited in Mayes, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud’,” 65. 40 Mayes, “The Emergence of Monotheism in Israel,” 26. 41 Smith, Early History, xxvii; See also, Stavrakopoulou and Barton, “Introduction,” 7. 35

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of forms, in a variety of locations and was practiced by all strata of society in respect of a multitude of deities that furnishes the landscape upon which much recent archaeological investigation has been conducted.

III The archaeological study of the land of Israel constitutes one of the most time-honored traditions of excavation and scholarly enquiry in any region of the world. While a historical interest in the region in the sense of the exploration of biblical topography and antiquities goes back to the earliest pilgrim’s reports of the Byzantine period, it was only with the disintegration of the Ottoman empire towards the end of the nineteenth century that the region became an attractive target for economic, political and cultural penetration from the West.42 Throughout this period, archaeological exploration, along with health, education, missionary work, and civil engineering projects, became one of a number of highly visible European endeavors in the “Holy Land.” Despite the multiplicity of agendas and national competitions that played themselves out in this early phase,43 from its inception, archaeological work in the region was driven by a primary concern to furnish material evidence of specifically Israelite religious practice/s, and thus “Israelite” presence. Despite the near universal prestige of, and fascination with, religious artifacts, the task of identifying religion and religious behavior in the archaeological record is no easy task. Quite simply, on what basis does one attribute to one pit of animal bones and assorted artifacts the title of “refuse,” and to another that of “ritual deposit”? When, and by what criteria, can one legitimately elevate Though no full-scale history of this branch of archaeology has yet been written, reviews of the historical development of the discipline before, during and after this watershed period can be found in Frendo, Pre-Exilic Israel; Cline, Biblical Archaeology; Davis, Shifting Sands; Silberman, Digging for God and Country; Moorey, A Century of Biblical Archaeology. 43 See for example, Trigger, “Alternative Archaeologies”; Shavit, “Archaeology, Political”; Elon, The Israelis; Zerubavel, Recovered Roots; idem, “Transhistorical Encounter.” 42

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one group of terracotta figurines to the status of “idols,” while simultaneously dismissing a similar collection as mere “children’s toys”?44 While responses to such questions have more often than not often served to expose what Kent Flannery once caricatured as the “split personality”45 of the archaeological fieldworker, it is a syndrome that he attributes quite clearly to the lack of any “coherent and consistent theoretical framework by means of which ritual or religious data can be interpreted.”46 It is this caveat that the doyen of British archaeology, Colin Renfrew, sought to address in the published results of his detailed excavations at the late Bronze Age town of Phylakopi on the Aegean island of Melos. In seeking to navigate a path between the extreme optimism and/or naïve empathy that has characterized much archaeological inference on matters of religion, Renfrew plotted what amounts to an effective check-list of archaeological correlates by which a particular area or site can legitimately be deemed “sacred.” Although he cautions against several obvious pitfalls in the employment of this “list,” particularly the fatal error of translating as “religious” expressive actions and behaviors that may have been entirely secular in intention,47 his admittedly selective list of behavioral correlates has attained near canonical status within the discipline and furnishes the template by which virtually all archaeological excavation in Israel concerned with the phenomenon of “cult” has been undertaken.48 The logistical difficulties and financial constraints that limit full-scale excavation at any one site have certainly curtailed any exploration of religious activity in ancient Israel that might hope to

Renfrew, The Archaeology of Cult, 2. Katz, The Archaeology of Cult, 1. Flannery (ed.), The Early American Mesoamerican Village, 331. 46 Ibid. 331. 47 Renfrew, The Archaeology of Cult, 20. 48 See for example; Katz, The Archaeology of Cult, 82–83; Nakhai, Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel, 35–36; Hess, Israelite Religion; Levy, Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult; See also, Levy (ed.) Archaeology of Society, 331 where he states, “… most researchers have intuitively followed criteria similar to those proposed by Renfrew …” 44 45

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anchor the lordly claims of Jeremiah (Jer 11:13).49 Notwithstanding such obstacles however, archaeologists have proceeded to uncover a rich variety of cultic spaces and assemblages that map well the diversity of practice alluded to earlier. While it is certainly beyond the scope of this paper to provide detailed analysis of each and every element within the “known social realities of [ancient] Israelite religion,”50 it is nevertheless pertinent to explore certain elements within that nested matrix that have a particular bearing upon the discussion to hand. Given that it is the actions of Noah that lend to this paper both its title and analytical focus, it is entirely legitimate that such discussion begin with the topic of altars. Defined universally within the biblical text as ‫מזבח‬, the morphology of the term does not accurately reflect the activity that took place upon it. Rather than a “place of slaughter” (Gen 13:4) these altars are simply “manufactured solid based installation[s] or artifact[s] upon which something is burnt for, or displayed before, or presented to a deity.”51 While Zevit naturally draws heavily upon the biblical text, specifically Exod 20:24–6, for a specification of the materials permitted in the construction of a ‫מזבח‬, as well as the nature of any sacrifice conducted upon it, neither shape nor scale is specified in this particular piece of legislation. Given the fact that such altars are imagined as being used by someone who must scale the artifice to engage in their selected activity (Exod 20:26), Zevit engages in a series of calculations to conclude that altars such as that discovered at Arad had a minimum height of 75 cm, with each side of the square being no less than 200cm in length thus revealing a surface area anywhere between 3.1 and 4.4 m2; ample scope, he

Edelman, “Cultic Sites and Complexes,” 90. Zevit, “False Dichotomies,” 233. As Stavrakopoulou notes however, despite the appeal of Zevit’s deconstruction of the dichotomy he describes, his appeal to a nested hierarchy of social forms which is itself drawn from the Biblical text (Josh 7:13–14) serves to only expose the degree to which his analysis is indebted to a uncritical adherence to the “biblical portrayals of social stratification…as discernible historical realities.” Stavrakopoulou, “‘Popular’ Religion and ‘Official’,” 48. 51 Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 276. 49 50

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claims, for burning a large herd animal.52 While the location of the Arad altar raises certain questions about the practicalities of its intended use,53 a range of altar styles, from the four-horned variety found at Beer-Sheba to the many smaller horned, hornless,54 and/or rimmed forms discovered at sites such as Dan, Kadesh and Lachish testify to the widespread practice of multiple sacrificial rites and rituals, often with different objectives which, more often than not, were directed towards or in the service of deities other than Yahweh.55 As to whether any stylistic differences, such as that between square and round altars, can be equated with a particular deity, or whether the horns themselves were solely decorative as opposed to necessarily cultic is a question which, for Zevit, any answer long ago disappeared.56 Though they are never mentioned in biblical sources,57 ceramic stands constitute a significant percentage of the cultic paraphernalia unearthed throughout the land of Israel. Dating from the Late Bronze period onwards, such items, which include the “fenestrated” and “plain” styles, in short or tall form, in many cases, though certainly not all, constitute the primary cultic implement at the site of their discovery.58 While such loci of Ibid. 279–280. Ibid. 298–301 54 Against Gitin’s evolutionary interpretation, Zevit argues that the presence or absence of horns, especially in respect of the smaller altars is best explained in terms of cultic function. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 308; See also, Seymour Gitin, “Incense Altars.” 55 The small “low built” altar discovered in the “altar room” at Dan provides a clear illustration of this point. On the basis of comparative analysis with similar styles attributed to the Geometric and Archaic periods in Greece, it is assumed this “altar” relates to a chthonic rather than celestial deity. See Grintz, “Do Not Eat on the Blood.” 56 Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 347. 57 See however, Na’aman, “King Mesha and the Foundation of the Moabite Monarchy”; Beck, “The Ta’anach Cult Stands.” 58 This is the case with respect to ‘Ai, the Jerusalem “cult cave” and Hazor. On ‘Ai see, Amiran and Perrot, “A Cult Vessel”. On the Jerusalem cult cave see, Kenyon, “Excavations in Jerusalem, 1961”; idem, 52 53

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discovery, which range from households and temples to graveyards, are not always determinative of an unambiguous cultic association,59 what is significant about such stands is the decoration. Aside from the basic shape, size, and placement of the fenestrations which can be interpreted as indicative of either local stylistic preferences and/or highly symbolic and coded arrangements, the stands discovered at Ta’anach, Megiddo, and also at Jerusalem display a variety of motifs, icons, and figures that are particularly interesting. Including sphinxes, cherubs, bulls, goats, lions, palm trees, winged sun discs and, on the smaller Ta’anach stand discovered by Lapp in 1968,60 a naked, splay-legged woman, the iconography of these stands is representative not simply of a widely known and widely attested symbolic register, but one which is clearly indicative of divine forms other than Yahweh. Whether this disputed female figure61 is to be understood, even minimally, as a consort of Yahweh is perhaps an overly optimistic interpretation,62 the concern with fertility marked by these stands directs our attention towards another collection of finds indicative of religious practice in ancient Israel: the model shrines. By no means unique to the region,63 and often stylistically similar to the cult stands mentioned above, these model shrines, it is claimed, are indicative of a “wholly different theology”64 than “Excavations in Jerusalem, 1967.”; idem, Digging Up Jerusalem; Eshel, “The Functional Character of the Two Jerusalem Groups”; On Hazor see, BenTor, “Tel Hazor, 1996”; Ben-Tor and Ben-Ami, “Hazor and the Archaeology of the Tenth Century B.C.E.” 59 Eshel is adamant that the pottery found at the Jerusalem “cult-cave” (which, in addition to many bowls, jugs, cooking pots and lamps, includes horse and rider figurines, human figurines, miniature chairs, and various animal figurines and even a rattle) is largely domestic in nature. Eshel, “The Functional Character of the Two Jerusalem Groups.” 60 Lapp, “The 1968 Excavations at Tell Ta’annek.” 61 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 34; Hestrin, “The Cult Stand From Ta’anach.” 62 Cf Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 324. 63 See for example, Epstein, “Temple Models and their Symbolism.” 64 Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 340.

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that which prevailed at the major cultic centers and/or temples. Although such an interpretation may be valid on the basis of the largely, though not exclusively, domestic nature of the finds themselves, the conventional decorative elements which ordained these shrines, in addition to the various often humanoid figurines and vessels often found with them, do serve to challenge any notion of widespread aniconic worship in the land of Israel.65 Some scholars have sought to establish a direct relationship between such miniature or model shrines and full-scale versions on the basis of a claim that the former can be understood as an attempt to replicate a particular example of the latter.66 While this is perhaps ultimately unverifiable, the geographic and chronological dispersion of these models is again indicative of a mode of religious behavior that can only enrich our understanding of a diversity that the Hebrew Bible seeks to disguise, if not eliminate. As Albertz has variously demonstrated, this veil of biblical orthodoxy falls heaviest on the most limited level of piety and religious practice, that of the individual. Amongst the many assemblages found in private houses, which include the cult stands and model shrines mentioned above, it is those amulets thoroughly marked by Egyptian influence that constitute perhaps the most significant finds. Though they take the form of scarabs, seals and/or anthropomorphic figures, as Herrmann has noted these amulets reveal a very restricted acquaintance with the Egyptian pantheon.67 Variously termed as ‫ שביסים‬and ‫ שהרנים‬in the Hebrew Bible (Isa 3:18–20), and denounced by Ezekiel as ‫גלולים‬ (Ezek 14:3; 20:7),68 these amulets reflect a concern for divine protection from and defense against either the various misfortunes that might befall individuals through life, or, from specific forms of See however, Cullican, “A Terracotta Shrine”; On the representation of deities in general see, Halbertal and Margalit, Idolatry. 66 Masuda, “Terracotta House Models.” 67 Herrmann, Ägyptische Amulette. 68 Though based on the stem ‫גלל‬, meaning “to roll, or to be round,” this term, which occurs variously in Lev 26:10, Deut 29:16 and 2 Kgs 17:12 is best translated with reference to the noun from which it is derived, gālāl or gillūl, meaning “dung.” 65

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harmful magic.69 While it is thus assumed that the function of such amulets in an Israelite context differed from the primarily identifying function they held in Egypt, as Zevit has noted, the fact that “Israelites” may have found them “charming, perhaps meaningful”70 does not provide definitive proof of their “cultic association.” This important caveat notwithstanding, the piety reflected by such artifacts is echoed by a host of other discoveries throughout the land of Israel. Ranging from the many stylized figurines of nude women attested at sites such as Tell en-Nabesh, Tell Beit Mirsim, Beth Shean and Megiddo,71 to the incense burners/stands that populate many domestic structures,72 “religion” was something that occupied people outside of the various “centers” and shrines that populate the landscape. Even these centers, which include such well documented examples as the “Bull Site” discovered near Dothan in Samaria,73 the many ‫ במות‬or “high places,” and ‫מצבת‬ or “standing stones,”74 and even those “centers” associated with trade such as Kuntillet ‘Arjud,75 all reflect a concern with and a desire for that sense of divine immanence which, according to the Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 344. 71 On the nature of these figurines, and particularly the classification system applied to them, see Pritchard, Palestinian Figurines. Although it has been common to associate these figurines with “fertility,” particularly types II and VI isolated by Pritchard, Zevit’s claim that such an association is “not particularly informative” is more illustrative of a chauvinistic rather than scholarly attitude. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 273. 72 Gitin, “New Incense Altars from Ekron”; idem, “Seventh Century BCE Cultic Elements at Ekron.” 73 On this site and difficulties surrounding its interpretation see particularly Coogan, “Of Cults and Cultures.” See also, Ahlström, “The Bull Figurine.” 74 On the range of uses and symbolism of such structures see, Avner, “Mazzebot Sites”; Mettinger, No Graven Image; van der Toorn, “Worshipping Stones.” 75 See more recently, Na’aman and Lissovsky, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud.” 69 70

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Deuteronomists can be found only in Jerusalem and through the services of the priests that minister in the service of the one God, Yahweh. In exposing what Zevit has referred to as the “polydoxies and polypraxises within Yahwism”76 archaeological investigation of Israelite religious expression can certainly be viewed as a successful enterprise. Over and against the traditional and highly schematic biblical presentation, the ability of archaeology to bring into critical scrutiny the various divine beings that constituted the focus of such expression has done much to advance our knowledge of ancient Israelite and Judahite religions. Such success notwithstanding, however, there is a very real sense that much of this discussion relates simply to the material residues of religious activity as opposed to what the recovered materials might actually encode.77 That is, despite an increased sensitivity to the material dimension of religion, namely that religion is something that “people do,”78 the material items which constitute the medium of such “doing” are all too often framed as a passive reflection of the cultural values, thoughts, and cosmological beliefs that are understood to prefigure them.79 They are conceptualized as the entirely passive embodiment of a somehow a priori idea. While in many ways the idealism of this position is something which archaeology has long sought to exorcise,80 its enduring vitality reflects the degree to which the dualism of Cartesian logic continues to inform much archaeological thinking. Rather than see human action and cognition as coming to expression in and through material forms, archaeology, and biblical archaeology in particular, continues to separate them, to treat material remains as somehow “just there.” If, as Webb Keane has recently argued, “religions … always involve

Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 349. Insoll, “Introduction,” 3. 78 Stavrakopoulou and Barton, “Introduction,” 1. 79 Boivin, “Grasping the Elusive and Unknowable.” 80 See especially Binford, “Archaeology as Anthropology”; idem, “A Consideration of Archaeological Research”; idem, “Archaeological Systematics.” 76 77

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material forms”81 then it is incumbent upon us ask what these material forms can tell us about the lived experience of religion.

IV The restrictive assumptions inherent in Hawkes’s famous “Ladder of Inference”82 offers a convenient and oft cited summary of what archaeologists once felt about their ability to access the “superstructure” of past societies. Without some point of reference in the historical order, Hawkes claimed, “in which the specifically human, intentional mode of life” was revealed, this “ideological superstructure would forever elude archaeological enquiry.”83 Unaided by written texts and/or oral traditions, then, the celebrated “Indian behind the artifact”84 was destined to remain forever elusive. Although such pessimistic assumptions served to reinforce the subservient status of archaeology as the “handmaiden of history” they simultaneously endorsed a conceptualization of culture as an essentially mentalistic phenomenon, one in which material remains were considered the mute products of internalized traditions, ways of doing things that were passed down from generation to generation largely unchanged. What changes did occur in either the form or appearance of artifacts was generally explained as either resulting from contact between, what in true Hederian fashion, were considered discrete, bounded and relatively homogenous cultural entities, or, as in the writings of Kossinna85 or Albright,86 the displacement of entire populations. As Bruce Trigger has noted, the “pots = people” equation endorsed by this “culture historical” paradigm was not only highly seductive but proved enormously successful as a means of placing order upon the immense range of material remains uncovered in

Keane, “The Evidence of the Senses.” Hawkes, “Archaeological Theory and Method.” 83 Ibid. 160. 84 Flannery, “Culture history v. culture process,” 120. 85 Kossinna, Die Herkunft der Germanen. 86 Albright, History, Archaeology and Christian Humanism. 81 82

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the discipline’s formative years.87 In much of the archaeological literature that post-dated the 1960s, however, the “innocent”88 notion that material culture directly related to or somehow reflected the cognitive structures collectively held by specific named groups of people was abandoned by many. While it had certainly been prefigured by calls for increased conceptual sophistication and problem solving89 the demise of “culture history” as the dominant paradigm in Anglo-American archaeological theory was effectively sealed by Lewis Binford. Though his early “fighting articles”90 highlight at every point a conviction that the normative conception of culture was positively untenable in archaeological explanation and manifestly implausible as a general theory of cultural change, Binford’s crusade is not to be understood as a simple exercise in hyperbole. Rather, as Wylie has illustrated, from the outset, his frustrations were informed by a clear vision of a constructive alternative.91 Indeed in many ways his objections to the reduction of archaeological variability to simple mentalistic norms and conventions firmly anticipated the main component of what was rapidly to become the “New Archaeology”: that culture be conceived in systemic (eco-) materialist, not idealistic terms. In seeking to undermine the single explanatory frame of reference provided by traditional archaeology, Binford had direct recourse to the materialist, neo-evolutionary theories of Julian Steward,92 and in particular, Lesley White.93 Inspired by White’s

Trigger, Time and Tradition. For a convenient account of this methodological approach to material remains within European and “biblical” archaeological traditions, see, Nestor, Cognitive Perspectives, 46–77. 88 Clarke, “Archaeology.” 89 Wylie, Thinking from Things, 6–42. 90 See in particular Binford and Binford (eds.), New Perspectives in Archaeology. 91 Wylie, Thinking From Things, 67. 92 Steward, “Evolution and Process”; idem, Theory of Culture Change. 93 White, The Science of Culture; idem, The Evolution of Culture; idem, The Concept of Cultural Systems. 87

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definition of cultures as elaborate thermodynamic systems94 Binford proposed that, rather than a univariate phenomenon whose form and dynamics are explicable by reduction to a single component, culture be conceived as the “extrasomatic means of adaptation for the human organism.”95 The analytical consequence of this reconceptualization of culture was that there were, as Binford’s ethnographic work clearly illustrated,96 behavioral, and thus material, that is, archaeological correlates of the various adaptive responses made to alterations in the natural environment. Should ecological and/or environmental changes occur, people would, or at least could change their material culture in order to accommodate those new conditions. It was this core definition of culture as an adaptive and participatory, as opposed to shared, mechanism that was to anchor Binford’s unified program for the renewal of the discipline. It is precisely because culture is conceived as a “complex system” in which each element interacts with, and is responsive to all others, that the ideational norms so long isolated as the single generative force in the creation of archaeological variability could be reconnected with the behavioral, material, and organizational dimensions which comprise the total cultural system. As such, “material culture can be expected to bear the marks of its implication in all the constituent subsystems of cultural life.”97 It was Binford’s continued advocacy of this systemic view of culture which opened up a distinctly anthropological level of enquiry within the discipline,98 one that fore-grounded questions about the particular processes responsible for the specific forms of cultural life that produced the archaeological record. Rather than Flannery’s mythical “Indian behind the artifact” the focus of concern would now become the system behind both Indian and artifact, a cultural

White, “Energy and the Evolution of Culture.” Binford, “Archaeology as Anthropology,” 218. 96 See in particular “Model Building,” in Binford and Binford (eds.) An Archaeological Perspective, 244–94. 97 Wylie, Thinking From Things, 70. 98 Willey and Phillips, Method and Theory in Archaeology, 2. 94 95

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subject which, according to Binford, was archaeologically knowable. While the desire of “New Archaeologists” to conform to a more prestigious model of scholarly behavior can legitimately be understood as an extension of a concerted effort to harden the social sciences that took root across the United States during the 1960s,99 such consolidation served only to impoverish rather than advance our understanding of the very things that have long provided the focus of the discipline. In large measure this was a direct result of the particular brand of explanation championed by Binford and his disciples. For within the context of the coveringlaw model of explanation and conformation which they embraced, one in which all explanation should be causal in nature,100 material culture could only be read in a narrow and wholly functionalist manner. Every object, it was assumed, had its own specific function and was created with the specific intention of fulfilling that function. Material artifacts were simply tools for survival; harmonizing systemic needs with the realities of the physical and cultural environment. In treating material remains as the outcome of universally recognizable and observable processes, however, New Archaeology simultaneously transformed people from active agents to passive consumers who simply responded to events and processes that were beyond their control, if not their very cognition. In seeking to decode the unwritten musical score according to which the actions of such agents are organized, and thereby ascertain the objective regularities they obey, New Archaeology produced an ersatz rather than a comprehensible subject. The world of will and Gibbon, Explanation in Archaeology, 139–40. Binford and Binford, An Archaeological Perspective, 18. In many ways Binford’s characterization of his reorientation of the discipline as involving a “shift to a consciously deductive philosophy,” echoes Steward’s hope that “anthropologists would accept the position that culture is an orderly phenomenon in which causality operates and whose operation is accessible through scientific method.” See Murphy, “Introduction,” 10. See also, Hempel, “The Function of General Laws”; idem, Aspects of Scientific Explanation. 99

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representation so effectively demonstrated by Schopenhauer101 is negated as historical agents are put on vacation while the mechanisms of the idealized “system” work out their independent and mathematical logic behind their backs. Within the context of any archaeological analysis of religion, the poverty of this thesis is all too apparent for as soon as any element of individual choice is involved, behavioral and functional laws are exposed as simplistic if not wholly inadequate. Expanding the study of the archaeological record beyond the mere subsistence levels of enquiry mandated by Hawkes’s Ladder has been perhaps the single, unifying standard around which the various practitioners of post-processual archaeology can be seen to have rallied.102 Over and against the excessive and reductive materialism of processualism which dismissed all “ideas” as either functionally irrelevant, or sought to explain them as a form of clandestine economic rationality,103 post-processualism sought to restore their theoretical significance within the context of a dialectical relationship between people and things. Material items it argued are not simply tools for survival, nor are they passive reflections of the unique mental templates of their makers, rather they are important carriers and transmitters of meaning in the living world of humans. They are to be understood as a form of nonverbal communication which, following the linguistic model of sign systems proposed by de Saussure, functions to project, to negotiate, to manipulate and often to subvert particular symbolic schemes. Rather than simply “active” in the adaptive strategies of particular groups, then, material culture is understood to be meaningfully constituted: it is produced in accordance with specific symbolic schemes and structured according to the systems of meaning inherent within and determinative of particular social Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation. Though its title may imply a coherent approach, even a unified body of theory or method, post-processual archaeology is best understood as an amorphous beast that acts as a receptacle for every reactive trend to emerge within the discipline since the 1970s. 103 See for example, Cook, “The Incidence and Significance of Disease,” 1946; Harner, “The Enigma.” 101 102

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groupings.104 As a by-product of what Lyotard defined as The Postmodern Condition,105 post-processual archaeologists advocated a reading of material remains wholly in keeping with the “paganism”106 that defined the new era. Over and against the objective statements about the past which processualists such as Binford felt confident could and should be made, converts to the new creed sought to articulate a view of that past as an indeterminate and open ended network; one in which material remains necessarily have a multiplicity rather than a singularity of meanings. Despite the optimism generated by its focus upon social agents as thinking and plotting agents working their way through society in an unending series of signals and signs, the polysemic understanding of material culture generated by post-processualism tended to draw attention away from the very physicality of artifacts and other material things. Within the context of its understanding of culture as a communicative medium, post-processualism failed to give adequate attention to the communicative ability of things. Material artifacts were simply carriers of meaning, a meaning that was always understood to have been somehow encoded by human agency. Things, in short, spoke messages that their human creators and/or users fully intended them to speak. While this tendency to “abstraction,” which can be traced to the early structuralist work of Leroi-Gourhan107 and indeed Lévi-Strauss,108 may well have facilitated an analysis of the role of material culture in reproducing and/or transforming particular cosmological structures, it simultaneously reduced “material culture to a mere sign, little

Hodder, Symbols in Action. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition. 106 Related to Lyotard’s basic commitment to an ontology of singular events, “paganism” rejects any universal criteria of judgment in favor of specific, plural judgments devoid of any pre-existing criteria in matters of truth, beauty, politics, or ethics. 107 Leroi-Gourhan, The Art of Prehistoric Man. 108 Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology. 104 105

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different from a linguistic sign, its physical properties devoid of all but highly abstracted meanings.”109 Thus while post-processualism certainly wrought considerable advances within the field, the interpretive framework it employed in an attempt to mine the upper rungs of Hawkes’s Ladder serves only to resurrect the deep-seated antinomy between objectivist and subjectivist modes of knowledge which gave birth to it in the first place. For in challenging the sterile “artifact physics” of its precursor, post-processualism advanced a view of social reality as a “contingent ongoing accomplishment” of competent social actors who continually construct their social world via “the organized artful practices of everyday life.”110 While the value of this particular social phenomenology lies precisely in the emphasis it places upon the actions and cognitions of social actors, it tended to view those actions and thoughts as wholly arbitrary and thus divorced from the material phenomena whose apparent purpose is simply to present them. As Boivin has commented, the material world becomes little more than a theater with objects functioning as props in a story already written by human agents.111 While this subordination of “matter” to “mind” resurrects the Platonic dogma that material things are to be understood as simple projections of ideas and concepts, a host of scholars across several disciplines have recently been concerned to rehabilitate the materiality of material culture and to show that the history of human engagement with the material world is not so clearly one of form being imposed upon substance, but one in which mind and matter continually bring each other into being.112 This multi-disciplinary desire to collapse, if not transcend, the deeply rooted Cartesian separation of mind and body that characterizes the western intellectual tradition finds strong empirical support in the theory of practice articulated by Pierre Bourdieu. Perhaps the most influential and original French social Boivin, “Grasping the Elusive and the Unknowable,” 272. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology, 11. Cited in Wacquant and Bourdieu, Invitation, 9. 111 Boivin, Material Cultures, Material Minds, 21. 112 Ibid. 23. 109 110

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theorist since Emile Durkheim,113 Bourdieu’s stress on social life as simultaneously a practical logic and a logic subject to improvization dissolves the dualism of empiricist thought that posits ideas and values as somehow prior to material forms. Rather than simply mirroring pre-existing social distinctions or ideational norms,114 Bourdieu’s social praxeology115 understands material forms as constituting the very medium through which these values, ideas, and distinctions are produced, reproduced, legitimized, and ultimately, transformed. Material object and social subject are indelibly intertwined in a dialectical relationship where they each form part of the other. It is through things that we understand both ourselves and others—not because they are externalizations of ourselves, reflecting something more prior or basic in our consciousness or social relations but because material things are the very medium through which we make and know ourselves. It is in the creation and employment of things then that the social self is itself created. While an explicit account of this material component of human and social cultural existence is provided for in Bourdieu’s well cited examination of the Kabyle house,116 his emphasis upon the physicality of that material world, and the way in which it might stimulate, rather than simply re-create thoughts and ideas117 Some of the more readable and engaging accounts of Bourdieu’s life and works can be found in Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu; Calhoun, LiPuma and Postone (eds.), Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives; Swartz, Culture and Power; Lane, Pierre Bourdieu; Grenfell, Pierre Bourdieu. 114 In many ways this is a challenge to the seminal idea first introduced by Durkheim and Mauss that the cognitive systems operative in primitive societies are derivations of their social system. Lacking the innate capacity to produce complex systems of classifications, it was social arrangements that provided primitive man with a model for the arrangement of his ideas. See, Durkheim and Mauss, “De quelques forms de classification.” See also, Durkheim, The Elementary Forms. 115 On Bourdieu’s work as praxeology see, Coenen, “Praxeologie en strukturatietheorie.” 116 Bourdieu, Outline; Algeria 1960. See also, Celik, Urban Forms, 87– 113. 117 See also Rapoport, The Meaning of the Built Environment. 113

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provides a richly rewarding avenue for reconceptualizing the relationship between religion and material culture.

V It was noted earlier in this paper that scholarship on the phenomenon of ancient Israelite religion attests to an increasingly nuanced engagement with the notion that religious beliefs and practices are social and cultural activities. As Stavrakopolou explained, “people do religion, and religion cannot be divorced from those doing it.”118 While this reorientation is certainly welcome given scholarship’s earlier preoccupation with the highly schematic and idealized biblical presentation, its attempt to follow Clifford Geertz and read archaeological remains in the manner of a text119 simultaneously disassociates those material forms from the very contexts it seeks to reconstruct.120 Material remains, ranging from the altars that furnish this paper with its raison d’être, to incense strands, model shrines, and “cultic” figurines, along with a host of other cultic paraphernalia become mere pawns in a game “where what really matters are concepts, symbols, ideologies and human agents.”121 Despite the professed interest in the material dimension of religion and religious practice, then, recent studies would appear to negate the very materiality of “religious” objects that serves to distinguish them from texts, from language, from code, and from discourse. Given the pervasive influence of this “textual” metaphor within biblical scholarship, then,122 any effort to reconnect “mind” and “matter” in a holistic fashion is bound to have an impact upon the manner in which we identify and understand the material dimension of Israelite religion. Stavrakopoulou and Barton, “Introduction,” 1. Geertz, “Deep Play,” 448. 120 Ibid, 1. 121 Boivin, “Mind over Matter,” 63. 122 Champion, “Medieval Archaeology.” Although Champion’s criticisms are clearly directed towards the undue influence exercized by the written word in historical analysis, the metaphor can quite legitimately be extended to critique the pervasive and deeply rooted idealism of Western culture that conditions us to read things as texts. 118 119

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Principally it demands that we break with the subject-object dualism that continues to define much thinking in the field of archaeology and move towards a more symmetrical understanding of the complex entanglement that exists between people and things.123 Rather than persist with a representational view of material culture, one that prioritizes human intentionality, we must reckon with the notion that things can often move or force people to act. That is, that objects have the capacity to shape, rather than simply be shaped by humans. This idea that the concept of agency be extended beyond humans to non-human actors is a central feature of Bruno Latour’s “actor-network theory.”124 Although he has been critiqued for his suggestion that intentionality is a trait that applies with equal force to both the human and non-human constituents of any hypothesized network, his terminological imprecision does nevertheless highlight a dimension of the material world long ignored, namely its ability to influence and even direct behaviors and actions.125 If we integrate the material into a concept of mind and meaning then we also, perforce, include the body.126 Not one understood as a vacuous, virtually redundant prism through which culture is somehow mediated, but rather an integrative, wholly corporeal and thus finite entity. Yet while the body may well, as the studies of Victor Turner have shown, serve as a repository for and source of meaning for many material symbols,127 thus anchoring and limiting their potential range of meanings to the properties of the biological realm, a focus upon the body also draws our attention towards the nature and role of sensory perception in mediating experience of the material and immaterial world. As Hamilakis has shown, in raising questions as to the range and form of sensory experiences in any given context, an “archaeology of the senses”128 is richly rewarding when it comes to addressing Hodder, Entangled. Latour, “The Powers of Association”; idem, Reassembling the Social. 125 Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 471. 126 Boivin, “Mind over Matter,” 64. 127 Turner, The Forest of Symbols. 128 Hamilakis, “Archaeologies of the Senses.” 123 124

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questions of ritual and religious behavior. For while language may well, as Mayes observed earlier, facilitate an appreciation of religion as a particular set of beliefs to which people subscribe,129 the grammatical rules of this model are ill-equipped to capture an extended understanding of that phenomenon as “an event that takes place as individuals seek to relate themselves to the transcendent.”130 This entirely practical, and fundamentally material, attempt at engagement with the “elusive and the unknown” cannot be forced into the distorting prism of a symbolic system any more that it can the “procrustean bed of covenant faith.”131 Quite simply, it is the materiality of things, their tactile, visual and even olfactory qualities that evokes ideas of and facilitates access to the sacred and the divine. This “material turn” in the discipline of archaeology132 allows us to view the altar constructed by Noah from a new and radically different perspective. Following the charter suggested by Hamilakis, it demands that we direct our analytical lens not to questions of shape, size, or even location, but rather how the tactile and visual experiences such qualities afford function to inspire ideas of the transcendent; how the smell and perhaps taste of burning flesh and suffusing smoke stimulates a sense of communion between the divine and human worlds. And finally, disregarding any sense of a chronological accuracy in the biblical narrative itself, “what kind of prospective memories would these events and experiences have sedimented onto the bodies of the participants, and how were these memories reactivated during subsequent occasions?”133 Such questions become all the more significant when one recalls that within Jewish tradition, the “Foundation Stone” that supports the base of the temple is the same object upon which “Noah offered the first sacrifice of the renewed cosmos.”134 This Mayes, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud,” 57. Ibid. 57. 131 Mayes, “Kuntillet ‘Arjud,” 58. 132 Hicks, “The Material-Cultural Turn,” 8. 133 Hamilakis, “Archaeologies of the Senses,” 209. 134 Smith, Map is not Territory, 116. 129 130

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stone, standing at the exact center of the cosmos is said to possess a magnetic attraction so great that even the dead of the Diaspora are pictured as tunneling through the ground to reach it.135 It is the very materiality of the stone then, its solidity, its sturdiness and its strength which imprints upon the mind an image of a fixed and unyielding center, one which not only anchors the very cosmos but which simultaneously exhibits a “superabundance of reality,” or in other words, an “irruption of the sacred into world.”136 Functioning as and at the center, then, it is the very materiality of Noah’s altar, along with the paradigmatic activates and emotions stimulated by and associated with it, that the relationship between the human and the divine is established. The questions thus raised by Hamilakis and others then clearly provide for a reorientation of our thinking around the nature and function of things in ritual or religious experience; a reorientation which, finally, may allow us to approximate an understanding of how religion was actually felt and experienced within specific contexts rather than simply how it was understood. At a deeper and more profound level however, an insistence upon the materiality of things, on their ability to inspire rather than simply reflect those ideas that have long been taken to define “religion” places the “demand for evidence on a different footing.”137 It serves to undermine those crusading quests for the realia of the bible, and thus supposedly “Israelite” religious activity, by overturning the expectation that such materials “provide evidence of something hidden, such as belief.”138 While this may well introduce a degree of uncertainty if not ambiguity into the archaeology of cult, one can be consoled by the words of Sir Francis Bacon:

135

Zahavi, Eretz Israel, 99–100. Cited in Smith, Map is Not Territory,

114. Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 45. Keane, “The Evidence of the Senses,” S110. 138 Ibid. S110. 136 137

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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

It was, after all, only by overcoming her own initial skepticism with respect to the transformative and transportable capacity of her ruby slippers that Dorothy could make her way home. Similarly, it is only by transcending the restrictive and obstructive nature of our own ingrained and culturally conditioned certainties that we, as biblical scholars, can ever hope to comprehend how distant others engaged with the mysterious yet affirming realm of the divine.

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Lapp, P. “The 1968 Excavations at Tell Ta’annek.” BASOR 195 (1969): 2–49. Latour, Bruno. “The Powers of Association.” Pages 264–280 in Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? Edited by John Law. Sociological Review Monograph 32. London: Routledge, 1986. Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Lemche, Niels P. The Canaanites and their Land: the Tradition of the Canaanites. JSOTSup 110. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. ———. Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy. Leiden: Brill, 1985. ———. The Israelites in History and Tradition. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster: John Knox, 1998. Leroi-Gourhan, André. The Art of Prehistoric Man in Western Europe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Levy, Thomas E., ed. The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. London: Continuum, 2003. ———. Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult: The Sanctuary at Gilat, Israel. London: Equinox, 2006. Liverani, Mario. Israel’s History and the History of Israel. Translated by Chiara Peri and Philip R. Davies. London: Equinox Books, 2007. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Masuda, S. “Terracotta House Models Found at Rumeilah.” Les Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes 33:2 (1983): 153–160. Matsushima, Eiko, ed. Official Cult and Popular Religion in the Ancient Near East: Papers on the First Colloquium on the Near Eas —The City and its Life. Heidelberg: Universitätverlag C. Winter, 1993. Mayes, A. D. H. “Kuntillet ‘Arjud and the History of Israelite Religion.” Pages 51–67 in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation. Edited by John R. Bartlett. London Routledge, 1997. ———. “The Emergence of Monotheism in Israel.” Pages 26– 33 in The Christian Understanding of God Today. Edited by J. M. Byrne. Dublin: Columba Press, 1993.

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“GO-4-WOOD”: THE RECEPTION OF NOAH’S ARK IN ARK REPLICAS PAUL BRIAN THOMAS RADFORD UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT In recent years there has been a building boom in Noah’s Ark replicas. This flurry of construction activity creates an opportunity to observe how the written text is reflected in a material object. There are many fine studies of literary receptions of biblical texts, but an area less studied has been the reception of the Bible in non-literary, material objects. In this chapter I utilize the reception aesthetics of Hans Robert Jauss to examine the reception of Gen 6: 1–9 in Noah’s Ark replicas with a focus on two particular issues, ark builders as readers of Gen 6:1–9 and ark attraction visitors as readers of ark replicas. Despite claims made by ark builders, rather than solely reflecting the biblical text ark replicas reflect the long reception history of Gen 6–9. The manner in which ark replicas are built, the justification for building such structures (particularly as apocalyptic objects), and the various ways in which visitors and commentators receive these objects reveals that the ark replica serves as a focal point for contesting readings of the text.

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INTRODUCTION “If you build it, they will come.” So says the (often misquoted) disembodied voice to Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in the 1989 film Field of Dreams.1 In the history of large construction projects such a suggestion, a leap of faith in many ways, is nothing new. In the flood narrative of Gen 6 Noah is told to build it (the ark) and they will come. However, for Noah “they” are not the people— who ridiculed Noah’s efforts—but the animals. For modern ark builders, however, “if you build it, they will come” has a different meaning than it did for Noah. In a reversal of the Genesis narrative modern builders of ark replicas do not seek to populate their massive vessels with animals, but seek to attract people, and often do so in face of the same level of ridicule suffered by Noah. Nonetheless, even though the intended passengers of these modern arks differ from the passengers of Noah’s, both the biblical ark and modern ark replicas were built to serve as warnings of impending apocalypse. Examining replicas of Noah’s Ark, from the stated goals and aims of ark builders, to a consideration of the ark builder’s imagined audience, to the manner in which the ark replica is received in the public imagination, provides an opportunity to explore the reception of the biblical flood story, particularly the description of the ark in Gen 6:11–16, in these replica vessels. Swirling around these replicas are a variety of what literary theorist Stanley Fish called “interpretive communities,”2 each populated with readers employing what Hans-Robert Jauss called “a horizon of expectations”3 that legitimate certain readings of the text. A consideration of these ark replicas and their interpretative Contrary to popular use, the disembodied voice in Field of Dreams states “If you build it, he will come.” 2 Fish, “Interpreting the Variorum,” 182. 3 Jauss’s most famously defined the “horizon of expectations” in his article “Literary History as Challenge to Literary Theory.” This article was later republished in a monograph titled Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, from which references in this chapter will be drawn. See Jauss and De Man, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, 3–45. 1

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communities reveal contested, and sometimes surprising, readings of Gen 6–9.

LEARNING THE ROPES: THE HERMENEUTICS OF ARK BUILDING The well documented—and often contentious—shift toward the reader in literary studies likely needs no extended introduction here. The hard fought battles over “reception theory” and “readerresponse criticism” may have peaked in the late 70s and early 80s, but the impact of the proposed shift toward the reader is still being incorporated into biblical studies. Walter De Gruyter’s recent inauguration of the multivolume flag-ship reference work on the reception of the Bible titled The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception heralds the fact that reception theory has fully arrived in biblical studies. Underlying the efforts of ark builders is an assumption that the author of a text can imbue a text with meaning and that this meaning exists independently within the text waiting to be recovered by the reader (understanding ark builders as “authors,” ark replicas as their “texts,” and ark visitors as the “reader”).4 This has been reflected in biblical studies in the notion that the Bible contains within its pages truths that exist independently of the reader. Revealing these truths has meant uncovering the social, political, and economic situation of the text’s original author and understanding the social context within which the text was originally written. Biblical critics have long maintained that mastering such questions is crucial to unlocking the meaning of the text. In recent years, however, it has become conventional in reception theory to argue that the role of the reader in determining meaning can no longer be discounted. It is duly noted that using the term “text” in this manner may strike some as imprecise in the context of non-textual objects like ark replicas. Nonetheless, such usage has become de rigeuer in postmodern analysis. The term “text” is often applied to any system of representation from which meaning is constructed. This is the manner in which the term text will be used in this chapter. 4

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In reception studies of the Bible there has been a bias toward literary reception of the text, with a particular focus upon important theological exegesis and academic hermeneutics. Without doubt Bible scholarship has benefited from the sustained analysis on “why” and “how” we do what we do. However, important theological treatises by the giants of theology are not the only locations where the work of religion is done. Indeed, reception studies have generally given wide berth to the manner in which the Bible is reflected in popular culture and cultural products. The introduction of a rezeptionsasthetik by Hans-Robert Jauss (1921–1997),5 whose work in many ways is an effort to operationalize the ideas of his teacher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002), significantly broadened this hermeneutical playing field. His rezeptionsasthetik invites an examination of what Yvonne Sherwood characterizes as the hermeneutical “backwater” of biblical reception, the little eddies and undercurrents that sometimes flow with, and sometimes contrary to, the stream of biblical interpretation.6 In keeping with Jauss’s focus upon historical location, it is an analysis of the “backwaters” that is nonetheless sensitive to history. In this stream, with its eddies and undercurrents, float replicas of Noah’s Ark. Examining ark replicas as a type of biblical hermeneutics invites a reception theory reading of the Bible represented in a nontextual object. Critical to the reception aesthetic defined by Jauss is the concept of the horizon of expectations. Here Jauss relies upon Gadamer who argued that there is a fixed historical horizon, the understanding of which is conditioned by where the viewer stands.7 Paul de Man notes the difficulties in translating this term, often translated as “aesthetics of reception.” See De Man, introduction to Toward and Aesthetic of Reception, viii. Jauss describes the aesthetics of reception as mediating between passive reception and active understanding. See Jauss, Toward and Aesthetic of Reception, 19. 6 Yvonne Sherwood examines the backwaters and underbellies of the Jonah story, beginning specifically on page 88. See Sherwood, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives, 88ff. 7 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 302. See also Nicholls, Walking on the Water, 9. 5

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Reflecting the idea that reading occurs through social locations, Jauss maintains that literary works do not appear as “something absolutely new in an informational vacuum.”8 Gadamer’s perspective implies a gap between the historical horizon and the position of the viewer that is somehow bridged. The manner in which the historical horizon is spanned by the historical consciousness (the viewer situated in time) is known as the wirkungsgeschichte, or history of effects. Wirkungsgeschichte refers to the accumulation of traditions, some overt, others subtle, that contribute to the historical consciousness and the manner in which it understands the historical horizon. The wirkungsgeschichte works to make the historical horizon “intelligible in the present.”9 It is partly to this hermeneutical task—making the historical horizon intelligible in the present—that builders of ark replicas have dedicated themselves. Ark replicas further create an interesting case in reception theory because ark designers and builders are not building a bridge to the historical horizon in writing, as traditional hermeneutics is done, but rather in the construction of an object. These objects are both the result of reading(s) as well as being products designed to be “read.” In his analysis of Jauss, Paul de Man argues that “horizons of expectations” mediate “between the private inception and public reception of a work.”10 There is, he proposes, a common, undifferentiated, and unstructured background that is only organized when the reader approaches with “structured questions.”11 In this analysis the private inception is that of the ark designer and builder whose readings are influenced by the designer’s historical circumstances rather than any inherent and independent meaning in the text. It is important to note that private does not necessarily mean independent. To borrow terminology utilized by the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1930-), there are no “immaculate perceptions,” meaning that the

Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, 23. Nicholls, Walking on the Water, 9. 10 Paul de Man, “Introduction,” xiii. 11 Ibid., xiv. 8 9

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perception of anything is informed by cultural conceptions.12 According to De Man, “Preconscious or subconscious expectations are always collective and therefore, to a degree, ‘received.’”13 However, if the ark replica is itself a private inception, it also represents a public reception of a different work, the description of the ark outlined in Gen 6:11–16. Ark builders are also readers and read with what Jauss termed the collective and received preconscious and subconscious expectations. What ark builders produce is a new reception that “becomes part of a landscape against which new works will, in turn, be silhouetted.”14 The type of reception theory employed here argues that despite the best efforts and intentions of the author (in our case engineers, architects, and builders) there can be no inherent meaning in the text (ark replicas). Rather, meaning is created via the reader’s (here visitor’s) interaction with the ark replica informed by the reader’s social, religious, economic, and political situations, what might be collectively termed as Jauss’s horizon of expectation embedded within Stanley Fish’s interpretive communities.15 The public reception of Gen 6:11–16 is not reflected solely in ark builders and their products, but is also represented in the responses of ark attraction visitors. Following Jauss’s theory of reception, such visitors (readers) will “test the aesthetic value” of the work in

Sahlins, Islands of History, 146. De Man, xiii. 14 Ibid. 15 Are we left then with literary quicksand, or what others have called interpretive anarchy? Fish argued no, that interpretive communities govern the boundaries of possible readings (in fact, he argued that interpretive communities really develop rules for writing, which in turn govern reading strategies). Fish describes the interpretive community thus: “Interpretive communities are made up of those who share interpretive strategies not for reading (in the conventional sense) but for writing texts, for constituting their properties and assigning their intentions. In other words, these strategies exist prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read rather than, as is usually assumed, the other way around.” See Fish, “Interpreting the Variorum,” 182. 12 13

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light of other works the reader has already encountered.16 As will be demonstrated below, ark attraction visitors do not always receive the vessel in the manner imagined by ark builders. Both ark builders and ark visitors read in a historical moment framed by their prior understanding of the work and its genre.

FLOATING IN THE FLOTSAM AND JETSAM OF GEN 6:11–16 Any modern engineer wishing to construct a replica of Noah’s Ark according to specifications gleaned from Gen 6 would feel adrift. As a source for how the vessel was constructed—and of what materials—the Genesis narrative lacks a great deal of highly desired information. One cannot turn to biblical narratives outside of Genesis for guidance, for generally speaking the Hebrew Bible offers very little as shipbuilding and sailing was of slight interest to authors of the Bible. The spare instructions for building the ark begin with Gen 6:14 where Noah is first commanded to build an ark (‫ )תבה‬of “gopher” (‫ )גפר‬wood. Choppy seas on the horizon are indicated by the enigmatic Hebrew term ‫גפר‬, the meaning of which remains uncertain, though “cypress” remains a common supposition. Following Patai, however, understanding the ark to have been constructed of cedar is also supported by the known shipbuilding practices of the time.17 The reader then observes that the ark is to be divided into compartments, though the size and number are not specified. As with much of this narrative, even the notion that Noah is instructed to divide the ark into compartments (or rooms) is not without its problems. Franklin Armstrong and Edward Ullendorff have been among those who have argued for the translation of Hebrew ‫ קנים‬as “with reeds” rather than as compartments.18 Finally, Gen 6:14 closes with the imperative that the entire structure (inside and out) is to be covered in pitch. Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, 20. Patai, The Children of Noah, 6. 18 Ullendorff, “The Construction of Noah’s Ark,” 311. See also McCann in this volume who argues that the inclusion of reeds in the construction of the ark preserves links to Mesopotamian parallels in the Gilgameš flood narrative. 16 17

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Genesis 6:15 describes the size of the vessel as three hundred cubits long by fifty cubits wide by thirty cubits in height. The conventional estimate for the standard biblical cubit is eighteen inches, thus making Noah’s ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall—a prodigious vessel by any standard—the size of which was only exceeded in the modern era by the ill-fated Titanic. Furthermore, based upon the information supplied in the Genesis narrative Noah’s ark appears to have been a huge rectangular box. The narrative provides no provision for a keel and other elements of ship design that would allow such a vessel to do more than haphazardly float. Following the description of the ark’s size the reader encounters another enigmatic Hebrew term that may indicate either a window for light or a roof covering the vessel. The Hebrew term from which these translations are derived is ‫( צהר‬Gen 6:16), a hapax legomenon difficult to translate. As James Franklin Armstrong notes in his short study of this term, it is typical to understand ‫צהר‬ as being related in some manner to light.19 However, this word choice in Gen 6:16 seems peculiar considering that the standard Hebrew word for window (‫ )חלון‬is utilized in the J strand of this narrative (Gen 8:6) to describe Noah opening the window to send out the raven. It is nonetheless common to understand ‫ צהר‬as a reference to windows, though the type and number have varied dramatically in ark replicas. Others translate the term as indicating a pitched rooftop, a translation favored by Armstrong who suggests this feature developed from Mesopotamian parallels.20 The decidedly reserved description of the shape and nature of Noah’s vessel has led to a great deal of speculation over the centuries about the appearance of his ark. It is the space between the description provided by the Bible and reader’s expectations of a sea-going vessel that is occupied by wirkungsgeschichte, a bridge between readers’ expectations and the historical horizon. Some depictions embrace the simple rectangular box described in the narrative while others have depicted the ark in more fantastical ways. Norman Cohn notes that Origen imagined the ark as a 19 20

Armstrong, “A Critical Note On Genesis Vi 16a,” 328. Ibid., 332–333.

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floating pyramid, three hundred by fifty cubits at the base and terminating in a one by one cubit apex.21 Images of the ark as a “rectangular house with sloping roof” became more common in the Middle Ages,22 while modern reconstructions have incorporated elements of ship design, as represented by the Tim Lovett design preferred by the Ark Encounter LLC and Answers in Genesis, an organization associated with the proposed Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky (described below). Lovett’s design abandons the box-like structure in favor of a vessel that curves to a point both fore and aft. His proposal also includes a wind catching construct at the bow for self-steering further stabilized by a stern extension.23

MODERN ARK BUILDERS GO FULL STEAM AHEAD There are several prominent examples of ark replicas in varying degrees of construction. Among the most notable recent accomplishments is Johan Huibers’s massive vessel completed in 2007. Open to the public for the first time in Schagen, Netherlands, Dutch creationist and construction company owner Johan Huibers began constructing his replica of Noah’s Ark in 2005 (hereafter the Schagen Ark) having been inspired by a dream in which a flood swept across the Netherlands. While built to scale, this ark is not a full-size replica, measuring only 150 cubits long, by 20 cubits wide, by 30 cubits high.24 Ultimately unsatisfied with this fully functional ark (Huibers plied Netherland waterways with his vessel), Huibers later embarked upon a more ambitious full-size Cohn, Noah’s Flood, 38. For a complete examination of the medieval understanding of Noah as a shipbuilder, see Unger, The Art of Medieval Technology. 23 Tim Lovett, “Thinking outside the Box,” Answers in Genesis, last modified March 19, 2007, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ am/v2/n2/thinking-outside-the-box. Previously published in Answers Magazine, June 2007: 24–30. 24 Rob Keeris, “Worried About Rising Seas Levels? Dutchman Builds Working Replica of Noah’s Ark,” USA Today, last modified April 30, 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/200704-29-netherlands-ark_N.htm. 21 22

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replica of Noah’s Ark. Huibers’s full-size ark took shape in the Netherlands city of Dordrecht (hereafter the Dordrecht Ark) and, from inception, has proven itself to be an exercise in negotiating the exiguous description of Gen 6:11–16 and the engineering and regulatory demands required to build such a large structure. Rather than the enigmatic “gopher wood” described in the biblical narrative, Huibers constructed much of the Dordrecht Ark from Swedish pine. The Dordrecht Ark is fitted with a 2,970 ton anchor in order to qualify the construct as a building rather than a seagoing vessel (Huibers intended to sail his ark up the Thames in time for the summer 2012 Olympics though safety concerns ultimately foiled his plans).25 Moreover, the Dordrecht Ark is kept rigid by an internal steel frame and rests upon a platform constructed of twenty-five steel barges.26

Fig. 1. Schagen and Dordrecht Arks. Official photo, courtesy of Ark van Noach. The enigmatic gopher wood becomes Go-4-Wood in a quirky play on words in the 2007 film Evan Almighty. Though not intended as a permanent replica of Noah’s Ark, the ark constructed for the film reflected a particular reading of the Genesis flood narrative. By turning gopher wood into Go-4-Wood, the scriptwriters (though in a tongue-in-cheek manner) exercised a reading strategy that John Tagliabue, “A Biblical Blueprint Meets the Fire Code and the Neighbors,” New York Times, May 29, 2011, New York Edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/europe/30ark.html. 26 Ibid. 25

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attempted to transform the enigmatic into the intelligible. According to the Evan Almighty production notes, the ark set piece was built with biblical specifications in mind using “modern and dated equipment and a bit of movie magic.”27 The Evan Almighty ark sat on a concrete foundation upon which four-thousand pound cedar-paneled steel support beams sat. The Evan Almighty replica measured 80 feet wide by 60 feet high by 275 feet long. Filmmakers used CGI to lengthen the ark to its biblical length of 450 feet. In the production notes the filmmakers briefly touched upon their Noah’s Ark influences. In addition to incorporating the biblical design (though there is no explanation of what that meant to the filmmakers) designers utilized images from books they had been exposed to as children, indicating that—despite claiming to want “as much of the real thing” as the director could get—the Evan Almighty ark is based as much upon a reception of Gen 6:11–16 in children’s books as it is upon the biblical narrative.

Fig. 2. Dordrecht Ark. Another full-size replica of Noah’s Ark opened to the public at Ma Wan Park, Hong Kong, in 2009. This ark is located on Ma Wan Island under the Tsing Ma Bridge. Like the planned Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky, the Ma Wan Ark is situated in a theme park setting that includes Noah’s Adventure Land with its giant swing, rope ladder, and rock climbing wall; the Treasure House, home to a children’s museum; and the Ark Life Education House

Universal Pictures, “Evan Almighty: Production Information,” http://web.archive.org/web/20071202140150/http://media.movieweb.c om/galleries/3843/notes.pdf. 27

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where visitors can explore the true meaning of life through interactive games.28 At the time of its construction, the Ma Wan Ark was the only full-sized replica of Noah’s ark in the world. However, unlike Johan Huibers’s arks, the Ma Wan Ark is a building rather than a floating, seaworthy vessel. Moreover, the Ma Wan Ark is built to biblical specifications in size only as the basic structure is constructed of concrete and fiberglass.29 The construction of an earlier ark in Florenceville, New Brunswick was inspired by what Pastor Paul Smith of the Burnham Road Cathedral describes as a vision from God received in the late 80s.30 Like the Ma Wan Ark, Smith’s ark is a building, here functioning as a retreat center with healing rooms and dorms for Pastor Smith’s “School of the Spirit.” Approximately two-thirds the size of Noah’s Ark, Smith’s ark measures three hundred feet long, thirty-six feet wide, and two stories high and is outfitted with walkways, deck railings, and portholes. Pastor Richard Green of the God’s Ark of Safety Ministry in Maryland has been in the process of constructing a replica of Noah’s Ark for many years. Like Pastor Smith and Johan Huibers, Green was inspired to build his ark after a dream in which he saw a large ark on a hillside frequented by visitors from all over the world.31 Though incomplete, Richard Green’s ark is being built to biblical dimensions (according to the standard cubit eighteen Ma Wan Park Limited, “Ma Wan Noah’s Ark to Be New Tourist Attraction, Completion of Full-size Replica on Schedule,” (accessed April 9, 2011; site now discontinued), http://www.noahsark.com.hk/eng/ images/PR_20081118_eng.pdf. 29 Jonathan Cheng, “Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions,” The Wall Street Journal, A1, April 14, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123966767906515339.html. 30 BR Ministries, “Noah’s Ark: It All Started with a Vision,” http://www.brministries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie w&id=13&Itemid=12. 31 God’s Ark of Safety Church, “The Vision,” http://app. razorplanet.com/acct/44004-1100/tmpl/index.php?s=rs&nid=167322& preview=true. 28

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inches) and is supported by a steel superstructure. Like others, this full-size replica will not be an ocean-going vessel but will instead serve as a church and Christian conference center. Possibly the biggest splash in the pool of ark replicas has been made by an ark replica that remains to be built. In 2010 Ark Encounter LLC, in partnership with Answers in Genesis (the organization behind Kentucky’s famed Creation Museum), announced a $150 million theme park in northern Kentucky anchored by a full-size replica of Noah’s ark.32 Project officials promise an all timber construction utilizing the best nautical engineering practices available “at that time.”33 However, like many other ark replicas, the ark encounter will not be a sea-going vessel and visitors who tour the ark will be treated to an “as yet to be determined” number of live and mechanical animals.34

IN THE LEEWAY BETWEEN TEXT AND PLACE Ship Builders as Readers As discussed above, there is enough flexibility in the biblical narrative, owing to the sparse description of the vessel’s construction and the problematic Hebrew terms, to help justify the myriad ways in which these structures are built. For example, Johan Huibers constructed the lower deck of the Dordrecht Ark with a honeycomb structure, “the most sturdy construction per unit weight.”35 He cites Gen 6:14 and describes how the Lord The size of this replica is based on what the Ark Encounter describes as the long or royal cubit, though no actual measurement is given. While estimates vary, the long cubit is thought to have been about twenty inches in length. 33 Answers in Genesis, “Frequently Asked Questions,” http://arkencounter.com/faq/. 34 Associated Press, “New Noah’s Ark In Ky. Aims To Prove Truth Of Bible,” Foxnews.com, last modified August 17, 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/17/new-noahs-ark-in-ky-aims-toprove-truth-bible/. 35 Frans Gunnink, “One Man and a Vision (Johan Huibers, Ark Builder in Netherlands),” Creation.com, http://creation.com/one-man-and32

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instructed Noah to make rooms in the Ark. According to Huibers, this reference is made in the context of the general structure of the craft. Drawing upon other possible translations for the Hebrew ‫קנים‬, specifically “nests” or “cells,” Huibers feels confident in proposing that this reference refers to a honeycomb support structure.36 In addition to struggling with these very practical issues inspired by the text, ark builders are also theological readers of Genesis, and their theology ultimately informs the larger meaning foundational to their vessels. For some ark builders, the ark replica is an apocalyptic sign. The apocalypse, and a type/antitype theology, informs builders of ark replicas, how they read the text, and the manner in which they frame their efforts. Huibers views the Genesis narrative as a type for the coming apocalyptic return of Jesus. While he is clear that his ark is not indicative of his belief that there will be another flood, he proposes similarities between the current state of society and the wickedness of the world in the time of Noah. “It’s clear to all that things are not going well with society today,” he states, “things need to change, just as in the days of Noah. I don’t want to end up fear-mongering, but the message should be ‘Choose to follow Jesus, while it is still possible.’”37 Huibers’s horizon of expectation is one informed by the New Testament, particularly Luke 17:26 which states “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man” (cf. Matt 24:37). The reception of Gen 6:11–16 in these reconstructions presents a unique challenge for a reception analysis of this biblical text because multiple levels of reception are embodied in these replicas. Nonetheless, looking closely at modern replicas of Noah’s Ark, both in the physical scale models described above to recreations in other media, one notices many similarities in design despite the fact that many details that appear in modern ark replicas are not solely derived from the biblical narrative. This points to a a-vision-johan-huibers-ark-builder-in-netherlands. Previously published in Creation 30, no. 4 (2008): 12–14. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.

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rezeptionsasthetik wherein elements like the curved prow and the enigmatic window/roof for the ark (which, according to Gen 6:14, is to be finished to one cubit above) becomes—in many designs— an upper story with multiple windows running nearly the entire length of the ark topped by a pitched roof. These suppositions have entered into the reception of this text and have become part of the background utilized by readers. Thus, the ark replicas examined here result from the designers’ reading of the primary text—and the vast inherited history of interpretation of these passages—seemingly modified according to the practical issues raised by building such a massive structure. The Implied Passenger In his influential theory of literary reader-response criticism Wolfgang Iser famously coined the term “implied reader” which “incorporates both the prestructuring of the potential meaning by the text, and the reader’s actualization of this potential through the reading process.”38 In viewing ark builders as authors and ark replicas as their texts, it is clear that ark builders imagine an audience for their massive constructs. It is therefore important to recover the visitor as imagined by designers of ark attractions and what they hope their arks will communicate to these visitors. Builders of Noah’s Ark replicas strive to mediate the implied visitor’s experience of the physical ark in such a way that the visitor reads the ark replica as a reflection of the builder’s and designer’s reading of Gen 6–9. The manner in which the text is reproduced in the physical object, from its size, building materials, and location, suggests to the visitor the manner in which the text ought to be understood. That builders of ark replicas seek to influence the reading of their ideal visitors is revealed in their stated motivations for engaging in these leviathan building projects. Johan Huibers connects the physical reality of his ark with acceptance of the Genesis narrative as literal history. In a Creation Ministries interview, Huibers states that seeing the ark has an impact upon the viewer’s relationship to the biblical narrative. He argues, “If you 38

Iser, The Implied Reader, xii.

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can show how the Ark must have looked, it brings the whole Bible closer.”39 In addition, builders of Noah’s Ark replicas are partly motivated by the need to refute skeptical readers of the text, to prove that the claims made in Gen 6 about the size of the ark and its contents are rationally possible. With this dual audience in mind Huibers maintains that while it is important to reach unbelievers, it is as equally important to clarify the text for believers as well. “It is not only the unbelievers who have to be reached; the believers, too, have to be helped to see things clearly, because the attacks on the Bible come from all sides.”40 A great deal of press has accompanied the announcement of the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, thus providing ample opportunity for the park’s designers to justify the expense and to describe the audience they desire to reach with their theme park. Ken Ham, the President and CEO of Answers in Genesis and founder of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, claims that the potential audience for the Ark Encounter is extensive. Citing an America’s Research Group study commissioned by Answers in Genesis, Ham claims that almost two hundred million people would visit a full-scale ark replica.41 Like other builders of ark replicas, those backing the Ark Encounter see their efforts as a ministry. Ken Ham describes the effort to build a full-size replica of Noah’s ark as a “sign to the world that God’s Word is true and its message of salvation must be heeded.”42 This comment implies a visitor whom, in Ham’s imagination, needs a “sign to point to Jesus Christ.”43 This is an audience similar to that imagined by Johan Huibers who built his ark for individuals who “don’t go to church anymore.”44 Furthermore, Ken Ham places the building of the Ark Encounter within the context of the ongoing culture wars, further revealing the interpretive community in which he is embedded. Ham argues Gunnink, “One Man and a Vision.” Ibid. 41 Ken Ham, “Catch the Ark http://arkencounter.com/. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Gunnink, “One Man and a Vision.” 39 40

Vision,”

Ark

Encounter,

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that the ark is necessary in light of the perceived removal of formerly visible public reminders of the truth of God’s word. The reminders of God’s word that Ham considers to be currently under attack include the perceived substitution of “Happy Holidays” in place of “Merry Christmas” and the banning of Ten Commandment displays, prayers, and crosses in public spaces.45 That Ham reveals his own reading context, clearly embedded in the ongoing American culture wars, further supports Jauss’s notion that reading occurs in the historical moment. Like Huibers, Ham also imagines a dual audience for his ark. He claims that the Ark Encounter is also targeted at an audience already sympathetic to biblical authority, specifically those children of “godly parents” whom Ham hopes the ark will inspire to “proclaim this vital message to the world, and pass it on to following generations.”46 For many the goal is having an ark replica that will clearly serve as a reminder to God’s people to “be faithful in transmitting the truth of His Word.”47 Comments made by Ham and others involved with Ark replicas sometimes assume an audience uneducated on the particulars of Noah’s Ark and the flood narrative. Ham maintains that the Ark Encounter will not only educate people on the size of the vessel, but also on the construction techniques and technologies Noah would have employed.48 There is little indication, in light of the paucity of information found in Gen 6, of what sources the designers of the Ark Encounter are going to use to recreate the technologies and techniques Noah would have utilized. The designers have committed to using Amish carpenters in the ark’s construction.49 Though this approach is not without it anachronistic problems, such a measure is surely designed to lend

Ham, “Catch the Ark Vision.” Ibid. 47 Gunnink, “One Man and a Vision.” 48 Ham, “Catch the Ark Vision.” 49 Laurie Goodstein, “In Kentucky, Noah’s Ark Theme Park Is Planned,” New York Times, December 5, 2010, New York edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/us/06ark.html. 45 46

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an air of legitimacy to the project. The importance of this perceived legitimacy is examined below. Embarking with the Actual Passenger A reception of Gen 6:1–9 in ark replicas must consider the actual visitor and how visitors and commentators balance their reading of the ark narrative with the designer’s visual presentation represented in the ark replica. This is further complicated by the fact that the visitors who receive these constructs are not reading in the traditional sense, but are rather visitors to a physical place, thus suggesting that an analysis of the reception of Gen 6–9 in a landscape object must weigh the effects of the non-textual medium utilized. To what degree can the physical reconstruction of Noah’s Ark represent the builder’s reading of the text? The presentation of the object, from the designer’s decisions as it relates to the craft’s size, shape, color, building materials, to the items placed on these vessels, and to the context in which these objects are placed, are an effort to mediate the experience of the visitor, thus channeling the visitor’s understanding of Gen 6–9 toward interpretations suggested by the craft’s designers. Furthermore, ark replicas like that at the Ma Wan Park and the proposed Ark Encounter are placed in theme park settings, a genre of public space that utilizes certain techniques to govern the experience of the visitor. For instance, before even stepping foot into a theme park, a visitor may bring a preunderstanding of the park instilled through various promotional materials, word-of-mouth, and visits to other theme parks. John Dixon Hunt argues in The Afterlife of Gardens that both the reception of a text and the reception of a physical object are each subject to mediation. For instance, the experience of a literary text may be governed by form, genre, style, and literary convention.50 Thus, a reader who determines that a text conforms to the genre of tragedy may adjust his or her expectations, and experience of the text, accordingly. Likewise, the experience of a 50

Hunt, The Afterlife of Gardens, 16.

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landscape is also mediated by form and the physical presence of the landscape can challenge the reader’s perception of it.51 Hunt notes that there are “genres” of public space and that these genres suggest to a visitor the manner in which that space is to be experienced. These include the public square, cemetery, and the public park (among others) all of which seem to suggest certain forms of behavior.52 To take the proposed Ark Encounter theme park as an example, the genre in which this ark replica is placed is the American theme park, though the designers of the Ark Encounter are quick to draw a distinction between their theme park and an amusement park. Visitor responses to ark replicas sometimes hinge on issues related to authenticity—a potentially explosive issue in receptions of the Bible. Moreover, the social and ideological function of the theme park instills greater urgency to the issue of authenticity, especially in the presentation of the Bible in such a setting. It has been argued that theme parks create the illusion of visiting a fantasy world. In order for the religious theme park to maintain some semblance of authenticity it would have to employ some method of overcoming the fantasy aspect of the theme park setting or seemingly risk being labeled un-biblical. In the proposed Ark Encounter, the method is a focus on “historical” reconstruction, with replicas of period clothing and structures based upon the best current scholarship. This extends to the ark itself with the designers’ commitment to using building materials and techniques available in Noah’s lifetime. Taking a cue from postmodern theorizing on theme parks, Sue Beeton writes that theme parks are not just models, they are models that “constitute the world (rather than merely representing it), blurring the distinction between the real and the apparent.”53 Jean Baudrillard wrote about theme parks and the relationship between the simulation and the real. By way of example Baudrillard described Disneyland as a third-order simulacra. A simulation of this order presents itself as fantasy in an attempt to disguise the fact Ibid. Ibid. 53 Beeton, Film-Induced Tourism, 176. 51 52

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that it is the real. Thus, Disneyland presents itself as an imaginary place, an escape from the real world, when, in fact, it represents the real world. Baudrillard writes: Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the “real” country, all of “real” America that is Disneyland…Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real…It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real.54

I would suggest that ark replicas perform gymnastics of the opposite degree. Rather than presenting itself as imaginary to disguise the fact that it is real (qua Disneyland) the Ark Encounter is being presented as real in order to hide the fact that it is imaginary. The more authentic the designers of the Ark Encounter can be in terms of recreating the ancient setting and reproducing ancient building materials, the more “real” the ark becomes. This disguises the fact that what is actually being reproduced is a culmination of the reception of Gen 6:1–9 (something on the order of copies of copies with no original) rather than a representation of something tangible. If we accept Gadamer that the historical horizon is always read from the historical moment, and Jauss in arguing that each new reception becomes part of the model for all future receptions, then receptions such as this of biblical texts are constructed models. There are varying opinions on the manner in which theme parks are said to govern visitor attitudes. Michael Stausburg, in his work titled Religion and Tourism, writes about Heritage U.S.A., a now defunct Christian theme park built and operated by the PTL Club and its disgraced founder Jim Bakker (1940–). Stausburg notes that the “formal religious features” of Heritage USA were not what “framed” visitors’ experiences.55 Rather, much of the visitor’s experience was framed by the fact that Heritage USA was a gathering place for “certain types of Christians” who could 54 55

Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 12. Stausberg, Religion and Tourism, 114.

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congregate and express a public religiosity (through prayer, laying on of hands, etc.) without exposing themselves to public ridicule.56 That the park’s shopping mall was the main place where people gathered, rather than the church, not only illustrates that the explicit religious framing of the theme park was secondary but also demonstrates that such places function as “sacred consumption” venues.57 Here we see that the intent of the designer and the reception of the visitor do not always coincide. Upon contemplating the reading process it is easy to assume an unmediated interaction between the reader and the text, unmediated in the sense that the reader creates in her mind images and thoughts inspired by the text. Whether those images and thoughts are what the author had in mind for the ideal reader is less relevant to reception theory and its recognition that the author/text is no longer thought to govern the reader. The reader reads from her social, economic, and political locations (and in what Stanley Fish calls “interpretive communities”). Thus, no matter how insightful and targeted a text might be, no author can exercise the omnipotence necessary to account for all these factors. Nonetheless, the presentation of Gen 6:11–16 in a physical object (or an entire theme park in the case of Ark Encounter) remains an attempt to mediate the reading of the visitor, perhaps with an immediacy (because of the physical object) that would not be as apparent if people like Ken Ham or Johan Huibers were creating a textual description of the Ark. The ark replica presents a concrete image to represent the words on the page, and perhaps does so in a manner different from what the reader would have constructed from her own detritus of accumulated knowledge about seagoing vessels, images of Noah’s ark commonly found in Judeo-Christian cultures (from epic rectangular vessels to so-call “bath tub” arks teeming with animals), and the intentional or unintentional absorption of various interpretations of these biblical passages.

Ibid. Ibid. Stausburg’s analysis draws upon the work of Thomas O’Guinn and Russell Belk’s work on consumption at Heritage Village. See “Heaven on Earth: Consumption at Heritage Village,” 227–38. 56 57

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In The Afterlife of Gardens, John Hunt distinguished between the concepts of rezeption and wirkung. As described by Hunt, rezeption examines the reader’s judgment and understanding of a text while wirkung captures the effects of a text and the reader’s interaction with it.58 As it concerns replicas of Noah’s Ark, be they full-size scale replicas or scale replicas not built to size, it is evident that the visitor is often forced to deal with the sheer immensity of craft. In some instances being faced with the enormity of the physical object inspires a different response than the Bible’s written account. This is demonstrated in visitor reactions to Johan Huibers’s Schagen Ark. A CNN report on the Schagen Ark recorded the reactions of visitors described as “stunned.” Mary Louise Starosciak exclaimed that the Schagen Ark was “past comprehension.”59 While she claims to have previously known the story of Noah, she confesses that she had no idea that the boat would have been so large.60 This could partly be a function of the text a reader like Mary Louise is reading. If her experience of Gen 6:11–16 included a measurement in cubits, then it is quite likely that this measurement did not translate readily into terms a reader like Mary Louise would understand. In addition, Mary Louise’s awestruck response suggests that something as large as Noah’s ark has the potential to remain an abstraction when read in a text while the physical object makes the textual description more concrete. Others read ark replicas through the contentious issue of global warming. This is a surprising reception of the text, especially in light of the interpretive communities most closely linked to the building of ark replicas. The proposed Ark Encounter theme park, for example, is associated with Ken Ham’s organization known as Answers in Genesis. As an interpretive community, Answers in Genesis is highly unlikely to incorporate a human-induced global warming reading into the ark replicas proposed for the Ark Encounter. In materials published by Answers in Genesis, evidence Hunt, The Afterlife of Gardens, 14. CNN, “New Noah’s Ark Ready to Sail,” RichardDawkins.net, last modified April 27, 2007, http://richarddawkins.net/articles/944-newnoah-39-s-ark-ready-to-sail. 60 Ibid. 58 59

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that the earth is warming is accepted, but the contention that this warming is human induced and potentially harmful is strongly questioned and even labeled hysterical.61 Not all builders of ark replicas approach the material in the manner suggested by Answers in Genesis. Part of the Noahic covenant is God’s promise that the “waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh” (Gen 9:15). In light of this promise, it is interesting that some environmentalists appropriate the ark as an object lesson to be utilized by the environmentalist movement. One prominent recent example is the Greenpeace Ark. Unveiled in Brussels on April 2, 2007, the Greenpeace Ark (at over forty feet long this ark is small according to the standards set by other recent ark replicas) serves as a warning about global warming and rising sea levels.62 Likewise, visitors of the Ma Wan Ark in Hong Kong report that the exhibit gently presses environmental issues. In a review of the Ma Wan ark, a user named Trip A notes that: There is also a slant toward conservation that I found to be quite pleasant and appropriate. They are saying that we can make a difference in the wildlife here on earth by making better choices… A lot of the exhibits made me really stop and think about the life here on earth and how what we all do affects it.63

Michael Oard, “Global Warming: Examine the Issue Carefully,” Answersingenesis.org, last modified September 6, 2006, http://www. answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/global-warming. Previously published in Answers Magazine, September 2006: 24–30. 62 Greenpeace, “It’s Not Too Late: Greenpeace Ark Centers on Global Action Against Climate Change,” last modified April 2, 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/News/2009-and-earlier/it-isnot-too-late/. 63 Trip A, October 3, 2012, comment on “Noah’s Ark,” http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294217-d1575066Reviews-Noah_s_Ark-Hong_Kong.html. No effort has been made to correct the grammar of reader comments. 61

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In this case the visitors’ experience of the ark coincides with the builders’ intentions, as evidenced in press releases touting the Ma Wan arks environmental initiatives, such as low carbon emissions.64 While it is difficult to determine here if this plea finds its origins in a stewardship theology or the concerns of the modern environmental movement, it participates in a reading of Gen 6–9 that in some ways both conforms to, but subverts, the ideal reading imagined by other ark designers. For ark builders like Ken Ham and Johan Huibers there is a real and urgent apocalyptic message embodied in their constructs. Their arks are meant to convey the message that the world today bears striking similarities to the world as it existed in the age of Noah. One common interpretation of Gen 6–9 maintains that the inspiration for the world destroying flood lay in the wickedness of humankind while Noah’s Ark served as both a warning and a sign of salvation from the destruction. Thus, the implied lesson to be learned by the appearance of arks in the world today, despite the fact that none of these builders claim that the world will be destroyed again by flood, is that the world is once again on the verge of cataclysm and the ark replica serves as a warning for the ark visitor. Viewing the ark replica as an apocalyptic object reveals why environmentalists would appropriate these vessels into narratives of environmental catastrophe. In doing so environmentalist readings do exactly what ark builders intend— read the apocalypse in their ark replicas. However, the cause and meaning of the apocalypse, and hence their reception of ark replicas, is determined by the interpretive communities in which the modern environmentalist is embedded, and thus also runs counter to the narrative that ark builders wish to convey—that the apocalypse is nigh and Jesus is about to return. In potential environmentalist readings, the apocalypse might be here, but its cause is secular rather than supernatural.

Sun Hung Kai Properties, “Noah’s Ark Promotes Low-Carbon Living,” July 16, 2010, http://www.noahsark.com.hk/eng/news_pdf/ sum_pro_2010_pr_eng.pdf. 64

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PIRATES ON THE HORIZON: CONTESTED READINGS OF ARK REPLICAS In a May 30, 2011 New York Times article about his Dordrecht Ark, Johan Huibers claims that certain Israelis have been curious about his ark.65 About those Israelis Huibers shares, “They say it’s not a Christian ark, it’s a Jewish ark. They say I stole it.”66 Comments such as this reveal tensions about the ideological ownership of not just the physical objects under examination here, but of the text upon which these objects are based. While supporting one claim over the other does not lie within the scope of this chapter, Huibers’s comment nonetheless invites us to consider that reading is a situated activity and that the ultimate meaning of the text— indeed the very ownership of the text—lies with the reader who constructs meaning through the various social, economic, and political situations in which the reader is embedded as well as the reading expectations that emerge from these social locations. As noted above, for Jauss a reception of a text emerges in the historical moment and is informed by readers’ expectations in terms the text’s genre and how it is seen to relate to other familiar works. However, the “cultural, ethical, literary expectations of readers in a particular historical moment”67 are rarely singular just as the potential readers of a text rarely represent the same horizon of expectations. Following Stanley Fish we have seen that readers are also embedded in “interpretive communities” that legitimate and support certain readings. Thus it is better to speak of a plurality of horizons represented by multiple readers who each bring their own cultural and literary expectations informed by their own social and historical backgrounds. Just as one does not find a unified or singular reading of the biblical flood narrative, likewise, there is diversity in its representation in cultural products like modern replicas of Noah’s Ark. This diversity may be illustrated by Tagliabue, “A Biblical Blueprint Meets the Fire Code and the Neighbors.” 66 Ibid. 67 Bible and Culture Collective and George Aichele, The Postmodern Bible, 35. 65

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examining how readers skeptical of the biblical text and how readers invested in the biblical text each respond to ark replicas. Skeptics are a concern for modern ark builders who are aware of the parallels between themselves as ark builders and their skeptical audience and Noah and his skeptical public. In response to a Wall Street Journal article on the Ma Wan Ark, a reader identified as Vincent L. Tessier noted that Noah’s ark would not have been topped by a luxury hotel.68 His comments reveal a concern for authenticity that were rebutted by another reader identified as Jim McFarland who complains about those who want to apply reason to the Bible.69 Because the Bible is viewed as an authoritative text, it is interesting to observe that some who seem invested in the truth of the flood narrative downplay issues of authenticity as they consider Noah’s Ark replicas. The perspective adopted by Vincent Tessier in his comments about the Ma Wan Ark is elaborated further by another commentator identified as Larry Jebsen. Jebsen downplays authenticity and rationality when he states “either the Bible is the word of God or it is not. It is either reliable or it’s not. Faith believes things that your mind cannot grasp.”70 For skeptical readers an authentically constructed ark, built to the specifications outlined in Genesis, would necessarily fail in both design and purpose. In the online responses to the L.A. Times article on the planned ark replica in Kentucky’s future Ark Encounter theme park, a reader named James McMullen, who self Vincent Tressier, comment on Jonathan Cheng, “Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions,” The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2009, U.S. edition, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12396676790651 5339.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments. 69 Jim McFarland, comment on Jonathan Cheng, “Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions,” The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2009, U.S. edition, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1239667679065153 39.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments. 70 Larry Jebsen, comment on Jonathan Cheng, “Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions,” The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2009, U.S. edition, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123966767906515339.html #articleTabs%3Dcomments. 68

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identifies as a boatwright, raises the issue of authenticity to further his skeptical reading of Gen 6: Are you familiar at all with the mechanical limitations of large wooden structures, Danny? Just to start with, unless a supernatural entity suspended the laws of physics for this here Ark, a 500’ long 80’ tall self-supporting wooden box structure exceeds the flexural modulus and fastener shear tear-out limitations of any known timber. It’s different when you build a boat that needs to float as compared to a boat-shaped object supported by steel piers, concrete footings and foundations like this “Ark” sham. Not even steel ships were able to reach the 500’ mark until the late 19th century.71

A reader identified as John Pozzerle shares with Johan Huibers the notion that realizing the ark as a physical object will help people reach certain conclusions about the Bible, though Pozzerle goes in a very different direction than Huibers. In a comment on a New York Times article about Huibers’s full-size ark, Pozzerle states “I think it’s great! Now people can see that there was not enough room for all the animals known to man at that time.”72 The types of questions that Pozzerle asks are typical of those who receive the object from a skeptical position and want to question the narrative on the basis of authenticity. He continues by asking, “How long did it take Noah to gather all the animals? How did he feed them and keep them from eating each other? How did he feed the carnivorous ones?”73 One might expect that those who accept the truth of the biblical flood narrative would be concerned with authenticity lest James McMullen, August 20, 2011 (6:53 p.m.), comment on Deborah Netburn, “Replica of Noah’s Ark Planned in Kentucky,” L.A. Times, August 18, 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/ 2011/08/noahs-ark-answers-in-genesis.html. 72 John Pozzerle, May 30, 2011 (11:43 a.m.), comment on John Tagliabue, “A Biblical Blueprint Meets the Fire Code and the Neighbors,” New York Times, May 29, 2011, New York Edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/europe/30ark.html. 73 Ibid. 71

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the replica run the risk of being labeled un-biblical for failing to adhere to the biblical description of this vessel. Indeed, some readers of ark replicas do go toe-to-toe with skeptical readers on the plausibility of a vessel like Noah’s ark. Regarding the number and types of animals on the ark, a reader identified as Vince Cowan addresses skeptics on the issue of space by noting that dinosaurs were on the ark in the form of eggs.74 The same reader continues by remarking that the ark volume as calculated by unnamed experts could have accommodated all the animals.75 Nonetheless, many of those who appear invested in the narrative work to downplay the issues of engineering and scientific plausibility as it relates to ark replicas. For example, a reader identified as Sunshine responds to criticisms about contradictions in the text by pointing out that “the so called contradictions which are always taken as ‘face’ value in the word, are actual accounts of a human being.”76 It is also a common tactic to respond to skeptics with the argument that “nothing is impossible with God”77 and that there is a miracle involved that is simply beyond human comprehension.78 Understanding this as the case, rather than dealing with concepts like flexural modulus and shear tear-out (see above) such readers can argue that Noah’s ark “didn’t need a steel frame when it had His hands upon it to provide protection and

Vincent Cowan, June 29, 2010, (1:23 a.m.), comment on “Noah’s Ark Replica Schagen Netherlands,” http://www.pbase.com/paulthedane/ noahs_ark, accessed January 29, 2013. 75 Ibid. 76 Sunshine, September 19, 2008 (7:33 p.m.), comment on “Noah’s Ark Replica Schagen Netherlands,” http://www.pbase.com/paulthedane/ noahs_ark. 77 Melissa Stroud, June 30, 2008 (4:42 p.m.), comment on “Noah’s Ark Replica Schagen Netherlands,” http://www.pbase.com/paulthedane/ noahs_ark. 78 Donna, July 7, 2008 (3:47 p.m.), comment on “Noah’s Ark Replica Schagen Netherlands, http://www.pbase.com/paulthedane/noahs_ark. 74

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preservation.”79 This same reader, identified as Atmosphere1823, concisely illustrates the contrasts between these readings: You nonbelievers forget that our worldview takes into account the realm and existence of the supernatural, and you keep saying, “The supernatural can’t be true, because it simply can’t happen.” This is meaningless because you run around in circles with this argument until you acknowledge that your naturalistic worldview provides inherent, internal conflict anyway with anything supernatural!80

Indeed, if authenticity in building (in terms of technique, materials, and scale) is key for the manner in which ark visitors receive the construction, then most modern ark builders fail to meet those expectations. Johan Huibers’s first ark is a functional sea worthy vessel, but measures 150 cubits long by 30 cubits high by 20 cubits wide, about a third of the size assigned to the ark in the biblical narrative.81 While his second effort matches the biblical ark in terms of size, it is constructed on a platform of twenty five barges and is supported by an internal steel frame.82 Likewise, the incomplete ark replica at God’s Ark of Safety Church in Frostburg, Maryland is supported by heavy steel girders. Though details on the construction of the Ark Encounter in Kentucky are not yet available, the planned ark replica is to be built to scale and size using Amish building techniques; however, its seaworthiness will not be tested as this is a land-based attraction, much like the Hong Kong ark replica. As demonstrated above, this is not a stumbling block for many invested readers of the text. In fact, many simply refuse to engage on those issues. Responses to ark replicas reveal Atmosphere1823, July 30, 2012 (7:14 p.m.), comment on David Moye, “Noah’s Ark Replica Made By Johan Huibers Opens Doors in Dordrecht, Netherlands,” last modified July 30, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/30/noahs-ark-replica-johanhuibers-netherlands_n_1717778.html. 80 Ibid. 81 Keeris, “Worried About Rising Sea Levels?” 82 Tagliabue, “A Biblical Blueprint Meets the Fire Code and the Neighbors.” 79

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that the issue of authenticity is more critical to the horizon of expectation of the skeptical reader. Indeed, the issue of authenticity is used by skeptical readers to undermine the reading of invested readers. The discourse between those who are skeptical of textual claims and those who are invested in the text reveals a clash of interpretive communities just as clearly as that alluded to by Huibers’s in his comments on Israeli comments about his “Jewish” ark. Toeing the Line Consideration of the above comments about ark replicas by readers skeptical of Gen 6:11–16 lends support to Ken Ham’s notion that the Ark Encounter ought to be thought of as another blow in the culture wars. The role of the Bible in American society and its authority has certainly been important battlegrounds in these wars. As it concerns the Bible and reception theory, however, Noah’s Ark replicas are like pearls whose many layers deposited over the course of centuries represent different readings of the text. At the center of the ark replica lies a text that functions like the irritant that initiates the formation of the pearl. The text itself is unclear about the form of the ark and how it functioned as a seagoing vessel—abrasive to those who desire a clearer statement about how such a vessel was supposed to look and work. Like an oyster, those who have received this narrative have reduced the irritation by depositing layer upon layer of reception in order to smooth the jagged edges of the text. Builders of Noah’s Ark replicas are readers of the text who reflect the many layers of reception that have preceded them. However, as revealed in their own statements, these builders as readers are not innocent in their motivations. They have stated agendas and attempt to steer their audiences toward their specific readings of the narrative. For many of these builders, this includes rationalizing the narrative with physical proof that such vessels are indeed possible to build and use. At a more explicitly theological level, however, some builders of ark replicas see their work in an apocalyptic framework and wish for their audiences to read the ark replica as an apocalyptic object that illustrates the current state of the world and warns the reader that time is running short. Though ark builders clearly desire to determine the manner in which the visitor reads their arks, reception theory has argued that

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meaning is not inherent in the text and—despite the desires of the authors—there are few ways that the author can control the meaning readers derive from the text. Instead, readers read as people imbedded in interpretive communities that legitimate certain writing (and thus reading) strategies. These interpretive communities are also influenced by social, economic, and political factors that serve as filters between the intent of the author and the meaning derived by the reader. The role of the reader in determining meaning is particularly illustrated by those readers who see ark replicas as reflecting an environmentalist message, a message that runs counter to the intent of ark builders like Ken Ham. Interpretive communities are often at loggerheads, as illustrated by the manner in which those who are invested in the Genesis narrative receive the text compared to those who are skeptical of the narrative. In an interesting move, those who are skeptical of the narrative welcome ark replicas as a rational illustration of the impossibility of such vessels to perform the task required by God. Such readers utilize the language of authenticity to demonstrate that an authentically constructed craft, according to the specifications provided in the text and according to building techniques available in antiquity, would have failed in both form and function. In many ways it is the issue of authenticity that lies at the heart of these receptions of Gen 6:11–16 in Noah’s Ark replicas. At one level builders of ark replicas seek to represent the text in their reconstructed vessels. However, the vague nature of the text would suggest that ark builders are readers operating in horizons of expectations that include centuries of reading and representation. Moreover, the placement of these reconstructions in theme-park settings, like the Ma Wan Ark and the proposed Ark Encounter, blurs the issue of authenticity even further as these are places where the distinction between the original and the copy is eliminated in the hyper-reality of the park’s setting. Rather than being a copy of something recoverable in the text, ark replicas are copies of copies, or receptions of receptions, built upon centuries of receptions and reconstructions by others who have tried to smooth over the contours of the text.

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WORKS CITED Armstrong, J. Franklin. “A Critical Note on Genesis Vi 16a.” VT 10 1, no. 4 (1960): 328–333. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulation and Simulacra. Translated by Shiela Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1994. Beeton, Sue. Film-Induced Tourism. Clevedon; Buffalo: Channel View Publications, 2005. Bible and Culture Collective and George Aichele. The Postmodern Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Cheng, Jonathan. “Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions.” The Wall Street Journal. April 14, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123966767906515339.html. Cohn, Norman. Noah’s Flood: the Genesis Story in Western Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. De Man, Paul. “Introduction.” Pages vii–xxix in Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, by Hans Robert Jauss. Vol. 2, Theory and History of Literature. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Fish, Stanley E. “Interpreting the Variorum.” Pages 164–184 in Reader Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, edited by Jane P. Tompkins. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Second Revised Edition. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 1998. Goodstein, Laurie. “In Kentucky, Noah’s Ark Theme Park Is Planned.” New York Times. December 5, 2010, New York edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/us/06ark.html. Gunnink, Frans. “One Man and a Vision (Johan Huibers, Ark Builder in Netherlands).” Creation.com. http://creation.com/ one-man-and-a-vision-johan-huibers-ark-builder-innetherlands. Hunt, John. The Afterlife of Gardens. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Jauss, Hans Robert. “Literary History as Challenge to Literary Theory.” New Literary History 2, no. 1 (1970): 7–37

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Jauss, Hans Robert. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Translated by Timothy Bahti. Vol. 2, Theory and History of Literature. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1982. Keeris, Rob. “Worried About Rising Seas Levels? Dutchman Builds Working Replica of Noah’s Ark,” USA Today. April 30, 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/ 2007-04-29-netherlands-ark_N.htm. Lovett, Tim. “Thinking outside the Box.” Answers in Genesis. March 19, 2007, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/ v2/n2/thinking-outside-the-box. Nicholls, Rachel. Walking on the Water : Reading Mt. 14:22–33 in the Light of its Wirkungsgeschichte. Biblical Interpretation 90. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Oard, Michael. “Global Warming: Examine the Issue Carefully.” Answersingenesis.org. September 6, 2006, http://www.answer singenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/global-warming. Patai, Raphael, James Hornell, and John M Lundquist. The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Sahlins, Marshall. Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Sherwood, Yvonne. A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Stausberg, Michael. Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations, and Encounters. New York: Routledge, 2011. Tagliabue, John. “A Biblical Blueprint Meets the Fire Code and the Neighbors.” New York Times. May 29, 2011, New York edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/ europe/30ark.html. Ullendorff, E. “The Construction of Noah’s Ark.” VT 4, no. 1 (1954): 95–96. Unger, Richard. The Art of Medieval Technology: Images of Noah the Shipbuilder. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991.

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE: THE IMAGE OF GOD MÁIRE BYRNE MILLTOWN INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY ABSTRACT By using the methodology of the comparative theology this article seeks to look at the image of God as Creator as depicted in the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, with the aim of increasing the understanding of the theological implications for a reader of the text of Gen 6–9 coming from a Christian perspective.

INTRODUCTION This piece seeks to examine the text of the flood narrative in the book of Genesis (6:5–8:19) through the lens of the methodology of comparative theology. In utilizing this method, it is hoped to demonstrate, principally for Christian readers, an alternative means of reading this popular biblical text. This reading and viewpoint on the text is essentially different from more traditional Christian readings as it seeks to include not just the use of a divine flood motif in the sacred literature of the other religions, and a reading of the text from a Jewish perspective, but the “theologies” behind these motifs and the images of the deity that they portray to the reader. The objective of this reading is therefore to broaden the scope of the traditional Christian reading of the text and to allow the modern reader to view the images of the deity present in the different faith perspectives, not simply to compare and contrast the ideas and images, but to learn and deepen one’s own theological understanding of the text. 325

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This work will begin by setting out the modern context of reading the flood narrative, and the need for an increase in interfaith awareness. It will then survey the methods involved in comparative theology and its definition, including a discussion of the meaning of the term “theology” in this context. Then using this method, the images of God in the flood narrative of Gen 6:5–8:19 will be examined, with a particular emphasis on the idea of God as the Creator. The piece will briefly inspect the notion of a creator deity in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and in the Qur’an and compare them, concluding with an assessment of the benefits of the methodology. Interfaith Dialogue Throughout most of the history of world religions there have been efforts among some adherents of a particular religion to understand and become more informed about other belief systems. This task has been undertaken with a variety of aims: some simply out of curiosity, academic or otherwise, and some to foster a more developed and understanding relationship between two or more religions. This exercise has never succeeded on a very large scale, as geography and world events in history tend to steer the process away from a particularly coherent route. The modern process of interreligious dialogue has become an increasingly vibrant and successful endeavor, helped by the increasing interest in the growth of religious pluralism.1 Despite considerable progress in the academic pursuit of interreligious dialogue, there exists still a certain degree of mistrust and suspicion regarding the beliefs and practices of other religions, a clear example of this being the view of modern Islam following world events such as 9/11 and the London bombings of July 7, 2005. Humans as a rule tend to be suspicious of things they do not understand (as in the fear of the unknown),2 and this lack of education and understanding is conducive to the development of false ideas concerning a religion, Banchoff, ed., Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. See especially, Norris and Inglehart, “Uneven secularization,” 31–58. 2 Winters, “Why we fear the unknown.” 1

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 327 e.g., that Muslims are predominately extremists and fundamentalists. Interactions and intersections between religious faiths are not usually considered an overwhelming success, and one of the many reasons for this is that we do not have a common language with which to further (or in some cases begin) a dialogue. As Leonard Swidler stated in 2010, “We always needed dialogue as a species, but now we are aware of it. These are times like no other in human history.”3 This search for dialogue and language does not of course mean a shared spoken language such as English, French, or Arabic, as even within academic circles there has been little work on the language of the dialogue between faiths. “Language” in this instance is the words and terminology (formal or otherwise) that are needed to explain ideas and to learn from one another. The language does not necessarily have to be formal or religious, but in the main, the terms and words need to be from a mutual experience and a collective understanding. Language is also not based on the spoken word; it can be written or heard as well. Learning, particularly from within a faith context, needs to be based on what people are already familiar with. Good pedagogy would always build on prior knowledge and experiences, particularly with language. A very restricted “common language” exists between faith groups, even within the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is typically because, when engaging in interreligious dialogue, groups tend to need to speak from their own belief system, to explain it to another group. A practical example of this is to ask a Christian theologian to explain the concept of the Trinity to a general audience. The theologian, in the majority of cases, will have the information and language in terms of vocabulary to explain the theory to a member of their peer group, but not to explain it to somebody from another faith group who may have differing views of the idea of Cited by Stanton, “Seismic Shift in Seminary Education.” Prof Swidler is the Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University and he was speaking at the CIRCLE (Center for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership Education) National conference in April 2010. 3

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the Trinity. Consequently in order to communicate and dialogue with people from other religions, even on the level of an affable interest to learn more about a friend, some kind of common language of theology needs to be sought. In biblical studies, the source of language we use originates in biblical texts or, more commonly speaking, in texts that are seen by the three religions in question as “sacred texts” or texts that have in some way been divinely inspired. Exploring a Method of Approach One of the first problems in reviewing the sacred texts as a source of language is that there is such an amount of written language within the three faiths. It would be impracticable to examine every text that is viewed as sacred or significant in its part in the religion’s idea of the deity or to the structures and belief systems of the religion, so a theme or constituent is required. For this piece, the images associated with the deity or “godhead” in each of the written sacred texts of the three traditions have been selected as the primary example with which to test the methodology. Using Comparative Theology as a Method When looking for an appropriate framework methodology to utilize, one finds the processes used within the discipline of comparative theology to be useful. Comparative theology4 has been described in the main as a new method of interreligious dialogue, as a sub-discipline of systematic theology that attempts to create a more productive and indeed more convenient approach to the dialogue between religions. It is not simply a refined means of Francis X. Clooney has been described as a “pioneer” in the field of comparative theology and has written extensively on the subject. Clooney has described his role as that of a “comparative theologian” (he is also an American Catholic priest with the Society of Jesus and an Indologist) and seeks to examine how the juxtaposed texts of varied religions and their traditions can inform one another and transform those who engage with them. See Duffy, “A Theology of the Religions,” 105–15, 105 and Schmalz, “Tradition and Transgression,” 131–36, 131 for more on Clooney’s work. 4

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 329 comparing religions and “is more than finding interesting parallels between different religions.”5 The Journal of Comparative Theology accepts Clooney’s definition of the discipline as “the practice of rethinking some aspect or aspects of one’s own faith tradition through the study of some aspect or aspects of another faith tradition.”6 In his work “The Frontier of Comparative Theology,”7 Samuel Youngs notes that contemporary religious and secular pluralism as an international experience is having a marked influence on the ways in which academia studies religion and theology and there is a need to move beyond a typically Christian way of studying religion and theology in order to advocate a more sympathetic outlook and approach with regard to other religions. It is a relatively new process in the field of Christian theological studies and religion, described by Youngs as the process whereby a “a religious scholar or theologian reaches out from their own faith tradition—without denying that tradition—in order to intentionally and sympathetically interact and exchange with other systems of theological belief in a comparative way.”8 In terms of the viability of taking biblical theology into this framework, Norbert Hintersteiner notes that in the procedure of undertaking comparative theology as a method “the contemporary theologian must read texts of other traditions along with the believers of other traditions, and in ways that allow contemporary audiences to somehow establish familiarity while retaining their point of view.”9 Comparative theology lends itself to biblical theology in combination with looking at the sacred texts of Judaism and Islam because no position or beliefs need to be surrendered or put to one side, an essential aspect of examining texts that have such diverse theologies and literary aspects. This also points us forward to the notion of a positive outcome for the endeavor. If a Schebera, “Comparative Theology,” 7–18, 10. Clooney, “On Comparative Theology.” 7 Youngs, “The Frontier of Comparative Theology,” 1–10. 8 Ibid, 4. 9 Hintersteiner, “Intercultural and Interreligious (un)Translatability,” 468–493, 480–481. 5 6

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Christian who is familiar with the Christian scriptures (in the sense of the Old and New Testaments) looks to the religious texts of Judaism and Islam through the lens of comparative theology, then not only will they have a degree of understanding of texts such as the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an, but they will be able to use this information to advance their individual understanding of their “own” religious texts.

WHAT DOES THIS STUDY MEAN BY “THEOLOGY”? As comparative theology is typically allied with systematic theology, the perspective of theology is generally seen in light of Anselm’s view of theology as “faith seeking understanding.”10 Clooney examines this explanation in his work, Hindu God, Christian God, underlining the philosophical element of this notion, to be precise, that the objective of theology is not to “understand,” but to know God “more completely and intelligently.”11 With this in mind, it is therefore adaptable to the more Augustinian characterization of theology that is seen as the study of God in a particular religion or faith.12 As this work is dealing with three religions with a similar godhead in terms of depiction in sacred texts, it would appear that this definition would be more helpful. Texts in Focus While a thorough comparative examination of the divine images in the three faiths in question would inevitably include all texts that are seen as sacred by the religion in question, it is not possible to do this within the scope of this work, both due to limitations of space and also as it would be almost impossible to fully include For more on St. Anselm’s definition of theology, see Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, especially 2–7. 11 Clooney, Hindu God, Christian God, 7. 12 For a broader examination of theology as the study of God, there are few better places to start than McGrath, Theology: The Basics, in particular vii. McGrath notes that in order to study theology successfully, one must be open to the idea that different people and different religions have their own, often unique ideas of what “God” is. 10

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 331 every single instance of an image of the deity involved in some way with the process of creation in all three faiths as there is no clear agreement on what constitutes a “canon” within each religion. For example, Catholic and Protestant traditions within Christianity differ on what biblical books are to be included in their respective canons. In Judaism, it could be argued that the canon should include the Talmud or Mishnah, as both texts have so much to offer to Jewish tradition and interpretation of the biblical texts. In Islam, the process is simpler, as for the majority of Muslims, the Qur’an must be read in Classical Arabic, as this is the only “true” Qur’an. To simplify the process therefore, the focus of this work will be on the biblical text of the flood narrative as depicted in Gen 6:5–8:19, and the images of the deity as seen in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament (principally through the gospels) and the Qur’an, with a particular emphasis on The 99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah. Muslims believe that the text of the Qur’an was transmitted directly from the deity to the Prophet Muhammad and that Allah cannot be compared to any earthly or human idea or framework. For Muslims, the text of the Qur’an should also be read in its original language, i.e. Classical Arabic, and translating it into English (or any other language) does a disservice to the text. It is important when using comparative theology as a method that not only are the beliefs of the religions taken into account, they should be respected and their influence on the reading of the text, or the image of the deity should be included. Taking this into account in the area of Islam and this process, the 99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah are included in the survey, as they are an excellent source of imagery for the deity in Islam, and do not carry the difficulties with translation and critical inquiry but still give the reader a clear insight into the “theology” behind the images.

IMAGES OF GOD IN THE FLOOD NARRATIVE (GEN 6:5–8:19) In the two accounts of the flood narrative contained in 6:5–8:15, the opening image in both uses anthropomorphism to depict YHWH. Both the P and J sources portray YHWH as “seeing” or judging the hearts of humanity as “evil” or “wicked.” The text immediately continues with the idea the YHWH is “sorry” and that YHWH would actually grieve or mourn the fact that humans had been created in the first place. The deity acts more out of sorrow

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than anger and appears to the reader to be reluctant to judge the people.13 The structure of the text and the language used means that the focus of the first two verses is predominantly on the shortcomings of humanity, rather than on the fact that it is YHWH that has created them and therefore holds responsibility for their outcome. The image of the deity here is also one who has a continuous presence in the lives of those on earth as it is he who brings his attention to the failings and wickedness of the actions and philosophies of humans. No intermediary is involved who brings back word of the actions of the people; it is almost as if YHWH comes to investigate and check up on his charges. When the deity begins to speak in v. 7, there is no direct audience, or the words are not directly aimed at a particular body of people, rather it is a direct statement. While YHWH’s instructions to Noah on the building of the ark have nothing to do with the creation of the world and humanity, the logistical skill and knowledge of such a large construction project can only serve to highlight the idea that YHWH is indeed a skilled creator who puts care and attention into the details of a project. The language and use of verbs in the piece serve to give the reader a sense of someone who is in command and control of a scenario that will ultimately lead to the destruction of the earth, apart from those people and animals that YHWH instructs Noah to save. It is YHWH who controls the destruction of that which has been created, from the method by which the destruction will occur to the timeline of events that will bring it about as “the Creator can take back his act of creation.”14 For the reader, this may appear jarring that YHWH is technically carrying out the opposite task of what a creator or maker would do, namely causing something to be or bringing about its existence. Hiebert notes in his commentary on the text that this flood narrative is “about catastrophe, our fear of it, our attempt to make sense of it, and our hope to survive it.”15 In this case, YHWH is the force for destruction, “blotting out” everything that lived on earth. For a Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” 395. Westermann, Genesis: A Practical Commentary, 66. 15 Hiebert, “Genesis,” 3–25, 13. 13 14

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 333 modern Christian reader, this may bring forth the idea that YHWH (or the “God of the Old Testament”) is a deity that seeks to punish those who go against his own standards of living and moral code. As Dawkins notes, “the legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling.”16 The punishment is harsh and universal; there are no guidelines in the text as how to be a person like Noah and to “walk with God” (v. 9). The text itself does not help with this image, as there is little repetition of the initial description of the people of the earth as “wicked” and “evil.” Obeying YHWH appears to be something that is hedged with uncertainty and the threat of annihilation in the form of a devastating flood would seem almost too close for comfort for a modern reader with knowledge of tsunamis, floods from hurricanes, and rapidly rising sea level.17 Westermann states that, “The Flood Story is universal because, since the earliest known stages of human history, people have sensed that belonging to the human race is perilous.”18 This image of the deity does not tend to sit well with modern Christians, especially those who may not be in a position to study the Bible in any great depth and see for themselves the different images and different literary techniques that are used to depict the emerging Israelite religion. Though as Walton notes, “if we desire to understand the theological message of the text, we will benefit by positioning it within the worldview of the ancient cultures rather than simply applying out own cultural perspectives.”19 In the final section of the flood narrative, YHWH asserts that it is he who controls nature such as the animals, the wind, and the waters. It is YHWH who decides, despite Noah’s impatience, when Noah and his family shall leave the ark and who gives his final command that they “may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on earth.” Undoubtedly, the psychological implications on Dawkins, The God Delusion, 237. For a more detailed discussion of Dawkins’s view on the flood narrative see Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis, 102–3. 17 See also Russell in this volume. 18 Westermann, Genesis: A Practical Commentary, 66. 19 Walton, “Flood,” 315. 16

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the human characters of the flood narrative are an interesting angle from which to read the text. However in a theological reading of the text, the focus is not on how must it feel for Noah and his family to experience such turmoil and to have the weight of responsibility of YHWH’s command on them, but rather to see that although YHWH brings about total destruction, YHWH also has the power to restore creation to its original position and even to bestow blessing on it.20 There is no emphasis in the text on the behavior of the newly populated earth, or more accurately what had changed to make the behavior of the people (and animals) pleasing to YHWH. It would seem therefore that YHWH has complete faith in the plan of action that has been carried out. There is no need to double-check that all is in order, it is clear that the original audience of the text, and indeed the modern reader, should have faith in God and his actions. It is also interesting that it is YHWH’s command that brings about the repopulation of the earth. The creation of a new life and a new world order are completely at his instigation, and Noah, as a follower of YHWH and someone who “walks with God” is duty bound to obey. There is no questioning from Noah or his family, only acceptance and following through with the divine plan. Just as the text reminds the reader that “God remembered Noah,” and brought about change that was for the benefit for the world, humans would do well to remember that they ultimately do not control world order and events, only the creator has this power. It is God who chooses to save his people and the earth that has been created and it is YHWH’s determination that brings new life out of the chaos of human sin.21

“CREATOR” IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT The term “Creator” or ‫ בורא‬is often translated as “Maker” in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, where it is used in Blenkinsopp, Creation, Un-creation, Re-Creation, 145. Anonymous, “Flood,” in Ryken et al. (eds), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 293. 20 21

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 335 relation to God over fifty times. The question of the meaning is complicated by its connotation in the Pi‘el of “cut down” (e.g. Ezek 23:47). This meaning may also be found in the use of the word in Ezek 21:19, where it does not necessarily signify carving a signpost, but simply the act of cutting down a branch or sapling as a marker. If this meaning attests to the concrete form of the qal, the word may have meant “to form” or “to fashion” in the sense of carving or cutting out. In Ezek 21:19,22 the term does not necessarily signify carving a signpost, but simply the act of cutting down a branch or sapling, as a marker. This gives the idea of “to form” or “to fashion” in the sense of carving or cutting out. To thoroughly understand the idea of Creator in the sense that it is the name given to God in recognition of the role played in creation, it is important to briefly address creation in the Hebrew Bible, as this is where the notion of the deity as Creator develops from in the New Testament. In the text of the Hebrew Bible, the idea of creation demonstrates two different, yet interrelated connotations. Creation can refer to the primordial origin of our world, the beginning of history. Additionally, creation in the biblical sense can represent the continuing order and maintenance of the world. The deity is clearly the force that insures that order is put onto chaos, whether this chaos is the unknown situation before the creation of the earth, the lack of time before the division into night and day or even into the chaos and panic that a surge of water can instill in a human being. The two creation accounts in the book of Genesis (1:1–2:3; 2:4b–25) are connected with the former, as well as Wisdom literature’s account of cosmic creation in Prov 8:22–31. Creation as a “work-in-progress” is underlined in some of the Psalms (8, 19, 33) and Job 38:12–41:34. These two dimensions of creation are inseparably connected. In one sense, the creation accounts that depict the period of creation of the world also have significance for how the world is structured and ordered. Alternatively, sections of text that refer to the constant creative activity of God in the world often have the original act of creation “Mortal, mark out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to come; both of them shall issue from the same land. And make a signpost, make it for a fork in the road leading to a city” (NRSV). 22

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as their reference point. The sense of creation as a continuous action is also an aspect of the image of Creator or Maker, as in them, the image of a God who forms and shapes history is all too apparent. Even though it is clearly stated what has been created in the past in Genesis, God is also at work in a creative and transforming way in history, principally within the chosen people, as seen for example in the prophetic literature. God declares to the prophet Jeremiah “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”23 Christianity and the images of God24 presented in the Gospels follows the same teaching as that of the Hebrew Bible in seeing God (in a broad understanding) as the creator of all things from nothing and has made human beings in the image of God. While the synoptic Gospels do not directly address the idea of creation or God as Creator, the Gospel of John 1:1 makes it clear that it follows the traditional view that God was solely present at the start point of creation (“in the beginning”). Creator in Islam In terms of Islam, the idea of Creation and the deity, Allah, as Creator can be seen in some of the 99 Most Beautiful Names that are often used in the text of the Qur’an, for example:

Al-Quddūs (The Most Holy) This is often translated as “the most pure” showing an understanding of the fact that Allah is free from faults or defects. As an attribute of Allah it shows the holiness that Allah possesses as a divine being that is set apart from humanity and from the sin that all humans possess. Muslims tend to link this designation with the idea of Allah as Creator as the Creator is the Supreme Being, Jer 1:5 (NRSV). In the sense of God as a character in the text. The biblical text as a narrative does not explicitly depict the later idea of the Trinity and while it is acknowledged as a vital component of Christian understanding, the focus on this piece is to look to the biblical text, and as such Jesus and God as two distinct “characters.” 23 24

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 337 then the Creator must be the “most holy.” The term Quddūs is associated with the Arabic root Qadusa which carries the meaning “to be pure, holy, and spotless,” according to the Qur’an. Thus, in reference to Allah, this name is viewed as a pure being above all being; pure consciousness above all consciousness; pure life above all that is living.

Al-Khāliq (The Creator) This term is typically translated as the one who creates everything from nothing. Linked with this notion is the idea that the Creator is the one creates all things with the knowledge of what will happen to them. Linked with the name Al-Khāliq are the names Al-Bāri’, Al-Musawwir. The names are not synonymous in Muslim thinking, such that all three point to the act of creation. In fact within Islamic consideration, the process of creation is more detailed. If everything is to come from nothing, a plan must first be formulated (Al-Muqtadir), translated as the “Creator of all power,” the plan must be carried out as a process (Al-Bāri’), and finally, that which is created must be formed or fashioned (Al-Musawwir).

Al-Bāri’ (Maker of Order) The idea of making order would presuppose that before the order, there existed either nothing or chaos. This idea of Allah as creator is very much linked with the notion of Allah as Al-Khāliq. The verbal form of Al-Bāri’ which is used in every day Arabic speech would be best translated as “to whittle” as in carving a point on a stick or a pencil with a blade. Something that was dull and useless now has form, and as a result has a purpose and use. There is also the association with the term Bara’a which would be translated as “creator” in the sense of forming or creating something where nothing previously existed. In this sense, Allah is seen as the only instigator in the creation of the world as we humans perceive it. How else could the world have existed if Allah did not create it? Allah was the only thing to exist and therefore the only entity that could have brought about our existence. Interestingly, Muslims do not believe that Allah would need to have rested on the seventh day of Creation as Christians and Jews understand the story of Creation. Resting would be seen as human limitation as a result of fatigue that could not be associated with Allah (see 2:255).

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Allah as Creator in the Qur’anic Flood The flood story is told twice in the Qur’an, in Sura 11 and Sura 71. Noah (or the Prophet Nuh) is depicted in the Qur’an as a prophet who is a messenger of Allah with a dedication to the oneness of Allah. In the Qur’an he is depicted as warning others to turn away from worshipping idols and to accept Allah as Allah was the only one who could save them (23:23), especially from the certainty of the flood. The presentation of the flood and its certain destruction are clear in the Qur’an. Nuh asserts that the flood could only be put off if the people turned and submitted to Allah (7:59–64). Allah commanded Nuh to build a ship, but as he was constructing it, the chieftains passed by him and mocked him. When the ship was completed, it was loaded with animals and the household of Nuh, with another 76 who worshipped Allah (11:35– 41). Those who ignored Nuh and his message from Allah (including one of Noah’s own sons) were left behind and drowned (7:64). The flood in Qur’an is striking more for its destructive nature than its expansive and universal destruction. In fact, the flood would seem quite localized. Far from resulting in diminishing the impact of the flood in the Qur’anic text however, the image of Allah that is depicted is one of a deity who is in complete control of what has been created and can manipulate this creation, not for purely negative reasons, such as the destruction of those who do not worship Allah, but rather to allow those who wish to follow him, to do so without harassment or impediment. Reading the text of the Qur’an, one gets the impression that those who would have originally heard the verses would have been comforted by the idea that although they faced chaos and disorder in their own lives as a result of the deity that they worshipped, Allah was the creator and maintainer of order and peace in their lives.

COMPARING THE THREE IDEAS OF CREATOR It is clear that the Hebrew Bible uses the designation “Creator” (or “Maker” depending on translation) more than either the Gospels or the Qur’an. While the focus here is not on the numerical repetition of the term, it is interesting that in comparison to the texts of the four Gospels, the Hebrew Bible would appear to go to more effort to highlight the deity as a creator (even leaving the

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 339 texts of Genesis aside). It can safely be surmised that the idea of God as the creator of the world and humanity was an established theological concept before the formation of the gospel texts. The Gospels are unfalteringly christocentric in nature and focus on God as the Father of Jesus. As a result, the focus simply does not need to be on (re)educating the early Christian community on the concept of God as the creator of the world. The Hebrew Bible underlies and explains this idea by the designation ‫בורא‬ (Creator/Maker) and as the community would have been familiar with the idea, there would be no pedagogical or theological reason for over emphasizing the point to the detriment of a focus on the character of Jesus. In comparing the two theologies therefore, there are many similarities. God is the only creator, the sole presence at the beginning of the world and humanity. God has the power over what has been created and has the ability to place order on it, a fact attested to many times in the Hebrew Bible (Exod 15 being one of my favorite instances). In the Gospels it is Jesus who demonstrates this power in a physical way, such as walking on water (Matt 14: 22–33, Mark 6:45–52 and John 6:14–21) or calming a storm (Mark 4:35–40). The Gospels do tend to follow the same teaching as that of the Hebrew Bible in seeing God (in a broad understanding) as the creator of all things from nothing and has made human beings in the image of God. While the synoptic Gospels do not directly address the idea of creation or God as Creator, the Gospel of John 1:1 makes it clear that It follows the traditional view that God was solely present at the start point of creation (“in the beginning”). The idea of God as “living God” would also lend itself to the idea of God as Creator and many of the contexts where it is used highlight the monotheistic teaching of God as creator.25 Combining the two faiths’ idea of Creation therefore, the idea of God that is presented in the use of the image of “Creator” is one that God has an ordered control over earthly events. The creation of the heavens and earth is well organized and efficient; no time is wasted and God knows exactly what his creation, whether 25

Bauckham, God Crucified, 7.

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the earth itself, the animals, or humans will need to survive. God does not have to consult a team of project managers or experts in the field of construction, God alone can take on this venture, and does not need the assistance of others, an underlining of the monotheistic belief system of both religious outlooks.26 The idea of continuing creation highlights for the reader of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that it is God’s power, evident in the original act of creation, is ongoing; it never wanes, and God can be counted on as a stable and continuous presence in the lives of the faithful. As in the flood narrative, God remains in control of the water and therefore the lives of the humans in the account. In terms of Islam, the idea of Creation and the deity, Allah, as Creator can be seen in some of the 99 Most Beautiful Names, for example, Al-Quddūs (The Most Holy), Al-Khāliq (The Creator) and Al-Bāri’ (Maker of Order). From the analysis of these names and the theological instruction contained in the Qur’an, it can be summarized that although the three are not the same in Muslim theology, they all point to a single act of creation. This would be in line with the theology and teaching of Judaism and Christianity but, as previously seen, the process of creation in Islamic thinking is much more detailed and the three names can be seen as pointing to the three key “stages” of the act of creation. Allah planned creation, which can be seen as creating “all power” (a term that is consistent in all three faiths), the plan was then undertaken as a process and finally, what Allah had “created” then had to be “formed” or “fashioned” in a skilful manner, akin to the images of God as a potter in the Hebrew Bible (Isa 64:8). The three names also indicate the inherent Islamic view that Allah must be involved in the continuous creation of the world as if this were not the case, the world would seek to exist with Allah’s supervision.27 Integrating the three ideas of “Creator” in the three faiths therefore, it is quite simple to see the similarities in ideas. Even a perfunctory glance sees that the Creator acts alone, has created everything (nature and human) and has used a thought out plan for the process (whether creation is brought about in seven days or by 26 27

Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 11.

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 341 an alternative method, it is clear that creation is not something that is brought about in a incompetent manner). Nothing existed before the deity-creator decided it would. These “common” ideas bring about a basis to begin to view our own religious outlook in a different light as well as the religious beliefs of other religions. With creator, one aspect of creation that Christians tend not to focus on is the idea of “power.” This is both in the sense of the power that God has to display in order to bring about creation and order, but that God retains authority and power over what has been created. These ideas are an intrinsic part of a Christian theology of God but are not given as much attention as say the splendor of what has been created (e.g. impressive aspects of natural life). While there is no one reason for this, or indeed any particular skeptical agenda behind this, it would seem reasonable that the character of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels would be an underlying reason why the focus is not on power and dominance. Christians tend to view God as a Father or a kindly, forgiving deity and the idea that this deity would hold power and could possibly hold dominance over them would not fit in with their own personal (prayer) images of God. The idea of power and dominance also has a rather negative portrayal in modern media and politics. We give thanks if we live in a democratic society and if we have a voice and a say in how our country and political system is run. The idea that one being could dominate our lives and have the power of life, death and existence seems something frightening and something that would mean a lack of control over. This for the majority of modern Christians is not how they would perceive their deity. The idea of God as powerful or dominant is therefore left to one side as it seems more difficult for modern Christians to reconcile with their own view of God. There is no doubt that Muslims see Allah as a powerful Creator that holds a dominant stance over that which has been created. Yet there is no general belief that this is a negative thing. In fact the idea that Allah has control over creation (including humanity, whether Muslims or not) is very comforting. How can you worry about the future or the harm that may occur you if your creator is so powerful that they are able to create existence in the first instance is there as your protector? The idea that this power is used for safeguard is highlighted by the Islamic idea that Allah bothered to create humanity in the first instance. Rationally, it

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would be nonsense to go to so much effort for something that would not be safeguarded and protected. The placing of the three Beautiful Names in the list of 99 is interesting too in this regard. As the 99 names are usually paired or in groups, not in order to put a classification on them, but to highlight similarities or to elucidate the meaning of a name by grouping it with an opposite or similar name. It is interesting that the three “creation names” are linked with protection and care. For example, the names are followed with AlGhaffār, Al-Qahhār, Al-Wahhāb and Ar-Razzāq (the Forgiving, the Subduer, the Giver of All, and the Sustainer). These four names show how the “creation names” are linked with the idea of creation as an ongoing process in which Allah has control, though it is not to the detriment of creation that Allah has this role, rather they are safe and secure in the knowledge that Allah will provide. This insight can enlighten our Christian reluctance to represent God as powerful. Perhaps it would serve our image of God if we were to see God as a deity that possessed the “once-off” power to create humanity and nature, but that God’s power and control over this creation is something that underpins the idea of creation as a continuous process. God has control and is dominant over what has been created and this is something to be celebrated. In a world where increasingly creation is under threat, in a human form from war and famine and in an environmental sense from climate change and natural disasters, it would serve Christianity well to see that if God has created these things and we serve and worship him, then nurturing creation should be a prime activity of living a Christian life. We are primarily in a dominant and controlling position over nature and the environment, but we realize that there is responsibility with this position, to care and protect. We should inform our role and actions in this regard with the image of God portrayed in the name “Creator” or “Maker.” Just as God controls nature and creation as made apparent in the Islamic idea of Creator, God makes provision for its continuous care and betterment, especially for those who follow him (11:48). By using the process of comparative theology to investigate this image, the Muslim idea of a controlling and powerful deity does not seem as alien and strange to a Christian, and this applies to the understand of God in the flood narrative. The same would apply to a Jewish person (but as the center of comparative theology is the influence on one’s own faith from conducting the study, this

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY AND THE FLOOD NARRATIVE 343 work shall focus primarily on the Christian viewpoint). The Christian can learn more about their own idea of God, and how they image or imagine God by reflecting on both the similarities and the differences in the image between the three faiths. It is my belief that we are “forced” in some (positive) way to reflect on our own image and beliefs by engaging in the process. Essentially this is due to the shift in focus from one particular angle, i.e. the accepted view that God rested on the seventh day of creation in Christianity, to looking at the text through the lens of Islam and forcing ourselves as Christians to reflect on why we believe it and what it tells us about our image of God. There is never a question of us having to change or alter our beliefs in any way; rather we see them anew and in a newly inspired way.

WORKS CITED Anonymous. “Flood.” Pages 293–4 in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Edited by Leland Ryken, James C. Vilhoit, Tremper Longman, III. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Banchoff, Thomas F., ed. Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Bauckham, Richard. God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Clooney, Francis X. Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries between Religions Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. ———. “On Comparative Theology.” Journal of Comparative Theology website. Last Modified October 3, 2010. Accessed August 9, 2011. First Published in Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (2007). Online: http://www.comparativetheology.org/?page_id=49 Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006. Duffy, Stephen J. “A Theology of the Religions and/or a Comparative Theology?” Horizons 26 (1999): 105–15. Fretheim, Terence E. “The Book of Genesis: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections.” Pages 319–674 in The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 1. Edited by Terence E. Fretheim, Walter Brueggemann, and Walter C Kaiser. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994.

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Hiebert,Theodore. “Genesis.” Pages 3–25 in Theological Biblical Commentary. Edited by Gail O’Day and David Petersen. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. Hintersteiner, Norbert. “Intercultural and Interreligious (un)Translatability and the Comparative Theology Project.” Pages 468–94 in Naming and Thinking God in Europe Today: Theology in Global Dialogue. Edited by Norbert Hintersteiner. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. McGrath, Alister E. Theology: The Basics. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991. Moberly, R. W. L. The Theology of the Book of Genesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Schebera, Richard. “Comparative Theology: A New Method of Interreligious Dialogue.” Dialogue and Alliance 17 (2003): 7–18. Schmalz, Mathew N. “Tradition and Transgression in the Comparative Theology of Francis X. Clooney, S.J.” RStR 29 (2003): 131–36. Schuon, Frithjof. Understanding Islam. London: Allen & Unwin, 1963. Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Stanton, Joshua, “Seismic Shift in Seminary Education.” InterReligious Dialogue: Website of the Journal of InterReligious Dialogue. 20 April 2010. Cited 9 August 2011. Online: http://irdialogue.org/articles/seismic-shift-inseminary-education-by-joshua-stanton/. Walton, John H. “Flood.” Pages 315–26 in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch. Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Bolger. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003. Westermann, Claus. Genesis: A Practical Commentary. Translated by David Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987. Winters, Jeffrey, “Why we fear the unknown.” Psychology Today. May 2002. No pages. Cited 9 August 2011. Online: http:// www.psychologytoday.com/magazine/archive/2002/05. Youngs, Samuel J. “The Frontier of Comparative Theology.” JCT (2010): 1–10.

THE DELUGE, WRITTEN DIFFERENTLY: ANDRÉ CHOURAQUI’S DISTINCTIVE RENDERING OF THE FLOOD NARRATIVE (GENESIS 6:5–9:17) MURRAY WATSON DIOCESE OF LONDON, ONTARIO, CANADA ABSTRACT The Algerian-French-Israeli diplomat, interfaith pioneer and biblical translator André Chouraqui (1917–2007) distinguished himself in many ways, but he is perhaps best known for his ground-breaking French translation La Bible Chouraqui, first published in the 1970s. Chouraqui’s method—a ruggedly literal style, attempting to capture as much of the Hebrew undertext as possible in French—sets him apart from many other contemporary translators (and anticipates in some ways the work of later English-language translators like Everett Fox and Robert Alter). Through an examination of some of the unexpected or unusual renderings in Chouraqui’s translation of the Flood narrative, Watson highlights the particular value of this translation, while also noting some of its weaknesses and linguistic eccentricities. Especially in the francophone world, the name of André Chouraqui (1917–2007) has been well-known for decades, as a politician and an author, an interreligious pioneer, and an insightful commentator on many topics relative to Judaism and the Middle East. However, the achievement of which Chouraqui was arguably the proudest was his personal translation of the Bible—both the 345

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Jewish and Christian Scriptures—completed in the mid-1970s and continually revised and improved upon until his death in July 2007.1 Chouraqui’s translation, La Bible Chouraqui,2 stands out from all other standard French translations because of the specific goals its translator set for it, and its very different literary and theological flavor. Chouraqui, an Algerian-born and French-schooled Jew who made aliyah to the young State of Israel in the 1950s, sought (like many Jewish translators before him)3 to hew as closely as possible to the original language he was translating, even when this yielded a final version that could seem awkward, clumsy, or maladroit. His translation drew upon older (and sometimes obscure) French forms when he felt they captured more fully his own sense of the underlying text, and he did not hesitate to create neologisms where he felt standard French vocabulary was simply inadequate to the task at hand. Often deliberately steering away from more “orthodox” translations, he sought to bring the Scriptures to life in a way that would strike contemporary readers as fresh, bold, daring, and revelatory. For these efforts, he was both praised as a cuttingedge innovator by some, and disparaged as a quirky amateur by others. There is no question that his translation has an idiosyncratic quality to it; whether that is its great strength or its inherent weakness continues to be debated by scholars and other translators. For readers encountering La Bible Chouraqui for the first time, Genesis is often their inaugural taste of that Chouraquian strangeness, which can be initially jarring, puzzling and—for some—off-putting. Others, however, by persevering through those difficulties, frequently find new depths of semantic and theological For an overview of Chouraqui’s life and work, see: Watson, “Translation for Transformation,” especially Chapters 1 and 2. 2 Published by Desclée de Brouwer; the most recent edition is from 2007. 3 According to the very thorough analysis of Aslanov (Pour comprendre la Bible), Chouraqui is actually the intellectual heir of a long and distinguished tradition among Jewish translators, dating back to the Septuagint and Aquila. On this, see especially the first part of Aslanov’s second chapter, “Rupture et continuité : André Chouraqui face aux traductions grecques et latines de la Bible,” 46–62. 1

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meaning when they are forced to grapple with the unexpected word-choices and unaccustomed vocabulary, which draw them up short and force them to delve into the reasons behind Chouraqui’s wordings (and there is never anything random or arbitrary about them). For these reasons, I believe that a study of Chouraqui’s rendering of the Genesis flood narrative can be instructive and enlightening, and can serve as a representative entry-point into the larger work of this acclaimed (if sometimes puzzlement-inducing) linguist and exegete. In his several published autobiographies,4 Chouraqui speaks of the fascination he had with language from childhood onward. Indeed, he grew up in a household, and a world, of Arabic, French, Hebrew, and Ladino, and had a nagging sense that the vernacular translations from Hebrew he encountered often missed something of the richness—and playfulness—of that language. While there are nuances of any language that transfer only with extreme difficulty into another, Chouraqui was engaged in a life-long quest to communicate as much of the “linguistic freight” of Hebrew as possible into his own French edition. A prime example of this is the question of how to translate the Hebrew ‫ אדם‬when it occurs in the first chapters of Genesis. The folk-etymology of Genesis wishes to relate this term for a human being to the feminine noun ‫אדמה‬, referring to the soil/clay (and probably the “redness” of it, since the triliteral root ‫ם‬-‫ד‬-‫א‬ seems related to the notion of redness).5 Suggestions have been Ce que je crois (1979); L’amour fort comme la mort: Une autobiographie (1990); Mon testament: Le feu de l’Alliance (2001). 5 “Now this man was called Adam, which in Hebrew signifies ‘red,’ because he was made from the red earth kneaded together; for such is the colour of the true virgin soil.” (Josephus, Ant. 1:34–36, as quoted in Kvam, Schearing, and Ziegler, eds. Eve and Adam, 67). “… Semitic writing loves such homophones. Similarly, Esau came to birth reddish in color (v. 23, admoni), and is called Edom because he craves some of Jacob’s ‘red stuff’ (adom), probably lentils or kidney beans. The whole tale is told to explain his fatherhood of the Edomites and the red earth (cf. Gen 2:7, adam) they inhabited.” (Sloyan, Preaching From the Lectionary, 166) 4

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made as to ways to capture the ‫ ֲא ָד ָמה— ָא ָדם‬play on words in European languages like English and French: human—humus?6 Earthling—earth?7 Terrestrial—terra? Each of these is at least feasible, although the last two have gained, in English, more of a “science fiction” coloration that makes them less than well-suited for an ancient biblical text.8

“In Genesis, ‘the Lord God formed man [Hebrew adam] of the dust of the ground [adamah]’ (2.7); the Hebrew pun may be duplicated in English with ‘human’ and ‘humus’ (from the same Latin root): man is an ‘earthling,’ a creature of earth or clay.” (Ferber, Dictionary of Literary Symbols, 43). 7 “The narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 is symbolic. The names tell us this. In the narrative, Adam is not the name of a person. It is the Hebrew word for man, derived from the Hebrew word adamah, the term for clay, soil, or earth. As Bloom notes, a good translation of Adam would be earthling. Since Adam is male, I will call him Earthman. In the narrative, God creates Earthman from earth.” (Williams, Doing Without Adam and Eve, 89). 8 In French, the adjective terrestre is much broader, and more common, that the corresponding English adjective. “Terrestre : Qui appartient, qui a rapport à la terre, à notre planète … Qui appartient à la terre, à la partie solide du globe, par opposition à ce qui a rapport à la mer, aux lacs, aux fleuves … En termes religieux, il signifie Qui intéresse ce monde, qui est temporel, par opposition à Spirituel et à Éternel.” (Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8th ed. [1932-35]; Online at “The ARTFL Project: Dictionnaires d’autrefois”: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?st rippedhw=terrestre. Retrieved June 26, 2012) [Earthly: That which pertains to, or is connected with, the earth, with our planet … That which pertains to the earth, to the solid part of the globe, as opposed to that which is connected to the sea, to lakes or rivers … In religious terms, it means : that which involves this world, which is temporal, as opposed to that which is spiritual and eternal.] “En hébreu, le signifiant adam connote l'idée générale de ce qui est terrestre, de ce qui est à la surface de la terre; il renvoie à un autre terme, adamah, qui signifie la croûte terrestre, la terre comme matériau.” (Boisseau, De la traduction, 29). [In Hebrew, the concept adam connotes the general idea of that which is earthly—which exists upon the surface of the earth. It refers back to another term, adamah, which means the crust of the earth, the earth as something material]. 6

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Chouraqui’s choice is, simultaneously, ingenious and unanticipated. He translates ‫ אדמה‬with the French noun glèbe, and ‫ אדם‬with the derivative adjective glébeux. Neither of these is a term in regular use in contemporary French, and one needs to search into dictionaries of historical French to find a suitable definition for glèbe, which is, in the end, an entirely legitimate word, though from a fairly rarefied semantic register.9 In older French, glèbe denotes land—and particularly land that is worked for agricultural production.10 It has, however, an additional nuance to recommend it: glèbe is a specifically feudal term, denoting the land an indentured serf worked as an agent or employee of his lord—the land to which he/she, literally and legally, belonged.11 The glèbe—glébeux dyad, therefore, expresses both the idea of the earth as the raw material from which humanity was formed by God, and also the (thoroughly biblical) idea that humanity tills the earth, not as its “Glèbe : s’est dit … dans la Jurisprudence féodale, en parlant Des serfs attachés à un héritage, et qu’on vendait avec le fonds … se dit, poétiquement, Du champ, de la terre que l’on travaille, que l’on cultive » (Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 6th ed. [1835]; Online at “The ARTFL Project: Dictionnaires d’autrefois”: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/ dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=glebe. Retrieved June 26, 2012). [Glebe: in feudal jurisprudence, this term was used to speak of serfs who were attached to a property, and who would be sold along with the land … Poetically, it is used of fields and pieces of land which are worked or cultivated.” 10 The agricultural connotation seems particularly apt, given Gen 2:15: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” 11 The term “glebe” still exists in English, with an essentially feudal meaning: it refers to the land adjoining an English church’s property, whose rent or other income was used to support the local priest. See: J. A. Cannon “glebe.” Oxford Companion to British History. Online. Retrieved June 27, 2012. “Glebe” can also mean (in both French and English) “a clump of dirt,” and it is used in that sense in Thomas Gray’s classic poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: “… Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke …” 9

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masters, but as its stewards, responsible to a Higher Authority. Chouraqui is thus able to link ‫ ֲא ָד ָמה— ָא ָדם‬in a way that makes the connectedness plain, even to his French readers, but he does so in a way that is, in equal parts, brilliant and eccentric. This is one of the many examples in La Bible Chouraqui where Chouraqui has mined the rich history of the French language to find a word— even a rare, technical, largely unfamiliar word—which would express, as thoroughly as possible, aspects of a biblical expression that he believed needed to be conveyed, so that as little of the meaning as possible be lost in the transfer. A similar procedure is used by Chouraqui in his rendering of the Hebrew noun ‫עֹוף‬, which most translations give as “bird”—but which many linguists suggest is broader, since it can also include insects and other “winged/flying things,” including seraphim12 (since the corresponding verb, ‫עוף‬, means “to fly” or “fly about”). When ‫ עוף‬occurs in the flood narrative,13 Chouraqui translates it with the somewhat unusual French noun “volatile” which, although it has a very different meaning in English, nevertheless is perfectly good French; French dictionaries define it simply as “an animal that flies,” and note that it is sometimes used as an adjective and sometimes as a noun.14 The “-atile” suffix often means “capable of” or “apt to” do something, and the word has the added benefit of being clearly derived from the French verb “voler” (to fly). Whereas many other French versions choose the simpler (and apparently more straightforward) “oiseau” (BFC, TOB, Darby, BdJ), Chouraqui seems to have judged that common term incapable of communicating the breadth of the Hebrew, which he felt was necessary to properly appreciate it. See, for example, Isa 6:2,6. 6:7,20; 7:3,8,14,21,23; 8:17,19f; 9:2,10. 14 See “The ARTFL Project: Dictionnaires d’autrefois”: http:// artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=volatile At times in the past, “volatile” has had the same meaning in English: “This was first used as a noun meaning a ‘creature that flies,’ and it was also a collective word for ‘birds’. It derives from Old French volatil from Latin volare ‘to fly’.” Julia Cresswell, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. Online. S.v. “volatile”. Retrieved June 27, 2012.) 12 13

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One of the most important questions in this part of Genesis is: how to translate the Hebrew ‫( ֵּת ָבה‬tēbâ), which English versions have usually rendered as “ark” (and most French versions as “arche”)? Chouraqui, perhaps conscious that “ark/arche” had taken on a somewhat exalted quality (“Noah’s Ark” and, later on, “the Ark of the Covenant”), chooses to de-mystify the term by rendering it as “caisse,” a chest or a rigid sort of box made from a solid material: In Gen 6–9, the word is used twenty-six times to denote the huge, rectangular, box-shaped vessel which Noah, his family and the animals entered to escape the judgment of the flood. In Exo 2:3, 5, it denotes the tiny vessel in which Moses was hidden among the reeds in the Nile river to escape the wrath of the pharaoh. Generally thought to be an Egyptian loan word …, it is found only in Gen 6–9 and Exod 2, and is to be distinguished from the much more common word for ‘ark,’ ʾărôn, used to refer, among other things, to the ark of the covenant.15

It would seem that Chouraqui wishes for his readers (many of whom will not know Hebrew) to understand that there are two different Hebrew words being used, one for the floating refuge which contains Noah, his family and the animals, and another for the portable sacred chest which will later hold the stone tablets of the Covenant. The latter term, ‫ ֲארֹון‬, he translates as “coffre”—another word for a chest, but intentionally distinct from “caisse,” to show that the two words are not interchangeable. Chouraqui’s goal is to enable those without ready access to the biblical languages to see both similarities and differences that can sometimes be obscured by vernacular translation—and, in fact, are obscured when “ark/arche” is used for both. One of Chouraqui’s preoccupations is to render transparent for his readers distinctive elements of Semitic syntax that are sometimes elided by translators because they would result in a translation that was tedious or inelegant. One of these elements that he consistently pays attention to is the use of cognate constructions 15

Harris, Gleeson, and Waltke, eds., TWOT, s.v. “‫ת ָבה‬.” ֵּ

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(cognate accusatives, datives, etc.): “she dreamed a dream,” “he sacrificed a sacrifice,” etc. Because such repetition in close proximity sounds awkward and clumsy, many translators have tended to avoid it in the interests of fluidity in the receptor language, and have chosen other translational options (i.e., “she had a dream,” “he offered a sacrifice”). Chouraqui’s near-obsession with literality means that he wishes to signal these constructions in his text whenever possible. For example, in Gen 6:14, the Hebrew reads (in part): ‫וְׁ ָ ָֽכ ַּפ ְׁר ָ ָּ֥ת‬ ‫ּומ ֖חּוץ ַּב ָֽכ ֶׂפר‬ ִ ‫א ָ ָ֛תּה ִמ ַּ ָּ֥ביִת‬. Chouraqui has noticed the use of a cognate construction here (‫) ַּב ָֽכ ֶׂפר … וְׁ ָ ָֽכ ַּפ ְׁר ָת‬, building upon the triliteral root ‫( כפר‬kaf-pehresh). Many English and French translations will gloss over this relationship for reasons of literary smoothness: Cover it … with pitch (NAB, NET, NRSV, JPS Tanakh) Caulk it … with pitch (NJB) Waterproof it … with tar (NLT) Tu l’enduiras de poix (Bible en français courant, Darby) Tu l’enduiras de bitume (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible de Jérusalem)

Chouraqui, by contrast, says “Asphalte-la … avec de l’asphalte”— clearly he is trying to highlight the similarity between the cognate verb and noun. The root ‫ כפר‬often has the sense of “covering” (especially “to cover over people’s sins,” as in Yom Kippur or, in its biblical occurrence, ‫י֧ ֹום ַּה ִכ ֻּפ ִ ִ֣רים‬, Yom Ha-Kippūrîm; see Lev 23:27). Part of the challenge comes from the Hebrew text, which speaks of the wood used for the ark’s construction as ‫( ג ֶׂפר‬which some older translations simply gave as “gopher wood”; see KJV and NAB).16 This is the only place that ‫ ג ֶׂפר‬occurs in the Bible, making it exceptionally difficult to determine with precision what botanical species is being referred to. “The etymology of the word is the only guide we have in attempting to identify this wood. By most it is held that the gopher is the same as one of the well known cypress trees—the Cupressus sempervirens, or ever-green cypress, one of the Coniferæ or cone-bearing family of trees. Two things have led to the supposition that the cypress is referred to here. On the one hand, it is held that there is a strong phonetic 16

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The fact that the ark is to be covered with ‫ ָֽכ ֶׂפר‬, which sounds suspiciously like ‫ג ֶׂפר‬, has led several commentators to suggest that what is being referred to here is some sort of resinous or gumexuding wood (pine? cypress? etc.), and that the wood’s own resin is to be used to seal the ark and make it watertight. A second cognate construction is underscored by Chouraqui in 8:20: “il fait monter des montées sur l’autel.” Here, the context is Noah’s offering of burnt sacrifices once the Flood was over, and many translations simply say “he offered/presented holocausts/ burnt offerings on the altar”; “[il] offrit des holocaustes sur l’autel.” But once again, there is a relationship inherent in the Hebrew words used that Chouraqui does not want us to miss: both the verb and the noun are derivatives of the triliteral root ‫( עלה‬fortunately, French possesses a comparable “faire X” construction that suitably communicates the causative nuance of the Hifil ‫ וַּ ַּי ַָּּ֥על‬here). A third example of this syntactic structure is to be found in 9:14, which the NRSV renders as “When I bring clouds over the earth….” The Hebrew here plays upon a verb and a noun derived from the same triliteral root, ‫ענן‬. In its Piel form (which occurs only in this verse), the verb seems to mean “to cause something to appear”; the related noun, ‫ ָענָ ן‬, refers to a mass of clouds. There is no easy way to translate this relationship in English (“When I cloud over with clouds”?) or in French, but Chouraqui is determined to highlight the similarity, which he does with the phrasing “quand je ferai nuer la nuée sur la terre” [“when I shall make-cloud the cloud upon the earth”]. Here, as in other locations, Chouraqui does not hesitate to bend French syntax or vocabulary to serve his primary goal, which is the reproducing of the Hebrew as closely as possible, resemblance between the Greek name for the cypress and the Hebrew gopher, and, on the other hand, the cypress must have been a common tree in the district in which most likely the ark was constructed, while the well known durability of the timber would probably attract Noah to it. But as this word occurs only in Gen. vi. 14, we must be satisfied with the general supposition, that some one of the Coniferæ is referred to.” (Duns, Biblical Natural Science, 1:185). The related term ‫( גָ ְׁפ ִרית‬generally translated as brimstone, sulphur, or pitch) occurs in 7 places (Gen 19:24; Deut 29:22; Job 18:15; Ps 11:6; Isa 30:33; 34:9; Ezek 38:22).

354

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even when the result is less than fluid French. His sentence stands out from other parallel translations for this reason. A characteristic quality of Chouraqui’s translational enterprise is its effort to reproduce biblical idioms as literally as possible in French, even when the resulting phrases make little or no sense in the receptor language. This goal comes through particularly clearly in several of the lines of his version of the flood. Very often, the expression used in biblical Hebrew for the making of a covenant is (literally) “to cut a covenant” (‫; ָכ ַּרת ְׁב ִרית‬ see Gen 9:11; 15:18; 21:17; 21:32, etc.). However, in some contexts, the expression used is ‫קּום ְׁב ִרית‬, “to raise up/erect a covenant” (e.g. Gen 9:9,11,17; 17:7,19,21, etc.). In the relevant flood context, Chouraqui has employed, on several occasions, the somewhat unexpected (but strictly literal) French “lever un pacte;”17 6:18 9:9 9:11 9:17

Je lève mon pacte avec toi… Et moi, me voici, je lève mon pacte avec vous … … je lève mon pacte avec vous Voici le signe du pacte que j’ai levé entre moi et entre toute chair …

Is there a significant difference in nuance between the two verbs? William J. Dumbrell argues that there is: [In Exod 6:2–9] Yahweh is acting in the exodus liberation in response to his covenant with the patriarchs (6:2), the covenant he now confirms (note the use of the Hebrew heqim The use of the French “pacte” to translate covenant (rather than the more usual French “alliance” or “testament”) is consistent with Chouraqui’s attempt, throughout his translation, to studiously avoid the use of “theologically sanctified” translations, which often contain within them the “baggage” of centuries of inherited interpretive traditions, and do not, therefore—at least in Chouraqui’s view—bring the reader into contact with the biblical text with the same immediacy as a term that is somewhat fresher or less weighted with traditional religious meaning. In his New Testament translation, this means rendering the Greek ἀπόστολος with envoyé (instead of apôtre), references to the Holy Spirit with le Souffle Sacré (instead of l’Esprit Saint), and the Greek ἄγγελος with messager (instead of ange). 17

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berit in v. 4). I have argued (1984, 25–26) that the Hebrew verb qum, when used with the Hebrew berit (Gen 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17; 17:7, 19, 21; Exod 6:4; Lev 26:9; Deut 8:18; 2 Kgs 23:3), means “cause to stand” in the hiph’il conjugation (heqim). It always means to give further expression to (i.e., “to establish”) a covenant previously granted by God, in this case in Genesis 15:18.18

Similarly interesting is Chouraqui’s use of the uncommon French verb forcir to translate the Hebrew ‫( גָ ַּבר‬7:18,19,20,24). There is no question that the triliteral root connotes strength, power and force—it is at the basis of the terms for a strong young man (‫)גֶׂ ֶׂבר‬, a warrior/champion (‫)גִ בֹור‬, and the abstract noun for ָ ְׁ‫)ג‬. Since water is not normally spoken of as strength/might (‫בּורה‬ “strong” or exhibiting strength in English or French, translators have generally opted for a different, more colloquial phrasing. For example, the verb ‫ וַּ יִ גְׁ ְׁב ָּ֥רּו‬is rendered in the following ways: 7:18 7:18 7:18 7:18 7:18

And the waters prevailed (KJV) The waters swelled (NAB, revised edition; NRSV) The waters rose (New Jerusalem Bible) Puis le niveau monta (Bible en français courant) Les eaux montèrent (Bible de Jérusalem)

How might a translator desirous of doing so maintain the connection to the base concept of “strength”? Once again, Chouraqui has delved into the linguistic breadth of French, and has drawn out the regional verb forcir, “to grow stronger, to increase in strength,”19 and manifestly related to the French noun force, Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel, n.p. If Dumbrell’s suggestion is correct, then Chouraqui’s use of the French verb “lever” (to raise/lift up) could suggest the idea that the covenant had somehow “fallen [into abeyance]” or “declined” over time, and needed to be “raised up” once more . Since this is, in effect, the “primordial covenant,” one could rightfully ask: what prior covenant could be in need of renewing—unless it be the original relationship of humanity to God, broken by the events narrated in Gen 3? 19 “Terme provincial. Devenir plus fort, surtout en parlant des enfants. Cet enfant a beaucoup forci” [A regional term: to become stronger, 18

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“strength, power”; he uses it consistently in 7:18,19,20 and 24. Inasmuch as he can, Chouraqui wishes for his readership to realize that the realm of idioms is not entirely identical in Hebrew and French. In Gen 8:9, the Hebrew says, literally, that the dove “did not ָ ‫וְׁ ָֽל‬ find a resting-place for the sole of its foot” (‫א־מ ְׁצ ָא ֩ה ַּהיֹונָָ֙ ה ָמנ֜ ַֹּוח‬ ‫ף־רגְׁ ָ֗ ָלּה‬ ַּ ‫) ְׁל ַּכ‬. It is an idiom that Chouraqui has reproduced exactly in French: “La palombe n’a pas trouvé de repos pour la plante de sa patte”. In doing so, however, he has chosen a different translational strategy from many other French and English versions: 8:9

But the dove could find no place to perch (NAB, revised edition) 8:9 But the dove, finding nowhere to perch (NJB) 8:9 Mais elle ne trouva aucun endroit où se percher (BFC)

Here, however, more so than in other places, Chouraqui is not alone in the more literal path he has chosen, and his rendering corresponds, more or less, to that of a number of other mainstream translations: 8:9 8:9 8:9

But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot (KJV) The dove could not find a resting place for its feet (NET) But the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot (Everett Fox, Five Books of Moses) 8:9 But the dove could not find a resting place for its foot (JPS Tanakh) 8:9 Mais la colombe ne trouva pas où poser la plante de son pied (Darby)

The Hebrew noun ‫ ראש‬can have a very wide range of idiomatic connotations in the Bible. In addition to its foundational, literal meaning (“head”), it can mean “the beginning,” “the top of something,” “the first in a sequence,” “a leader” or “the best of especially when speaking of children: This child has become a lot stronger.] (From Émile Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française (1872–77); online at : “Dictionnaires d’autrefois”: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgibin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=forcir)

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something.”20 When it occurs in 8:5 (‫אשי ֶׂ ָֽה ָה ִ ָֽרים‬ ָּ֥ ֵּ ‫) ָר‬, most translations will speak of “the tops/peaks of the mountains” appearing as the floodwaters recede. However, as we might expect, our translator seeks to hew as closely as possible to the basic Hebrew metaphor, and he prefers not to substitute synonyms or contextual equivalents; for him, the expression in 8:5 remains the concrete—and somewhat picturesque—“les têtes des montagnes.” Inasmuch as ‫ ראש‬occurs relatively frequently in Genesis,21 this at least permits the reader not versed in Hebrew to notice a literary leitmotif that runs throughout the text—and, perhaps, to appreciate how common ‫ ראש‬is in Hebrew, in both its anatomical and idiomatic colorations, much more so than “head” is in English, or “tête” is in French. While they may be unusual, good arguments can at least be made for many of the choices Chouraqui has made in his translation. Where he chooses a strange or unaccustomed term, he seems to do to strategically, in an effort to highlight some linguistic, cultural, or religious aspect of the term he is translating. There is no doubt that his wordings often draw the unsuspecting reader up short, provoking puzzlement and (sometimes secondarily) appreciation and insight of the subtleties of Chouraqui’s wordchoices. But it is possible to overdo even the best of strategies, and at times, Chouraqui’s renderings can seem overly exotic, pedantic, or “Within the Hebrew Bible the noun rōš (“head”) has a broad semantic range. It can have an anatomical meaning, or a meaning derived from the literal sense as in the ‘top’ of a mountain or hill and so on. A second principal value centers around the notion of ‘first,’ as in the first of a series. Certainly the notion of ‘head over’ as in ‘social authority’ is related to this second meaning. In texts such as 1 Chr. 5.12; 23.8, 11 (cf. Jud. 11.11) the meaning of ‘beginning’ gives way to the meaning of ‘priority’ as with ‘authority’ in social relationships.” (Miletic, “One Flesh”, 76, citing S. Bedale, “The Meaning of κεφαλή in the Pauline Epistles,” in JTS 5 [1954], 911–915). 21 34 occurrences, in Gen. 1:1; 2:10; 3:15; 8:5, 13; 10:10; 11:4; 13:4; 25:25; 26:1; 28:12, 18f; 32:18; 33:2; 38:28; 40:13, 16f, 19f; 41:20; 46:21; 47:31; 48:14, 17f; 49:3, 26 20

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excessive, reading more than necessary into mundane words that do not always necessarily hide deep, dark linguistic secrets that need exposing. For example, does Chouraqui’s use of the more rarefied French term “lunaison” (used in 8:4,5,13,14) improve upon the more usual French word for a month (“mois”)? It could be argued that this specific French noun, because of its transparent association with “lune” (the moon), more effectively reminds the reader (more often than not, a Gentile) that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one, with its months based on the cycles of the moon.22 This is, of course, an important cultural tidbit that non-Jews need to be aware of, to understand ancient and contemporary Judaism, and avoid cultural misapprehensions. However, it seems doubtful if the distinctively lunar quality of the Jewish counting of time is the primary point the biblical authors are trying to make when they use the Hebrew term for a month, ‫ח ֶׂדש‬. By using such a term—which inevitably ends up drawing attention to itself, by dint of its unusualness—Chouraqui has perhaps focused his readers’ magnifying glass a little too closely on a matter that is not really the point of the story.23 Are such “mini-diversions” ultimately helpful, or do they risk becoming distractions on a narrative level? Perhaps such information would be better relegated to a footnote or accompanying commentary, so that it is preserved and The French “lunaison” specifically refers to the period that elapses between the appearance of the new moon and the ending of the moon’s last quarter. See the definition of “lunaison” at: http://artflx.uchica go.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=lunaison 23 If anything, many lexicographers believe that the root ‫ חדש‬is connected with the ideas of newness and freshness, more so than with the moon itself. “Chadash is a beautiful, refreshing word, which means ‘to renew,’ ‘to repair,’ or ‘to restore.’ It is one of the words that brought joy to the prophets as they spoke it, and delight and hope to the people of Israel when they heard it. Two other words are formed from the root of this verb meaning ‘new,’ ‘new moon,’ or ‘month’ since the moon was ‘restored’ each month. Chadash can also refer to the refurbishing and restoration of buildings.” (Carpenter and Comfort, Holman Treasury, 150, s.v. “Renew”). 22

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communicated, but in a way that does not “zoom in” on what are probably subsidiary aspects of the text. In 7:22, our translator provides, as a French equivalent of the Hebrew ‫ ָ ָֽח ָר ָבה‬, “l’assèchement” (roughly, “the drying-up” or “that which has been dried up”).24 Other translations simply render it as “the dry/solid land”/“la terre sèche/ferme.” Certainly, it is a word worth drawing our attention to, since it is a dis legomenon, found (at least with this vocalization) only here and in 2 Kgs 2:8. The term seems to be connected to the idea of dryness or drought (‫ ;ח ֶׂרב‬Judg 6:37,39–40). However, is it primarily the fact of the ground’s dryness that the narrative wishes us to pay attention to—or is “the dry ground” more properly the backdrop for the action? Does the choice of an unexpected term unnecessarily exaggerate the term’s importance here, and lead us on something of a linguistic “wild good chase”? Finally, we note Chouraqui’s use of the French expression agoniser to render the Hebrew verb ‫“( גָ וַּ ע‬to expire, to breathe one’s final breath”).25 He has selected a French term—and, again, not a common one—related to the term agonie, traditionally used for the final stage leading up to death (and itself derived from the Greek ἀγών, a struggle, or a strenuous athletic competition). Certainly, the biblical authors could have used the more usual Hebrew verb for dying, ‫( מות‬which is, in fact, used in 7:22); does the fact that they did not suggest that they wished to place the focus on the specific process of dying (rather than the fact of death itself)? Inasmuch as the verb seems largely mentioned in passing, it seems reasonable that it might simply be a case of vocabulary variation for literary effect, and Chouraqui’s specific choice of words here seems likely to underscore a nuance that is likely not the central focus. However, unlike most English and French translations, his insistence on using a verb other than “to die” does avoid the muddying of the waters that often occurs when a single English or French word is used to translate what are, in actuality, two different and distinct Hebrew terms. Used also by Chouraqui in 8:7, where it is translating a Hebrew phrase with what is actually a different verb (‫)יבש‬: ‫ד־יְׁב ֶׂשת ַּה ַּ ֖מיִ ם ֵּמ ַּ ָּ֥על ָה ָ ָֽא ֶׂרץ‬ ָּ֥ ‫ַּע‬ 25 Used in Genesis in 6:17; 7:21; 25:8, 17; 35:29; 49:33. 24

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André Chouraqui was an unquestioned polymath, and the depth and breadth of his linguistic erudition shines through in the care he uses in his translation, both in grasping the (often multiple) facets of a term’s meaning, and in selecting a corresponding French expression that is accurate and (in many cases) both startling and evocative. The literalness he desires to achieve in his French version has often pushed him to seek out words from older or more technical semantic registers, to convey a sense of semantic clarity, translational consistency and a respect for certain Semitic constructions (such as cognates) that marks him out as unique in his field. It was an approach that had been adopted by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig for their groundbreaking 1936 German translation of the Hebrew Bible,26 and one that Everett Fox would employ in more recent decades, in his criticallyacclaimed English translations.27 Within modern French literature, Chouraqui was a pioneer and an innovator, and was unapologetic about what other, more “literary” translators sometimes caricatured as an eccentric, idiosyncratic, or gauche style. His passion—for the Word and for its component words—sometimes pushed him to conclusions that we can, in retrospect, question or challenge in particular cases. The Chouraqui Scriptures were the remarkable fruit of one man’s personal convictions about the Bible and the need to “re-invent” its wording for a culture for whom the Bible had become something banal and taken for granted—paradoxical, perhaps, in an era of widespread biblical illiteracy, when people had less direct engagement with the biblical text than their parents and grandparents. It was a deafness that Chouraqui sought to pierce by accentuating the Bible’s literary and cultural strangeness, so that people might hear it with new ears, and be drawn into their own grappling with its meanings. A one-person translation project of this magnitude demands such a prolonged and intense personal investment that we can perhaps forgive André Chouraqui if he does not always maintain the kind of cool, professional distance that the Enlightenment would expect from a translator. His Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung. The Five Books of Moses and Give Us a King!: Samuel, Saul, and David: A New Translation of Samuel I and II. 26 27

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fingerprints are all over the text, testifying to his enthusiasm and experimentation, and fusing the translational and interpretive tasks into an amalgam that continues to provoke admiration, curiosity, and (occasionally) imitation. While La Bible Chouraqui may not be ideal as a Bible-lover’s primary translation, it contains enough grist for comparison and reflection that many French Christians and Jews keep it alongside other, more venerable versions, to cast light upon difficult passages (or, perhaps, to enshadow seemingly simple, straightforward ones!). Chouraqui’s attempt, however, has been subject to the same types of criticism as some of his intellectual confreres, who have similarly attempted a more “Hebraized” way of translating into the vernacular. Perhaps the most eloquent critic of this approach has been the literary critic, Hebrew scholar, and translator Robert Alter, who speaks of such an exaggerated emphasis on philology as one of the great translational heresies: For the philologist, the great goal is the achievement of clarity … The simplest case, but a pervasive one, consists of getting a handle on the meaning of particular terms. It is truly helpful, for example, to know that biblical naḥal most commonly indicates not any sort of brook, creek, or stream but the kind of freshet, called a wadi in both Arabic and modern Hebrew, that floods a dry desert gulch during the rainy months and vanishes in the heat of the summer. Suddenly, Job’s “my brothers have betrayed like a naḥal” (Job 6:14) becomes a striking poetic image, where before it might have been a minor puzzlement. But philological clarity in literary texts can quickly turn into too much of a good thing. Literature in general, and the narrative prose of the Hebrew Bible in particular, cultivates certain profound and haunting enigmas, delights in leaving its audiences guessing about motives and connections, and, above all, loves to set ambiguities of word choice and image against one another in an endless interplay that resists neat resolution. In polar contrast, the impulse of the philologist is—here a barbarous term nicely catches the tenor of the activity—“to disambiguate” the terms of the text. The general result when applied to translation is to reduce, simplify, and denature the Bible. These unfortunate consequences are all the more pronounced when the philologist, however acutely trained in

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MURRAY WATSON that discipline, has an underdeveloped sense of literary diction, rhythm, and the uses of figurative language; and that, alas, is often the case in an era in which literary culture is not widely disseminated even among the technically educated. The unacknowledged heresy underlying most modern English versions of the Bible is the use of translation as a vehicle for explaining the Bible instead of representing it in another language, and in the most egregious instances this amounts to explaining away the Bible. This impulse may be attributed not only to a rather reduced sense of the philological enterprise but also to a feeling that the Bible, because of its canonical status, has to be made accessible—indeed, transparent—to all. (The one signal exception to all these generalizations is Everett Fox’s 1995 American version of the Torah. Emulating the model of the German translation by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig [begun in 1925, completed in 1961], which flaunts Hebrew etymologies, preserves nearly all repetitions of Hebrew terms, and invents German words, Fox goes to the opposite extreme: his English has the great virtue of reminding us verse after verse of the strangeness of the Hebrew original, but it does so at the cost of often being not quite English and consequently of becoming a text for study rather than a fluently readable version that conveys the stylistic poise and power of the Hebrew.) Modern translators, in their zeal to uncover the meanings of the biblical text for the instruction of a modern readership, frequently lose sight of how the text intimates its meanings—the distinctive, artfully deployed features of ancient Hebrew prose and poetry that are the instruments for the articulation of all meaning, message, insight, and vision. 28

Although Alter is not specifically addressing Chouraqui’s work, Chouraqui would likely come in for both praise and rebuff from him—praise for having striven (in the footsteps of Buber and Rosenzweig) to privilege the Hebrew at the expense of the French, but also, ironically, for having at times been so specific and concrete in 28

Alter, Five Books of Moses, xviii–xix.

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his translation of certain terms (such as ‫ )ראש‬that he effectively neuters or conceals their polysemantic character, and prevents his readers from realizing the rich breadth of ways in which they can be employed. The emphasis on concreteness and specificity inevitably comes at the expense of the “plasticity” which is so characteristic of Hebrew. Such a linguistically exact style of translation is, thus, a double-edged sword, appropriate for some purposes and some audiences, but correspondingly less than helpful for others. It yields clarity of a certain order, but often at the price of clarity in the reader’s own language. Each reader must decide if the cost to be paid is sufficiently rewarded by the benefits received. What I believe a translation such as Chouraqui’s can help to highlight is the artfulness and literary beauty which is frequently found in biblical narrative.29 By highlighting various sorts of literary parallelisms and word-plays, by pointing us to unusual words and constructions, by minimizing our ease of reading in order to make us stumble at times over the words themselves, Chouraqui reminds us that the generations of authors who constructed, passed on and refined the Hebrew Bible were master story-tellers and that, beyond the obvious theological importance of these texts, there is a purely human beauty that can be appreciated in their care in wordchoice and their structuring of the storyline, their interest in the often poetic resonance of their text and the way in which the message is communicated through figures of speech that shine through only dimly (if at all) in the receptor language. As ancient as these texts are, and as “primitive” as we may sometimes consider their authors and tradents to have been, we cannot fail to be impressed by the deliberateness with which they crafted and passed on these words—and that deliberateness is itself a gentle testimony to the importance of these texts within the faith-communities which have preserved them. According to the medieval theological dictum, “Gratia supponit naturam et perfecit eam” (Grace builds upon nature and perfects it), attentiveness to the specifically literary artistry of biblical texts detracts nothing from their theological Alter was himself a pioneer in the exploration of these characteristics, beginning with his 1981 classic The Art of Biblical Narrative. 29

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potential, but can remind people of faith about how the Divine can work in and through the best of the Human. Literary aesthetics can inform, shape, and nuance more specifically theological interests, and that has been one of the wonderful gains from the nexus between literary and religious study of texts over much of the last century. Inasmuch as André Chouraqui died in the summer of 2007, it is highly unlikely that a wholesale revision of his translation will be forthcoming any time soon, to address some of the issues raised in this paper and by his critics. Limitations and questionable wordchoices, however, should not be seen as undermining the enormous value of La Bible Chouraqui, both as a literary landmark on its own, and as a salutary companion to biblical study and reflection. Perhaps these few examples of how the Chouraquian style has been applied to the Genesis Flood Narrative might lead to a renewed interest in his work, and an appreciation of the translational paradigm he championed, in the service of greater biblical literacy, and increased interfaith understanding among all those who are the children of Abraham but, as Genesis would have us remember, also the children of Noah. In a world where fewer Jews (and only a small minority of Christians) can directly access the Tanakh in its Hebrew form, translations like Chouraqui’s, which serve as something of a Hebrew-French hybrid, can perhaps serve a useful purpose, in mediating the biblical message in a way that comes across as fresh, provocative, and revealing. While his individual choices may be debatable, Chouraqui’s emphasis on capturing syntactical and semantic details provides a salutary alternative (or complement) to translations that may tend to privilege meaning over structure, and fluidity in the target language at the expense of ambiguity and polysemy in the source language. Chouraqui may not always have succeeded uniformly in the almost utopian task he set for himself, but the durability, critical acclaim and commercial success of his translation demonstrate the worthiness and significance of his quest overall. His insights continue to point the way to a “road less traveled” in biblical translation, the recovery of an older paradigm that can speak remarkably powerfully to many modern readers, all the time perpetuating the memory and the vision of a rare man of learning who could fittingly be eulogized by France’s Minister of Culture as “an admirable ambassador of the French language, proposing for it

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the most beautiful mission of all: exalting spirituality, brotherhood and peace between human beings.”30

WORKS CITED “The ARTFL Project: Dictionnaires d’autrefois” : http://artflproject.uchicago.edu/content/dictionnaires-dautrefois Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2004. ———. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic, 1981. Aslanov, Cyril. Pour comprendre la Bible: la leçon d’André Chouraqui. Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 1999. Bedale, S. “The Meaning of εφαλή in the Pauline Epistles.” JTS 5 (1954): 91–-915. Boisseau, Maryvonne. De la traduction comme commentaire au commentaire de traduction Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2007. Cannon, John, ed. The Oxford Companion to British History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Online at: “Christine Albanel, ministre de la Culture, a rendu hommage à « l’une des consciences de notre siècle, une figure éminente des cultures hébraïques et françaises », « un remarquable homme de plume, tout à la fois écrivain, penseur, dramaturge et traducteur ». Saluant « l’œuvre et les actes de cet homme de Dieu », la ministre a vu en M. Chouraqui un « admirable ambassadeur de la langue française, à laquelle il a offert la plus belle des missions: exalter la spiritualité, la fraternité, et la paix entre les hommes ».” (Télévision Quatre Saisons, Québec). [”Christine Albanel, the Minister of Culture, paid tribute to ‘one of the consciences of our century, an eminent figure of both Hebrew and French culture,’ ‘a remarkable man of the pen—at one and the same time a writer, a thinker, a dramatist and a translator’. Praising ‘the [literary] work and the actions of this man of God,’ the minister saw in Mr. Chouraqui ‘an admirable ambassador of the French language, proposing for it the most beautiful mission of all: exalting spirituality, brotherhood and peace between human beings”]. Although the original TQS article is no longer available online, the quote is also reproduced on the Web site of Montréal’s Le Devoir newspaper: “Décès de l'écrivain franco-israélien André Chouraqui à Jérusalem”; http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/07/10/149963.html 30

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http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy2.lib.uwo.ca/view/10. 1093/acref/9780199567638.001.0001/acref-9780199567638 Carpenter, Eugene E. and Philip W. Comfort, Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained. Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2000. Chouraqui, André. Ce que je crois. Paris: B. Grasset, 1979. Translated by Kenton Kilmer under the title A Man in Three Worlds. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984. ———. L’amour fort comme la mort: Une autobiographie Paris: Robert Laffont, 1990. ———. La Bible Chouraqui. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2007. ———. Mon testament: Le feu de l’Alliance. Paris: Bayard, 2001. Cresswell, Julia, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2009. Online at: http://www.oxfordre ference.com.proxy2.lib.uwo.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780199 547920.001.0001/acref-9780199547920 Dumbrell, William J. The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002. Duns, John. Biblical Natural Science. Vol. 1. London: William Mackenzie, 1864. Ferber, Michael. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Harris, R. Laird, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, published electronically as part of BibleWorks 7.0. Kvam, Kristen E., Linda S. Schearing and Valarie H. Ziegler, eds. Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. Littré, Émile. Dictionnaire de la langue française. Paris, 1872–77. Online at: “Dictionnaires d’autrefois”: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/ cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=forcir Miletic, Stephen Francis. “One Flesh”—Eph. 5.22-24, 5.31: Marriage and the New Creation. Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1988. Sloyan, Gerard S. Preaching From the Lectionary: An Exegetical Commentary. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003. Watson, Murray K. “Translation for Transformation: André Chouraqui and His Translation of the Gospels.” Ph.D. diss., University of Dublin [Trinity College], 2010.

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Williams, Patricia A. Doing Without Adam and Eve: Sociobiology and Original Sin. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2001.

THE FLOOD OF GENESIS: MYTH AND LOGOS. A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION J. HAYDN GURMIN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to argue that mythic stories can be translated philosophically. In the first section of the paper an outline of current scholarship and its examination of μῦθος and λόγος is undertaken. It is contended that the traditional view of a dichotomous relationship between μῦθος and λόγος is mistaken, and that in the history of thinking there is not such a radical break between the two modes of enquiry as scholarship previously attested. In the second part of the paper, a method of translating theological texts philosophically is given in light of Meave Cooke’s reflections on “translating truth” drawing on the theories of Habermas and Gadamer. In the latter part of the paper a provisional translation of the flood narrative is undertaken in light of Cooke’s approach. The main argument, however, is that such a translation is possible, given that mythic stories can be seen to have a “moral” or rational principle at their center.

INTRODUCTION The father of Western philosophy, Thales of Miletus (c. 620–c. 546 BCE) is often viewed as breaking with the traditional mythic approaches of classical thinkers to explain the workings of nature (φύ ις, physis), and as such philosophy as a method is seen as a 369

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break from mythic explanations to a more “rigorous” philosophic method.1 Thus earlier theogonies and cosmogonies that relied on “myth” may well be viewed as being in opposition to the philosophical reflections of the pre-Socratics and other Ancient Greek thinkers.2 As the story of Noah and the flood are located in the book of Genesis (Gen 6–9), the flood narrative is generally evaluated as myth (μῦθος) rather than philosophically (λόγος, logos).3 However, recent studies in the area of μῦθος illustrate that the relationship between μῦθος and λόγος is more complex than a linear progressive movement from myth to reason (λόγος).4 In other See, Wian’s “Introduction” in Logos and Muthos, 2. As Wians explains further, “There has been a long-enduring attitude among scholars of ancient thought, traceable to the still influential study by W. Nestle (1940), that between roughly the sixth and fourth centuries BCE, an intellectual revolution took place. A childlike faith in the tales of the creation of the world and its order, in which various gods with distinct personalities played a major role, gradually gave way to non-anthropomorphic, naturalistic explanations in terms of materials and forces (even if these retained some characteristics of the divine personages they were meant to displace). Mythological accounts were to be found especially in the poems of Homer and Hesiod; these came to be supplanted by rational accounts advanced by the first historians, medical writers, and the pre-Socratic philosophers.” Ibid. 2 See Wians, “Introduction,” 1, 2–3. 3 Especially in line with modern scientific findings, the literalism of Genesis has been placed into question, although some (for example Creationists) continue to hold its facticity. 4 Wians notes that “scholars have come to recognise that attempting to mark a clear separation of the two terms [muthos and logos] of the opposition is fraught with difficulties. What definitely counts as myth or mythic as opposed to reason or rational? Already in Hesiod, one finds reason applied critically, as the poet reshapes traditional elements in his account of the generation of the gods and fills in gaps by rational means. Moving beyond Homer and Hesiod, much recent scholarship has underlined what is at best the incomplete nature of the revolution. […] There was, as Buxton nicely puts it, “a constant to-ing and fro-ing between the mythical and the rational” (From Myth to Reason?, 5), quoted in Wians, “Introduction,” 2–3. Buxton, himself, highlights that eminent 1

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words, myths as such can have empirical value, they can have insights that lay bare more complex modes of thinking.5 We can postulate that if there exists empirical elements to the mythic stories of Homer and Hesiod and the pre-Socratic writers it is most likely that other mythic stories (such as those in the Hebrew Bible) mirror Ancient Greek cosmological literature.6 In this way, mythic stories can be viewed to have inherent empirical (philosophical) value. It is just a matter of distilling, “translating,” or rearticulating the “reason” contained in the myth into philosophical parlance. As such, we need to look at the Genesis story of the flood and “translate” it as fully as possible into philosophical discourse, or at least to take out the elements that are open to such translation. To aid the process of translation we will expound in the second section of the paper on Maeve Cooke’s methodological approach to “translating truth.” Her approach draws on the postmetaphysical discursive philosophy of Habermas and the hermeneutics of Gadamer. By utilizing Cooke’s account we can then in the third section of the paper sketch an analysis of the flood narrative philosophically, particularly in light of the “moral” aspects of the story. We should not view this as a transformation of Greek philosophers have been guilty of viewing such a separation, he cites W. K. C. Guthrie as stating that “Greek philosophical thought between 600 and 300 BCE exhibited a development ‘from mythopoeic to a rational view of the world’ [while] equally authoritative is the voice of Kirk-RavenSchoflield in The Presocratic Philosophers.” See Buxton, Myth to Reason?, 2 ff. 5 For example, Plato in his Timaeus and Republic along with other dialogues makes use of myths to convey complex ideas more fully. We will discuss some of these myths further in the course of the paper. 6 Leiven Boeve outlines that it is probable that the various authors of the Bible came to know of Mesopotamian narratives through trade and diplomatic relations, so that here there are point of contacts for communication of a common flood story through the Aegean see Boeve, God Interrupts History, 132. While Walter Burkert notes that, “there may be agreement by now that there is a family of texts from the Near East, from Israel, and from Greece which should be considered together, since they are connected not only by similarity of structure and motifs but also, no doubt, by mutual influences.” Burkert, “The Logic of Cosmogony,” 89.

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μῦθος into λόγος, however; it is more a process of distilling the various elements of the story, or as Cooke states: it is “a rearticulation of the contents in a way that allows truth to appear anew.”7 In summary, our approach is as follows: in the first section of the paper we will discuss the links and relationship between μῦθος and λόγος in order to exemplify the way mythic texts can be understood to contain philosophical elements in their cosmogonies, poetry, and epics. It will be shown that there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with regard to the use of λόγος and μῦθος in both classical and philosophical texts. In the second part of the paper, we will concentrate on outlining Cooke’s methodology for “translating” or rather rearticulating the contents of mythic texts philosophically and, finally, in the third part we will apply Cooke’s approach to the story of the flood as found in the book of Genesis. Ultimately it will be contended that theological language can be translated to philosophical language, in much the same way that one language can be translated into another. As with textual translation, so too with translations of material from one discipline to another, elements can go awry, or there can be disagreement over the form of translation in terms of its faithfulness to the original, and so in light of Cooke’s findings (drawing from Habermas, and Gadamer), translations should be undertaken with the aim of rearticulating the contents as far as possible truthfully.

MYTHOS AND LOGOS The use of myth to explain the origin of the world and of the origin of the gods was transmitted by oral tradition long before they were written down. It has been difficult to define exactly what myth is, but Gerard Naddaf argues that for the classical writers and the preSocratic philosophers μῦθος appears to have had the principle meaning of “something one says,” or “story.” For instance, in Homer’s Odyssey it is written that one should “listen to the story (μῦθον ἄ ου ας) of the wanderings” (emphasis added, Odyssey

7

Cooke, “Translating Truth,” 479–491, 488.

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4.324).8 But our modern understanding of myth should not be confused with the ancient conception of μῦθος. As Naddaf outlines, ancient conceptions of myth should never be confused “with the modern, pejorative connotation that the story is fiction.”9 In our modern understanding of myth we tend to associate “the story” with a legend or a tale that is not true. This is not the case with ancient myths. Furthermore, the relationship between μῦθος and λόγος is more complex than a linear development from one to the other: Both Homer and Hesiod—the primary sources of traditional Greek tales of gods and heroes—seem to employ mythos and logos interchangeably. This lack of differentiation is not restricted to the two great poets, as it is also the case with the pre-Socratic philosophers, whom we consider the initiators of logos in the sense of a rational and argumentative account. Xenophanes (c. 570–470 BCE), who is the first to vigorously denounce the old traditional theology—that is, the mythology—of Homer and Hesiod and to replace it with a new “rational” theology employs the plurals mythoi and logoi almost synonymously in the same phrase (DK 21 B1. 13–14). Even Parmenides (c. 515–450 BCE), the father of deductive logic, characterizes his ultimate account of truth as both a mythos and a logos (DK 28B8. 1–2; B8.51–51).10

Lόγος is often translated as a “rational discourse,” an “account,” “reason.” This is the meaning it appears to have, according to Gerard Naddaf, when Heraclitus (540–480 BCE) uses the term λόγος in his philosophical writings.11 Heraclitus, however, was Naddaf, “Allegory and the Origin of Philosophy,” 101. Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 According to Naddaf, “In [Heraclitus’s] writings there are no occurrences of mythos [μῦθος], while logos [λόγος] is omnipresent.” Naddaf, Ibid. 101. Naddaf goes on to explain that “the primary reason why logos [λόγος] carried this meaning is found in its root, *leg- [*λέγ-], the fundamental meaning of which is ‘gather,’ ‘picking up,’ ‘choosing.’ The verb legein [λέγειν] (as opposed to mutheomai [μυθεομαι]) was thus not 8 9

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known for his obscurity in antiquity, so it is comprehensible that Heraclitus’s understanding of λόγος is debated in modern scholarship.12 originally a saying verb but a word that described a physical activity and by extension an activity of the mind [cf. Fournier, Les Verbes “dire” en grec ancient, 53].” Ibid., 101. Furthermore, “When legein [λέγειν] later became a saying verb—thanks to its figurative meaning of ‘recounting, telling over, reckoning up’—the noun [λόγος] retained in Attic Greek the rational values of the root [*λέγ-] and applied them to speech. This explains despite the numerous meanings that the word [λόγος] was to take, one can reduce them to two: speech and reason. Subject the first to the second, and [λόγος] takes on the sense of a ‘rational discourse,’ that is, a discourse that is argumentative and open to criticism, a discourse that can be logically and/ or empirically verified. [Finally Naddaf explains], in the final analysis, the famous muthos/logos dichotomy is not clearly attested prior to Plato, although the germs may be discerned in some authors. It is with Plato that the opposition we generally associate with these words begins.” See, Naddaf, Ibid., 101. 12 Kirk, Raven, and Schofield point out that the λόγος in Heraclitus is “probably related to the general meaning of ‘measure’, ‘reckoning’ or ‘proportion’; it cannot simple be Heraclitus’ own ‘account’ that is in question (otherwise the distinction [in Frag. 50, 196] between έμοῦ and τοῦ λόγου is meaningless), although the Logos was revealed in that account and in a manner of speaking coincides with it. The effect of arrangment according to a common plan or measure is that all things, although apparently plural and totally discrete, are really united in a coherent complex […] of which men themselves are a part, and the comprehension of which is therefore logically necessary for the adequate enactment of their own lives. Yet ‘formula,’ ‘proportionate arrangement’ […] are misleadingly abstract as translations of this technical sense of λόγος. Logos was probably conceived by Heraclitus at times as an actual component of things, and in many respects is co-extensive with the primary cosmic constituent, fire,” see, Kirk, Raven, and Schofield The Presocratic Philosophers, 187–188. The obscure nature of Heraclitus writings on the λόγος can be seen in terms of Fragment 50, (196) which outlines, “Listening not to me but to the Logos it is wise to agree that all things are one,” “οὐ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ τοῦ λόγου ἀ ού αντας ὁμολογεῖν οφόν ἐ τιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι” (p. 187). Whilst Fragment 2 states: “Therefore it is necessary

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Of course, since the emergence of philosophy (λόγος) as a mode of inquiry came about in reference to other modes—mythic, poetic, etc.—it is not surprising that philosophers aimed to differentiate their approach from the poets and the lover of myths. They did this, according to Catherine Collobert, in “two primary but opposite ways: a critical and conflictual way on the one hand, and a constructive and positive way on the other.”13 While it might be evident that the later philosophers were aware of myth as distinct from philosophy, it is not so evident that we can read back into those who utilized μῦθος to have had philosophical intention.14 So while we cannot attribute philosophical intent to the authors of myth as such, that does not rule out philosophical content being present in mythological approaches.15 Samuel N. Kramer, for instance, makes the case for the existence of philosophical thinking in the ancient cosmological and theological mythic writings of the Sumerians, but he notes that the philosophical elements have to be ferreted out and pieced together.16 As Kramer states, almost all our information concerning Sumerian philosophy and theology, cosmology, and cosmogony, has to be ferreted to follow the common; but although the Logos is common the many live as though they had a private understanding” “δι δεῖ ἕπε θαι τῷ < ξυνῷ> τοῦ λόγου δ’ ἐόντοϛ ξυνοῦ ζώου ιν οἱ πολλοὶ ὡς ἰδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνη ιν.” (187). 13 Collobert, “Philosophical Readings of Homer,” 133. In the constructive aspect Collobert highlights that philosophers undertake to translate Homeric poetry into philosophical language, that they may view that the poetry makes “deliberately implicit philosophical assertions” and that poetry contains “philosophical truths poetically expressed,” Ibid. 133–134. 14 Collobert makes this point with regard to Homer’s writings, she outlines that “(i) Homer is not and does not intend to be a philosopher,” Collobert, Ibid., 145. 15 Collobert undertakes such an analysis of Homer by arguing “that the way to arrive at the most fruitful and also the most complete philosophical interpretations of Homer is to ground it in [Homer’s] conception of poetry.” Collobert, Ibid.,145–146. 16 Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 45–64. [p. 45].

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The Sumerians presumed as self-evident the existence of a collection of living beings, which were anthropomorphic in form “but superhuman and immortal, who, though invisible to the mortal eye, guide and control the cosmos in accordance with welllaid plans and duly prescribed laws.”18 But turning from theology to ethics, Kramer finds that the Sumerians had: no exaggerated confidence in man and his destiny. They were firmly convinced that man was fashioned out of clay and created for one purpose only: to serve the gods by supplying them with food, drink and shelter, so that they might have full leisure for their divine activities. His life was beset with uncertainty and haunted by insecurity […] when he dies, his emasculated spirit descends to the dark […] nether-world Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 45. Kramer outlines that their philosophical questions became narrowed down due to theological certainties, they understood that the universe was an-ki, which was a compound word meaning “heaven-earth.” And between heaven-earth, they held existed a substance which they termed lil, which corresponds to “wind, air, breath, spirit.” Surrounding the heaven-earth on all sides, top and bottom was a sea that was boundless—the universe remained fixed and immovable in this sea. It appears, according to Kramer, that they looked at the sea as a kind of “first cause” (ἀρχ ν) and “prime mover” but never asked themselves what was prior to the sea in time and space (47). Interestingly, Thales, the first of the pre-Socratics and the father of Western philosophy, held that the first principle was “water.” 18 Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 48. Kramer explains that the gods were ranked in a hierarchy and, as such, the creating gods were ranked higher than those gods who were concerned with brickmold dykes or ditches. The four creating gods included the heaven-god An, the airgod Enlil, the water-god Enki, and the earth-goddess Ninhursag. These were treated as the four leading deities of the Sumerian pantheon. See pp. 49–50. Cf. Poebel, Historical Texts, 4,1: 24ff. 17

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where life is but a dismal and wretched reflection of its earthly counter-part.19

For the Sumerians, according to Kramer, the issue of “free will” never entered their thinking as such; this is due to the fact that the destiny of these people was fixed to servitude to the gods, for their leisure and benefit. Also, the Sumerians, as Kramer notes, accepted that death was the lot of humans, while immortality belonged solely to the gods. Any morals that arose were viewed to be predetermined by the gods. However, Kramer outlines that the Sumerians, according to their own records, cherished goodness and truth, law and order, justice and freedom, righteousness and straightforwardness, mercy and compassion, and naturally abhorred their opposites: evil and falsehood, lawlessness and disorder, injustice and oppression, sinfulness and perversity, cruelty and pitilessness. Kings and rulers in particular boast constantly of the fact that they have established law and order in the land, protected the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and wiped out evil and violence.20

The gods, for the Sumerian sages, also extolled ethical and moral behavior, goodness, justice, truth, and righteousness. The Sumerian hymns see the gods extol such qualities. These gods, however, in the process of establishing civilization, had also planned evil and falsehood. The Sumerians thought it beyond them to explain the ways of the divine and even when they prayed, glorifying and seeking the ear of the god—they thought the god would be too

Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 56. Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 56. He goes on to outline that “in one unique and precious document, the Lagashite ruler, Urukagina, who lived before 2,300 BCE, [produced] records that he restored justice and freedom to the long-suffering citizens, did away with ubiquitous and oppressive officials, put a stop to injustice and exploitation, protected the widow and the orphan.” Cf. Idem., “Sumerian Historiography,” 227 ff. 19 20

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busy to respond.21 These stories appear to have had an impact on later cosmological stories. Some of the philosophical implications of these stories might be seen in Sumerian reflection on moral principles—even though they established these moral principles and then attributed those principles to the gods, it is clear that reasoning was involved in the instantiation of their moral code. It is just that, as Kramer states, “all credit for the high moral qualities and ethical virtues which [were evolved gradually and painfully] over the centuries from […] social and cultural experiences, was attributed to the gods.”22 If we were to look at the emergence of reflections on morality in ancient Hellenistic philosophy we would have to look at the life of Socrates. It is interesting to note from the outset that Socrates’s reflections on morality also had a connection with the gods. Socrates’s philosophical concern was to live a moral life, to choose the good for—as Plato later goes on to attest—an unjust life would damage one’s soul. The philosophy of Socrates represented a move away from the pre-Socratic speculation on nature (φύ ις) to reflections on human life.23 In Socrates’s case the development of the human soul by way of moral integrity was of the upmost importance, and the gods, in contrast to the Sumerian view as characterized by Kramer, seemed to be concerned with that development of the human soul. In this way, suicide was forbidden because the “god is our protector

Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 57–58. Interestingly, Kramer notes that the Sumerians imagined it was necessary to have an intermediary to intercede on their behalf, one whom the gods would be willing to hear and listen to and so, “the Sumerian thinkers contrived the notion of a personal god, a kind of good angel to each particular individual and family-head, his divine father who had begot him, as it were. It is to him, to his personal deity, that the individual sufferer bared his heart, wept bitter tears, and made his prayers.” See Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 59. 22 Kramer, “Sumerian Theology and Ethics,” 56. 23 For an account of the reasons for this movement away from naturalistic philosophy to reflections on human nature, see Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers, chapter 4. 21

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and we are his possessions (Phaedo, 62d).”24 Furthermore, death did not seem to be the final end for Socrates as it appears to have been for the Sumerians. Socrates expect[ed] to join the company of good men. [He outlines] if I insist on anything at all in these matters, it is that I shall come to gods who are very good masters. […] I have good hope that some future awaits men after death, as we have been told for years, a much better future for the good than for the wicked (Phaedo, 63c).

Socrates held that philosophy helped one to prepare for death— that is philosophy being interested in moral questions and integrity would mean that a person who lived a philosophical life should have no fear of death. Socrates’s philosophical reflections on morality, like the Sumerian stories, are imbued with religious elements, but in contrast to the Sumerian stories there is a purpose or goal in developing one’s soul. As Arthur Armstrong notes, Everything is ordered for the best, and there is an appropriate and natural good which is the end of all movement and endeavor. In the case of man (and it is only human life that Socrates is interested. He leaves the cosmic application of his principle for Plato) his natural good, the end to which he must as a matter of religious duty attain, is the health, the true wellbeing of his soul.25

It is striking that the Sumerians developed a moral code, without recourse to the gods or belief in the afterlife as such—given their dismal view—it seems to point to a rational (λόγος) reflection by the Sumerians on what is right and just per se. Turning to the flood story in Genesis, reflecting on the story’s origin, many scholars point out that Genesis shares a history with other theological and philosophical origin stories such as the

See, Cooper, ed., Plato, The Complete Works. All quotations of Platonic dialogues taken from this volume unless otherwise indicated. 25 Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, 30. 24

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Sumerian myth of Gilgameš26 and the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish,27 (these stories are seen to draw on the older Babylonian creation and flood story the Atraḫasīs Epic [c. 1800 BCE]).28 Y. Samuel Chen’s article in this volume points out that the According to Alan Dickin, The Epic of Gilgamesh is more of an adventure story and so less liturgical in its form. It is an epic interwoven from many much older short stories. This is known “because Sumerian versions of several of these stories have been found in a much older temple library at Nippur, dating from the OB period (c. 1600 BCE). The flood story is one of these earlier works and does not involve Gilgameš directly. However, it was included in the epic on the pretext of the Flood Hero explaining to Gilgameš how he was given the gift of eternal life by the gods. Consequently, in this version of the story, the flood hero is called Ūta-na’ištim, meaning ‘he found life’.” See Dickin, Pagan Trinity-Holy Trinity, 37–38. 27 The creation epic Enuma Elish (When on high…) which was translated by Leonard King in 1902 as the Seven Tablets of Creation was written in Akkadian about 1100 BCE during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon. This epic or myth was written as “a liturgical epic to celebrate the ascendance of the god Marduk to his position as the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon. Marduk was originally an obscure god from Babylon, and first rose to prominence when Hammurabi conquered Mesopotamia around 1750 BCE […] it was […] much later that Marduk himself was ousted as head of the pantheon by Ashur, the chief god of the Assyrians.” Dickin, Pagan Trinity-Holy Trinity, 37. Dickin explains that “the creation myth beings by recounting the ‘family tree’ of Marduk, in which two gods of the Cosmic Triad (Anu and Enki) appear as Marduk’s great-father and father respectively. The epic then goes on to describe a great battle between the gods, culminating in the triump of Marduk over the sea goddess Tiamat. After slicing her in two, Marduk proceeds to create the heavens and earth from the two halves of Tiamat’s corpse. […] before making the Tigris and Euphrates flow from her eye-sockets, and long before the creation of mankind, one of Marduk’s first acts is to establish the cult centres for Anu, Enlil and Enki. This provides […] evidence for the earlier prominence of these gods of the Cosmic Triad, whose place (by 1100 BCE) had been usurped by Marduk.” (37). 28 Alan Dickin notes that these stories share a major theme of “separation,” “they begin by describing the separation of the Heavens and 26

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most fascinating cases of influence of the flood traditions are found in the standard version of the Gilgameš epic. Chen’s article highlights the necessity of looking at the flood narrative in the larger context of Mesopotamian literary history and production.29 Mythic and philosophic elements thus can be traced between various stories of origins.30 These cosmogonies, whether they are theological or philosophical in nature or a combination of both, share similarities in terms of the mythic (μῦθος) elements to them. They convey to us a desire to understand and make sense of the workings and wonder (θαυμάζειν) of the universe by appealing to the knowledge (ἐπι τ μη) and stories available to the writers at that time. For the ancients there was a dynamic relationship between μῦθος and λόγος.31 Aristotle famously stated “all of philosophy begins with wonder (θαυμάζειν).”32 Plato too noted that wonder is the only beginning (ἀρχ ) of philosophy in his Theaetetus (155d).33 the Earth.” He holds that the Sumerian myths bear more comparison with the Genesis account of separation than the more “macabre story” in Enuma Elish. Dickin highlights more of the similarities between the stories in terms of geography and etymology, etc., Edin for instance is the Sumerian word for a plaine. For more detailed analysis see, Dickin, Pagan Trinity-Holy Trinity, 81–88. 29 According to Chen, “In this source, both the Sumerian and Babylonian Flood mythological and chronographic traditions were absorbed: See, the conclusion in Chen’s contribution to this volume. 30 Plato’s Timaeus, a philosophical cosmogony also contains flood stories including the flood story concerning the city of Atlantis. 31 Wian captures the tension between Logos and Muthos, as Wian explains, the relationship is “not from muthos to logos, but logos and muthos, implying a whole range of interactions, reactions, tensions and ambiguities arising between different forms of discourse” (1). Scholarship in recent years has, according to Wian, moved beyond the old assumption of a linear progression from myth to reason (1). In this way, older texts considered as myth are re-examined for their epistemological, ethical, philosophical content. 32 “It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and

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Plato and Aristotle were evidently aware of the importance of myths as a means by which mankind began to philosophize, and so these early Greek philosophers turn their gaze to myths in terms of empirical interest. Myths have empirical interest given that they represent the beginning of philosophical inquiry. Catalin Parternie elucidates the importance of myth further, “mythos [for the ancient Greeks] was a true story, a story that unveils the true origin of the world and human beings,”34 and Wians states the relationship is “not from mythos to logos, but logos and mythos.” Plato utilized myths in many of his dialogues. He used myths to convey the moral of a story; for instance in the Πολιτεία (Republic) he makes use of the Myth of the Ring of Gyges35 and the Myth of Er (621b8) amongst others.36 Indeed the Timaeus is itself mythic in nature,37 and is then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe. He who wonders and is perplexed feels that he is ignorant (thus the myth-lover is in a sense a philosopher, since myths are composed of wonders).” (Metaphysics I: 982b ff.) 33 “This feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy” (Theaetetus, 155d). Also see, Bollert, “Plato and Wonder” for an exploration of the theme of wonder in other Platonic dialogues. 34 Partenie, “Plato’s Myths,” n.p. 35 The myth of Gyges appears to be built upon the actual existence of Gyges, King of Lydia (716–678 BCE). Plato uses the myth of Gyges, (which is an older story than its usage in the Republic) to highlight the problem of “justice.” The dialogue considers a just man wearing the ring of Gyges and thereby being made invisible—it seems likely that the just man would be tempted to do unjust acts as his reputation would not be ruined and he according to Glaucon “no one, it seems, would be so incorruptible that he would stay on the path of justice or stay away from other people’s property, when he could take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished, and do all the other things that would make him like a god among humans.” (Republic, Book II, 360b-c). 36 The “Myth of Er” is used by Plato to conclude his Republic (Book X).

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referred to by Plato as an εἰ ός μῦθος (29d, 59c, 68d), and an εἰ ός λόγος (30b, 48d etc.), that is, it is a “likely-story” of the origins of the universe, as the universe, for Plato, according to Cornford, is always in a process of becoming and cannot be truly known.38 As Plato is a philosopher his Timaeus dialogue aims to explain origins with particular recourse to reason,39 he thus, according to Brisson and Meyerstein, places a mathematical model at the center of his reflections, holding:

Plato’s Timaeus concerns itself with the origin of the universe and it too contains reference to floods including the flood that wiped out the island of Atlantis (Timaeus 25d). Zeyl, “Timaeus,” 1232. 38 See Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, 31 ff. Also see, Brisson and Meyerstein, Inventing the Universe, 17. 39 As Brisson and Meyerstein outline, “For the first time in history, Plato, in the Timaeus, submits the problem of scientific knowledge to a complete analysis, clearly stating the character and necessity and ideality attributed by him to a valid scientific explanation cannot follow in a non-mediated way from sense-perceived experiences. To solve this problem, and again for the first time in history, Plato applies what will become ‘the’ method of the scientific inquiry. This procedure requires as its first step the establishing of a list of premises or axioms. Once such a list has been drawn up, the scientist tries to verify if the propositions, deduced from these axioms according to certain precise rules of inference supposedly known and admitted, present a reasonable and adequate correspondence with sense-perceived experience. Finally, and even more astonishingly, Plato, for the first time in history, uses mathematics as a tool to express and to deduce the consequences which derive from the postulated axioms. Indeed starting with Aristotle, philosophers have, for their cosmological speculations, clearly recognized the scope and the power of the scientific method, that is to say, of the logical deduction of propositions starting from certain previously admitted hypotheses; but their tool remained common language. Although one can adduce several reasons to explain this situation, it is nevertheless surprising to note that, between Plato and Galileo, that is during twenty centuries, no one seems to have really appreciated the enormous power of mathematics for manipulating abstract concepts, particularly when establishing cosmological models.” Brisson and Meyerstein, Inventing the Universe, 5. 37

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J. HAYDN GURMIN that a benevolent demiurge has framed, from a few primordial and simple mathematical building blocks, a universe in which all phenomena find their scientific explanation if and only if the scientist succeeds in uncovering the mathematical formula utilized by the demiurge for the assembly of the kosmos.40

Undoubtedly the book of Genesis also contains stories that combine elements of μῦθος and λόγος. We can see that the opening chapters of Genesis focus on explaining the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and of human beings. Later chapters contemplate the sinful nature of man (the unjust nature of man), the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the murder of Abel by Cain. The writers of the first book of the Hebrew Bible appear to be pondering the actuality of human existence and explaining the origins of injustice (sin/ethics) that arrived in creation, for some explanation seems to be required to account for how creation can go from, to use philosophical terms, being formed metaphysically “Good” (αγαθών) to ending up being less than perfect. The first murder in particular highlights how far from the “Good” humankind had fallen.

METHOD OF ANALYSIS In this section we wish to discuss our method and approach to “translating” the Genesis text for a philosophical audience. We will follow Cooke’s approach in her article “Translating Truth.” Cooke is inspired by Jürgen Habermas, and outlines that Habermas considered it necessary to keep in mind the role of “translation in encounters between religious citizens and secular citizens.”41 As such she follows “Habermas in holding that translations rearticulate religious contents in a way that facilitates learning.”42 Cooke, however, notes that while Habermas has called for such translations he “underplays the complexity of translation,”43 and it requires, therefore, that steps are taken to go beyond Habermas to Brisson and Meyerstein, Inventing the Universe, 8. Cooke, “Translating Truth,” 479. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 40 41

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develop a more adequate account of the process of translation. Cooke explains this as follows: The required account of translation must keep sight of the question of truth. Focusing on inspirational stories of exemplary figures and acts, [we must hold] that a successful translation makes truth appear anew, further, that it is a central role of truth in translation that enables the prospect of learning from the inspirational messages of religion (emphases added).44

Habermas believes it is possible to have intercultural dialogue where perspectives can be encountered and understood from the perspective of the other. He follows Gadamer’s hermeneutics in this regard. As Cooke states: Drawing on Hans Georg Gadamer’s idea of the fusion of interpretative horizons, [Habermas] sees intercultural understanding not as an assimilation, but as a convergence of perspectives, in which it is necessary for each of the disagreeing parties to attempt to grasp things from the perspective of the other.45

According to Cooke, Habermas sees religious language as having a particular vocabulary—as such it requires a translation to be understood in a philosophical way. Other philosophers disagree with religious language having a different vocabulary. Rorty— Cooke informs us—holds that there “is no difference in principle between confrontations between religious and secular citizens and the inhabitants of different cultures.”46 Cooke succinctly outlines the problem of these two opposing positions: For Habermas, religions are not just particular “vocabularies”; there is something special about them that marks them off from other kinds of linguistic community. What makes them distinctive is the experience of revelation at the core of the religious conception of truth. The revelatory moment he Ibid. Ibid. 480. 46 Ibid. 44 45

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J. HAYDN GURMIN imputes to religious truth means that such truth resists capture by argumentative discourse and, hence, cannot be made sense of within the purely language-immanent frame of a postmetaphysically conceived idea of transcendent validity. In Habermas’ view, postmetaphysical thinking is one of the most important impulses of the 20th-century philosophy.47

The problem is that religious believers look for a truth claim that lies beyond human practices of dialogue, whilst postmetaphysical (Habermas) thinkers look for a truth claim that is immanent. However, Habermas has previously outlined that it is possible for intercultural dialogue. And Cooke wonders, “how then can we make sense of [Habermas’s] claim that postmetaphysical thinkers can learn from religion?” The answer, Cooke explains, is in terms of translating religious content into a secular, generally accessible language.48 Her answer is to keep focus on the question of truth— for, to make a successful translation, it is necessary to look at the stories of the Bible, and demonstrate how they can be translated in order to make “truth appear anew.”49 In this way, Cooke, outlines that encounters between religious and secular citizens “are a subset of intercultural encounters and as such, contexts of possible mutual learning.”50 Cooke believes ultimately that an adequate account would show that a successful translation does at least three things: It re-presents the truth of the original, it resonates with the subjectivity of its addressees and it opens their eyes to new ways of Ibid. Ibid. 49 Ibid. p. 481. 50 Ibid. Furthermore, Learning is an important aspect of the process of translation—to be able to “learn” from the translation requires that there be a reflection on “truth,” “if truth were not involved, Habermas would be unlikely to speak of ‘learning,’ which he conceives of as a cognitive advance in the direction of truth or moral rightness. [This leads Cooke to believe] that we must assume, therefore, that truth plays a central role in the inspirational capacity [Habermas] attributes both to religion and to secular translations of its contents.” Ibid. 483. 47 48

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seeing themselves, the world, and perhaps also that which is transcendent of self and world.51

Interestingly, Cooke relates the process of translating religious texts to the process of translating per se, and as such, the same challenges face translators in all contexts of translation regardless of whether or not the contents that require translating are rooted in a religious background.52

THEORY AND PRACTICE Applying Cooke’s theoretical method of “translating truth” to the flood story, we might do so by considering three aspects of the story, (i) how do we re-present the truth of the original, (ii) in what way do we translate how the story might have been received by those to whom it was addressed, (iii) and what of the transcendent aspect in relation to the world and self. (i) Re-presenting the Truth of the Original In relation to the first aspect, how do we re-present the truth of the original aspects of the story? One of the main features of the story is the question of the actuality of the flood. We have seen that the story of a flood pre-dates that of Genesis in other ancient stories such as the Epic of Gilgameš. It is held by some scholars that later stories drew on earlier meta-narratives, such as, for instance the hero of the flood story appearing in the Epic of Gilgameš in order to explain to Gilgameš how he was given the gift of eternal life (Ūta-

Cooke has not spoken about the third aspect, but believes that “translation of this kind is an aesthetic activity in the Kantian sense of the term: it involves opening up new spaces of the imagination in which truth can appear in a new time (cf. Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred, 50). The space it opens is one in which by way of new interpretations of self, world, and perhaps also that which is transcendent of self and world, as well as by way of a new interplay of linguistic expressions and modes of articulations, truth is re-presented: it appears to us anew.” Ibid. 488. 52 Ibid. 488. 51

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na’ištim).53 The transmission of a flood story is, in this account, older than the story found in the Book of Genesis or in Plato’s Timaeus.54 There are three possibilities regarding the facticity of flood stories: (a) these stories are pointing to the actual reality of a major global flood, that occurred at a particular moment in historical time; (b) they point to particular major floods that happened in various historical moments in time in different parts of the world; or (c) the stories of floods are used as dramatic effects to convey perhaps a moral, and as such, do not reflect a particular historical event.

(a) Reality of a Major Global Flood In relation to the Genesis flood story, one group of believers, the Creationists, hold to a literal interpretation of the flood account as conveyed in the biblical story.55 As Boeve describes, arguments are made by Creationists: that the extensive distribution of flood narratives, even beyond the cultures of the Ancient Near East, provides evidence of the historical basis of a global, devastating flood that destroyed For instance, as Dickin’s points out above, the integration of earlier flood stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Supra. 2. 54 As Boeve notes, “it can be reasonably assumed […] that the oral tradition behind [the story of Atramhasis and that of Gilgamesh have an] oral tradition behind [them stretching] back to 1800 BCE and earlier. The biblical narratives are younger, dating from the first millennium BCE, the youngest layer from as late as 550 BCE. Many specialists are thus of the opinion that the biblical narrative is indebted to a significant degree to the older Babylonian narratives. In contrast to Palestine, Mesopotamia was not unfamiliar with catastrophic floods. While the Nile was known to flood with particular regularity, the floods of the Tigris and the Euphrates tended to be unpredictable. In addition, storms from the Persian Gulf heading inland from the south were known to be dangerous and often devastating.” Boeve, God Interrupts History, 132. 55 For instance, Henry M. Morris argued for the biblical evidence for a recent creation and universal deluge. See, Numbers, The Creationists, 212 ff. Also see Whitcomb and Morris, The Genesis Flood. 53

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everything that existed. Given the fact that human settlements tend to be located close to water and on the banks of rivers, men and women have been aware from ancient times of the potentially destructive powers of the water.56

This view would have to hold that scripture conveys literal truth. Ronald Numbers points out that Whitcomb and Morris’s The Genesis Flood, which appeared in February 1961, opens with the affirmation of belief in “the verbal inerrancy of Scripture.” In a preface to the second printing, the authors stated that “the basic argument of this volume is based upon the presupposition that the Scriptures are true.”57 Morris goes on in that work to recommend rejecting the views of geologists at the time, highlighting issues in the philosophy and sociology of science in terms of acceptance of scientific data, arguing that moral, and emotional factors impacted on the choice between alternate ideas.58 Morris, however, stressed, according to Numbers, That if it could be established that the fossil-bearing strata had been deposited during the brief period of Noah’s flood, […] then “the last refuge of the case for evolution immediately vanishes away, and the record of the rocks becomes a tremendous witness…to the holiness and justice and power of the living God of creation.”59

So one possible assumption is that the presuppositions of the Bible are correct and a universal flood did take place as outlined in the story of Noah and the flood. In this case the story of the Bible is seen to be literal rather than figurative or metaphorical or a development of an older flood story (or flood stories from more ancient sources). If one could be certain that the biblical flood story was literal then a translation of the philosophical truth of the story would seem to be direct, the philosophical translation would express the metaphysical underpinnings of the story, that is, God Boeve, God Interrupts History, 132. Numbers, The Creationists, 225. 58 Ibid. 226. 59 Ibid. 229. 56 57

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decided to destroy creation because of the wickedness of mankind on the earth. Given the difficulty of providing a universal proof for the literal reality of the flood story in Genesis with the concomitant difficulty in proving the existence of God, a direct translation of this theological story is not possible.60 That is, Creationists have been unable to provide such a convincing universal proof as to why one should take the Noah flood story literally, this can be seen by the fact that geologists and other scientists dispute Creationist findings.61 So other epistemological possibilities exist to be considered.

(b) Biblical Flood Story as Historically Informed by Other Sources If we hold, however, that the biblical flood story’s origin is indeed older than the Bible, then Boeve believes it is a legitimate presupposition that the various authors of the Bible came to know of Mesopotamian narratives through trade contact and diplomatic relations as well as with the association these narratives underlined between creation and flood according to the standard plot: creation (of humanity), gods are disturbed, flood, restoration. The narrative content, however, was thoroughly adapted to the Bible’s specific cultural-religious perspectives. With respect to its creative reception of older narratives, therefore, the Bible was not really an exception in the Ancient Near Eastern context.62

One has only to consider the various critiques of the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God in the canon of philosophy by Immanuel Kant, to note the problematic for proving the existence of God. If such a proof was possible it would eradicate the need for faith. 61 More modern developments of the Creationist approach can be seen in those who argue for intelligent design in nature. For instance see Behe, Darwin’s Black Box. 62 Ibid., 133. 60

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The flood stories then may be viewed as being handed down in oral and written tradition, and subsequently developed in different ways. If this is the case, and it is possible to demonstrate this to be the case, this would discount the literal Creationist interpretation of the flood of Genesis. We may then wonder about the actual existence of a flood or floods that informed the other various literature which influenced the authors of Genesis, and then move on to consider the use of the flood story in Genesis in terms of a dramatic effect conveying a “moral” to its story.

(c) The Flood Story—as a “Moral” Story As we have noted earlier Plato used myths to convey a particular philosophical point or moral in his various philosophical discourses (e.g. the Πολιτεία). If we look at translating the truth of the “moral of the story” of the flood, we might wonder what does the flood story convey to us rationally about humanity—it seems the story is reflecting on the wickedness of mankind which is the cause that leads up to the effect of the actual flood. Leon R. Kass undertakes an analysis of the flood story in light of the context of the surrounding passages leading up to Gen 6–9. He states that The Bible’s picture of human nature, conveyed through its first story of human life, is, […] sobering. The tales of the primordial family underline the dangers of freedom and reason, speech and desire, pride and shame, jealousy and anger. They force us to acknowledge the explosive tensions lurking in any human family, […] they alert us to the morally questionable origin and meaning of the human city and make us suspicious not only about politics and the arts, but even about man’s interest in the divine. Although the last chapter ended on a hopeful note, with the birth of Seth and a seemingly improved attitude toward God, the sequel shows that we have not yet exposed fully the roots of our human troubles. What follows Cain and Abel is the story of the flood.63

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In the flood story, we are told that the Lord saw the wickedness of man which was great on the earth—the inclinations of his heart was evil. God regrets creating mankind and decides to wipe out humanity and all the animals on the earth, including the birds of the sky. But only Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord (Gen 6).64 The wickedness, according to Kass, appears to relate to animals eating other animals, as they “depart from the desired peaceful way and descend into beastliness […] for animals, this can only mean that they have taken to eating one another, in clear violation [of] eating only herbs, grass, fruit, and seeds (see Gen 1:29–30).”65 So all of this terrestrial creation has become morally culpable for transgressing the moral codes. In this way, the moral of the story of the flood of Genesis seems to point to “anthropological, theological, and moral” truths.66 The result of living a wicked life for men is that they are destroyed, in other words, only the righteous may survive. As such the flood story points out that human beings are called to live an ethical life, a life of righteousness. Philosophers have similarly highlighted the need to live an ethical life. For instance Socrates, as portrayed by Plato in the Apology, noted that the “unexamined life is not worth living” (Apology 35e–38b),67 and encouraged his listeners to become philosophers in preparation for death, such that the philosophical life, or the life of questioning, would in turn lead to a kind of ethical existence, whereby one would be able to meet the gods without fear. To live otherwise would as it were damage one’s soul (this is the argument that Plato develops later in the Πολιτεία,

It is interesting to note in this passage that God regrets that he created mankind—as it raises philosophical questions pertaining to the omnipotence and omniscience of the divine. If God is considered as Pure Act (Actus Purus) then God should not change or admit of change, i.e. regret. 65 Kass, Beginning of Wisdom, 162. 66 Ibid. 165. 67 Ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέτα τος ίος οὐ ι τ ς ἀνθρώπῳ. (Apology 38a). Greek text from Perseus . 64

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where he considers the question of “why be just?”).68 So, it is possible to draw out similarities between the theological story, and philosophical reflections which are concerned with the ethical/ anthropological development of humankind in light of a conception of the “good.” (ii) The Flood Story as Possibly Understood in its own time of construction, and as having transcendent aspects in relation to the self and world It is also interesting to imagine how the story of the flood was rationally perceived by those of the time of its construction (possibly c. 600 BCE). It would seem that those who heard the flood story would have concluded that being “wicked” in the sight of the Lord could result in the wrath of the Divine. In this way the flood is not just a natural disaster (as in the case of Plato’s account of the flood), but a disaster brought about by the moral actions of the individuals at the time. A connection between an individual’s free moral choices and natural disasters become linked. Only Noah was seen to be righteous. This would be more difficult to translate philosophically, that an individual’s unethical actions (moral evil) could be directly connected to bringing about environmental catastrophes (natural evil).69 Although, there is a tendency for individuals even in modern times to link such natural disasters with the “sin” of a particular place, which appears to be inspired from these earlier traditions—this element of the story seems to be a transcendent aspect in relation to the world and self, in this case, actions of the individual can be related to consequences for the world. A possible objection to saying that one should not see a connection between unethical living and natural disasters, a dichotomy between actions of the self and world, could be raised in relation to contemporary (unethical) actions by human beings The biblical account of the flood resulting from the “wickedness” of mankind contrasts with the Platonic story of the flood as a leveling of humanity arising out of “natural causes.” 69 This is much discussed in modern reflections on the problem of evil in the philosophy of religion, see Davies, Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. 68

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and their effect on nature—such as for example the consumption of the world resources without care for the consequences of global warming, the melting of the ice-caps, etc. The difference in this case, it might be argued, is that the cause and effect of these relationships are being supported by scientific investigations rather than by speculation. Yet, the story seems to convey some logical principle that human actions can have an effect on the environment—which concurs with the scientific narrative that abusing the environment, cutting down trees, exploiting resources without considering the consequences or replenishing, can result in environmental disasters—the rise in the level of hurricanes, sea levels and so on.70 In the ancient view the relationship between the human being and the world was often characterized by holding that the human being was a microcosm of the macrocosm. As such, doing unrighteous actions would bring about damage to one’s soul that would be akin to damaging a small world. The moral of the flood story, then, akin to the teaching of Socrates seems to point to the necessity for “righteous” living, or living towards the “Good” in order to live well, for the examined, moral life, was what brought happiness.71 The biblical flood story was wishing for such a state of being also for all mankind. As Kass outlines, the flood drowns the heroes and washes away the violent world they produced, so that the story of the flood seeks to wash away the heroic temptation in the reader. It seeks permanently to drown the natural human aspiration to apotheosis through heroic deed and to replace it with an

Some dispute the relationship between the rise of temperatures and humanity’s use of resources, etc. pointing out that the earth has undergone temperature changes in the past which may be due to other cosmic issues rather than the rise in carbon dioxide levels, etc. 71 Aristotle termed this εὐδαιμονία—eu—meaning “well,” while daimon referred to a guardian spirit. So, happiness was reaching a kind of living a divine state of being which man through virtue (ἀρετ —excellent) is able to strive towards and reach. See for instance Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. 70

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acquired human commitment to righteousness and the perpetuation of life on earth.72

CONCLUSION The aim of this paper was to highlight the possibilities of “translating” mythic stories philosophically. In the first part of the paper an analysis of the relationship between mythic stories and those based on λόγος was undertaken. It was pointed out that changes in current scholarship point to a more dynamic relationship between these elements, and not a radical division as had been previously understood. In the second section of the paper Cooke’s analysis of translating truth drawing on the work of Habermas and Gadamer was outlined in order to exemplify what it would entail to “translate” mythic texts philosophically. While in the last section, a sketched translation was undertaken focusing on determining the possible facticity of the flood story—the possibility of determining its facticity is currently problematic and gives way rationally to a consideration of what philosophical “moral” is being conveyed by the flood story. Here, it was outlined that the flood story could be seen to be a story reflecting on moral behavior and the importance of righteous living. Philosophers have also reflected on these questions, and in particular the ancient philosopher Socrates and later Plato point out that to live an unjust life results in damage to one’s soul. But linking natural disasters to moral actions is a more difficult and more speculative, and perhaps a more theological/ transcendent element of the text which does not lend itself to easy translation as other aspects of the text.

WORKS CITED Armstrong, Arthur H. An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963. Behe, Michael. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to the Theory of Evolution. New York: Free Press, 2006. Boeve, Leiven. God Interrupts History: Theology in a Time of Upheaval. New York: Continuum, 2007. 72

Kass, Beginning of Wisdom, 167.

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Bollert, David. “Plato and Wonder.” In Extraordinary Times 11. Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, 2001. Online: Burkert, Walter. “The Logic of Cosmogony.” Pages 87–106 in From Myth to Reason? Edited by Richard Buxton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Buxton, Richard, ed. From Myth to Reason?: Studies in the Development of Greek Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Brisson, Luc and F. Meyerstein. Inventing the Universe. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995. Collobert, Catherine. “Philosophical Readings of Homer: Ancient and Contemporary Insights.” Pages 133–160 in Logos and Mythos. Edited by William Wians. Albany, NY: SUNY, 2009. Cornford, M. Plato’s Cosmology, The Timaeus of Plato. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937. Cooke, Meave. “Translating Truth.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 37, no. 4 (2011):479—491. Cooper, John M. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997. Davies, Brian. Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dickin, Alan. Pagan Trinity-Holy Trinity: The Legacy of the Sumerians in Western Civilisation. New York: Hamilton Books, 2007. Fournier, H. Les Verbes “dire” en grec ancient, Exemple de conjugaison supplétive. Paris: Klincksieck, 1946. Guthrie, William K. The Greek Philosophers from Thales to Aristotle. London: Methuen, 1950. Kirk, Geoffrey S., John E. Raven, and Malcolm Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Kass, Leon R. The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Kramer, Samuel Noah. “Sumerian Theology and Ethics.” HTR 49, no. 1 (1956): 45–64. ———. “Sumerian Historiography.” IEJ 3 (1953): 228–232. Naddaf, Gerard. “Allegory and the Origin of Philosophy.” Pages 99–132 in Logos and Mythos. Edited by William Wians. Albany, NY: SUNY, 2009. Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2006.

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Partenie, Catalin. “Plato’s Myths.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition). Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Online: . Poebel, Amo. Historical Texts. PBS 4.1. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1914. Ricoeur, Paul. Figuring the Sacred. Trans. D. Pellauer. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995. Whitcomb, John C. and Henry M. Morris. The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1961. Wians, William, ed. Logos and Muthos: Philosophy Essays in Greek Literature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009. ———. “Introduction: From Muthos to…” Pages 1–12 in Logos and Muthos: Philosophy Essays in Greek Literature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009. Zeyl, Donald J. “Timaeus.” Pages 1224–1291 in Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997.

WICKED HEARTS, GRIEVING HEART: THE MUSICAL AFTERLIFE OF THE “FLOOD NARRATIVE” IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SIOBHÁN DOWLING LONG UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK ABSTRACT This chapter explores the reception of the Flood narrative (Gen 6–9) in music in two compositions from the 19th century: the first, a sacred opera, Il Diluvio universale (1834), by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797– 1848), and the second, a programmatic work, Poëme Biblique: Le Deluge (1875) by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921). Each work illustrates a major theme of the biblical story, in the former, human wickedness (Gen 6:5), and in the latter, God’s grieving heart (Gen 6:6). By way of numerous musical examples, this chapter illustrates the value of music as an effective interpretative medium in biblical studies. The evil heart of humankind (Gen 6:5) troubles the heart of God (Gen 6:6).1 —Walter Brueggemann

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Brueggemann, Genesis. Interpretation, 77.

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INTRODUCTION Down through the centuries the biblical story of the flood (Gen 6–9) has enjoyed multiple afterlives in music by numerous composers of Classical Art Music. One of the first musical interpretations was a dialogue motet, Diluvium universale: Dialogo del Noe (date unknown), from the 17th century by the “Father of Oratorio,” Giacomo Carissimi (1605–74). As the genre suggests, Carissimi based this composition on a dialogue between Noah and God from Gen 6–7:16 with the inclusion of narrative passages sung by the historicus, i.e., the narrator. Following on from this, and in the tradition of Carissimi, Sicilian composer Michelangelo Falvetti (1642–92) composed the oratorio, Il Diluvio universale (1682); one might speculate that Falvetti’s environment in the City of Messina, with its frequent floods and mud-slides, inspired him to set the biblical story to music. In the early nineteenth century, Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848), using the same title as his Italian forebears, set the story to music, followed by French composer, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Developments in biblical scholarship and geology during this time possibly influenced these composers to set the biblical story to music: it is a well-known fact that Saint-Saëns had a keen interest in geology and archaeology;2 one might speculate he was familiar with the significance of the flood narrative in the aforementioned disciplines during this time. Similarly, the development of “Programme Music” almost certainly influenced his choice of text, since many of the themes popularized by composers of this genre were located ready-made in the biblical story. In the twentieth century, composers of renown, such as Igor Stravinsky (1882–1972) and Benjamin Britten (1913–76), composed well-known works based on the flood narrative from medieval mystery play-texts.3

Wade-Matthews and Thompson, The Encyclopedia of Music, 420. The American writer and conductor, Robert Craft, compiled the libretto for “The Flood: A Musical Play” (1962) by Igor Stravinsky from the Chester and York Mystery plays. Benjamin Britten based his libretto 2 3

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This chapter focuses, then, on the reception of the flood narrative in nineteenth century Classical Art music. Part One discusses Gaetano Donizetti’s sacred opera, Il Diluvio universale (1834), an imaginative reconstruction based on Gen 6–7 that highlights the theme of “humanity’s wicked heart” (Gen 6:5). This composition attributes culpability for the deluge to humanity, i.e. to the wicked Babylonians, and incorporates subtle allusions to the destruction of the First Temple, the Last Judgment, Salvation by the Waters of Baptism, and to the Institution of the Church. Part Two moves on to a discussion of Saint-Saëns’s Poëme Biblique, Le Deluge (1875)4 based on a paraphrase of Gen 6–9; the overarching theme here highlights “God’s grieving heart” (Gen 6:6) caused in the first place by the wickedness of the angels (Gen 6:1–4), and further exacerbated by humanity’s wicked inclinations (Gen 6:5).5 The two compositions address many contentious questions arising out of biblical story as discussed by biblical scholars past and present. Walter Brueggemann, for example, frames his discussion of the narrative with two questions:6 first, “Could God bring an end to his world?” This invites readers and auditors to reflect on God’s motivation for the deluge, his emotional response before and after the catastrophe, and the degree to which human beings were and are morally culpable. Upon reflection, this question leads to other problematic ones concerning the violence of the text: Why would a truly loving God want to harm his creation in the first place? Did he feel any remorse in the aftermath of the destruction? Brueggemann’s second question, “Can he [God] abandon the world which he so joyfully created?” invites reflection on the lessons learned, not only by humanity, but by God himself. Furthermore, this question urges reader/listeners to reflect on the consequences of God’s promise in the aftermath of the flood for for the opera “Noye’s Fludde” Op. 59 (1957) on Alfred W. Pollard’s edition of the Chester Mystery Play. 4 Although rarely performed in its entirety, the “Prelude” remains ever popular with audiences today. 5 In musicology, both works have received very little, if any, in-depth discussion to date. 6 Brueggemann, Genesis. Interpretation, 77–78.

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today. The two compositions by Donizetti and Saint-Saëns provoke listeners into a reflection on many of the above questions and more.

WICKED HEARTS Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti7 (1797–1848), an Italian composer of the early nineteenth century, composed Il Diluvio universale in 1830 based on Gen 6–7 by renowned librettist, Domenico Gilardioni (d. 1831).8 Despite the fact that Gilardioni is named on the score,9 it is known that Donizetti researched much of the story from a variety of biblical and extra-biblical sources. In a letter addressed to his father dated 10th January 1830, he recounted having compiled most of Act 1 from his reading of French biblical commentator Don Augustin Calmet (1672–1757), and biblical translator Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy (1613–84). He consulted, also, Lord Byron’s (1788–1824) mystery play Heaven and Earth (1821) based on 1 Enoch 6–11 (The Book of the Watchers),10 Donizetti was a prolific composer of opera; his most famous include Anna Bolena (1830), Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), and The Elixir of Love (1832). Il Diluvio universale was the only “opera” based on a biblical theme. Other sacred works include Ave Maria, Grand Offertorio, Miserere (Ps 50), Messa da Requiem, and Messa di Gloria. 8 The libretto to Fausta (1831), a two act opera, was begun by Gilardioni; following his death during its composition, Donizetti picked up from where Gilardioni had left off. 9 It is reasonable to speculate that in the light of the above note, Gilardioni may have been ill when Donizetti began researching and writing Il Diluvio universale. 10 Byron had written two plays on biblical subjects in 1821, including Cain and Abel. He based Heaven and Earth on an interpretation of Gen 6, more likely influenced by the apocryphal Ethiopic Book of Enoch. The play, set in the mountainous area close to Mount Ararat recounts the story of Japhet’s infatuation with Anah. To complicate matters, Anah and her sister Aholibamah (both names taken Gen 36:2, 14, 18, 25) are lovers of the angels, Azaziel and Samiasa. Japhet tries to convince Anah to relinquish her love for Azaziel in favor of him. Failing to heed Noah’s command to board the ark, the Archangel Michael intervenes and gives 7

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Padre Ringhieri’s (1721–87) “Il Diluvio,” and Bernadini Baldi’s (1553–1617) poem “Il Diluvio Universale” (1604).11 A close study of the libretto reveals allusions also to the creation story from Gen 1, the Book of Daniel, to a variety of New Testament references (Matt 24:38–39; Luke 7:28; 1 Pet 3:20–21; 2 Pet 2:5; Heb 11:7), and to Book I of the Pseudo-Sibylline Oracles. The first performance had taken place on March 6, 1830 during the liturgical season of Lent, in Naples at the Teatro San Carlo. Certain restrictions on composers and performers during this time ensured only works of a religious nature were performed, without staging, costumes, and dancing of any kind; for this reason, Donizetti composed no ballet to accompany the work. Despite this prohibition, however, the work was performed with stage action in the manner of an opera. Howard Smither notes that at the end of the eighteenth century there was a tendency, especially in Naples, “to stage operas in Lent as if they were oratorios,”12 a practice, no doubt, in evidence here. Commons notes that spectacle was an essential ingredient of grand operas during this time,13 and that the Teatro San Carlo, in particular, was renowned for its use of stagemachinery; records confirm, however, that the machinery for the dramatic scene of the flood at the end of Il Duluvio malfunctioned, with devastating consequences, on the opening night. Donizetti revised the score for a subsequent performance at the Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa (1834), and added arias, cabalettas, and stage action, and, in the process, changed the genre of the work from an “oratorio” to an azione tragico-sacra. Following the last performance in Paris in 1837, the score lay dormant for one hundred and fortyseven years, before its revival for one performance in the 20th century and another, by Opera Rara in Drury Lane, London, in the 21st century. the angels an ultimatum. They relinquish immortality and fly off with the women to another land. As the flood waters rise, the Ark sails towards Japhet who is found sitting on a rock. Byron described Heaven and Earth as less a drama and more of an oratorio. 11 Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 12. 12 Smither, A History of the Oratorio, 614. 13 Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 25.

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The Noahic Family Donizetti set the drama for the following characters: Noé, for a bass voice to depict his authority as God’s faithful servant; sons, Jafet, Sem, and Cam set for baritone, tenor, and bass respectively, and their wives, Tesbite, Asfene, and Abra set for two sopranos and a mezzo soprano. The designation of high and low voices for the wives compliments those of their husbands, in particular, the low sounding voices of Cam (bass) and Abra (mezzo soprano) point to Ham’s transgression (Gen 9:21–22) and to the subsequent curse bestowed on his offspring, Canaan (9:25). While not named in the biblical story, the naming of the wives parallels their naming in other variant traditions; in Jewish apocryphal literature, for instance, they are named Na’eltama’uk, ’Adataneses, and Sedeqetebab (Jubilees 7:14–17), and in Irish legendary literature as Oliva, Olla, and Olivana (The Book of Invasions).14 For the duration of the work, Donizetti portrays every member of the Noahic family as exemplary in their worship of and belief in the one true God: they pray together, accompany Noé on dangerous missionary journeys, and openly profess their steadfast faith in God. Portrayed as a saint-like character, there are no accounts of Noah’s misdemeanors, such as his drunkenness or nakedness (9:21), or any other details that might have tarnished the family’s reputation. For this reason, one might speculate that Mrs Noé’s poor reputation as a gossip from the medieval Mystery Plays may have determined her exclusion from this dramatic rendering. God God’s absence in the drama reflects a convention in 18th and 19th century opera preventing a character bearing his name from appearing on stage in any guise. On two occasions, however, Donizetti pointed to God’s appearance through the ethereal sound of the harp (Preghiera and Dio tremendo). The absence of God on stage however enabled Donizetti to focus on humanity’s This is a legendary work from the 12th century synchronizing myths and legends from early Ireland with biblical material. Macalister, trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn, 35. 14

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wickedness as enacted by the Babylonians who he portrays as a constant source of provocation to God, and as a threat to the existence of Noé, his family, and the Ark. Despite obvious anachronistic details, multiple allusions abound in this work to the destruction of the First Temple, to the threat of Israel’s existence, and to that of the one true God. God’s silence in the retelling enabled Donizetti to remove culpability from God for his act of violence, and highlight, instead, the responsibility of humanity for its perpetration of moral evil through acts of wickedness; in a similar manner to the biblical narrative, the music emphasizes that the flood was indeed a just punishment for wicked humanity. For this reason, Donizetti, like the biblical narrator, saw no need to fill in the gaps of the biblical story with expressions of God’s sympathy or regret for his creation. Oriental Heathens

Non-biblical characters include a group of oriental heathens: Cadmo, husband of Sela and Captain of the Satraps of Sennáár,15 The inclusion of the anachronistic term “Chief of the Satraps” as a title for the husband of Sela suggests a setting during the period of the Achaemenid Empire (550–300 BCE). As an Orientalist work, this unspoken detail is significant as it alludes to the imperial conquests of the Achaemenid King, Cyrus the Great (576?–530) who conquered the Empires of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia. Cyrus appointed twenty Satraps (i.e., viceroys) to govern the provinces (i.e., satrapies); this number increased to twenty-three during the reign of Darius the Great (Herodotus, History 3.89-97; trans. David Greene [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987], 252–55). Donizetti includes in his story a fictional character named Cadmo, who is Chief of the Satraps, and married to his concubine-turned-wife, Sela. The designation “Chief of the Satraps” points to an inter-textual reading of Dan 6; in this passage, King Darius elevates Daniel to the position of Chief administrator of the Satraps because of his exceptional qualities of character. Jealous of this promotion, the satraps and the remaining chief satraps reveal to Darius Daniel’s refusal to uphold the written edict to worship the king as god for thirty days; Daniel’s act of loyalty to the one true God of Israel results in his incarceration in the 15

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set for a tenor; protagonist, Sela, mother of Azael, for a soprano; Ada, Sela’s confidant, for a mezzo-soprano; and Artoo, chief of the Brahmins of Atlantide, for a tenor. The chorus comprises Satraps from Sennáár, their wives, Citizens of Sennáár, Priests of Europa, African Copts, Brahmins of Atlantide, and followers of Cadmo; anachronistic details appear in the casting to accentuate the exotic and orientalist nature of the composition. Set in three acts, Donizetti based the story on a conventional operatic plot that included a love triangle involving Noah’s son, Jafet, and the tragic demise of Sela, the protagonist. Wickedness in the City of Sennáár Donizetti juxtaposed an imaginary plot alongside the biblical story to enable him weave an orientalist theme into the fabric of the story retold, as well as highlight the theme of wickedness from the flood narrative (Gen 6:5). During the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for composers of Western Art music to represent the East as barbaric, idolatrous, and feminine, and the West as civilized, righteous, and masculine.16 In this work, he portrays “oriental” characters as violent barbarians who threaten to incinerate the Ark with Noé and his family incarcerated inside, as polygamists who enjoy the company of concubines, and as polytheists who worship and offer human sacrifices to the gods.17 By way of contrast, Noé symbolizes the “civilized” West in his depiction as peaceful, monogamous, and monotheistic. The text and music of the entire work points to Heb 11:7, and contrasts the righteousness of Noah with the wickedness of humanity; Donizetti lion’s den. By way of contrast, Donizetti portrays Cadmo as an antagonist, who, unlike Daniel, is portrayed as a polytheist who violently refuses to tolerate the existence and practice of monotheism, and planned to incarcerate Noah, his family, and Sela in the fiery furnace within the confines of the ark. This detail points inter-textually to the account of the three children in the Fiery Furnace; they, too, held privileged positions as administrators of the province of Babylon (Dan 3:12), and refused to worship the gods and golden image of King Nebuchadnezzar. 16 I refer here to Said, Orientalism. 17 Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 106.

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castigates the Babylonians as “others” who constantly deride Noah and sneer at his God. As in the Sibylline Oracles (1:171–2), they label him a “madman”18 and in the musical retelling, deride him as a false and vile prophet who plots against their cult. Harking back to the Great Deception of Gen 3, this retelling incorporates explicit references to the sins of idolatry, blasphemy, envy, lust, adultery, anger, hatred, indifference, and despair. To accentuate the theme of wickedness, Donizetti omitted certain textual details from the biblical story (6:1–4,14–16; 21), including explicit references to the animals (6:19–20; 7:2–3, 8–9, 14–16, 21), God’s covenant (6:15), promise and benediction (Gen 8–9). Much of the dramatic action takes place in the rural setting of Noé’s home beside the newly constructed Ark in view of the evil city of Sennáár in Babylonia; as with other biblical cities (Gen 4:17; 11:1–9; 19:1–29) this city, in the retelling, is synonymous also with sin. In a manner similar to Noah’s missionary zeal in Book 1 of the Pseudo-Sibylline Oracles (1:150–70, 174–197), Donizetti’s Noé urges his polytheistic neighbors to proclaim repentance for salvation and seek refuge aboard the Ark. Musically, Donizetti ascribes florid music with elaborate embellishments for Babylonian characters to reflect their lavish, oriental lifestyles, and gentle, lyrical music for the Noahic family, who sing in ensembles. Sela, the Babylonian, sings more solos than any other character, has more opportunities for coloratura singing to reflect her “Oriental” background (see Example 1), and sings more lyrical melodies than any other Babylonian character to reflect her association with Noé and his steadfast faith.

(Example 1) Coloratura singing Donizetti scored Ada’s vocal part with multiple opportunities for coloratura singing, while Noé’s daughters-in-law remain in the background, and sing as part of an ensemble to represent the family unit (see Example 2 below). In general, this retelling 18

Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 124.

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highlights the righteousness of Noé over the idolatry of the heathens by setting Noé’s melodic lines in counterpoint against those opposing him. When the family sings contrapuntally, however, the repetition of each character’s melodic line serves to emphasize God’s offer of salvation to humanity. Vices: Deception, Idolatry, Seduction, Adultery Act 1 opens with Noé prostrated in prayer alongside his sons and their wives; this ensemble illustrates the Noahic family’s faithful belief in and worship of the one true God. Joined by the chorus, the quintet sings a prayer of petition—Preghiera a 5 voci: O Dio du pieta—pleading with God to pardon humanity, and to abate the ensuing flood soon to engulf the universe. Emphasizing salvation for all, Noé pleads with God as the family punctuate his vocal line with pleas of mercy:

(Example 2) Prayer of Petition After the prayer, Sela’s cavatina,19 “Mentre il core abbandonava,” contrasts the devotion of the Noahic family with a description of Cadmo’s idol worship, violence, and public derision of Noé’s God, along with his provocation urging God to punish his people. This provocation removes culpability from God, since it appears in the music that these wicked people were asking for punishment, and that they provoked God into causing the deluge. Sela’s lyrical 19

A simple melodious air.

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cabaletta, “Perché nell’alma,” reflects the serenity of Noé’s heavenly abode with her gentle melodic singing. Donizetti contrasted this with the violence of the Babylonians, who, led by Artoo, Cadmo’s evil henchman, arrive in Noé’s territory to set the ark alight. In the cavatina (Quell’ arca nell’ira de’ventri) Sela, Noé, and his family sing in counterpoint to reveal the promise of salvation to all offered by God. Artoo and the chorus, on the other hand, deride Noé, his family, and their God (Si scareni la schiera de’ ventri) and call upon the winds and floodwaters to destroy the world—another provocation. Sela commands them to leave the camp and revoke Cadmo’s command to obliterate the ark. When they leave, Noé resumes his missionary work with his sons in the evil City of Sennáár,20 while the women seek refuge aboard the Ark;21 this scene points to 2 Pet 2:5 describing Noé as a “Preacher of Righteousness.” Back home in Babylon, Ada takes advantage of Sela’s vulnerable situation by attempting to manoeuvre herself into the position as Cadmo’s wife. She deceives Cadmo into believing that Sela’s frequent trips to the Noahic household are motivated, not by a love for Noé’s God, but by a love for his son, Jafet (Ah perfida! …a me spergiura).22 Outraged by Sela’s “deception,” Cadmo pronounces a death sentence on Sela, Noé, and his family. Sela returns to the camp with news of Cadmo’s murderous intention to obliterate the Noahic family, their religion, along with the Ark. Noé urges Sela to seek salvation and come aboard. Jafet arrives onto the scene with news that Cadmo’s henchmen were lingering around the camp; as a response, Noé urges Jafet to take Sela to a safe haven. On their way to safety, they run into Cadmo, Ada, and Artoo. From this encounter, it appears to Cadmo that Ada has spoken the truth. In the ensuing ensemble, Sela pleads with Ada not to abandon her,23 and Jafet pleads with God to save his servant, Noé. Cadmo accuses Noé of plotting against their religion and cult, while Noé rebukes these words and speaks of the wrath of the everlasting God who is about to strike Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 148. Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 148. 22 Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 177. 23 Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 273. 20 21

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vengeance on the world (Volgi quell pianto al Cielo). As the satraps capture Noé’s sons, Cadmo reveals that Sela and Jafet are to die for their supposed infidelity, along with Noé and his family.24 Act 1 ends on a positive note with another musical ensemble: Noé and Jafet feel strengthened with God’s spirit, Ada feels ecstatic that Noé and Sela are about to die, and Artoo and the chorus sing of the day when they would finally obliterate Noé’s God from the face of the earth. Prophetic Dream and Vision In Act 2, Ada encourages Cadmo to meet with Sela again, but upon meeting, Sela professes her innocence and asks only to see her son for one last time (Non vengo al tuo cospetto).25 Cadmo refuses and threatens to reveal to their son when she is dead her supposed infidelity with Jafet. When Sela learns of her betrayal by Ada she appeals to Noé’s God to have pity; God’s silence increases her lack of faith. While Cadmo speaks to Sela, mocking her God, he urges her to invoke the God who will “save her”; unknown to himself, he speaks the truth for God’s offer of salvation is available to all people. Back in Noé’s camp, the family gather to pray (Gli empii’l circondano), surrounded by Babylonians as they sing in an ensemble of Noé’s steadfast faith. A beautiful harp solo opens this number and remains until the end to represent God’s presence and revelation to Noé. Mimicking a lullaby, the music sound-paints Noé’s restful sleep in the face of adversity; in the dream God reveals his intention to curse Ham’s offspring (Gen 9:25).

24 25

Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 284. Commons, Il Diluvio Universale, 386.

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(Example 3) Noé’s steadfast faith Meanwhile, Sela arrives on the scene with Cadmo’s guards, and reveals to the family their fate, followed by Cadmo who confirms his decree. In the aria, Dio tremendo, omnipossente, Noé kneels and prays to God to enlighten the minds of Cadmo and his people, and to pardon their blindness. The family join in and pray with Noé; the harp features prominently in this aria to signify God’s abiding presence and his offer of salvation to all people.

(Example 4) Noé’s Prayer Noé’s aria, Ah … Si veste il ciel tenebre, based on Gen 7:11 testifies to Noé’s role as a prophet. In a vision, God reveals how the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven would break open to cause the destruction of the world. As Noé sings of his vision, his family and Sela understand from his gaze that he has seen “Heaven’s punishments,” while Cadmo, Artoo and the Chorus sing of Noé’s death. Act 2 concludes with Noé and his family led by Cadmo’s guards to the Ark to await a sacrificial death.

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Wedding Banquet on the Last Day Act 3 opens in a banquet hall where the people of Sennáár celebrate the forthcoming marriage of Cadmo to Ada. During the celebrations, the chorus invites the guests to indulge in forbidden pleasures (Stirpe angelica, ti bea). Sung to a sparse orchestral accompaniment, Cadmo reinforces this joyful sentiment by announcing Noé’s forthcoming sacrificial death. The theme of “banquet” points to the apocalyptic overtones of Matt 24:38–39 and Lk 17:26–7, Just as it was in the days of Noah… They were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. (NRSV)

Much to the dismay of Ada, and to the surprise of Cadmo and the guests, Sela appears, having escaped from the Ark, to protest her innocence, profess her undying love for Cadmo, and to reveal her disappointment at Noé’s God for refusing to listen to her cries. In an emotionally charged aria (Senza colpi mi scacciasti) she pleads with Cadmo to take her back, and if not, to allow her to draw her last breadth. Cadmo agrees on condition she curse the “God of Adam.” Following her answer in the affirmative, si (yes), the orchestra accentuates the dramatic moment by remaining silent. Her melodic line, punctuated by musical rests, sound-paints her loss of breadth and reticence to pronounce the curse. Cadmo urges her on, half-singing half-speaking, Maleddici! (Pronounce the curse!). Sela’s words, Ah… no….. Sia …maletto ..il Di …o (Ah no…Cursed …be…the ..God), sung unaccompanied to a high tessitura, signifies her lack of faith, and heralds the beginning of the deluge (see example 5). Punctuated by musical rests, she cries, Man…ca…il…respir…!! (I …can…not ….breathe..!!), and after an exclamation, “Ah!” held for two extended beats to a high tessitura, she dies.

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(Example 5) Sela’s Faithlessness After a pause, the choir announces her death, Spirò (she is dead), in whispered tones, unaccompanied, and in unison. The final chorus, Ah, Non mai viste tenebre, tells of Noé’s prophecy, truthfulness, and salvation from death. The bass drum sound-paints the rains pouring forth from the sky, as strings and woodwind articulate a descending melody, while dramatic timpani rolls sound-paint the raging storm as the deluge wreaks havoc on earth as the ark sails to safety over the deathly floodwaters. Ascending figures in Violin 1 sound-paint the rising flood waters (mm. 246–253). The major tonality for the final measures (mm. 254–65) point nonetheless to 1 Pet 3:20–21, to the saving waters of baptism necessary for salvation.

GRIEVING HEART Camille Saint-Saëns26 (1835–1921), a French composer of the late nineteenth century, composed Le Deluge Op. 4527 in 1875 to a Notable compositions include the biblical opera, “Samson and Delilah” Op. 47 (1877), the tone-poem “Dance Macabre” (1874), The “Organ” Symphony No. 3 in C minor, and “The Swan” (Le Cygne) from the musical suite, “The Carnival of the Animals” (1886). Other lesserknown works based on the Bible include the oratorio, “The Promised 26

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paraphrase of Gen 6–9 by librettist Louis Gallet (1835–98), a renowned French writer of opera and oratorio libretti.28 Innovative for its time, the work’s subtitle, Poëme Biblique, encapsulated a variety of musical genres—oratorio, poème lyrique, and cantate biblique—under one broad heading. Fellow nineteenth century composers Hector Berlioz (1803–69), Franz Liszt (1811–86), and Richard Wagner (1813–83) were major influences to Saint-Saëns.29 His choice of subject matter from the Bible contained an array of ready-made themes that were popularly set to music by 19th century composers. They included: two nature themes, the deluge and the beauty of the new creation; mythological characters: giants;30 a wayfarer/hero: Noé; emotion: God’s grief/love/anger; a predilection for the mysterious: God and angels; and a tragedy: humanity’s natural inclination for wickedness. A fascination with myth during this time led Saint-Saëns to highlight the mythical story of the sons of God, daughters of men, and their offspring, the Nephilim from Gen 6:1–4. The emphasis on God’s grieving heart is found also in the Mesopotamian myths, the Atraḫasīs (3:5, Land” Op. 140 (1913), “The Christmas Oratorio” Op. 12 (1858), and a setting of Psalms 18, 136, and 150. 27 Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to his then nineteen year-old wife, Marie Laure Emile Truffot, whom he married in 1875, the same year he composed Le Déluge. Unfortunately, the marriage ended in separation following the untimely deaths of their two sons in 1878, both of whom died within six weeks, one from illness and the other from accidentally falling out of a fourth-story window. Saint-Saëns blamed Marie for the latter, and in 1881 walked away from the marriage never to return. 28 Gallet produced the libretti for Massenet’s oratorios Marie-Magdeleine (1873) and Eve (1875). 29 Saint-Saëns sound-painted the text in a manner similar to the tone poems of Liszt, enlisted huge orchestral forces similar to those found in the works of Berlioz and Wagner, and incorporated motifs to sound-paint the story as in the idée fixe of Berlioz and the leitmotifs of Wagner. SaintSaëns, himself, admitted to being an eclectic in his treatise Harmonie et Mélodie, xxi. 30 Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen recounts the stories of giants, Fasolt and Fafner, in operas Das Rheingold (1869) and Siegfried (1871).

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36–6:40) and Gilgameš (11:164–206) Epics. John Day argues that the Genesis sources (J and P) both knew the flood story from the Atraḫasīs epic, not the Gilgameš. He points out that at the end of both epics, “some divine sympathy is expressed for the victims of the flood in speeches from the Mother goddess and Enki/Ea,” a point, Day states, that is often overlooked by biblical scholars.31 The theme of “God’s grieving heart,” based upon Gen 6:6, features as a major theme in Saint-Saëns’s musical interpretation. The reason for God’s grief (v. 6) originated when his love could no longer penetrate the hardened hearts of his people; consumed by evil, they turned their backs on God’s loving gaze, and caused his heart to break. The restoration of creation, in the aftermath, signalled the end of gloom, renewed life, Promise and Blessings. Despite God’s futile endeavor to rid the world of evil, humanity retained its inclination for evil, and God continued to grieve as he does today. Saint-Saëns sound-painted the above elements of the flood story using musical subjects and motifs to unify the work as a whole; two primary subjects from the opening movement, the Prelude, reoccur in subsequent movements. Saint-Saëns incorporated into the fabric of the composition motifs derived from the subjects to sound-paint details relating to characters, emotions, and objects from the flood story. Other musical rhetorical devices include dissonant intervals and minor tonalities to describe God’s pain, the interval of the semi-tone to paint the occurrence and spread of evil, the tritone to signify a distortion of the natural order, and the interval of the perfect fourth to point to death in Parts 1 and 2, and to renewed life in Part 3. Major tonalities point to moments of love, joy, and happiness; large intervallic leaps describe the giants; syncopated rhythms paint the movement of the waters; and curved rhythmic shapes depict the rainbow. He used the timbre of certain instruments to illustrate, for example, God’s presence (harp), the raging deluge (brass and woodwind), birds (flutes), and God’s grief and great love for creation (viola). The symbolic use of tonalities feature throughout: the tonality of C describes the return to primaeval chaos, as well as signifying the new creation in the 31

Day, “The Genesis Flood Narrative,” n.p.

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aftermath of the deluge; E-minor points to God’s regret; E-major to God’s grieving heart; F-minor to God’s death sentence; B-Flat to Noah; and D-major to signify the covenant. Saint-Saëns included contrasting dynamics and pitch, especially in Part 2 to dramatize the swirling waves and rising floodwaters. As in all compositions from the nineteenth century, large orchestral forces, rich harmonies, and a greater use of chromaticism feature throughout. Although rarely performed in its entirety today,32 Saint-Saëns regarded this work as one of his great masterpieces.33 Libretto Louis Gallet based his paraphrase of the flood narrative on a French translation of the Latin Vulgate by translator Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy (1613–84). The story follows the same plot and order of events as recounted by the biblical narrator, but without the inclusion of the extended palistrophic structure34 so cleverly constructed by the redactor. Not wanting to distract listeners from the theological issues at stake, Gallet set this story for one character God, and a narrator. For a large portion of time, the omniscient narrator, in the same manner as his biblical counterpart, recounts details of the story retold. God’s powerful voice interjects, as it does in the biblical story, prior to the flood with (a) the pronouncement to destroy creation (Gen 6:7,13), (b) the command to build the ark (6:14–16), and (c) the proclamation of the Covenant (9:8–17) in the flood’s aftermath, with words of his benediction and promise. By comparison, and as in the biblical While the entire work is rarely performed today, the Prelude is performed at concerts and features on CDs. 33 A correspondence (dated April 18, 1904) from Saint-Saëns to fellow composer, Alfred Bruneau, records the following: “Il me semble bien aussi que la Symphonie en ut et Le Déluge sont mes ouvres maitresses.” Cited in Ratner, Camille Saint-Saëns, 314. 34 Gordon Wenham argues that the structure of the Flood narrative is “more coherent than is usually admitted.” He describes that Gen 6:10– 9:19 is a palistrophe, on a grand scale, containing 31 items with periods of time forming a symmetrical pattern 7, 7, 40, 150, 150, 40, 7, 7. See, Wenham, “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” 336–48. 32

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story, Gallet highlights the silence of Noah’s voice to emphasize the protagonist’s total submission and obedience to do God’s will. The narrator mentions Noah’s wife, three sons, and their wives without name and on one occasion only by God in his initial speech following the catastrophic pronouncement: Make an ark of wood, lofty, broad, too, and spacious take thy wife, and thy sons, and the sons’ wives in with thee…

Prelude

(Example 6) God’s Disappointment - Subject 1

(Example 7) God’s Grieving Heart - Subject 2 Part One

(Example 8) Giants

(Example 9) Growth of Evil

(Example 10) God’s Death Sentence

(Example 11) Noah Theme

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(Example 12) Movement of the Waters Part Two

(Example 13) The Tumultuous Floodwaters

(Example 14) The Tumultuous Floodwaters

(Example 15) Rising Floodwaters

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Part Three

(Example 16) The End of Gloom

(Example 17) Flight of the Dove

(Example 18) Covenant

(Example 19) Promise

(Example 20) Rainbow Rather than assign specific voice parts to sing the role of narrator and the character of God, Saint-Saëns captured the mood of the story, and the tone of God’s speeches, by assigning a variety of voices—solo, ensemble or large chorus—to convey for example, God’s sorrow, the gravity of his commands, and the joy of his promises, and so on. Depending on the level of intensity of a particular scene, he assigned lower vocal parts, such as a bass

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and/or contralto voice to sound-paint an atmosphere of doom and gloom, the spread of evil in the world, and God’s death sentence prior to the flood. Donizetti generally equated higher solo voices with life before the flood, as sung by the tenor voice in Part 1, and in the aftermath of the flood to announce the new creation by the soprano in Part 3. To express a variety of heightened emotional states, before, during, and after the flood, Saint-Saëns increased the number of vocal parts singing together, as a duet, trio, ensemble, as well as making extensive use of the chorus. To emphasize a particular point in the libretto, e.g., God’s death sentence or his benediction, Saint-Saëns set the music either in homophony, e.g., blocks of chords, or in polyphony, e.g., as a choral fugue. This work is set in Three Parts, and opens with a Prelude that sets the mood for the movements to follow, as well as introducing important motivic material for more extensive treatments later on in the music. Gallet subtitled each movement with text to correspond to a chapter from the biblical story. Part 1, subtitled “The Corruption of Man, The Anger of God and The Covenant with Noah” corresponds to Gen 6:1–21; Part 2, “The Ark, The Deluge” to Gen 6:22–7:23; and finally, Part 3, “The Dove, The Descent from the Ark, The Benediction” to Gen 8:1, 6–12, 18a, 20, 21b; 9:7, 13, 16. The structure of Gallet’s retelling, together with Saint-Saëns’s musical interpretation, distinguishes the Old Creation (Part 1) from the New (Part 3), with the division demarcated by the account of the Flood in the middle (Part 2). The title of Joseph Blenkinsopp’s recent book Creation, Un-creation, Re-Creation corresponds to Gallet’s three-fold structure and provides a fitting description of the content of each movement;35 for this reason, I have used the three nouns from this title as sub-titles for my ensuing discussion below. Gallet omitted from the libretto doublets and repetitions to avoid disrupting the natural flow of the story retold, along with portions of text relating to numeric details and catalogues. Furthermore, he omitted details relating to God closing the door of the ark (7:16), the grounding of the ark on the mountain (8:4), and references to the sacrificial aroma (8:21). With an emphasis on the 35

Blenkinsopp, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation.

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theological sense of Scripture, textual omissions such as these ensured listeners avoided an overly literal interpretation of the narrative. Finally, he omitted from God’s commands text relating to sustenance (6:21), the regulations governing the consumption of food (9:3–4), and the contentious declaration instigating capital punishment (9:6). The latter, had it been included in the music, may have fuelled arguments in favor of the death penalty which had been practiced in France since the middle ages36 and continued as a source of debate in France during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gallet changed also the focus of Gen 9:16 at the end of his story by replacing God with men to read: And when they behold this bow in heaven All men shall call to mind that it stands forevermore, A pledge of promise evermore…

Given humanity’s propensity for evil, the change of focus encourages listeners to take responsibility for their actions, and emulate the moral perfection of Noah. Focusing on the theological sense of interpretation, Gallet avoided the temptation of overloading the story with textual embellishments—dialogues, monologues, and internal monologues—character development, extra-biblical, non-biblical characterization, and other details relating to characters’ lives. Prelude The Prelude sets the mood for the entire work with two primary themes from which Saint-Saëns derived motifs that appear later on in the music. After a brief introduction for eight measures, a solo viola introduces the first subject in the tonality of E-minor (Example 6). The melancholic sound of the viola, with its passionate melody, characterized by rising and falling semitones, represents God’s disappointment, loneliness, and solitude; the thematic tone color illustrates to what extent God was “decisively impacted by the suffering, hurt, and circumstance of his Victor Hugo, for whom Saint-Saëns composed Hymne à Victor Hugo, Op. 69, was an indefatigable opponent of the death penalty and pleaded for its abolition in “Last Day of a Condemned Man” (1829). 36

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creation.”37 The second theme, played by a solo violin and accompanied by a sparse string ensemble represents “God’s grieving heart” (Gen 6:5–6); this haunting melody appeals to listeners’ pathos by enabling them feel the emotion associated with God’s sorrow and unceasing grief (Example 7). The biblical story, as pointed out by Brueggemann and illustrated so beautifully by Saint-Saëns, “is about the hurt God endures because of and for the sake of his creation;”38 motifs derived from this subject appear later on in the music to remind listeners of this sentiment. Scored in Emajor, the passionate melody captures the intensity of God’s sorrow while the major tonality points to God’s great love for his creation. Creation The first movement opens with a recitative sung by the tenor, accompanied by the harp, with the narration of the multiplication of the sons of men (Gen 6:1). The ripple of the harp, representing the presence of God, harks back not only to the divine command from Gen 1:28, but to the genealogical account of the spread of humanity in Gen 5:1–32. A short musical interlude follows and introduces the first four measures of the second subject, signifying “God’s grieving heart.” The tenor voice continues with the narration of the “angels” who came, filled with desire, to reside with the daughters of men. According to this interpretation, the sons of God were angels; the music, too, reinforces this interpretation by assigning to the narration about the angels a melody derived from the second subject of the Prelude to suggest a common nature with God. The melodies of the accompanying strings, comprising semi-tones, point to the wickedness of the angels, as well as to God’s disappointment at their behavior for disrupting the natural order of creation. Another musical interlude follows, with the melody of the second subject doubled between violins 1 and 2 to emphasize God’s intense grief at the behavior of

37 38

Brueggemann, Genesis, 78. Brueggemann, Genesis, 79.

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the angels, together with an arpeggiated harp accompaniment to emphasize the angel’s divinity. Saint-Saëns incorporated the interval of the grating tritone in music underscoring narration about the angel’s “disdain of their former splendor,” and their “desire” for “virginal daughters of men;” this unsettling sound-paints a picture of the distortion of the natural order brought about by the angels’ conjugal union with mortals. To express God’s sorrow and disappointment at this outrageous act, Saint-Saëns included in the string accompaniment motifs from subject 2, together with the semi-tone motif from subject 1. The music in no uncertain terms points out that the reprehensible union was “against the will of the creator who made the world so that everything should produce according to its kind (Gen 1:11–12, 21, 24–25)”;39 the angels’ action was “a violent breach of just order.”40 Accentuating the tension of this scene, the tenor voice narrates that the illicit union resulted in the generation of offspring, a hybrid race of “giants.”41 Saint-Saëns sound-paints the noun “giants” with large unison, intervallic leaps in the accompaniment, written in C-major to suggest a reversion to the chaos of “un-creation”—chaos come again (Example 8).”42 A musical interlude of nine measures follows immediately in downward stepwise movement, momentarily rising a perfect fourth only to fall again, to suggest that the giants were the fallen ones, the ‫ נפלים‬of Gen 6:4; the libretto omits the reference to the clause recounting the Nephilim’s acts of heroism in subsequent generations (6:4d). The interval of the perfect fourth is a bad omen Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 141. In this passage, Wenham cites Drewermann, Strukturen des Bösen I, 181–83. 40 von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1: 157, n. 34. Cited in Clines, “Noah’s Flood 1,” 128–42 (137). 41 The Latin Vulgate and LXX translates ‫( נפלים‬Gen 6:4; Num 13:33) as giants—the term gigantes suggests the Nephilim are the same as the “sons of god,” offspring of angel marriages. According to Wenham, this is the way modern commentators understand the term. Wenham, Genesis 1– 15, 143. 42 Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch, 46–47. Cited in Clines, “Noah’s Flood 1,” 128–42 (137). 39

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here as it appears later in music underscoring God’s “death sentence” command (Example 10). Following this interlude, the tenor voice, accompanied by a sparse chordal accompaniment on the harp, concludes his narration with details of the existence of violent corruption in subsequent generations of this race. SaintSaëns followed this narration with an instrumental fugue based on the melody of the “fallen ones,” concluding in the tonality of C-major as before to represent primaeval “chaos come again.” The next section recounts musically the growth of evil following the illicit union of angels and human females. Scored in the tonality of C-major a chromatic melody, incorporating the semi-tone motif, emanates from the depths of the cellos’ register, moves to the violas, and then to the violins to represent the movements of a slithering snake (Example 9); the shape of this melody recalls to listeners’ memories the evil serpent from Gen 3. The dark tone of the contralto voice enters on C sharp to narrate the spread of evil like leprosy; once again, the tonality of C points to the chaos of “uncreation,” and the “sharp” to evil’s lacerating effect on justice and peace. Singing a capella for three measures, the contralto recounts how God repented at having created the world; this melody was heard briefly in the Prelude. Saint-Saëns followed this statement by an instrumental based on the motif from Subject 1—“God’s disappointment”—of the Prelude. In true recitative style, the tenor voice accompanied by harp, announces God’s voice; a moment later, in the role of God, he proclaims God’s “death sentence” command. Saint-Saëns included the interval of the perfect fourth at the beginning of this melody to symbolize death. After the contralto reiterates this command, a choral fugue ensues based on the theme of “God’s death sentence” command. Following the fugue, the tenor and contralto soloists declaim, “all justice is despised and banished,” “all holy ties have vanished,” and that “crime triumphant only remains.” Each phrase, punctuated by musical rests, is sung in unison for two measures to impress upon listeners the wickedness that had infiltrated the world, while accompanying strings punctuate moments of rest with the “death sentence” motif. As before, a fugal chorus ensues to reiterate “God’s death sentence” command. Towards the end of this section, octave leaps in the accompaniment suggest that God, had indeed, cursed the race of giants whose offspring had infiltrated the world with wickedness.

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In the following section, the harp sounds to announce the presence of God; the tenor narrator recounts that Noah found grace and compassion before the “irate” face of God; Walter Brueggemann points out, in the same way that Saint-Saëns illustrates the point musically, that “in this dismal story of pain, Noah was the one who embodied a new possibility.”43 Strings play “the Noah theme,” (Example 11) sung later to the words, “an upright man was he, just in word and deed”; this is a tuneful melody in an optimistic major tonality, suggesting that Noah would assist God in restoring order to the world again. Motifs derived from this theme occur again throughout all parts, instrumental and vocal, for the duration of the work. Following God’s judgment, the string accompaniment sound-paints the rumbling movement of the floodwaters (Example 12) from the fountains of the deep. As God commands Noah to build an ark, and take his family aboard, along with two of every animal, Saint-Saëns superimposed solo strings playing the “Noah” theme over strings playing the “movement of the floodwaters” theme to announce the beginning of the deluge. Part 1 concludes with soloists outlining the state of wickedness in the world, followed by a choral fugue comprising the “death sentence” motif to illustrate God’s intention to extinguish all creation. Towards the end of this movement, the music points to the race of giants, characterized by octave leaps in the accompaniment (Example 8), as the ones responsible for the existence of injustice, corruption, and evil in the world. Un-Creation The second movement is a dramatic, musical depiction of the raging tempest and rising floodwaters. Saint-Saëns scored it for a large orchestra to include strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, chorus, and soloists. He exploited rising crescendos and falling diminuendos to sound-paint the terrifying swell of floodwaters that engulfed the world and its inhabitants (Gen 7:18–20). As a master of orchestration, he maximized the use of woodwind, brass, and percussion to sound-paint “the eruption of chaos into the order of 43

Brueggemann, Genesis, 79.

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creation,”44 with its cataclysmic thunder and lightening, torrential rainstorm, and swirling floodwaters. Set in C-major, the next section opens very quietly with a chord played on the harp, followed by an unaccompanied narration from the tenor detailing Noah’s obedience to God; Saint-Saëns illustrates God’s active involvement in the storm through the inclusion of the harp. Strings begin pianissimo after which, alternating clarinets and flutes articulate a rising and falling chromatic fragment to sound-paint the rising ebb and flow of the waters. Depicting the increasing waters, alternating flutes, clarinets, and bassoons ascend and descend in scale-like motion (Example 13), with strings playing tremolo, and timpani rolls representing crashes of thunder. Saint-Saëns illustrated musically the increasing floodwaters by gradually increasing the number of orchestral instruments scored, and the tumultuous waves, driven constantly and unrelentingly by the winds, by ascending and descending arpeggios on strings and woodwind instruments (Example 14). Brass instruments sound God’s “death sentence” motif in the same manner as a bugle call on a battlefield, as woodwind instruments sound semi-tones in their melodies to recall the motif of “God’s disappointment.” While the orchestral accompaniment sound-paints the raging deluge below, the choir chants, alternately in unison and in homophony, with a narration of the unfolding catastrophic events to the sound of “God’s death sentence” motif punctuating every phrase. The choral melody comprises semi-tones to emphasize, yet again, God’s disappointment at his creation and the spread of evil. Descending scale-like passages in the strings illustrate the “springs of the deep” bursting forth from heaven’s floodgates (Gen 7:11). This section rises to a dramatic climax with the choral narration telling of the eagles’ flight above the devastation below. The tessitura of this passage is high in all vocal parts and sustained for six and a half beats to depict the outstretched flight wings of eagles gliding from on high. But even the birds failed to escape the deluge, for as the choir narrates, the floodwaters slowly rose to kill all its victims. Saint-Saëns depicted the rising floodwaters 44

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 57.

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submerging the highest mountaintops with a melody rising slowly in stepwise motion articulated by the horns, violins, and flutes (Example 15). Recounting the death and destruction of creation, the choir intones this section in the manner of a dirge to the dynamic markings piano and pianissimo. At the end of Part 2, the narration is recounted with external focalization to allow listeners visualize the ark, “floating safely on the sea, drifting slowly towards the horizon amid the horror of the eternal night.” The dynamics of the orchestral accompaniment swell and recede to depict the ark floating on the floodwaters high above the earth (Gen 7:17). Part 2 concludes in C-major with “an awe-inspiring picture of the mighty waters covering the entire earth.”45 This tonality heralds a new beginning—“Re-creation.” Re-Creation The mood of Part 3 (based on Gen 8:1–9:17) reflects the calm of the abated storm. In this movement, Saint-Saëns sound-painted the text with a musical depiction of a gentle breeze, the flights of the raven and dove, the rainbow, and God’s benediction ordaining “the multiplication and spread of people all over the globe.”46 Themes and motifs from the “Noah” theme, God’s death sentence motif, and Subject 2 “God’s sorrow” from the Prelude feature in this movement. Set in the tonality of C-major, it opens with an instrumental (59 measures) based on an eight measure subject, played by second violins to represent the “end of gloom” (Example 16) The presence of semi-tones, especially in the theme’s derivations, remind listeners of subject 1 “God’s regret.” The soprano enters on the note C, to the accompaniment of second violins playing a C, to represent the New Creation that now exists; the sparsity of accompaniment adds emphasis to the soprano’s words of narration: “Now God remembered Noah, his promise recalling.” God’s response to this memory, the gentle breeze that passed over the waters, is represented musically by the gentle 45 46

Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 183. Brueggemann, Genesis, 97.

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articulation of triplets in the second violins, taken up two measures later by the flutes and oboes, to imitate the motion of the rippling waters caused by the breeze. After a musical interlude (17 measures) based on the subject “the end of gloom,” the “Noah” subject in the strings precedes the narration recounting Noah opening the window of the ark. Ascending tuplets in the violins, divided by musical rests, depict the flutter of the raven’s wings in anticipation of his flight. The narration of the raven’s failure to return to the ark is followed by an interlude comprising subject 2, “God’s grieving heart,” and a further narration a cappella to recount the flight of the dove. Saint-Saëns sound-painted the dove’s flight with a melody on the flutes, comprising ascending and descending duplets (Example 17). For her second exit from the ark, he depicted her flight over the gentle rippling waves as illustrated by the repetition of falling quaver47 movement in the flutes, oboes and later, bassoons. The soprano narrates this section in the warm tonality of B-Flat to a beautiful melody that expresses both the joy and beauty of the new creation and the end of trial forevermore. The dove’s return to the ark is marked by its excitement at having brought back an olive leaf, as illustrated by the flurry of semiquavers48 in the flutes to mark its hovering wing movements. Following a brief interlude based on subject 2, Saint-Saëns includes a motif from the “Noah” subject punctuated by a flurry of semiquavers on the flutes to point to the faithful obedience of the dove. The narration recounts that after seven days the dove took flight again, and after her journey to the mountains and to the shore, returned no more to the ark. The music at this point sounds a motif from the second subject, “God’s grieving heart,” to signify Noah’s sorrow at the dove’s final departure. The story reaches a dramatic climax when Noah looks out the window of the ark for the second time and sees the land glowing in the sun’s radiance; his joy is reflected in the soprano’s high tessitura as illustrated by high B-Flat (2 octaves above middle C), sustained for eight beats, on the adjective “glowing.”

47 48

A quaver is a quarter note A semiquaver is an eighth note

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The instrumental following this declamation sounds motifs from the second subject of the Prelude describing God’s grieving heart at having to destroy his creation. The chorus narrates Noah’s descent from the ark, the building of the altar, the sacrificial offerings of animals, and the announcement of the rainbow in the sky “high up in heaven” to the accompaniment of the second subject in the strings. Of note is the inclusion of the harp to represent God’s presence to illustrate musically Noah walking with God (Gen 6:9). Saint-Saëns set God’s promise to Noah to a variation of the “death sentence” motif, now intoned in a major tonality to express the reversal of the death sentence and the ensuing optimism of the promise (Example 19). As a sign of the covenant (Example 18), the depiction of the arching rainbow—a rhythmic figure of ascending and descending quavers—derives from the first subject of the Prelude (Example 20). The chorus sings of God’s faithfulness to his promise—“I’ll no more curse the earth …..”—in homophony to reiterate the importance of God’s words, as the accompaniment sounds motifs from the “Noah” subject. A choral fugue based upon the words, “increase and multiply …” follows. Towards the end of Part 3, there is an increase in musical texture and orchestral accompaniment; soloists join with the chorus to sing in polyphony against the choir, in a brief canon, and lastly in homophony with the choir to reiterate God’s benediction: “all men, grow, increase and multiply, and multiply.” Significantly, in the very last section, flutes and violins sound the motif of “God’s grieving heart” to signify God’s awareness of humanity’s inclination for wickedness, and to illustrate his eternal grief, which he experiences today. The lessons learned from the catastrophe of the flood had a lasting effect not on humanity but on God himself.

CONCLUSION Donizetti’s imaginary story highlights the theme of humanity’s wickedness from Gen 6:5 in a case study involving the world’s most wicked people, the eponymous Babylonians, to enable listeners to comprehend the gravity of vice, encompassing every type of sin, present in one representative city. In this retelling, the composer illustrates to what extent God provided “all people” with an opportunity for salvation. His story focuses on the negative reaction to this invitation through the violent but futile attempt of

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“others” to obliterate God’s presence from the face of the earth. The story illustrates most profoundly to what extent God’s power not only brings about the end of the world but safeguards those who chose to live a life of righteousness in the midst of God’s everlasting presence. Saint-Saëns based his two central themes for this composition on Gen 6:6 to highlight, through passionate melodies and motifs, God’s eternal grief, disappointment at, and great love for creation. Despite his grief, which he continues to feel today, this interpretation illustrates to what extent God never abandons his people. In true Romantic spirit, Saint-Saëns appeals to listeners’ pathos, urging them to ease God’s pain by living a life of righteousness in imitation of God’s faithful servant, Noah. While each composer treated in detail a specific theme from the biblical narrative (Wicked Hearts, Gen 6:5—Grieving Heart, Gen 6:6), both arrived at the end with similar conclusions, offering words of advice to listeners on the importance of living a life of righteousness. These two musical interpretations, as illustrated in this chapter, are timeless and as relevant to listeners today as they were in the nineteenth century.

WORKS CITED Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1—11. London: T&T Clark, 2011. ———. The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1982. Charles, R. H. APOT. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. Commons, Jeremy. Il Diluvio Universale: Liner Notes. Audio CD, November 14, 2006. Opera Rara. Clines, David. “Noah’s Flood 1: The Theology of the Flood Narrative.” Faith and Thought 100, no. 2 (1972–73):128–42. Day, John. “The Genesis Flood Narrative in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Flood Accounts.” In Biblical Interpretation and Method. Essays in Honour of John Barton. Edited by Katherine Dell and Paul M. Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

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Donizetti, Gaetano. Il Diluvio Universale: azione tragico-sacra in three acts. London: Opera Rara, 2005. Herodotus. The History. Translated by David Greene. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Macalister, Stewart, R. A., Trans. Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland. Part I. Dublin: Irish Educational Company, 1938. Ratner, Sabina Teller. Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921): A Thematic Catalogue of His Complete Works: The Instrumental Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Saint-Saëns, Camille. Le Déluge: Poeme Biblique en trois parties. Op. 45. Paris: Durand, 1875. ———. The Deluge: Words translated from the French of Louis Gallet by Theodore T. Barker. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1879. ———. Harmonie et Mélodie. Paris: Ancienne Maison Michel Lévy Fréres, 1885. Smither, Howard. A History of the Oratorio: The Oratorio in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Vol. 4. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2000. Von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. 2 vols. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. London: SCM, 1975. First published 1960. Wade-Matthews, Max and Wendy Thompson. The Encyclopedia of Music: Musical Instruments and the Art of Music-Making. London: Hermes House, 2002. Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1—15. WBC 1. Waco, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1987. ———. “The Coherence of the Flood Narrative,” VT 28 (1977): 336–48. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 1—11: A Continental Commentary. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1994.

AFTER ME, THE RAPTURE: ESCHATOLOGICAL RHETORIC AND THE GENESIS FLOOD NARRATIVE IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA EGON D. COHEN AND RIVKA T. COHEN TEMPLE UNIVERSITY AND PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT This chapter argues apocalyptic cinema has used the rhetorical resources of the Genesis flood narrative in the characteristic topoi of the genre, and that apocalyptic films have established an extensive typology between the flood narrative and the prophetic apocalyptic message of American fundamentalism. Ultimately, it is our contention that the Genesis flood narrative has contributed significantly to changes in American cinematic, as well as broader, societal discourse—changes that have arguably 

E.C.: Many thanks to Jason M. Silverman, Rebecca Alpert, Linda E. Thomas, Stephen V. Sprinkle, Lance Pape, and James O. Duke. Their expertise, encouragement, and support—moral and otherwise—have been far more consequential and far more appreciated than it is possible to express in a footnote. R.C.: I would like to give special thanks to Prof. Naphtali Meshel for igniting my fascination with the Hebrew Bible, and for his excellent instruction in its translation and interpretation. I would also like to thank Prof. Bernard Haykel for introducing me to the joys and rigors of academic research.

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EGON D. COHEN AND RIVKA T. COHEN helped to extend the influence and cultural authority of premillennial dispensationalist eschatology. We delineate the elements of a “Noahide Apocalyptic Template” (NAT) and then proceed to examine three popular “apocalyptic” films—Evan Almighty (2007), WALL-E (2008), and Waterworld (1995)—that most fully embody this rhetorical structure.

INTRODUCTION Within contemporary Western discourse, the flood narrative of the Hebrew Bible serves as a topographically and topologically rich rhetorical resource, and appears to be of particular interest to two very different sets of authors: American premillennial dispensationalist “fundamentalist” Protestants—who see within the flood narrative the authoritative, typological resources necessary to give credence to their apocalyptic prophecies of cataclysmic destruction and subsequent establishment of God’s kingdom on earth—and authors in the genre of apocalyptic film, who utilize the flood narrative (and its reception) as a compelling thematic resource. Significantly, it is the screenwriters who seem to most fully draw upon, and arguably contribute to, the apocalyptic trajectory of the flood narrative in contemporary American society. This chapter will attempt to demonstrate how apocalyptic cinema has used the rhetorical resources of the Genesis flood narrative in the construction of the characteristic topoi of the genre (and, by extension, its characteristic discourse), and further, that in the course of this development, apocalyptic films have established an extensive typology between the flood narrative and the prophetic apocalyptic message of American fundamentalism (e.g. between Noah and film hero/contemporary prophet; between the flood and the prophesied tribulation; between the post-flood world and the promised kingdom of God). Ultimately, it is our contention that the Genesis flood narrative has contributed significantly to changes in American cinematic, as well as broader societal, discourse—changes that have arguably helped to extend the influence and cultural authority of premillennial dispensationalist eschatology. Our point of departure in this discussion will be a close reading of the Genesis flood narrative and its intersection with premillennialist apocalyptic rhetoric. From this, we will delineate

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the elements of a Noahide Apocalyptic Template (NAT) and then proceed to examine three popular “apocalyptic” films—Evan Almighty (2007), WALL-E (2008), and Waterworld (1995)1—that most fully embody this rhetorical structure.

APOCALYPTIC RHETORIC AND TRACES OF THE MILLENNIAL The apocalyptic rhetoric and models that we will discuss in this chapter find their groundings in a relatively recent development in church history: the advent of premillennial dispensationalist eschatology. American theology in the first half of the 1800s was marked by a great deal of interest in eschatology and, in particular, a focus on the millennium—a thousand-year period mentioned in Rev 20:1–6 during which God’s will would reign over the earth. Because the millennium described the culmination of the Church’s power, discussion of the millennium was closely linked to very practical debates about the purpose, goals, and methods of the Church. During this period, American eschatology was dominated by postmillennialism, which held that the second coming of Christ would occur after the millennium and that the millennium—the kingdom of God on earth—would be brought about through a process of social transformation.2 Postmillennialism thus gave eschatological significance to human activity and social reform.3 Postmillennialism also linked the transformation of American society according to middle-class values to the future transformation of the world according to God’s plan, and it provided a key motivating force for the reform movements of the There have, of course, been several direct treatments of Noah’s flood and the pre-millennialist apocalypse in film, but none of these have had much “mainstream” impact. See, inter alia, Noah’s Ark (1999), A Thief in the Night (1972), The Omega Code (1999), and Left Behind: The Movie (2000). However, Darren Aronofsky’s forthcoming Noah (2014) seems poised to break this trend. 2 See Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 11–42. 3 This is attested to by well-known evangelical hymns of the period such as “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 1

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1820s and 1830s.4 Postmillenialism was thus inextricably linked to the optimism of the early Republic, with a similar link existing between premillennialist dispensationalism and a more conservative and pessimistic view rooted in traditional Calvinist orthodoxy. In the United States, the circle of premillennialists led by the brothers David and Eleazar Lord used Plymouth Brethren leader John Nelson Darby’s premillennialism as the basis for a critique of the American church and its close relationship to the secular culture.5 The basic analytical unit of these premillennial theorists became the “dispensation,” a period of salvation history during which God gave humanity a specific set of expectations and laws. In the 1800s, the term “dispensation” was commonly used to translate the Latin dispensatio and the Greek οί ονομία. This use was derived from the Westminster Confession of Faith, where the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the sacraments of the New are described as “various dispensations” of grace in a way that emphasizes the continuity between the two eras.6 Theologians educated in traditional Reformed orthodoxy continued to use “dispensation” to mean “a system governing the provision of God’s grace to humanity,” but a wider audience began to use the term to mean “a period in salvation history” in much more general terms. In this wider sense, “dispensation” was used by historicallyminded Christians who identified a sequence of dispensations through history and by premillennialists who came to describe the millennium as a future dispensation. Accordingly, postmillenialism represents an optimistic view that humankind can bring about the millennium through venues such as social justice. In contrast, premillenialist ideology holds that humanity—and by extension the sublunary Church—is too depraved and sinful to be a vehicle for salvation. Instead, salvation must occur through divine intervention on an overwhelming scale—God “rapturing” away the faithful from a broken world and the second coming of Christ before (pre) the millennium as prerequisite to the establishment of God’s kingdom. In this way, Moorhead, “Erosion of Postmillennialism,” 61–77. Numbers, The Creationists, 31. 6 See Westminster Confession of Faith 7.6. 4 5

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the flood narrative becomes amplified in the theoretical background of premillennial dispensationalism. After all, if humanity can bring about our own salvation, there is no need for God’s intervention, and certainly not a deluge of divine intervention—such as the rapture—that has the potential to annihilate life on earth. In view of the premillenial historical attitude toward the apocalypse, Stephen O’Leary forms a theory of key topics/places (topoi) of apocalyptic rhetoric and narrative. Defining rhetoric as a term used by literary scholars “to refer to the formal devices and techniques of composition,”7 he notes that various world religious traditions use such rhetoric to address “a common concern: to understand the successive human ages and their culmination in a catastrophic struggle between the forces of good and evil.”8 He notes the presence of imminent divine judgment, “in which good and evil will finally receive their ultimate reward and punishment.”9 His three primary topoi of apocalyptic rhetoric then include the following: authority, time, and evil.10 He notes that death, like time, must be seen as irreversible in the context of proposing “moral choice between good and evil; for, like death, such choice is seen as irreversible.”11 Yet although the choice itself is irreversible, the outcome is not: “the awareness of defilement points to a time of cleanliness and offers the hope of restoration.”12 The duality of a permanent choice between good and evil and the temporary nature of the outcome of that choice is similarly evident in the premillenialist discourse that forms the backdrop to our discussion of apocalyptic models.

O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse, 4. Ibid., 5. 9 Ibid., 6. 10 Ibid., 20. 11 Ibid., 32 12 Ibid. 7 8

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Thus, O’Leary’s specific outline of premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric13 suggests the following characteristics of an apocalyptic model, which we will address as part of our NAT: (1) Corruption (Evil): Characterized by irredeemable choices with redeemable outcomes. (2) Authority: A powerful figure with the moral authority to visit destruction upon the earth. (3) Divine Catastrophe (“Act(s) of God”): The destruction caused by said moral authority. (4) Redemptive Era: An era of moral and perhaps physical cleanliness to follow in the wake of said destruction.

Determining whether the flood narrative fits this apocalyptic model requires a close reading of relevant portions of the text. A close reading will also help us determine special nuances of the NAT, which will inform our observations of the influences on contemporary cinema of this specific narrative, as opposed to other apocalyptic narratives present throughout the Abrahamic and world traditions. Although the biblical story of the deluge traverses four chapters (Gen 6–9), our close reading will focus on verses 6:5–13. For the subsequent material, we will provide a short summary of key rhetorical elements.

Here, we must remember to maintain a sharp distinction between apocalypse and apocalypticism (and cosmic catastrophe as an element of the apocalyptic). Cf. Collins, who argued that “apocalypse” as a genre, “apocalypticism” as an ideology, and “apocalyptic eschatology” were distinct entities. Collins, “The Jewish Apocalypses,” 45–48. See also idem, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 2. We also note that a serious challenge to Collins’s 1979 definition of apocalypse-as-genre is that it overlooked a functional component. Accordingly, Yarbro Collins modified this definition of genre with the addition that an apocalypse “was intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.” Yarbro Collins, “Introduction,” 7. 13

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FROM FLOOD NARRATIVE TO APOCALYPTIC TEMPLATE: TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY The flood narrative begins in Gen 6:5, and proceeds as follows:

‫וירא יהוה כי רבה רעת האדם בארץ וכל־יצר מחשבת‬ ‫לבו רק רע כל־היום‬ And YHWH saw that the evil of man14 was great upon the earth, and every inclination of the thoughts of his [man’s] heart were only evil all day.15

The evil of humanity has become widespread. Moreover, there is no good left: our every thought, our every desire, is suffused with evil. Not merely in isolated moments, but in every moment o every day. Humanity’s evil is widespread, internalized, and all-consuming. 6:6a

‫וינחם יהוה כי־עשה את־האדם בארץ‬

And YHWH felt sorry that he had made man upon the earth,

We have chosen the translation of “felt sorry,” rather than the standard “regretted,” since the niph’al form of this verb has two substantive implications for our understanding of the apocalyptic template illustrated by this text. To regret means simply to wish that one had not done something, but the use of ‫ וינחם‬here means something more than that. The first definition offered in the BDB lexicon16 is that of being moved to pity, or having compassion. The second definition is that of suffering and repenting for one’s own wrongdoings. In this context, v. 6:6a takes on an entirely different meaning: far from becoming contemptuous toward his creations, We acknowledge that the use of “man” here to refer to humankind is highly problematic. See Schüngel-Straumann, “On the Creation of Man and Woman,” 53–76. However, given the prominence of Adam as an exemplar of humanity in premillenialist discourse—and, in parallel fashion, Noah in the flood narrative—we have retained the metaphrastic translation. 15 Unless otherwise noted, translations of the Hebrew Bible are our own. 16 BDB, 637. 14

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now mired in their evil thoughts and ways, God pities them.17 God does not so much regret having made them as s/he suffers while watching them stray, and perhaps even feels a personal sense of responsibility for their plight. Moreover, s/he does not feel sorry for making humanity—s/he feels sorry for making humanity upon the earth. Perhaps God feels that if s/he had made humanity in the heavens, we would not have turned out this way—we could have been more than God observes, more than mere vessels for evil temptation and will. This is the second requirement of the NAT: God is moved to pity by humanity’s evil, not necessarily the disgust we might assume. S/he experiences a personal sense of remorse for having placed humanity in a situation, a terrestrial realm, where it was far too easy to “go bad.” This provides the logical precursor for ushering a new age, an age in which heaven is brought down to earth so that humanity might flourish in goodness the way God intended. It is worthy of special note that the ensuing flood cleanses the earth itself, perhaps a fulfillment of God’s desire to make the earth clean for humanity to inhabit. Humanity as “man”—as ‫—האדם‬was, after all, originally created for the paradise of Eden, a place that was perhaps more suitable for our moral development. 6:6b

‫ויתעצב אל־לבו‬

And he [God] was saddened to his core.

Verse 6:6b confirms our understanding of 6:6a as referring to a state of pity and sorrow, rather than potentially furious regret. Although the exact wording is “saddened to his heart,” the heart here represents the very essence, the core, of God’s identity and emotional experience. Thus the second half of the verse Cf. “When Sela learns of her betrayal by Ada she appeals to Noé’s God to have pity; God’s silence increases her lack of faith. While Cadmo speaks to Sela, mocking her God, he urges her to invoke the God who will ‘save her;’ unknown to himself, he speaks the truth for God’s offer of salvation is available to all people.” Dowling Long, “Wicked Hearts, Grieving Heart,” 410. 17

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emphasizes a crucial part of the apocalypse narrative: God does not send the flood from a sense of anger at the wickedness of man’s ways. Rather, s/he sends it from pity and sorrow, as a means to bring redemption to humanity. 6:7

‫ויאמר יהוה אמחה את־האדם אשר־בראתי מעל פני‬ ‫האדמה מאדם עד־בהמה עד־רמש ועד־עוף השמים כי‬ ‫נחמתי כי עשיתם‬ And YHWH said, let me wipe the man that I created from upon the face of the earth, from man to beasts to teeming creatures to the winged creatures of the sky, for I am sorry that I made them.

This verse reinforces the hypothesis that in the ensuing flood, God intends to wipe Adam (“the man”)’s progeny from the earth due to the corrupting nature of the earth itself, rather than humanity’s inherently evil nature. After all, if YHWH were furious at human nature and wanted to “start over,” s/he would simply have destroyed all humans and built a new-and-improved model. Instead, God also determines to wipe all other creatures from the earth, and s/he is sorry for making all of them (‫)כי נחמתי כי עשיתם‬, despite our understanding that the beasts of the earth and creatures of the sky have intended and done no evil. 6:8

‫ונח מצא חן בעיני יהוה‬

But Noah found favor in YHWH’s eyes.

Despite the tough medicine s/he has prescribed—to remove humanity from the earth—God still treasures God’s creations and feels special affection for one. This individual, our human protagonist, will be the one through whom God brings redemption—in the Noah story, by means of the saving ark, which brings righteous humans and representatives of the innocent animals to safety and high ground. As we will see later in the narrative, these righteous humans and creatures will be God’s ambassadors to a new and holy earth.

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6:9

‫אלה תולדת נח נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדרתיו את־‬ ‫האלהים התהלך־נח‬ These are the descendants of Noah—Noah was a righteous, wholesome man in his generation; Noah walked with God.18

The definition of the descriptive ‫ תמים‬is of particular interest when generating an apocalyptic template from the flood narrative’s text. According to BDB,19 in addition to meaning “wholesome,” ‫תמים‬ has the associated definition of being unimpaired. This relates to the root of the word, ‫תמם‬, which means complete, or finished. That is to say, beyond having good intentions and actions, Noah’s soul was complete and undiminished by the temptations of the world. Noah would be the perfect savior for God’s new world: a man who was of the world but not corrupted by it. The parallels to Jesus and the parousia in millennialist discourse are unmistakable. However, it is worth noting the well-worn observation that Noah was perhaps only righteous in his generation—i.e., his lack of depravity was relative and not absolute (as with Abraham whose righteousness is given no similar qualifier in Genesis).20 These competing understandings of Noah as both a man of qualified morals and an undiminished soul who has found favor in God’s eyes may perhaps be reconciled in the narrative’s apocalyptic rhetoric—Noah may have been imperfect, but he was the best available vehicle for the perfection of God’s transformative work. 6:10

‫ויולד נח שלשה בנים את־שם ואת־חם ואת־יפת‬

For the purposes of this chapter, we will take a “traditional” reading of the text as a unitary, self-contained narrative. Our goal, after all, is to examine the reception of the current version of the text within contemporary cinema, not necessarily the hypothetical impacts of previous textual variants. The change from YHWH to God indicates a change from the Hebrew tetragrammaton to the more general term ‫אלהים‬ for God. 19 BDB, 1071. 20 Cf. Gen 15:6. 18

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And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Yapheth.

This invocation of Noah’s descendants (again, treating the flood narrative as a unitary21 narrative production) gives credence to the assertion that God is not cleansing the earth for Noah because of Noah’s own perfection. Rather, the mention of Noah’s sons indicates that God is cleansing the earth to provide a better environment for Noah’s descendants—the men and women (the “man,” writ large) who will repopulate God’s renewed creation. 6:11 ‫ותשחת הארץ לפני האלהים ותמלא הארץ חמס‬ And the earth was corrupt before God,22 and the earth was full of violent wrongdoing.23

The first word of this verse, the wayyiqtol form of the niph’al of the radical ‫שחת‬, could be translated either as “the earth was corrupted” or as “the earth was corrupt.” The second translation fits neatly with our theory of God’s acknowledgement that the earth is not a suitable place for God’s creation. Contrariwise, the first translation would imply that humanity’s actions caused (or at the very least, contributed to) the earth’s corruption. However, this rendering does not necessarily contradict our paradigm, but rather adds another layer of complexity. Perhaps it is the case that the earth and humanity were mutually corrupting, each impacting and worsening the other in a codependent, mutually abusive relationship. In this reading, we find a God who feels that the earth and God’s living creations are simply not suitable partners for one another. 6:12

‫וירא אלהים את־הארץ והנה נשחתה כי־השחית‬ ‫כל־בשר את־דרכו על־הארץ‬ And God saw the earth had been corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its path upon the earth. See fn. 16, supra. More informally, “In God’s view” or “In God’s opinion.” 23 According to BDB, this word occupies the intersection between violence and wrongful conduct, implying characteristics of both while not necessarily indicating a preponderance of one over the other. BDB, 329. 21 22

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Here the animals are included with humanity, as all flesh has been corrupted, not only “man.” This sudden inclusion of the animals in the world’s evil might be due to a transition from one Noahide narrative to another. However, it might also be attributable to the mutually corrupting nature of earth and living things indicated in the previous verse. 6:13

‫ויאמר אלהים לנח קץ כל־בשר בא לפני כי־מלאה‬ ‫הארץ חמס מפניהם והנני משחיתם את־הארץ‬ And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh is coming before me, for the earth is full of violent wrongdoing 24 because of them, so25 watch out26—I [will be]27 destroying them [along] with the earth.

We have translated ‫ את־הארץ‬as “along with the earth” in order to clarify the potential ambiguity that God is about to use the earth in order destroy all flesh. Such meaning would likely have involved the use of a preposition other than ‫את‬, such as ‫ב‬. The importance of this distinction is that the earth will be destroyed along with its living inhabitants, implying that the earth shares in the responsibility for, and perhaps the benefit from, the forthcoming deluge. The rest of the flood narrative, Gen 6:14–9:18,28 unfolds quite rapidly, and is probably familiar to the reader. God commands Noah to build an ark. Noah obeys, and rescues his family and Ibid. The conjunctive ‫ ו‬here might also take the standard meaning of “and,” but in this context, “so” is more likely. 26 BDB note that ‫ הנני‬often occurs in the context of a dire prediction or warning (244). A less descriptive, more formal translation of its usage here would be “Behold.” Cf. Gen 20:3, where the KJV renders “‫”הנך מת‬ as “Behold, thou art but a dead man.” 27 Here the active participle is best understood in the future tense, in keeping with the solemn threat implied by the usage of ‫הנני‬. 28 Our précis here is of course highly simplified. In addition, others might easily extend the flood narrative to a location further in the text than the ending point we have chosen. 24 25

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select animals, which he then shelters in his ark while the deluge rages on. When the storm abates, Noah sends out two messengers, a raven and a dove, the latter of whom returns with news of dry land in the form of an olive branch. Noah and the ark’s other inhabitants disembark onto dry land, where Noah offers a sacrifice. God then establishes a covenant with Noah’s descendants and with every living creature, ushering in an era intended to replenish goodness in the world, alongside new life—and ways of living—for both humans and animals. According to O’Leary’s theory of apocalyptic topoi, the flood narrative certainly contains all the elements of apocalyptic rhetoric. For instance, the irreversibility of moral choice is crucial to the outcome of the Genesis flood narrative, for if the choice were reversible, humanity would be able to redeem itself in the manner of the non-imminent postmillenialist eschatology. Additionally, the Noahide story depicts a struggle between good and evil, with God triumphing over the evil of the earth and its inhabitants, laying the foundation for redemption. Thus the presence of evil becomes a necessary precursor and cause of the apocalyptic destruction, in keeping with O’Leary’s topological model. God takes on the unambiguous role of rightful moral authority before instigating the divine catastrophe (deluge) that brings a redemptive era in which Noah and his family recreate human and animal civilization on dry land, under God’s rainbow of promise. However, there are also points at which the flood narrative diverges from O’Leary’s rhetorical model. For instance, the Noah story does not appear to be solely concerned with reward and punishment. After all, if the evil of all humanity was ever-present in every heart, surely this applied in some measure to Noah—yet Noah escapes punishment and finds favor in God’s eyes. The Noahide template thus better fits the New Testament model of salvation through divine grace, in which God washes clean the sins of God’s people not due to their merit, but rather to God’s divine mercy.29 In the New Testament, this event takes place through the saving figure of Jesus Christ, the “son of man”; in the Noahide

29

See, e.g., Eph 2.

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story, the vehicle of salvation is of course Noah, descendent of the man Adam. Having established that the flood narrative indeed employs apocalyptic rhetoric, we can examine the specific qualities of the flood narrative and present a working template, the NAT, by which to analyze the reception of this narrative in contemporary American cinema. A distilled version of this template, a combination of themes from O’Leary’s topological model and unique elements of the flood narrative, is as follows: (1) The presence of evil—that is, the story must have a moral conflict. (2) A corrupted (and perhaps corrupting) world. (3) A God who feels sorrow and pity, and not only (or even necessarily) rage; perhaps even a God who feels a measure of personal responsibility. (4) A righteous protagonist, undiminished and uncorrupted by the evil of the world in which s/he lives, through whom God will bring salvation. (5) A salvific catastrophe, followed by a period of redemption and a new start for a good, and presumably non-corrupting, world.

APOCALYPTIC INFLUENCES: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY FILM From our discussion of the apocalyptic template created by the Genesis flood narrative, it appears that the template, like premillennial dispensationalist rhetoric, embodies a revolutionist response to the world. In fact, it is an exemplar of the scenario envisioned by premillennialist writers like Hal Lindsay (The Late, Great Planet Earth) and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (the Left Behind series).30 The world is understood to be too evil and corrupt to continue as it is, and so it is destroyed. This destruction in turn These works have themselves been adapted for film: The Late, Great Planet Earth (1979), and Left Behind: The Movie (2000)—as well as the latter’s sequels: Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002) and Left Behind: World at War (2005). 30

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gives way to the beginning of a new age—God’s millennial reign— which it is hoped will be free of such evil and corruption. Of course there is an obvious difference between the Genesis flood narrative and premillennialist discourse. Genesis 6–9 is presented as a revolutionist event that occurred in the past, whereas premillennial dispensationalism sets forth a revolutionist rhetoric that looks forward to a future reconfiguration of the world and its social structures; but this is exactly the appeal of the flood narrative for premillennial thinkers. Thus, it is easy to see the affinity that exists between the two apocalyptic paradigms, and why the NAT would be of such great appeal to Darby, Lindsay, LaHaye, et al. as they sought to find creative ways to articulate their own concerns about the irredeemable “corruption” of the contemporary world and envision a way in which this corruption might be dealt with, and the world restored to the way it was “intended” to be. In this way, the flood narrative serves as a topological and ideological precursor to contemporary premillennialist rhetoric and the American apocalyptic cinema narratives that—as we will examine in the cases of Evan Almighty, WALL-E, and Waterworld—bear its influence.

EVAN ALMIGHTY No discussion of the influences of the NAT on American cinema would be complete without an examination of the film Evan Almighty. The plotline is explicitly based upon the biblical Flood narrative, replete with direct references to the story—the doves, the animals, a literal ark, and an impending flood sent by God. Still, we must ascertain whether the story, though certainly based on the flood narrative, actually fits the NAT model and accords with the premillenialist rhetoric delineated by O’Leary’s apocalyptic topoi. (1) The Presence of Evil Evil appears in the form of the American government, deaf to the needs of its own constituents, let alone the needs of nonAmericans, the earth, and the earth’s other living creatures. (2) A Corrupted World The people of the U.S. Congress corrupt the institution; the corrupted Congress then corrupts its members in return. For

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instance, the protagonist Evan Baxter—an idealistic former television news reporter, newly elected to Congress—is seduced by the opportunity to cosponsor a bill with established Congressman Chuck Long, and only later learns that the bill would destroy significant aspects of the environment. (3) A God Who Feels Pity God, played by Morgan Freeman, is explicitly present in Evan Almighty. He (in this case) does not appear to be angry at all. In fact, he appears initially as a practical jokester, delivering building materials to Evan’s front lawn, then stalking him by appearing in the backseat of his car, then as a nearby policeman, and reappearing steadily throughout his day until Evan passes out from fright. Here we notice a major difference between the NAT and Evan Almighty: the manner in which God treats the protagonist. Whereas the interactions of God (or God figures) in the flood narrative, and in the film WALL-E (see below), appear to be motivated primarily by mercy and pity for the depths to which humanity has fallen, the God of Evan Almighty seems to find these depths worthy of ridicule. Moreover, his methods of recruiting Evan to be his messenger involve various tactics of intimidation, humiliation, and disregard for the impact of his tactics on Evan’s relationship with his family. While the Noah of Genesis may have faced external ridicule from society at large, he at least has the comfort and security of his family—or at least the narrative lends no evidence to the contrary. In sharp contrast, the figure of Evan faces rejection and abandonment by his wife and children up until the point at which the deluge occurs in the form of a burst dam. As in WALL-E, the deluge is not caused by a direct act of God, but rather indirectly: the sum of humanity’s evil acts passes a certain threshold and causes a poorly built dam to burst. By making the action indirect, the figure of God in Evan Almighty distances himself from all responsibility, at odds with the Noahide template of a God who might feel some small measure of implication in humanity’s demise.

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(4) A Righteous Protagonist Our protagonist, Evan, is a congressman—both of the world and at the heart of its political corruption. Evan has good intentions: he ran on a platform of changing/healing the world, and he prays to God that he will be able to deliver on his promises. However, Evan is increasingly corrupted by his worldly surroundings. Like the Noah of Gen 6:9, Evan is a well-meaning man, but perhaps only in comparison to the others of his generation. For instance, he routinely breaks promises to his family, and he is more concerned with becoming a co-sponsor of an important bill than with ascertaining the merits of the bill itself. (5) A Salvific Catastrophe The breaking of the dam at the climax of the film, and the resulting flood, show the American government and people the error of their ways, laying the foundation for redemptive change. Having undergone a moral transformation along with the rest of society on “the Hill,” Evan begins the process of realizing the change he promised at the beginning of his campaign. The future of the earth and its rainforests transforms from one of catastrophe to one of hope. Summary While Evan Almighty satisfies many requirements of the NAT, the film’s fulfillment of premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric is somewhat lacking. In particular, the presence of a figure of rightful authority appears to be questionable. We might understand the ultimate demise of humanity as necessary in order to cleanse the earth, but the initial conduct of the God character leaves much to be desired, as compassion and regret give way to sarcasm. Overall, however, the story remains undeniably influenced by apocalyptic rhetorical structures.

WALL-E Of the three example films, WALL-E most closely matches both the NAT and premillennialist apocalyptic discourse. The film is replete with flood imagery, including two saving arks: first, the sheltering trailer in which the robot protagonist WALL-E hides during his days on the earth, while the planet remains completely

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covered (awash, if you will) with trash; and second, the spaceship that rests in orbit as humans wait for a sign that the earth is once again ready to inhabit. That sign, of course, is clearly reminiscent of the Noahide olive branch, as it takes the form of a tiny plant collected by WALL-E’s helper, a second robot named EVE, who returns with the plant to the humans’ spaceship. EVE’s very name invokes the book of Genesis, and her flight pattern to and from the spaceship invokes the flight pattern of the raven in Gen 8:7, ‫ויצא יצוא ושוב‬ —“and it went back and forth,” with the consecutive use of two infinitive absolutes implying a “coming and going” motion. When WALL-E provides EVE with the olive branch, in the form of a tiny plant, she collects it and brings it back to the humans’ spaceship, now taking on the role of the dove in Gen 8:11. The robot EVE is of course white, another allusion to the dove. The tiny plant then signals to humanity that the earth is “dry,” or in the film’s case, ready for humanity to disembark and begin creation anew. Despite these several allusions, the film’s greatest strength with regard to the NAT is the character of its protagonist, the robot named WALL-E, whose programming instructs it to clean the earth and to alert humans to the presence of any indication that earth is suitable for re-colonization. (1) The Presence of Evil The presence of evil might at first appear to be absent from the narrative of WALL-E. After all, the overwhelming destruction we see appears to be the tragic outcome of a species that developed too fast and overwhelmed its natural resources. However, the mountains of trash taking the shape and form of earth’s former cities imply that the corruption of the earth is itself an evil, regardless of the sloth exhibited by the spaceship’s inhabitants. Thus, if we include environmental destruction as a form of evil for the purposes of our apocalyptic rhetoric, evil is indeed present in the story of WALL-E. Moreover, moral valence clearly enters the story at a later point, when WALL-E journeys to humanity’s space-station—that is, humanity’s ark. This space-station has become humanity’s refuge from the earth. Yet unlike the humans and animals in the Noah story, they have remained on their ark far longer than forty days

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and forty nights. They have become accustomed to the ark’s sedentary lifestyle, and without the earth, they have become quite literally too obese to move without the help of the technology. We witness the remnants of humanity completely dependent upon the very technology that ended their days on earth, and they are helpless to detach from it. Auto, the robot that controls the ship, personifies this evil when it attempts to prevent the humans from returning to their home on earth after they receive the metaphorical olive branch of a living plant. (2) A Corrupted World At the outset of the film, human activity has literally laid the earth to waste. The film opens with a display of entire cities built from human waste, trash and pollution have utterly defiled the earth, and that defilement has in turn made it impossible for humans to live there. Unlike the narrative in Gen 6, the WALL-E narrative begins at the point at which all humans have left the earth. Their defilement of the earth, and of human purpose, is so allencompassing that they have themselves accomplished God’s task of apocalyptic destruction. (3) A God Who Feels Pity When we encounter the humans in their space-station, the image that greets us is, bluntly put, an image of ungainly fat people. However, their obesity is neither the subject of rage nor is it rendered in such a way as to elicit contempt. The humans appear as helpless as infants, and it is all too clear to the viewer that however desperately they might wish to be free from the road down which their temptations have led them, they remain trapped by their own advancements. Without external assistance, they would be doomed—or, in the context of premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric, damned. Their ungainly fatness stokes pity, rather than contempt, and the charming illustrations of gummy hands grasping at soda straws stir our compassion. (4) A Righteous Protagonist Here, WALL-E takes on the second characteristic of the Noahide apocalyptic protagonist: a righteous vehicle for salvation. WALL-E, a tiny robot who is the sole survivor of a fleet of robot trash

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collectors, is of the same world that the humans have corrupted and to whose corruption they have succumbed. Indeed, they made him31—yet due to his special fusion of robot and human qualities, he is able to rise above such worldly temptations, bringing humanity to salvation through his efforts. He spends his days tirelessly attempting to clean up the mess the humans left behind. Yet at night he returns to his trailer, his ark, and as the winds howl around him, he hunkers down with his pet cockroach and watches videos of humans singing and dancing—artifacts of humanity’s finest moments—rehearsing them, and sustaining an internal hope that one day he might return the world to such goodly days. (5) A Salvific Catastrophe At the beginning of the film, the earth is consumed by trash. Humanity’s destruction has reached such a magnitude that it forces them contemplate the enormity of what they have done. Through this realization, when humans return to earth at the end of the film, they begin the process of rebuilding a good and viable society, in solidarity with their robot friends. Summary While WALL-E appears to most closely match the NAT, the topoi of premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric demand a figure of rightful authority, and such a God-like figure appears to be absent in WALL-E. However, a closer examination shows us that this figure is not truly missing: WALL-E itself is this figure, holding the authority to present evidence, or to declare, that the earth is once again ready for humankind to re-inhabit. When the human leaders try to act on WALL-E’s declaration of the “good news” and are repelled by Auto, a corrupted robot on the space-station, WALL-E and his helper EVE take control over the space-station and secure humanity’s return to the earth. That is, WALL-E exercises his authority to redeem the earth, fulfilling his programmed goal to make the earth clean once again. WALL-E does appear to have male characteristics here, in counterpoint to the more feminine voice of the robot EVE. 31

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In this sense, WALL-E fulfills an essential quality of the narrative figure of Jesus—not only is he both of and untouched by the world, but he is simultaneously human and godly. That is, O’Leary’s figure of authority is no more absent in the character of WALL-E than the figure of God was absent in the New Testament character of Jesus. Strengthening this allusion to Jesus through the character of WALL-E is the first human that WALL-E encounters on the spaceship. WALL-E literally knocks the man out of his seat, awakening him to the plight of the world, ultimately enlisting him in the fight to take back the space-station from the robot Auto. This man introduces himself to WALL-E as John, perhaps an allusion to John the Baptist. A second allusion to the Jesus traditions is WALL-E’s ultimate fate: in the process of liberating the humans from Auto, WALL-E’s machine body is completely broken and crushed. He is later revived by love, in the form of a kiss from EVE, but not before making what would have been the ultimate sacrifice—forfeiting his life to save humanity. Overall, WALL-E embodies many of the aspects of the intersection between the NAT and premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric. From the Noahide perspective, we see the clear presence of evil in Auto, the robot that attempts to prevent the humans from returning to earth and in a corrupted and defiled earth that further corrupts humans in return. We experience a perspective on humanity’s failure that involves one of pity for the helpless beings, rather than rage or contempt, and in which the humans remain among the good characters, with evil being external in the form of the robot Auto. Lastly, we see a righteous protagonist, who remains uncorrupted by the world and who saves it by way of the higher directives of his programming. From the standpoint of O’Leary’s topoi, we see the presence of corruption, characterized by the irredeemable choices of human’s to destroy the earth, but measured by redeemable outcomes: the earth can once again be cleaned, and all life is not dead. We see the presence of a figure of rightful authority in WALL-E. The divine catastrophe has occurred before the point at which we enter the story. At first glance, the flooding of the earth with trash might not appear to be caused by the moral authority. However, whoever programmed WALL-E’s instructions to clean the earth must have been human, and was therefore indeed responsible for the destructive outcome. This further aligns with one of the

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suggestions of the NAT, that God might even feel a measure of personal responsibility for humanity’s corruption and initial demise. Lastly, there is a redemptive era: after WALL-E and EVE free the humans from the ship, we witness an illustrated account during the credits of the humans and robots rebuilding the world together in peace, goodness, and harmony.

WATERWORLD On the surface, Waterworld would appear to dovetail as neatly with the NAT as does Evan Almighty. Following humanity’s carelessness with regard to global warming, the icecaps melt and dry land is completely submerged in water. The futuristic setting is inhabited both by humans and by humans who have mutated to meet the requirements of their new aquatic landscape, and in the end one such “mutant” helps to find land and to gather a group of humans to reignite human civilization there. However, although many of the details dovetail with the literal elements of the flood narrative—the earth is, for instance, covered in water, and a seagull helps alert the protagonist to the presence of dry land—there are some elements from the NAT, as well as O’Leary’s apocalyptic topoi, that are either ambiguously present or missing entirely. (1) The Presence of Evil This element is clearly present in the Waterworld narrative. “Normal” humans, or those who have not yet mutated to meet the demands of the new aquatic environment, persecute those who have. Sexual morality in particular seems to suffer—at least according to the “mainstream” late twentieth-century American sensibilities32 of the film’s primary audience—with people attempting to purchase sex for paper and seeking to have sex with young girls. Pirates roam the seas. (2) A Corrupted World Waterworld takes place after the earth has been destroyed by unameliorated global warming, in which the ice caps have melted 32

See D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, 239–360, passim.

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and covered all creation with water. Plants are rare and expensive, and dirt is a precious commodity. The desperation of earth’s remaining inhabitants leads them to increasingly violent and depraved acts. (3) A God Who Feels Pity Here Waterworld diverges from both the NAT and premillennial apocalyptic rhetoric in the absence of rightful authority. Unlike in WALL-E, in which some unknown individual has programmed the robot to clean and restore the earth, or in Evan Almighty, in which God is physically present, there is no authority figure in Waterworld, let alone a rightful one. One might argue that, as in WALL-E, the rightful authority figure is the main character himself, the Mariner, who eventually leads humanity to dry land on Mt. Everest. However, the Mariner is no redeemer. He is neither a Noah, nor a Jesus, both of the world and above it. Rather, the Mariner experiences moments of redemptive action, such as leading humans to safety, but at the end of the film, he abandons the new earth and the rebirth of civilization, choosing instead to return to the open seas. The Mariner—forged in the aquatic image of human corruption—takes no part in the redemptive era of goodness and prosperity, which God shares with the new human civilization in both the NAT and O’Leary’s topological model. This presents a crucial difference between Waterworld and the NAT. In Waterworld, there simply is no God or Godlike figure, and if by some stretch of the imagination there is, s/he is completely unrelated to—and hence, uninterested in—the current state of the world. The film’s catastrophe results from the work of human hands, and unlike in WALL-E, the Mariner’s disengagement at the narrative’s conclusion demonstrates that these human hands cannot be conflated with God’s, or at least with the model of a God who remains interested in humanity’s fate. (4) A Righteous Protagonist The Mariner does parallel the character of Noah in that he can be deemed righteous among his generation in comparison to the pirates and the hostility displayed by “normal” humans toward the “mutants.” Furthermore, the Mariner helps bring about the salvation of human civilization by guiding the founding members

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of a new humanity to Mt. Everest, a mountain of dry land. The Mariner is saved in return by his encounter with Enola, a little girl with a map to dry land tattooed on her skin—a tattoo that heralds redemption in much the same way as the dove’s olive branch in Genesis. (5) A Salvific Catastrophe Significantly, the catastrophe in Waterworld does not directly bring about the redemption of humanity. In fact, it appears to have exacerbated the humans’ evil tendencies and brought them to the fore as they raid, starve, and persecute one another. And, in mimesis of the Calvinist doctrine so resurgent in contemporary Protestant theology, humanity as a whole is not saved—only the few members of it quite literally elected, or chosen, by the Mariner. The rest of humanity neither perishes nor finds redemption in the sense of entering a new and good world. They remain in limbo, continuing their brutal activities and invigorating the corruption of the majority of the earth, while the few saved by our protagonist establish their new civilization alone. Summary In short, Waterworld shows clear influences of the flood narrative. However, its rhetorical structure differs from the NAT in several key aspects. Similarly, it does not entirely follow the form of premillenialist apocalyptic rhetoric. Nevertheless, the confluence of the flood narrative and premillennial dispensationalist eschatology, in conjunction with O’Leary’s apocalyptic topoi, is genealogically present throughout the narrative architecture of Waterworld.

CONCLUSION The combination of premillennial dispensationalist apocalyptic rhetoric as topologically delineated by O’Leary and the NAT proposed in this chapter has significantly influenced the narrative and rhetorical structure of apocalyptic discourse in contemporary American cinema. Films such as Evan Almighty, WALL-E, and Waterworld demonstrate the presence of a moral rationale for destruction that might otherwise be described as merely catastrophic. They incorporate the apocalyptic rhetoric of the widespread presence of evil; an earth that is corrupt along with its

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inhabitants; a merciful and pitying God or other authority figure that potentially shares a feeling of responsibility; a salvific protagonist through whom God intends to bring about redemption; a catastrophe that occurs not by chance or as the result of rage, but in order to redeem humanity; and ultimately, the event of humanity’s redemption. However, we have also seen that the apocalyptic narratives of American cinema are not always in keeping with O’Leary’s topological model or the NAT suggested and developed within this chapter. Key elements like a rightful authority figure, righteous protagonist, or a salvific catastrophe are often ambiguous or completely absent—even in narratives that explicitly invoke apocalyptic rhetoric. While the examples we have presented in this chapter represent our analysis of three films whose narrative structures exemplify the interplay of the NAT and premillennial dispensationalist rhetoric, there are numerous other influential films whose plotlines incorporate various elements of this paradigm.33 Lastly, we note that the three films examined in this chapter have impacted a substantial portion of the American population. According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, the average U.S. ticket prices in the years of release of Evan Almighty (2007), WALL-E (2008), and Waterworld (1995) were $6.88, $7.18, and $4.35, respectively.34 In U.S. box office sales, these three films respectively grossed $100,462,298,35 $223,808,164,36 and $88,246,220.37 Accordingly, during their theatrical releases, these films had approximately the following numbers of cinema viewers: For further reference, we refer the reader to Mitchell’s excellent anthology of apocalyptic cinema: A Guide to Apocalyptic Cinema. 34 National Association of Theatre Owners, Average U.S. Ticket Prices. Available at http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm. 35 Box Office Mojo, Evan Almighty. Available at http://boxoffice mojo.com/movies/?id=evanalmighty.htm. 36 Box Office Mojo, WALL-E. Available at http://boxofficemojo. com/movies/?id=wall-e.htm. 37 Box Office Mojo, Waterworld. Available at http://boxofficemojo. com/movies/?id=waterworld.htm. 33

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14,602,078 for Evan Almighty, 31,171,053 for WALL-E, and 20,286,487 for Waterworld. While these estimates do not account for individuals who viewed each film multiple times in the cinemas, it is worth noting that the viewership for each individual film ranks in the tens of millions. Thus, the reception of Noahide and premillennialist apocalyptic rhetoric within these films has influenced tens of millions of Americans, informing (and potentially expanding) the cultural narrative of premillennial dispensationalist eschatology in both secular society and the Church. In contrast, films explicitly based upon premillenial dispensationalist apocalyptic rhetoric enjoy small viewership at best. For example, the film Left Behind garnered only $4,224,06538 in box office sales in 2001. With the average ticket price listed at $5.65 for that year, Left Behind had an approximate viewership of only 747,622 individuals. Subsequent films in the Left Behind series did not play in theaters. Consequently, the NAT has reached a far wider audience and had a far greater impact than the explicitly apocalyptic themes of the Left Behind series by a wide margin. As indicated above, many films have incorporated aspects of premillennial dispensationalist apocalyptic rhetoric, and the NAT in particular, yet the apocalyptic template that has reached American viewers is frequently corrupt. Americans have thus felt the influence of the premillenial dispensationalists as they witness depictions of the apocalytpic elements of widespread evil and a corrupt and corrupting earth. Yet the redeeming elements of the apocalypse have been altered or altogether lost. In the films examined here, Americans face the overwhelming evil of the world alongside a hardened, sardonic God (Evan Almighty), or a God who is absent altogether. The protagonists in these two films appear to be both more corrupt and corruptible. These two messages will not have been lost upon viewers, even if only subconsciously. However, it is worth nothing that Wall-E, the film that adheres most strictly to the proposed NAT, had a viewership almost equal to that of Evan Almighty and Waterworld combined. That is, the two relatively dark commentaries on the nature of God, 38

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=leftbehind.htm.

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Her savior, and the apocalypse are balanced almost exactly by WallE’s portrayal of the redeeming qualities of the apocalypse and its essential characters. Analysis of a greater sample of films is necessary to determine which apocalyptic message—the complete dispensationalist narrative, or the adulterated version—has reached a wider audience. Still, at least in this case study, the brighter narrative of Wall-E drew and reached a larger, more impressionable39 audience. Wall-E’s wide appeal and reciprocal societal influence are undeniable.40 A full analysis of the comparative appeal and influence of the darker, corrupted narratives versus the lighter, salvific narrative remains to be seen. Based on ticket sales, these authors place our bets on redemption.

WORKS CITED Box Office Mojo. Movies, 2012, http://boxofficemojo.com/ (16 December 2012). Collins, John J. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” Pages 21–59 in Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14), edited by John J. Collins. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1979. ———. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. D’Emilio, John and Estelle B. Freedman. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Dowling Long, Siobhán. “Wicked Hearts, Grieving Heart: The Musical Afterlife of the Flood Narrative in the Nineteenth Century,” in the present volume. Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Mitchell Charles P. A Guide to Apocalyptic Cinema. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Assuming a younger age of the average viewer. Whether this reflects a preexisting American ideal of premillenial dispensationalism, and thus a taste for its completion in the films engaging with it, or whether the film itself has influenced Americans’ theological ideals, is a topic for further research. 39 40

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Moorhead, James H. “Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865–1925.” Church History 53 (1984): 61– 77. National Association of Theatre Owners. Average U.S. Ticket Prices, 2011, http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm (16 December 2012). Numbers, Ronald L. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. O’Leary, Stephen D. Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Schüngel-Straumann, Helen. “On the Creation of Man and Woman in Genesis 1–3: The History and Reception of the Texts Reconsidered.” Pages 53–76 in A Feminist Companion to Genesis, edited by Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Yarbro Collins, Adela. “Introduction.” Pages 1–11 in Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting (Semeia 36), edited by Adela Yarbro Collins. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986.

FILMOGRAPHY Evan Almighty. Dir. Tom Shadyac. Spyglass Entertainment, 2007. The Late, Great Planet Earth. Dir. Robert Amram. RCR, 1979. Left Behind: The Movie. Dir. Vic Sarin. Cloud Ten Pictures, 2000. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. Dir. Bill Corcoran. Cloud Ten Pictures, 2002. Left Behind: World at War. Dir. Craig R. Baxley. Cloud Ten Pictures, 2005. Noah. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Disruption Entertainment, 2014 (forthcoming). Noah’s Ark. Dir. John Irvin. Hallmark Entertainment, 1999. The Omega Code. Dir. Robert Marcarelli. Gener8Xion Entertainment, 1999. A Thief in the Night. Dir. Donald W. Thompson. Mark IV Pictures, 1972. WALL-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Pixar, 2008. Waterworld. Dir. Kevin Reynolds. Davis Entertainment, 1995.

ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE GENESIS FLOOD NARRATIVE CATHRIONA RUSSELL RELIGIONS AND THEOLOGY, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN ABSTRACT Flood narratives are enduring myths and flooding remains a major concern for modern societies. The account of the flood in Genesis thematizes both human responsibility and blame for uncreation, but also lament and regret at the innocent suffering disaster causes. In contrast ecocritical narratives tend to a greater emphasis on human culpability, which can paralyze action. In this paper I explore the interrelationships between the Genesis narrative, ecocritical flood narratives, and the Room-for-the-River narrative in the context of environmental ethics.

INTRODUCTION In this article I propose to interrogate flood myths in biblical, literary, and scientific narratives and to explore their complementarities and contrasts from an environmental ethics perspective. Flood narratives are the most enduring of the catastrophe myths. The Genesis flood narrative depicts the tension between cosmic disaster—the uncreation of the entire universe, not only humanity—and the affirmation of the original creation, the path that God ultimately commits himself to, despite human frailty and failure. Such ancient flood narratives have been both a resource and counterfoil for all such narratives. Two contemporary flood myths—the first from film, the second from literature—are employed to illustrate the continuities and discontinuities. In The Day after Tomorrow (2004) it is not God but nature that is the self461

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correcting agent in the face of human culpability (blame) and nature is blind to the mass of human suffering. In Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood the human longing (lament) for an identitycreating narrative, a cosmology, cannot be dispensed with despite the uncreation even of humanity itself. These ecocritical flood narratives represent an approach in literary criticism which aims to address in an interdisciplinary way the contradictions in our depictions of human and extra-human nature in literature in the interests of disclosing resources for and engendering imaginative solutions for environmental problems. They underscore an affirmation of earth ecosystems, the valuing of the extra-human creation, and call for a new alignment of human behavior, not with divine intention, but with the requirements of the planetary oikos. It is therefore not self-evident how ecocritical approaches intersect with, reflect, or engender environmental practice and policy. Meanwhile, from an environmental ethics perspective, flood remains a major concern for modern societies. A complex of largescale engineering projects and sea-level rise point to human responsibility. In the third part of the paper I examine the way in which flood, and human responsibility for it, has been narrated in the environmental sciences in relation to mitigation and adaptation in the Rhine catchment. This analysis reveals some of the connections and disconnections between the biblical flood narrative, ecocritical narratives, and environmental science narratives. Ecocriticism can tend to bypass theodicy1—with its twin implications of blame and lament—for an ever more extravagent anthropodicy2 than that depicted in Genesis. In contrast environmental ethics narrates, somewhere between these twin poles, the relative successes and ambiguities and the humdrum heroics that are involved in the painstaking working out of good practice and international cooperation.

1 2

The justice of God in light of the experience of evil. The justice of humanity in light of the experience of evil.

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THE GENESIS FLOOD NARRATIVE IN THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: THEODICY AND ANTHROPODICY Flood narratives are rooted in the lived experience of communities and life in the body. At the same time it would be a category mistake to claim that the Genesis flood narrative is simply a record of a cultural memory based on some historical catastrophe. As David Clines suggests, the flood narrative in Genesis belongs to the “myths of catastrophe” and myth narrates something extrahistorical about the relationship between humanity, all creation, and the creator God(s).3 The Genesis myth, Clines suggests, is open to at least three kinds of causal explanation: the flood is a consequence of the unfathomable will of God(s), of some non-moral fault of mankind, or lastly, it is because of human sinfulness that the whole of creation is now endangered. Notwithstanding this diversity of possible interpretation, the traditional reception of the narrative revolves around sin, judgment, and the mitigation of penalty with the motifs of destruction and new creation.4 The corruption of creation is so great, he suggests, that we can read Gen 6:12, “And God saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt,” as an echo, reminder and reversal of Gen 1:31, “And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.” The flood is the uncreation of creation because of divine grief in the face of human sin. Salvador and Norton in their assessment of the Genesis narrative trace the parallels and divergences between the flood narrative in Genesis and the some 4000-year old flood narratives of ancient Mesopotamia.5 In both the Genesis narrative and in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgameš, the God(s) call forth a flood to remove humans from the Earth. In both, one chosen individual is called upon to build a large boat that carries all of the animals to be spared from the deluge. After a torrent of several days’ floods on Earth, the ark Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 128–142. Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 142. 5 Salvador and Norton, “The Flood Myth,” 49. 3 4

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Notwithstanding the similarities and borrowing, these two ancient myths show key distinctions that reflect different ANE understandings of the relationship between God, humanity, and the extra-human creation. In the biblical version, God calls forth the flood in response to human depravity and failed moral order, whereas in the Epic of Gilgameš humans have become so numerous that their constant noise disturbs the gods.7 Salvador and Norton extrapolate from that to suggest that in the Mesopotamian version the cause of the flood has an “environmental component,” overpopulation. In one—the biblical account—the flood is a divine corrective for human transgression, in the other—the Epic of Gilgameš—the gods growing weary of human noise. Flood as punishment is not unique to the Hebrew narrative, but Clines suggests the introduction of the flood as punishment added a new dimension.8 This is not just a story of natural disaster and the resourcefulness or luck of those who escaped but a narrative of God’s dealings with his creation and with humankind; he is responsible for the catastrophe. That God is grieved by humanity and holds humanity to account for misdeeds—which are not only cultic (idolatry) but also social (violence or the oppression of the weak by the strong and unnaturalness, sins against nature)— is revolutionary in the ancient world.9 God, humanity, and creation are so intertwined that the punishment of all creation in the narrative is almost a natural consequence of the outworking of human sin.10 The flood is what Blenkinsopp calls “uncreation,” which is the opposite of order, of cosmos: it is chaos come again.11 It is not entirely clear from the Salvador and Norton, “The Flood Myth,” 49. Salvador and Norton, “The Flood Myth,” 49. 8 Cf. Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 131–132. 9 Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 133. 10 Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 135. 11 Cf. Blenkinsopp cited in Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 136. 6 7

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narrative what uncreation consists in but the implication is that the flood is the result of both the confusion of things that differ and the sundering of what ought to belong together.12 Creation and order is undone but not permanently, and although death and violence are part of the natural order and every living thing is delivered into human power, humanity is still “made in the image of God” and the world still stands under divine mercy. In the new covenant with Noah God binds himself for good to take another course of action than that of uncreation; the flood is never to be repeated. As Clines puts it, “Once, in primeval time, God experimented with uncreation, and has thus put it behind him forever.”13 He concludes that the “story of the flood is therefore an affirmation of the story of creation, and speaks ultimately not of divine punishment but of God’s faithfulness to the work of His hands.”14 This is not unlike what Tolkien refers to as a “eucatastrophic” myth. The flood is a catastrophe in that it tells of the “long defeat,” the idea that each of us and all of us must die. However, for the theist this defeat is itself encompassed by victory, which with “a catch of the breath, a beat and uplifting of the heart enters into history, transfixes it, and perhaps for a time reverses its downward march.”15 And this interpretation of myth is what Toner calls tragedy baptized or the “true form of fiction.” Myth is preferable to naturalism not just because we like it better but also because we think of it as more truthful a representation of the human condition.16 The biblical narrative is not some version of speculative Enlightenment theodicy which can only ever lead us into deep waters, doubly victimizing the victim by justifying suffering for the sake of the divine plan.17 Rather as narrative it

Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 137. Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 140. 14 Clines, “Noah’s Flood I,” 140. 15 Toner, “Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe,” 78. 16 Toner, “Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe,” 78. 17 cf. Bauckham, “Theodicy from Ivan Karamazov to Moltmann,” 83– 12 13

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contributes to our description and redescription of our historical condition.18 As Ricoeur suggests to follow a story is to understand the successive actions, thoughts and feelings as displaying a particular directedness. By this I mean we are pushed along by the development and that we respond to this thrust with expectations concerning the outcome and culmination of the process. In this sense, the “conclusion” of the story is the pole of attraction of the whole process. But a narrative conclusion can be neither deduced nor predicted. There is no story unless our attention is held in suspense by a thousand contingencies. Hence we must follow the story to its conclusion. So rather than being predictable a conclusion must be acceptable. Looking back from the conclusion towards the episodes that led up to it, we must be able to say that this end required those events and that chain of action…Such is the paradox of the contingency, “acceptable after all,” which characterizes the ending of any story. 19

FLOOD NARRATIVES IN ECOCRITICAL PERSPECTIVE Flood narratives are the most enduring of the catastrophe myths, an indication that the theme of world destruction by water has preoccupied people in the prehistoric period.20 Flooding also remains a major concern for modern societies, and so it should come as no surprise that the catastrophic mythic form has played a significant role in environmental discourse and literature particularly in the context of anthropogenic climate change and global sea-level rise. Ecocriticism, as an approach in literary criticism, addresses in an interdisciplinary way the contradictions and the lacunae in our depictions of human and extra-human nature in literature, disclosing resources and engendering imaginative solutions for environmental problems. One of its foundational assumptions is that the roots of our ecological crisis lie with a failure not of the will but of imagination, imagination to Ricoeur, “The Narrative Function,” 274. Ricoeur, “The Narrative Function,” 277. 20 Birrell, “The Four Flood Myth Traditions,” 213–259. 18 19

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perceive the world as it properly is. We fail to recognize our kinship with all life and what that properly implies.21 When it comes to the technological and economic management of environmental resources the “metanarrative” of progress and productionism prevailed until the 1980s.22 This has been overtaken by the discourse of “sustainability” since the 1990s.23 Notwithstanding that shift in cultural thinking—and in keeping with deep ecology to which it is indebted—ecocriticism is suspicious of the dominant discourse of sustainability in environmental ethics. Sustainability may function as a partial response to the “grim neo-Malthusian scenarios” and apocalypticism that dominated environmental discourse in the 1970s.24 However, the fact that the discourse of sustainability has filtered down into all the subsystems of society in public discourse is not necessarily considered by all as an advance on the conflict that went before. It may perhaps be a “less disgruntled” version of the environmental policies of the past, but, for radical ecology and ecocriticism, it is too easily loaded with a substantially expanded catalogue of societal desires for growth and development, to the point that it loses its efficacy as a critique of “progress.”25 According to some of its critics it has “fallen too much under the sway of reductionism and rational materialism that mark our academic, corporate, and bureaucratic culture.”26 Here I examine the way in which contemporary flood myths, namely Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, provide a framework for and also reflect very different ecocritical approaches to humanity’s capability for individual and collective action on the environment.

Bergthaller, “Housebreaking the Human Animal,” 728–734, 741. Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil, especially pages 47–71. 23 Yates, “Abundance on Trial,” 8–24. 24 Bergthaller, “Housebreaking the human animal,” 730. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 21 22

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THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004) The film begins with an implicit assumption that humanity is both subject to nature and at the same time effectual at intervening in natural processes.27 A paleo-climatologist develops a model of longterm climate patterns just in time for it to prove its worth in predicting current climate change. However, the political-industrial complex is depicted as so inert as to be incapable of even beginning to reverse commitments to policies that are derailing earth systems. Having ignored the warnings of the heroic and dedicated scientists— the central characters and agents—it is only the earth system itself that can correct the imbalance. As the narrative progresses run-away climate change catastrophically realigns meteorological systems with flood and ice and the climate system rebalances but in a significantly altered state, particularly in relation to human habitats. This process of realignment of earth systems also entails a radical restructuring of the social order with the survival of only well prepared or lucky individuals in the industrial North and of the—perhaps less culpable—put-upon populations of the global South. This is in many ways a secularized version of the Genesis flood myth, here the scene is set in which humans are subject not to God but to the power and principles of nature.28 Humanity must submit to a beyond-human resolution as a result of a collective material failure to live in harmony with our planetary οἶ ος.29 At first glance, as Salvador and Norton suggest, this apocalyptic rhetoric serves as “a malleable framework for discussing environmental problems” and the action that needs to be taken. 30 In that respect the movie seems like a fictional version of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006), appearing to support a left-leaning, pro-environmental view of global climate management.31

Salvador and Norton, The Flood Myth, 49. Ibid, 51. 29 Ibid, 59. 30 Ibid, 48. 31 Ibid, 46. 27 28

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The flood narrative in The Day After Tomorrow read in this light also “constitutes the ultimate ecological remedy.”32 In common with one of the defining characteristics in the history of reception of the Genesis flood myth a remnant of humanity survives to begin anew with what is hoped is a wiser understanding of correct living.33 As a corollary, it provides us with a satisfying and neat resolution for an intractable and complex problem in that it also plays out the “collective desire to have definitive answers to complicated issues, and a political desire to vindicate our worldview over and against that of a dominant opponent.”34 Ironically, from the perspective of environmental ethics this interpretation of the human-nature relationship tends not towards a “collective response” to environmental issues in the current context but towards “heroic victories…obtained through rugged individualism and the wherewithal to know what ‘really’ matters for survival.”35 The cataclysm is in keeping with nature’s laws, with which humanity is so at odds, and the impending disaster is in some ways inevitable and unavoidable. Humanity is to blame for the misalignment of earth systems, collectively “punished” in the process of rebalancing, and the remnant offered an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and live in solidarity among nations for the sake of the planet and human society. For Salvador and Norton rather than galvanizing collective action to mitigate and adapt to environmental change the narrative has the opposite effect, it “enfeebles environmental advocacy” since the only hope is that “nature will ultimately set things right.” In that way it exchanges collective effort for individual survivalism.36 It may also indeed both reflect and engender the recent shift in emphasis away from mitigation and towards adaptation that is creeping into environmental policy in the most industrialized countries. Rather than a commitment to international cooperation and solidarity in efforts to prevent disaster, adaptation without Ibid, 50. Ibid, 57. 34 Ibid, 59. 35 Ibid, 55. 36 Ibid, 58–60. 32 33

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mitigation would institutionalize injury and deepen inequalities, in that the many will have to pay the price as they are forced into adaptation by the few. A less than serious attitude to mitigation would also undervalue and undetermine the considerable demands of adaptation which require new and complex knowledge systems which can identify and reflexively respond to new vulnerabilities.37

HUMANISM AND SUSTAINABILITY IN ORYX AND CRAKE AND THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD

In Margaret Atwood’s novels Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood38 we find a radically different and more complex picture. The near future has a deliberately altered ecology in a brave new world made over by human ingenuity in which traditional humanism has for the most part failed. The culture in which the protagonists grow up in Oryx and Crake has given up on any pretence at disciplining people’s desires for the sake of each other and future generations.39 Irreversible technological trajectories have replaced misplaced faith in progress and sustainability. Much like in Huxley’s Brave New World society stimulates and gratifies desire as the central object of the social order, desire for opulence and sex. Even art, Bergthaller suggests, is just another expression of the same territoriality and sexual competition. In this post-humanist world Crake, a geneticist, ruthlessly remodels species according to “ecological criteria.”40 His ultimate act of egocentric desperation is to engineer a new hominid group devoid of human violent impulses and sexual aggression, know as the Crakers. He then proceeds to unleash a water-less flood, a virulent pathogen, to annihilate the destructive and surely misnamed Homo sapiens. In Atwood’s narratives we are faced not with retribution from God or nature. Here the origin of the flood is human, the narrative is a working out the implications of post-humanist “genetic IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers,” 1–19. Atwood refers to The Year of the Flood as a “simultanial” to Oryx and Crake. Bergthaller, “Housebreaking the Human Animal,” 737. 39 Ibid, 733. 40 Ibid, 729. 37 38

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enhancement” along ecological lines. Crake reinvents humanity without apparent desire or curiosity, physically adapted to the new and dangerous world now debased by our ingenuity. Other characters in the novel represent the paradox of human existence. Oryx, for example, the trafficked sex companion of Crake, represents not biological determinism but its opposite: the inhumanity of grinding poverty and social engineering that almost naturalisitically makes sex slaves of the children of the disenfranchised. Atwood’s nuanced depiction illustrates, for Bergthaller, all of the complexities of the human condition: the realization that we are not just determined by our evolutionary biology (however that is understood) nor on the other hand can we say that human appreciation for artistic beauty and “monuments to the soul’s magnificence” are unrelated to or do not draw meaning from life in the body.41 These narratives on the human condition also serve as anthropodicies, offering different visions of the degree to which humanity is responsible for inhumanity, creation for uncreation, freedom for unfreedom. In the Day After Tomorrow humanity is subject to nature’s retribution, only a righteous (or lucky) remnant will be saved from a powerful self-realignment. In The Year of the Flood human nature is made over anew (without the propensity for evil in the philosophical sense or sin in the theological sense). Yet the Crakers provide exactly enough continuity and contrast with the human survivors to beg the question once more, what is it to be human? There are intertextual echoes of William Golding’s The Inheritors in the closing scene of both of Atwood’s novels in that the narrative brings us once more to that primaeval moment of emergence of human self-reflection and morality. Golding depicts the point of first contact between the gentle and solidaric remnant of Neanderthal man and the aggressive and sexually licentious Homo sapiens. Atwood leaves us with similar encounters in reverse: the gentle Crakers, Crake’s desperate hope for the future and for salvation, meet in the closing scenes with the last human survivors

41

Ibid, 737.

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of the flood. We cannot be sure what will come next.42 Can the Crakers survive without the human impulses of desire for life and sex that Crake found so abhorrent? Can their engineered biology ultimately succeed in precluding all curiosity, even the desire to narrate their own identity? Atwood leaves us with that ecocritical concern, the role of myth and narrative, of a guiding cosmology, of a religious myth, in human self-understanding. Ever since their final encounters with Crake and their first contact with Snowman the Crakers have begun to be curious about their own origins, to wonder how their story fits into the world in front of them.

FLOOD RISK AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT IN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Despite the fact that drought impacts on human societies in many parts of the world, notably Africa and Australia, floods still remain the most significant water-related source of major disasters globally.43 Three quarters of the earth’s human population lives within the costal zone, and river deltas are home to more than half a billion people. Trends point to ever-increasing areas of populated deltas sinking below mean sea level. As the world’s cities expand to occupy ever-greater portions of the world’s flood basins, riversides and shorelines, the risk of flooding will continue to threaten to outpace both structural and non-structural mitigation efforts.44

The deltas are also home to very large numbers of other species some of which are unique to those habitats and so are likewise endangered. The long-term stability of coastlines and deltas is threatened by a complex of large-scale engineering projects and sea-level rise, both of which point to human responsibility.45 These effects can be monitored and quantified but they are also narrated, Atwood’s third installment of her so-called MaddAddam trilogy is to be published in autumn 2013. 43 Takara, “Floods: Problems That Won’t Recede,” v. 44 Takara, “Floods: problems that won’t recede,” v. 45 Syvitski, “Deltas at Risk,” 23–32, 23. 42

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indeed need to be narrated to bring home their impact not just in the abstract but in concrete human experience. And the way in which water management is narrated has changed in recent years in response to these new insights into the scale of human impact on earth systems. In this part of the paper I will examine the way in which flood is narrated in the environmental sciences in relation to flood mitigation and adaptation for international co-operation and taking the Rhine in Europe as an example.

DELTAS UNDER THREAT A delta can be defined as the seaward prograding land area that has accumulated in the last 6000 years—which was when global sea level is believed to have stabilized—the largest globally being the Amazon delta.46 Many of the world’s deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed but also increasingly vulnerable to flooding and the conversion of land to open ocean. Half a billion people live on or near deltas, often in megacities. As Syvitski outlines, a delta plain is both attractive and dangerous to human utilization: it frequently has rich organic soils, which are amenable to cultivation, but is also at risk of flooding and oceanic storm surges. In addition, these landscapes are dynamic and management is complex, involving many geophysical “processes that intertwine with positive and negative feedback.”47 Deltas are sinking more rapidly than seas levels are rising because of human interventions. A conservative estimate is that vulnerable areas will increase by 50% under current projected values in the 21st century, and this could be even higher if sediment capture upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas.48 They and their coastlines are vulnerable as a result of several human activities: increasing compaction from the removal of oil, gas, and water from the delta’s sediments, the trapping of sediments in reservoirs upstream, floodplain engineering, and rising global sea level. For example, groundwater Ibid, 23. Ibid, 24. 48 Syvitski, et al., “Sinking Deltas,” 681–686, 681. 46 47

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withdrawal or hydrocarbon extraction can accelerate their compaction, and this is in evidence on the deltas of the Po in Europe, the Niger in Africa, and the Mississippi in America.49 Although the process can be decelerated or even reversed over time, in these dynamic landscapes the impact can also be rapid and catastrophic for human life, biodiversity, and property, with shorelines retreating, wetlands drowning, and and large areas of land becoming vulnerable to storm surges.50 Ironically the idea of flooding also seems to have only negative connotations in modern contexts. Nevertheless, for the “people of the lowlands of big rivers, regular flooding has been essential for fertilizing their land. The success of ancient river cultures had been attributed to their making use of regular flooding by techniques…hydraulic agriculture,” for example in the Nile valley.51 Resource management generally has also altered the natural sediment yield on many floodplains through deforestation, through poor agricultural practices, mining activities, and urbanization.52 However, this resource loss is exacerbated in the case of flood plains where dams and reservoirs intercept sediment that would otherwise contribute to soil fertility in delta areas. The impact can be severe. Since the construction of the Aswan Dam on the river Nile in the 1960s the seasonal flood that sustained the fertility and the productivity of Egyptian agriculture for millennia has practically disappeared.53 As a consequence the entire Nile coastline is retreating landward and has lost, at the same time, the network of irrigation channels that not only delivered and distributed water but also the all important sediments that maintained fertility.54 This is in stark contrast with the hundred years between 1800 and 1900, when the delta progressed seaward. This pattern of loss is replicated globally, for example, on the deltas of the Indus, the Ebro, the Rhône, and the Yellow River. Syvitski, “Deltas at risk,” 26. Ibid, 27. 51 Baake and Kaempf, “‘Bullying the Rhine’,” 428–446, 429. 52 Syvitski, “Deltas at risk,” 28. 53 Ibid, 30. 54 Ibid, 31. 49 50

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Water management is a complex task, and flood policy is an excellent illustration of just how complex the task is.55 The major challenge for international cooperation has been to overcome the one-sided dependence of downstream countries on upstream countries, with the hope that upstream countries will not just shift their problems downstream. There is a recognized need for solidarity between countries and regions that share catchments. There is also a more general challenge to international cooperation in that it is necessary to incorporate different national or regional views into any approach, views that cannot be traced back to just listing the different interests or physical conditions.56

NARRATING FLOOD MANAGEMENT In their analysis of national differences on flood policy Steenhuisen et al. apply narrative analysis to examine the way in which cooperation on management of the Rhine catchment can be facilitated. The article focuses on flood protection and GermanDutch cooperation on the Rhine River but also serves as a model for international cooperation on flood protection. They conclude that a narrative way of knowing the environment shapes the collective memory at play in the community. Narrative can also allow a culture to conserve what has been learned over the ages.57 Germany is upstream of the Netherlands and so it may be unsurprising that the urgency to prevent flooding might be less pressing in Germany.58 German policy, or environmental narrative, reflects an understanding of floods as more or less normal events which rather than being in need of control require resilience strategies that reduce the potential damage. As a consequence German policy around flood management engages in trade-offs between multiple interests, environmental, social, and safety and includes a place for building in a requirement for human flexibility. Policy is also implicitly sympathetic to the idea that human Steenhuisen et al., “‘Trade-offs’,” 380. Ibid, 388. 57 Ibid, 431. 58 Ibid, 382. 55 56

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intervention and control are part of the problem and not just the solution to flooding. As policy makers might say, “we have to live with floods.” Policy argues for creating more uninhabited flood plains—to serve ecological needs as well as safety—that respect the natural course of the river and provide habitat for biodiversity.59 Here nature is a player and even a victim of human intervention. In the Netherlands the narrative is understandably different with safety as the highest norm. Dutch policy-makers see flooding in terms of severe impacts on human safety and social and economic goods. This is not at all surprising since 50% of the population in the Netherlands live in flood endangered areas compared to 3% in Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany.60 In the Netherlands the additional aspect of sea level rise is not just an academic concern. The Dutch are not waiting on any further consensus on anthropogenic climate change or on whether or not global climate change will be amenable to mitigation. The aim of Dutch policy is to engage in well-considered adaptation strategies to cope with higher water levels.61 The narrative norm in the Netherlands is “resistance.” It is the case that both countries have reason to care about solidarity.62 On the one hand this has been in the form of direct transfers. The Netherlands has provided financial contributions for flood measures in Germany, while at the same time Dutch flood policy aims also to secure safety levels independent of German policy. On the other hand there has been international cooperation at many expert and public levels in which common principles have been agreed upon, such as the shared goal of sustainability and the need to address problems as far upstream as possible.63 This illustrates the need for new knowledge systems and networks if mitigation is to be taken seriously; it is not just “business-as-usual.” There is also, since 2005, a Dutch initiative that has led to a new narrative that both countries have come to share. This new Ibid, 386. Ibid, 382. 61 Ibid, 387. 62 Ibid, 383. 63 Ibid. 59 60

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approach can be summed up in the phrase “room for the river.” In the Netherlands flood policy is still aimed at safety first, and although there has been an integral perspective around safety which incorporates landscape and ecological interests, safety remains paramount in the case of a situation of immediate risk. “Water is the ordering principle,” according to policy makers. Nevertheless the concept of “room for the river” leaves space for actions that can be undertaken for the sake of the river, hence Baake’s and Kaempf’s phrase that policy makers are no longer “bullying the Rhine.” Seenhuisen et al. suggest that these different narratives ironically provide a language that “both create differences that make cooperation difficult and, at the same time, can help to overcome deeply felt differences.”64 Enlightenment faith in “science and technology led engineers to aim for geometric order in their development projects” and to use words like reclaim, rectify, or correct. There has been a shift away from the language of correcting watercourses to the language of accommodation, accommodating their dynamic nature and the unique ecosystem of which they are a part, while still controlling the river.65 This echoes also a cultural shift from expert driven management to communicative reason and an increased emphasis on public participation and civic responsibility.66 It also entails an acknowledgement that levels of uncertainty and cultural differences in environmental management and in society cannot be simply smoothed over.67 This shift has many possible advantages that have yet to be realized, such as a return to improved levels of sediment deposition. The shift from the language of flood control to flood mitigation also makes room not just for the river but also for public participation in decision-making. It is perhaps also a driver Ibid. Baake and Kaempf, “‘Bullying the Rhine’,” 428. 66 “Until the beginning of the twenty-first century, the power of decision making in river basin management has resided primarily with civil engineers and policy makers,” Baake and Kaempf, “‘Bullying the Rhine’,” 429. 67 Steenhuisen, “Trade Offs,” 440. 64 65

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and a symptom of the recognition that there is a greater need for international cooperation for conceptual and policy integration on physical mechanisms, predicting and assessing risk, awareness and preparedness, monitoring, forecasting, evacuation and emergency management, and recovery and rehabilitation.68

FLOODS AND THEODICY IN ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE Theodicy raises the question of coherence. We cannot at the same time affirm without contradiction and unequivocally that God is all-powerful, absolutely good, and yet evil exists. The question of evil is not just a question for theists. As Paul Ricoeur, the philosopher and hermeneut argues, evil, understood as the suffering we cause to others, is not just a challenge for theology but also for philosophy. The moral question of wrongdoing (blame) and the existential question of innocent suffering (lament) are distinct but also tied up together in history and narrative.69 As Ricoeur points out, wrongdoing and suffering belong to two different categories but are often conflated. There is blame where a human action held to be a violation of the prevailing code of conduct is declared guilty and worthy of being punished. There is lament where some suffering is undergone… Lament, therefore, occurs as the opposite of blame: whereas blame makes culprits of us, lament reveals us as victims.70

There is a tension in the tradition between blame and lament. As James Mackey argues, God takes responsibility as creator for all that happens in creation—as we found in the ANE myths—but not sole responsibility. So we cannot just settle for saying the God’s ways are a mystery and totally unfathomable and we are thrown on our fate. God has revealed himself in history after all and humanity has a part to play and a responsibility to bear in creation. Nor can we simply say, as many have insisted, that it is no mystery at all, we Kaouru, “Floods: problems that won’t recede,” v. Ricoeur, “Evil,” 250. 70 Ricoeur, “Evil,” 250. 68 69

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know “precisely why God allows such devastation of human lives; God is punishing us for our sins.”71 Ricoeur suggests that there are different levels of discourse in speculation on evil, and these he lists as myth, wisdom, antiGnostic gnosis, and finally theodicy. This categorization is relevant for an analysis of the flood narrative. The category of myth, according to Ricoeur, constitutes the first major transition from experience to language; it shows the dark and light side of the human condition, it incorporates our experience of evil, and tells how the world began and how the human condition came to be.72 Its function, which is to provide order, ironically “has as its corollary—and its corrective—the profusion of explanatory schemes it has produced over time.”73 The realm of myth … is a vast field of experimentation, or even of playing with hypotheses in the most varied and the most fantastic forms. Within this immense laboratory, it appears as though no conceivable solution to the order of the whole cosmos, and hence to the enigma of evil, has not been essayed at some point or other.74

However, he suggests, it is not enough to just narrate the origins, we must also explain how the human condition reached its present state and why this applies for each and every one of us.75 It is of course possible to interpret all suffering as deserved and as a punishment for individual or collective sin, known or unknown, and this Ricoeur argues “is the stance taken by the Deuteronomistic school of historiography and superimposed onto the great traditions of the preexilic times.”76 However, we cannot arbitrarily interpret one-dimensionally and reduce the creation narrative in Genesis to the question of the origin of evil and suffering. The sages and lawyers, who loved wisdom, reacted Mackey, The Scientist and the Theologian, 135. Ricoeur, “Evil,” 251. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid, 252. 76 Ibid. 71 72

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against the idea of interpreting in this way, because the actual apportioning of blame in the myths of catastrophe can also appear as arbitrary rather than in terms of degrees of guilt.77 And wisdom’s function is not to narrate, Ricoeur says, but to argue and speculate on the several possible interpretations of the narrative. However in turn, Ricoeur suggests, speculation too has its limits. We should not claim too much for it as, he suggests, Augustine did. Augustine’s exaggeration of human culpability is for Ricoeur an over-reaction to his Manichaeism, what Ricoeur calls “an Anti-Gnostic gnosis.” This leads to a penal view of history and to the all too easy assumption that no “soul is unjustly thrown into misfortune.”78 Ricoeur says, this is an unconvincing speculation because it is just this claim to establish a positive total for the weighing of the good and bad on the basis of a quasi aesthetics that fails as soon as we are confronted with misfortunes whose excesses cannot be compensated for by any known perfection. 79

This Augustinian slight of hand is what Ricoeur refers to as the “false clarity of an apparently rational explanation.”80 This rationalized myth leaves unanswered the protest of unjust suffering and worse still condemns it to silence. “The more the system flourishes, the more the victim is marginalized. The success of the system is its failure. Suffering, as what is expressed by the voices of lamentation, is what the system excludes.”81 This is the anthropodicy largely at work in The Day After Tomorrow. Of course at the level of theory and speculation the problem of evil, in theodicy, remains a challenge that is never completely overcome. “In this sense we can speak of a failure of pure speculation.”82 If we insist on unequivocally asserting that God is all powerful, that his goodness is infinite and yet acknowledge that Ibid. Ibid, 253. 79 Ibid, 255. 80 Ibid, 254. 81 Ibid, 257. 82 Ibid, 258. 77 78

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evil exists, only a blind optimism can “affirm the final sum is unequivocally positive” and there is not enough “evidence for this guaranteeing calculation.”83 The only response possible to all speculative theodicies (and anthropodicies) is to act to alleviate the suffering we experience, as both blame and lament, in the practical realm.84 This is the hard graft of solidarity, participation, and dialogue in the face of shared hardships. Yet in turn we cannot then just settle for action. We also need the consolations of wisdom and Ricoeur offers us several, which I will only allude to here: the first is to say, “I don’t know why things happened as they did, chance and accident are part of the world.”85 In that sense God did not want this; in the Genesis narrative God grieves at the uncreation of his handiwork and commits himself again to his creation. Suffering remains, as both blame and lament, but this cannot be reduced simply to retribution for sin. The narrative constrains us: we cannot claim too much for humanity or too little for God. Humanity—uniquely in the ancient myths— retains its responsibility for creation and does so in positive as well as negative terms, both made in the image of a God who creates and sustains and subject to failure. God is ultimately responsible and takes responsibility for all creation, including its frailty and failure. There is also in the narrative something of a renouncement of the desire to be spared all suffering, to accept our own death and to love (God) for nought as Job is said to have done, “thereby making Satan lose his bet.”86 This is in contrast to the perfectionism and immortal longings of post-humanism that would attempt to erase that narrative from our genetic code. This is part too of the prophetic legacy of Atwood’s narrative critique.

Ibid, 255. cf. Bauckham, Theodicy from Ivan Karamazov to Moltmann. 85 Ricoeur, “Evil,” 260. 86 Ricoeur, “Evil,” 261. 83 84

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CONCLUDING COMMENTS: NARRATIVE ANALYSIS, ECOCRITISM, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Paul Ricoeur suggests that it is the “incorporation of concordant and discordant elements” that makes the unity of a plot in any narrative and that this is how narrativity contributes to clarifying any problematic.87 The changes and reversals of fortune, which threaten concordance, are exactly the elements that allow us to see the “emplotment of character” and to seek the identity of the characters and of ourselves, in the text and in front of the text.88 In his essay “The Narative Function” he argues that to “narrate and to follow a story is already to ‘reflect upon’ events with the aim of encompassing them in successive totalities.”89 In ecocriticism, if the roots of the ecological crisis are to be found in a failure of imagination this is often taken to mean that imagination is needed to perceive properly what is already there, in other words “our kinship with the natural world and the obligations it implies” as Bergthaller puts it. The anthropodicy at work in The Day After Tomorrow, where deliverance comes only through catastrophic realignment of earth systems, reflects an ecological determinism that punishes human transgression. In contrast, in Atwood’s novels “the imagination is needed to see something that is, in an important sense, not there.”90 It is not that imagination and poetics can alter biological givens but that ethical behavior requires not just heroic gestures and luck but practice and self-discipline.91 There is more to be attempted than to blame humanity and wait in anticipation for the passive realignment of self-regulating systems, but not so much that we fail to see the significance of life in the body, of finitude and contingency. In environmental ethics and policy formation it seems that the relatively new and shared narrative of “room for the river” allows both Germany and the Netherlands to step back from entrenched Ricoeur, “Pastoral Praxeology, Hermeneutics and Identity,” 308. Ibid, 309. 89 Ricoeur, “The Narrative Function,” 279. 90 Bergthaller, “Housebreaking,” 741. 91 Ibid. 87 88

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or past policy and imagine new, possibly shared, approaches to flood prevention locally and in international cooperation. Ironically, ambiguity both simultaneously hinders and enables this co-operation.92 Different technical differences still emerge in the implementation; both countries may share a narrative of “room for the river” but enact it in different ways or along different priorities. As Steenhuisen et al. argue this cooperation undoubtedly hinges on the willingness to cooperate but is also facilitated by a narrative that does not require a complete working out of principles in advance. It involves something much more prosaic but requiring discipline and practice, developing shared perspectives in the painstaking and largely unheroic task of building international cooperation for flood mitigation, food security, and resource management upstream and on coastal flood plains and in the face of climate change. In consequence the narrative of sustainable development too need not be so suspect. It would have us live with the ambiguity rather than the “false clarity of rational explanations.” The ongoing task is to make explicit the descriptive and normative aspects in any modelling of production systems that would both persist over time and enable humanity to live “lives they have reason to value” in solidarity and despite the difficulties.93 The Genesis narrative is a schematic expressed in mythic form; it narrates the possibility of God experimenting with uncreation and his ultimate self-disclosure of commitment to his handiwork despite his grief at the depths of human uncreation. It narrates a complex theodicy that does not neatly disentangle or exonerate God, creation, or humanity. Nor is the narrative triumphant in the face of the suffering of all creation. It exhibits “narrative art” in its schematic, in that it involves the “free play of the imagination of mankind in its best storytellers” who “spontaneouly created the intelligible forms on which our reflective judgement can in turn be applied, without having to impose upon itself the impossible task of constructing a priori the matrix of all possible stories.”94 In the ecocritical work of Margaret Atwood we Steenhuisen, “Trade Offs,” 391. Cf. Russell, “Burden-Sharing in a Changing Climate,” 67–76. 94 Ricoeur, “Narrative Function,” 287. 92 93

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are tantalizingly left with a not yet completed narrative but with the conclusion of both novels as the pole of attraction for the whole process: the question of how narrating our place in the cosmos is also part of the human condition. As Paul Ricoeur continues— paraphrasing Kant—the impulse to narrate is “an art hidden in the depths of the human soul, and it will always be difficult to extract the true mechanism from nature in order to lay it open before our eyes.”95 In Genesis the Creator is ultimately responsible for sustaining creation and the conclusion of the flood narrative is likewise the pole of attraction for the whole process: God takes responsibility for sustaining creation but not sole responsibility: human contingency and freedom, however puny or wayward, are not a dispensable part of the story of the universe. Liberation lies somewhere between the poles of survivalism in the realignment of earth systems through flood, and the aggressive dystopian perfectionism of post-humanism. It is to be found in the fragile solidarity and creativity made possible by a matrix that lays before us both human finitude and freedom. This narrative art of living is also reflected in the quiet but painstaking, imaginative and ongoing international co-operation in evidence in the environmental management of the Rhine catchment.

WORKS CITED Baake, K. and C. Kaempf. “No Longer ‘Bullying the Rhine’: Giving Narrative a Place in Flood Management.” Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 5, no. 4 (2011): 428–446. Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.610807 Bauckham, R. “Theodicy from Ivan Karamazov to Moltmann.” Modern Theology 4, no. 1 (1987): 83–97. Bergthaller, Hannes. “Housebreaking the Human Animal: Humanism and the Problem of Sustainability in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.” English Studies 91, no. 7 (2010): 728–743. 95

Ibid, 287.

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Birrell, Anne. “The Four Flood Myth Traditions of Classical China.” T’oung Pao 83, no. 4/5 (1997): 213—259. Online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4528727. Clark, M. E. “A Flood of Justice: The Scope of Justice in the Flood Narrative (Gen 6:5–9:19).” International Journal of Public Theology 3 (2009): 357–370. Clines, David. “Noah’s Flood: The Theology of the Flood Narrative.” Faith and Thought 100, no. 2 (1972–3): 128–142. Godfrey, John. “The Place of Lament and the ‘Catharsis of Complaint’ in Response to the Problem of Evil.” MA diss., Trinity College Dublin, Church of Ireland Theological Institute, 2012. IPCC. “Summary for Policymakers.” Pages 1–19 in Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Edited by C. B. Field, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Mackey, James. The Scientist and the Theologian: on the Origin and Ends of Creation. Dublin: Columba, 2007. Ricoeur, Paul. “The Narrative Function.” Pages 274–296 in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. ———. “Pastoral Praxeology, Hermeneutics and Identity.” Pages 303–314 in Figuring the Sacred. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995. ———. “Evil as Problem for Philosophy and Theology.” Pages 249–261 in Figuring the Sacred. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995. Ricoeur, Paul, Mark Wallace, and David Pellauer. Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995. Russell, Cathriona. “Burden-Sharing in a Changing Climate: which principles and practices can theologians endorse?” Studies in Christian Ethics 24, no. 1 (2011): 67–76. Salvador, M. and Todd Norton. “The Flood Myth in the Age of Global Climate Change.” Environmental Communication 5, no. 1 (2011): 45–61. Steenhuisen, Bauke, Willemijn Dicke, and Daniël Tijink. “‘Tradeoffs’ Versus ‘Safety First’: How National Differences in Flood Policy Can Be Bridged.” Water International 32, no. 3 (2007):

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380–394. Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0250806070869 2218. Syvitski, J. “Deltas at Risk” Sustainability Science 3 (2008): 23–32. Syvitski, J., A. Kettner, I. Overeem, E. Hutton, M. Hannon, G. Brakenridge, J. Day, C. Vörösmarty, Y. Saito, L. Giosan, and R. Nicholls. “Sinking Deltas Due to Human Activities.” Nature GeoScience 2 (2009): 681–686. Takara, Kaoru. “Topic 1 Floods: Problems That Won’t Recede.” Water International 32, no. 3 (2007): v. Online, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02508060708692214. Thompson, Paul. The Spirit of the Soil. London: Routledge, 1995. Toner, Christopher. “Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe: Russell and Tolkien on the True Form of Fiction.” NewBlackfriars 89 (2008): 1019, 77–87, 78. Yates, J. J. “Abundance on Trial: the Cultural Significance of ‘Sustainability’.” The Hedgehog Review 14:2 (2012): 8–24.

THE FLOOD NARRATIVE: A POLYSEMY OF PROMISES AMY DAUGHTON MARGARET BEAUFORT INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE ABSTRACT The flood narrative closes with an evocation of God’s covenant with the earth, traditionally signified by a rainbow. This statement closes a narrative, but evokes a legislative text, linking the flood narrative with the covenant economy. Using the work of Paul Ricoeur, it is on the kind of economy evoked in this text that I intend to focus. The narrative includes two different approaches—the logics of equivalence and superabundance. Often the latter is placed as a kind of horizon to what the human person should consider her ethical aim—to constantly “give more” (Rom 8:38). In fact, the way that these two logics are presented in the close of the flood narrative is more complex. God presents his gift of superabundant mercy, but Noah preempts this with his own gift of gratitude. At the same time, there remains a rich and concrete expression of moral demands on the human person. This is evoked in contemporary political theology such as Esther Reed’s work. These two requirements are both contained in God’s covenantal declaration with Noah—and in the flood narrative Noah, as the human person, shows himself genuinely capable of meeting them. He obeys, but also gives more in gratitude. In this way the two economies are shown to be in dialectic. God’s sign of the covenant shows his

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INTRODUCTION As the ark grounds and the flood waters continue to recede, God declares: “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen 9:13).1 The promise that God makes to Noah after the flood is not the first promise he makes in the Jewish or Christian canon and it is not the last. In this essay I want to consider the significance of what is promised and how this can inform the ethical identity of the traditions that stand in the light of the biblical texts. I will argue that the sign in the sky is a sign of multiple promises—a promise of excessive superabundant love, and a promise to take practical morality seriously. My approach to this text follows the method of biblical interpretation of French scholar Paul Ricoeur, as well as his philosophical anthropology. In Ricoeur’s philosophical framework the promise itself is an ethical declaration. Keeping a promise confirms to the other the truth of the self’s publicly declared identity. This is loyalty both to one’s identity and fidelity to the other;2 doing right by the other begins by presenting oneself in such a way that one can be relied upon. This is the foundation of any ethical relationship with the other person, or with one’s wider societal institutions.3 The centrality of promise to Ricoeur’s ethical framework is partly what has prompted the reading of the flood narrative that I intend to discuss in this chapter. The ethical identity, the consistency and reliability of Noah, plays a significant role in the events of the story. Moreover, God’s promises at the close of the flood narrative provide a crucial horizon for ethics, and a practical beginning for moral behavior.

New Jerusalem translation. Ricoeur, Oneself as Another. 3 Ricoeur, “Ethics and Human Capability,” 280. 1 2

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There are three aspects of the ethical relationships found in the flood narrative that I intend to explore along this theme. Firstly, the horizon of the ethically promising person is formed by the location of the flood narrative in a wider story of fraternity in diversity.4 Secondly, I will argue that the character of the promise in the flood narrative is one that calls the self to superabundancy, to agape, to promise to the other without the hope of return. This is how Ricoeur articulates the opportunities for genuine mutuality between persons. Thirdly, alongside this call to agape, the flood narrative can be read as a summons to right conduct—to justice— all within a continuing relationship with God. Before I turn to these three key steps it is worth reconstructing Ricoeur’s methodology with respect to the biblical narrative. This, and valuable commentary on it from Werner Jeanrond and Janet Martin Soskice, informs my approach.

THE READER AS BOTH LISTENER AND ACTANT Paul Ricoeur constructs much of his thinking by taking “detours” through central texts on the particular theme under question, performing an analysis of the thinker’s ideas and drawing them back into his original focus.5 This results in a kind of reframing of the ideas of the text in a new context. Often the detour is through a central philosophical text of a different tradition or discipline, resulting in a deliberately dialogical re-reading of both the text and its tradition, and the new use to which it is put. By contrast, Ricoeur’s approach to his scriptural writing is not precisely this same dialogue. Rather, he describes himself as a “listener” before the text, a role which carries with it an active duty to respond for oneself. I will outline this briefly by using Ricoeur’s comments on poetic language or narrative. Poetic discourse is not irrational, supplying only emotional resonances; instead it contains sense and reference, but is triply independent of its author, its Ricoeur, “The Paradigm of Translation,” 18. See Jervolino, “The Unity of Paul Ricoeur’s Work.” This analysis of Ricoeur’s methodology is the common approach in Ricoeur studies. See: Blundell, Paul Ricoeur Between Philosophy and Theology. 4 5

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context, and its initial audience. So one is presented with the world of the text, available to imaginative habitation by the reader. “What shows itself is each time the proposing of a world, a world wherein I can project my ownmost possibilities.”6 Thus, by inhabiting the world of the text the reader shapes for herself one of “our many ways of belonging to the world.”7 In this way, Ricoeur—or any reader—is called to be a listener before the text, but also to refigure the narrative for herself for her identity;8 the biblical text is “like a musical score that requires execution.”9 In this way there is a clear interpretive role that each reader takes on. She is called to a dialogue, and to explore those “ownmost possibilities.” I particularly value the analysis of systematic theologian, Werner Jeanrond, who describes this reading as “poetic language [which] transforms our relationships in the world in so far as it allows us to see anew what shows itself to us.”10 This reemphasizes the written nature of the original text—“writing, in its turn, is restored to living speech by means of the various acts of discourse that reactualize the text.”11 This approach by dialogue has been evaluated by Janet Martin Soskice, the philosophical theologian, as a rejection of the “fantasy of self-founding.”12 Indeed, “listening excludes founding oneself,”13 argues Ricoeur. The listener is required to “stand ready to describe the ways they understand what they have heard.”14 In this way any interpretive reconstruction by a reader is subject to discussion and critique. In some ways, suggests Ricoeur, this is “an act of reliance on the capacity of others to perceive and to understand things that I do not understand.”15 Ricoeur “Naming God,” 223. Ibid., 222. 8 Cf. Ricoeur, “Narrative Identity,” 198. 9 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 219 10 Jeanrond, “Hermeneutics and Revelation,” 52. 11 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 219. 12 Soskice, “Naming God.” 13 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 224. 14 Ibid., 217. 15 Ricoeur and Raynova, “All that gives us to think,” 676. 6 7

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In Soskice’s analysis what this means is that “the movement is not complete. It must move from poetics to politics.”16 Thus, Ricoeur’s, or any reader’s, response to a text is called to a fruitful dialectic “applicatio”17 in the discourse and activity of the “listener.” Soskice concludes by viewing this transfer as “an ethical moment for [Ricoeur’s] understanding which is not something that happens in the head or language alone, but in the world, in our acting.”18 It is using this process of listening in order to reframe our future action that I approach the flood narrative. This allows me to emphasize two things immediately. The first is that the reader is not passive but constantly called to creative activity by the text. The second is the coloring this gives to the close of the flood narrative specifically. The task is to discover to what kind of action are we called by the story. What are our ownmost possibilities which it may show to us anew? I intend to explore a reading of the flood narrative that emphasizes God’s final promise in the narrative as a gift of excessive mercy, to which we too are called in our roles as reconstructors of the narrative, and as created persons. At the same time, God’s final declaration is a reminder of the necessity of moral behavior that accompanies that promise. I argue that this narrative shows the reader an important ethical figure in Noah for both of these aspects. To argue for these suggestions I will turn to consider the text directly, firstly by considering its context and secondly pointing toward specific parts of the text itself. As I seek to contextualize and refigure the narrative for the work of contemporary ethics I will employ a text on the concept of translation as justice. It is here that Ricoeur introduces Gen 1–11 as a collection of stories in the same genre. Throughout my analysis of the text itself I will use biblical interpretation from Ricoeur as well as other philosophical and theological commentators.

Soskice, “Naming God,” 89. Ibid. 18 Ibid. 16 17

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THE FLOOD NARRATIVE IN ITS GENESIS CONTEXT Ricoeur’s response to Gen 1–11 appears in an essay collection where his focus is on developing the concept of translation.19 In the story of Babel in Gen 11, Ricoeur finds his “origin text” for the fundamental character of translation as a moral paradigm for human communication.20 He suggests that the challenges of moving from one language to another are characteristic of the challenges of discourse as such and in this way questions of intercultural communication are reframed. Key to Ricoeur’s use of the Babel text is in his characterizing of the story not as a myth of punishment but an exploration of the human condition of difference. This is of particular relevance to our focus here on the flood narrative because of the role Ricoeur thereby ascribes to the context of the Babel narrative, of which the story of the flood is a part.

Ricoeur, “The Paradigm of Translation.” Significantly this text is reproduced in his collection Reflections on the Just, which underlines the moral significance Ricoeur finds in the Babel implications. As he remarks in his introduction to the text one may ask “what all this has to do with the just. But we have never stopped speaking of it! To translate is to do justice to a foreign intelligence, to install the just distance from one linguistic whole to another. Your language is as important as mine” (Ricoeur, Reflections on the Just, 27). I find the same ethical weight in the flood narrative as I will argue below. 20 To use a biblical text in this way is a highly unusual move on Ricoeur’s part. His methodology prior to 2004 was characterized by a separation between biblical interpretation and philosophical works. Remarks in interviews indicate that this was partly shaped by the French academy’s disdain for what he names “speculative theology” where it is possible for two disciplines of philosophy and biblical criticisms and related religious studies to become mixed and thus lose their precision and value. After his formal retirement however, Ricoeur evidently felt freer to begin using theological work in conjunction with his philosophy. This careful dialogue between disciplines opens up the possibilities of this chapter itself. See Ricoeur, Kearney, “Dialogue—The Crisis of Authority” and “On Life Stories” both. 19

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Ricoeur identifies the genre of the Babel story, along with the others of this early part of Genesis, as “commencement myths.”21 Such stories are designed to not just explain factual beginnings as such, but to “take irreversible situations into account.”22 For example, the fact of the world’s existence itself, and its natural order, is reflected in a creation narrative that introduces that order as a basic characteristic of the world. The first Genesis creation story explicitly “allows an order to emerge from chaos.” In Ricoeur’s analysis of the collection of commencement myths in Gen 1–11, there is a pattern of separation into more social forms of existence. His brief overview follows the ordering of creation with the “fall,” “or the loss of innocence… which also denotes the entry into responsible adulthood.”23 Next is the story of Cain and Abel, a separation formed by moral judgment. Following the flood, Shem, Ham, and Japheth spread out across the world in all their “languages, by their clans and nations” (Gen 10:5). Babel itself appears “to crown this history of separation when they bring it to the heart of the exercise of language.”24 What Ricoeur suggests therefore is that the origin myths, when taken together as Gen 1–11, begin to shape an understanding of our activity between and amongst other persons. It is here that the flood narrative appears. What is key about this analysis is that the underlying pattern of separation is accompanied by the human desire to live together and to understand one another. Indeed, this also shapes Ricoeur’s understanding of the role of the reader, which requires dialogue with the other and hope that the other will contribute and see aspects of a situation that oneself has not seen. Genesis 1–11 are stories of fraternity, which are inscribed in the long litany of “despite everything.” Despite fratricides, we campaign for universal fraternity. Despite the

Ricoeur, “The Paradigm of Translation,” 18. Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 19. 21 22

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Even concrete failures to live well together remain in a context of being able to recognize the other as a person. As Ricoeur puts it, translation is always possible, we can “do justice to a foreign intelligence.”26 It is therefore as part of this “litany” of engaging with the other that I intend to analyze the flood narrative as another origin story. Babel provides a final paradigm for seeking (and failing) to understand the other. Creation displays the givenness of the person. If these are the opening and closing of the wider context of the flood narrative, what does the narrative itself contribute? I will turn to consider the text itself.

GENESIS 6:5–9:17 The flood narrative appears to begin as a clear myth of punishment.27 God sees that “human wickedness was great on earth and that human hearts contrived nothing but wicked schemes Ricoeur, “The Paradigm of Translation,” 18. I have not found a word to replace fraternity that satisfactorily presents the same concept in a gender neutral fashion. The closest is mutuality, which will carry philosophical weight in my continuing argument. Regarding what this says about Ricoeur’s own thinking about gender, see Buss, “Antigone, Psyche and the Ethics of Female Selfhood” and Anderson, “Autonomy, Vulnerability and Gender.” In my view Ricoeur’s approach is to consider the conditions of the person as such before considering the concrete. 26 Ricoeur, Reflections on the Just, 27. 27 This is compounded by the decision of the biblical collators to include the fragment regarding the Nephilim as part of the chapter in which the flood narrative begins. In terms of a commencement myth one could read Gen 6:1–4 as an origin for the finite nature of human existence, as God declares himself no longer directly responsible for humankind. It is unclear in Gen 6:1–4 whether this is a direct evaluation of the actions of the “sons of God.” It is Gen 6:5 that shows God observing humanity and, despite no longer “being responsible” for them, immediately re-engaging in order to cleanse the world of immorality. 25

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all day long” (Gen 6:5). Here is the problem with which the narrative intends to grapple—a response to immorality in the world.28 The key figure of Noah is introduced into this context as the one individual who does not contrive evil, but instead stands “upright amongst” his contemporaries (Gen 6:9). I value this phrase because it immediately introduces Noah’s social context— Noah lives amongst those who contrive evil, but stands away from the evil of the society. His “uprightness” is not owed to isolation from wickedness but is part of his identity amongst the “people of the earth.” Corrupt are “all” the ways of the earth, but despite acting as part of that society, Noah retains his moral orientation. This is emphasized by the context I have already noted with Ricoeur, that Noah’s story appears in an increasingly complex human society. At the same time, Noah “walks with God.” This is crucial to acknowledge—one cannot simply appropriate the flood narrative to discuss ethical frameworks without clearly indicating that the thrust of the narrative is on the relationship of the world to God. This is an inescapably theological view of human behavior, which is a point to which I will continue to return. In the narrative it is Noah’s moral uprightness which prompts God to establish his covenant with him: “I am going to send the flood, the waters, on earth, to destroy all living things… But with you I shall establish my covenant and you will go aboard the ark” (6:17–8). This is a particularly interesting moment. The traditional emphasis is on the final promise to refrain from destruction in the future, but here God’s activity in the narrative is already framed by another promise directly to Noah. This promise appears as a contract—God will spare Noah, if Noah does exactly what he is told—make the ark of certain wood and of certain dimensions, Interestingly, some other theological revisions of the flood narrative emphasize instead a lack of noble motivation in God’s actions, instead suggesting that he is envious that humanity had “surpassed him in the height of their wisdom.” From The Secret Book of John, quoted in G. P. Luttikhuizen, “Biblical Narratives in Gnostic Revision.” This coloring is also sometimes given to the Babel story as well. 28

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gather his family group, collect two examples of each living creature, victual the ark to support everyone. By contrast, those who have not been morally upright are condemned to the deluge. In this way, Ricoeur has suggested that the flood narrative begins with a demonstration of how moral thinking can be understood solely in terms of equivalence. It is the “logic of equivalence that pervades our penal law,” suggests Ricoeur, which actually emerges from “our natural tendency to gain satisfaction.”29 Yet there is a sense in which this is all that is available for the judicial context. Compensation after the theft of a sentimental object can only ever be an attempt at an equivalent value. “Equivalence” describes human justice, even as it strives to an objectivity that separates it from the “disquieting countenance of wrath and vengeance.”30 The justice of equivalence is therefore the best humans can do at approaching actual justness. In the context of the flood narrative, the equivalent response to human wickedness is punishment. Within the story itself, this goes beyond human actions by placing the decision in the hands of God. Indeed, the “whole logic of punishment is contained here and in some way divinized… A crime has offended the divinity. Only death, which is to say another crime, can efface it.”31 Yet at the same time there is a positive side to the concept of equivalence. The fact of seeking equivalence in juridical or penal contexts means we can approximate justice and, crucially, attempt to reach balanced agreements despite the difficulty. For example, God and Noah make a bargain—God declares “with you I shall establish my covenant” (Gen 6:10) and for his part Noah does what he is ordered to do: “exactly as God commanded him, he did” (Gen 6:22). For much of the narrative this reciprocal relationship continues—God sends the water, as he declared he would, but also keeps “Noah in mind” (Gen 8:1). The flood does not last forever and in order to release Noah, his family, and the beasts of the earth from the ark, “God sent a wind across the earth and the waters began to subside” (Gen 8:1). Ricoeur, “The Logic of Jesus, The Logic of God,” 283. Ibid. 31 Ibid., 279. 29 30

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If the story had ended there, with punishment achieved and Noah and his family about to begin to rebuild civilization, the logic of equivalence would be fulfilled. The contract would have achieved what it had been set out to do—punish the evil, save the good. The story would remain a straightforward albeit exceedingly bleak tale, as it leaves Noah and his family alone in a postapocalyptic landscape. Ricoeur suggests that at this point the narrative begins to shift away from the human logic of equivalence. It is for this reason that Ricoeur argues that the “old Babylonian myth has been rewritten by the biblical writer.”32 Rather than presenting a myth of punishment, “another logic clears a path.”33

ANOTHER LOGIC? The first indicator of a change is the immediate aftermath of the flood. I will briefly outline this part of the narrative. Upon leaving the ark, Noah builds an altar and makes an offering to God in thanks. Upon “smelling the pleasing smell” (Gen 8:21) God says to himself “Never again will I curse the earth because of human beings, because their heart contrives evil from their infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done” (Gen 8:21). Despite any future evil that humanity might perpetrate, God promises to refrain from the destruction of the world. The logic of crime and punishment appears to be broken apart by God’s final promise. In Ricoeur’s reading, God’s covenantal declaration transcends the reciprocal and ultimately violent cycle of equivalence. This already suggests a more complicated “commencement myth” than the idea that, in general, contrivers of evil ought to be punished. Ricoeur identifies the final promise of God as resting on the “logic of superabundance.”34 He suggests that this example of forgiveness acts as a horizon for our own activity and identifies it as a call to transcend the logic of equivalence ourselves. We are summoned to go beyond the approximation of justice found in Ricoeur, “The Logic of Jesus, The Logic of God,” 279. Ibid. 34 Ibid. 32 33

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equivalence or reciprocity to a superabundant “more than.” (Rom 8:37). This is enriched for Ricoeur by connections with the superabundant language of the New Testament where the Sermon on the Mount is crowned by the model of turning the other cheek, giving the shirt from one’s back, slaving harder under oppression. It is Romans which explicitly comments that the work expected of us is that which seeks to be “more” than the justice of equivalence. All of this is made possible by the introduction of God’s superabundant compassion in the new covenant he makes with Noah. The myth of punishment is transformed. I want to briefly examine whether or not this is a reasonable hermeneutical response to what is presented in the close of the flood narrative. As I noted, Ricoeur anchors this reading with his concept of the horizon of superabundance provided by later Christological texts. In fact, I want to argue that in the flood narrative itself there is already more nuance than Ricoeur’s brief interpretation gives room. Firstly, Noah’s actions in making a sacrifice to God come before God’s promise to himself and declaration to Noah. Secondly, God’s final declaration is prefaced by the expectations the superabundantly merciful God will nevertheless have for the behavior of everyone on earth. Both these points are significant and I will deal with them in turn. Firstly, I will examine how Noah’s actions in the narrative relate to Ricoeur’s reading of the covenantal promise. As Noah leaves the ark, he turns immediately to build an altar, upon which he makes a sacrifice to God “from all the clean animals and all the clean birds” (Gen 8:20). God “smelt the pleasing smell” and comments to himself that he will never again flood the earth. There is an awkward implication here. Ricoeur identifies this as the beginning of Godly logic, of the superabundant gift that is beyond justice, a new horizon for human action. Yet in the narrative as I have just summarized it, God’s mercy may be being bought—God appears to be prompted by Noah’s sacrifice on the altar.35 It is worth noting that this tension between prompted versus spontaneous mercy occurs elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Diana Lipton 35

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There is no declared exchange. Instead the text places the two actions one after another in the sequence of events. God “smelt the pleasing smell”; God makes his decision. This does not explicitly present a causal relationship between the two, but does seem to imply it. How does this apparent bribe make sense for the bountiful view of God which Ricoeur hears in the story? The narrative does still emphasize the excessive nature of God’s response to Noah’s sacrifice. God’s response is marked not just by agreement and an exchange, but by an excess of generosity. While Noah may have prompted the decision by his sacrifice’s “pleasing smell” (Gen 8:20), God’s response is absolute and extreme—“Never again will I curse the earth… never again will I strike” (Gen 8:20). So Ricoeur is not wrong to identify this promise as coming from a logic of gift, rather than a logic of exchange. However, the prompt from Noah is still important for the narrative as it stands, and I will briefly explore the implications. I argue that Noah’s “giving thanks” already prefigures the logic of superabundance that Ricoeur identifies in God’s final covenantal declaration. Noah has already fulfilled the bounds of the covenant by doing what he is told—making the altar for sacrifice already goes beyond this. It is Noah who begins the excess to which God responds. It is Ricoeur’s The Course of Recognition—where he employs the work of Marcel Hénaff in the wake of Marcel Mauss—that provides some useful tools for thinking about the gift. I want to draw these into the biblical interpretation and apply these concepts to the actions of Noah and the promises of God. Mauss’s work on the concept of gift, in his ethnographic research on the Maori, suggests that sometimes it can be has done pioneering work on this point, identifying midrash that appear to deal with precisely this question in relation to the figure of Moses, who appears as the only figure who could prevent God from destroying the Israelites whenever they disobeyed. This again speaks to the theological value of narrative reconstruction through an active listening by the reader. This particular example also contains further interesting reception of the flood narrative, as God’s promise is being questioned in this midrash. See Lipton, “By Royal Appointment: God’s Influence on Influencing God,” 80, the midrash appears in Lipton’s own translation.

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understood in exactly the sense that concerns us here—as a kind of archaic economics, “voluntary, disinterested, and spontaneous”36 in theory, but in practice linked with an obligatory response. “The form usually taken is that of the gift generously offered; but the accompanying behavior is formal pretence and social deception, while the transaction itself is based on obligation and economic self-interest.”37 If one receives a gift, the social context means that one must respond reciprocally. However, Mauss goes on to present the concept of the gift as an idea rich with possibility for removing the sense of obligation. He therefore points more positively toward the priority Maori tradition gives “not [to] the obligation to give something, nor even that to receive, but that of giving something back in return.38” This second action is also a gift, identified by the intentionality of the giver. By arguing this way Mauss takes the intentionality of the Maori seriously. This gives us as readers of the flood narrative a way of approaching the sacrifice of Noah and God’s succeeding promise in the bountiful and superabundant way that Ricoeur prefers. The flood narrative indicates the intentions of the character of Noah as “giving thanks”—a spontaneous expression of gratitude. This is a contrast with the initial covenant which relies on Noah’s good behavior in response to command. The narrative presentation—the commencement myth—recalls us to the value of the intentions within the story, and thus Noah’s gratitude. Without this we would be left conceptually with the same kind of reciprocal mechanism that has resulted in the devastation of the flood itself. Indeed, Ricoeur’s analysis of how this transactional approach to moral behavior can manifest is of an erasing of the intentions of the person altogether: a mechanism which “transforms him into an

Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 225. Mauss, The Gift, 1. 38 Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 225. 36 37

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anonymous agent of a system that surpasses him and one that perpetuates itself as a system only through oscillations.”39 It is Noah’s action as a moment of gratitude that lifts this apparent exchange beyond an unthinking oscillation. Ricoeur even uses the example of the “sacrifice”40 to form the distinction between a transaction and mutual gift-giving. Ricoeur suggests that it is this kind of symbolic action that can free an exchange from an unconscious subjection to a vicious system of reciprocity. “We must not lose sight of such concrete gestures as renouncing responding to violence with further violence, or freeing oneself from the grip of the principle.”41 Noah’s sacrificial offering reforms a vicious circle as virtuous. There are two points that I want to draw out of this reading— the first is to emphasize that it is Noah who actually begins the logic of superabundance with his doxological sacrifice. The implications of this is that it draws the excess of “doing more” into a genuine concrete possibility for us. The second is to consider the kind of relationship that begins with this exchange of gratuitous gifts. I will explore these points briefly in turn. Firstly, the reason it is so important to identify Noah’s symbolic action, his sacrifice, as a gift is that it draws the divine logic of superabundance from being not only a horizon of “the logic of Jesus, the logic of God,” but a concrete possibility to encourage. The challenge of “doing more,” of matching the superabundant horizon of God’s love with gifts of our own is radically difficult. Indeed, these are tensions that are immediately acknowledged within Ricoeur’s reading. He points out that the behavior suggested in Matt 5 is by no means realistic—it is not an instinctive move to offer the other cheek after being hit in the face! This behavior “intrigues, perhaps revolts, and in any case

Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 228. A useful contrast is LeviStrauss’s methodology in its attempt to ground Maori behavior in universal rules from outside their society. 40 Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 227. 41 Ibid., 228. 39

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distresses.”42 Superabundance is a pattern of “excess of response in relation to the response that is normally expected.”43 At the same time, if it is Noah’s sacrifice that begins the breaking open of the previously reciprocal covenant with praise and thanksgiving, the narrative shows the real possibility of giftgiving—and a model that does not necessarily distress. The Rabbinic scholar Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, who has consolidated midrash and other rabbinic commentary on Genesis, identifies this theme of kindness and giving throughout Noah’s actions, particularly identifying the enclosed ark as a newly creative space of kindness, supporting the recreation of the new life of earthly creatures that will cover the earth. Noah as “life-sustainer”44 typifies the “curious, tender concern that characterizes God and God-like man.”45 In this way “the ark becomes a crucible in which a new type of sensibility is nurtured,”46 or a “laboratory of kindness… attentiveness to others as other.”47 Zornberg points to Emmanuel Levinas’s characterization of this kind of concern for the other as an “affirmation of life”48—and ultimately including a kind of care for the self: “life’s relation with the very conditions of its life becomes the nourishment and content of that life. Life is love of life.”49 I argue that by identifying both Noah and God as gift-givers within the narrative shows that the radical behavior of superabundant thinking—of doing more, of turning the other cheek—can be a genuinely practical possibility to seek out. When the reader seeks her ownmost possibilities in the narrative, the symbolic giving of Noah calls her to identify her own opportunities for praise of God and “doing more” in her daily life. In this way God’s own promise of infinite mercy for the contrivers of evil is Ricoeur, “The Logic of Jesus, The Logic of God,” 279. Ibid., 281. 44 Zornberg, Genesis, 59. 45 Ibid., 61. 46 Ibid., 62. 47 Ibid., 63. 48 Ibid., 61. 49 Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 111–2. 42 43

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not a horizon in the sense of something never reached, but a practical call to action. Secondly then, God’s excessive promise in response to this concrete gift from Noah provides further conceptual shape to the kind of relationship that is hoped for in that “doing more.” The relationship between Noah and God, which appears to begin with a transactional covenant based on Noah’s moral character, is transformed in their exchange. The “reformed” relationship is not one of reciprocity, but mutuality. It is Marcel Hénaff who shifts the emphasis from the relation between giver and recipient to seek the key to our enigma in the very mutuality of the exchange “between” protagonists, calling this shared operation mutual recognition. The initial enigma of a force supposed to reside in the object itself is dissipated if we take the thing given and returned as the pledge of and substitute for this process of recognition.50 In this way Hénaff provides a way of thinking about God’s covenantal response that releases it from a logic of equivalence. 51 Instead “[g]ratitude lightens the weight of obligation to give in return and reorients this toward a generosity equal to the one that led to the first gift.”52 God’s promise is a “response to a call in the generosity of the first gift… under the sign of agape.”53 I have continued to use Ricoeur’s phenomenology of action in The Course of Recognition as a theological response to the flood narrative because of the following climax he gives to Hénaff’s conception of the experience of mutual gift-giving. Ricoeur suggests that to grasp this shared mutual exchange in a phenomenology of action, he must to refer to a cultural, religious model of that mutuality—the sign of agape. David Pellauer emphasizes that for Ricoeur these ideas “cannot be fully expressed in the transcendental or speculative language of philosophy.”54 This is because phenomenologically there are “two levels, that of actual Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 236. Hénaff, The Price of Truth. 52 Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 243. 53 This is the second unusual instance of Ricoeur using traditionally theological language that this chapter uses. 54 Pellauer, Ricoeur. A Guide to the Perplexed, 126. 50 51

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practices and that of an autonomous circle endowed with selftranscendence.”55 Thus, agape, characterized by Christian tradition as selfless love, “transcends the discrete acts of individuals in the situation of the exchange of gifts.”56 It allows for the paradox of returning the gift, unnecessarily, with generosity and in this way describes justness, rather than justice achieved. Ricoeur’s articulation of the exchange under the sign of agape allows me to point to the covenant’s “ceremonial character… intended to underscore and protect the festive character”57 that rejects any reduction to obligation. The flood narrative, in its character as a “commencement myth,” is the only genre of language in which this kind of non-philosophical, ceremonial language could be introduced. In this way it supplies a model for excessive, gift-giving behavior between persons in a narrative even more ancient than the New Testament parables.

SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: A POLYSEMY OF PROMISES What I have tried to do with this reading is indicate that the logic of superabundance is both a horizon of God’s love, summoning each person to “do more” for her fellows, and a practical possibility. It is Noah who begins it and God who shares it, opening up for the reader the real possibility of mutuality in our relationship with God.58 The celebratory moment of mutual, symbolic gift-giving, of promising to each other in the exchange between God and Noah provides a model for agape.

Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 243. Ibid., 219–220. 57 Ibid., 244. 58 Describing a relationship with God as mutual carries many theological implications. I do not propose investigating them at this time, given that I intend to use this narrative as a model for ongoing human moral thinking as well. A potential source for thinking about this point may be Aquinas’s Summa Theoligiae which emphasizes the possibilities of our relationship with God, but always colored by our limited capacity to speak of that divine reality (qq. 12–3). 55 56

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As a final concluding point however, the practical nature of this model is further emphasized by the fact that even the flood narrative does not present superabundance as the only moral action. It is God who recalls to Noah, in the midst of his gratuitous declaration of protection, that the rules of reciprocal moral behavior will also remain. After having made his decision to “never again curse the earth” God publicly declares this promise to Noah, but prefaces it with other important remarks. Although he will refrain from actual devastation even in the face of human immorality, some kind of reckoning is still reserved. “I shall demand account of your lifeblood, too. I shall demand it of every animal, and of man. Of man as regards his fellow-man, I shall demand account for human life” (Gen 9:5). In this way Zornberg’s emphasis on Noah’s kindness in the fulfillment of his task becomes relevant again—the story itself re-focuses attention on the importance of moral behavior—even in the festive context of giving, the actions of each individual remain important. This further emphasizes the practically minded nature of this “commencement myth”—there must be justice in our dealings with each other even while God grants us his protection. To do justice will still “demand an account” even while we are called to give more than what is equivalent. Esther Reed has used this section of the flood narrative to argue for seeking a particular Christian contribution to human rights discourse. She remarks that even in the midst of God’s merciful promise, he “will require a reckoning for all human life.”59 Reed articulates our appropriate response in this helpful phrase: “the human community has responsibility before God for the exercise of justice.”60 Reed is careful not to directly translate this content into specific rights, but instead notes that this command to make account of human life is, through the Covenant with Noah, a command to “all the earth” (Gen 9:12–3), to all humanity. “We can ask, however, how God the Creator’s command to all humanity meets believers in the midst of our present-day reality.”61 As Reed, The Ethics of Human Rights, 102. Ibid. 61 Ibid., 105. 59 60

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Ricoeur suggests, even “the gift, apart from its symbolic, indirect, rare, even exceptional character, is inseparable from its burden of potential conflicts, tied to the creative tension between generosity and obligation.”62 We are required to consider how to navigate this tension in terms of its moral limits. Reed has identified a key aspect of God’s final covenantal statement here; what founds the call to give and the call to moral behavior is a covenant that is given to all the earth. These calls are founded in our created nature as in each person we find a self that is another imago Dei.63 In this way I return to Ricoeur’s concept of the reader as both listener and actant with which I opened this chapter. There is a demand in any narrative for the reader to reconstruct that narrative in a way that fulfils their “ownmost possibilities.”64 This particular text calls the reader to identify themselves within a “litany of fraternity” in the light of an ongoing relationship with God, her Creator. The encounters between Noah and God build up an image of mutuality that summons the reader to “do more” for the other person. In amongst a narrative shaped by reciprocal justice emerges Ricoeur’s “clearing” between Noah’s sacrifice and God’s promise that allows for a model of mutual gift-giving. This creates an optative moment that displays excessive giving as both a horizon and a practical model for moral behavior. At the same time even this festive clearing closes with God’s reminder that the human community is still required to set itself moral limits in its behavior towards each other. All those daily, non-ceremonial moments where we fail to find the concrete or symbolic gift to the other are still moments where we can and should seek equivalent justice. We must take account of each other’s personhood, each other’s lives. This is framed within Noah’s relationship with God, as his imago Dei. At the same time, Ricoeur suggests that “the Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, 245. Reed, The Ethics of Human Rights, 103. It is worth noting here the richness of recent liberation theology from such writers as Gustavo Gutiérrez, who insist on the three planes of moral summons—to each other, to the world, anchored by our summons to God. See Gutiérrez, Essential Writings, 150–159. 64 Ricoeur, “Naming God,” 223. 62 63

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insistence on justice and on the political dimension of the interhuman relations holds an even greater and more important place, as we live in a completely fragmented and terribly dangerous world.”65 In this way even the covenantal gift that crowns the flood narrative summons the reader to moral action—this is the shift from “poetics to politics.”66 Our “ownmost possibilities” are found in seeking to “give more” as a practical goal, as a horizon to the daily work of seeking justice between persons and in institutions, as we are called to our by relationship with God and his creation. This is the theological demand of the narrative, the “commencement myth” of our capacity to live morally with each other in the light of our relationship with God, seeking always the “clearing” of mutual giving with God, and with each other.

WORKS CITED Anderson, Pamela Sue. “Autonomy, Vulnerability and Gender.” Feminist Theory 4 (2003): 149–164. Blundell, Boyd. Paul Ricoeur Between Philosophy and Theology: Detour and Return. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010. Buss, Helen M. “Antigone, Psyche and the Ethics of Female Selfhood—A Feminist Conversation with Paul Ricoeur’s Theories of Self-Making in Oneself as Another.” Pages 64–79 in Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought. Edited by John Wall, William Schweiker, W. David Hall. London: Routledge, 2002. Gutiérrez, Gustavo. Essential Writings. Translated by J. B. Nickoloff. London: SCM Press, 1996. Hénaff, Marcel. The Price of Truth. Gift, Money and Philosophy. Translated by J.-.L Morhange, A.-M. Feenberg-Dibbon. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Jeanrond, Werner. “Hermeneutics and Revelation.” Pages 42–60 in Memory, Narrativity, Self and the Challenge to Think God. Edited by Maureen Junker-Kenny and Peter Kenny. Münster: LIT, 2004.

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Ricoeur and Raynova, “All that gives us to think,” 675. Soskice, “Naming God,” 89.

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Jervolino, Domenico. “The Unity of Paul Ricoeur’s Work: l’homme capable.” Pages 1–10 in Between Suspicion and Sympathy—Paul Ricoeur’s Unstable Equilibrium. Edited by A. Wiercinski. Toronto: The Hermeneutic Press, 2003. Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. Translated by A. Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Lipton, Diana. “By Royal Appointment: God’s Influence on Influencing God.” In The God of Israel. Edited by R. P. Gordon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Luttikhuizen, G. P. “Biblical Narratives in Gnostic Revision: The Story of Noah and the Flood in Classic Gnostic Mythology.” In Interpretations of the Flood. Edited by F. Garcia Martinez, G. P. Luttikhuizen. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Mauss, Marcel, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by I. Cunnison. New York: Norton, 1967. Pellauer, David, Ricoeur. A Guide to the Perplexed. London, Continuum, 2007. Reed, Esther D. The Ethics of Human Rights. Contested Doctrinal and Moral Issues. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007. Ricoeur, Paul. “Narrative Identity.” Pages 188–199 in On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation. Edited by D. Wood. London: Routledge, 1991. ———. Oneself as Another. Translated by K. Blamey. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992. ———. “Naming God.” Pages 217–235 in Figuring the Sacred. Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. Edited by Mark I. Wallace. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995. ———. “The Logic of Jesus, The Logic of God.” Pages 279–283 in Figuring the Sacred. Religion, Narrative, and Imagination. Edited by Mark I. Wallace. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. ———. “Ethics and Human Capability—A Response.” Pages 279–290 in Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought. Edited by John Wall, William Schweiker, W. David Hall. London: Routledge, 2002. ———. “The Paradigm of Translation.” Pages 11–29 in On Translation. Translated E. Brennan. London: Routledge, 2005. ———. Reflections on the Just. Translated by David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

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Ricoeur, Paul, and R. Kearney. “Dialogue—The Crisis of Authority” and “On Life Stories” in The Owl of Minerva. Edited by R. Kearney. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Ricoeur, Paul, and Yvanka B. Raynova. “All that Gives us to Think: Conversations with Paul Ricoeur.” Pages 679–696 in Between Suspicion and Sympathy: Paul Ricoeur’s Unstable Equilibrium. Edited by A. Wiercinski. Toronto: The Hermeneutic Press, 2003. Soskice, Janet Martin. “Naming God.” Pages 78–91 in Memory, Narrativity, Self and the Challenge to Think God. Edited by Maureen Junker-Kenny, Peter Kenny. Münster: LIT, 2004. Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. Genesis. The Beginning of Desire. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995.

A RESPONSE (I) WALTER BRUEGGEMANN COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY This impressive collection of essays is marked by such a sweeping spectrum of topics and by such a disciplined erudition that it is not likely that any one reader will be able to engage fully the whole of it in an informed way. The watchword of the whole is “complexity and thickness.” Such a reader—including this one—however, may expect to be instructed by every essay and led into quite fresh awarenesses concerning the text and its variegated tradition. A reader—like this one—who is ensconced by habit in conventional historical critical study of the Bible will be happily surprised. That is because our usual commentary on the flood narrative is pursued through one of two considerations. It may be through source analysis with a defining distinction between J and P; or it may be through a study of literary-cultural parallels that serve to relativize the claims of the biblical narrative as such. Neither of these approaches pertains here; there is a shared assumption that the narrative in its “final form” is dated to the Persian period, thus congruent with dominant assumptions about the P tradition, but nothing is made of that identification of source. And there are rich attestations to literary parallels, but not with the old questions about “dependence” and “borrowing.” The volume is, of necessity, haunted by the awareness that the flood narrative is a “myth,” and so a good bit of effort is put into the characterization of “myth.” That characterization, however, pushes well beyond the old formcritical assumptions of Gunkel and is informed by more contemporary critics such as Gadamer, Levinas, and Ricoeur. The cumulative effect of these essays serves to illustrate the shrewd observation of the editor, Jason Silverman, that “all biblical 511

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studies is the study of reception.” These several essays reflect various “receptions” according to the interests and competences of the writers. A good many of these essays are preoccupied with literary-religious parallels in other traditions and cultures. This material stretches from quite early Mesopotamian and Iranian traditions to the much later texts of Qumran and I Enoch. The approach taken here, however, is not to consider “borrowing” or “dependence,” but rather to attest that the Genesis flood narrative is situated in a broad deep stream of tradition that stays constant about the primary plot, but that permits great diversity in specific articulations, each of which is to be understood as interpretive activity that reflects great hermeneutical subtlety. Thus Elizabeth Harper reflects on “plot markers” in the narrative that turn out to be more than a little ambiguous; the plot permits many twists and turns in articulation and interpretation. Many of the traditions cited in this rich on-going stream are unfamiliar to me and will be unfamiliar to many students of the Bible. Attention is given to purposes and agenda that are at work in that on-going tradition that are quite different from those readily assumed in our belated work; thus for example the numbering in the narrative is seen to be concerned with liturgical calendars and that with particular reference to the Sabbath. The effect of such analyses is to defamiliarize the text, to recognize that it is at many points a narrative very different from the one we thought we had in our hands. It may well be that the essay of Dermot Nestor occupies a critical pivotal position in the volume, midway between a) reflection on parallel texts that are variously antecedent to Genesis or belated interpretations from Genesis, and b) reflection on subsequent, even contemporary receptivity that moves in an artistic-theological direction. Nestor’s brief requires attention to “historical questions” (as much as they occur anywhere in the volume), and an engagement with the question of how much archaeology can serve to recover what is “reliable.” The raising of that question, however, leads to a judgment that “the simple explanatory frame of reference” used in traditional archaeology— whether by those who want to trust the textual witness or by those who want to reconstruct an alternative “history,” is inadequate. The accent is on the complex in a refusal to allow for any singular

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or simplistic explanation of the text or the cultural practices referenced in it. It is precisely because culture is conceived as a “complex system” in which each element interacts with, and is responsive to all others, that the ideational norms so long isolated as the single generative force in the creation of archaeological variability could be reconnected with the behavioral, material, and organizational dimensions which comprise the total cultural system (269).

The skeptics turn out to be as reductionist as the fideists! The later essays in the collection move in more contemporary hermeneutical, theological, and artistic directions. Máire Byrne takes up the task of derivative theological reflection by considering creation “in the image of God” and the presentation of God in the flood narrative as the creator who can “take back his act of creation.” In the narrative, of course, the creator can indeed “undo” creation. That awareness poses the question, variously attested in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology, about the character of God who could and would accomplish such an undoing. Byrne shows that Islamic tradition is much more likely to accent the power of God; in tension with that is a Christian pursuit of the same issue where God is not marked only by power, but power that is redefined by suffering love. The latter accent comes to expression in a process hermeneutic and specifically in the exegesis of Terence Fretheim. The observation of that tension that runs through the traditions may make one aware of one’s own assumption in order to “see them anew and in a newly inspired way.” More contemporary concerns occupy the later essays in the book. Haydn Gurmin, with an appeal to Habermas, ponders how it may be that the “religious” narrative can be adequately and faithfully rendered in “secular” categories. Specifically the question is how and in what way the transcendence of God can be rendered in a less direct way that would communicate with and engage a secular reader. The question is an enormous challenge that perhaps returns us to Bultmann’s old question concerning whether myth can be effectively and faithfully de-mythed. Whether transcendence can be articulated on cultural assumptions of a “low ceiling” is one

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we will continue to engage, surely with useful reference to the work of Charles Taylor on the secular. The essay that held most intense interest for me (and is perhaps the reason I was invited to respond) is that of Siobhán Dowling Long who reflects on the musical rendering of the flood narrative in the works of Gaetano Donizetti and Camille SaintSaëns. It had not occurred to me before that perhaps the mystery and majesty of such an awe-filled narrative is best offered in musical form that allows for surplus voicing beyond the specificity of words. Most particularly Saint-Saëns’s accent on God’s “grieving heart” will draw the listener into the pathos of the text, a pathos, as Abraham Heschel has shown, that is peculiar to the Jewish tradition from which Christian interpretation has borrowed, but which is quite distinct from Islamic rendering. This is about as close as the volume comes to the actual substance of the textual narrative. It is surely suggestive that Dowling Long has juxtaposed one rendering that accents sin (Donizetti) and the other that focuses on “God’s grieving heart” (Saint-Saëns). The more popular reading of the flood narrative concerns “sin and punishment,” that only belatedly notices a move by God beyond symmetry that puts God readily in the right, and which eventually gives rise to questions of theodicy. But the second accent on the grieving heart suggests that the quid pro quo of Deuteronomic theology through which the flood narrative is often read is not adequate. Not only here but in many parts of the Hebrew Bible the real point is the divine push beyond quid pro quo, both required and made possible by God’s unsated yearning. Thus I suggested a long while ago, in my Genesis commentary, that the real “change” accomplished in the flood narrative is a change effected in God’s heart. I find Dowling Long poignantly helpful on this amazing matter: The theme of “God’s grieving heart,” based on Gen 6:6, features as a major theme in Saint-Saëns’s musical interpretation. The reason for God’s grief (v. 6) originated when his love could no longer penetrate the hardened hearts of his people; consumed by evil, they turned their backs on God’s loving gaze, and caused his heart to break. The restoration of creation, in the aftermath, signaled the end of gloom, renewed life, Promise and Blessings. Despite God’s futile endeavor to rid the world of evil, humanity retained its

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inclination for evil, and God continued to grieve as he does today. Saint-Saëns sound-painted the above elements of the flood story using musical subjects and motifs to unify the work as a whole; two primary subjects from the opening movement, the Prelude, recur in subsequent movements. (415)

The move of Saint-Saëns is from un-creation to new creation. Saint-Saëns has provided music to mark that move: While the orchestral accompaniment sound-paints the raging deluge below, the choir chants, alternatively in unison and homophony, with a narration of the unfolding catastrophe events to the sound of “God’s death sentence” motif punctuating every phrase. The choral melody comprises semitones to emphasize, yet again, God’s disappointment at his creation and the spread of evil. Descending scale-like passages in the strings illustrate the “springs of the deep” bursting forth from heaven’s floodgates (Gen 7:11). This section rises to a dramatic climax with the choral narration telling of the eagles’ flight above the devastation below…. Saint-Saëns depicted the rising floodwaters submerging the highest mountains with a melody rising slowly in stepwise motion articulated by the horns, violins, and flutes (426–7).

And the new creation: The soprano enters on the note C, to the accompaniment of second violins playing a C, to represent the New Creation that now exists…God’s response to this memory, the gentle breeze that passed over the waters, is represented musically by the gentle articulation of triplets in the second violins, taken up two measures later by the flutes and oboes, to imitate the motion of the rippling waters caused by the breeze (427–8).

I am not sure it is appropriate to quote at such length in a “response.” But the elegant insight of Dowling Long is so important that I want to be sure, as much as I can, that it does not stay buried among the essays. I consider this a most telling example of exegesis that refuses to be held in check by our critical work; our interpretive words never so finely match the waters of God rising and receding.

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Dowling Long on music is complemented on film by Egon Cohen and Rivka Cohen. Their commentary on three films attests to the way in which the old narrative lingers with poignant contemporary pertinence. The essay on the environmental crisis by Cathriona Russell exhibits the delicate interface of blame and lament, the latter a redress from popular reading that that fixes blame readily and resists the notion of lament. That interface of blame and lament nicely matches the two musical versions of Dowling Long concerning accent on sin or grieving heart. When the narrative is read as sin, then blame comes next. But when grieving heart is at the center of our reading, then lament is sure to be required. Thus we can see the adumbration of two very different theologies that live everywhere among us in tension. The subversion of a one-dimensional reading makes clear that our reduction of the narrative to sin and blame (punishment) is a readiness to read too soon, before we see how the narrative turns back on God’s own life. Such reading requires us to move to the edge in order to let God’s own life be at the center of the story. More than that, it requires the abandonment of a God who is tied down to quid pro quo for the sake of a God who evidences a grieving heart. The narrative depends on an embrace of a God who is thicker, more engaged, and more supple than that. Thus there is a resistance to theological reductionism that is alongside Nestor’s resistance to historical reductionism. The final essay strikes me as being especially suggestive. Informed by Ricoeur, Amy Daughton probes “the logic of superabundance” that is signaled by Noah’s “doxological sacrifice.” Such an act moves beyond “a logic of equivalence” and breaks into an emancipated relationship of mutuality that is, she avers, “the sign of agape.” In this reading, we arrive at a capacity to live morally with each other in the light of our relationship with God, seeking always the “clearing” of mutual giving with God, and with each other (507).

This logic of superabundance, contrasted with the “logic of equivalence,” brings us yet again to the same tense interface of “sin and grieving heart” in Dowling Long or “blame and lament” in Russell. One begins to see a deep crisis in reading that is matched to a deep social crisis among reading communities.

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I suggest that appeal to the flood narrative as a way to reassure Israel amid the sixth century exile in Isaiah constitutes exactly such a sign of mutuality, abundance, and doxology: This is like the days of Noah to me: Just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you (Isa 54:9–10).

The utterance of “steadfast love” and “compassion” that leads to a “covenant of peace” is already the voicing of categories of commitment, vulnerability, and mutuality that shatter the tight calculus of “equivalence.” In the large map of the Book of Isaiah, its narrative of old failed Jerusalem and new anticipated Jerusalem, is a compelling counterpoint to the drama of the flood with its rising and then receding waters that match the grief and then the new resolve of the Lord of the flood. It may be that the reference in 54:9–10 provides an effective interpretive key to link the narrative of the flood to the realities of Jerusalem, yet another assurance that the theological imagination of the ancient text is never far from Jerusalem. The assurance to the city in Isa 54, moreover, is followed in chapter 55 with a remarkable invitation to superabundance: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the water; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price (55:1).

This utterance of abundance evokes exultant doxology that dominates the anticipation of Isaiah for Jerusalem as it does in the culmination of the flood narrative. This wondrous set of essays locates the flood narrative in a vast panorama from the most ancient texts to the most urgent contemporary issues. In such a context, the Genesis text is a quick glimpse into an on-going enterprise of coming to terms with the

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reality of chaos, both to acknowledge the chaos and to move through it and beyond it. There are, to be sure, accents on “sin” in these essays that the text of course requires. That has been a primary preoccupation of theological effort commonly shared in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But the more interesting and challenging category, so it seems to me, is chaos and how chaos is to be faced in the presence of God. Or conversely, how God is to be judged in the presence of chaos. The matter is acutely urgent in our time when politics is dominated by anxiety, when economics is propelled by greed, and when culture is nearly swamped by fear of the other. The chaotic collapse of all things familiar in the Western world is felt reality. The discernment of holy intention or holy agency in the midst of that felt reality is a hugely important notion. We may judge that the flood narrative is so pervasive and so lingering precisely because it dares to voice that interface and to line out the unsettling possibilities that rest in that interface. It is for that reason that interpretation, as far back as we have texts and as far forward as our own work, can tilt in many different directions. The requirement of continuing work on the narrative is because the reality imagined in the narrative outruns—and continues to outrun—all of our familiar categories. As the text is “made strange” by careful work, so our social milieu is being “made strange” by new circumstance. Our religious tradition, commonly shared in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, continues to affirm that the chaos is governed and therefore limited. But the acute experience of the surging waters of disorder makes such a claim far from easy or obvious. I suppose that is why, even in a secular mode, the narrative lingers forcefully among us and will not be explained away. It occurs to me that the popular quest for “historicity” of the narrative and the on-going search for the ark are attempts to place the chaotic flood waters “back there” at a safe distance so as not to notice the rising of those very waters in our midst. Resistance to such popular work is not simply because we take it to be “non-historical.” Rather our effort is an insistence that the narrative is contemporary to our felt chaos and cannot be slotted back there at a remote safe place. Our debt is very great to the scholars represented in this welcome volume. While we find these fine readers located as various places in interpretive work concerning the drama of the

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flood, in our interpretive responsibility we are always again at the beginning of our understanding, always again made aware that we have not yet begun to understand. This volume is an invitation to begin again in courage, made freshly aware of good companions engaged alongside of us. Walter Brueggemann Columbia Theological Seminary February 6, 2013

INUNDATED PHILIP DAVIES UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD Ben Bag Bag said: Turn the Torah over and over for everything is in it … —M. ’Abot 5.26

I This volume does indeed threaten to deluge the reader. We scholars were until quite recently quite used to the notion of “the meaning of the text,” identified with the author’s intention. Now most of us recognize that meaning depends on us as individuals or communities. Yet there is a further step: meaning also depends on the method and assumptions with which we approach the text: and why should these be fixed or determined? Surely we can choose the way we want to read, the approach we take, the conclusions we reach. We can, like good consumers, buy the one that suits our mood or taste, or that serves our immediate purpose. Often the choice chooses itself, and in the process tells you what kind of person you are. In this volume we are given a very wide range of choices, most of which are not contradictory, and we can buy most of them if we wish. For we have been confronted with different methods, generating different kinds of answer. The sequence seems to follow some kind of scheme, starting with historical-critical questions to the text itself (Guillaume, Jacobus) then becoming more comparative, using ancient Near Eastern (and in some cases, global) myth (McCann, Chen, Silverman). Then studies of reception (Stokes, Thomas, Long, Cohen and Cohen), and theological and philosophical reflection (Byrne, Gurmin, Russell, 521

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Daughton). The arrangement is not too neat: the last two approaches are slightly mixed together, while the first essay is a literary, “final-form” reading, and I can’t really place Nestor’s essay anywhere except in a metacritical section of its own. Jason Silverman suggested in his introduction that “myth” and “reception” are two important themes reflected in this collection, but observes that many forms of historical-critical analysis (sourcecriticism and redaction-criticism especially) are really concerned with the reception of one writer’s work by another.1 As for myth, I am increasingly doubtful (as I am with “apocalyptic” and “history”) about the usefulness of such modern categories that oblige the text to conform to categories of a more modern culture. The reader of the Hebrew Bible is given no generic or textual clue to a transition between what we call “myth,” “saga,” and “history”: we have in Genesis to Kings only a continuous narrative from Creation to the fall of Jerusalem. I think a better approach is to try and formulate how the past was known and imagined in pre-modern societies and draw the appropriate categories from there. I feel two different responses to this rich and varied collection of studies. One is a challenge: turn the text over again and again, find more, find new, find better. The other is more passive: be entertained; enjoy the pleasure of a text that can dress itself so differently. We may also, but we do not need to, go beyond pleasure and look for messages of self-knowing or self-improvement. The one genre of modern scholarship I did not find here (though Elizabeth Harper’s essay did not make this easier) was a narratological reading. Whenever I make such an attempt, I find myself unable to avoid reconstructing an unintentionally—or perhaps after all intentionally—funny instance of how a deity shot himself in the foot. For you can’t seriously aim to exterminate vermin but take a liking to one and let it survive, especially when you know it will be verminous in the future. The humor is enhanced if you imagine the deity trying for a cover version of the great Mesopotamian hit in which one god uses the wall of a reed For a detailed argument on these lines, see W. J. Lyons, “Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History,” JSNT 33 (2010): 207–220. 1

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hut to avoid betraying the other gods, passing indirectly a message to his client that the flood is coming. The plot doesn’t easily fit monotheism. Such a reading elicits the character of a god who, like most of us, does not see the consequences of his actions, first in making humans, then destroying all but one family. Nor, again like many of us, is he quite sure whether his final promise is influenced by the smell of the barbecue or not. In the end, at any rate, we are apparently going to carry on being wicked people anyway, and our god is going to carry on letting us. Unless we intertext with the New Testament, where we find that the god had not reconciled himself after all but was looking for some further means of reconciliation. Now, this humor that I choose to recognize may well be a mask for angst, the fear, in this case, that we cannot prevent the same thing happening, cannot avoid giving the god some further offence. And surely this fear partly explains the enduring power of the story. But is it not comforting to be told that gods can frustrate their own plans, and even more comforting that this one has decided to indulge us from now on? The perennial Indiana Jones quest for pieces of wood on Mt. Ararat is arguably funnier still, though it raises doubts about human sanity. The story mentions “mountains of Ararat,” because its writers know of no “Mount Ararat,” only of Urartu as a land. They did not know, either, that a spherical earth does not contain enough water to cover its surface. Modern ark-hunters are looking in a non-existent spot on a flat earth. Truly they do not belong on our planet. Compared with them, the children who learn from Noah’s Ark the names and shapes of animals are much more grown-up. And then there are those readers, ancient and modern, who invert the point of the story, namely that this will not recur, and look to an eschatological deluge in which their god will again save his chosen few. The moral of the Flood Story—the moral in my Flood story, that our God will not try and destroy us for what he sees as our wickedness—clearly offends some people who, Jonah-like, want to see wickedness punished. The irony of our modern situation is, however, that it may be our own wickedness (greed, mostly) that will finally “uncreate” the world.

II The reader of this book will have learned that the Hebrew flood story is not a simple narrative, borrowed and developed from

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Mesopotamia by biblical writers exiled in Babylonia, and later elaborated and eschatologized by “apocalyptic” Jewish authors of the late Second Temple period. Chen’s essay shows the coagulation of Mesopotamian mythical elements in a larger mass in which only towards the end does the Flood become the climax and not the beginning. The essays of Guillaume and Jacobus suggest that a similar process of slow elaboration and treatment of the Hebrew story can also be perceived in the “chronogenealogies” and in the various hints of borrowing from other evolving flood stories. Myths may express eternal truth, but to continue doing so, they have to keep evolving themselves. Of course, the most obvious evidence is the existence of two flood stories woven into one, each having a significantly different plot, despite the similarity of structure. Elizabeth Harper’s detailed analysis of plot markers does not observe the classical source-critical division, but she reaches the absolutely correct conclusions that the comfort brought by Noah in 5:29 must be wine. Wine is the fruit of Noah’s “tree of knowledge” (he knows what his sons have done), while his nakedness, shame, and cursing all recapitulate Gen 2–3. Hence, as in Mesopotamia, the flood story came to form part of a larger story. But this is one strand only: and the presence of two strands really complicates any plotting. The Lamech of 5:29 (and his son) must be descended from the wicked Cain (Gen. 4:19–24) and not from the godly Seth (like the Lamech and Noah of Gen. 5:30–31). Each strand of the flood describes a new beginning: one offers meat as well as vegetables, the other offers alcohol! If we don’t recognize both strands, we have to ask whether both Noahs were rescued or if they mysteriously merged into one Noah with two different sets of ancestors. We might also ask why the two strands are interwoven in the flood but juxtaposed in the episodes of creation and dispersion? Is it because there can only be one flood? But surely there can also be only one creation and one dispersion, yet we have two instances of each. Perhaps we need to take the lesson from cubist painting and forget about reading in two dimensions only. The two essays on chronology (Guillaume and Jacobus) also illustrate that biblical chronology is not the key to historical reconstruction but to literary structure. Biblical time is schematic, and variations within the biblical text and between the ancient

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versions reflect disagreements not about what happened in time but about the structure and meaning of time and history. Accordingly, the differing “chronogenealogical” data do not point to scribal errors or careless editing but to careful thought about the onset and progress of human decay, and about the form in which evil survived the Flood. The essay by Jacobus, like Silverman’s, also opens up the “eclectic range of literature and scientific thought” evident in 4Q252. The same could be said of traditions drawn from Aramaic Enochic lore, Zoroastrian cosmology, and Babylonian astronomy. We are dealing after all with intellectuals writing in a late Persian/Hellenistic/Greco-Roman world in which mythic lore is being reworked within and among national historiographies. I have argued that the “exodus” story is both a Judean and an Egyptian story, and that perhaps each has influenced the other. Perhaps the thematic parallels between Akkadian and Hebrew literatures belong to this era of cross-cultural scrutiny than to the Babylonian “exile.” But how far should do we pursue such cross-cultural links? Is Noah’s raven related to the ravens that fed the (eschatological) prophet Elijah or even to the dove at Jesus’ baptism? In this vein, the equally learned essay by Jason Michael McCann made me think of Moses, also preserved in a baby-ark (‫ ;תבת גמא‬the only other such “ark” in the Hebrew Bible). But here, although temple-imagery is perhaps more likely, the word for “reed” is not ‫קן‬. I also wonder whether the reed hut might be missing from the Genesis story simply because there is no place for it: the planned flood does not need to be secretly betrayed. And perhaps the LXX translation νο ιας shows that the translator was thinking of the need for the birds to have a home too? Again: the sacrifice of Noah was not carried out in the ark, but on an altar, after he had left the ark. Finally, a connection with Solomon’s temple is easier if we accept that ‫ קנים‬are “rooms” after all. I found this essay ingenious rather than convincing. Chen’s essay offers a contrasting view of this myth to McCann’s, which argued for the integrity of myth clusters: here we are presented with the weaving of strands of tradition to create larger complexes and to change the meaning of the whole (‘intertwined trajectories’). My impression is that this model suits the Hebrew tradition better. I was also intrigued by the passing mention of cannibalism in the Atraḫasīs story, because of its role in

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the 1 Enoch account of the cause for the flood (which is, incidentally, what I think the writer of the Priestly account also had in mind, since he mentions “violence” in 6:13, while the covenant with Noah in 9:1–11 features bloodshed). Silverman introduces Iranian myth into the discussion, which is more rarely invoked but highly plausible. That Iranian myth informed what he calls “Jewish apocalyptic” (a term I am a little uneasy with, but I know what he means), is undeniable, memorably in the truth/falsehood and light/darkness dualism of the Qumran manuscripts. Iranian parallels to the Bible are frequently invoked but they need the kind of detailed treatment Silverman offers here and has elaborated elsewhere. I similarly remain to be convinced about the presence of a “winter myth” in Gen 6–9, and prefer to understand summer and winter in the Hebrew version as alluding to the wet and dry seasons, the regular pattern of rainfall; but here as elsewhere it is difficult to know when possible parallels lie beyond the arena of plausible cultural-historical possibility. He is right to observe that the way myths are received depends on local factors. The profile of the flood story in 1 Enoch (also in the Qumran scrolls and partly in Jubilees) is important, but not as an instance of reception. Rather, I think it plays a role in the formation of the Genesis story. It is, of course, already in 1 Enoch an amalgam of different versions, suggesting a degree of antiquity, and I disagree with Ryan Stokes in tracing its origin back to Gen 6:1–4, which is problematic, because it has no obvious function in the plot, for unlike the Enoch versions, it does not give cause for the flood: indeed, these verses suggest no wrongdoing at all (the giants are “men of worth,” “heroes”). Hence, I am persuaded, with Milik, Black, and others, that the story as it surfaces in 1 Enoch is not a midrashic creation but already reflected in the Priestly strand of Gen 6–9 (and note the appearance of Azazel in Lev 16). This theory does not deny that 1 Enoch narrates the story for a specific purpose, however, and it certainly evidences the use of such a story as a type of the expected eschatological judgment. The story of a family of survivors from a great divine punishment lends itself very easily to interpretation as a premonition of the end-times when a small family of righteous will again be saved from the coming divine anger. Like Abraham, Moses, and Enoch himself, Noah

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becomes the patriarch of a certain kind of Judaism, a certain definition of a Jew. This essay leads rather well into those that discuss the later reception of the story. Thomas brings us to our own times, and reminds us that the flood was never an event but always a story, and the ark likewise never an object outside text, but an image constructed by the reception of the story, a simulacrum: in Baudrillard’s terms a more real replica of a nonexistent model. This essay kept me wondering what exactly the “invested” visitors to these arks are looking for (we know what the real investors are after!): some kind of tangible link between the mythical biblical world and their own, a kind of solid three-dimensional mythology? In this case, what really differentiates the escapism to Noah and the ark from a trip to Disneyland or any other theme park? Such an approach to the modern ancient world of the Bible should be read alongside the fascinating and nuanced treatment by the Cohens of the story’s appropriation in another area of mass culture. The cooption of the biblical story into the topoi of modern American fundamentalism has a forward-looking rather than backward-looking direction, but it presumably addresses a similar constituency. My fellow-responder Walter Brueggemann will be a much better judge of the plausibility of this analysis, and I shall not commit myself, not having seen any of the films mentioned. But this area of “Bible and film” is burgeoning, and here I think I read an unusually profound engagement with the role of cinema in shaping the American psyche. The comparative theological method pursued by Máire Byrne can yield useful results even to those outside the dialogue, as, for example, did Bruce Chilton’s examination of the sacrifice of Isaac.2 Whether it works so well for the flood I am still not sure! It does seem to me, certainly, that the Islamic god is not one to admit that he has changed his mind, and his attributes of mercy are proclaimed less as an expression of a human-like emotion of pity than as a condescending monarch. There are Christians, too, quite comfortable with an all-powerful god: I had an uncle who reveled Abraham’s Curse: Child Sacrifice in the Legacies of the West (New York: Doubleday, 2008). 2

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in hellfire and damnation, and the rhetoric of hymnbooks still addresses a god who is all-powerful and all-knowing and will vanquish his enemies with a sword; perhaps after all liberal, tolerant democratic Western societies do prefer a deity who will let us all go to heaven. “Everyone a winner” has a great appeal in a consumerist society. Murray Watson’s essay introduces the issue of truth in translation that concerns some of the remaining contributions. I was introduced to Chouraqui’s translation work several years ago when publishing At the Start: Genesis Made New, a translation by Mary Phil Korsak directly inspired by Chouraqui. I’d like to know what Murray Watson makes of it. There are, I suppose, several levels at which “truth” and “meaning” (or “fidelity”) might function, assuming a Nidaesque “dynamic equivalence” criterion: at the linguistic, aesthetic, and anthropological levels—in other word, syntax and semiotics, poetic and culture/worldview. Chouraqui has achieved a combination of all three to a high level. (On a slightly related note, 2011 saw the new Bible translation as a best-seller in the country, a translation prepared by scholars and finished off by literary authors. Without chapters and verses, and reading like a novel, it will probably not emulate Chouraqui’s great accomplishment, but it is the kind of Bible that might best survive, especially if available electronically.) Gurmin deals with the issue from a philosophical point of view: translating religious into non-religious language. I am not yet persuaded of many things in this essay: that the mythos/logos distinction tells us anything about Genesis (see earlier comments); that there is any specifically “religious” language, especially in the Bible, which is why I dislike translations such as “salvation” instead of “security” or “safety,” or “covenant” instead of “contract” or “treaty.” I am especially wary, too, of the notion of the “truth of the original.” I fear this can never be recovered, unless we redefine truth in relative terms. Who decides the truth of a text? Each reader? The unknown author? God? But maybe (which is possible), I am missing the point. So this essay requires me to think again about my own assumptions and conclusions. The study of musical reception deals with “translation” at two levels: first into the libretto, then from the libretto into the music. In Siobhán Dowling Long’s essay two different “truths” are established in the libretti from which Donizetti and Saint-Saëns

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composed. But here we find additional factors: the research conducted by Donizetti himself and the musical tradition on which Saint-Saëns drew. It’s unfortunate that those who can’t read music (fortunately, I can) will not fully appreciate the detailed exposition of the musical “translation” we are offered here. We must look forward to the progress of electronic publication that can incorporate music itself into texts. Even without this aid, however, we can ask ourselves to what extent the themes drawn out from the story in each composition reflect the possibilities of music to express nineteenth century romantic (and Catholic) sensibilities. Cathriona Russell’s paper brings reflection on contemporary relevance to humanity at large, to what she calls “anthropodicy,” and to instances of a secularized myth by Emmerich and Attwood. But as the second part of her essay shows, flooding is not usually the result of human action, but a fault of the earth’s construction. This contradicts the notion of a perfectly-created world, or at least one that was designed for human occupation. Unless, perhaps, we are to blame for having left the ecologically-controlled environment of the garden in the first place? Of course we are to blame for dwelling in places where flooding occurs, and for not reckoning with the need to plan our own growing habitation of the earth with care for the environment. But how far does the biblical myth really work these days? Russell’s discussion follows Clines’s reading of Genesis 1–11 as exhibiting a sin-speech-punishmentmitigation pattern. But I am more attracted by a pattern that sees a divine plan upset by unforeseen events and then requiring adjustment. For Clines’s reading struggles with both the story of 6:1–4 and the Babel incident, where it is not clear that any sin has been committed. I certainly endorse the conclusion that human responses to flooding require rational planning and international cooperation. Both represent a challenge to our nature and to the state of our global government—but also a challenge to theological thinking and indeed to mythical description. There is no supernatural element, but an earth and its inhabitants, and what is needed is a rational, secular ethic of living on this earth, including all its creatures. Ricoeur seems to be a favorite of several contributors to this volume, and Amy Daughton relies on his definition of promise as “loyalty to one’s identity and to the other.” She also categorizes the flood as a “myth of punishment,” which is an oversimplification.

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For the story seems to describe a reversal of creation (and a renewing of creation afterwards)—more in keeping, I think, with a pattern of unforeseen consequences and divine adjustment than the sin-punishment-mitigation sequence, and there is also the possibility that it is meant to cleanse the earth from pollution. And is the Babel story part of the flood episode? Or is it the counterpart, in the new created order, to the expulsion from Eden in the old order? As far as the Genesis narrative is concerned, Thomas Thompson’s suggestion is that it sets the context for the movement of Terah’s family from Ur and ultimately for Abram’s movement to Canaan. And isn’t the point of scattering humans to prevent their cooperation? As with the curse of agricultural toil and painful childbirth, humans have largely escaped the divine constraints. As for Noah’s sacrifice: yes, perhaps a gift, eliciting a gift. But perhaps, as the rabbis realized, it is that God needs Israel and Israel needs God, which we can adapt into “people need gods and gods need people.” But is that still true? Do they need our sacrifices? And what do we need from them? I also find myself, at the end, coming back to the necessity of a double reading. For while one Noah may indeed encounter divine grace, being a member of an irredeemably wicked human species, the other Noah is righteous and rightly escaped the judgment on others. To have drowned him as well would have been unjust. Ending the volume with theological reflection has endowed it with a certain trajectory: crowned it, as it were, given the last word to theism. But perhaps the flood story, and indeed, the larger story of which it is part, a story in two strands, can equally prompt us to realize that our lives are in our own hands after all: that we are “like gods knowing good and evil,” but perhaps, like the many modern Noah’s arks, simulacra of what (or rather of who) does not exist, the image of which “God” himself (or possibly herself) is only an image. I have, at the time of writing, no idea of what Walter Brueggemann will have said, but I am fairly sure he will have provided a balance to this secular and atheistic conclusion! Philip Davies February 2013