THE CREATION AND THE FLOOD: PAGAN MYTHOLOGY?

Sometimes the same facts that are used by critical Bible scholars to try to disprove the historicity of the early stories in Genesis actually turn out to disarm those same critics. As one example, cuneiform tablets uncovered from the remains of Ur (located north of the Persian gulf) and Nineveh in the 1800's appear to be copies of originals dated to about 1800-1600 BC, well before Genesis was written (considering that Moses lived around 1500-1300 BC).

These tablet contain a Creation myth in which there was a watery chaos at first followed by seven epochs of creation with man being formed on the sixth day. There was a later flood on earth, which one of the gods warns the tenth patriarch about. He builds a ship to hold his family and some animals. After the flood starts to subside, the ship lands on a mountain and the patriarch sends out a dove, a raven, and a swallow. When the family sets foot on dry land, they offer a sweet smelling sacrifice to the gods and we are told of their promise never to send another flood in the future.

There are many small discrepancies between the details in the Genesis story and these pagan accounts. In addition, our knowledge of the latter is actually fragmentary due to the condition of the tablets and some inconsistencies between the various versions of the myth that appear to be present. And even though some of the details of the story are similar, the Babylonian myth differs significantly in theme and intent from that in the Bible. Thus, in the former accounts:

    The gods (plural) cause the flood “because their hearts prompted them.” In other versions, it is said to have been because the humans were making so much noise the gods couldn't sleep.

    It was man, not God, who shut the door of the ship (described as something that could be steered in contrast to the ark, which was designed for floating only).

    The gods then get drunk and begin to argue among themselves.

    They begin to waste away since they had not thought ahead enough to remember that they were completely dependent on the odors of the sacrifices to stay alive.

    At that point they relent and allow mankind to multiply again, even if it does mean spending some sleepless nights due to the noise.

Notice how self-serving this pagan tale is in elevating the status of man in comparison to the feeble gods. One sees the same phenomenon in the tales of the various Greek, Roman and Norse

Getting back to the various pagan flood myths, the latest scholarly view on the subject is that these neither copied from the biblical accounts or served as the source for Genesis. Instead, the most likely scenario is that both stemmed from a much earlier story. This fits the situation where an authentic tradition of a cataclysmic event in the Near East related in Genesis was taken by pagan cultures in the area and changed into create a more self-serving story. In any case, the admitted close correspondence in details between the biblical and pagan accounts makes it highly unlikely that the early chapters of Genesis were only “manufactured” after Israel had become a nation, as earlier scholarly proposals held.

gods whose lives resemble a TV soap opera. Or one could look at some of the African tales in which the trickster rabbit (who later popped up as Br'er Rabbit) goes around outwitting the gods.

One might wonder why some of these cultures seem to have no concept of an all-powerful and loving God. The answer might be found in the book Eternity in Their Hearts by an ex-missionary named Don Richardson. He spent years with a tribe in Africa trying to learn more about their religious beliefs. At last, he gained the confidence of one of the tribal elders. After describing the biblical God, he asked why there didn't seem to be any vestige of that concept in their religious practices. The elder said that he fully recognized the biblical description as their chief God. But nobody talked about him or bothered worshiping him since he never did anything bad to you. It was the other malevolent deities that needed to be worshiped and appeased; otherwise they would hurt you in numerous ways.