23rd January 2020
I’m not sure if I mentioned it before but I am fascinated by the history of Noah’s flood. Not because I know anything of use about it but because I am fascinated by our religious texts and to know what parts have any substance or truth to them.
I listened to a podcast by an Australian interviewer speaking to Irving Finkel who works at the British Museum here in London. He mentioned how he was brought a clay tablet from Ancient Babylonian times by a visitor and that tablet (written in c1800 BC) mentions that God told a man that he should build an Ark for his family and animals as the world was going to be flooded. Essentially this is the story of Noah written in Mesopotanium times, thousands of years before the Bible existed. The tablet also gives instructions as to how the Ark was to be built with detail on what was to be used and the quantities.
According to Finkel it was around this time that stories were written down. Prior to this, everything was transferred around orally. The belief is that the Hebrew Bible took this story from the Mesopotanium story. Who knows exactly why. Is there any substance to this? There were lots of rivers in Mesopotamia and so there was flooding but for this to have been so dramatic as a flood it could have been possible that what occurred was a Tsunami. Finkel says the story was written down because to do so for the locals meant that the Gods would not let it happen again. Interestingly he says in the Babylonian times the reason given for the flood was because people were too noisy but in the Hebrew text they were seen as wicked.
In terms of the location for the flood it mentions somewhere in Iraq but we don’t really know. One last thing is apparently the tablet suggested that the boat was round – not almond shaped as we see in films on the flood.
Curiosity and the rascal 