The world is abound with traditions of a Great Flood. We have the Sumerian version Great Flood, three separate versions of the Babylonian Flood Myth, the Hindu Flood Myth, the Greek Flood Myth, and the Biblical (which is actually descendant of the Babylonian Flood Myth through the Sumero-Akkadian tradition of the Great Flood).
Each are ancient recollections of a cataclysm that once befell the Earth throwing the Earth into a time of chaos and turbulence effectively ending the golden age of the gods.
Nearly ever culture has their own version. We even have recollections found in Native American legend as well as the great cultures of the Maya and Incas. However there are a few versions of the story recorded and remembered by the great civilizations of high antiquity which detail a highly consistent narrative.
The fact that the three version of the Babylonian Flood myth are so consistent with one another, as well as being consistent with the Biblical, Greek, and Indian accounts indicate that they were quite possibly the later descendants of a once common ancestral tradition.
The three versions of the Babylonian Flood Myth that are specifically of Babylonian origin are the Epic of Atrahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the version found in the Histories of Berossus.
Three Versions of the Babylonian Flood Myth
Epic of Atrahasis
The Epic of Atrahasis is the oldest version of the Babylonian Flood Myth, closest to the Sumerian original. (I consider the Sumerian version as the original only because it was the oldest recorded version of the story which before that time existed as an oral tradition probably around 7000 years from the actual events). The Epic of Atrahasis surviving on three tablets from reign of the Babylonian King Ammi-saduqa, who ruled from 1647-1626 BCE. [1]
At beginning world is created. In this work the Lesser Gods are forced into millennia of endless toil as they literally build the world through their actions, cutting out rivers and erecting mountains.
After centuries of this effort they are frustrated, tired of the pain and suffering. So, as all oppressed people have done since the beginning of time, the Lesser Gods rose up against their oppressors.
They declared war on the Great Gods. The conflict is terrible and great damage is inflicted on both sides. This tale of the great war between the gods might also be told in some form in the Sumerian / Babylonian Enuma Elish as the revolt of the Anunnaki against the High Gods, which also tells of the horrible battle.
This tale is probably also the origin of the revolt of the Titans in the Graeco-Roman version, as the Greek and Roman people share close cultural ties with the Near East, more pronounced the further back we go. This also explains remarks of giants in Bible. [Note 1]
In both cases, humanity is created to remove burden from shoulders of Lesser Gods. For once humans are created, it is essentially their purpose to serve and propitiate the gods who gave them everything – civilization, kingship, writing, civilization, arts, life – though with the original purpose of removing the burden of maintaining the world from the shoulders of the tribe of gods.
It was Enki who came up with the solution, and it was he who created humans, assisted by his wife. Yet from the beginning Enlil, the leader of the gods and Enki’s brother, had misgivings about humans. Uncertainties that only grew into disdain along with the growth of human populations and their clamor. This noise disturbed the gods, especially Enlil, who made up his mind to send a Great Flood to wipe out humans.
Enki (the Poseidon to Enlil’s Zeus) decided to slightly disobey his brother Enlil. In the Epic of Atrahasis version he sent a dream to Atrahasis ordering him to build a ship. This transmission of the gods will via dream is a slight change in detail from other versions, both earlier and later.
The Babylonian authors include a brief description of the ship’s design, paying special attention, for some reason, on the design of the roof. Perhaps because of its importance in keeping the torrential rain out, or because that is what their source material focused on.
After being sent this command by Enki, on top of building his great ship Atrahasis also attempted to convince the Elders of his city of Shuruppak of the impending disaster so that his city could be spared.
Much of his speech is recorded, which did not make it into the Biblical version, yet which is fascinatingly found as the core narrative of the it is found in the Quranic version of the flood myth. [1] This fascinating detail tells us that even at the time of Muhammad (c.600 CE) the old traditions were still preserved, probably in both document and tradition.
The rest of the text deals with the building and departure of ark, a few lines describing the storm and the survival of Atrahasis. The text finishes with the gods solution to the problem: limit the noise, willfulness, and proliferation of humanity so that the gods do not need to send another flood. To do this they invented childbirth, infant mortality, and celibacy.
Epic of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh also deals with an account of the flood. However, in this version the hero’s name is Utnapishtim. The Epic of Gilgamesh was recorded and composed around c.1100 BCE, even while drawing off much older traditions and much older source material.
By and large the tale tells of the exploits of the great and powerful King Gilgamesh, king of the Sumerian city of Uruk, from his own perspective. It tells of his life, exploits with his faithful companion Enkidu, his trials to return Enkidu from death, and also Gilgamesh’ own search for immortality which he believes he deserves as he is 3/4 divine.
In his search for immortality Gilgamesh seeks out the flood-hero Utnapishtim, upon whom the gods bestowed the gift of immortality, the only human ever given this gift in Mesopotamian tradition, I believe. At which point we are given with a tale of the flood.
The narrative sometimes quotes directly the Epic of Atrahasis. Yet there are differences which can either be attributed to references to other texts that we don’t have available to us or embellishments from the imagination. The Sumerian account, Eridu version of Genesis, recalls Enki speaking Ziusudra through a screen, while he speaks to Atrahasis through a dream in the oldest Babylonian Flood Myth version.
However in the Gilgamesh epic the plot twists wonderfully. In order to keep his word to his brother Enlil and the the Council of Gods in general, Enki could not speak to Utnapishtim directly. So he instead addresses the wall of the gods plan as if he was talking to himself, dwelling on the circumstances, and it is the wall itself which conveys the tale to Utnapishtim.
Enki tells Utnapishtim of the upcoming flood, and impels him to build an ark, giving him dimensions. Though these dimensions describe the ark as a large cube, which would float sightless and directionless on the floodwaters.
The Gilgamesh epic describes the storm at length, culminating in the landing of this great cube-ship in the mountains of Kurdistan. The Zagros Mountains on the eastern borders of Iraq and the western borders of modern Kurdistan.
Utnapishtim releases birds to find land. If they return then there is no land in sight for them to head to, but if they do not return then there is Earth somewhere for them to reach to. After landing Utnapishtim offers sacrifices to the gods who gather “like flies.” Rejoicing that humanity has not, after all, been eliminated, the gods confer upon Utnapishtim immortality.
Berossus Babylonian History
Berossus was he Chief Priest in ancient Babylon, whose exact title was Shatammu (šatammu) of the Esagila, the great temple of Marduk, who at that time was the leader of the Babylonian pantheon.
In the time of Berossus during the 200’s BCE, this was after the conquests of Alexander the Great. These lands were still controlled by dynasties of Macedonians and Greeks. But among his own people, Berossus held great power.
One must remember that in these ancient times, while the temples were centers of worship, literally the homes of the gods to whom they were dedicated, they were also great centers of learning.
The temples were often in charge of the clay tablets upon which ancient knowledge and traditions were inscribed. So the priests of the temple where priests, but they were also scholars, keepers of knowledge.
So Berossus wasn’t just a clergy man. He was (one of) the leading scholars of the time. I also remember some tradition of him speaking of his perfect memory, which we might today call eidetic / photographic memory. He wrote a compendium of Babylonian knowledge dealing with all history known to him, the dynastist of gods before the flood, the dynasties of human kings afterward, all the way back to the beginning.
It is possible he was commissioned to do this work by his Greek overlords. Or perhaps he did so to preserve Babylonian knowledge in a time when he feared it would be lost, or perhaps to resist the infusion and influence of traditions that might differ from those of his native land and people. rote Babylonian history of Great Flood, explaining culture to foreign masters.
Whatever the case may be, little of his work has survived the trials of history. We only have left to us scant references. Though we do know that his hero was named Xisuthrus, which clearly tells us that Berossus had access to copies of texts more than 2000 years old, since Xisuthrus is clearly based on the Sumerian flood-hero’s name: Ziusudra.
As part of this tale Xisuthrus was asked by the gods to keep care of three tablets containing the highest of human wisdom. In order that they may survive the flood, Xisuthrus was ordered by the gods to bury them deep beneath the city of Sippar. This detail was not mentioned in any other version but the Jewish Book of Jubilees and 1 Enoch. [1]
They also state the dimensions of the ship which in this case was a real ship, not some abstract and difficult to understand cube. They also note the day that the flood began, on 15 Daisios, found in Genesis account [Genesis 7.11]
Notes
- The talk of the giants in the Bible, as well as references to the Titans of the Greek and Roman traditions can be found in [Ovid, Metamorphoses [1.151ff], Genesis 6.1-4 and 1 Enoch 7.
Further Reading
- The Great Flood: Babylonian Version | Jona Lendering | Livius.org | Accessed 29 Jan 2020