The Genesis Parallel

The resemblance between this tablet and the flood of Noah in Genesis 6 to 9 is close and much studied: a divine resolve to destroy humankind, a single righteous man warned to build a great vessel, the saving of his family and of living creatures, the grounding of the ark on a mountain, the sending out of birds to test the waters, and a sacrifice on emerging that pleases the deity. When George Smith first read the Babylonian flood aloud to the Society of Biblical Archaeology in 1872, the announcement caused a sensation precisely because the parallel was so exact.

Scholars generally understand the relationship as a literary and cultural one: both narratives belong to a common ancient Near Eastern flood tradition, and the biblical writers gave the shared story their own distinctive theological shape, one God rather than many, a moral cause in human wickedness, and a covenant sealed by the rainbow. This is best presented as a matter of comparative scholarship, illuminating each text, rather than as a claim of simple dependence in either direction.