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By Rabbi Carl M. Perkins

The Uniqueness of the Story of Noah’s Ark
Parashat Noah
October 28, 2006

When tablets containing this story were discovered by archaeologists working in the city of Nineveh in the 1850s, it was thought to be one of those earth-shaking revelations that would destroy the special status that the Bible had always held in Judaism and Christianity. If, after all, there’s a story of a great flood not only in the Bible but also in a Babylonian epic—and in fact, scholars will tell you that there are several versions of the Babylonian story—then what’s so unique about the Bible? Leaving aside the obvious challenge that a parallel story poses to the belief by our ancestors—and some of our contemporaries—in the literal truth of the Biblical account, it suggests that there’s no real difference between the cultures of the ancient world and Israelite culture.

The parallels are, indeed, striking. For example, in both cases, the flood is not a natural phenomenon, but the deliberate act of a divine entity. In both cases, one individual (Utnapishtim in the Babylonian account, Noah in the Biblical one) is chosen to survive. Just as Utnapishtim is advised to build a vessel in which to save himself, so too is Noah. Both are given precise specifications for their vessel. Both coat their vessels with pitch. Both are told exactly who and what should be taken aboard. In both stories, special mention is made of the closing of the door of the vessel, and in both cases the flood wipes out human beings and animals. In both cases, the vessel comes to rest on a mountain (Ararat in the Biblical account, Mount Nisir in the Gilganesh epic). Both heroes send forth birds—a dove and a raven in each story—to check to see if the waters have subsided. Both heroes offer sacrifices of thanksgiving once they emerge from their vessels and both receive a blessing.

One would think that they’re practically identical tales.

In fact, a careful, comparative study of the Biblical and the Babylonian stories of the great flood reveals that the differences are quite significant. I am grateful to the late Dr. Nahum Sarna, who sets forth these differences in a very clear and compelling account in his book, Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York, 1970), pp. 37-62. Those differences help one appreciate the Biblical story not less, but more.

For the Babylonian story reflects a pagan, polytheistic world-view that is not very inspiring. The heavens, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh, are filled with contending, capricious deities who are not bound by any moral code, and who expect no better of human beings.

There’s a god named Enlil who, with his partners, decides to destroy all humanity. It’s never made clear precisely why. In one of the versions, it’s reported that these gods were upset because human beings were too noisy.

Oppressive has become the clamor of mankind,
By their uproar, they prevent sleep!" (see Sarna, p.50)

Think about that: wiping out the world because the people are keeping you up at night!

In contrast, of course, in the Biblical account, God decides to destroy the world because it is filled with evil. It’s hardly a capricious decision. As it says at the beginning of the story, “The earth had become corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with injustice.” (Gen. 6:11) The words wickedness, evil, corruption, and lawlessness appear again and again in the verses explaining why the flood came about. The earth was in terrible shape. It needed to be re-done.

And the nature of the evil is significant. The sin with which the people are identified is hamas, which means, “injustice, lawlessness, social unrighteousness.” (See Sarna, p.52). This is the same sin for which Sodom and Gomorrah will eventually be destroyed; the same sin for which God will seek to publish the city of Nineveh in the story of Jonah. According to Professor Sarna, in positing that “sinfulness finds its expression in the state of society, and that God holds [people] and society accountable for their misdeeds,” this story marks a crucial landmark in the history of religion, and “is revolutionary in the ancient world.” (Sarna, p.53)

Why, in each case, is the hero saved? Utnapishtim is saved only because Ea, a different god from the one who brought about the flood, wants to defeat Enlil’s plan to wipe out the world. Behind Enlil’s back, Ea tells Utnapishtim to build a vessel to save himself. We never learn why Ea chooses Utnapishtim and not someone else. It may very well have been chance.

The Bible couldn’t be more explicitly different. As we know, Noah is chosen precisely because of his righteousness. “Go into the ark,” God says to Noah, “for you and you alone have I found righteous before me in this generation.” (Gen. 7:1)

In both stories, the hero is saved because he’s in a vessel, but the two vessels couldn’t be more different from one another. Utnapishtim is told to build not an ark, but a boat. A boat, as any sailor or naval officer will tell you, is not an ark. The main difference is that you can steer a boat. In fact, according to the Babylonian account, Utnapishtim brings on board with him a sailor to navigate for him. In contrast, the ark is a chest-like vessel, having neither rudder, nor sail, nor any other navigational aid, and not requiring the services of a crew. If you make it through rough seas in a boat or on a ship, it may be because of your skill; if you make it through a flood in an ark, the implication is that it must be the will of God.

But it’s in what happens after the flood that one can see the strongest contrast. Both Utnapishtim and Noah offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, but there the similarity ends. In the Babylonian account, Utnapishtim says:

I offered a sacrifice
I poured out a libation on the top of the mountain.
Seven and seven [vessels] I set up.

Note that Utnapishtim offers not only a sacrifice of food, but of drink as well. A libation—“seven and seven vessels” of liquid: presumably wine—which he offers to the gods. Wine figures in the Noah story, too, but in the Bible, it is Noah, the human being, who drinks the wine, not God. As disappointing as it always is to read that Noah drinks too much, the notion that God would drink too much wine after the flood and become intoxicated is too repugnant to contemplate.

But not too repugnant, apparently, to the Babylonians. The Epic of Gilgamesh continues:
The gods smelled the aroma [of the sacrifice]
The gods smelled the sweet aroma, [and]
The gods crowded like flies around the sacrifice. (Sarna p. 47)

Professor Sarna reminds us that, because the destruction of the world had deprived the gods of food and drink, it makes sense that they’d be hungry and thirsty. But to describe them as “crowd[ing] like flies around the sacrifice”—one simply can’t imagine the Bible saying something like that.

Finally, in both accounts, the hero is given a blessing. In the Gilgamesh epic, Utnapishtim is given the gift of immortality. In essence, he becomes a god. The Babylonian story ends with no implications for the rest of humanity. There is no message of comfort to humanity, no promise for the future, no offering of security.

Noah is also granted a blessing. You could argue that it is the Biblical version of immortality. For God blesses Noah with the privilege of procreation. “Pru u’rvu u’mil’u et ha-artz.” “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Gen. 9:1; see also Gen. 9:7) In essence, he’s given the privilege of starting the world all over again. Just like Adam, he gets the chance to fill the world with his descendants.

And God makes Noah a promise: nature will never again turn topsy turvy as it did during the flood. “Summer and winter, Day and night shall not cease.” (Gen. 8:22) Never again, God declares, shall I bring a flood to destroy all flesh.

And that promise, that promise that never again shall such a flood come upon the world, becomes a powerful restraint on the divine, a restraint absent in the pagan world. God makes clear that He is connected with the world, responsible for it, and that it will continue to endure>. That oath, that promise, becomes such a powerful motif that, as we heard in today’s haftarah, hundreds of years later, Isaiah could point to it as a source of comfort and assurance to his own generation. (See Isaiah 54:9) “The mountains may move, and the hills may shake”—there may be frightening, cataclysmic events in the world—“But my love for you will never depart, nor will my brith shalom, my covenant of peace, be shaken.” (Id., v.10)

And so, to conclude, yes, the story of Utnapishtim and his wife is an interesting story. It’s an amusing story. But it’s hardly inspiring. The story of Noah, on the other hand, posits morality as a key concern of God, and a crucial determinant of the fate of a person, a community, … and the entire world.

Despite Noah’s righteousness, the Bible never misleeds us into thinking that he is divine. Far from it. And yet it’s precisely because Noah is so human—and remains a human being—that this story is so effective. This story teaches us that our focus in life should not be what is happening in the divine realm, but what is happening here on earth. We don’t have to worry about keeping God awake; we should worry instead about oppressing our fellow human beings. It is here on earth that we have the power to be influential; and it is here on earth where our future—and that of our children—lies.