The Ark Before Noah, Irving Finkel, Hodder & Stoughton

I first heard about Irving Finkel’s discovery about the early story of the ark on radio 4. He came on to talk about a cuneiform tablet that he had seen years ago but never had the chance to study it until then. From this he managed to find out about the early construction of the ark. As it turns out it was created in a circular shape (a coracle). It was created in ancient Mesopotamia, predating the bible story. I was fascinated to find out more about his discoveries.

Finkel is a natural communicator. If you haven’t watched any of the videos he’s done for the british museum I urge you to do so. I have put some of them up on the blog page. You can visit them by clicking this link to go to the Irving Finkel, A Wizard at the British Museum page.

The trail starts back in 1872 with George Smith’s discovery of the flood story from the inscription on a cuneiform tablet made of clay found in Nineveh. Having seen some of these cuneiform tablets at the British Museum I am left with admiration that there are people who can translate them. It is one thing seeing cuneiform neatly written out in a book, or some of the well-preserved pieces, but some are barely legible scratchings. Often there are pieces missing.

One of the things that intrigued me about the Ark tablet is the story of the gods that goes with it. The tablet itself is the god Enki talking to Atra-Hasis (the Mesopotamian Noah). The gods are fed up with man being a nuisance and making too much noise and decide they have had enough. They decide to remove man by causing a flood. Enki decides to warn Atra-Hasis to save himself and the future of mankind. As he is not supposed to talk to man he talks indirectly like the wind. Thus the tablet starts;
“Wall wall! Reed wall, reed wall!
Atra-Hasis pay heed to my advice”

It was interesting to read Finkel’s theory on how the Mesopotamian flood story was transferred to the Judaeans during their time in exile in Babylon. This was during the time of Nebuchadnezzar. During this time there would’ve been increasing interaction with the Babylonians and their beliefs and way of life. Indeed we can see that some of the hebrew names for the months of the year come from Babylonian. For example the Babylonian month Tashritu is equivalent to the Hebrew Tishrei, or Nisannu and Nisan. This is the period, Finkel suggest, that the bible was being developed. The Judaeans were looking to create an identity during their exile and some of the Babylonian stories were incorporated and changed. The Babylonians had their patriarchs (if somewhat longer lived than those in the bible). The flood story is taken, but given a more moral twist (rather than just gods annoyed with noisy humans). The story of Moses is similar to that of the legend of Sargon. His mother was a priestess, who should never have had a child and the child was placed in a reed basket and abandoned in a river.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The only thing I have to admit is that I found that I didn’t really get into the appendices. That is probably my issue though. Maybe another time I’ll try to get into the intricacies of the cuneiform language and the technical aspects of the building of the ark. Irving Finkel is one of our national treasures. Long may he continue at the British Museum.