Atrahasis

Ancient Near East

Atrahasis made his voice heard And spoke to his master, Indicate to me the meaning of the dream J let me find out its portent Enki made his voice heard And spoke to his servant, You say, I should find out in bed Make sure you attend to the message I shall tell you! Wall, listen constantly to me! Reed hut, make sure you attend to all my words! Dismantle the house, build a boat Reject possessions, and save living things. The boat that you build Roof it like the Apsu So that the Sun cannot see inside it! Make upper decks and lower decks. The tackle must be very strong, The bitumen strong, to give strength. I shall make rain fall on you here, A wealth of birds, a hamper of fish.

Genesis 6:14

Hebrew Bible

12 God saw the earth, and indeed it was ruined, for all living creatures on the earth were sinful. 13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy them and the earth. 14 Make for yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

 Notes and References

"... These sixteen occurrences of םינק (“reeds”) are powerfully reminiscent of the dismantling of the reed-hut temple and the construction of the boat in the Mesopotamian myths in that they are all occasions where the “reed” is intimately related to the measurement and construction of a sacred place. This possibility of reading the םינק of Genesis 6:14b as an ark woven-of-reeds places the Genesis flood account well within the bull and shrine complex present in the Mesopotamian Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. This םיִנָק (“woven of reeds”) vocalization allows for the reading ... in order to show that the reed-hut is indeed present (albeit in a holophrastic sense) in the proposed םיִנָק vocalization of Genesis 6:14 it will have to be demonstrated also that there is a mythic significance in the building materials themselves. As noted above it may be reasonable to see in the elements of Genesis 6:14 a list of building materials, before the assembly instructions of Genesis 6:15–16; therefore recording רֶׂפג־יֵּצֲע (“gopher wood”), םיִנָק (“reeds”), and כרֶׂפ (“bitumen” or “pitch”) as the required materials. Rather than refusing a parallel with the Epics of Gilgamesh and Atraḫasīs, as Westermann insists, such a convincing reading of the Genesis 6:14 creates a tantalizingly tight parallel with the Mesopotamian flood myths. Gilgamesh XI presents a list of the exact same materials, and in the same order as this reconstructed Genesis version, indicating a dependence on the latter by the former ..."

McCann, Jason Michael "'Woven Of Reeds': Genesis 6:14b As Evidence For The Preservation Of The Reed-Hut Urheiligtum In The Biblical Flood Narrative" in Silverman, Jason M. (ed.) Opening Heaven’s Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, Its Context, and Reception (pp. 113-139) Gorgias Press, 2013

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