“… Since George Smith read his paper ‘The Chaldean Account of the Deluge’ for the Society of Biblical Archaeology in 1872, there has been a wide reaching scholarly consensus that a Mesopotamian model formed the basis for the biblical flood story. We therefore start our comparison with the Mesopotamian traditions at this point. The comparison has mostly been between Gilgamesh and Genesis, since Gilgamesh as a readable story was known about hundred years earlier than Atrahasis, and the manuscripts to Atrahasis still are very fragmentary at this point of the story. As is commonly known, the flood version in Gilgamesh is dependent on Atrahasis in one version or another. We list the parallels in the table below according to relationship in themes in the order these themes occur in the compositions. Decision to send the Deluge: Atrahasis Tablet II, column viii, lines 34–35 reads, ‘The gods commanded total destruction, Enlil did an evil deed on the peoples,’ paralleled by Genesis 6:13, ‘And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.’ …”