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.
Date: 18th-century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... These sixteen occurrences of קנים (“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 קנים (“woven of reeds”) of Gen 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 Gilgameš and Atrahasis. This קנים (“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 קנים (“reeds”) vocalisation 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 עֲצֵי־גֹפֶר (“gopher wood”), קנים (“reeds”), and כֹּפֶר (“bitumen” or “pitch”) as the required materials. Rather than refusing a parallel with the Epics of Gilgameš and Atrahasis, as Westermann insists, such a convincing reading of the Genesis 6:14 creates a tantalizingly tight parallel with the Mesopotamian flood myths. Gilgameš 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 ..."
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