THE MESOPOTAMIAN FLOOD EPIC IN THE EARLIEST TEXTS, THE BIBLE, AND THE QURʾAN

Christine Dykgraaf

Almost every culture throughout recorded history has maintained a tale of an epic flood. Several famous ancient flood narratives, such as that in The Epic of Gilgamesh, have long been thought to have influenced the flood story related in the book of Genesis in the Bible. All of these then can be presumed to have had influence on the flood story as it is presented in the Qurʾan. This paper deals with the extent this may be seen as true and to what extent the Qurʾan contributes anything new to this ancient topic. It is impossible to speak of a creation myth or a flood story because almost every culture, nation, and/or community has its own version of these crucial tales. Upon closer examination, even a single myth in a single culture might have multiple layers of narratives with elements that contradict one another. This is the case with the Biblical account of the flood, which reflects a combination of both Yahwist (J) and Priestly (P) redactor traditions. If we look farther back in time to the literature extant before the Hebrew texts, there are already in that earli- est period of recorded thought numerous variations on the theme of a world-destroying deluge. Indeed the flood story “was one of the most popular tales of ancient times”.1 Upon the translation of texts such as the Assyrian and Babylonian texts about Atramhasis and the Gilgamesh epic from their cuneiform in the latter half of the nineteenth century, their similarities to the Biblical flood stories encouraged researchers to excavate further and to more precisely capture the meaning of the few legible lines remaining on damaged tablets of clay or stone. When one looks at the literature about the flood, there is a massive amount of material on what becomes the Bible’s dual-perspective tale. However, little Flood narrative research discusses the Qurʾan. How does it present the story of the flood? Because the Qurʾan was sent down to supersede previous revelations due to their being corrupted in part by mankind,

1 Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1. 234 christine dykgraaf it should be illuminating to investigate what in the Qurʾanic tale is missing and what has been added. Lastly, does its overall motivating message differ vastly from that of the early tales or the Bible? This chapter seeks to answer some of these questions by focusing on the text of the Qurʾan. Though other extra liturgical materials might attempt to fill in the sizable gaps that exist in the Qurʾanic tale, the Qurʾan is supposed to be a text nearly if not entirely self-sufficient for one’s edification on all basic matters of faith and action. It would have been useful if one could find a complete telling of the Flood Story, even in parts, in the major collections of hadith, such as Sahih Bukhari, but this does not exist there. Indeed, hadith mentioning Noah in Sahih Bukhari, for example, relate only three or four separate mentionings of Noah. None attempt to tell the tale. They simply mention Noah as the first of the prophets and as one of the individuals to whom people will turn on resurrection day hoping to gain intercession with God. Noah passes the people on to, by various accounts, either Abraham or Muhammad directly.2 So for the purpose of this paper, The Qurʾan stands alone as the Islamic window onto the exploits of Noah and his ark.

Flood Narrative Fundamentals

The flood plot is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous in the world, outstripped, perhaps only by the universality of creation tales. Almost all flood tales, that is what we can reconstruct of them, have certain elements in common. Usual components include a god or gods deter- mined to destroy mankind, a man and his family found worthy of being spared, the building of an ark, filling the ark with animals and posses- sions, waters prevailing over the earth, a time adrift, the ark coming to rest—usually on a mountain, a disembarkment from the ark, and a promise or discussion with the god(s) about how the event will not be repeated. Elements in addition to these, found in fewer of the tales, include among other things explaining the reason for the flood, birds

2 Sahih Bukhari Hadith Volume 4, Book 55, Number 556 M. Muhsin Khan Trans. University of Southern California, http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/ hadithsunnah/bukhari/055.sbt.html.