If we compare the Babylonian account of the Deluge contained in the Epic with the account in Genesis we shall find some differences between them; but if we consider the differences that existed between the two countries of Palestine and Babylonia these variations do not appear greater than we should expect. Chaldea was essentially a mercantile and maritime country, well watered and flat, while Palestine was a hilly region with no great rivers, and the Jews were shut out from the coast, the maritime regions being mostly in the hands of the Philistines and Phœnicians. There was a total difference between the religious ideas of the two peoples, the Jews believing in one God, the creator and lord of the Universe, while the Babylonians worshipped gods and lords many, every city having its local deity, and these being joined by complicated relations in a poetical mythology, which was in marked contrast to the severe simplicity of the Jewish system. With such differences it was only natural that, in relating the same stories, each nation should colour them in accordance with its own ideas, and stress would naturally in each case be laid upon points with which they were familiar. Thus we should expect beforehand that there would be differences in the narrative such as we actually find, and we may also notice that the cuneiform account does not always coincide even with the account of the same events given by Berosus from Chaldean sources, from which, as already observed, we may infer that there was more than one version of the story of the Deluge current in Babylonia itself.

The great value of the inscriptions describing the Flood consists in the fact that they form an independent testimony to the Biblical narrative at a much earlier date than any other evidence. The principal points in the two narratives compared in their order will serve to show the correspondences and differences between the two. It must, however, be remembered that the Biblical narrative is composed of two different accounts of the Flood, generally known as the Elohistic and Jehovistic, and, as M. Lenormant has observed, it is with the union of the two in our present Hebrew text rather than with either one of them alone that the Babylonian version corresponds. The repetitions observable in the Hebrew text are not to be found in the cuneiform text.

Genesis:Babylonian
Elohist.Jehovist.Account.
1.Announcement of the Delugevi. 11-13.vi. 5-8.i. 12-23.
2.Command to build the arkvi. 14-16.i. 20-27.
3.What was to enter the arkvi. 19-21.vii. 2, 3.i. 41-43.
4.Size of the arkvi. 15, 16.i. 25, 26.
5.Speech of Xisuthrusi. 45-52.
6.The building of the arkvi. 22.vii. 5.ii. 2-24.
7.The coating within and without with bitumen.vi. 14.ii. 10, 11.
8.Food taken in the ark.vi. 21.ii. 12-20.
9.The coming of the Floodvii. 10-12.vii. 10.ii. 14, &c.
10.Destruction of the peoplevii. 21, 22.vii. 23.iii. 2-15.
11.Duration of the Delugevii. 12, 24.vii. 17.iii. 19-21.
12.Assuaging of the watersviii. 1.viii. 2.iii. 21-23.
13.Opening of windowviii. 6.iii. 27.
14.Ark rests on a mountainviii. 4.iii. 33-36.
15.Sending forth of the birdsviii. 6-12.iii. 38-44.
16.Order to leave the arkviii. 15-17.
17.Leaving the arkviii. 18, 19.iii. 45.
18.Building the altar and sacrificeviii. 20.iii. 46-48.
19.The savour of the offeringviii. 21.iii. 49.
20.A deluge not to happen againix. 11.viii. 21, 22.iv. 15-20.
21.The Covenantix. 9-11.iv. 26.
22.The rainbow a pledge of the covenantix. 13-17.iii. 51, 52.
23.The Deluge caused by the sin of menvi. 11-13.vi. 5-7.iv. 14, 15.
24.Noah saved by his righteousnessvi. 8., vii. 1.iv. 16.
25.The translation of the patriarch (in Genesis of Enoch)v. 24.iv. 28-30.

One of the first points that strike us on comparing the Biblical and cuneiform accounts together is that they both agree in representing the Flood as a punishment for the sins of mankind. This agreement is rendered remarkable by the absence of such a moral cause in the legends of a deluge current among other nations; it is wanting even in the version of the Babylonian account given by Berosus. Equally remarkable is the agreement of the two accounts in the narrative of the sending forth of the birds, two of which, the raven and the dove, are the same in both. Some of the actual phrases and words found in Genesis are also found in the cuneiform tablet; though sometimes they are modified, as when Genesis says of the entrance of Noah into the ark: “The Lord shut him in;” whereas in the Babylonian narrative the closing of the door is ascribed to Xisuthrus himself.

Positive discrepancies, however, occur between the two records. Thus they differ as regards the size of the ark. According to the cuneiform account, its length and breadth were in the proportion of ten to one and the height and breadth were the same; but the Bible makes the proportion as six to one, and describes the height as being thirty cubits and the breadth fifty. The version of the story given by Berosus, on the other hand, agrees in this matter neither with Genesis nor with the tablet from Erech. It measures the ark by stadia and not by cubits, makes the proportion of its length and breadth as five to two, and says nothing of the height.

Another difference may be found in the description of the patriarch who escapes the Flood. Xisuthrus is a king who enters the ark with his servants, people, and pilot, while in the Bible only Noah and his family are saved. So, too, no reference is made in the Babylonian account to the distinction between the clean and unclean animals mentioned by the Jehovist, though seven was a sacred number among the Babylonians. The most remarkable difference, however, between the two accounts is with respect to the duration of the Deluge. On this point the inscription gives seven days for the Flood, and seven days for the resting of the ark on the mountain, while the Elohist puts the commencement of the Flood on the 17th day of the second month (Marchesvan) and its termination on the 27th day of the second month in the following year, making a total duration of one lunar year and eleven days. This exactly accords with the climatic conditions of Babylonia, where the rains begin at the end of November. The Euphrates and Tigris then begin to rise, the country is inundated in March, the seventh month of the Hebrew narrative, and from the end of May onwards the waters go down. According to the Jehovist, however, the Deluge is announced to Noah only seven days before it takes place; the waters are at their height for forty days and then decrease during another forty days, after which the patriarch sends out the birds at intervals of seven days, so that it was not till twenty-one days after he has first opened the window that he finally leaves the ark. This is in practical agreement with the cuneiform account, since seven was a sacred number among the Babylonians just as forty is in the Old Testament. As M. Lenormant points out, the date of the 15th of Dæsius (or May) given by Berosus must be due to a scribe’s error, since this would place the Flood at a time when the waters were going down. There is again a difference as to the mountain on which the ark rested; Nizir, the place mentioned in the cuneiform text, being east of Assyria, and its mountain, also called “the mountain of the world” where the gods were supposed to dwell, being the present peak of Elwend, while the mountains of Ararat mentioned in the Bible were north of Assyria, near Lake Van. It is evident that different traditions have placed the mountain of the ark in totally different positions, and there is not positive proof as to which is the earlier traditionary spot. The word Ararat is connected with a word Urdhu, meaning “highland,” and might be a general term for any part of the hilly country to the north-east of Assyria.

It is interesting to find references in the Jehovistic account to the sacred Babylonian number seven and the seven-day week. Just as Xisuthrus set vessels by sevens on the altar of sacrifice, so Noah offered clean beasts and fowls which had been taken by sevens into the ark. And the narrative of the sending-out of the birds contains a clear reference to the seven-day week, which was known from very early times to the Accadians, who had named each day after one of the seven planets. The Sabbath also, which occurred on the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th days of the lunar month, was rigorously observed by them. They called it “a day of completion of labours,” or “a day unlawful to work upon,” and a sort of saints’ calendar for the month of the intercalatory Elul says that upon it “the shepherd of many peoples may not eat the flesh of birds (?) or cooked fruit. The garments of his body he must not change. White robes he may not put on. Sacrifice he may not offer. The king in his chariot may not ride. He may not legislate in royal fashion. A place of garrison the general by word of mouth may not appoint. Medicine for the sickness of the body one may not apply.” The very word Sabattu or Sabbath was used by the Assyrians, and a bilingual tablet explains it as “a day of rest for the heart.”

One striking difference between the descriptions of the Deluge given in the Old Testament and in the Epic of Izdubar is due to the fact that the Hebrews were an inland people, whereas the Accadians were a maritime, or rather fluviatile one. Hence it is that while the ark is called in the Babylonian version “a ship,” it is called têbâh, that is, “a coffer” in Genesis. In Genesis, too, nothing is said about launching the ark, testing its seaworthiness, or entrusting it to a pilot. However, the narrative in Genesis preserves a recollection of the bitumen for which the Babylonian plain was famous, and like the cuneiform narrative states that the ark was pitched.

Some of the other differences observable in the two accounts are evidently due to the opposite religious systems of the two countries, but there is again a curious point in connection with the close of the Chaldean legend: this is the translation of the hero of the Flood.