In Genesis last Sunday, we found Noah standing in the eye of a storm, a swirling dance of righteousness and grace. But before we take one more step, we'd better rewind a moment and deal with Noah's doppelgängers. But, as we mentioned then, Genesis isn't the only place in the ancient world you could turn if you wanted to hear a story of the flood. Archaeologists have actually dug up other culture's stories, written before the days of Moses in languages like Sumerian and Akkadian (which is what people spoke in Assyria and Babylon). And where Genesis really gets interesting is if you know the other ways people tried to tell the story.
Now, the trouble with pagans is, they usually believed the world was being run by many gods. Those gods can be unpleasant, unwise, bullies, and disagreeable even with each other. And so it was here. In many pagan tales of the flood, it wasn't that humans were evil or sinful, like in Genesis; it was just that we were loud, we were bad downstairs neighbors, and we got on the nerves of the god Enlil, who liked to call the shots. “Enlil heard their clamor; he said to the great gods: 'The clamor of humankind has become burdensome to me, I am losing sleep to their uproar.'”1 In his irritation, he pressured the other gods to evict humanity from the world of the living: “An evil act Enlil will do to the people; in the assembly, they decided about the flood: 'By the day of the new moon, we shall do the task!'”2 Meeting invisibly in assembly, Enlil put all the other gods under an “oath of silence” not to betray the 'secret of the gods,' their plan for a flood, to any humans, lest we escape and survive.3
Now, how were we to get out of that? Well, all the gods took the oath, but not all were on board. In the pagan stories, there was a god of wisdom – Sumerians called him Enki, Assyrians and Babylonians called him Ea – and, as the original creator of humans, he thought the other gods were making a bad call. But they'd made extra sure to bind Ea by that oath not to tell humans what the gods were up to.4 So what the clever wisdom-god did was, he went to the house of the man he'd chosen, Atra-hasis, and gave a message to the man's house itself, to the reed fence and brick wall.5 Like wind whistling through the reeds, the house relayed the vital words; and as the world's cleverest man, Atra-hasis understood, all while Ea technically abided by his oath.6
The Bible, obviously, has a different premise than the pagan stories. There is no Enlil, and there is no Ea. Only one God runs the world. And since he has no oath to get around, he doesn't have to play games to get his word where he wants it. The Bible doesn't tell us how God speaks to Noah, but there's no subterfuge, no secrecy as God “takes Noah into his confidence.”7 What does God say? “The earth is filled with violence through them,” the humans and other creatures who've been swept up in human evil, and so “the end of all flesh has come before me,” the reason for judgment was ripe, and “behold, I will destroy them with the earth,” in as total a judgment as you can get (Genesis 6:13). This God sovereignly judges not high volume but low morals; but it's also the very same God, not another, who plans grace for a remnant. And that's why he has a job for Noah.
Now, the pagan stories agree on that last point. They imagine Ea giving Atra-hasis a job, too: “Depart from your house, build a boat!”8 And then Ea gives Atra-hasis instructions on how to build that enormous vessel, just as God actually gives to Noah. In Genesis, God starts out by listing for Noah the construction materials, and he lists three Noah will need (Genesis 6:14). First is a wood called gopher, and nobody's really sure what it means. Some guess a resinous wood like cypress,9 but it also sounds a lot like an Akkadian word for a sacred hut,10 since in some of the other stories, Ea tells Atra-hasis to tear down his reed hut for resources.11 The second material, as we recently deciphered, is reeds; your Bible might say Noah should build rooms, because for thousands of years this Hebrew word was misread as 'nests,' but it's reeds.12 Reeds were used in all the other stories too. And while the other stories add materials like palm-fiber rope and lard, the Bible lists only one more, also found in the other stories. “Let the bitumen be tough, thus strengthen the boat.”13 Bitumen was a thick, sticky material, produced by underground pressure on ancient algae; it was plentiful in ancient Iraq, and when you pour it hot, it hardens into something firm and waterproof.14 The asphalt concrete we drive on today is about 5% bitumen. The word for it in Genesis is actually a borrowed word from Akkadian.15 Slathered all over and soaking into the reed caulking, it'd make “a very durable surface..., an integral part of the structure.”16
After the materials (and, unlike the other stories, God doesn't give Noah any quantities to work from), God tells Noah the shape and size of the ark: an oblong structure, where “three hundred cubits shall be the length of the ark, fifty cubits the breadth, and thirty cubits the height” (Genesis 6:15). We tend not to measure stuff in cubits now, but it was usually a foot and a half, so that's 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet.17 That makes it oblong, not like the other flood stories. In some of them, the boat is actually round, built on “a circular plan: her length and breadth should be equal,” a circle 120 cubits across.18 This type of round floating vessel, a coracle, also used to be popular on Iraq's rivers.19 This boat would be a giant rope basket with walls 12 cubits high.20 And in a later story, the boat has 120 cubits for all its dimensions,21 “an unstable 180-foot cube,”22 which some scholars think isn't a cube at all, but a replica of a holy tower from Babylon which was shaped like a stepped pyramid.23
Finally, God tells Noah some features he wants in the ark, “how carefully he considers and assigns all parts of the building.”24 “Make a roof [or: window?] for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above” (Genesis 6:16) – no one quite knows what that's supposed to look like – and “set the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks” (Genesis 6:16), unlike the two decks with cabins on each in the round boat,25 or the six roofs making seven levels with nine cabins each in the cube or pyramid boat.26 The pagan stories have different details, but they'd understand the Genesis logic: the ark must be “ordered exactly as God wants it to be.”27
After that, God explains why this ark is so important: “I, behold, will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to ruin all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven: Everything that is on the earth shall die” (Genesis 6:17). The same thing happens in the pagan stories: in light of the coming flood, the point of the boat is to “save life.”28 In fact, in one version, the boat actually gets a proper name: 'The Lifesaver!'29 Now, our Bibles call it an 'ark,' which is a Latin word for box, based on a translation of the Hebrew filtered through Greek mythology.30 Actually, the Hebrew word – maybe coming from a Babylonian kind of boat31 – is used for only one other object in the whole Bible. When Moses was three months old, his mom “took a basket of bulrushes, and she daubed it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it, and she placed it among the reeds by the river bank” (Exodus 2:3). That 'basket' is the same word as for Noah's ark: both were containers to save life.32
But instead of just big enough for one baby, this basket is family size: “You shall come onto the ark,” God tells Noah, “you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you” (Genesis 6:18). The first contents of the ark are people, human lives. The pagan stories agree, but describe a bigger family plus a crew: “your wife, your kith, your kin, and the workmen.”33
After that, in Genesis, come the animals: “Of every living thing of all flesh, two of each you shall bring into the ark to keep you alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of each shall come in to you to keep them alive” (Genesis 6:19-20). Caring for the world's creatures was part of the job Adam and Eve were made for, and now Noah has to step up and do it in a bigger way than anybody this side of Eden, setting us a good example of conservation.34
Of course, the pagan stories also put animals on the boat: “I will send to you... all whose pasture is grass, and they will wait at your door;”35 “two by two... enter into the boat;”36“Into the boat which you will make, bring herds of the steppe, wild creatures of the steppe, birds of the heavens!”;37 “Bring on board all the seed of life.”38 This covered all the basic categories of animals, the several hundred kinds that people then knew about.39 Neither Atra-hasis nor Noah could pick and choose; every kind was needed, and the representatives sent to him were the ones to be brought on board.40
Finally, God tells Noah to “take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be, for you and for them, food” (Genesis 6:21). It makes good sense: however long humans and animals are on board, there's no point in staying dry and starving. The pagan versions agree with that, too, with Atra-hasis told to “gather and stock food, and heap them up.”41 He's told to “send into her your barley,”42 and some versions measure out specific amounts of various plants, animal fodder, even beer!43 You won't find that in Genesis! Neither will you find the other cargo in some of the pagan versions, where Atra-hasis says, “I brought everything I had on board: I brought on board all the silver I had, I brought on board all the gold I had.”44 Unlike Atra-hasis, Noah yields no precious room in the life-saving ark for mammon and the world's goods. He already knows: “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
Unlike the talkative pagan characters, Noah is silent in his total obedience: “Thus did Noah. According to all that God commanded him, so he did” (Genesis 6:22). “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household” (Hebrews 11:7).
In the Old Testament, the ark Noah constructs is one of “two divinely blueprinted pieces of architecture,” and the other one is the tabernacle in the desert.45 God tells Moses he wants Israel to “make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst; exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so shall you make it” (Exodus 25:8-9), “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5). God describes all this in seven speeches just like God uses the word 'ark' seven times in talking to Noah.46 The tabernacle “was not to be similar only in part, but was to be according to every likeness” of what Moses heard and saw.47 Both ark and tabernacle are “God-designed” but “human-made”;48 yet neither can fulfill its function unless built “obedient to the details given by God.”49 And then “according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work” (Exodus 39:42), just like “according to all that God commanded him, so [Noah] did” (Genesis 6:22). Both tabernacle and ark are holy objects, sacred space.50
The tabernacle was just thirty cubits long, nine or ten cubits wide, and ten cubits tall (Exodus 26:15-25), so it was eventually replaced by Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Although the Book of Kings doesn't tell us where Solomon got his specifications, the Book of Chronicles adds that David left him instructions “in writing from the hand of the LORD, all the work to be done according to the plan” (1 Chronicles 28:19). The temple itself doubled the tabernacle's length and width and tripled its height (1 Kings 6:2), not counting the porch or the thick walls and side chambers (1 Kings 6:3-6). Just like on the ark, those had three stories (1 Kings 6:8).51 With all this, it might've taken up a hundred cubits by fifty cubits, making it an exact third of Noah's ark.52 The ark is essentially a “floating temple,”53 a model of creation and a shelter against the storms of chaos in the world.54
Early Christians, though, were convinced that the ratios of the ark – ten times as long as high, six times as long as wide – matched “in its construction the figure of the human body.”55 And from there, “through spiritual understanding, this same text is shown to be full of more sacred mysteries.”56 Because if the ark brings together tabernacle and temple and human body, we remember that Jesus himself said “the temple... prefigured... his very flesh [John 2:19-21],” the flesh in which the Word “tabernacled” among us (John 1:14), and so the ark that foreshadowed both “in the shape of a human body” reveals the Body of Christ, the Church.57
This symbolic link between the Ark and the Church was figured out as far back in Christian history as you care to go.58 They said the Church as constructed by Christ “corresponds figuratively to that famed ark of ancient times,”59 “representing the Church.”60 It makes sense, since the Apostle Paul tells us that the Church was part of “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages by God” (Ephesians 3:9), and now we see that the plan was hidden in the Old Testament as it “signified the mystery of Christ,”61 where “the Ark signifies the Church, and Noah signifies the Lord who builds the Church in his saints.”62 That means that these verses matter the world to us!
First of all, it means that the Church matters to us, matters in the same way that the Ark should've mattered to Noah's wife and kids and all them critters. For “he who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved” during the flood, could he?63 Nobody was going to doggy-paddle his way to his own rescue outside the ark. God, through Noah, “saved only those who were within the ark, whereas all without were perishing.”64 Well, if the Church is “the ark in which [Christ] frees the human race from destruction”65 – the “ark of wood” foreshadows “the wood that saves”66 – then, early Christians reasoned, “if there was any escape for one who was outside the ark of Noah, there will be as much for one who is found to be outside the Church.”67 Ultimately, they said, “all the people who are found outside the Church will perish.”68 There is no such thing as a churchless Christianity, any more than there was an arkless salvation for Noah's family. If you claimed to believe Noah outside the ark, such faith couldn't save you. The Church now, as the Ark then, is Christ's vessel of salvation.
Second, God never told Noah to build a second ark, either as a back-up or for his neighbors to get in. Nobody was building a second saving ark; there was only the original. Neither was the ark divisible. If you cracked the ark in half, neither part could survive the flood. The ark needs to have its integrity, its unity as a single tangible structure, or else Noah's kin and critters will sleep with the fishes. So, early Christians reasoned, “the one ark of Noah was the type,” or symbol, “of the one Church.”69 There is not a second Church besides the one Christ built; there's only one. The Church is not to be divisible; it can't be broken into a bunch of denominational rafts that tout an 'invisible unity' underlying their evident material disconnection. “Whoever gathers elsewhere than in the Church scatters the Church of Christ,” our teachers said of old.70 So “why do we mangle and mutilate the members of Christ and create factions in our own body?”71 The salvation of the world depends, in some mysterious way, on church unity – not just on getting along, but the visible, tangible unity of the Church as a single structure, beam to beam, plank to plank. “Clearly we are instructed to have regard for the unity of the Church.”72
Third, the ark shows us that the Church is built with divine detail. God gave Noah “detailed instructions about everything..., careful directions about everything.”73 If we should “admire the planning which made [Noah's ark] firmly built and able to endure” the flood,74 how much more should we admire the planning which makes the Church what it is? The Church's construction manifests “the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:10). The ark shows the Church “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” on which “the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:20-21). Built up from this foundation, the Church, “consisting of many grades,”75 is governed “in an orderly way... according to the ordinances of the Master.”76 As the ark was pitched inside and out, the Church must be “on guard on all sides and protected by the power of purity and innocence.”77 In this way, it's “constructed from planks that cannot rot..., the souls of the saints.”78 Paul invites us to “comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of it (Ephesians 3:18), “and all the other details [of the ark] are signs of aspects of the Church.”79
In constructing the ark in reverent fear on the schema set by God's plan, Noah “stays on the royal road: he adds nothing, changes nothing, and takes nothing away from God's directive, but abides completely by the command he hears.”80 And the one charged with building the New Ark, the Church, is Christ “the Spiritual Noah.”81 We are at best his sons, his workmen, doing our part according to the instructions he relays from his Father. Noah's sons didn't have liberty to redesign the ark according to their tastes, yet we're sometimes tempted to think that the Church should fit our vision, or that we may add, subtract, or alter according to our whims and our will. We dream of a church tailor-made for us, but God already set down a detailed plan for his Church's construction.
Fourth, we learn from Genesis that God instructed Noah to gather various kinds of food, enough of it to supply all life with sustenance for the entire duration of the ark's journey. And the Church is no less amply provisioned by Jesus. Christ has prepared to feed those in his Church for as long as the journey lasts. “The Lord has filled his Church with the varied nourishment of spiritual life,” it was said, so that “we are all refreshed in the Church with the food of life according to the measure of our own capacity.”82 Even back when Paul was still “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), the Church was already stocked with every gift and grace Jesus has set aside for me and for you nearly two thousand years later. It isn't possible for the Church to meet a novel storm it wasn't designed to handle, nor can the Church confront a challenge it doesn't contain the spiritual resources to overcome. And so it's never possible for you or I to spiritually starve aboard this Ark, not unless we refuse to eat from the Master's hand. Christ has loaded the Church with far too much nourishment, of every variety, for it to ever run out of any spiritual good you truly need.
And fifth, in including the animals, the ark was set up like a new Eden, beautiful with the harmony of “different species..., the harbor of all riches, whereby the Church is depicted.”83 For “as in the ark there were all kinds of animals, so also in the Church there are men of all races.”84 The old word for that would be to speak of the ark's 'catholicity' – it's built according to the whole of God's commandments and open for the whole range of created kinds, so it pertains universally to the whole of creation. A Church marked by catholicity thus holds “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). There are no kinds of people who don't belong in the Church, “and in the Church there are many systems of practice on account of the diversity of those who come to the faith.”85 And not simply is every demographic covered, but, just like clean and unclean animals were in Noah's ark, so the Church equally holds both firm and wavering disciples “within the framework of its unity until it reaches its certain end.”86 If you're in the Church and you feel sometimes like a jackal, a weasel, a snake, a crow, a cockroach, an unclean thing – there is a place for you here! This Ark has its door open to you no less than to the sweetest lamb! But where “the ark received the animals and preserved them..., the Church receives the animals and changes them,”87 for the Church is being “built into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:22), to be “filled with the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
That's the spiritual wisdom, the heavenly revelation, hidden in these verses for us. The Ark reveals so much we need to know about the Church and its role in God's mysterious plan for the ages. Jesus Christ, “the Architect of the Church,”88 is our “true Noah,” building an Ark for the salvation of the world!89 So let us seek refuge in his Ark, the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” “of the Living God” (1 Timothy 3:15),90 the Lifesaver that Jesus is building for us and with us through all the ages until it's all done – and then our deliverance will at last be at hand. Thanks be to God for the Ark, not just of ancient Noah, but of our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.
1 Atrahasis II.i.1-8, in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, 2005), 241.
2 Atrahasis: C0 iv 3'-7', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 18; cf. Ark Tablet 49-50, in ibid., 70.
3 Gilgamesh XI.11-18, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:703-705, or in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 100.
4 Atrahasis II.vii.38-39, in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, 2005), 246.
5 Atrahasis Ms.C1 i 20'-21', Ark Tablet 1, Atrahasis Ms.I 10-13, and Atrahasis Ms.U 13-16, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 32, 68, 84, 96; and Gilgamesh XI.19-22, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:705, or in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 100.
6 Martin Worthington, Ea's Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story (Routledge, 2019), 267, 270-273, 332-334.
7 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 135.
8 Atrahasis: C2 i 23', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 32.
9 Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 210.
10 Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate (IVP Academic, 2018), 78.
11 Gilgamesh XI.24, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:705, or in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 101; but cf. discussion in Martin Worthington, Ea's Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story (Routledge, 2019), 273-274.
12 John Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1-11 (Bloomsbury, 2013), 113-122.
13 Atrahasis: C1 i 31'-33', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 32.
14 Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 172-173.
15 Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 95.
16 Alan Dickin, “The Design of Noah's Ark and Its Significance for Biblical Faith,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74/2 (June 2022): 101.
17 James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 55.
18 Ark Tablet 6-8, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 69.
19 Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 125-129, 136-140.
20 Ark Tablet 10-16, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 69; cf. Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 162-163.
21 Gilgamesh XI.58-59, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:707, or in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 102; cf. Alan Dickin, “The Design of Noah's Ark and Its Significance for Biblical Faith,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74/2 (June 2022): 98.
22 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 136.
23 Steven W. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There? The Flood Narratives in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis Considered in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Temple Ideology,” Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 103/3 (1991): 338-341; Cory D. Crawford, “Noah's Architecture: The Role of Sacred Space in Ancient Near Eastern Flood Myths,” in Mark K. George, ed., Constructions of Space IV: Further Developments in Examining Ancient Israel's Social Space (Bloomsbury, 2013), 9-10.
24 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 6:16, in Luther's Works 2:68.
25 Ark Tablet 17, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 69; cf. Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 179.
26 Gilgamesh XI.61-63, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:707, or in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 102.
27 David W. Cotter, Genesis, Berit Olam (Liturgical Press, 2003), 55.
28 Atrahasis: C2 i 24', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 32.
29 Atrahasis: J r 7', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 78.
30 Alan Dickin, “The Design of Noah's Ark and Its Significance for Biblical Faith,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 74/2 (June 2022): 93-94.
31 Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 147-153.
32 Joshua Joel Spoelstra, Life Preservation in Genesis and Exodus: An Exegetical Study of the Tēbâ of Noah and Moses (Peeters, 2020), 257.
33 Atrahasis: W 8', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 92.
34 Douglas J. Moo and Jonathan A. Moo, Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World (Zondervan Academic, 2018), 82-83.
35 Atrahasis: W 9'-10', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 92.
36 Ark Tablet 52, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 70.
37 Atrahasis: J r 9'-11', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 79.
38 Gilgamesh XI.27, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 101. Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:705, has: "Put on board the boat the seed of all living creatures!"
39 Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 185-190, 199-202.
40 Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 91.
41 Atrahasis: J r 12', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 79.
42 Atrahasis: W 7', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 92.
43 Ark Tablet 53-56, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 70.
44 Gilgamesh XI.81-83, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 103. Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:709, has: "Everything I had, I loaded aboard it; I loaded aboard it whatever silver I had, I loaded aboard it whatever gold I had."
45 Joshua Joel Spoelstra, Life Preservation in Genesis and Exodus: An Exegetical Study of the Tēbâ of Noah and Moses (Peeters, 2020), 150.
46 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 52.
47 Bede, On the Tabernacle 1.2, in Translated Texts for Historians 18:10.
48 John Dyer, From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology (Kregel, 2011), 102.
49 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis as Torah: Reading Narrative as Legal Instruction (Cascade Books, 2018), 67.
50 Joshua Joel Spoelstra, Life Preservation in Genesis and Exodus: An Exegetical Study of the Tēbâ of Noah and Moses (Peeters, 2020), 339.
51 Steven W. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There? The Flood Narratives in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis Considered in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Temple Ideology,” Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 103/3 (1991): 349; Joshua Joel Spoelstra, Life Preservation in Genesis and Exodus: An Exegetical Study of the Tēbâ of Noah and Moses (Peeters, 2020), 340.
52 Steven W. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There? The Flood Narratives in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis Considered in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Temple Ideology,” Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 103/3 (1991): 348; Cory D. Crawford, “Noah's Architecture: The Role of Sacred Space in Ancient Near Eastern Flood Myths,” in Mark K. George, ed., Constructions of Space IV: Further Developments in Examining Ancient Israel's Social Space (Bloomsbury, 2013), 6-7.
53 Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (IVP Academic, 2019), 76.
54 Bryan C. Hodge, Revisiting the Days of Genesis: A Study of the Use of Time in Genesis 1-11 in Light of Its Ancient Near Eastern and Literary Context (Wipf & Stock, 2011), 146.
55 Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 6 §13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:37; cf. Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.14, in Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:135.
56 Bede, On the Tabernacle 2.7, in Translated Texts for Historians 18:77.
57 Bede, On Genesis 6:15, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:177.
58 Tertullian of Carthage, On Baptism 8.4, in Ernest Evans, Tertullian's Homily on Baptism (SPCK, 1964), 19.
59 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:93.
60 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 260C.2, in Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/7:195.
61 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:93.
62 Bede, On Genesis 6:14, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:173.
63 Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 74.11, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 51:294.
64 Firmilian of Cappadocian Caesarea, Letter 75.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 51:305.
65 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 2.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:83.
66 Julius Firmicus Maternus, Error of the Pagan Religions 27.3, in Ancient Christian Writers 37:104-105.
67 Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Catholic Church 6, in Maurice Benevot, Cyprian: De Lapsis and De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate (Clarendon Press, 1971), 67.
68 Bede, On Genesis 6:14, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:173.
69 Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 69.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 51:245.
70 Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Catholic Church 6, in Maurice Benevot, Cyprian: De Lapsis and De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate (Clarendon Press, 1971), 67.
71 Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 46.7, in Loeb Classical Library 24:119.
72 Firmilian of Cappadocian Caesarea, Letters 75.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 51:305.
73 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 6:14, in Luther's Works 2:67.
74 Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 4.41, in Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, 1953), 218.
75 Jerome of Stridon, Dialogue Against the Luciferians 22, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers II/6:331.
76 Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 40.4, 42.2, in Loeb Classical Library 24:107, 109.
77 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 2.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:81.
78 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 264.5, in Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/7:231.
79 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 15.26, in Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:179.
80 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 6:22, in Luther's Works 2:77.
81 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 2.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:83.
82 Bede, On Genesis 6:21, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:181-184.
83 Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise 2.13, in Popular Patristics Series 10:89.
84 Jerome of Stridon, Dialogue Against the Luciferians 22, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers II/6:331.
85 Bede, On Genesis 6:14, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:175.
86 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 15.27, in Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:183.
87 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance 8.1.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 96:111.
88 Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Genesis 2.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 71:81.
89 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:93.
90 Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381), in Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Sheed & Ward, 1990), 1:24.
No comments:
Post a Comment