Noah: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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The [[Genesis flood narrative]] is among the best-known stories of the [[Bible]]. In this account God regretted making mankind because they filled the world with evil. Noah then labored faithfully to build the [[Noah's Ark|Ark]] at [[God]]'s command, ultimately saving not only his own family, but mankind itself and all land animals, from extinction during the [[Great Flood|Flood]]. Afterwards, God made a [[Covenant (biblical)|covenant]] with Noah and promised never again to destroy Earth's with a flood. Noah is also portrayed as a "tiller of the soil" and as a drinker of wine. After the flood, God commands Noah and his sons to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth".

The story of Noah in the Pentateuch is similar to the flood narrative in the Mesopotamian [[Epic of Gilgamesh]], composed around 1800 BCE, where a hero builds an ark to survive a divinely sent flood. Scholars suggest that the biblical account was influenced by earlier Mesopotamian traditions, with notable parallels in plot elements and structure. Comparisons are also drawn between Noah and the Greek hero [[Deucalion]], who, like Noah, is warned of a flood, builds an ark, and sends a bird to check on the flood's aftermath.

==Biblical narrative==

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===Ancient Greek===

Noah has often been compared to [[Deucalion]], the son of [[Prometheus]] and [[PronoiaHesione (Oceanid)|Hesinoe]] in [[Greek mythology]]. Like Noah, Deucalion is warned of the flood (by [[Zeus]] and [[Poseidon]]); he builds an ark and staffs it with creatures – and when he completes his voyage, gives thanks and takes advice from the gods on how to repopulate the Earth. Deucalion also sends a pigeon to find out about the situation of the world and the bird returns with an olive branch.<ref>'{{Britannica|159650|Deucalion}}</ref><ref>Wajdenbaum, P., [https://books.google.com/books?id=3kiPBAAAQBAJ&q=noah&pg=PA92 ''Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible''], Routledge, 2014, pp. 104–108.</ref> Deucalion, in some versions of the myth, also becomes the inventor of wine, like Noah.<ref>Anderson, G., [https://books.google.com/books?id=G9IQt92pbjwC&dq=noah+deucalion&pg=PA130 ''Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook''], Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. pp. 129–130.</ref> [[Philo]]<ref>Lewis, JP.; Lewis, JP., [https://books.google.com/books?id=mO_H2lVTyhkC&q=philo+noah&pg=PA101 ''A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature''], BRILL, 1968, p. 47.</ref> and [[Justin (historian)|Justin]] equate Deucalion with Noah, and [[Josephus]] used the story of Deucalion as evidence that the flood actually occurred and that, therefore, Noah existed.<ref>Peters, DM., [https://books.google.com/books?id=MXU3PTrFe6gC&q=manu+noah&pg=PA4 ''Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity''], Society of Biblical Lit, 2008, p. 4.</ref><ref>Feldman, LH., [https://books.google.com/books?id=S349d-yRgCIC&q=deucalion&pg=PA166 ''Josephus's Interpretation of the Bible''], University of California Press, 1998, p. 133.</ref>

The motif of a [[weather deity]] who headed the pantheon causing the great flood and then the trickster who [[Creation of life from clay|created men from clay]] saving man is also present in [[Sumerian Mythology]], as [[Enlil]], instead of Zeus, causes the flood, and [[Enki]], rather than Prometheus, saves man. Stephanie West has written that this is perhaps due to the Greeks borrowing stories from the Near East.<ref>West, S. (1994). Prometheus Orientalized. Museum Helveticum, 51(3), 129–149.</ref>