Abstract
In 2010 the British newspaper The Guardian reported on the find and decipherment by the curator Irving Finkel of an Old-Babylonian clay tablet that referred to the story of the flood. This tablet even mentioned the name of the Babylonian flood-hero Atraḫasīs who was ordered to build a circular boat to escape the forthcoming disaster. Claims were made in the press that the Ark of Noah would have been, by implication, a circular boat too. In this article the authors investigate the Ancient Near Eastern traditions of a great flood and the building of a rescuing-vessel concluding that the Biblical stories, although adopting many features from the Mesopotamian traditions, cannot be read as presenting a circular boat. In the Hebrew appropriation, the noun tēbāh is used, containing an intended intertextual allusion to the story of Moses as a child in Exodus.
Translated title of the contribution | Was Noah's ark a circular boat? |
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Original language | Dutch |
Pages (from-to) | 165-180 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Nederlands theologisch tijdschrift |
Volume | 69 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Sept 2015 |
Keywords
- Noah
- Flood
- Gilgamesh
- Atrachasis
- Ark tablet