The storm in Babylonian flood stories

Says The Lord tells Noah, “For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights” (Gen 7:4). “The Lord shut him in” (7:16; וַיִּסְגֹּר יְהוָה בַּעֲדוֹ); “all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered” (7:19); all outside the ark died (7:21–23).

In Rogers’s translation of the Eleventh Tablet, Shamash sets a time of heavy rain: “Then enter into the ship and close thy door”. Ut-napishtim brings up “my family and household” and the beasts, and “closed the door”. “Adad’s storm reached unto heaven”; in a damaged line “[the waters covered (?)] the mountains”. After “Six days and [six] nights” the storm ends on the seventh, “And all mankind was turned to clay”. In Rogers’s other recension Atra-khasis is told, “close again the door of the ship”. Berossus dates the cataclysm “on the fifteenth of Dasios”; Xisuthros boards with “wife and children and near friends”. King’s Sumerian text has the land under the flood for a week, day and night. These are their views. For the warning and the ship, see note.historical.Gen.6.5-Gen.6.22.ane-flood-parallels.

Uncertain These share with Gen 7 a set time, a closed door, perhaps covered mountains and the death of all outside. They differ on who shuts the door (in 7:16 the Lord) and on the storm’s length (in 7:12 forty days). How the traditions relate is open. No dependence is claimed, no lean is taken, and this background does not fix the meaning of Gen 7.