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A recently-deciphered clay tablet confirms that the Genesis account of Noah’s Flood is based on historical fact. According to this article, the "Ark Tablet" tells the story of a Middle-Eastern man who built a big boat to save pairs of animals from a great flood. Doesn’t the similarity to the Genesis account cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up?
But the similarities end there. This version of the Flood story was written between 1900 and 1700 BC, or 350-550 years after the event, so it understandably contains many inaccuracies. True, Noah and Shem may still have been alive when this tablet was written, if we consider that Noah lived 350 years and Shem 502 years after the Flood (Gen 9:28; 11:10-11). But God had confused the tongues at Babel (Gen 11:1-9) in 2242 BC to punish the advanced civilization that had rapidly sprung up in the short 106 years since the Flood, so communication would have been a problem. And if you take into account the centuries-long lifespans of the generations immediately after the Flood (Gen 11:12-35), it’s understandable that in time people forgot or misremembered the stories Grandfather Noah had told them. As a result, the Ark Tablet contains a corrupted and frankly unrealistic version of the Flood narrative.
The Babylonian Noah described in the cuneiform tablet was a man named Atra-hasıs, whose god Ekni told him to build a 230-foot wide coracle with sides 20 feet high. Obviously, this presents a problem. A vessel this size would be nowhere near large enough to accommodate a pair of every animal species. We also know that Noah took seven of every clean animal aboard the Ark (Gen 7:2-3), and once the Flood waters had abated, he sacrificed some of each kind (Gen 8:20). If he had taken only two of every clean animal, as the Babylonian account suggests, then his sacrifice would have resulted in the extinction of all clean animals, which in turn would have resulted in the extinction of the Israelites because they would have had no clean animals to eat. But we still have Jews today, and we still have clean animals (just look at the lists in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14), so clearly the Genesis Flood narrative is the right one. Also, if Noah took only two of every kind of land animal, how did carnivorous species survive? If a carnivore ate just one animal, it would drive an entire species to extinction. If didn't eat, its own species would be driven to extinction. Again, the Genesis account is superior.
The very existence of this corrupted version of the Flood narrative confirms that there was in fact a worldwide flood and that the Genesis account of that flood is correct. If there had really been a global flood and everyone on earth was descended from the only family that survived, we would expect the story to survive in legend all over the world. And that's what we find. How else can we explain the existence of a flood legend in two places as far apart as Judah and Babylonia? Sure, the Babylonian version was corrupted. The tale had changed in the telling. But the existence of different versions of the same story, even if they seem to be contradictory, prove that the story is true. Just look at the four Gospels.
You might be wondering how we can be confident that the Genesis version of the Flood narrative is accurate. We believe that around 1500 BC God Himself inspired Moses to write the Genesis Flood account (2 Tim 3:16) so that His people would know what really happened: God was sorry He'd made man (Gen 6:6), so He drowned all the men, women, children and animals in the world (Gen 7:21-22).
But the similarities end there. This version of the Flood story was written between 1900 and 1700 BC, or 350-550 years after the event, so it understandably contains many inaccuracies. True, Noah and Shem may still have been alive when this tablet was written, if we consider that Noah lived 350 years and Shem 502 years after the Flood (Gen 9:28; 11:10-11). But God had confused the tongues at Babel (Gen 11:1-9) in 2242 BC to punish the advanced civilization that had rapidly sprung up in the short 106 years since the Flood, so communication would have been a problem. And if you take into account the centuries-long lifespans of the generations immediately after the Flood (Gen 11:12-35), it’s understandable that in time people forgot or misremembered the stories Grandfather Noah had told them. As a result, the Ark Tablet contains a corrupted and frankly unrealistic version of the Flood narrative.
The Babylonian Noah described in the cuneiform tablet was a man named Atra-hasıs, whose god Ekni told him to build a 230-foot wide coracle with sides 20 feet high. Obviously, this presents a problem. A vessel this size would be nowhere near large enough to accommodate a pair of every animal species. We also know that Noah took seven of every clean animal aboard the Ark (Gen 7:2-3), and once the Flood waters had abated, he sacrificed some of each kind (Gen 8:20). If he had taken only two of every clean animal, as the Babylonian account suggests, then his sacrifice would have resulted in the extinction of all clean animals, which in turn would have resulted in the extinction of the Israelites because they would have had no clean animals to eat. But we still have Jews today, and we still have clean animals (just look at the lists in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14), so clearly the Genesis Flood narrative is the right one. Also, if Noah took only two of every kind of land animal, how did carnivorous species survive? If a carnivore ate just one animal, it would drive an entire species to extinction. If didn't eat, its own species would be driven to extinction. Again, the Genesis account is superior.
The very existence of this corrupted version of the Flood narrative confirms that there was in fact a worldwide flood and that the Genesis account of that flood is correct. If there had really been a global flood and everyone on earth was descended from the only family that survived, we would expect the story to survive in legend all over the world. And that's what we find. How else can we explain the existence of a flood legend in two places as far apart as Judah and Babylonia? Sure, the Babylonian version was corrupted. The tale had changed in the telling. But the existence of different versions of the same story, even if they seem to be contradictory, prove that the story is true. Just look at the four Gospels.
You might be wondering how we can be confident that the Genesis version of the Flood narrative is accurate. We believe that around 1500 BC God Himself inspired Moses to write the Genesis Flood account (2 Tim 3:16) so that His people would know what really happened: God was sorry He'd made man (Gen 6:6), so He drowned all the men, women, children and animals in the world (Gen 7:21-22).
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