Male Presence Within Flood Myth Narratives

Male Presence Within Flood Myth Narratives

According to Alan Dundes “A myth may be defined as a sacred narrative explaining how the world or humans came to be in their present form” (1). Perhaps unintentionally, many people, even to this day, continue to misinterpret myth as a fabrication of historical religions, people, places and events. Although there may appear to be a fine line between myth and folktales, William Paden best explains the difference between the two in his book Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religions:

…myth is essentially different from folktales that tell of a make-believe realm set in nonexistent time and place with deliberately fictive characters. Rather, myth posits ostensibly real times and places, real heroes and ancestors, real genealogies and events…mythic settings are intended by the believers to represent an account of the actual world. In contrast, the folktale aims at entertainment and is not at all authoritative… “Whereas the typical fairy tale opens with: вЂ?Once upon a time…,’ the typical myth begins with: вЂ?In the beginningвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Coursepack 178)

Therefore, myth should be understood as an actual historical account of real occurrences. There is a vast collection of myth within the world today, ranging from the Creation of man to the Afterlife to everything else in between, but as Dundes would like to suggest “Of all the myths of world, probably none has attracted more attention through the centuries of recorded time than the flood myth” (1). The Genesis, Atrahasis, and Gilgamesh flood narratives are perhaps the most familiar and widely discussed of all flood myths. The remarkable parallels within these stories, such as the male mythical hero who has been warned of the coming of a great flood by God or a god, make them worth comparing and contrasting. In doing so, one might consider whether or not the actions of both man and god obstruct or clarify their view of imagining these male figures as mythical heroes or benevolent gods.

The story of Atrahasis can be dated back to around 1700 BC with the discovery of the clay tablets inscribed with the Old Babylonian version of the epic (Dalley 3). Atrahasis, who bears the same name as the ancient myth, and whose name means “Extra-wise” (Dalley 2) is considered to be the hero in this particular flood myth. William Ryan and Walter Pitman include A Telling of Atrahasis as told by “Nur-Aya, the renowned scribe and storyteller” (254) in the epilogue of their book Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History.

A self-righteous god, Enlil, is dissatisfied with “The boisterous noise of an overpopulated land” that disturbs his sleep (256), and “decides to wipe out…all of humankind, with a great flood” (256) as a solution to this disruption. Forewarned by the god Enki of the coming disaster, Atrahasis is directed to build a boat for himself and all “living things” (256). As Atrahasis bravely rides out the storm, the gods “flee up to the heaven of Anu, where they cower like dogs” (257) as a means of shelter from the treacherous rains and absolute darkness. As the storm subsides, Atrahasis and his crew “float for days across the endless expanse, seeing neither land nor life, until finally in desperation Atrahasis releases some birds” (258) in hopes of discovering a nearby land. Only on his third attempt, do the birds not return, indicating that land must be close by. The ship “propels itself” towards the land and “At last they land on its strange shore” (258). Once on land, Atrahasis sets all living things free, and “makes a sacrifice as an offering to the gods” (258) who upon smelling the fragrance of sacrifice “gathered like flies” (258) as a result of their voracious thirst and hunger. Nur-Aya concludes the story of Atrahasis with the gods’ anger towards Enlil for his destruction of all living things, but in the end, Enlil appears to be remorseful and as compensation he “sets the course to repopulate the land” (258) and “blesses Atrahasis and his wife, granting them immortality and sending them to live in a distant land” (258), thus redeeming himself as a god of compassion.

However, I must include a more grave ending of the story as told in Dalley’s Myths From Mesopotamia; that tells of yet another of Enlil’s ridiculous solutions to monitor the earth’s population. Although there are lines missing from this version it is evident as explained with the help of Dalley’s note, “that the gods allotted various categories of infertility to people, to prevent overpopulation in the future” (38) such as barrenness, still-births and demons who “snatch the baby from the mother’s lap” (35). This alternative ending is a contradiction to the previously mentioned ending, and is a reminder that humanity will continue to suffer, especially the one third of the earth’s women who will endure tragedy in the attempt to bear children.

Another ancient flood myth from the Mesopotamia region is The Epic of Gilgamesh, determined by Dalley as “the longest and greatest literary composition written in cuneiform Akkadian” (39). Gilgamesh is well known for its connection with the Atrahasis myth, by the translation of the epic’s eleventh tablet, dating back to the “seventh century B.C.” (Heidel 1), which describes in almost exact detail the event of the flood in Atrahasis. Without going into too much detail it is important to know how Gilgamesh stumbled upon the story of the flood: simply put, he was in search for fame and immortality, and knew that Utnapishtim had been granted this special power by the god Enlil. Though the stories appear quite similar a few, significant details, however, distinguish the myth from being perceived as that of the same story in the Atrahasis flood Myth.

Alexender Heidel dedicates an entire chapter to the explanation of the eleventh tablet, entitled The Story of the Flood in his book The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. We immediately learn that the hero in this particular rendition of the flood myth is Utnapishtim, whose name “today commonly translate[s] with “he saw life”” (Heidel 227). The reason for the

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