The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood

Reading "The Ark Before Noah" makes you feel like you're in a comfortable armchair in a book-lined study. There's a brandy snifter in your hand, and you're listening to one of the most charming raconteurs you can imagine. He's spinning a yarn so compellingly and amusingly that, almost against your will, you're becoming interested in a topic about which you'd never before cared. The vast majority of humankind has no clue what cuneiform writing is. But the man in the comfy chair opposite yours, Dr. Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian Scripts at the British Museum, would like to change that. Ostensibly, this book is about a millennia-old slab of clay with some wedge-shaped writing on it and what it reveals: a Primordial Flood story unlike any other. As Finkel informs us, there are plenty of other Babylonian cuneiform tablets in the British Museum and elsewhere with bits and pieces of Flood narratives (twelve, if memory serves). But this one was unique. Not only does it give precise instructions and dimensions for building a giant round boat (surprising enough in and of itself), it also contained the phrase "the animals entered the ark two by two"--a phrasing not found in any other Babylonian Flood narratives, but one which DOES occur in the Hebrew Bible. Now, were this book only about this tablet, it would be fascinating enough. But "The Ark Before Noah" is much more than that. "The Ark Before Noah" is a love story, an account of the lifelong romance between Dr. Finkel and cuneiform writing. Not only is it the oldest form of human writing known of, it's also, as Dr. Finkel informs us, far and away the most fun--a cryptographical challenge for the nimblest of brains. Woven through the story of the Ark Tablet is a chatty, witty, humane, and at times very funny memoir of a life spent deciphering these baffling indentations in once-wet mud. It's also a marvelous introductory history to the discipline of Assyriology itself. But it goes beyond that. One of Dr. Finkel's many gifts is to be able to see behind the inscriptions, and recognize the very human people who made them. The millennia between us and them notwithstanding, they were, he points out, people precisely like us. They struggled with the same dilemmas, had the same worries and concerns, and felt the same emotions. And, using our shared humanity across the millennia as a point of departure, he asks some much larger questions about the Bible: who wrote it? When? Why? And why would its anonymous writers or compilers, forcibly exiled in Babylon, have included stories cribbed from their pagan oppressors in their own holy book? Dr. Finkel has pulled off a rare feat: a lucidly scholarly, readable, personal, and personable book about a subject which, in the hands of the wrong writer, would be as boring as watching paint dry--but which, in his telling, becomes mesmerizing.

Dr. Finkel has done with this book, what every scholar should try to achieve: Make the information as clear and concise as possible and inspire in a person the want to dig deeper not only into the primary subject but the very field of study. I found this work not only informative but very relevant to my own area of work in the text of the Masoretic Hebrew Torah. The way he melds background material into the main subject of the tablet, was akin to sitting listening to a lecture that you do not want to leave. I have posted to many friends the link to his book here on Amazon... I intend to do so more as I find those who would be also interested in this subject. Technically: I personally think with some expansion he could use this very book as a basis for a textbook on Assyrian and Akkadian comparative studies! Or better a Primer for Assyrian Cuneiform. (I have many old texts in my library but none approach the ease of getting into the subject as this book.) I could write many glowing words but never match the joy of reading this book. Only one draw back is encountered for someone like me, who likes to sink his literary teeth into a real textual study - the text appears in phonetic transcription with translation... but to include the transcription of the text in cuneiform would have been a very good addition. All in all, I say - FIVE STARS - hands down! Thank You! to Dr. Finkel - BUY THIS BOOK.

This book accomplishes what it sets out to achieve. The story is fascinating; the writing is scholarly, learned, and weighty, but it is done with a light touch and is fully accessible. The problem (I should say, my problem) is that the subtitle is very misleading. "Decoding the Story of the Flood" is an overstatement. The author is an expert on ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum. He works with cuneiform tablets. This work is very 'literary'; he characterizes it (appropriately) as "philology". Once upon a time English Ph.D. students had philology requirements as part of their programs. This meant such courses as Beowulf, Old English and the History of the Language. This meant bibliography (physical as well as descriptive) and it meant paleography and graphology. This was the hyper-scholarly side of 'literary' study, not like literary 'criticism' or literary history. At one point the author reminisces about the giants in his field and notes that they came equipped with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac and Aramaic "before they even looked at Babylonian" (p. 39). Note that this sort of work is language-driven. When the story of the flood is examined the materials used are literary texts, not, e.g., oceanographic, anthropological, archaeological or historical materials/evidence. The only (brief) historical excursus in this book is a fascinating, speculative passage on the possible impact of the Babylonian Captivity on the creation of the Hebrew Bible. The impetus behind the study is the author's extensive study of a single cuneiform tablet concerned with the construction of the ark. Interestingly, this ark is circular. It is a coracle, a very common form of nautical vehicle in this part of the world, i.e., contemporary Iraq. From this single tablet the author expands his examination to include other ancient texts (particularly the Gilgamesh text) and studies the pieces of the puzzle which they contribute. We never, however, really leave that bubble. We do not learn whether or not there actually was a great flood, when it occurred, where it occurred, whether or not the landing on Mt. Ararat is historically plausible. Within the texts examined there are other possible mountain sites and they are identified on a map and studied closely within the literary texts themselves, but we never go beyond the texts. The 'outside world' if it might be so described is represented by an actual building of an ark of the sort described in the central tablet. It is far smaller than the original, by necessity. It was also built in India, where the bitumen used for sealing was of far poorer quality than that available in Iraq. This is all very interesting, but it is far less interesting (to me) than the larger story. One version of the larger story, e.g., is William Ryan and Walter Pitman's book, NOAH'S FLOOD: THE NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE EVENT THAT CHANGED HISTORY (1998). Ryan and Pitman (Columbia U. oceanographers and marine geologists) study the Black Sea and argue that the Black Sea was once the Black Lake. Approximately 7,600 years ago the glaciers melted, the oceans rose and the Mediterranean plunged through the Bosporus Strait. This occurred over a period of months and the sound would have been horrific—sufficient to launch a panoply of tales and legends. The point is proven by the existence of now-lost settlements beneath the Black Sea and the existence of fresh water mollusks below the Sea and salt water mollusks above. Negotiating the Strait is traditionally very, very difficult—a problem solved by suspending weights below ships so that the cross-current problem is ameliorated. This book, which appeared 16 years prior to THE ARK BEFORE NOAH, does not appear in the latter's bibliography. This was profoundly disappointing to me. I expected THE ARK BEFORE NOAH to complement Ryan and Pitman's argument or at least address it, but the larger questions concerning the Flood are totally avoided (unless they are represented literarily within existing texts). What was interesting was the author's introduction to cuneiform writing (with many helpful illustrations) and the literary analysis which he was able to provide. I wanted and expected much more. This may be 'my problem' but potential readers should be aware of the circumscribed subject matter of the book. The historicity of the bible is of enormous importance. It is (to me) the central question here. The physical evidence represented by cuneiform tablets is interesting to the extent that it bears on larger questions. Those are not addressed here.

This may be the best book on the origins of the ancient middle eastern Flood myth that you will ever read. This is not to say that someone may not, one day, supplant it with a more comprehensive and detailed work but I doubt that it will be as readable. For a book that frequently dips into personal accounts, it is startlingly full of information. I also have to agree with Dr. Finkel that his little tablet combined with his own wide-ranging knowledge of the other Flood texts really starts to fill in the gaps in how the story evolved. Best of all, Dr. Finkel provides an interlinear translation of the text of his Flood tablet. In my experience, translations of ancient texts without easy reference to the original language are often pretty but next to useless. Being able to review the original language and his notes on it enabled me to uncover more about the text than Dr. Finkel presented including a little bit about mesopotamian food fermentation. Some reviewers found it a little dry and I have to agree that, to my tastes, he went a little too deep into coracle construction details. Overall, however, it is quite readable and entertaining. Other reviewers have objected that it doesn't cover much new territory. It doesn't. His Flood tablet is tiny and covers only a small part of the myth but the power of the book is how Dr. Finkel used that small bit of extra information to really tie the other Flood myths together. After you have read this book, you will have a much better idea of how the myth evolved. Strangely, he has an appendix on some aspects of ancient middle eastern ghosts. Believe it or not, it really does tie into the rest of the book.

For anyone whose Judeo-Christian faith depends on the stories told in Old Testament to be unique, this is a book to be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, for those whose faith is not dependent on Biblical literalism and others who are interested in discovering the influences of Mesopotamian cultures on the development of various strands of Biblical stories, this book is fascinating. Written by Irving Finkel, an expert on cuneiform at the British Museum, he uses his translations of various cuneiform tablets (including a newly translated one he calls “the ark tablet”) to present a compelling argument about how the flood story grew from Babylonian roots into the Noah story we find in the Bible. The flood story from the Epic of Gilgamesh and its similarities to the Noah story has been around for a while but Finkel looks even further back to find another strand that influenced the Noah story. He shows the importance of the measurements that are described for the ark and makes an absolutely excellent argument that the original ark would have been a circular coracle made of reeds. Beyond the flood story, Finkel also shows the importance of the Babylonian captivity on the development of the Bible. He points out the influence Babylonian education would have had on the Jews trained there. In addition, he draws parallels between other Babylonian legends and the development of the Bible. He not only makes connections to the flood story but he also draws excellent lines to other stories like the Tower of Babel and the finding of Moses as a baby in the small reed boat. Finkel really makes an effort to produce a well-reasoned, well-backed argument. There is a bit much about interpreting cuneiform, especially if you bother to work through the appendices; however, it is worthwhile to stick through it. It is often difficult for modern people to understand how ancient cultures influenced each other but a number of recent books have really opened up these avenues of study. This book is an important contribution to that.

I had seen the video that they shot as a documentary on the construction of the coracle ark and I was fascinated with the discoveries of the ark tablet and the other flood stories. The book delves much deeper into all the details of this amazing tablet that was discovered. I did enjoy the deep dive and the details but I almost felt this book could have been half the thickness it was. I suppose that because the reading and translation of cuneiform is almost experiencing it's second death (Dr. Finkel might be one of the handful of those who can read it anymore) that it was good he included such an extensive section on just describing the languages and the writing. However, it was kind of difficult to slog through that part to get to the main topic. But I do highly recommend people check out this subject either online or via this book. His hypotheses of how these stories were incorporated into the biblical ones of Genesis (after the fact) while the Jews were in captivity in Babylon really seems very very likely. Explains a lot actually!

Amazing book about the most ancient formation of the earth, which began events leading to the Biblical story of Noah's flood. This book shows how Noah's Ark could have been made using the same methods modern southern Iraqis use to make their coracles, actually making them from the tough reeds that grow in their swamps, and using a method whose beginnings have been long lost in the shadows of time. Our very Earth in her young years once held extremely powerful oceans moving swiftly across shallow pieces of land so that huge seas met and joined together with a speed and horrible fierceness unknown today. As these huge seas merged, their dense, heavy weight created vast hollows where the newly formed oceans began to put extreme pressure on the land under them. Then came a harsh ripping melee of sound, as even more water was torn from the very bowels of the Earth, herself. And on top of all this horrific noise and confusion merrily bobbed Noah's little craft, his Ark, which this writer thinks could have been made from the reeds that still grow in southern Iraq. Indeed, pictures are included which show that the writer and a crew did indeed build a rather large coracle, although much smaller than Noah's due to financial concerns, but it was quite large enough to prove the point that Noah's ark could have been made from those reeds and still been strong enough to hold a large number of rather large animals. I absolutely loved this book!! I found it so novel and exciting to read that I want to say, "Forgive me, Dr. Finkel, if I got it wrong above. But I loved your book so much that I will read it over and over until I can get it right in my sleep." Fascinating reading!!!

This is a wonderful first step to those interested in becoming amateur biblical archaeologists. Readable style.

Great read - book arrived in perfect condition and right on time for Father’s Day. Recommend seller.

Great book and great read - makes you think as new knowledge and understanding of ancient times become more available. Leant a lot - which is something I enjoy doing

Wou eindelijk eens een boek lezen van Irving Finkel ! Het leest vlot en is een ware schat aan informatie . Heel intrigerend ! Ben er nog niet klaar mee ,maar het belooft !

Un livre passionnant. La lecture est fluide. Les faits sont bien exposés. Je compte lire les autres livres du même auteur. Je le recommande vivement.

Though I found myself distractedly skimming the first time around, going back and rereading it once I had the gist down was very satisfying, enlightening and entertaining. I think I would have enjoyed it more in a physical medium rather than kindle though. It's the sort of book you want to leaf through back and forth at your leisure.