Messiah In The Old Testament Episode 26
Babylonian Flood Story Part 1
Welcome to Messiah In The Old Testament. We’ve been telling you flood stories from around the world. We, so far, have covered six stories from five different continents.
So, let's put up our map and let's look at it. Over in North America I have the picture of a canoe over the United States. That picture is symbolic of the Native American story. And remember, the story was the same across the board. A few details were different, but it is the same basic story. I put up the canoe, which is the Ottawa version of the story where the fair young maiden rows up in the canoe and picks up our hero from the flood. Then, down in South America, I have a picture of a llama over the country of Peru and Ecuador. The llama, of course, is symbolic of the Inca story. And the llama played a central role in the story because the llamas were sad and the herder of the llamas found out from those sad llamas that they were depressed because there was a flood coming and the world was coming to an end in five days. And he was able to rescue his family and rescue his llamas. Then over in Africa I have a picture of Tumbainot and one of his wives. That is over the country of Kenya and that is symbolic of the Masai story of Tumbainot building the giant boat and being saved from the flood. And then over the country of India I have a picture there of Manu and the giant fish. Manu was saved by this fish that grew horn from his head. And he threw a rope around it and the fish towed them off to safety. Then down in Australia I have a picture of Tiddalick the giant frog who swallowed all the water and spewed it out and created the flood. Now, finally, our new picture is over the country of China. And in our last episode we talked about the Chinese flood story. There was the Gun Yu story which is kind of the typical story that's told. That is sort of the approved story. Then we told you another story which this picture is symbolic of. It's the Miao story. That was a story where the god of thunder was harmed and then
he went up to the heavens and told the rain god to rain down water and flood the earth. I have a picture of his earthen jar. His name is Yu Shi and he used this earthen jar, which was full of water, poured it out and that's where rain comes from. Now I'm going to fill in the next row of our table. If you remember, we’re keeping the table of the eight elements that are found in each of our flood stories.
So, let's fill in the next row. It's the Miao story. Our hero is A-Zie. The event that happened was his father's attack on Lei Gong who was the God of thunder. The resulting cataclysm was the flood that Yu Shi poured out on the earth. Their means of escape was a magic bottle gourd which came from the tooth of Lei Gong and it grew very rapidly and they were saved by climbing into the bottle gourd. His companion in the gourd was his sister, the brother and sister were saved. The rescue came at the hands of the high god Shangdi who told the rain god to stop the rain and take all that water and put it back in his earthen jar. And the restoration then came from the pieces of gourd that were thrown all over the hill and the next morning they spring into human beings and the earth was repopulated.
Now let’s go back to our map. There are three X’s on the map. And you'll see that one of those X’s is over the country of Egypt. We’re going to be telling you that Egyptian story a couple of episodes from now. And then there's another X over Greece and that's for the Greek story. And then there's an X over the country of Iraq and that's for the Babylonian story. And that is the story I'm going to tell you today. So, there are three more stories and then we get to the Biblical Flood Story. And I'm really excited about telling you the Biblical Flood Story, comparing it against all these stories we just told. But there is so much Messianic Prophecy and revelation that comes from the whole flood story. We've already done a bunch with the run up to the flood and then there are the things that happen right after the flood. So, this has got huge messianic implications. So, let's talk about the Babylonian story. Now, originally, I was going to tell you to go back and watch episode four. Because it has this beautiful introduction which really introduces
today's subject really well. But I decided instead of having you watch the entire episode; I would just take a clip out of that episode and I would play it for you. So right now, I’m going to play you that clip. Here it is, the Babylonian story.
We’re heading to ancient Babylon. Actually, the story starts a little more recent than that with the last king of Assyria.
His name was Ashurbanipal. He was an avid collector of tablets and cylinders and he created this giant library in the city of Nineveh. Well, as things go, he was defeated, the city was sacked, everything of value was stolen. His palace, including his library, was burned to the ground.
And it laid there in ruins underneath centuries and millennia of dirt and no one knew of Ashurbanipal's palace. Now back in the 1840s there was this big rush, it was almost like a gold rush. I mean there was a gold rush going on in the US at the time. But there was almost this gold rush looking for antiquities and there was this huge thirst for antiquities. And museums in Europe were competing to get the best stuff. And the Louvre would be competing with the British Museum and so they would send these expeditions out. They had excavated around the city of Mosul because they knew that Mosul was kind of were Nineveh should be. Nobody had ever verified that they had discovered the city of Nineveh. So there excavations off to the west and they discovered what they thought was Nineveh, but it wasn't Nineveh. It was another smaller town. And then finally, a British expedition under the auspices of the British Museum began an excavation to the east of Mosul, on the east side of the Tigris River. And when they started their diggings, they discovered that they were indeed in the city of Nineveh.
They found gates and palaces and as part of their excavations they discovered the ruined library of Ashurbanipal.
Now these three guys that were working this archaeological dig, one of them his name was Austin Henry Layard. He was the money; he
arranged the finances. Then there was a guy Hormuzd Rassam. He was from Mosul. He was a local historian and Assyriologist and he was kind of the brains behind this. And then there was George Smith who would go on later to write a large amount of material about ancient Assyria and Babylon. So, these guys were excavating. During the excavation Austin Henry Layard discovered some cylinders, some half tablet half cylinders, and they had writing on them. And let's talk a little bit about the writing.
There were three languages that were around at that time. One of them was called Old Babylonian also [called] Akkadian which is what these were written in. And then there was an Elamite Language and then there was a Sumerian Language. The languages were written down onto these tablets and Austen found these tablets.
And there were seven of them that went together. And these tablets were written in Akkadian which nobody understood Akkadian. The tablets contained a story that we now know has been around probably since before 1750 BCE. The fall of Sumer happened at that time and in the city states of Sumer we think that's where this whole creation story started. So, we’re talking 3 1/2 millennia [ago that] this material came about. And then it laid dormant under the earth from the time of the destruction of Ashurbanipal's palace until it was discovered in 1849. That was the year the excavation happened.
So, these tablets were then hauled back to the British Museum along with all the other artifacts, and they were catalogued. And this guy George Smith then went through all these tablets, poured through the tablets, and what he was really looking for was evidence of names that happened in the Bible. To confirm that the biblical story that we read in the Tanakh, in the Old Testament, that it was verified by these by these diggings. That was that the purpose [of his research].
So, same time, 1849, there was a publication about some writings that were found on the side of a mountain. And this was the Bisitun pass and the carving was actually on the side of Mount Behistun.
And it was a giant relief, kind of like a big billboard. And it had a picture of King Darius and it had a picture of these kings or satraps. They were kind of like subkings over the provinces and there was a rebellion. And King Darius put down this rebellion. And he has his foot on the neck of one of the satraps and all the rest of them are lined up behind his one with arms bound behind her back ready to find the same fate as the first satrap. So, this relief also came with inscriptions.
And the inscriptions were in three languages, one of which was Elamite Language, and they were the guys that conquered Sumer. Then there was the old Babylonian Language which is the Akkadian Language. And then there was a language called Old Persian. Now these were all cuneiform languages. And if you look at this relief, and I'll put a picture of the relief up for you, and you can see everything's in this cuneiform writing. Now they understood Old Persian and that was the publication that came out in 1849.
And George Smith then was able to use the information from these inscriptions to unravel the language of the Akkadian, the Akkadian Language or Old Babylonian. So, there were titles for King Darius and there were some inscriptions about his accomplishments.
And they were able to go back and forth and work out the dynamics of the Akkadian language, work out the letters, work out the phonetics, work out all the mechanics of the language. So, then George was able to go through all of the archives and pick out these things. Now he found these seven tablets that all went together. And the title on these tablets, this was actually a poem like an epic poem, and the title was Enuma Elish. Enuma Elish, which later they were able to translate, means ‘When On High’ and it was a description of creation. Now this is not the only source for the Babylonian story there are other sources. Later, the
Germans did further excavations 1910, 1926 and since there have been other excavations. And there's even an excavation going on as we make this video, just outside on the east side of Mosul, where there's an Italian expedition. And there's all these archaeological sites and they are turning them into a tourist destination where you can go see the ancient city of Nineveh including the gates and the ruined library and the palace and all that. So, everything you just saw in the clip pertains to today's story. It’s the perfect introduction.
When I was considering the Babylonian Flood Story there were three basic sources that were available to me. The first source was the most modern of all the sources and that was the source that came from a guy named Berossus.
Now Berossus was a priest of Bel Marduk, which of course you remember Marduk from our Babylonian Creation Story. He was the patron god of Babylon. So, this guy was a priest in the Babylonian temple. Historians think that he had access to a lot of Babylonian documents and knew the history [of Babylon]. So, he wrote a threevolume book called the History of Babylon. Now, the book does not exist today. In fact, there are no pieces of the book that are left or copies of the book. There’re only fragments that are left behind and those fragments are in the form of other authors that quoted him. And I think this comes about because the flood has such an intense response from the Jewish and Christian writers. So, a lot of the early Christian writers and the Jewish historians latched onto the Berossus tale because it was so similar to the story of Noah.
So, he wrote this story in 290 (between 290 and 278 BCE) the fragments exist in quotes in books. For example, there was a huge quote in a Byzantium writer's book, somewhere around 900 CE. And he quoted a lot of the story. That guy’s name was George Syncellus. If you want to look it up you can could read that.
Josephus even commented Berossus and his flood story. And it is very interesting and I’m going to read you three verses out of the book of Antiquities, the first book, it is 93 through 95.
Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood and of this ark; (referring to Noah) among whom is Berosus the Chaldean; for when he is describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: “It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen (which is pitch), which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs.”
Hieronymus the Egyptian, also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them, where he speaks thus: “There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews wrote.
So, Josephus is telling us that there are several people that commented on the flood. Hieronymus the Egyptian, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities. And of course, Berossus the Chaldean and Mnaseas and a great many more. So, if you were alive at the time of Josephus that is that the turn-of-the-century, you know the first century CE, the only Babylonian Flood Story you would have available would be the Berossus account. All the other stories were still buried under the rubble of the city of Nineveh and the city of Sippar. They were not available. They had no idea about the epics that we’re going to talk about. So, the next possible source I could've used, and actually these sources all tell the same story. So, they’re actually all valuable sources.
The second source is called the Epic of Atrahasis. Now the Epic of Atrahasis is like the Enuma Elish. It is an epic poem and it was found in the ruins of the temple or the library of Ashurbanipal. But also, in a later excavation some 40 years later. EA Wallis-Budge excavated, it was actually his third trip to Iraq to excavate, he was excavating the temple of Shamash – which was the [Babylonian] sun god. And he found the Epic of Atrahasis on tablets, it was actually 3 tablets. So, he had a fairly complete copy of the epic, though the one from the Library of Ashurbanipal wasn't quite so complete. But putting it all together, they actually got a good a good idea of the Epic of Atrahasis. The epic is: Basically, there is a hero. And the hero is the one who builds the boat and is saved. And we will talk about the Epic of Gilgamesh. But in this particular epic, the Atrahasis episode, Atrahasis is the hero.
Atrahasis suffers all kinds of punishments. The gods were unhappy and Enlil the chief god was unhappy. And he sent drought, he sent famine, he sent plagues and finally he sent the great deluge. Atrahasis with the help of Ea or Enki, the god of wisdom, built a boat and was saved. Now, the final third source, which is the one we’re actually going into detail, is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Now Gilgamesh, like the Epic of Atrahasis is like the Enuma Elish. It is an epic poem. It comes in 12 volumes. The Enuma Elish remember was seven tablets. So, now we’ve got 12 tablets and they were all found in the Library of Ashurbanipal. Now they have found in other places duplicate copies of all the tablets except for one tablet, which is the tablet were going to take our story from today. Now, the name, if you remember, the first line on the first tablet is always the name of the poem.
And this one is “He who sees into the abyss.” So, if you read Epic of Gilgamesh, a modern translation, the first line is going to say something like “He who knows everything.” So, apparently, seeing into the abyss is like, you know everything, because you're actually able to see into the abyss. So, the first 10 tablets tell us a series of stories about Gilgamesh, the adventures of Gilgamesh. It's almost like Gilgamesh is a Babylonian Hercules. He goes through all these tasks that he's been given. And like
Hercules he has superhuman strength. Tablet 11 then tells us the flood story and then tablet 12 is more of a sequel.
And I’m going to put up a quick summary of all these tablets. So, tablet one is the creation of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Tablet number two Enkidu and Gilgamesh meet, fight, and become friends. Tablet number three the preparations for the journey to the cedar forest. Tablet four the journey to the cedar forest. Tablet five is the battle of Humbaba, the battle with Humbaba.
Tablet six is Gilgamesh, Ishtar and the Bull of Heaven. In fact, one of the translations of the Epic of Gilgamesh is called Ishtar and Izdubar the Babylonian Epic. Izdubar was the name that they used for Gilgamesh back in the 1800s, before they figured out the correct pronunciation. And it comes from this particular tablet where Ishtar makes advances towards Gilgamesh, some romantic advances. He rebuffs her, not interested. She gets angry, so then she releases the Bull of Heaven against the royal city of Uruk. And he is going to destroy the Royal City. So, Gilgamesh and his buddy Enkidu fight the bull and kill the bull. And tablet number seven the death of Enkidu. Tablet number eight the lament of Gilgamesh. Nine Gilgamesh journeys to the mountains. Number ten Gilgamesh travels to find Uta-Napishtim and then tablet Eleven, the tablet we’re interested in, Uta-Napishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood. And then finally the epilogue.
Now George Smith was the critical character in this. He's held as this genius who was able to put all the Akkadian language together and assemble it and be able to translate it. His first publication, it was actually a paper that he read before the Society of Biblical archaeology December 30, 1872. It is the first revelation of this tablet.
And then he published it in the Society of Biblical Archaeology, volume 3, pages 530 to 596. It's online. You can find it and read it. It’s quite interesting. It was called The 11th Tablet of the Izdubar Legends: The Chaldean Account of the Deluge. Then he went on and he added a bunch
of stories to the Chaldean Account of the Deluge and published a book and called it The Chaldean Account of Genesis. And he tells all about the issues they had with all the tablets that they got in the temple or in the Library of Ashurbanipal.
He actually put an illustration in the book. And I’m going to show you the illustration as well as the current the tablet which is still on display at the British Museum. There’re actually three tablets that are labeled tablet 11. So, there are three different portions and basically, they're the only source that we have for this story. I’m going to put them all up side-byside as we can see what horrible condition, they were in. Now, George Smith describes why all these tablets were in such horrid condition.
He said that the Library of Ashurbanipal was on the upper stories of the palace. So, when the fire was set to burn down the palace, the library on the upper stories, once the floor gave out, the timbers burned and all these tablets when crashing several stories down to the to the basement, basically. And they got smashed in the process. Then, add to that, the looters who came afterwards. They scattered the fragments all over the place. In fact, he describes some of the tablets they found one part of the tablet in one part of the palace and another part in a completely different part of the palace. The fragments were just scattered all over the place.
And then, finally, add to that, the elements, the rain, the mineralization. And that tells you how the cylinders got into their current conditions. Well, that wraps up the introduction and background to the Babylonian Flood story. We split the episode into two parts. So, keep watching the next episode and we will continue on with the actual Babylonian Flood Story. And we are going to look at a comparison of the provenance of the Babylonian Flood Story versus the provenance of our Biblical Flood Story.
Thank you for watching our show today. We hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Now, after
watching this episode you might be saying to yourself, “Who is this Messiah that Dr. Smith is talking about?
Is he talking about the Christian Messiah? Is he talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary. And then lived a blameless and holy life on the earth, And then was tortured and crucified. And after he died he then was resurrected from the dead after three days. Then after people witnessed this, he was then taken up bodily by Elohim into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Muslim prophet Isa. Isa Ibn Maryam, the messenger, who was sent by Allah to bring a message to the people. The Quran says he that lived a holy and blameless life, was born of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled all the Jewish prophecies in exact accordance. But one difference, instead of being crucified, he then was taken up by Allah into heaven before the Romans laid hands on him. And he awaits there now in the fourth heaven where at the end of days at the day of judgment he will be revealed to all.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Jewish Messiah? The Messiah who has not yet been revealed, that the entire Jewish world is waiting for his revelation. Now, the beautiful thing is that you can hold to any of these beliefs. And we can all still learn together about Messiah. We can learn about our Christian Messiah. We can learn about our Jewish Messiah. We can learn about our Muslim prophet Isa who will be revealed. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You can even be an atheist or agnostic and still learn from this program about Messiah. Now, I have to admit I am a Christian so I approach things, obviously, from a Christian point of view. And I promise you, as we reveal these prophecies, which I believe have all been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Or will be fulfilled when he comes back, returning in the clouds in the same way he was taken up. I believe that all of this is true, but I promise you I will do my very best to present these prophecies from a neutral point of view. And try to keep my Christian bias to a minimum. Obviously, it will pop up from time to time but I will try to stay only in the Tanakh and try not to get into the
New Testament very often. Now, if you want more information about Messiah, we have resources for you.
We have a website which is findingmessiah.org. Now, on that website you are going to find several resources. You will find links to all the videos, all the episodes that we have created so far. You will find links to download the transcripts of any of these episodes. And then you will find a section where you can get more information about Messiah through frequently asked questions. And then there is a section for donation. If you want to come alongside our ministry at Finding Messiah.
Now, there’s going to come a time in this series where you are going to be confronted with the question: What are you going to do with Messiah? Who do you believe Messiah is? Which of these Messiahs do you believe Dr. Smith is talking about? And Messiah will become real to you if you look at all the information presented and come to your conclusions. So, join us as we continue our journey through the Old Testament Scriptures looking for all the Messianic Prophecies. And join us next time as we reveal those to you.
