Albert Tours
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Bible - History - Archaeology
+972 (0)52-6436124
The Bible is true : the Flood
Aside from the biblical account (Genesis, chapters 6 to 9), the story of a flood that destroyed humanity is found on every inhabited continent, and in several civilizations without connection to each other. Indeed, such an account is found in no less than 270 ancient sources, including from India, Persia, China (with a large number of traditions about the flood), Greece (among others, the flood of Deucalion, and Plato in his Book III of Laws), Rome (Ovid), and the Indian tribes of North America as well as the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas. There are of course differences between the accounts, and even with the biblical account, but the heart of the story is there: a great cataclysmic flood that stroke all of humanity and from which only one character, or hero, warned by the gods, survived. Even Jesus confirmed the Biblical Flood, as he expressed it:
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"As in the days of Noah, so shall it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they knew it not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man." (Matthew 24:37-39)
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The most significant archaeological source is the epic of Gilgamesh. It is about an ancient hero in search of immortality who meets a special character who is ordered by God to build a boat to house himself, his family, and a number of animals. Then comes the flood... The story is so close to the Bible that critics consider the Gilgamesh epic to be the source of the biblical story. Here is an excerpt:
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On Mount Nimush the boat stood still, Mount Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
One day and a second, Mount Nimush held the ship, allowing no sway.
A third day, a fourth, Mount Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
A fifth day, a sixth, Mount Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
When a seventh day arrived, I sent forth a dove and released it.
The dove went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible, so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off but came back to me; no perch was visible, so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back. It ate, scratched, floated, but did not circle back to me.
(Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI)
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We find in this passage echoes of the biblical story of the end of the Flood when the ark stopped at the top of a mountain (Ararat) and Noah sent out the dove and the raven.
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The Epic of Gilgamesh was found in the form of clay tablets dating back to around 650 BCE. These tablets were probably copies of an older story that has been lost. Because other similar stories about the Flood have been discovered, notably the Epic of Atrahasis, which was recorded on tablets older than those of Gilgamesh, dating back to the time of the patriarch Abraham. Archaeologists have found several copies from different ancient periods, which shows that this story was copied several times during ancient times. The most complete copy has 1200 lines of text, on three tablets, and has been dated to the 17th century BCE. However, scholars estimate that this story was composed in the 19th or 20th century BCE.​
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Now we know from the Bible that Abraham had known a somewhat mysterious character called Melchizedek who ruled over the place that would become Jerusalem. The Bible describes him thus:
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And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine: he was priest of God the Most High. (Genesis 14:18)
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According to Bible commentators, this Melchizedek, whose name means "king of righteousness", was Shem son of Noah. Shem had survived the Flood thanks to the ark. Who else but him could have been "priest of God the Most High" in a pagan world and who had been able to teach and tell the patriarch Abraham many things? According to biblical chronology, Shem had lived 600 years, including 502 years after the Flood. He thus survived Abraham and had known Jacob, Abraham's grandson. The monotheistic faith was therefore able to be transmitted from Shem, son of Noah, witness to the Flood and the alliance between God and post-diluvian humanity, until the three biblical patriarchs. The transmission of divine connection was thus accomplished. ​
The text of the Atrahasis tablet begins with enuma ilu amelu, which means: "when the gods were men." This parallels the Bible, which speaks of fallen angels (the Nephilim) who came to earth and corrupted humanity:
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The Nephilim appeared on the earth in those days and since, when the men of God mingled with the daughters of men and they bore them children. These were the mighty ones of old, the men of such renown. (Genesis 6:4)
Here is a more direct excerpt of this tablet concerning the Flood:
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[...] the flood came forth.
Its power fell upon the peoples like a battle,
one person did not see another,
they could not recognize each other in the catastrophe.
The flood belowed like a bull,
The wind resounded like a screaming eagle.
The darkness was dense, the sun was gone,
[...] like flies.
the clamor of the flood.
(Epic of Atrahasis, III:10-20)
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The British Museum in London has a rich collection of 30,000 tablets! Not all of them have probably been fully exploited yet. The two tablets mentioned here tell of the Flood, but there are other interesting tablets, including the 7 Enuma Elish tablets, which tell of Creation. These were found in the 19th century in the remains of the library of the powerful Assyrian king Assurbanipal in Nineveh.
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If you would like to be guided to the British Museum on the trail of its many "biblical items", do not hesitate to contact me.
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In what year did the Flood occur? The Bible is very detailed on the chronology of the first men since Adam, so that it is easy to calculate that the Flood occurred in the year 1656 from Adam, that is to say in the year 2104 BCE. The various civilizations on earth seem to have kept the memory of this catastrophe because, in the historical chronology, the year 2104 BCE falls in a transitional period between the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age. Why is this important? Because no one has been able to explain, to this day, why the Early Bronze Age ended so abruptly. Imagine that large cities of the Early Bronze Age were suddenly emptied of their inhabitants! And this without archaeological trace of battle or destruction. Their inhabitants simply disappeared, everywhere, at the same time. No satisfactory scientific explanation has ever been found to this day, although there is no shortage of hypotheses. For Bible believers, it was obviously the Flood that caused this global eradication. And then came the Middle Bronze Age with a new generation of humanity that also built cities, but differently, and used new techniques or designs.
I hope that this article on the theme "the Bible is true" was of interest to you. Do not hesitate to send me your comments, while waiting for a next biblical episode proven by history and archaeology.
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Albert Benhamou
Private tour guide in Israel
February 2025
