Morality

Upon reading Story of the Flood, I could not help but notice that it adds on to facts mentioned in the Epic of Creation. The significance of human life is barely touched upon in tablet VI of the first story. But The Flood dedicates more time into explaining how we were created, and hints as to how we should live our lives. In many ways, the Story of the Flood can be seen as an instruction manual on proper human etiquette.

Similar to the Bible, the necessity of marriage is implied on the top of page 61 when the first humans were “husband and wife” before the first mother-to-be gave birth. Their choice in vocabulary is important because it established that human beings had to wed before procreating. The text even continues on to say that “ On the tenth day, when the bed is laid, (then) let wife and her husband reach bliss together.” Apart from emphasizing marriage, it also states that women could not have intercourse until 10 days after giving birth. These two statements combined make it evident that at the very least, the authors of the Story of the Flood were trying to influence people to behave a certain way.

The way in which the guidelines were presented indicates that the author of this story was trying to find a way of raising awareness in unique and entertaining ways. Atrahesis for instance, was used to create a contrast between an ideal man, and he’s clamorous counterpart. By making Atrahesis incredibly wise and allowing him to survive the flood, the reader is made to believe that being loud, unproductive, and disobedient will give you a fate similar to the humans that were “annihilated.” One might easily conclude that the Babylonians when through all this trouble in order to create a set of morals and order in their society.