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Title details for The Ark Before Noah by Irving Finkel - Available

The Ark Before Noah

Decoding the Story of the Flood

by Irving Finkel
ebook
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The recent translation of a Babylonian tablet launches a groundbreaking investigation into one of the most famous stories in the world, challenging the way we look at ancient history.
 
Since the Victorian period, it has been understood that the story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, derives from a much older story that existed centuries before in ancient Babylon. But the relationship between the Babylonian and biblical traditions was shrouded in mystery. Then, in 2009, Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum and a world authority on ancient Mesopotamia, found himself playing detective when a member of the public arrived at the museum with an intriguing cuneiform tablet from a family collection. Not only did the tablet reveal a new version of the Babylonian Flood Story; the ancient poet described the size and completely unexpected shape of the ark, and gave detailed boat building specifications. Decoding this ancient message wedge by cuneiform wedge, Dr. Finkel discovered where the Babylonians believed the ark came to rest and developed a new explanation of how the old story ultimately found its way into the Bible. In The Ark Before Noah, Dr. Finkel takes us on an adventurous voyage of discovery, opening the door to an enthralling world of ancient voices and new meanings.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 25, 2014

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780385537124

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780385537124
      • File size: 20641 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      April 1, 2014
      The ubiquitous tale of the Great Flood was not new to the writers of Genesis. Finkel, the assistant keeper of ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and culture at the British Museum, offers some fresh particulars about the source of the biblical story. It all goes back to Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq, and the local Sumerian and Akkadian languages recorded in the wedge-shaped cuneiform inscriptions in which the learned author is an expert. Surviving in clay tablets, the story of the calamitous inundation was recounted in epics--e.g., Gilgamesh--eons before Noah. It is likely, Finkel asserts, to have been known to Jewish writers during the Babylonian exile and used in the compilation of the Hebrew Bible. Only recently, the author deciphered a previously unread tablet that turned out to be instructions for building a vessel that would ride out the worldwide flood. His line-by-line exegesis, recounted in professional glee, reveals a huge circular craft--a "coracle," or basketlike boat, that was still seen during that time in Mesopotamia. The ark, made up of reeds and sticks and waterproofed inside and out with pitch, would have covered about an acre. Finkel's fresh findings offer much architectural detail about how such a lifesaving craft would be constructed. Self-described "wedge reader" Finkel is a scholarly and often witty guide to the antediluvian civilization and our shared lineage. Some readers may find the great detail so dear to the author's heart a bit dry, but Finkel's happy primer on historic Mesopotamia is, on the whole, wonderfully rewarding. Under the tutelage of a clever scholar, a cuneiform tablet brings to life an ancient world and the genesis of a great biblical story.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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