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    The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
    The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
    The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood

    Written by Irving Finkel

    Narrated by Irving Finkel and Gareth Armstrong

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 30, 2014
    ISBN9781494571368
    The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
    Author

    Irving Finkel

    Irving Finkel, philologist and Assyriologist, is a spellbinding storyteller and a familiar figure in academic and literary circles. He is the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, where he reads cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia. An expert on the history of board games, he is also the author of many children’s books as well as the best-selling The Ark Before Noah, which recounts his discovery of a cuneiform tablet that contained a Flood narrative far older than the story of Noah and which led to the recreation of the ark for a 2014 TV documentary.

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    Reviews for The Ark Before Noah

    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Written by an enthusiastic specialist who tells the story of his translation of a cunieform tablet acquired by the British Museum that provides detailed instructions on how to build an Ark (which he calls the Ark Tablet).The book teases out as much as possible from this 60 line tablet and in the process you learn much. I had previously read the Bible Ark story and I had also read Gilgamesh, but had not particularly focused on the Ark story in it. What this book succeeds in doing is looking at the various Mesopotamian stories that survive on cuneiform tablets, and suggesting how it came about that the Bible Ark story came into the Western World so effectively.The author advises that the Mesopotamian Flood Story surfaces in three distinct cuneiform incarnations, one in Sumerian, two in Akkadian. These are the Sumerian Flood Story, and major narrative episodes within the Atrahasis Epic and the Epic of Gilgamesh respectively.The most interesting and rewarding part of the book is Finkel's analysis of these stories, adding what can be gleaned from the Ark Tablet. What I came to appreciate was that small parts of these stories are found on cunieform tablets over a long period of time (more than one thousand years) and the underlying theme of the Ark story was modified over time, as it was retold for different audiences.At some stage this will mean that i want to read a good book about how it is thought that the Bible was written, as Finkel's chapter about how the Mesopotamian Ark story was incorporated into Judaism, Christianity and Islam is fascinating.Finkel includes photos and descriptions of reed boat building in 19th and early 20th century Iraq to help illustrate his arguments and these are very interesting. Finkel also includes delightful quotes at the beginning of his chapters.Near the beginning the author notes that the book is strongly dependent on ancient inscriptions and what they have to tell us. Most of them are written in the said cuneiform, the world’s oldest kind of writing. The author therefore not only says what "we know" ie his interpretation, but also explains how we know it, and tries to make it clear when some word or line is persistently obscure, or open to more than one interpretation. I did not agree with all his interpretations, but this is more to do with him running with an interpretation that is favourable to his overall argument, whereas I considered the evidence that he presented inconclusive, rather than positively disagreeing with his interpretation.Overall, a very stimulating and enlightening book about a very specialised area of history.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The title undersells the book! It contains the most convincing theory about how the bible came about. Even though it's mostly about Babylonian history.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Yeoman work, scholarly opinion, great story, well told.

      1 person found this helpful