The Torah’s Version of the Flood Story

Biblical Hebrew has several words for ‘boat,’ so why was Noah told to build an ‘ark,’ that is, a box or container, rather than a boat? Utnapishtim, in the Babylonian version, not only had to build a ship seven stories high, he was to take a crew with him to navigate: ‘I handed the tiller to Puzur-Amurri the steersman, with the navigation and care of the whole boat’! But Noah is to place himself entirely in God’s hands, simply floating in a box on the waters, he knows not where. It is God, not his own skill, which alone can save him from catastrophe; he does not even ‘batten the hatch’ himself – God does it for him (7:16), demonstrating compassion. And when Noah emerges he does not, like Utnapisht

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