0097 Wenham moves on to the Flood Story.  This story associates to failure and re-orientation.  It also touches base with extra-Biblical Near Eastern myth.

Both the Story of Noah’s Flood and the Mesopotamian, Epic of Atrahasis, point to a devastating flood prior to the start of the Sumerian Dynastic.  These two versions of the same incident tell me that they belong to the same genre.  They are expressing a similar spirit of the age.

0098 The progression of genres in Gen 1-11 do not smoothly overlay a highly theoretical 400 year cycle starting around 7821 years ago.  However, coincidences such as two stories of the flood, one Biblical and one Mesopotamian, are highly suggestive.

What do they suggest?

The family mythology in Gen 1-11 is told from inside an institution proclaiming the public mythologies of the ancient Near East.

This suggestion is further developed in the dramatic fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall.

The story of Terah marks the event when the two traditions begin to diverge.