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The Flood Myth
Edited by Alan Dundes
(Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1988) 452 pp., $48.00 (hardcover), $15.95 (paperback)
Alan Dundes, known for his important contributions to the theory of folklore, is also known for his idiosyncratic, often bizarre, interpretations of individual myths and customs. In this volume Dundes, a folklorist at the University of California at Berkeley, has collected a variety of previously published articles by biblical scholars, folklorists, historians of science, and others on the fascinating topic of the flood myth.
The flood myth in question is, at least initially, the biblical story of the flood recounted in Genesis 6–9. Over the last several centuries this story has been approached from a number of angles. Geologists of the 17th through the 19th centuries had to reconcile new discoveries about fossils and the age of the earth with the biblical account of the flood. At the same time, antiquarians learned of the flood myths of various non-Western cultures and tried to accommodate these accounts to the Genesis flood. George Smith’s discovery in the British Museum in 1872 of a tablet with a Mesopotamian flood myth initiated a flurry of new research and new controversy. The cuneiform tablet demonstrated that the Genesis flood was not the “original” flood account, but was a later version of a Mesopotamian myth.
With such a rich variety of topics connected in one way or another with the flood myth, it is surprising to find this a disappointing book. Dundes attempts to assemble a well-rounded and representative sampling of treatments of the flood by people in diverse fields, but his samples are too often outdated or, even worse, narrow and dull. He represents modern work on the Mesopotamian flood traditions poorly and, surprisingly, treats the Genesis flood story briefly and superficially.
Of the four articles dealing with Mesopotamian flood traditions, only one was written after the publication in 1969 of the full version of the Old Babylonian flood myth (Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, edited by W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard). The Atrahasis myth, which has radically altered our understanding of the ancient Near Eastern flood traditions, is summarized briefly in one essay but is nowhere discussed in depth and is not even listed in the “Suggestions for Further Reading.” Several antiquated translations of parts of the Mesopotamian flood story in Gilgamesh Tablet XI, first read by Smith, are given, but all are sadly out of date and contain many inaccuracies.
Only two treatments of the Genesis flood story appear in this volume of 26 articles. The first treatment is an excerpt from Norman Habel’s fine introductory text, Literary Criticism of the Old Testament, in which he discusses the source division of Genesis 6–9 into two sources, J and P, each with its different style, theology and presentation of the flood. In the other treatment, Tikva Frymer-Kensky interprets Genesis 6–9 without distinguishing between the J and P sources. At this point the reader is either terribly confused or, better yet, realizes that Frymer-Kensky is proposing a false solution to some of the puzzles of the J flood story by appealing to elements from the P flood story. In my view, Frymer-Kensky has treated the P flood story admirably, but her inattention to the source division of Genesis 6–9 renders her discussion fruitless in terms of the key problems (the motive and divine response to the flood in the J story) that she is attempting to address.
The bulk of the articles in this book discuss the flood myths of other cultures, including those of Greece, Mesoamerica, South America, Australia, Cameroon, the Philippines, India, Kammu and Cankam. James Frazer writes thoughtfully and elegently in “The Great Flood,” from Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (1918), though his condescending views of the intellectual abilities of “savages” flaw the discussion. The other folklore studies lack Frazer’s flair and breadth of interest and tend to be dull analyses of local versions of flood myths.
The most interesting of the articles on the folklore of the flood myths are two psychoanalytical studies, one by Geza Roheim and one by Dundes. It is difficult to take these two studies seriously, but they are at least worth reading for entertainment value. Roheim believes that the wide distribution of flood myths is explained by a psychoanalytical interpretation of the symbolism. In his view, the symbol of the flood originally arises in dreams as a psychic response to the dreamer’s need to urinate. The ultimate source of the flood symbolism, therefore, is the bladder pressure of the dreamer. Flood myths comprise communal retellings of this urinary dream. This is a novel interpretation, to be sure.
Dundes accepts this interpretation and elaborates further. In his article, “The Flood as Male Myth of Creation,” he speculates that the male “urinary” flood is a repudiation of women’s natural procreative superiority, a form of pregnancy-envy. In Dundes’s view the male “urinary flood” destroys the creation that originally emerged from 009the female womb. After the flood, a male deity re-creates the world out of mud, dirt or dust, all of which for Dundes symbolize excrement. This new creation is now a male “anal creation,” representing the ultimate rejection of the original female creation. In this bizarre discussion, male urine and excrement provide the key to all the flood myths of the world. It is difficult to decide whether to laugh or cry while reading this article.
The book is rounded out by a delightful selection of later Jewish versions of the flood story from Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, and by some interesting treatments of the interpretation of the flood in the Renaissance and in the 18th and 19th centuries. The conflict between the new science of geology and the Genesis flood story makes for interesting reading, especially in view of the sorts of disputes going on in the schools and courts today. A final selection from Stephen Jay Gould, the distinguished geologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, closes out the volume with some thoughtful reflections on “Creationism: Genesis vs. Geology.”
This is a very uneven collection of essays. A few are very fine, such as the selections from Gould and Ginzberg, but the bulk of the contributions tend to be dull, eccentric or outdated. The attempt to broaden one’s horizons on the flood myth is laudable, but this book is not the place to begin.
The Dead Sea Scrolls in English
Geza Vermes
(Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987) 320 pp., $42.50
Bible Review readers often ask where they can find translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Well this is the place. Forty years after the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Geza Vermes has produced a revised third edition of his work The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. This translation of the non-biblical Qumran scrolls was originally published in 1962 as a source work for the general reader. It provided the English-speaking world with a window into the customs, beliefs and history of the Qumran community, and it has been used also as a textbook for Qumran courses in colleges and universities.
Vermes expanded this edition to include material made available in recent years. One such addition is the longest of the Qumran manuscripts, the Temple Scroll, which did not emerge until 1967. Vermes has also replaced the three original introductory essays with corresponding, updated material from his book The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective (1977). In these opening chapters the author assimilates evidence from the scrolls, and from other historical sources such as Josephus, into a portrait of the Qumran community.
Vermes, a Professorial Fellow of Wolfson College at Cambridge University and the editor of the Journal of Jewish Studies, is a pioneer of Qumran research. His doctoral dissertation on the historical background of the scrolls, entitled Les Manuscrits du Desert de Juda, was published in 1953. He has also written Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (1961), Jesus the Jew (1973) and Jesus and the World of Judaism (1983).
The Flood Myth
Edited by Alan Dundes
(Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1988) 452 pp., $48.00 (hardcover), $15.95 (paperback)
