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40 Days and 40 Nights of Rain: The Significance of the Biblical Flood Narrative and Other Universal Flood Accounts From Around the World

Khalid Elhassan May 19, 2025 17 min

Flood - Noah's Ark during the Genesis flood — Noah's Ark during the Genesis flood. Live Science

10. The Atrahasis Epic

Cuniform tablet containing the Atrahasis Epic. British Museum

An even more complete Mesopotamian flood story, from circa the eighteenth century BC, is found in the Atrahasis Epic. It includes a rebellion by lesser gods who are overworked, the creation of humans from clay and the blood of a slain god to relieve the divine labor, overpopulation leading to divine interventions in the form of plague, drought, and famine, and a flood to reduce human population.

Atrahasis, the wise human, is instructed by the god Ea to build an ark. After the flood, sacrifices are offered, and humans are modified to be mortal and less numerous. This myth blends themes of divine justice, population control, and the origins of mortality, and it is foundational in Mesopotamian cosmology.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.