n in Genesis, or of either of these two? Does the
Babylonian story connect itself with one of the Genesis narratives
rather than the other?

The significant points in the Babylonian story are these:--the command
to Pir-napistim to build a ship, with detailed directions; the great
rise of the flood so that even the gods in the heaven of Anu feared it;
the detailed dating of the duration of the flood; the stranding of the
ship on the mountain of Nisir; the sending forth of the dove, the
swallow, and their return; the sending forth of the raven, and its
non-return; the sacrifice; the gods smelling its sweet savour; the vow
of remembrance of the goddess by the lapis-stone necklace; the
determination of the gods not to send a flood again upon the earth,
since sin is inevitable from the sinner. To all these points we find
parallels in the account as given in Genesis.

But it is in the Priestly narrative that we find the directions for the
building of the ship; the great prevalence of the flood even to the
height of the mountains; the stranding of the ship on a mountain; and
the bow in the clouds as a covenant of remembrance--this last being
perhaps paralleled in the Babylonian story by the mottled
(blue-and-white) lapis necklace of the goddess which she swore by as a
remembrancer. There is therefore manifest connection with the narrative
told by the Priestly writer.

But it is in the Jehovistic narrative, on the other hand, that we find
the sending forth of the raven, and its non-return; the sending forth of
the dove, and its return; the sacrifice, and the sweet savour that was
smelled of the Lord; and the determination of the Lord not to curse the
earth any more for man's sake, nor smite any more every living thing,
"for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." There is,
therefore, no less manifest connection with the narrative told by the
Jehovistic writer.

But the narrative told by the writer of the Babylonian story is one
single account; even if it were a combination of two separate
traditions, they have been so completely fused that they cannot now be
broken up so as to form two distinct narratives, each complete in
itself.

"The whole story precisely as it was written down travelled to
Canaan,"--so we are told. And there,--we are asked to believe,--two
Hebrew writers of very different temperaments and schools of thought,
each independently worked up a complete story of the Deluge from this
Gilgame