The LORD saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind (לב) was nothing but evil all the time. And the LORD regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened. The LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created ... for I regret (נחם) that I made them." (6:5-7)

Divine Regret

The heart (לב) was considered in ANE to be the seat of decision.

The LORD smelled the pleasing (soothing; ניחח) order, and the LORD said to Himself (literally: "to his heart" [לב]): "Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind (לב) are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done." (8:21)

Among other things, the flood story depicts divine concern for the preservation of life along a particular genealogy.

Discussion: What qualities of life (social order) are articulated in Gen. 9?

• Canaan = cursed!
• Japheth = benefiting from the "tents of Shem"
• Shem = "the blessed of the LORD"

Shem is the ancestor of the later Israelites.

Hamitic Hypothesis

Some in the past have tried to connect black Africans with the curse of Ham, often in justification of slavery or the subordinated position of black Africans to white Europeans.

The land of Shinar was located in Mesopotamia.

God confuses ("confound" בבל = a play on the word for Babylon ) humanity in an act of self-preservation (11:5-8).

Compare the ending of Gilgamesh to the ending of the so-called Primeval History.

Note: Scholars conventionally designate Gen. 1-11 as the Primeval History and Gen. 12-50 as the Ancestral Narratives.

We all fear death.

Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh were both written to reflect upon death and the human response to it.

Death is an extension of chaos.

Culture (and civilization) is constructed in response to the reality of death.

We are not gods. We do not live forever. We will die.

But we can "live forever" in other ways ...

• We build impressive structures.
• We build cultural institutions that preserve the group and its identity.
• Our names live on through our children.

• The gods represent powers that attempt to limit human achievement.
• They threaten human existence (Enlil and Elohim, power of the wind and storms) but also preserve it (Ea and Yahweh, wisdom and foresight).

Where the Epic of Gilgamesh finds comfort in human achievement, the Bible depends upon preservation of the name.

Emphasis upon the name may reflect postexilic editing.

• Institutions destroyed through imperial conquest.
• People exiled to Babylonia and elsewhere.
• Identity (expressed by one's name) was continually under threat.

• The stories about the Tower of Babel and the flood likely were written during the 6^th century BCE.
• They show cultural borrowing.
• They also reflect coming to terms with the divine limitation upon human achievement and the ephemeral nature of such achievements.