rruption of mankind; describes the dimensions of the
ark, and instructs Noah to bring "of every living thing of all flesh,
two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with
thee; they shall be male and female." It further supplies the dates of
the chief occurrences during the Flood, states that the waters prevailed
above the tops of the mountains, that when the Flood diminished the ark
rested upon the mountains of Ararat; and gives the account of Noah and
his family going forth from the ark, and of the covenant which God made
with them, of which the token was to be the bow seen in the cloud.

The most striking notes of the Jehovistic narrative are,--the incident
of the sending out of the raven and the dove; the account of Noah's
sacrifice; and the distinction made between clean beasts and beasts that
are not clean--the command to Noah being, "Of every clean beast thou
shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts
that are not clean by two, the male and his female." The significant
points of distinction between the two accounts are that the Priestly
writer gives the description of the ark, the Flood prevailing above the
mountains, the grounding on Mount Ararat, and the bow in the cloud; the
Jehovistic gives the sending out of the raven and the dove, and the
account of Noah's sacrifice, which involves the recognition of the
distinction between the clean and unclean beasts and the more abundant
provision of the former. He also lays emphasis on the Lord's "smelling a
sweet savour" and promising never again to smite everything living,
"for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth."

The chief features of the Babylonian story of the Deluge are as
follows:--The God Ae spoke to Pir-napistim, the Babylonian Noah--

"'Destroy the house, build a ship,
Leave what thou hast, see to thy life.
Destroy the hostile and save life.
Take up the seed of life, all of it, into the midst of the ship.
The ship which thou shalt make, even thou.
Let its size be measured;
Let it agree as to its height and its length.'"

The description of the building of the ship seems to have been very
minute, but the record is mutilated, and what remains is difficult to
translate. As in the Priestly narrative, it is expressly mentioned that
it was "pitched within and without."

The narrative proceeds in the words of Pir-napistim:--

"All I possessed, I