This is the first time I heard that there were two different flood stories. I have always had this idea that in the story, when I thought of it to be a singular story, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Noah 2 of every animal on the earth came aboard the ark with Noah and his family. I just learned, not only that there are two different stories of the flood within each other in a few chapters of Genesis, but also that these two ideas I previously had of the flood were actually from different stories and not the same one. There are also many other differences between the two stories, but it was so fascinating to me how the two stories have been tied together in my own mind for most of my life into one, where that is surely not the case.
It is also very interesting how the two stories coincide with each other within Genesis 6-9. It’s amazing how there are obvious differences that seem to be in one story, even though it is really two. I am not sure how this happened, where two stories got woven together, but I would assume that there were two authors within these chapters that disagreed on some details, so they decided to put both interpretations in.
Not only are these two stories with similarities and differences, but there is another flood story that is in the Epic of Gilgamesh that shows many similarities compared to the two stories in Genesis 6-9. Although the characters and other details may be different, the idea of a flood that kills every aspect of life besides the living things on the boat is the same as the flood stories in the Bible stories of the flood. This is astounding, as this is a completely different viewpoint, from a Mesopotamian view, compared to the viewpoint in the Bible. Again, I don’t how they are so similar in structure, but I would assume that there was this general idea in this period of time where there was a flood that wiped out all life, and the viewpoints of the stories are just from different people and areas.