creation stories (as well as certain Egyptian accounts) and some of the passages in the Bible (including Noah’s flood) picture the earth as a boat or raft or disk floating on the cosmic ocean. Genesis 6–9 has most in common with the much earlier flood stories from Mesopotamia. These resemblances are striking, right down to the sending out of birds to see whether there is dry land. There are, of course, as we have seen, many differences in detail. An especially important point is that the Genesis