The Ark Before Noah cover art

The Ark Before Noah

Decoding the Story of the Flood

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The Ark Before Noah

By: Dr Irving Finkel
Narrated by: Dr Irving Finkel
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About this listen

In The Ark Before Noah, British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel reveals how decoding the symbols on a 4,000 year old piece of clay enable a radical new interpretation of the Noah's Ark myth.

A world authority on the period, Dr Finkel's enthralling real-life detective story began with a most remarkable event at the British Museum - the arrival one day in 2008 of a single, modest-sized Babylonian cuneiform tablet - the palm-sized clay rectangles on which our ancestors created the first documents.

It had been brought in by a member of the public and this particular tablet proved to be of quite extraordinary importance. Not only does it date from about 1850 BC, but it is a copy of the Babylonian Story of the Flood, a myth from ancient Mesopotamia revealing, among other things, instructions for building a large boat to survive a flood.

But Dr Finkel's pioneering work didn't stop there. Through another series of enthralling discoveries he has been able to decode the story of the Flood in ways which offer unanticipated revelations to listeners of The Ark Before Noah.

©2014 Irving Finkel (P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton Ancient Ancient History Thought-Provoking Natural Disaster Middle East

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Critic reviews

"The charged thrill of Finkel's chase permeates the book - the pages don't just join dots, they supply new pieces for a beautiful, Bronze-Age jigsaw-puzzle... Scholarly and droll, Finkel's writing is also eccentrically vivid... it is a joy." ( The Times)
"One of the most important human documents ever discovered... his conclusions will send ripples into the world of creationism and among ark hunters." ( The Guardian)
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What did you like most about The Ark Before Noah?

It is an area I knew nothing about before. I found it fascinating and very accessible.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Irving Finkel?

Almost anybody - or perhaps just have Irving Finkel trained to read his sentences without trailing off at the end of each one.

Any additional comments?

I was irritated by Dr. Finkel's habit of trailing off at the end of his sentences, which sometimes made it difficult for me to understand what he was saying.

Fascinating, but sometimes hard to hear.

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Fantastic on every level! Great 2 readers and balance, and amazing storytelling. Highly recommend you to read this and enjoy!

Fantastically read and Co read, and such astonishingly storytelling

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I enjoyed listening immensely. Here are the events of an ancient story told by the author !
Exciting, informative, engaged, witty. A unique experience.
Life in Mesopotamia becomes vivid in language and writing. The building of Noah’s Ark Is unbelievably precise up to the geography where the boat landed! Super!

Fascinating book

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Dr Irving Finkel's style and humour is so easy on the ears I'm so happy he narrated this personally. if you are interested in Assyriology, the origin of myths we have been given as truth in western religious society, and language, this is a book for you. I will be getting the print version for references etc.

Brilliant from beginning to end.

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This book is thought provoking while being educational. I thoroughly enjoyed this though I have never had the benefit of a formal classical education Thank you Dr Irving.

The Ark

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In which Irving Finkel brings to life an ancient story told in long dead languages and recorded on clay tablets in an alphabet that has not been written for two thousand years, and makes it perfectly understandable to people with no previous knowledge of the subject. How does he achieve this? Not by dumbing down but by being a very good storyteller himself.

Cuneiform For Dummies

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A witty and extremely entertaining story of the real building of the Ark told by the very erudite Professor Finkel. Well produced and full of historical facts based on his study of cuneiform writing on ancient clay tablets from Assyria.

Fascinating and spell-binding

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If you could sum up The Ark Before Noah in three words, what would they be?

Delightful, Interesting, Thoughtful

What did you like best about this story?

It covered all aspect of this fascinating story.

What does Irving Finkel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

I could feel Irving Finkel in the room, in the car, with me wherever I was listening. The energy, the detail, the story, the history I was totally absorbed.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The description of finding and identifying the missing piece from thousands of a key tablet was a delight.

Any additional comments?

It is worth visiting the British Museum before listening to the book. It will give you a better feel for some of the descriptions. Better still, visit the museum, which I have done since to see the remarkable and beautiful tablets.

Facinating Book

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What a treat ! And an amazing reading from the original author. A great voice.

Fascinating !

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Brilliant story, wonderfully told. Dr Finkel beautifully brings to life the characters and stories of ancient mesopotamia. interesting to note the way each culture sees and retells older stories through its own lens.

Superb!

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