Irving Finkel with a 4,000-year-old clay tablet documenting the story of the flood. Photograph: Sang Tan/APThe fact that a member of Ukip blamed the introduction of gay marriage for the recent floods in England reminds us that there is an enduring human tendency to read acts of nature theologically rather than meteorologically. It happened after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, when local clerics blamed that tragic inundation on the excesses of the tourist trade. The mother of all moralising flood stories is the tale of Noah's ark and the animals that went into it two by two to save themselves from God's decision to drown the whole human race and start again. As a myth it has charm as well as moral clout, so why meddle with it? Well, fear not: Irving Finkel's beguiling book will only increase your interest in the story – unless, of course, you belong to the Ukip school of biblical interpretation.
With great wit and warmth, Finkel, who is endearingly described as "assistant keeper" of the Middle East at the British Museum, shows how the Hebrew exiles led into captivity in Babylon in the 6th century BC came across a tradition of Mesopotamian flood stories based on real events and adapted them to their own transcendental purposes.
Although the lovely Greek word Mesopotamia was lost in the first world war and replaced with Iraq, its meaning, "between the rivers" (Tigris and Euphrates), is the clue here. This is flood country, so it's hardly surprising that instructions for making boats abounded, and most of them seem to have ended up in the British Museum. Finkel is a master at deciphering these ancient cuneiform clay tablets, but this book is far more than a fine piece of detective work: it is a humane work of scholarship that enlarges the soul.
