The Destruction of Mankind

Egyptian (New Kingdom) · Cut on the walls of the tomb of Seti I, c. 1300 BC; the composition is older.

Translation: E. A. Wallis Budge, 1914 — E. A. Wallis Budge, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (1914), ch. VII. Public domain.

The sun-god Rā, grown old, learns that the humans he made are plotting against him. He calls a council of the gods, and on their advice sends his Eye — the goddess Hathor / Sekhmet — to slaughter the rebels in the desert. She kills through the night and would have wiped out humankind entirely, but Rā relents: he floods the fields with beer dyed red like blood, Hathor drinks it, grows drunk, and forgets her rage.

A god who resolves to destroy a corrupt humanity, carries out a near-total slaughter, and then pulls back — the shape of Genesis 6:5–8 and the promise of Genesis 8:21 ("I will not again curse the ground … neither will I again smite"). The mechanism (a divine change of heart, a mark of restraint) is shared; the flood, the ark and the covenant are Genesis's.

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Tomb of Seti I 2 biblical parallels