And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Genesis 6:17
"The paganised deluge poems on the one hand, and the monotheistic Flood narrative in Genesis
on the other, are best explained as two separate transmissions from the same ancient oral source.
Within the Babylonian and Assyrian cultures, 
the story
lost the properties
--of either history
--or divine revelation
and came to
function as a dramatic mythic history."
AIG