纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 016洪水纪念碑（5）

"People in the 1870s were obsessed by biblical history, and there was a great deal of controversy as to the truth of the biblical narratives. So, it created a sensation when George Smith found this ancient version of the Flood story, clearly much older than the biblical version.

Prime Minister Gladstone came to hear his lecture describing his new translation, it was reported on front-page articles around the globe, and there was a front-page article in the 'New York Times' in 1872 in which they're already noting that the tablet could be read either in two quite different ways - does this prove the Bible is true or show it's all legendary? And Smith's discovery gave further ammunition in the debate on both sides as to the truth of biblical history, debates over Darwin and evolution, geology - all of these things were coming in."

And of course these debates still continue today. But what does it do to a religious text when you discover that it comes in fact from an older society, with a very different set of beliefs? We asked the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks:

"Clearly there is a core event behind both narratives which was a great flood, part of the folk memory of all the peoples of that area.