Noah and the Flood in Gnosticism Sergey Minov here is a considerable amount of material about Noah and the lood in the writings usually called gnostic. 1 Attention paid by various gnostic writers to this igure its well into their general interest in the primeval history as it was related in the book of Genesis. 2 One might say that among gnostic interpret- ers of the book of Genesis the story of Noah was second in popularity only to the story of Adam and Eve. One of the reasons for this popularity was that for many of them the crucial importance of this story lay in the fact that “it is a tradition according to which the creator god had to acknowledge the failure of his creation.” 3 In what follows I will present an overview of how the igure of Noah and the lood were interpreted in various gnostic writings, although the Hercu- lean task of sorting out this at times astonishingly diverse and contradictory material is far from completion. Due to the polythetic character of Gnosti- cism as a religious phenomenon, it is impossible to give here a comprehensive depiction relevant for gnostic exegesis in all its diverse forms. Nevertheless, a couple of remarks important for understanding gnostic hermeneutics should be made. However one might like to call the way the gnostics dealt with Scrip- ture—protest exegesis, revisionist reading, hermeneutics of conspiracy, or otherwise—all these characterizations emphasize one of its most fundamental features: the considerable exegetical eforts exerted by those ancient readers who tried to ind a way out of the conundrum constituted by their alienation 1. Although existence of such a historical entity as “Gnosticism” has been challenged in recent scholarship (see M. A. Williams 1996; King 2003), I shall use this term for the sake of convenience, including in it such distinct movements as Manichaeism and Man- daeism. Even if one refuses to classify these movements as gnostic, one can hardly cast doubt upon their (greater or lesser) indebtedness to the classical gnostic tradition. 2. For a general review of gnostic interpretation of Old Testament, see Pearson 1988b; Luttikhuizen 1997; 2006. 3. Klijn 1981, 219. he scriptural locus meant here is Gen 6:5–7. -215-