05_Biblica_1_H_Collins_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:19 Pagina 415 415 NOAH, DEUCALION, AND THE NEW TESTAMENT ilarly Tobit 4,12 simply mentions Noah among other patriarchal figures; and 4 Maccabees 15,31 mentions the ark ( ), stress- ing its function as an image of endurance. Since connecting the bib- lical flood with any other account is not the goal of these passages, they add nothing to the present study. There is evidence that Jews living in Asia Minor brought about an interaction between the biblical flood story and native flood tra- ditions. This is already visible in the way that Sibylline Oracles, Book 1, had Noah land in Phrygia. Paul Trebilco has presented ev- idence that favors the conclusion that there were several traditions of a great flood in Phrygia; these traditions did not depend on the biblical tale. Nevertheless, coins from the city of Apamea Kibotos in Phrygia, minted in the late second century C.E. and depicting a scene of Noah and his ark, indicate “that the Jewish community did not create the local legend but rather reinterpreted it and that its version was accepted by the city” 26. But Trebilco finds further evidence of this Jewish community bringing the biblical story of a great flood into interaction with the local traditions, namely the Sibylline Oracles, Books 1-2; as men- tioned above, Sib. Or. 1:262 has Noah’s ark landing in Phrygia. Tre- bilco goes on to argue 27, The use of Hesiod [in the Sibylline Oracles], and indeed of the Si- bylline form itself, emphasises the common ground between Jew and Gentile in the author’s context, which as we have seen is pro- bably Apamea. (…) It seems likely that the Sibyl was aiming his/her work at the city, at those who knew only the local flood story. (…) The use of the Sibylline form and the incorporation of Hesiod were designed to increase the attractiveness of the book for Gentile readers and thus to further this apologetic aim. In general, then, Second Temple Jewish authors with an apolo- getic stance in relation to the Graeco-Roman world do not outright reject the Gentile flood stories, but instead draw parallels with them. They do so to provide further reason for believing the his- P.R. TREBILCO, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (SNTSMS; Cam- 26 bridge 1991) 85-103; quotation from 94. HILHORST, “The Noah Story”, 63- 65, declares Trebilco’s case “a strong one”. TREBILCO, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, 96, 97, 98. 27