Danmark wrote:
heavensgate wrote:
Hi Daughterofthefaith.
I am with you. There is actually plenty of evidence of the historical truth of the bible. There is a good site here
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/
that has plenty of articles and papers that relate to almost all ages of the bible record.
Of course the further we go back in time the less evidence there is, but this is true for all records in the historical sense. It amuses me that extra biblical records such as the Epic of Gilgamesh has so much reverence with sceptics but the bible as a record that can trace its roots to the earliest forms of writing is ignored. It makes me think that the evidence is not evidence unless it conforms to a particular ideology. Where do you think Liberal Theology comes from?
Check out the site. You will find it useful.
Regards
Jim
Jim, you are quite right to redirect a 'debater' to other sites. Some people participate here who apparently don't appreciate what debate is.
They simply want to preach, claim they are right and others are wrong and give no reasons for their positions other than, "I know I am right." That is an example of a non debate.
I think someone who wants to make a contribution but may lack in knowledge of a given subject will eventually come good. DOTF is one such and has a lot of guts from my point of view. Give her time.
Your amusement in reference to 'reverence' for the Epic of Gilgamesh is misplaced. I'm not aware of anyone here who suggests that narrative should be revered. The point of the existence of that narrative is to point out conclusively that the book of Genesis was not inspired by God, but written by men heavily influenced by an earlier myth.
There is much to say on this and probs I won't cover it all without being tedious. Some good scholar has already done the groundwork in the similarities and non similar comparisons between the Epics and the bible narratives. On a plain reading of both texts even Dawkins can see the literary superiority of the bible, even in it's oldest books. It is not a long bow to draw to assume from the comparisons and the literary superiority, that the epics most likely fall out of the original story as corruptions (many things to say about this as well, but will save for another day)
The fact that all aboriginal and ancient cultures have the same creation myths albeit differing in some detail, speaks of a global memory that this was an actual event that took place.
Why is the Bible superior? Simply the content. Please see below from David T. Tsumura PhD
Similarities and Differences. Thus the Flood tradition has a long history in ancient Mesopotamia, and it is not simply enough to compare the Flood story in “Gilgamesh� XI and the Genesis story on literary grounds. It is essential to place each of the Mesopotamian stories in the history of Flood traditions before its historical interdependence and priority are discussed in relationship with the Genesis account. Recent comparison is therefore made in terms of the Flood traditions behind the literature, assuming that “the essential narrative is identical� in both Mesopotamian and Hebrew traditions. Cassuto in his commentary lists 19 parallels and 16 differences (1964: 16–23). Kitchen, who unlike Cassuto had access to Lambert and Millard’s 1969 Atra-Hasis, lists seven similarities and nine differences.
Similarities:
1. A divine decision is made to send a punishing Flood;
2. One chosen man is told to save self, family and creatures by building a boat;
3. A great Flood destroys the rest of the people;
4. The boat grounds on a mountain;
5. Birds are sent forth to determine availability of habitable land;
6. The hero sacrifices to deity;
7. Mankind is renewed upon earth (1977: 28–29).
Differences:
1. The Mesopotamian gods tire of the noisiness of mankind, while in Genesis, God sees the corruption and universal wickedness of mankind.
2. The Mesopotamian assembly of gods is at pains to conceal their Flood plan entirely from mankind (this is not evident in Genesis at all).
3. In the Mesopotamian epics, the saving of the hero is entirely by the deceit of one god, while in Genesis, God from the first tells Noah plainly that judgment is coming, and he alone has been judged faithful and so must build a boat.
4. The size and type of craft in “Gilgamesh� is a vast cube, perhaps even a great floating ziggurat, while that in Genesis has far more the proportions of a real craft.
5. The duration of the Flood differs in the Mesopotamian and Biblical accounts. “Atra-H asþs� has seven days and seven nights of storm and tempest, as does the Sumerian version; “Gilgamesh� has six (or seven) days and nights, with subsidence of the waters beginning on the seventh day; none of the Mesopotamian narratives gives any idea of how long the Floodwaters took to subside thereafter. In contrast, Genesis has an entirely consistent, more detailed time-scale. After seven days’ warning, the storm and floods rage for 40 days, then the waters stay for 150 days before beginning to sink, and further intervals follow until the earth is dry a year and ten days from the time the cataclysm began (Gn 7:11; 8:14).
6. In the Mesopotamian versions, the inhabitants of the boat include also a pilot and craftsmen, etc.; in Genesis one finds only Noah and his immediate family.
7. The details of sending out birds differ entirely in “Gilgamesh,� Berossus, and Genesis 8:7ff.; this is lost in “Atra-Hasis “ (if ever it was present).
8. The Mesopotamian hero leaves the boat of his own accord and then offers a sacrifice to win the acceptance of the gods. By contrast, Noah stays in the boat until God summons him forth and then presents what is virtually a sacrifice of thanksgiving, following which divine blessing is expressed without regret.
9. Replenishment of the land or earth is partly through renewed divine activity in “Atra-Hasis� but simply and naturally through the survivors themselves in Genesis (1977: 29–30).
The Problem of Dependence. As Lambert and Millard note,
It is obvious that the differences are too great to encourage belief in direct connection between “Atra-Hasis� and Genesis, but just as obviously there is some kind of involvement in the historical traditions generally of the two peoples.
After suggesting “one possible explanation� of such involvement, namely the westward movement of these traditions during the Amarna period (ca. 1400 BC), Lambert and Millard simply conclude that “the question is very complex� (1969: 24).
To this problem of dependence, Wenham explains that there are basically three approaches: (1) minimalists, (2) maximalists, (3) somewhere between:
1. The minimalists argue that the differences between the Mesopotamian and the Biblical accounts are too great to suppose dependence of the latter on the former. Both must be independent developments of an earlier common tradition.
2. Maximalists argue that the Genesis editor was in fact familiar with Mesopotamian traditions in something like their present form.... The writer seems to be aware of other ancient Near Eastern ideas and to be deliberately opposing or commenting on them.
3. The truth lies somewhere between the minimalist and maximalist positions (1987: 163).
Kitchen holds that:
it is fair to say that the Mesopotamians had a flood-tradition in common, which existed and was transmitted in several versions.
Therefore it is out of place to talk of "borrowing the Hebrew from the Babylonian (or Sumerian) or vice-versa."
Kitchen explains that
parallel traditions about some ancient event in common Mesopotamian memory would be a simpler and more satisfying answer.
He then notes that Genesis 6:9–8:22, whose 60 verses “might be roughly equal to 120 lines of Sumerian or Akkadian text,� was
probably the simplest and shortest of all the ancient versions, possibly originating as early as they, and was certainly not a secondary elaboration of them (1977: 30).
Similarities among these traditions seemingly show that at least for the ancient Mesopotamians, the Flood was a once-and-for-all cosmic event that happened a long time ago. Kitchen explains it thus:
The Sumerians and Babylonians of ca. 2000/1800 BC believed so firmly in the former historical occurrence of such a Flood that they inserted it into the Sumerian King List (1977: 30).
Literary Unity. Wenham lists 17 points in common between the Genesis account and the Mesopotamian traditions, the “Atra-Hasis Epic,� the Ras Shamra version, the epic of “Gilgamesh� tablet XI, and the Sumerian “Eridu Genesis� version. According to him,
These lists underline the very close parallels between the Mesopotamian and Biblical accounts of the flood.
He notes that
this is particularly striking in the case of the combined (J + P) version of the Flood in Genesis.... It is strange that two accounts of the Flood so different as J and P, circulating in ancient Israel, should have been combined to give our present story which has many more resemblances to the “Gilgamesh� version than the postulated sources.
Therefore, Wenham suggests two alternatives as assumptions, preferring the second to the first:
(1) The J and P versions of the Flood story were in their original form much closer to each other than the relics of these sources now suggest. (2) Only one source was used by the writer of Genesis, a source presumably similar to the Mesopotamian Flood story (1994: 443; 1987: 163–64).
Thus, the J and P distinction is illusory, at least in the Flood story. The recent emphasis on the literary unity of the story by Andersen (“chiasmus�) (1974:123–26),Wenham (“palistrophe�) (1994: 431–32), Anderson (1994), and Longacre (1976) is noteworthy, despite Emerton’s dissent (1987; 1988).6
It restricts the search for truth when one limits one's thinking by categorizing approaches as 'liberal' or 'conservative' and then using those labels to be dismissive rather than inquisitive. It is a perfect methodology to employ to avoid learning.
