Sumerian Influence on Genesis

[Diogenes]

For another thing, the story of Eden contains such Hebrew borrowings from the Sumerian as the term ‘ed “(underground)flow” (Gen. 2:6), and the name Eden itself.

I wouldn't mind taking part in a discussion of Sumerian influences on the Bible at some point. Perhaps best taken to a new thread, but it was too good to ignore the reference Diogenes posted here.

When I read the scriptures as a child I got the impression God directly informed his chosen people, the Hebrews, of how he made the world. It surprised me later to learn some of these stories came from earlier cultures, such as the Sumerians. The most obvious example is the flood myth which was preceded by the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Cuneiform writing was invented by the Sumerians and carried on by the Akkadians. Babylonian and Assyrian are two dialects of the Akkadian, and both contain a flood account. While there are differences between the original Sumerian and later Babylonian and Assyrian flood accounts, many of the similarities are strikingly close to the Genesis flood account.

O'Brien, J. Randall, "Flood Stories of the Ancient Near East", Biblical Illustrator, (Fall 1986, volume 13, number 1), p. 61.
For debate: Doesn't the fact the flood myth and others predate Genesis demonstrate these myths are not actual history, and that there is nothing special about Genesis in terms of it being a direct revelation from God?

[Tcg]

I don't think it is true.

Wonder bars. Now all you have to do is provide evidence for why you don't think it is true. Simply not thinking it is true is evidence only that you think it isn't true. It isn't evidence that it isn't true.


Tcg

[TRANSPONDER]

"Wunder Bars" (yummy chocolate coated granola sticks) healthy, and environmentally friendly sold in biodegradeable plastic wrappers, reduces your carbon footprint and saves the coral. Get it trademarked before anyone else does.

[Diagoras]

It may just be me here, but I think the authors of Genesis were aiming more at theology than they were history. i.e., they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be through their stories and words, not historical events.

So I better understand your position: Genesis 1 to 11 is attempting to reveal or describe God’s character through stories (like of Adam and Eve, the flood, etc)? Is that the claim?

As to sources of that belief, well, isn't it kind of self-evident? Do we not intuitively characterize the bible as such? i.e., as intending to be a revelation of God? (Whether we believe what it says or not...)

But that’s a separate point. I think this thread’s concerned with the sources of the stories themselves, not the beliefs that may have arisen from them.

What is your source that the bible is above all trying to reveal history? I get that many of the books have a historic flavor, no doubt.

<bolding mine>

I don’t think we’re arguing the historic flavor. However, it strikes me that an apologist could try to claim all the verifiable biblical history at face value, then have the ready excuse for unverifiable stories as never being about history in the first place.

Mixing fact and fiction to get one’s point across is fine. As you said:

But all that means (IMO) is the authors used history as a literary device to make their ideas of God more engaging and real.

Then it can be similarly stated that the authors used myth as a literary device. In other words, borrowed from another culture to strengthen their own beliefs.

[TRANSPONDER]

Quite so.

There are two approaches to genesis in particular and they rather reflect the Fundamentalist and the cafeteria - Christian approach. One stubbornly insists that it is fact, it happened (history) as it says, give or take understandable human misperception or copyist errors. The others say pretty much' 'Metaphorically true' which seems to mean it is myth, but a myth of something believed to be true.

That is of course easier for the atheist (and Bible critic) to live with than (effectively) science -- denial and alternative history, but it is appeal to Faith without even bad evidence.

It does not, a you imply, have a place in any serious discussion on Bible - validity, which is what the discussion comes down to, in the end.

[theophile]

It may just be me here, but I think the authors of Genesis were aiming more at theology than they were history. i.e., they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be through their stories and words, not historical events.

So I better understand your position: Genesis 1 to 11 is attempting to reveal or describe God’s character through stories (like of Adam and Eve, the flood, etc)? Is that the claim?

Yes. I think that was more the aim of the writers than history was. To be clear, I'm not saying they didn't have other aims when they wrote or redacted parts of Genesis (including the purpose and role of man and even the portrayal of history), but the primary aim was to reveal what they believed to be God, and 'flexing' history to that end. i.e., any history they portrayed on the way was either as device or side-effect.

Put yourself in their shoes 3-4000 years ago. The situation was one of competing gods and cosmologies. Genesis 1, for example, is an obvious counter-narrative to the Enuma Elish. The question is: did Israel compose Genesis 1 to correct the historic record on the creation of the world as on offer there, or to counter its god-notions of Marduk, Tehom, etc., and to give Israel its own proper identity as a people grounded in God? ...

I believe the latter is a far more convincing explanation. And again, 'history' is just a device they used to bring that God-concept to life and to draw a genealogical line.

As to sources of that belief, well, isn't it kind of self-evident? Do we not intuitively characterize the bible as such? i.e., as intending to be a revelation of God? (Whether we believe what it says or not...)

But that’s a separate point. I think this thread’s concerned with the sources of the stories themselves, not the beliefs that may have arisen from them.

Apologies, you asked about sources and I took that to mean references for what I was saying.

More to the point, I think the sources are manifold (Israel's own history, oral traditions, pure imagination, other texts in Israel's cultural milieu, etc.). So I 100% agree with your point in the OP that various stories have precedents. Like the flood. Or the entire book of Job. And I agree with your derived implication from this fact that these texts aren't history, or at least that they certainly aren't reliable as such.

I just can't take the next step with you that there is nothing special about them because of that, since I don't believe their primary aim was to convey history. And perhaps just as relevant, since I don't believe the historical inaccuracies present in them necessarily undermine the God-concept primarily on offer. The nature and character of the God on offer is the same whether or not the flood happened or happened in the way described. We should criticize the God-concept on its own terms, not on the terms of the (his)story used as a revelatory device...

What is your source that the bible is above all trying to reveal history? I get that many of the books have a historic flavor, no doubt.

<bolding mine>

I don’t think we’re arguing the historic flavor. However, it strikes me that an apologist could try to claim all the verifiable biblical history at face value, then have the ready excuse for unverifiable stories as never being about history in the first place.

Mixing fact and fiction to get one’s point across is fine. As you said:

But all that means (IMO) is the authors used history as a literary device to make their ideas of God more engaging and real.

Then it can be similarly stated that the authors used myth as a literary device. In other words, borrowed from another culture to strengthen their own beliefs.

So where does that leave us then? I would go so far as to give the bible no credit as history and I 100% agree that Israel borrowed from other cultures. Are you insistent on your point that even as such, there is therefore nothing special about Genesis as a revelation [from] God?

(I bracket 'from' here since it was your language, but I wouldn't use it myself, and would prefer 'of' instead. I tend to respect the thoroughly human craftsmanship of these texts and give no such credit to God.)

[1213]

...The evidence of the evolution of the story from the Sumerian is reason to think it was the original. There is NO evidence to support your 'Genesis was the original' claim....

Your belief in the evolution of the story is not sufficient evidence, sorry.

[TRANSPONDER]

...The evidence of the evolution of the story from the Sumerian is reason to think it was the original. There is NO evidence to support your 'Genesis was the original' claim....

Your belief in the evolution of the story is not sufficient evidence, sorry.

That is not for you to decide, other than for yourself. I think it IS sufficient evidence because it is the only evidence, together with Sargon in the Bulrushes and a few other hints of a Babylonian origin of the Exodus as well. You are denying it as a personal case, understood; dismissal of evidence through faith. We are familiar with that and with the Bible -apologists thinking that if they deny everything they win. They don't, because it isn't all about them, but about who has the best case.

I won't rehearse all the evidence for deep time geology and biological evolution, which all rules out the Flood and Ark scenario. Nor the serious impossibility - flaws in the Eden and Flood scenario. The evidence is there and denial won't alter that. It is a question, isn't it of who has the best, most logical and evidence - based case, and who is relying on faithbased denial.

And it comes down in the end to the audience, here, in the debating halls, on the internet and worldwide, and the bottom line is, whether the atheist voice can be silenced or whether the people (whom I trust want to believe what's true and not parrot twaddle that makes them look silly (like hydroplate theories that only work as tabletop models,and don't even fit the Flood -narrative) have enough room for doubt that they will listen.

That's what it has been about for a long time and NOT whether the individual believer can deny everything on Faith.

[Clownboat]

It may just be me here, but I think the authors of Genesis were aiming more at theology than they were history. i.e., they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be through their stories and words, not historical events.

I'm curious about your take on what you think the authors of the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Quran and the Hadiths and the Agamas were aiming at when they told stories about their gods and creation.

Were they trying to reveal what they believed their God to be through their stories and words? If so, what would this mean about the available god concepts that humans have constructed? Is there any reason to believe one of these concepts is accurate while we dismissing the others?

I ask because you said: "they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be" - and that brings up a mechanism for how humans have arrived at all the available god concepts we now have. Make more sense to me than having all the god to be false, except for one. How about you?

[theophile]

It may just be me here, but I think the authors of Genesis were aiming more at theology than they were history. i.e., they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be through their stories and words, not historical events.

I'm curious about your take on what you think the authors of the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Quran and the Hadiths and the Agamas were aiming at when they told stories about their gods and creation.

Were they trying to reveal what they believed their God to be through their stories and words? If so, what would this mean about the available god concepts that humans have constructed? Is there any reason to believe one of these concepts is accurate while we dismissing the others?

I ask because you said: "they were trying to reveal what they believed God to be" - and that brings up a mechanism for how humans have arrived at all the available god concepts we now have. Make more sense to me than having all the god to be false, except for one. How about you?

I don't want to be reductive, but in general yes, I think other sacred texts are trying to work out the same big questions as the bible, which naturally involves accounting for God (even if it's no God), how it all started (some kind of cosmology), where it's all going (an eschatology), and the role of humankind and everything else in it all. They essentially aim to account for everything up to and including God. All things past, present and future, typically in narrative form.

This will be a controversial opinion, but I think of sacred texts as a unified field theory of sorts, but not just explaining the physical world as a physicist might aim for, but everything else as well at an appropriate level.

This view has some real implications for your questions:

1. It means that despite different narratives, terminology, traditions, etc., there is likely to be (and I believe is) a lot of common elements / ground across traditions, just as there is in scientific circles. Like the OP says, there is a clear intermingling of ideas going on here; shared foundations so to speak like the laws of thermodynamics in science, or something like the golden rule for many religions. So it's not a straight up "this one is right and these are all wrong" kind of a thing. There is too much in common for that.

2. But it also means that comparison is possible, insofar as everything the sacred text says needs to hold up to reality (just as everything a unified theory predicts needs to pan out). So while it's not a "this one is right and these are all wrong" kind of thing, there is a real possibility that one is better than the other. Sacred texts can be assessed and compared for the accuracy and comprehensiveness of their explanatory power... (I'm not saying it would be easy to do this, but only that it's possible.)

As to which one is the best, well, given our general lack of ability to agree on things as human beings, that may be a matter of choice. Frankly, it comes down to decisions made with limited understanding on all our parts, perhaps even without recognition that we're making a decision.

But I also think it comes down to choice in a different sense, by which I mean God is ultimately something we have to choose. God is more a title or honorific we assign to something than the self-given name or intrinsic nature of some actual being out there... As I said, Israel was trying to reveal what they believed God to be. Which means, what they chose to call God out of all the possible things they could have, whether it exists or not.

[Clownboat]

God is more a title or honorific we assign to something than the self-given name or intrinsic nature of some actual being out there...

I find your ignostisism to be justified as the way you use the term god is very generic and non informative.

"Is there any reason to believe one of these concepts is accurate while we dismissing the others?"
I will assume your answer to my question is 'no' since the term god is just a title and doesn't even reflect some actual being out there.