To the Group:
For those of you who don't live in the Kansas City area, which is just
about everybody, the following article appeared today in the religion section.
http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/religion.pat,fyi/3774d8ed.a18,.html
Following is what I wish I could have gotten into the article:
What I find intriguing about the flood, is that so little is known by the
general public, even much of what is known has been around for over 100
years! Consider that Genesis was written no earlier than about 3500 years
ago if Moses is the author, or later if Wellhausen is right about a late
date and multiple authors. But the clay tablets discovered in the various
cities excavate in southern Mesopotamia were written long before Moses was
even born!
The eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh strikes me as the most important,
independent corroboration of the biblical flood narrative in existence, and
not because the flood description closely parallels Genesis, but because of
what it confirms about Noah (Utnapishtim).
The Sumerian king list places Gilgamesh as the fifth post-flood ruler of
Sumerian "Uruk," "Erech" in Accadian and in Genesis 10:10, and both names
derive from "Enoch" the city named by Cain, Adam's son. The city site is
the same, which means it existed both before and after the
flood. Historians independently place Gilgamesh at 2800 BC, which is 100
years after the archaeological dating of the clay layers in the middle
cities of southern Mesopotamia.
Now look at the beginning of the legend:
Gilgamesh said to him to Utnapishtim the Faraway:
"As I look upon thee, Utnapishtim,
Thy features are not strange at all; even as I art thou
The name Utnapishtim means "long life." It was reputed he was
immortal. The very reason Gilgamesh sought him out was to discover the
secret of longevity. Yet Gilgamesh is surprised that they look no different.
My heart had regarded thee as resolved to do battle,
[Yet] thou liest indolent upon thy back!
And Noah was found drunk in his tent.
[Tell me,] how joinst thou the Assembly of the gods,
In thy quest of life?"
And Noah found favor with God.
Utnapishtim said to him, to Gilgamesh:
"I will reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, a hidden matter
And a secret of the gods will I tell thee:
Shuruppak-a city which thou knowest ...
(And) which on Euphrates' [banks] is situate-
That city was ancient, (as were) the gods within it,
When their heart led the great gods to produce the flood.
The last king listed on some of the Sumerian king lists before "the flood
swept thereover" was Ziusudra - the Sumerian Noah who was king of
Shuruppak. The king lists that omit Ziusudra end with Ubartutu at the
flood. That is easily explained if Ubartutu and Methuselah are one and the
same. Methuselah lived 969 years according to Genesis.
If we add the age of Methuselah when his son Lamech was born (187) to the
age of Lamech when Noah was born (182) to the age of Noah at the time of
the flood (600), we also get 969. So Methuselah lived until the
flood. And when Utnapishtim is warned of the flood, he is addressed as
"man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu." In this case either "son" or
"grandson" would be the same word, just as Christ is called "son of David."
In essence, the genealogies and the flood narrative in Genesis is so
intertwined with the lore of southern Mesopotamia, the legends, the king
lists, the cities, the clay layers discovered at the city sites, etc.; that
for one to suggest, as Ballard has done, that the flood occurred 2500 years
earlier in Turkey at the Black Sea, this can only be a publicity stunt for
the sole purpose of raising funds for his costly exploration. And the
reason newspapers such as the Star printed it is because the data and
evidence I just cited has not seen the light of day.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
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