Hi Glenn, you wrote:
>>First, why in the world would you want to discuss bears with me? What do
>>I know about bears? I honestly know nothing more than anyone would who
>>had taken a trip to the zoo. So if the subject is bears, please, you talk,
>>I'll listen.
>
>I fully agree, Dick, you know nothing about Bears, but you ought to take the
>time to learn about the wider world out there. To totally focus on
>Mesopotamia to the exclusion of everything else, you can't possibly know
>what is out there which might falsify your views.
Let's use the word "modify" rather than "falsify." For example, I misidentified the first
river in the Genesis 2:10-14 account. When I complete a revision, it will say:
In an article titled, “Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?,” archaeologist Juris Zarins identified an ancient river bed from LANDSAT space photos. Zarins says this:
"Genesis was written from a Hebrew point of view. It says the Garden was "eastward,' i.e., east of Israel. It is quite specific about the rivers. The Tigris and the Euphrates are easy because they still flow. At the time Genesis was written, the Euphrates must have been the major one because it stands identified by name only and without an explanation about what it "compasseth.' The Pison can be identified from the Biblical reference to the land of Havilah, which is easily located in the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7, 25:18) as relating to localities and people within a Mesopotamian-Arabian framework.
Supporting the Biblical evidence of Havilah are geological evidence on the ground and LANDSAT images from space. These images clearly show a "fossil river,' that once flowed through northern Arabia and through the now dry beds, which modern Saudis and Kuwaitis know as the Wadi Rimah and the Wadi Batin. Furthermore, as the Bible says, this region was rich in bdellium, an aromatic gum resin that can still be found in north Arabia, and gold, which was still mined in the general area in the 1950s."
Farouk El-Baz, a Boston University scientist, studied pebble distributions in Kuwait and was led to the same conclusion, a river once flowed into this country from the Hijaz mountains in Saudi Arabia. He dubbed it the “Kuwait River.” In an article for Biblical Archaeological Review, James A. Sauer associates the Kuwait River with the Pishon:
"Bible scholars have identified Havilah with the Arabian peninsula because it is rich with bdellium (fragrant resins) and precious stones, but they have been unable to pinpoint the location of the river in this arid region. The recent discovery of the Kuwait river adjacent to the Cradle of Gold, the only Arabian source for such “good gold,” has led James Sauer to suggest that this dry riverbed may be the Pishon."
This, plus Carol Hill's article in PSCF, "The Garden of Eden: A Modern Landscape,"
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Hill.html
modifies, in fact intensifies, my position that Adam appeared in southern Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago.
>And I might suggest taking some memory pills. The reason we are discussing
>bears is because of animal sacrifice.
"We," as in you and me, are not discussing bears.
>>What I mentioned is that at Catal Huyuk, a city that was abandoned
>>prior to the cities of southern Mesopotamia getting off the ground, there
>>was no animal sacrifice as evidenced by an alter coupled with a runoff
>>system that would channel the blood. Therefore, I consider it likely that
>>the kind of wholesale sacrificing of unblemished, domesticated animals
>>performed by the Israelites, and picked up by the Sumerians, was not
>>performed prior to the time of the Patriarchs, that is no earlier
>>than 7,000 years ago.
>
>Catal Huyuk doesn't constitute the entire universe of human activity. Nor is
>Catal Huyuk the only place in the world where humans lived 7000 years ago.
>Just because it wasn't done in Catal Huyuk doesn't mean it wasn't done
>elsewhere.
Absolutely! The world was populated in the millions 7,000 years ago. But my point has been that Adam is historical, Adam appeared long after the human race got its start, Adam has a place we can identify. And sacrificing farm-type animals as a covering for sin, or an offering to God (or gods), seems to have commenced in the same region at the same time.
>Do you know what a logical equivocation is? The joke went over your head.
And you accuse me of being a bad comedian?
(skipping over some bear facts)
>If the data that I report is subject to change with future discovery, then so is yours.
Agreed.
>There is more to the world than Mesopotamia, Dick. Lift your head and look
>around. It is a big, wide world out there full of activities which didn't
>take place in Mesopotamia.
Again, agreed. But there is an overwhelming (at least to me) amount of pontification on the similarities and contrasts between Genesis 1-11 and other Near Eastern literature. Just since 1996 when I published more has been written, and tidbits of data were written even then that I didn't find. I missed the link between Ziusudra's (Noah's) father SU-KUR-LAM with Lamech, for example.
The possible (probable) link between Adam and the legend of Adapa has been written about by seminary students seeking advanced degrees. Even Hallo wrote in 1970 in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies: "In literary Sumerian, the contrast "town and country" is commonly expressed by the pair uru and 'adam, literally "town and pasture.'"
The connection with 'adam and the "ground" in Genesis is mirrored with 'adam and empty pasture land in Sumerian.
In short, the argument I have advanced could be tightened and strengthened if I could just take the time to do more research, and if I could get the book re-published. You know how that goes.
Meanwhile, you want to talk about bears.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 22 2002 - 12:23:44 EDT