From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Fri Nov 01 2002 - 00:56:32 EST
Peter wrote citing a Sumerian/Akkadian expert (and I commend him for
consulting an expert),
<< Early Sumerian pictograms, e.g. those of Uruk before 3000 B.C., were
sufficiently complex for narrative. The signs were already heavily stylized,
i.e. they were the result of a lengthy developmental history. ...
One doesn't expect to find any narratives appreciably older than from about
2800 B.C., but neither is it completely impossible that some predating
3000 B.C. might yet be found.
Wordplays like Gen.2:7 Adam and adamah (ground), 4:1 Cain and kanah
(acquire), 4:25 Sheth and shith (appoint, set) are very simple to find.
When a text is translated into a different language, they can often be
replaced by similar new wordplays. For "rib" (Gen.2:21), for instance, a
wordplay fitting into the context is possible in Sumerian
>From this, I [Peter] conclude that Paul's description of the development of
writing in Mesopotamia and his datings hold up, more or less. But his
"impossible"'s have to be softened quite a bit. We just don't know
enough, as yet, to exclude the possibility of Wiseman's hypothesis of
Genesis in cuneiform on tablets.>>
I never said the writing of Gen 1-5 in Sumerian pictographs would be
"impossible" prior to 2900, but I did imply that it is highly improbable. I
said, "Gen 1-5:2 with its sophisticated wordplays, poetic lines and involved
narrative simply does not fit the kind of writing that existed earlier than
c. 2900 BC." From 3200 to 3000 the pictographs began to be stylized, but all
that means, for example, is that a drawing of a jar that anyone could
recognize became a more stilted simpler more formal drawing of a jar (one can
see examples of this stylization on pp 44 and 45 of The Origins of Writing,
ed. Wayne M. Senner, 1989). There still are no tenses, persons, cases.
I suppose if one considers something like "man buy two white oxen, oxen eat
barley, man sell one ox" a narrative, narrative was possible before 3000 BC,
but was "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
Jehovah God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of any tree of the garden?" I don't think so; and I doubt that
the expert in Bern will say that Gen 1-5 could have been written originally
even in the stylized pictographs of 3000 BC. In addition to the
primitiveness of the language, one must also consider the historical context:
At a time when society's financial, religious and political leaders, who had
every reason to exploit writing (as they did later) to advance their causes,
are doing nothing with writing except writing simple receipts and lists of
words for learning the language, it is not likely that someone else is using
this early stage of writing for writing involved advanced narratives about
origins.
Yes, wordplays in one language can sometimes be translated into another
language and retain the wordplay, but not always; so again it is a matter of
probabilities. Can all of the word plays in Gen 1-5 be translated back into
Sumerian and still be wordplays? I seriously doubt it. Yet that is what is
needed if Gen 1-5 is taken from a Sumerian original.
Using my little Sumerian dictionary, and looking for words which most closely
match the meaning of the Hebrew words used in the wordplays in Gen 1-5, I
find that the wordplay in Gen 2:23 "she shall be called ishah because she was
taken out of ish" becomes "she shall be called "mi" (or "mu") because she was
taken out of "gitlam."
Gen 2:5, 7 "Adam from the adamah" becomes "lu" from the "kankal."
Gen 4:25, "called his name Sheth for she said, God has shathed me another
seed." becomes "called his name Sheth because God has "siged" me another
seed."
Gen 4:1 "bare Cain and said I have cened a man." becomes " bare Cain and said
I have "tuked" (or tuged or dug or duged) a man."
A scholar of Sumerian may be able to do better; but, I think it is highly
improbable that anyone will be able to make all of these word plays work in
Sumerian.
The wordplays in Gen 1-5, therefore, speak strongly against the idea that Gen
1-5 comes from a Sumerian original.
<<We may have to modify the interpretation of the colophon of the second,
or "Adam's tablet" (Gen.2:4b - 5:1a), e.g. by hypothesizing that Adam's
name in the colophon in 5:1a indicates "information obtained from Adam",
rather than Adam as owner or commissioner. The colophon of this tablet
has a peculiarity in that it is the only one containing the word
"sepher" (book, writing) before "toledot" (account, genealogy). Was this
to indicate that on this tablet, some information that previously had
been transmitted orally was now being committed to writing?>.
It seems more likely that an oral tradition would have been labeled something
that speaks of oral tradition as songs like that of Miriam and Moses (Ex 15;
Deut 31) are called songs. All of the supposed tablets are "books" whether
the word is mentioned or not. But, Gen 1-5 could come from oral tradition.
In fact, all of the toledoth sections could come from oral tradition. That is
another reason this theory proves nothing about the reliability of the
history in Gen 1-11. Even if the contents of the various toledoth sections
came to Moses from written tablets, they could all have come from oral
traditions written down in sections for the first time long after the events
they tell of. They could all come from the time of Abraham or even of Jacob
for all we know.
Paul
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