From: Peter Ruest (pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch)
Date: Fri Nov 08 2002 - 00:53:11 EST
Paul Seely wrote (1 Nov 2002):
>
> 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.
You wrote (8 Oct 2002): "... if Gen 1-36 was written down on clay
tablets in a series of "books"... In fact, I find it chronologically
impossible. Here's why: The art of writing before 3000 B.C. and probably
somewhat later was a matter of pictographs without grammar. That is, it
was not capable of expressing the ideas present in Gen 1 ff. The first
literary texts that we have are from c. 2600 B.C., but could conceivably
have been written somewhat earlier. Wiseman proposes that Gen 1-5:2 was
composed by Adam near the end of his life. Since Adam would have needed
a genuine writing system with grammar to compose such a book, he must
have died no earlier than 3000 B.C."
This is what I was referring to. To accommodate your chronological
objections, I proposed a hypothesis allowing Noah's father Lamech to
start writing, beginning with Adam's oral report of the contents of the
first two tablets. Of course, this minor modification of Wiseman's
thesis would even be unnecessary if writing started somewhat earlier.
> 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...
I agree with Lucien Carroll's (2 Nov 2002) disagreement with your
opinion.
> 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.
Even if their writing system may have been "primitive" (which I still
doubt), their language certainly was not primitive a mere 5000 or 5600
years ago. And most certainly, Adam's language was not "primitive"! Nor
were his capacities for planning transmission of revelations received
from God, no matter how he did that. What "society's financial,
religious and political leaders" did at that time may not be the key to
what a man of God did. It may even be that Adam belonged to the line of
the 10 pre-flood Sumerian "kings" found on a clay tablet. It seems that
our disagreement focuses on the historicity of Adam as a person. I think
this has theological implications, as well.
> 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.
Well, if Adam talked Sumerian, which would be the most natural inference
from what we know today, you may be right about the wordplays - unless
God, intending these wordplays in advance, gave Adam a name, and led him
and Eve to choose names in accordance with the properties of a later
Semitic language. Of course, this is speculation, but not more so than
the usual mythology hypothesis (in this context, I am still studying
Alexander RofÈ's book you recommended - more about this later).
> <<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.
Of course they are. But if this was the first "book" Lamech wrote, the
fact of writing it would be much more noteworthy than having received
some information orally, which had been happening all the time for
millennia. Starting with the second book, the uniqueness of a written
record would no longer apply.
> But, Gen 1-5 could come from oral tradition.
> In fact, all of the toledoth sections could come from oral tradition.
This is a non-sequitur. My concession to the late-writing postulate
implied a modification regarding the second colophon only. But your
argument implies a dismissal of all the evidence for the toledoth
structure of Genesis.
> 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
If, for the sake of argument, you postulate tablets written at the time
of Abraham or Jacob: what do you make of the colophon names (and the few
dating indications cited by Wiseman)? You again have to ignore them as
traditional colophons, destroying the obvious Genesis structure.
I have never claimed that Wiseman's hypothesis proves the reliability of
the history in Gen. 1-11, although tablets would support it. But an
interpretation supported by textual and archeological evidence, and
which is in agreement with the most natural understanding of Scripture,
is certainly better than a hypothetical source-critical dissection of
the Pentateuch which destroys much of its content and authority, and
with it, the faith of many people (such as Julius Wellhausen - and I
hope we don't have to add Jim Eisele's name).
Peter
-- Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland <pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution "..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Nov 08 2002 - 20:33:22 EST