RE: The death of the RTB model

From: <glennmorton@entouch.net>
Date: Wed Feb 22 2006 - 18:25:32 EST

Dick wrote:

>>That’s all it was - a big flood covering about 300 miles.  Big enough to wipe out the Accadians, not big enough to terminate the Sumerians, no impact on the Egyptians.  No need to look for some geological event.  All the central cities along the Euphrates River showed riverine flood deposits dated to roughly 2900 BC.  Ninevah to the north had a flood dated much earlier, but Ninevah had no Adamite generations until Asshur discovered it after the flood. <<<

Then this is a whole lot of hullabaloo about a normal river flood. Wow. Nothing particularly noteworthy about that.

>>Who thinks the Turkish border is in play?  The hills of Armenia (“mountains of Ararat”) had no border.<<

Doesn't matter, you still have to expend a lot of energy pushing the boats uphill against the current.  8 humans couldn't do that, and why didn't they go east or west and get out of the flood in about a distance of 5 miles? Noah sure was dumb to pole that boat several hundred miles north when poling it only 2-3 miles east or west would have gotten him out of the water sooner.

 

>>>The eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh mentions putting punting holes in the boat when Utnapishtim built it.  And punting up and down the canal network and rivers is still carried out in Iraq to this day. <<<

So, let me get this straight.  Noah was using the canals, which were not much more filled with water than they normally were?  Was he delusional about there actually being a flood? The boats of today are not very big and easy to push around with poles. So if that was the kind of boat noah had, did he only have his trusty dog and a pig along with the family for a ride?

>>You don’t want to concede even one point that should be patently obvious to anyone who just reads the accounts side by side which I assume you did.  Did you see any lack of relationship in the side-by-side narratives?  The preponderance of similarities points to a common origin.  Agree?  All the flood narratives in accounts written earlier than Genesis are about a Mesopotamian episode.  Agree?  Then Genesis too is a Mesopotamian episode.  Agree?  This is just an ordinary logic tree.  Nothing tricky about it.<<<

I have never argued against there being a  connection between the stories. I do tend to reject always treating the Babylonian texts as if they are the real authoritative source. If they are, we should go worship the gods of Babylon rather than this johnnycomelately Jehovah.

 

But that isn’t all the evidence.  The Sumerian king list after the flood restores kingship in Kish.  Where is Kish?  After twenty-three >>>kings rule in Kish, “Kish is smitten with weapons” and kingship transfers to “E-Anna(k).”  That’s “Enoch” according to some translations – the city Cain built.  There’s more, but that’s why I wrote a book.

Plus, the next event in Genesis is the tower event.  Where is Babylon?  Ziggurats were built from no earlier than 3000 BC starting as simple mud brick platforms and grew to massive structures that the Egyptians emulated when they built the pyramids.  Ziggurat building stopped when Sumer was destroyed in 2000 BC.  This 1,000 year period of history fits neatly into Genesis 11.

Now if we allow that the flood in all likelihood is a 2900 BC Mesopotamian event, then we can move back ten generations and place Adam in the same area.  Where was the Garden of Eden?  Well, where is the Euphrates?  Where was Assyria?  If you’re tired of listening to me, read Carol Ann Hill’s article “The Garden of Eden: A Modern Landscape” on the ASA web page:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Hill.html

All of Genesis 1-11 fits nicely into this historical timeframe.  The only reason to deny it is because we would prefer to think that all humanity is included here.  It isn’t.<<<

Sure, we can do all that but if we do, we reject what others here have noted, that the Bible does teach us that Adam was the progenitor of mankind.  And as far as I can see, we lose any reason to think the flood is much more than a normal river flood in which a stupid guy went hundreds of miles north rather than east or west for a much shorter stay on the waters.

 

>>>BTW, when I was taking survival training in the Air Force we ate insects.  (No scorpions where we were the California mountains.)  Our instructor reminded us that insects were pure protein.  Personally I like my protein to taste more like charcoal broiled steak<<<

I must say, when I ate the silkworm pupae (which one can buy at convenience stores here in nice packets), I nearly blew lunch.  They were tasty, but the concept of eating silkworm pupae was a wee bit too much even for me.  But you are right, insects are eaten by many primitive tribes--they are plentiful and nutricious. So remember what mama always says: You have to finish your grasshoppers before you can go out and play.

 

Received on Wed Feb 22 18:28:33 2006