RE: [asa] RE: Are there guidelines for accommodational interpretation?

Hi Don, you wrote:
 
>>Thank you. I agree that you can infer that the biblical and other ANE
accounts of creation, flood, and Tower of Babel are related. But it is a

big leap to assume that they are entirely historical, in the sense that
most people use the term historical ---- referring to events in the past

that really did happen, rather than merely something that is based to
some extent on history like a historical novel. A simpler assumption
would be that these accounts are shared mythology.<<
 
The people and places mentioned in all accounts appear to be real people
and places. The Sumerian and Akkadian gods are invented. Some of the
events are embellished and poems and stories about gods and goddesses
are fiction, but they were likely written and read as fiction.
 
>>Let me put things in another way. Would you say that Genesis 1-11
includes an account of some events that are not factual history?<<
 
Let's take another example, Jonah and the big fish. Sounds incredible.
People on this list have cited it as obvious poetry. Three days in the
belly of a fish and why did the Assyrians pay attention to a lone
visitor from an enemy country?
 
Ishme-Dagan was an Assyrian king turned god. He is depicted on Assyrian
monuments as half man half fish. This man/fish persisted as a cult for
centuries. This fish-god was worshiped as an Assyrian divinity.
Berossus wrote about a part man part fish who came up out of the sea.
 
Quoting Apollodorus, Berossus wrote: "...the whole body of the animal
was like that of a fish; and had under a fish's head another head, and
also feet below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's
tail. His voice, too, and language were articulate and human; and a
representation of him is preserved even to this day. This being used to
converse with men in the day time, but took no food at that season; and
he gave them an insight into letters, and sciences, and every kind of
art. He taught then to construct houses, to found temples, to compile
laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge.
When the sun set, it was the custom of this being to plunge again into
the sea, and abide all night in the deep; for he was amphibious."
 
Berossus also says that from time to time, ages apart, other beings of
like nature with this first great teacher, came up out of the sea with
fresh instructions for mankind, and that each one of these avatars, or
incarnations, marked a new epoch, and the supernatural messenger bore a
new name.
 
So it seems reasonable that during that particular time in Israel's
history when Jonah was written that to such a people who were living in
Ninevah at that time and worshiping within this cult, that when a fish
comes out of the river and coughs up a man speaking Hebrew with a
southern accent that this is a guy worth paying attention to. And they
did, converting on the spot much to Jonah's chagrin.
 
Further, Berossus gives the name of "Oannes" to one of the fish-gods
which may be Jonah written in Greek.
 
If fact even today cartoon characters in Mosul are still depicted as
half man half fish because everybody knows the stories. And there is a
mosque there devoted to Yonah where he is reputedly buried.
 
You can read this account, "Jonah in Ninevah" in Journal of Biblical
Literature, Vol XI 1892, Part 1. All except the last paragraph. I have
a friend who lived in Mosul, visited the Mosque, and prayed to come to
America. Apparently old Jonah is still working miracles.
 
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
 

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Received on Fri Jun 16 01:18:15 2006