Re: [asa] Two questions... (bottlenecking)

 Hi Dick, my answers are interspersed below.

>> If Adam lived at Eridu and Eridu was dated by archaeologist at 4800
BC, and if the flood was at 2900 BC that puts 1900 years between covered by ten
generations.  You can do that math.  <<

I agree there is a literary connection between the Adam of the Bible and the Adapa/Adamu of the Mesopotamian literature, but only a literary connection.  I don't agree that the "Adam" of the Hebrew was an individual identical to the (presumably) historical Adapa/Adamu that inspired the Mesopotamian myths.  Therefore the Seth geneology that begins with Adam is not constrained to begin at the date of Eridu.  I believe Adam is a symbolic character in a literary/theological account, and he represents the origin of all humanity (not just the Jews).  When the writer of Genesis 2-3 chose the name to give this mythological character, he undoubtedly would have given him the name that was famously handed down within Mesopotamian literature -- Adapa/Adamu.  That's the way the myth genre works.  It builds on prior myths in order to poignantly make its intended statements.  This part of Genesis follows (as literature) the norms of that genre (although it is inspired and tells the theological truth).  So there are definitely connections to Mesopotamian myth, but I don't believe they are always literal history.

>> Any errors in numerology would foul that up.  If
the flood was at 2900 BC and Abraham can be dated
around 2000 BC, that puts 900
years between and 90 years between generations.  Long life required.<<

There is a lot of uncertainty in the dating of both Abraham and the Flood.  I agree that the Flood at Shurrupak is probably the one that inspired (more than the other major floods) the flood myths of Mesopotamia, and therefore it is the one that the Biblical writer was interpreting theologically in light of the Abrahamic faith.  But that does not give us enough certainty in the number of years to overthrow what we know from biology and the clear statistics of the Patriarch ages and SKL.  The OT chronologies are ALL problematic, and this probably reflects many changes of numbering and dating systems down through the years.

>> The names for Noah are Ziusudra in
Sumerian and Utnapishtim in Akkadian, both translate about the same: “he
who found long life.”  The reason Gilgamesh sought him out was because it
was thought he had the secret of eternal life.  <<

But this is irrelevant as to whether the historical flood hero lived a literal 600 years and then died, because in the Mesopotamian myths he lived eternally.  In the Bible he actually died far earlier than any of his anscestors, if the dates were literal.  Thus, he is not "one who found long life" in that context.  The discrepancy between the Mesopotamian accounts and the biblical is that in the former he had been fully mythologized into a Santa Clause-like figure.A
0 Consider the similarities:  He lived forever with his wife (Mrs. Clause), in a remote location (North Pole) that could only be reached by a special vehicle (sleigh) piloted by magical creatures (flying reindeer).  All these elements are in the Mesopotamian myth of Ziusudra and have no basis in historical fact.  Also, the cultural importance of the Flood accounts in Mesopotamia was huge (and so is the Christmas story with Santa, today).  And both Ziusudra and Santa were originally real people, but became mythologized due to the cultural importance they took on until at last the inflated mythological versions bore no resemblance to the real persons.  In both cases, this took place over a thousand or so years.  No wonder the writer of Genesis wanted to re-interpret the Flood and set it straight, theologically!  Conclusion:  the existence of a Santa Clause-like figure in Mesopotamian myths is is no evidence that people actually lived long ages.

>> In Jubilees, all the sons and
grandsons and their families remained with Noah until he died then they
departed.  That means Noah was contemporary with at least three more
generations after the flood.<<

Not unlike some people who live relatively long lives today -- but let's also remember that Jubilees is not in the canon of Scripture and may have contained inflated, mythological material.

>> The whole story of Abraham’s life
was how he was 75 years old before he left Mesopotamia and thought t
o be too
old to have children so Sarah convinces him to knock up an Egyptian lady, then
years later he has Isaac, then blah, blah, blah, and he dies at 175.  The story
makes no sense if he lived to only 40 or 50 years which was normal for persons who
lived during that time frame.<<

Yes, but there is a huge difference between Abraham's age versus 300 or 500 or 900; the biological differences are huge.  But anyhow, I am also keeping in the back of my head that maybe these dates for Abraham are also mis-translated, and that Paul in referring to these ages had to use the figures available in the 1st century translations otherwise his words have been unintelligible to his audience.  So I wonder whether God's method of inspiring Paul guaranteed the historical accuracy of the figures or just the accuracy of Paul's citation of the MSS extant in his day.  Paul's argument does not really require the dates to be exact, and 175 is still of the order of magnitude of an ordinary life (unlike the Patriarch ages).  Since Abraham and Sarah
never had children in the first 20, 30, 40, etc., years of their
marriage, they probably had already drawn conclusions about the
"deadness" of Sarah's womb and of Abraham's body, long before their
ages became unusual.  To be intellectually honest, I am considering this possibility and leaving it as an undecided point that God might one day explain.  But if Abraham did live to literally 175 years of age, then praise God for b
lessing Abraham!  In any case, it does not explain nor therefore overthrow all the strong numerical evidence that the Patriarch ages were mistranslations.

>> Josephus recorded: “Now Moses says
that this flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the forementioned month; and
was two thousand two hundred and fifty-six years from Adam the first man; and
the time is written down in our sacred books, those who then lived having noted
down, with great accuracy, both the births and deaths of illustrious men.” 
Once again ten generation divided into 2,256 requires long life spans.<<

This can't possibly be of any consequence, since Josephus was a product of the 1st century AD and was working with the MSS as they existed in his day.  The canonization of the mis-translated and edited version of the Scriptures probably occurred several 100's of years before Josephus to explain the branching and full acceptance of the three manuscript families that existed by his time.

>> Again Josephus: “I am borne out in
what I have said by all those that have written antiquities, both among the
Greeks and Barbarians: for Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, and Berosus,
who compiled the Chaldean, and Mochus and Hestiæus and Hieronymyus the Egyptian,
who compiled the Phoenician history, agree to what I here say.  And Hesiod, Hecatæus,
Hellanicus and Acusilaus, and beside them, Ephorus and Nicolaus, relate that
the ancients lived a thousand years.” <<=0
A

None of these voices were early enough to give anywhere near a trustworthy witness.  The basic problem is that they were all handling very old, very ill-understood myths.  The ones who may have had access to the Bible or to rumors derived from a distance from those who had the Bible were likewise dealing with numbers that could no longer be understood because the original number system was long extinct.

In particular:

Hesoid lived between 1200 and 700 BC, making him at least 1.7 millennia after the Shurrupak flood and probably much later.  Hestiaeus and Ephorus lived in the 300's BC, about 2.5 millenia after the flood.  Manethro and Berossus lived in the 300's to 200's BC, about 2.5 millenia after the flood.  Moschus lived ca. 150 BC.  I can't find a Hieronymus who was an Egyptian (only one from Cardia who was indeed an historian, 354-250 BC).  But any Hieronymus "the Egyptian" would likewise have been in the Hellenistic period or later because his name is Greek.  Heallanicus lived a bit earlier in the 400's, but was and is considered unreliable and to have used poor methods. Acusilaus lived even earlier in the 500's, but Wikipedia has this to say of him:

"Three books of his genealogies are quoted, which were for the most part only a translation of Hesiod into prose. Acusilaus claimed to have taken some of his information from bronze
tablets discovered in his garden which were inscribed with information,
a source=2
0looked upon with suspicion by some modern commentators."

And he is still a good 1.4 millennia after the flood!  The only Nocolaus I can find was contemporary with Josephus and maybe too late to be the one he was citing.

Of these, none are anywhere near the age of the Flood.  Hesiod is far older than the rest, but he wasn't dealing with Semitic legends; he was dealing with purely Greek mythologies.  From the little I read of Hesiod I don't recall anybody living 1000's of years, but it's not unbelievable that a Greek poet would put something like that into his poetry.  He became an authority to the subsequent Greeks so if he put something like that in one of his songs then no doubt it was repeated forever in the Greek world.  None of this tells us anything reliable enough to overthrow biology or the statistical/numerical evidence that the ages are mistranslations.

Phil

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Received on Wed Feb 11 20:54:44 2009