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

Hi Phil:

As to Adam being a real flesh and blood human being, the bloodline from Adam
to the twelve tribes was common knowledge. From the twelve tribes, the Jews
recorded the births of their children in the temple in Jerusalem simply
because it was important for them to know who belonged to which tribe. This
was especially important for choosing marriage partners. Only we Christians
could imagine untold scores of missing generations. To them it would be and
still today is unthinkable. Copying mistakes – sure, an occasional
inadvertent deletion, that’s to be expected. But simply as a device to
drive Adam back into antiquity tens of thousands of years? You gotta be
kidding.

Human nature doesn’t seem to change much over the eons. I believe we can
make observations about human nature as we see it today and project it back
to determine what is likely to have happened. I had lunch with an
anthropologist who subscribes to the theory based upon DNA evidence that
there was no gene flow between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens whereas I think
it is likely. At the outset is likely that Homo sapiens pushed Neanderthals
into extinction as they have done with many other lesser creatures that are
no longer with us today. In warfare (something I do know a little about),
normally in ancient days the men would gird up for an assault on remote
villages or cities occupied by other races, nationalities, colors, or in
this case another species, or sub species. If the marauders are successful
they dispatch the men of the other villages and are left with the women and
children. What do you think plundering men would do with an assortment of
young women newly available? It doesn’t a lot of imagination to see that
the polite phrase “gene flow” would result. Why did 500,000 Spanish men
immigrate to South America beginning with the Conquistadors? Gold and
booty.

Now, go to any supermarket and look at the front pages of the magazines on
the racks. What do you see? Pictures of movie stars and rock stars, and
lurid stories about them on the inside which you can read if only you buy
those scandal rags and take them home. We have a fascination about famous,
glamorous people. That results in stories which these stars sometimes have
to vehemently deny. Racy stories about famous people sells copy and makes
money for all those in the magazine industry who have no compunction with
stretching the truth or making stuff up if necessary. Now apply what we
know to the question at hand. The legends of Dumuzi (Hebrew Tammuz) and
Gilgamesh, are cases in point. Both men are on the Sumerian King List.
Both lived fabulous lives according to the legends about them. These
stories were invented and copied by scribes who sold their work and profited
from the enterprise.

This brings us to Adam, Adapa/Adamu. Just as in the supermarket tabloids,
gods, goddesses, kings and the occasional queen got loads of press in Sumer
and Akkad. Adapa/Adamu is the lone exception and yet this legend had such
importance it was copied into various Semitic languages on different
branches of Noah’s family tree! That is significant. The commonalities
between the legend and the man Adam are striking. So I would conclude that
in all likelihood there was such a man from whom the Jews descended. The
graveyards of Mesopotamia were filled with his namesakes. The legend arose
about him as he was a “rock star,” known to everybody and the cuneiform clay
tablets were an easy sale. That makes more sense to me than the idea that
“Adam is a symbolic character in a literary/theological account.” Symbolic
characters don’t have flesh and blood offspring.

Dick Fischer, GPA president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of philtill@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 8:54 PM
To: dickfischer@verizon.net; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: 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 --
Ada pa/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 Biblic al 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
his20anscestors, 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. 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 to 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, an d 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 intell ectually 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 blessing
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.<<

< span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">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.” <<

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 li ved 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
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acusilaus#cite_ note-3> . Acusilaus claimed to
have taken some of his information from bronze tablets discovered in his
garden which were inscribed with information, a source looked 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

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:39:27 -0500