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

Hi Phil, you wrote:
 
>Oh, I gotcha -- there are multiple Adamu's downstream from Noah.  I thought
you meant there were multiple paths back upstream to the original Adamu.<
 
The name Adamu perpetuated just as Philip does today.  In Assyria the name
Ashur perpetuated in succeeding generations as fathers named their sons
after the famous founder of Assyria.  But the name Asshur can’t be found
outside the Assyrians.    There was someone upstream from Noah named Adamu
whose name perpetuated to at least two branches of Noah’s descendants.  And
who else could it be but Adam?
 
>I should say again that I agree with your data's relevance to the Bible. 
But when the later Semites -- the Hebrews of the Exodus -- wrote their own
unique origins story, they weren't simply reproducing the earlier myths and
they were no longer interested only in the Semites.  They had more to say
than the earlier myths were saying, and they had freedom to adapt the
earlier stories for their present theological needs.<
 
I believe they were only concerned with their own race.  Peter wasn’t sure
Gentiles were worth saving, Paul had to talk him into it.
 
>The Hebrews had a much broader view of the world and its theological needs
than their Mesopotamian ancestors did.  The Hebrews of the Exodus were
coming out of Egypt, not Mesopotamia, and their ancestor Abraham had
abandoned the Mesopotamian culture long before Genesis was written.<
 
It’s a nice theory.  I’d like to agree with you.  I think the Israelites
were more concerned with surviving surrounded by warring nations, Egyptians,
Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Canaanites, Amalekites, Philistines.  They
didn’t have the luxury to dwell on theological needs for others.  They
clinged to their God and he brought them through it all.
 
>Mesopotamian literature did have stories that told the creation of mankind
as a whole (not just the Sumerians, not just the Akkadians, but all
mankind).  Where is the equivalent account in the Bible, if it is not the
creation of Adam?<
 
Enuma Elish is written in old Babylonian and attributes the creation of
mankind to Marduk.  Just shows you how imaginative scribes were in those
days.  And everybody enjoys a good story.  Adamites and later Semites were
surrounded always by various populations.  I don’t think they had any idea
where they came from and didn’t speculate.
 
>Adapa is not made from clay as Adam is.  Adapa is a baker, not a gardener. 
Adapa does not state or is not given homely rules about man & woman coming
together to be husband and wife (indicating the initiation of mankind). 
It's hard to find anything in the Adapa story that really parallels Adam's
story.  Yes, there seems to be some similarity in the Adapa story about
failing to achieve immortality.<
 
Here are 15 commonalities I’ve found:
 
1.  Adapa placed at Eridu, Babylonian tradition places the Garden of Eden
near Eridu
2.  Adapa also called “the Erechian” – Erech could be a corruption “Enoch.”
3.  Adapa neither god nor king, unique in Mesopotamian literature.
4.  Adapa called Atrahasis, “exceeding wise,” parallels Ziusudra (Noah).
5.  Adapa created by Ea {god), and Adam created “in the image” of God.
6.  Legend of Adapa found all over the region in different languages.
7.  Adapa was a “baker,” Adam told he would “eat bread.”
8.  Adapa a seer, blameless, clean of hands, anointer, observer of laws –
descriptive of Adam.
9.  Adapa “broke the wing of the south wind” and Adam was given “dominion”
10. Adapa brought “ill” upon mankind, through one man (Adam) “sin” entered
the world.
11. Adapa called to appear before Anu, the father-god, and Adam talked with
God.
12. Adapa and Adam both called to account for bad behavior.
13. Adapa offered the “food and water of eternal life, Adam cut off from the
“tree of life.”
14. Adapa told to return to earth and Adam told he would return to dust.
15. Both Adapa and Adam described as ancestral to the Assyrians.
 
>If the biblical Adam was derived from Adapa at all, then we must concede at
a minimum that it was changed in ways that make it far more similar to the
Mesopotamian creation of mankind than to the Mesopotamian Adapa story.<
 
No, I don’t believe the biblical Adam was derived from Adapa.  The legend of
Adapa/Adamu I believe was thought up by a scribe who drew upon elements that
were already known about the man and it was a man of whom they all were
keenly aware and related to.  The eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh is the same
thing, an imaginitive Akkadian scribe put the legendary king together with
the reknowned Noah and bulit his story on elements already popularly known.
 
Just like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree or throwing a
dollar across the Potomac.  It makes a good story because everybody knows
George Washington.
 
>Because of these radical changes, the Hebrews were free to transform their
"Adapa" into a universal character, representing all mankind.  I believe
with you that there was indeed a literal Adam the father of Seth in the
neolithic period, but that the Hebrews expanded him into a literary
character in the stories of creation and the Fall.  Thus, the timing of the
literal Adam/Adapa in Mesopotamia does not correlate to the actual timing of
mankind's origin, even though his character in Genesis 2-3 tells us the true
theology of mankind's origin.<
 
There is little I can see that would make Adapa much more than a very
special human, a priest, and nothing is said about his being a father at all
or even a husband, yet there is this one fragment.
 
“... what ill he has brought upon mankind,
  [And] the disease that he brought upon the bodies of men ...”
 
The gist I get here is that somehow he brought a plague or something(?)  And
we agree that the timing of Adam/Adapa does not correlate to mankind’s
origin.  Where we have a shade of disagreement is that I don’t think the
Israelites tried to make Adam into a universal progenitor of mankind.  We
Christians simply bestowed that honor on him out of ignorance and latter day
Jews seem to have drunk the same Kool Aid.
 
Dick Fischer, GPA president
Genesis Proclaimed Association
"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"
www.genesisproclaimed.org
 

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Received on Sat Feb 14 19:22:57 2009