Last night we talked about some of the other ancient
Mid-East Genesis epics. The three big ones are:
1) Atrahasis Epic – There are several gods working on the
earth. The one in charge of building rivers has problems with his kids. The
water/river god comes along and makes humans to help this other god build the
riverbeds.
2) Enuma Elish – A husband and wife god get into a fight
about their noisy kids. The wife kills the husband; then the kids hire a bigger
god to kill the wife. The bigger god creates the world from the wife’s body.
Humans are created to help build the city of the gods.
3) Gilgamesh Epic – This human king hears that one of his
ancestors gained immortality; goes in search of this ancestor. When he finds him,
the ancestor tells him a story about when the gods destroyed the earth with a
flood. Mankind lived due to one guy who build a square boat and hired some
professional sailors to sail it for him.
Yes – I summarized the epics a great deal… The point here is
that ‘professional scholars’ say that the Biblical record of creation and the
flood was a by-product of other myths in the area. However, when we read the other creation/flood myths on the same
or older time frame, we find that they are total different. It is much easier to see these three epics
coming from Genesis 1-11, then for Genesis coming from them. =/
[@more@]
Who’s Utnapishtim?
In reply to Ardell’s post:What if the Gilgamesh Epic IS the story of some king who went and found Noah? Or maybe Shem? Some have called Melchizedek, Shem. And Melchizedek was considered a man without beginning or end. So…So, if Melchizedek is She…
uh huh. sure.
You’ve really summarized those stories.
I’m not sure that you can tie any of those as decended/depended upon the other. Granted Enuma Elish is dated around the 11th century BC and Moses was ~3 centuries earlier. On a side note, see my post.
My post.
“I’m not sure that you can tie any of those as decended/depended upon the other.”
Some Modern scholars are teaching that Genesis was written in the fifth century BC as a retelling of stories from earlier sources. If this is true, then the writer or writers of Genesis could of used the above epics has sources.
However, when you look at the different stories and epics (there are more then just the above three) written in the same area, about or before Genesis, you realize that Genesis has very little in common (besides the general topics: creation, flood, etc).
Genesis is about a God would creates the world out of nothing, not the body of a dead god. Man is made in the image of God to walk with Him and be His friend, not as slaves to do all the bad jobs. Human kind is saved by the kindness of God, not out of luck or because one of the gods happen to overhear the plans of the other gods and tells man.
Genesis is so different from anything else it has to be from a divine source. You cannot tie it to anything else. If any of the stories are tied to a source, they would be tied to Genesis as one can see how it’s stories could of been twisted.
[Genesis ... has to be from a divine source.] That’s kinda definitive there. Ultimately, yes. But no other sources? We got nothing that we can say definitive about. We only know what has surrived. But then, thats why I don’t care for biblical studies that dwelve into sources. Is this verse from ‘D’ or ‘J’ or ‘E’? I think when you do that, you start treading on fragile ground.