Ever the Expert

[Jet Black]

We may not know the reason, but it would be consistent with forbidding Adam from the eating from one tree, when all the others are freely given to him to eat. There's a certain pattern here that, in a way only God can make happen, serves as His signature.

you ideas are completely made up, as it were?

Personally, I believe that God is preparing His people for the time when they are to eat only the one true source of spiritual nurishment -- the bread of life that He will eventually provide in His Son Jesus.

I'd miss bacon.

 

[Oncedeceived]

You and I don't both know that. In fact, I know differenty. Moses did not write the Pentateuch, though believers wish to say he did.

Moses most likely compiled information that was kept earlier, kept information together during his lifetime and others compiled this material after his death. This material spanned the timeline of centuries.

I don't know when Abraham was supposed to have lived. I don't think anyone does. But it is doubtful that he would have lived before the 17th Century BCE as the Chaldeans were still a literate people by that time, and the daughter belief of the Hebrew hadn't yet begun.

Abraham was born around 2056 some cite as far back as 2066, it is considered to be around 1900 BC that he left Ur. What does the literacy of the Chaldeans have to do with when he lived? What is the daughter belief of the Hebrew?

The stories in Genesis came from multiple sources, and many of them were previously polytheistic.

There is no proof that Genesis came from any polytheistic religions. Genesis has the most reliable accounting of the history of creation/beginnings of our universe which others do not have.

And Moses' time was after Akenaten's monotheism, after Seneferu's parting of the Red Sea, and after Hammurabi's meeting with Shamash. This parallel definitely precedes the legends of Moses by several centuries, and was still written by the same culture, by the ancestors of the Biblical authors. So Moses' version still cannot be the original.

Moses was before Akenaten. Akenaten was 1350 BC and Moses 1450 BC.

The Seneferu's parting of the red sea is not the story of Moses and Hammurabi's depiction of the meeting with Shamash (which by the way says nothing about being on a mountain) can only be dated far after his lifetime and after Moses although his actual writtings are much earlier. Hammurabi's writtings do not claim meeting with Shamash on a mountain nor is it as with Moses:


hen Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind.

But Hammurabi gets the credit for being the first to establish any code of law. He received his law code on a visit with the sun-god, on a mountain, in a definite parallel to the story of the Ten Commandments. And Hammurabi's version was writ by the same culture as would conceive of Moses some 500 years later.

See above, there is no mention of the a visitation nor is there mention of a mountain. The laws were not God given but given by Hammurabi himself.

I might have, if it had been legitimate. Don't forget that I am a geology student myself. And as such, I can tell you there is no evidence of any deluge more global than that of the Tigris-Euphrates, which is detailed in the stories of Utna-Pishtim, Zuisudra, and Atrahasis. And that was a little over 300 years prior to the end of the 3rd Dynasty in Egypt, which by the way is when the Pharoah Seneferu ruled. Seneferu couldn't be a "contemporary with the exodus" (as your website claims) if he died more than 1,200 years earlier. (not 700, but 1200).

The article also cites Immanuel Velikovsky, as if he were a reliable authority on anything. Velokovsky was a psychiatrist who proposed that Venus jumped out of Jupiter by some unexplained means, and somehow criss-crossed Earth's orbit a number of times, each time near enough to us to cause virtually all of the calamities in the Bible. I read Velikovsky years ago, long before I knew pretty much anything, and was open to believe just about everything. But I also read Sagan, and in one of the COSMOS episodes, Sagan delved into Velikovsky's claims soundly and profoundly disproving each one of them. Then he said:

"The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong, or silly, or in gross contradiction of the facts, [which they were] rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists tried to surpress Velikovsky's ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in science."

However, I should also point out that to my experience, only misinformed or uneducated crackpots cite Velikovsky. And while you're asking me for reliable resources, you probably shouldn't try to counter what I find in college archeaology and geology course material with a website peddling astrology and Tarot readings on their home page. Try to find sites with some credibility.
You haven't yet, and I don't think you can.

"The truth is virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all."
--Senior Rabbi David Wolpe, Sinai Temple, Westwood, California
http://www.interfaithfamily.com/article/issue106/mann.phtml

No problem. I was only bringing it in for interest. I have no problem dismissing it if that is what you want to do. Like I said I have not studied the flood or evidence for or against.

But that doesn't matter because were talking about pagan parallels with the New Testament, details that weren't prophesied in the Old Testament, and so shouldn't exist if the story of Jesus were an original concept.

But you are citing parallels that are prophesied in the Old Testament, or actual parts of the Old Testament and then claiming that the New Testament borrowed from the pagan concepts.

 

[Novaknight1]

Here's Creation evidence.

http://www.creationevidence.org/scientific_evid/se_evidn4.html

 

[Tomk80]

Here's Creation evidence.

http://www.creationevidence.org/scientific_evid/se_evidn4.html

There's junk there, no evidence.

 

[Mistermystery]

Here's Creation evidence.

http://www.creationevidence.org/scientific_evid/se_evidn4.html

I fail to see what evidence there is on the page. The page is evidently junk, yes

 

[Oncedeceived]

But grammatically, it can't be interpreted the way you suggest.

By what grammarical rule would that be?

I did. She said Job was not the oldest book in the Bible, and that the version of the story that was finally written down was recorded in the 6th to 3rd century BCE. But she said that it was the oldest story in the Bible in the sense that parallels have been found in ancient Sumerian texts, and the Job personnage is a stock proverbial figure in Mesopotamian texts. Being the oldest verbally-recited story in the entire collective library makes it the beginning of the oral tradition.

Actually Numbers is the oldest known text of the Bible at this time as shown earlier in my posts with the amulet being found. It if you will remember was dated 400 years earlier than even the dead sea scrolls.

The oral tradition goes back to Abraham. Abraham passed it down to his sons and on from them. Actually the flood story is the oldest parallel found in Sumerian texts. The oldest verbally recited story would have to be the ones of the creation sequences and flood stories.

The Hebrew religion of Yahweh was the beginning of the oral tradition passed down from Abraham. That is the true beginning of the religion Judaism.

The only truth in the story of the Tower of Babel is this: The monument was still incomplete when the Mesopotamian empires began to collapse. As a result, the very people who had invented syllabic texts were reduced to illiterate nomads, in some cases, in as few as a couple generations.

Can you explain this?

Some of the ancient texts were preserved. But the people could no longer read them, because the written word had become like a different language even when it was written in their own ancestral tongue.

Which would fit well with what the Bible says, yes?

Eventually, these ancient tablets found their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, where they remained buried for 2,500 years.

But you would admit that there could be others that did not find their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, correct?

It must also be noted that the Poem of Gilgamesh was an evolutionary epic and as I have studied this more I find that only parts of it were complete at different time periods. Interestingly enough, I have found what seems to be a prominent element in this development. IT seems that the deluge part of the epic can only be dated to sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC. Which means that some of the parts of the poem are older than the Genesis version 1500 BC but the part about the flood is dated later (1300-1000 BC).

I am still looking into this. I must say all this is so interesting. I have found an inscription that pre-dates Gilgamesh and seems to be the forerunner of it. Interestingly enough it comes from the area Abraham lived in Ur. Some very interesting possibilities are featured in these inscriptions. I have only found these to be mentioned on the internet and have not been able to confirm anything in any resources in the library as of yet due to the fact that I haven't had the time to go. I hope to after Christmas.

In the 50 some-odd generations between about 1700 BCE, and the time when the Hebrew traditions were once again written down, by the Phoenicians and the Greeks, and "caste in stone" so-to-speak, there had been many noticeable alterations to the various stories. Some of the events were re-cast for different character names; YVWH replaced Gilgamesh. Parts of Hammurabi and Seneferu's legends were later attributed to Moses. (Enki + Adamah) + Ninti + (the Serpent - Lilith) = Adam & Eve, and so on.

It could be quite the opposite, Gilgamesh replaced Yahweh. As far as Seneferu's legend goes it really doesn't tell the same story.

As the Hebrew culture emerged from the pagan ruins of Chaldea, at some point, possibly during the brutally intolerant theocracy of Moses, their increasingly complex traditions became sacred.

The Bible in fact speaks about the pagan culture that Abraham was surrounded by and the fact that he set himself apart and worshipped God alone. He worshipped in his own way in accordance to God's will. Those traditions that were began with him were practiced by his family.

But they had not always been.

The proof of this being what?

And upon the re-opening of Ashurbanipal's tomb, we discovered that the song did not remain the same.

It did not stay the same in its own right. It seems that this song had been an evolutionary epic and that parts were added at different time periods. The final fully finished column being dated around 600 BC.

I have to go to work again.




He collected some traditions, and he served as the central figure of at least a couple of them. He may even have put the final revisions on the Genesis collection. But he never wrote any of them. He never wrote anything.

I believe he did exist. Many aspects of his story are obviously borrowed from some volcanic event which seems never to have occurred in Egypt. And Moses' character seems like a combination of four or five different people. But I believe there was a real Moses, and that he lead a band of fanatical desert bandits who were less like "God's chosen people" and more like the Taliban. Although the figures recorded in the Bible are impossible exaggerations, there are still too many grisly accounts of inhuman genocide hamstrung cattle, and slaves being dragged from smoldering villages en route to the promised land to believe that none of it ever really happened.
How would they have found out about it? The Indo-Aryan linguistic and cultural division between what would become the Indian and Iranian nations began at about that time. But their (many) flood myths don't remotely match.

The 1st through 4th Dynasties of Egypt continued right along, building pyramids requiring the assistance of hundreds of workers each. This immediately after everyone in the world had drowned? And at the same time, more pyramids were going up in China. The Egyptians recorded all manner of minor trivialities, but they missed the day that everyone died? And somehow picked up again immediately afterward, still with hundreds of laborers as if nothing had ever happened? Where did they get these hundreds of workers from? And why does their flood myth credit Atum and Osiris?

Sumer kept their records continuously up to, and after the flood. Yet in the first century after that event, they also recorded a series of civil wars. How could they have had enough people left to have even one war? Perhaps the same way the Greeks did, since their myth had many survivors on high ground.

Recent discoveries in archaeology and geology have revealed that the Black sea flooded, destroying a whole village some 7,000 years ago. The Sea of Galilee also flooded, destroying another shore-side village some 15,000 years ago. In the time since then, many lakes and rivers have come and gone in North America, fed or drained by the events of the ice age, often with profound effects that are undeniable to the observer as to what they are, and how they occured.

At the time of the Tigris-Euphrates flood of Noah, (2900-3000 BCE) there were already civilizations emerging as far west as Ireland, and as far east as Japan. We've had Asiatic immigrants, becoming native tribes in the Americas for at least 12,000-15,000 years. The Australoid and Oceanic peoples have been where they are for at least 45,000 years. Since all of them are still there, and they obviously never experienced this flood of yours, how would it be reasonable that they could have told that story?
Hopefully you feel well enough now. All I want to know is this: Is there any quality or quantity of evidence you would or could accept to prove that the global flood never really happened, and that the men who fashioned the stories in the Bible merely exaggerated the details?[/QUOTE]

 

[thirsty]

I notice alot of creationists come here and make grandiose proclaations about the evidence, but I have to ask, are you really capable of making a judgement on this evidence? Do you really understand it sufficiently well to actually make a good contribution to the debate? or are you just toeing the party line? I dno't mean to come across as agressive in this post, but it does concern me that many of the creationist posters are not really adressing any of the evidence and are not actually learning anything about the opposing view, preferring to just flippantly dismiss anything that disagrees with their preconcieved worldview.

Perhaps others (even myself) are guilty of doing the same, however the difference I notice with the evolutionists, is that we tend to put forth a significant amount of evidence and analysis of the evidence, and this is something I think is lacking from the creationist side.

To the creationists, please recognise that you do not know it all, and you are not all experts on every facet of science, and please read the evidence that the evolutionists put forth. If you have a problem with it, please try to make clear in detail what your problems with the data are, and then perhaps you might either stand a better chance of convincing the opposition that you are right, or allow them to provide a better explanation and help you to learn. Flippant dismissals get nobody anywhere, and merely add to the frustration of those who often spend a good deal of time writing out lengthy responses to your problems.

I hope that we can all discuss the issues sensibly and maturely,

Jet.

Are you for real? This is a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. lol

 

[Aron-Ra]

Are you for real? This is a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. lol

Was that supposed to be sarchasm? I've been here so long now, I can't tell anymore.

 

[Oncedeceived]

By what grammarical rule would that be?


Actually Numbers is the oldest known text of the Bible at this time as shown earlier in my posts with the amulet being found. It if you will remember was dated 400 years earlier than even the dead sea scrolls.

The oral tradition goes back to Abraham. Abraham passed it down to his sons and on from them. Actually the flood story is the oldest parallel found in Sumerian texts. The oldest verbally recited story would have to be the ones of the creation sequences and flood stories.

The Hebrew religion of Yahweh was the beginning of the oral tradition passed down from Abraham. That is the true beginning of the religion Judaism.



Can you explain this?


Which would fit well with what the Bible says, yes?


But you would admit that there could be others that did not find their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, correct?

It must also be noted that the Poem of Gilgamesh was an evolutionary epic and as I have studied this more I find that only parts of it were complete at different time periods. Interestingly enough, I have found what seems to be a prominent element in this development. IT seems that the deluge part of the epic can only be dated to sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC. Which means that some of the parts of the poem are older than the Genesis version 1500 BC but the part about the flood is dated later (1300-1000 BC).

I am still looking into this. I must say all this is so interesting. I have found an inscription that pre-dates Gilgamesh and seems to be the forerunner of it. Interestingly enough it comes from the area Abraham lived in Ur. Some very interesting possibilities are featured in these inscriptions. I have only found these to be mentioned on the internet and have not been able to confirm anything in any resources in the library as of yet due to the fact that I haven't had the time to go. I hope to after Christmas.



It could be quite the opposite, Gilgamesh replaced Yahweh. As far as Seneferu's legend goes it really doesn't tell the same story.




The Bible in fact speaks about the pagan culture that Abraham was surrounded by and the fact that he set himself apart and worshipped God alone. He worshipped in his own way in accordance to God's will. Those traditions that were began with him were practiced by his family.



The proof of this being what?


It did not stay the same in its own right. It seems that this song had been an evolutionary epic and that parts were added at different time periods. The final fully finished column being dated around 600 BC.

I have to go to work again.

Back again.

He collected some traditions, and he served as the central figure of at least a couple of them. He may even have put the final revisions on the Genesis collection. But he never wrote any of them. He never wrote anything.

Please cite your proof that Moses didn't write anything.

I believe he did exist. Many aspects of his story are obviously borrowed from some volcanic event which seems never to have occurred in Egypt. And Moses' character seems like a combination of four or five different people. But I believe there was a real Moses, and that he lead a band of fanatical desert bandits who were less like "God's chosen people" and more like the Taliban.
Although the figures recorded in the Bible are impossible exaggerations, there are still too many grisly accounts of inhuman genocide hamstrung cattle, and slaves being dragged from smoldering villages en route to the promised land to believe that none of it ever really happened.

This is typical actually. Skeptics want to allow the so called atrocities so that they can use them to show how tyranical God is but then claim that the Biblical figures themselves didn't exist.

How would they have found out about it? The Indo-Aryan linguistic and cultural division between what would become the Indian and Iranian nations began at about that time. But their (many) flood myths don't remotely match.

If it were a true worldwide flood, it would seem likely that all cultures would have information of such passed down within their own cultures which could explain the simularities and differences between the stories.

The 1st through 4th Dynasties of Egypt continued right along, building pyramids requiring the assistance of hundreds of workers each.

Actually, it wasn't until the 3rd Dynasty that the pyramids were built. I am just now looking at the flood story in accordance with historical documentation and I am unsure if I agree with the timing of it as current theories state. I find that the time of the flood could be dated as far back as pre-history. I really as I have stated before speak informatively on this subject.

This immediately after everyone in the world had drowned? And at the same time, more pyramids were going up in China.

Again, the time frame of the flood is not clear to me. It is based on some interpretation of geneology which to me seems somewhat contrived so I would need to have more knowledge to determine what I think about the timing. If I accepted any information at this point I would be merely regurgitating someone else's viewpoint and you will find that I very rarely accept anything without looking into it myself.

Sumer kept their records continuously up to, and after the flood. Yet in the first century after that event, they also recorded a series of civil wars. How could they have had enough people left to have even one war? Perhaps the same way the Greeks did, since their myth had many survivors on high ground.

The timelines of the Sumerians are very interesting and hold extreme time periods of their kings. It is hard to determine what their timelines actually mean.

Recent discoveries in archaeology and geology have revealed that the Black sea flooded, destroying a whole village some 7,000 years ago. The Sea of Galilee also flooded, destroying another shore-side village some 15,000 years ago. In the time since then, many lakes and rivers have come and gone in North America, fed or drained by the events of the ice age, often with profound effects that are undeniable to the observer as to what they are, and how they occured.

I believe this to be true as far as I know, but I am not sure that the flood itself could have been long before this. Again though, I am just not informed enough to carry on any meaningful dialog on this subject.

Hopefully you feel well enough now. All I want to know is this: Is there any quality or quantity of evidence you would or could accept to prove that the global flood never really happened, and that the men who fashioned the stories in the Bible merely exaggerated the details?

I think that you could give me both quality and quantity of evidence that would convince me that a global flood did not occur at a certain time in history. You may even convince me that the flood may not have had to be global as some interpretation must be used to determine the wording for earth. I will look at evidence both historically (secular) and Biblically and then I will have a foundation to build upon. It takes a great deal of research to come to any position when you are looking at thousands of years past. It may even be tens of thousands of years at this point....I just don't know. I am intriged though as I look at clay tablets that are thousands of years old that speak of the global flood. I have spent so much time in other areas of the Bible that I have not investigated the flood and I find my interest has been stirred.

Finished with this post. Yeah.

Unfortunately, I had missed page 21 when starting my responses so I still have those to get to. I hope to do so soon but with Christmas upon me I doubt that I will find time other than tomorrow morning early (I have to work tomorrow) and then I probable will not be back until Sunday or Monday. I just don't know. Have a great Christmas!!!! Hug your kids!!!! Find someone to kiss under the mistletoe.

 

[Oncedeceived]

OK.
(1.) There was a flood, usually, (but not always) associated with a lot of rain.
(2) The water (usually) covered almost everything around.
(3.) Almost everyone in the area was killed.
There. Those are the only three common aspects of your 300 global flood myths.

I haven't studied this in great detail but just in the time that I have looked into the other flood stories from around the world the parallels are astonishing. The three that stand out most are the ones that state that there is a man/family that survive from a flood, usually in a boat with animals and there is usually some mention of a time frame. There are some 500 flood stories that represent a worldwide scale.

I know that what I said is true, and I don't appreciate the tone of your allegation. So I think the only way to settle this is to take a look at these less than 300 flood myths and see how they compare to each other, shall we? Compare the three, nearly-identical versions from the near-east with any of the other options from around the world. Very quickly you'll see that everywhere else has a much different version, and usually one that couldn't possibly have been distorted out of the Biblical version over any amount of time. There are no significant differences between the Mesopotamian collection, and there are no significant similarities in any of the flood myths from other cultures. Of course the only explanation for this is that the Mesopotamian versions are talking about the same event the Bible is, but the other cultures definitely aren't, and couldn't be.

I think that this will give you a better idea.

http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html


Comparisons of Stories from Several Countries
Descriptions of Several of Flood Legends
Internet References on Flood Legends
Quotes on Flood Legends
The Ancients Knew of the Global Flood
Flood Legends from Around the World

Ark - Perched Island LandingNative global flood stories are documented as history or legend in almost every region on earth. Old world missionaries reported their amazement at finding remote tribes already possessing legends with tremendous similarities to the Bible's accounts of the worldwide flood. H.S. Bellamy in Moons, Myths and Men estimates that altogether there are over 500 Flood legends worldwide. Ancient civilizations such as (China, Babylonia, Wales, Russia, India, America, Hawaii, Scandinavia, Sumatra, Peru, and Polynesia) all have their own versions of a giant flood.

These flood tales are frequently linked by common elements that parallel the Biblical account including the warning of the coming flood, the construction of a boat in advance, the storage of animals, the inclusion of family, and the release of birds to determine if the water level had subsided. The overwhelming consistency among flood legends found in distant parts of the globe indicates they were derived from the same origin (the Bible's record), but oral transcription has changed the details through time.

Perhaps the second most important historical account of a global flood can be found in a Babylonian flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. When the Biblical and Babylonian accounts are compared, a number of outstanding similarities are found that leave no doubt these stories are rooted in the same event or oral tradition.
BABYLONIAN

BIBLE
Take the seed of all creatures aboard the ship Gen. 6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring.
I boarded the ship and closed the door. Gen. 7:1 Come into the Ark
Gen. 7:16 The Lord shut him in.
I sent out a dove . . . The dove went, then came back, no resting-place appeared for it, so it returned. Gen. 8:8 He sent out a dove...But the dove found no resting-place . . . and she returned.
Then I sent out a raven . .it was the waters receding, it ate, it flew about to and fro, it did not return. Gen. 8:7 He sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the Earth.
I made a libation on the peak of the mountain. Gen. 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord (on the mountain) and offered burnt offerings.

D = Destruction by Water
. G = (God) Divine Cause
. W = Warning Given
. H = Humans Spared
. A = Animals Spared
. V = Preserved in a Vessel
D . . H A V 01 Australia- Kurnai
D . W H A V 02 Babylon- Berossus' account
D G W H A V 03 Babylon- Gilgamesh epic
D G W H . V 04 Bolivia- Chiriguano
D . . H A V 05 Borneo- Sea Dayak
D . . H A V 06 Burma- Singpho
D G . H A V 07 Canada- Cree
D G W H A V 08 Canada- Montagnais
D G . H A V 09 China- Lolo
D . W H A V 10 Cuba- original natives
D G W H A V 11 East Africa- Masai
D G W H . V 12 Egypt- Book of the Dead
D G . H . V 13 Fiji- Walavu-levu tradition
D G W H A . 14 French Polynesia- Raiatea
D . . H A V 15 Greece- Lucian's account
D G . H A V 16 Guyana- Macushi
D G . H . V 17 Iceland- Eddas
D G . H . V 18 India- Andaman Islands
D . W H A V 19 India- Bhil
D G W H . V 20 India-Kamar
D . W H A . 21 Iran- Zend-Avesta
D G . H . V 22 Italy- Ovid's poetry
D G . H . V 23 Malay Peninsula- Jekun
D . W H . V 24 Mexico- Codex Chimalpopoca
D . W H A V 25 Mexico- Huichol
D G . H . V 26 New Zealand- Maori
D . W H A . 27 Peru- Indians of Huarochiri
D . W H . V 28 X . Russia- Vogul
D . W H A V 29 U.S.A. (Alaska)- Kolusches
D G . H A V 30 U.S.A. (Alaska)- Tlingit
D . W H A V 31 U.S.A. (Arizona)- Papago
D G . H A V 32 U.S.A. (Hawaii)- legend of Nu-u
D . . H A V 33 Vanualu- Melanesians
D . . H A V 34 Vietnam- Bahnar
D . . H A V 35 Wales- Dwyfan/Dwyfan legend
35 18 17 35 24 32 Total Occurrences out of 35

Would that you had admitted this earlier, before telling me "that is not true".

What are you talking about? I have always said that I didn't know much about the flood? Please point out where I said "that is not true" when I have not given some reason for saying that.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Yes it does, although the reference is subtle, and of course it doesn't use that word.

So subtle as not to be there at all.

Just because you won't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. I'm sure you must agree with that! And ignoring this isn't going to make it go away.

Yes it does, and we're not talking about mud here, nor dust either, and certainly not 'holy' water.

It most certainly is Holy Water and dust from the floor of the tabernacle.

17The priest shall take sacral water in an earthen vessel and, taking some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall put it into the water.

This is clearly saying Holy water and earth from the floor. Depending on what version of the Old Testament you are using it will use the word dust. But dust or earth from the floor of the tabernacle was used.

I wouldn't call a curse "holy". You do. If you don't think a holy curse is an oxymoron, then I think that says something about both of our perspectives.

The only way women would be able to go out their back doors and mix this vile potion would be if they kept goats and other barnyard animals back there.

Woman didn't mix the "vile" potion at all the Priest did.

You suggested that modern women might go out their back doors and mix this themselves. I was giving one reason why they couldn't.

Kept goats and other barnyard animals back where? This is non-sensical.

Dirt that is tracked in underfoot should never be considered holy even if these people weren't goat-herders. I am suggesting the only possible explanation I can come up with for how this spell might work, and that involves infectious agents which would most likely be found in animal feces.

The "dust" from the floor of the tabernacle was filth that was tracked in. This may even have included miscroscopic larvae of some of the more horrific parasitic worms of that area. Whatever it was, it was vile, and definitely infectious.

The Tabernacle was a Holy Place, it was not a place where commoners would even be allowed. It was hallowed and the Priest themselves had to wash prior to coming into it.

Well, that was the only way I figure that spell could have worked. If that isn't it, then I would be really curious to see how you explain it.

Horrific parasitic worms and larvae????? You are really stretching here Aron-ra. While it could be quite possible that any area may have some microscopic elements, to claim this was the reason for any part of the ritual is pressing credibility.

I do not "press credibility" to offer a hypothetical explanation. If you doubt some parasitic worm, then what do you think it was? And how do your microscopic elements become involved if the priests maintain such sterile dirt in their tabernacle?

The passage indicates this sort of likelihood with the symptoms it describes. If this was not some filthy infectious agent, then how do you think the spell really worked? Was it God's magic that caused all this swelling and distention of what appear by this description to be the female reproductive organs?

First of all we don't know if this ritual ever "condemned" any women. We don't know how many of the men actually required this of their wives. For a women to be placed in this position a man had to give a warning but the warning was forbid, so it was a catch all mechinism. If a man brought his wife before priest, then people knew that he had given the forbidden warning. It was not considered a good thing for a man to have done so.

Yet there are indications in a number of documents that those sorts of accusations were common. Now it may have been that many many people came before the priests this way, and they all got the pyrotechnic display, the incantation enchantment, and a grail of holy mud to drink. Then if any of them miscarried, the spell (and the priest who cast it) would get the credit. But that of course is assuming that the spell does not work. I must offer you the benefit of the doubt lest I be guilty of hypocrisy. You were expected to respond in kind, and answer the question which you have just ignored; If this was not some filthy infectious agent, then how do you think the spell really worked? If you're going to shoot down my suggestion, you're supposed to replace it with one of your own. If you can't, then you might consider an admission that the Bible really does contain magic spells [that much you can no longer contest] but which do not work.

Also, I should point out that the abortion debate should still be null and void since it is only supposed to be performed by a priest, and isn't supposed to work without God's immediate involvement and approval.

If you are making that determination on this ritual then you are making that determination without basis. Abortion is not being described in this ritual.

Yes it is, clearly. And what I did in the sentence above was to clarify that you were unjustified in "correcting" me by pointed out that the priests mixed the potion, not the women themselves. Obviously, I already knew that. Read the post before replying to it.

Why did you put "spell" in quotations? That's what it is.

Because in the english translated version that I looked at didn't know the exact word translation for whatever it was in the original language. So I was not sure that spell was the correct wording. It may indeed be, but the version I used was not certain of its accuracy.

I don't know if that word was to be used in their translation either. But what they're describing is a spell.

And what exactly does "barren" mean to you?

I didn't read the implication that she would never be able to bare a child ever again. What sort of infection could cause that do you think?

Barren in the Bible was a woman unable to conceive. This means that the woman if quilty would never be able to conceive a child.

The crime is adultery in an age before birth control. So if she is guilty, she is likely pregnant as well. What happens then? What happens to a pregnant women who is subjected to this curse and left barren? Was the baby aborted or not? Please explain.

Boy did you read that wrong! For one thing, the distended belly doesn't refer to pregnancy. For another, this atrocity occurred because women had no safeguards against their safeguards.

I didn't in anyway claim that the distended belly referred to pregnancy, you did.

Perhaps it was only a typo. But you said the woman's belly would still become distended even if she was not defiled, meaning (I assume) that she is pregnant with her husband's child.

You claimed that the woman must be pregnant and was having a miscarriage, did you not?

I did not. Read the post before replying to it. If you had done so, you would know that I said "The distended belly did not mean pregnancy, " that "in this case, the woman in question may or may not be pregnant. Unfaithful women don't get pregnant every time. But if she is pregnant, she likely isn't showing yet."

I'm surprised that when you did finally happen across this line below, that you didn't come back and correct your erroneous accusation here. Perhaps you're not paying adequate attention?

This atrocity is like so many that non-believers cite, they are simply misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Maybe it isn't the unbelievers who misinterpret? Maybe we are unbelievers because we interpret correctly? Maybe if God knew how to write an intelligible tome in the first place, we wouldn't have such a hard time with this.

This was a safeguard for women, for at the time the Law of Hammurabi as you so like to cite states that a women was to be thrown in the river and drowned if she was accused of adultry. In other laws of the land, the woman was stoned and in each of these cases, the woman had no legal standing to stop it. She was at the mercy of her husband and her husband alone. No one was to stop a man from meting out punishment in the way of death even when there was no proof of adultry.

You describing this disrespectful oppression as if it were a safeguard against disrespectful oppression reminds me of Sheik Gad Al Haq Ali Gad Al Haq, who described cutting off part or all of a woman's [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] (to deny her sexual pleasure) as "a noble practice which does honour to women."

Yes the overt sexism and unjust treatment of women in middle-Eastern cultures is well-known, and much of their prejudice has been handed down to modern cultures following the same traditions. Pagan cultures tended to be much more reverent and respectful of their women, and this is particularly true of European religions. But even the ancient Chinese held greater esteem for their women than those Semitic tradition.

The "sagging thigh" would be the feminine swelling I was talking about. There are other subtle references to genitalia elsewhere in the Bible, like the "stones" and "tail" that "moveth like a cedar" on Job's 'behemoth' (rhinoceros). Or in Genesis 32 when God cheats at wrestling by "touching" Jacob in the "hollow of the thigh", (translation: "hit him in the nards").

Well as I have noticed, your interpretations of "subtle references" usually means that they are so subtle that they remain hidden when read.

Only when you're predetermined not to see them. Otherwise, they're very plain, and I've illustrated that even more plainly. However I'm not surprised that you don't see this, as you're not permitted to. But it is there none the less. In this case, the "rotting thigh" is a nameless appendage because it was considered nasty, rather like a man's "sinew that shrinks". And as the Talmud clarifies, this thigh is not a thigh anymore than a phallus is a sinew. That's what happens when things are phrased poetically instead of literally.

This is the same move Krsna urged Arjuna to use when he cheated in his wrestling match, and he phrased it the same way.

Please paste that information for me please.

Unfortunately I cannot. I'm having some difficulty accessing any on-line text that doesn't require registration or purchase. The Mahabharata is the longest epic in all of literature, so I did not read it myself. Rather I watched it presented as a stage performance; The Mahabharata: A Play Based Upon the Indian Classic Epic by Jean-Claude Carriere; translated from the French by Peter Brook. I was obliged to see it when two of my friends converted to Unitarian Hinduism. I sent a message to a scholar of Vedic scripture (father of a friend) and should be able to verify that by the next round. I can say that was the exact dialogue used in the video.

In the Hebrew tradition, the Talmud says that "an embryo is a limb of its mother" [Hulin 58a] "part of the mother...."one of her own limbs". (Gittin 23b). So the sagging "thigh", or more accurately, as in the KJB, a rotting "thigh" refers to a rotting fetus, a miscarriage.

Do you really expect me to believe that? Do you expect anyone to believe that?

Does the Talmud not clarify that meaning clearly enough for you? Did you really expect that this spell would literally make her thigh [singular] "saggy"? The real meaning should be evident, even to you, even without these clarifying definitions which are easily verified, and written by the same culture using the same language. What exactly makes you think it is unbelievable? I suspect it is only that you're not permitted to believe what it implies.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The distended belly did not mean pregnancy, as you thought it did.

I never said that it did and I guess it doesn't matter what I actually say or don't say or what the Bible actually says or doesn't say for you it is all the same.

Wait a minute. Aren't you same woman who claimed that Genesis 1:1 doesn't say that God created the Heaven and the Earth in the beginning? Such hypocrisy! But unlike you, I can't use some poetic liscense to say that this or that line doesn't really say what it says, or that it sounds that way because it represents something else. I just read it out literally. What the Bible actually says is all I have to go on.

You can use an agrument whether or not it is valid or not.

If you had read all these posts before jumping in to reply to this one right away, you would known that to be false. However, it does seem that you do not care what the Bible actually does say, and that you'll deny that it says what it says whenever it doesn't say what you wish it did. I on the other hand will never use an argument that is evidently false.

Please feel free to use any agrument that I may make but don't make up an argument that I don't use. I may even forget sometimes that I have used something and so feel free to bring it forth in way of quotes to remind me but I would ask that you refrain from placing forth arguments that I have not made.

Since I have never done that before, there's little chance that I will do it in the future either.

In this case, the woman in question may or may not be pregnant. Unfaithful women don't get pregnant every time. But if she is pregnant, she likely isn't showing yet. The distended belly goes along with the sagging fetal "thigh" meaning they are both a result of whatever fecal or bacterial infection she may have been forced to ingest.

Actually the most common reason for this distended belly and sagging thigh was considered that the woman would no longer be sexy and wanted but her belly and thigh would be that of an old fat woman. But this is as contrived as your explanation.

This is significantly more contrived than anything I could come up with! And now it is my turn to ask; Do you really expect me to believe that? Do you expect anyone to believe that? Do you honestly think this passage means that the woman will suddenly become middle-aged? Or that she will get cottage-cheese thighs? Do you think that really matters in a culture that has a completely different standard of beauty than we have? If this spell is supposed to cause all the symptoms of menopause, including the decline of muscles and organs, then why isn't it described as an aging spell? And why must we ignore all the clarifying Talmudic references which indicate this to be an abortion, to believe instead this notion of yours which isn't supported by anything other than your refusal to accept that it is an abortion?

This part is amusing too, especially in light of your interpretation that this was supposed to be her "safeguard" and "only protection" against these accusations.

Now this is amusing. If it were true that she was infected with any such thing how would they know until long afterward? How would the belly distend and thigh sag until long after an infestation began?

As I mentioned above, it seems clear to me that there would be no result of this spell for some time, perhaps weeks, and that it would be the same whether it was caused by pure magic, infectious agents, or even if an eventual miscarriage were to be blamed on a spell that didn't work. There is no indication of any time limitation on the spell's effectiveness other than the point of conception or birth.

Regardless, you research this and find any mention of people having this symptom when they ingested mud from the area. This is all just speculation, baseless in my opinion. You are using fictional concepts to argue a point.

Many hypotheses do turn out to be fictional. That's why they have to be tested. But either this symptom was caused by something, or it wasn't, in which case, the spell did not work, and your position is compromised, not mine. At this point, the only way you could compromise my position is to show that the spell does work. Obviously you didn't realize that or I doubt you would have presented any of the arguments you did.

What is there to protect her from being forced [violently?]

Again, you are putting your fictional spin on this. It doesn't say that they were violently forced. In fact, they came willingly with barley to show they were free from quilt.

No it doesn't. The men paid for the sorcery here. And it doesn't say "the women drink". It says "the priest makes the woman drink". I think it is clear that he forces her to do so. Clearly she has no choice.

Now bare in mind that some branches of this culture consider the woman guilty even if she was raped. So if you were one of these women, and you believed that some horrible effect would come of this curse, would they have to force you to drink it? Or would you gladly imbibe, and even pay for it yourself? Your rationalizations of this matter are unrealistic in the extreme.

to drink infectious filth?

Highly unlikely considering as I have said that the Priest was the only one regularly in there and everyone had to wash their feet before entering.

OK. Then would they willingly drink mud that acts just like infectious filth?

What is there to safeguard her from losing her child due to some (obviously undeserving and unloving) sexist jerk's insecurity? You have a very strange interpretation of women's rights. But then, as a Biblical literalist, I guess you would have to.

Exactly, this was to safeguard her. In other societies they were put to death immediately and without proof. With this ritual, it was only for those women who were accused without proof. So, in practice we don't know that it was always showing the woman not quilty. We just have no way of knowing.

Viking society, like some others in Europe and other places, held that any child born to a man's wife would be raised as that man's son, even if the husband had been away at sea for years, and couldn't possibly be the real father. Any backdoor daddies would of course be denied any parental rites. For a barbarian society, they were surprisingly civilized. I wonder why it is that "God's chosen people" didn't have a better society than everyone else, and in fact were worse than most?

Once he has made her drink the water if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; That sure sounds like a miscarriage, don't it?

No.

If you're going to ignore the extrabiblical clarification of these terms and how they relate to a rotting fetus, then what about the other obvious implications of a pregnancy doomed to be lost if the woman is indeed pregnant? I think you need to try very hard not to see what I am showing you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The distended belly here may have more to do with the stomach than with the uterus. But I don't know as I can't tell what kind of infection, infestation, or disease she's really getting here. I suppose it could just make her really sick to her stomach, and may never have been able to make her barren in the first place. Maybe the priests just thought it would because they didn't know any better. Who knows? The scientific approach would be to test this spell. But I suspect that even though you consider the Bible to be a scientifically accurate guide to morality, and this heinous act to be a protection of a woman's rights, you'll still refuse to allow anyone to test this on both scientific and moral grounds.

I would not be troubled by testing it, but it might be just a little hard to do considering that there is no tabernacle to do so.

A tabernacle is really nothing more than a place of worship. In this case, I would think that any Church, synagogue, or Mormon temple would do. None of them have dirt floors anymore. But since the book says dust, we'll just sweep up what we need and dump that into any vessel you think appropriate. Here in Dallas, we have one of the highest divorce rates in the country, and there are a lot of strip clubs and that sort of thing. So it will be easy enough to find cheating women. Statistically, any married woman who is not escorted by her husband in most of the downtown nightclubs will likely be unfaithful. That is particularly true of one club called "the Church". It's one of those techno-gothic vampire wanna-be type places. Most of the patrons appear to be pagan, but it also draws several Catholics, which is what we would have to concentrate on since we need to find someone more likely not to use any means of birth control. Therein lies part of the difficulty of this test, right? If you're right, then any religious woman so accused would gladly drink the dust off the floor of her favorite "house of God", and if she thought it might vindicate her beliefs, she might even do so if she knew she was cheating. But this experiment is independent of the woman's beliefs, and since some of the girls at "the church" will drink blood, then surely they'll drink your sanctified dust, especially if they could do so in the name of sacrilege, to disprove some Christian concept.

We'll need to use several test subjects from a few different tabernacles. And just in case Christianity isn't the right religion, we'll need to include some synagogues in the test group as well, although it will be harder to find Jewish girls in the Bible belt, much less those willing to submit to such a test. Many would expect it to work, (aborting their pregnancies) simply because it was trodden upon, and therefore somewhat less than holy.

So this would be a difficult experiment, and I think we would both predict the same results. That being that none of these women would suddenly gain saggy thighs and defective organs. And I think we can predict that there would pitifully few willing participants in any group, even among the very religious. Obviously, you're the only one who knows what this spell is supposed to do, and how it works. So I'll leave the task of writing the proposal, predictions, and potential falsification of this experiment up to you. Do get back to me with that as quickly as you can please.

But what does it mean if she is not able to "retain seed"? Does that not mean that the pregnancy was aborted?

No, it means that she will not be able to conceive.

What if she has already conceived, meaning she is already pregnant, as many of these women would have been? Would she still give birth to that child, but never conceive another one?

Is there any other way to interpret that? If she cannot "retain" seed, then she already had seed in her, which in this context can only mean that she was pregnant. But now she can't retain that seed, which means the baby was lost, aborted by the priest, and by God, since the priest has to conjure God's blessing for the spell to work. It is a subtle point, but still unmistakably clear that we are definitely talking about an abortion.

I think not.

I know better.

This is consistent with much of Hebrew tradition. All through the Bible, we see scenes of parents killing their children, and sometimes even eating them. In both the Torah and the Talmud, we even see children being devalued, abused or used for sex, even by some of God's most favorite characters. Then we see God's "chosen" people deliberately murdering children, sometimes while they're still inside the womb (2 Kings 15:16, Hosea 13:16, Amos 1:13). In Genesis 38, we see that God considers wasted sperm worthy of a death sentence. But in Exodus 21:22, we see again that God values man's seed more than he does any fruit of the womb, and this is particularly true of the yet-unborn. The penalty for causing a miscarriage is slight next to that of taking the life of someone already born. The Talmud says "the embryo is considered to be mere water until the fortieth day." [Yevamot 69b] and is still a sub-human non-entity, a mere extension of the woman, until born. "Once his head has come forth, he may not be harmed." (Sanhedrin 72b, 16) "Once its head (or greater part) has emerged, it may not be touched, for we may not set aside one life [nefesh] for another." Mishna (Oholot 7,6). "If a woman has difficulty in childbirth, the embryo within her must be dismembered limb by limb, because her life [hayyeha] takes precedence over its life [yayyav]. If the child's arm comes out before the head, it is to be amputated. Because the life of the fetus is only potential, and cannot compete with "actual human life". So the Hebrew tradition does condone abortion both in the Talmud and the Torah / Bible.

This statement would only bring in more of the same problems that we have with this ritual interpretation so I think I just won't go there.

I'm sure the three additional Biblical references to an indisputable abortion of the most heinous and unholy nature don't support your point very well, and neither would the Talmudic support what is undeniably abortion. So I'm not surprised that you wouldn't want to discuss them.

This is one of many examples of a sick, barbaric, and sexist society. The only modern comparison I could make would be with the Taliban.

I think that I have given a rational and clear depiciton of the ritual, I also take great offense to your statement but that is personal so I won't respond in that way.

Your explanation wasn't one. It was evasive, and left all the same questions unanswered. As for your offense, I am only calling a spade a spade.

This was a surprisingly weak excuse for an explanation, and it demonstrates that I must understand this passage much better than your sources do. What symbolic meaning do they ascribe for the magic wand? Or for why each elemental point of the pentacle should be represented in the spell? Or for what any of this silliness has to do with getting rid of parasites, (which the Bible calls Leprosy)?

Now this made me laugh. Weak excuse? I can't even comment because I would most likely become unkind.

All these questions remain unanswered also. And the one claim it did make was not followed by any explanation of that conclusion. So calling it weak was the kindest way I could describe it.

I know that you'll never admit to this, (if only because you're not permitted to) but these spells and hexes and ritual killings are naught but superstition perpetuated by primitives who didn't know what they were doing, and didn't know how anything really works. And none of it in any way indicates Jesus.

In your opinion.

Granted. But it is based on solid reasoning none the less.

But since both versions of this spell are entirely elemental, (or talisminal) and neither require any incantation, and the Bible says it applies in all cases, then we should certainly be able to test it, right? Or you could just concede that I was right, and that the Bible really does include magic spells that don't work.

You spend the entire post talking about how the spell of the jealousy ritual works (infestation of parasites for instance) and then turn around and claim they don't work. You shift your argument to fit the point you want to make. One time you want to show they work and cause abortions and the next argument they don't work and I must concede that you were right?

I gave the best hypothesis for it that I could come up with. In fact, I listed every possible catalyst I could think of. You rejected them all, which is fine. But you provided none in their place. So it was actually you who spent the entire post arguing that it was a spell, and that it didn't work. Now do you stand by that?

 

[Aron-Ra]

The only thing to indicate that they didn't understand the information they recorded is the fact that they got virtually everything wrong.

I posted a thread in which I put forth an argument on the Genesis sequences and the common Scientific material and showed that they did not conflict other than the fruit tree coming out of the order used. I gave a reasonable hypothesis for that. So, they didn't have everything wrong. They had one part of the sequence different than what science says happens when the universe was formed.

I wasn’t only talking about the sequence presented. I didn't read your other article, but I know there were many more errors than that just in Genesis chapter One.

For one thing, the Bible says that the heavens and the Earth were both created on the first day. I know you'll say the Bible doesn't really say that, but it does. According to the expansion of the Big Bang, space did come first, along with all the matter and energy in the universe. But the Earth didn't exist until long after most of the rest of the "lights in the heavens".

The Bible also says that water preceded dry land, but that's wrong too. Because the land didn't rise out of the sea. The sea accumulated on the land.

The Bible says that night and day preceded the sun, which is of course impossible. The firmament never existed at all. And even if you wanted to say that the firmament represents the atmosphere, that still followed the origin of "moving creatures", unless "creature" means only animal life exclusively.
According to the Bible, grass and fruit trees both precede winged fowl, but they don't. Birds first appeared in the Jurassic, and grass isn't known until the end of the Cretaceous. Since the Bible also refers to bats as if they were birds, (another mistake) then since the Bible distinguishes "fowl" from flying insects, then perhaps that word is meant to refer to all flying vertebrates, in which case pterosaurs predate grass, fruit trees, and all that by many tens of millions of years.

The Bible also says that creeping things followed grass and fruit trees. But "creeping things" of every sort all came along hundreds of millions of years before the first grass or fruit trees.

Cattle, in terms of modern domestic bovines actually appeared after man, and were in a way, man-made. Most wild cattle species didn't appear until most human species were already here. Cattle in the larger taxonomic sense of ruminant bovids would be one of only three things listed in the correct order. But even then, they still aren't representative of any single "kind" like the Bible says. In fact, there are dozens of different "kinds" of cattle which are still closely-related, but which have grown far enough apart that they can no longer interbreed even with artificial insemination.

So in the sequence of creation events, its hard to find anything that the Bible got right. But more than that, we know there was never any global flood, and couldn’t have been one, not even with a whole lot of poetic liscense. And there were already many different cultures and languages dispersed across the globe thousands of years before your tower of Babel. So the authors of the Bible did indeed get virtually everything wrong.

First of all, the experts don't disagree with what I'm saying.

Some do. Some experts disagree with other experts and most use reason for their conclusions in each case.

Yes, some experts do disagree with me in some minor details, based mostly on their perspective probabilities and variable experience. Some subjectivity still exists, which is why the peer-review process is so important. But more experts disagree with you by far, than with me, and they disagree with you on a whole lot more specific points, and with very good reason.

Its also worth noting that Biblical experts often disagree on virtually everything, even when they all use the Bible as their only evidence.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Science is a self-correcting process winnowing reality out of falsity, and therefore continuously improving our understanding, usually with practical applications which creation science has never, (and can never) provide. Science also subjects itself to the peer-review process, -something creationism will not permit- in which conclusions and proposals are tested for accuracy, something that isn't possible when you've previously refused to change your mind no matter what you may find out later.

Again, this is totally unrelated to any discussion we have had during this thread.

It is immediately relevant. I am illustrating the purpose of both of these perspectives to you because it seems clear you understand neither one adequately.

These people are lying just by calling themselves scientists because they're opposed to the method itself. They are the antithesis of science, and their own oaths of their priori conclusion of what they will or won't accept proves that.

Why do you insist on making arguments against points that I have not even entered into the discussion?

You made it very clear that you grossly misunderstood what I meant by relying on reason as opposed to faith. Thus the explanation.

Could it be that you can not argue against those things we are discussing so you bring in things that are unrelated which have nothing to do with what we are discussing?

I doubt that very much. There hasn't been any part of this discussion that was beyond my capacity so far. Far from it. My position is about as solid as anything can be, while the creationist position definitely isn't. But while your perspective may be that your initial conclusion must be the right one, (no matter what) -my perspective is that I should discover the right one, whatever that may turn out to be. So I can't be intimidated, if that's what you're trying to do. I don't have to defend my position the way you do, and my current position doesn't absolutely have to be right. It would even probably be more to my benefit, (in that I would learn more) if I were to lose a debate than to win one. So that isn't an issue for me either. Therefore your posturing isn't having any positive effect.

You have spent an entire post arguing against a position that I have not even made.

I have argued against the position of faith, which is your position if I read you right. And I have tried to explain my own position. So it is relevant.

Of course not. But you've yet to post anything (in this entire conversation) which either supports your position or challenges mine.

I beg to differ. Maybe I should bring up the information that has been shown to be false so far. I don't have time right now but I think that might be enlightening.

I insist that you do. Allusions like this, without backing, are to me no more than an empty bluff indicative of a defensive posture. I need to discover my own errors because I desire an accurate understanding. That's really why I do this. But I feel that we will discover a great deal more errors with your perception than with mine.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The only real archeological evidence that can be used to date anything due to Zoroastra are the Gathas. No one is certain when Zarathustra (Zoroastra) lived and in fact many scholars differ greatly on the date. It has a spread of anywhere between 1200 BC to 600 BC. The Gathas the only tangible and physical evidence of Zoroastra which are thought to be written by him. They are dated as early as 1200 BC to the 6 century BC. This dating though does not come from dating an original manuscript or physical article containing the words but only on the language used and it is possible and some think that the language of the Gathas, like Latin and Sanskrit, is an artificially sustained sacred language. If this is truly the case, the language would continue to be used in the literature of religion long after it had ceased to be a functional spoken language. If this is the case, the Gathas were simply composed during the sixth century B.C. in an archaic tongue. Unfortunately, so far with the evidence that we have now, it is impossible to be sure of the date.

That is true. But there appears to be some consensus even among believers that Zarathustra / Zoroaster's time was between 650 BCE to 550 BCE, (with most believing that he was born in 600 BCE) and that the Gathas were written (in the preserved sacred language) during that time. However, once again, the worship of Ahura-Mazda still precedes Zarathustra. I don't know if that belief extends all the way back to 1200 BCE or not. But we know that particular god was already worshipped for some considerable period prior to the Avesta.

Now if we take the earlier date of say 1200 BC, we find that the Biblical aspects that you claim that are borrowed are still much earlier.

Actually, if we go with that date, Mazda could even have been contemporary to Moses' version of YHWH.

Abraham's birth is dated around 2056 BC I believe and that he left Ur in 1900 BC or so. The early era of Judaism is cited for around 1650 BC (this is the first mention of Yahweh yet I can't remember as of yet where this was found).

If you can't come up with that citation, I understand. I couldn't find it either. But what are your sources for these other dates? Because none of the dates you've come up with so far match anything I can find even among exclusively Bible-believing sources.

Which of course pre-date Isaiah. Isaiah is considered to be from 950 BC or there about so even then if the late date is actual then Isaiah would pre-date them as well.

Earlier in this very thread, you said, (and Gluadys agreed) that the first story to be included in the Bible was Job, which was dated to 1500 BCE.

Even if it could be proven that the Roman Mithraists were indeed a cult derived from the cult Zorastra the timeline is pre-dated by the dates of the time of the patriarchs.

I already told you, I'm not concentrating on Roman Mithraism specifically because of the difficulty establishing any solid dates or content of their beliefs. Instead, I would prefer to concentrate on the content of the Yashts, and the rest of the Avesta. And your patriarchs will be of no use to you in this case.

Well, actually logic tells me that Abraham shouldn't precede the beginning of the Hebrew oral tradition by 400 years, and that Moses wouldn't have come along before Akenaten.

What do you mean that Abraham shouldn't precede the beginning of the Hebrew oral tradition? Abraham is the beginning of the Hebrew tradition itself.

You mean just like Zoroastrianism would be the beginning of Mithraic belief? The story of Abraham may or may not be older than that of Job. But either way, Job is still hailed as the beginning of the Hebrew oral traditions leading to the Bible.

Moses did come before Akenaten. Akenaten came around 1367-1350 BC and Moses came in around 1496-1450 BC.

I think your date for Akenaten is correct. But every scholarly reference I know of for Moses declares that the only archaeological mention of the "Apiru" people at all was from the court of Rameses II. There was (I thought) universal concensus that Rameses II was supposed to be the Pharoah of the Exodus, and that would have put Moses after Akenaten, and the estimated date of the Exodus closer to 1250 BCE.

But the point is that Zarathustra's Avesta was the first mention of several concepts that hadn't yet been adopted by Semitic monotheism; one of them being the dichotomy the wise lord of the Kingdom of Justice and Truth or the Kingdom of the Lie under the Opposer of Faith. The books Moses allegedly compiled didn't include any such concept. And the first books that did weren't written until almost Jesus' time.

Be specific. Genesis speaks about Good and evil, speaks about punishment and so forth. So I am not sure what you are referring to here.

I am referring specifically to the posthumous Heaven or Hell option, and the system of judgement to determine who's soul spends eternity where.

I am proposing something that perhaps you're not getting because of our respective mindsets at the onset. Being a creationist, you probably imagine everything poofing into existence, as it is now, all at once, and that may include your Bible.

Well as usual you are wrong.

Well that was nice! You've had a near total error rate thus far, yet you say "as usual" I'm wrong? Why do you people typically become so rude so fast?

I don't think that everything "poofed" into existence all at once. I don't think that the Bible did either which should be clear by our discussion but then again.

But you keep insisting that everything be taken together; that every concept to come along after Abraham must already have been in place with Abraham, including our judgement of damnation, salvation, and identification of messiah. You are describing a whole belief system coming together all at once when even you know that it didn't.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Obviously, as an "evolutionist", I don't see it that way. What I propose is that your belief system was slowly molded into its current form by adopting and adapting various concepts over many generations, the same way you might say that all the other religions formed except yours. I suggest that none of your Biblical authors, nor the Hebrew religious tradition itself included any mention of posthumous judgments for the option of Heaven or Hell until after the influence of Zarathustra's religion.

I beg to differ. Sheol which means hell is used some 65 times in the OT.:

It doesn't matter how often they mention Sheol prior to about 560 BCE. Remember, I said the Hebrews believed in a gloomy realm of the dead since the days of the Mesopotamian religions. At the same time, Egypt believed in Paradise. Zarathustra was the first one to put the two concepts together in the form of a dichotomy, unless you can find some explanation of that which precedes the Avesta.

And the word Gehenna:

2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; 2 Kings 23:10;

What version of the Bible are you using? 2nd Chronicles dates to the early 4th Century BCE, still a couple centuries after the time we're talking about. With an apparent date of 560 BCE, 2nd Kings may have been written contemporary with Zarathustra, just long enough ago to be adequate for your comparison. But neither it nor your other reference mentions the Kingdom of Heaven, nor any system of posthumous judgment for the deeds in life, or anything else to imply that any Hebrew already believed that people could reside with the God in the sky. All these talk about some Hellish realm on or beneath the Earth, which I already said the Hebrews believed in since the days of polytheism. We're talking the origin of Heaven as an alternative.

Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2-6; 32:35. We quote Jeremiah, 19:2-6, which speaks of the Jews worshipping pagan idols and committing abominations:

"19:2. And you shall go out to the Ben-Hinnom Valley which is at the entrance of the Harsith Gate, and you shall call there the words that I will speak to you. 19:3. And you shall say; Hearken to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; so said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; Behold I am bringing evil upon this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle. 19:4. Because they forsook Me and they estranged this place and burnt incense therein to other gods, which they had not known, they, their forefathers, and the kings of Judah, and they filled this place with the blood of innocent people. 19:5. And they built the high places of Baal to burn their children with fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command, neither did I speak nor did it enter My mind. 19:6. Therefore, behold days are coming, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or Ben-Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter."

This work is dated from 626-586 BCE which pretty well fits the bill. But alas, it too doesn't mention any sort of option to Sheol or how to achieve it. In another 50 years or so, Zarathustra would suggest one. But it isn't to be found here, or in anything else that was written before the Avesta.

Daniel speaks of Heaven as well as Psalms.

Yes, but that was in the 2nd Century BCE, and once again, centuries after the influence of Zarathustra even by the most conservative estimates. And both books use 'heaven' in a sense that is synonymous with 'sky'. I'm looking for a reference which predates that, and describes how some humans might reside in Heaven in some post-mortem eternity, something that would challenge that idea having descended from the worship of Mazda.

You said that Roman Mithraism wasn't based on any earlier representation of Mithra from Persia, based (I suspect) on your position that the "Younger Avestas" came along after the Roman version. All I said about this inscription was just what this site said it was; archaeological evidence of a transition from Eastern influence which already existed, which was later modified into Roman Mithraism.

You were claiming an inscription that was not considered to be authentic to this cult. The date I used was for the oldest "authentic" piece to that cult.

The inscription was taken to indicate a transition from the Persian belief and which still seems to have lead to the Roman variant.

I did read it, all the way through, before I posted anything about it. And I did understand it, or I wouldn't have done so. But it seems that you did not understand it.

I did most certainly understand it. You claimed that this earlier date was for Roman Mithraism and it was not. The later date that I cited in your source was considered the oldest evidence which was dated much later.

Then you didn't understand it. The whole article talked about the evident formation of Roman Mithraism from an originally Persian concept, which you now deny.

There was a rich intermingling of religious systems that came together in Asia Minor. That Mithraic worship was present in Asia Minor from ancient times is evident through the great number of theophorous names of rulers to be found in the region, such as Mithridates Eupator, the last ruler of Pontus.1 One possible explanation for why the name of Mithra was chosen is that it had particular appeal to the militaristic mentality

Right here you are supporting my position with your source. It states that the Roman Mithraistic cult chose a name for their militaristic mentality. They chose this meaning that they were not derived by the earlier religion.

Yet this same paragraph also says that the name itself is proof that Mithraic worship was already present, and that the adopted name did come from the Persian source.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The name Mithra in early religion was actually Mitra rather than Mithra. There is no evidence to date that clearly links the two other than the group of Roman cultists taking the name for their cult.

The Roman Mithras doesn't link Mitra to Mithra. But doubtless there is a relationship even in the Vedas, since the Aryans (Iranians) share so much of their original history and even language with the early Indu, which lead to the Hindu. But we're not talking about that now. We're discussing the transition from Zoroastrian to Roman belief, from Mithra to the Latinized Mithras.

In fact , the practices of the cult were not the same as Zorastrain cult practices.

That much is true. There are differences between the Persian and Roman worship of the same god. But according to this article, (which you said you understood) the Roman cult was still, almost certainly, derived from the Zoroastrian concept.

on account of the ancient Iranian recognition of Mithra as a protector of kings and warrior-defender of truth. Beskow suggests that the presence of peculiar private societies that existed in Bosporan cities, that were since 110 B.C.E. under the control of Mithridates Eupator, indicate a prototype for later Roman Mithraism.

But that the Roman cultists would relate to this and take these on would still not mean that they originated in the earlier form.

Why not? There is a strong indication of that probability. What else could it mean?

2 He explains that the societies were concerned with the worship of Oriental deities, were headed by a leader termed Pater, excluded women, were composed primarily of aristocratic soldiers, and were limited to groups of 15-20 persons.3 The size of the societal groups suggests a striking parallel to the Mithraea found later throughout the Roman Empire, the largest of which could only accommodate roughly 40 persons and most accommodated roughly between one and two dozen.4 Also, plaques with a tauroctone (That is, just the bull-slaying, to differentiate from the more complex "Tauroctony" of later Roman Mithraism that involved additional complex astrological allusions and figures.) image have been found in Crimea (which was absorbed into the Pontic kingdom in 110. B.C.E). Beskow writes:

Another possible piece of evidence is offered by five terracotta plaques with a tauroctone, found in Crimea and taken into the records of Mithraic monuments by Cumont and Vermaseren. If they are Mithraic, they are certainly the oldest known representations of Mithras tauroctone; the somewhat varying dates given by Russian archaeologists will set the beginning of the first century C.E. as a terminus ad quem, which is also said to have been confirmed by the stratigraphic conditions.5

Also some evidence suggests that the original prototypes of Roman Mithraism may have had more Iranian influence in their character.6 It is clear that when it was adopted into the Roman culture, obvious Iranian vestiges were dropped, attested by the fact that all Roman Mithraic inscriptions are in either Greek or Latin.7 Finally, the oldest inscription that is agreed by consensus to be Roman Mithraic was found in Asia Minor, dating to 77-78 C.E, by a Roman prefect.8

7 Finally, the oldest inscription that is agreed by consensus to be Roman Mithraic was found in Asia Minor, dating to 77-78 C.E, by a Roman prefect

So again, the oldest Roman Mithraic article found is dated 77-78 AD. which is what I pointed out.

And which was preceded by Per Beskow's "Oriental" [Persian] group who were evidently already practicing this same religion by the late 2nd Century BCE, almost 200 years earlier than the Roman Mithraeum which you're talking about.

You gave the other quote without this last quote which made it seem that the dates were earlier when they were in fact much later. These are not known to be evidence for the Roman Mithraic cult.

You seem to rely on double standards. For example, you think any pre-Christian Christ doesn't really predate Christianity unless it also predates Judaism, because you say the two must be taken together. But for some reason, you say pre-Christian parallels in Roman Mithraism can't be taken together with Zoroastrianism no matter how evident it is that one descended from the other.

I should also add that the earliest evidence of Christianity hails from a few decades later than what we have for Roman Mithraism. So I guess that means that Christianity didn't exist before then, right?

Not far from the region, in ancient Armenia, a strong echo of Persian influence had been solidly established through the conservative character of the Zoroastrianism practiced there, indicating the great expanse of territory that was put under Persian influence, and therefore, exposed to Mithraic cults.9 Although, from this one can not argue that particular tenets governing the worship of Mithra survived transition from East to Asia Minor to West, we can at least thus clearly indicate a line of migration in the recognition of the god and his status. Certainly, a great deal of fusion among religion systems occurred in Asia Minor, where the ancient traditions of Mesopotamia and Greece met and embraced in some of the most interesting ways.

This is a very prominent point to the discussion, it can not be shown that Roman Mithra worship was the same as the earlier version of the Zoroastrian cult. The particular belief systems that you profess of the Roman Mithra cult are not in evidence prior to the Old Testament.

And any review of the Decalogue or of Levitican law reveals that Christian belief is not the same as Judaism either. Modern Judaism isn't even the same as the old Judaism. Yet you still insist on a double standard that Christianity may not be considered to have started when it did, (in the 1st Century CE) and that it must not be severed from the Hebrew belief which was (and still is) very different. But you insist that the Mithraic cult could not have started when it did, (which is evidently some time in the 1st Century BCE) and must be kept separate from the foundational beliefs which obviously originated in ancient Persia. The rules you apply to the one should also apply to the other.

Also, it seems to be the case that the type of Mithraism that, for instance, offers a potential precedent for Roman Mithraea in the private societies noted above also wasn't a standard Zoroastrian cultic recognition of Mithra. Indeed, private (secret?) societies surrounding the recognition and worship of a deity other than Ahura-Mazda could easily constitute a heretical movement. Such a theoretical heretical Mithraism may entertain alternate versions of the creation story and so to an extent bridge the gap between the Mithras (sic) and Tauroctony in the Roman Empire and earlier Zoroastrian recognition of Mithra.

Clearly this is a problem with your position as you are trying to make a connection of Zoroastraism as the origin of the borrowing when in fact, it can not be shown that Roman Mithraism held any of the same beliefs of that sect.

You seem to be in the same boat linking Christianity with Judaism. But as I have already said, due to the fact that neither of us can verify the exact content or origin of Mithraic Romans' beliefs, then I only intend to concentrate on the origin of posthumous judgment of Heaven or Hell.

Along with the private societies in Bosporan cities, a revealing inscription dating much earlier to c. 358 B.C.E. from the region of Caria, in southern Asia Minor, suggests that there was a syncretic movement between Hellenistic and Persian/Medean divinities in the region. In this particular Aramaic inscription, the epithet ksathrapati is identified with Apollo, which for Iranians would correspond to Mithra.10 Further evidence that this inscription was not the product of Zoroastrian belief is that the Old Persian term krp', a cognate of karapan, is used to designate the cult. The latter is a term used by Zoroaster in the Gathas to denote non-Zoroastrian priests.11

Same problem.

Similarly, Christian belief is not Jewish belief either.

I find it interesting that in evolutionary clades, once you are born into a family, you're always going to be a part of that family no matter how much you change after that. That's why humans are still apes, still monkeys, still mammals, etc. You can never evolve out of whatever your ancestors were. But in religion it is the opposite. Once your belief system has evolved, it is severed from its source, so that Protestants are no longer Catholics, Christians in general are no longer Jews, and Mithraists were no longer Zoroastrians.

They're saying that this inscription is earlier evidence of Mithraism, at least 600 years older than the Younger Avestas, implying that Zarathustra probably did write them after all, centuries earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The avestas were dated around 600 BC on linguistics alone, there are no actual originals of this. So on one hand you claim unsubstanciated dates for known dates (original artifacts).

Then we're both in the same boat since you're doing exactly the same thing by trying to claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. How are the books in the Bible dated?

Yes the Dead Sea Scrolls date later but they are copies of much, much earlier forms.

Not all of them are. And apparently, none of the ones detailing the salvation of human souls to exist forever in Heaven was ever explained in any of the works to predate the Babylonian occupation or the Avesta. And of course, the worship of Mazda is also much much older than the Avesta.

I have shown that Biblical concepts pre-date Zarathustra.

No. You have only asserted that they do. But you're claiming unsubstantiated dates for known dates. And in many cases, your Biblical concepts are dated on linguistics alone. What you have shown is that the worship of Mazda may even be as old as that of Moses.

What this last passage is telling you is that the latter Mithraism, adapted for Rome, arose out of traditional Zoroastrianism as an unwelcome heretical cult, the same way Christianity rose out of Judaism.

It is not telling me that. What it is saying is that it did not adhere to the same belief system that came before and that any borrowing of concepts is totally unproven if not totally false.

I will accept unproven, as well as unprovable. But everything in this article is consistent with what I would expect if I was right. And as I said before, Christianity didn't adhere to the same belief that came before it either.

When you cite Zoroastrianism as the dating for the belief systems that are considered to be borrowed by Judaism then this proves to be unvalid.

Once again, we encounter your odd definition of "proof" which appears to be the very opposite of what that word should normally mean.

You can not cite any evidence that brings these certain beliefs in prior to Biblical terms.

Yes I can. The Avesta describes the judgment of souls destined for Heaven or Hell, and as you said, the window for that tome is roughly somewhere between 1200 BCE and 600 BCE. The Hebrew and the Zoroastrians were neighbors for centuries. Yet none of the books in the Bible which describe anything similar to what the Avesta describes can be dated even as far as the most recent date given for Zarathustra, and the beliefs of which he wrote are supposed to precede him as well.

Considering all the secrecy, the fact that ALL the evidence is only imagery rather than textual, and the fact that in Judaism any drifting from the original Torah was forbidden; it would be most unlikely that Judaism would have taken anything from another cult especially one that was very secretive. Get it?

The fact that Roman Mithraism was such an exclusive cult is a good point. But Zoroastrianism was not a secret cult. It is also clear that the Hebrew belief did borrow from other religions, especially from its own ancestral beliefs, which are no longer in their original form. Wouldn't the addition of new works be "drifting" from the original Torah? And wouldn't the alteration of certain information contained in the Bible also be a derivation from it, as would any interpretations of other concepts that were never actually described therein?

Just look at your notion of the serpent in the garden, for example. Now originally, the serpent was associated with Lilith in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and was never meant to be anything more than a snake "which could not be tamed". The common current idea is that the serpent was really Satan in disguise. But of course the Bible doesn't actually say this anywhere. And until about the time of King James, the Christian position was the same as that of the elder Hebrew legend; that the serpent was Lilith. I understand that the House of Yahweh still considers the serpent of the garden to have been female. But if they do, they are the only extant Christian denomination who still believe that, where it was the dominant idea in Christianity once upon a time. Interestingly enough, the association with Lilith is taken from Talmudic "legends" that were never in the Bible either. Both are entirely imagery rather than textual, and both ideas drift from what is actually said in the Torah.

Likewise Ba'al is misrepresented in the New Testament, his name translated from Ba'al Zebul (Lord or Prince of the house) to Ba'al Zebub, (Lord of the Flies) and then Beelzebub, again, erroneously associated with Satan in yet another derivation from the Torah. In life, Ba'al was the king of the city of Ugarit , and appears to have more parallels with Elvis than with your devil. In another interesting parallel, as one of some 80 god-men and alleged sons of El, Ba'al was brother to Shahar, which made him Lucifer's uncle. And depending on how you define El, that could also have made him Jesus' half brother.

 

[Aron-Ra]

grammatically, it can't be interpreted the way you suggest.

By what grammarical rule would that be?

"In the beginning" means "this happened first". God created the Heavens AND the Earth. In other words, he created both of these things ...together ...in the beginning, ...before he did anything else. Then he created light. That was the 2nd thing he did after the beginning, and after creating the Earth and sky. "And the Earth was without form" ..in the beginning, before there was even light. But God's spirit moved over the face of the waters, (which are without form) so we know the oceans were already here even if the land wasn't. The firmament, which is usually referred to in the same context as the sky, was built on the 2nd day. And everything else in the universe, (sky) was created on the 4th day, not "in the beginning" like the Earth was. The way this is written, it is clear that God didn't carve any other details into this planet until the 3rd day, when he made the land rise out of the sea. Obviously, the material Earth had to already exist for this to happen. Then on the fourth day, he created the "lights in the sky", which we know to be everything else in the seemingly infinite universe. There is no way to interpret this such that he did not create the Earth "in the beginning" prior to literally everything else except empty space, (although the book says space if full of water). Even if all these creative events (including the origin of man) were collectively called "the beginning", it is still not possible to interpret this such that the Earth did not precede the rest of the bodies in the heavens. The Bible quite definitely says that the Earth was the first thing created, and that it took longer to build that than it did all the bazillions of complex galaxies of solar systems populating the vast expanse of the rest of the universe. Obviously, these people had not the slightest idea what the rest of the universe was, or even that this planet was just another part of it.

She said Job was not the oldest book in the Bible, and that the version of the story that was finally written down was recorded in the 6th to 3rd century BCE. But she said that it was the oldest story in the Bible in the sense that parallels have been found in ancient Sumerian texts, and the Job personage is a stock proverbial figure in Mesopotamian texts. Being the oldest verbally-recited story in the entire collective library makes it the beginning of the oral tradition.

Actually Numbers is the oldest known text of the Bible at this time as shown earlier in my posts with the amulet being found. It if you will remember was dated 400 years earlier than even the dead sea scrolls.

You're not paying attention. The oldest archaeological evidence of the Bible is this silver amulet. You're right about that. But contextual evidence suggests it to be a copy of something originally written at some time between the 6th and 10th Centuries BCE, and other, more speculative (faith-based) indications are that the written documents are carried over from an oral tradition which began as much as three centuries earlier. That would make this particular passage at least 1,000 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls, but still not as old as Job, which is believed to have already been a popular oral tradition for about 300 years by the time any the events depicted in Numbers could ever have taken place.

The Hebrew religion of Yahweh was the beginning of the oral tradition passed down from Abraham. That is the true beginning of the religion Judaism.

Whenever Abraham actually lived, his story was incorporated into Judaism. But the earliest work to eventually be included in the Bible was still Job. The Hebrew were not a national religion until Moses, who represents the real beginning of their religion.

"In about 1200 BCE the Hebrews, now calling themselves "The children of Israel" left Egypt in an event called the Exodus. According to the Bible, Moses led them out. Moses also introduced a powerful single deity, "Yahweh" to the Hebrews. This new religion of Yahweh and the dramatic exodus from Egypt are perhaps the main unifying events that solidified the Hebrews into a nation."
--Minnesota State University

In COSMOS, (the book, not the series) Carl Sagan also credits Moses with introducing the concept of monotheism, although arguably, Akenaten did it first, depending on whether monotheism can be henotheist too.

The only truth in the story of the Tower of Babel is this: The monument was still incomplete when the Mesopotamian empires began to collapse. As a result, the very people who had invented syllabic texts were reduced to illiterate nomads, in some cases, in as few as a couple generations.

Can you explain this?

I thought I just did. These people were once part of a magnificently advanced culture. According to Heroditus, Babylon still surpassed in splendor any city in the known world even in 450 BCE. Imagine what it was like in its heyday, before the empire that built it collapsed. I'm sure it would still be a wonderful city if we could see it as it once was.

But alas, its former glory was reduced to ruin and eventually reclaimed by the desert wastes. Unfortunately, this was still a violent society, which brought them to ruin, and they lost the culture that brought about syllabic text, the written language. The Chaldean survivors of this political turmoil became illiterate, nomadic wanders, reduced to retelling their various ancestral traditions orally. Not being caste in stone, these tales were subject to change, even if those changes were unintentional, simply because some embellishment is impossible to avoid over the vast duriations of time and travel we're talking about now. Even Heroditus himself got the details wrong just describing the place from a first-hand account. He said the wall of Babylon was 57 miles long, when it appears now that it was only ten miles long. And while Moses may have demanded that the Hebrew tradition he knew be considered sacred (and ancient) we can't be sure that they were always considered so, and they evidently weren't.

Some of the ancient texts were preserved. But the people could no longer read them, because the written word had become like a different language even when it was written in their own ancestral tongue.

Which would fit well with what the Bible says, yes?

It's a bit of a stretch. But one could say that, as long as one ignored the fact that the Bible claims there to have been only one language spoken in the entire world until that time. Even if you're only talking about the written word, there were at least two other literature languages known by the time Hammurabi began construction of the Marduk ziggurat. Due to political strife, that project was postponed for more than 1,000 years, and eventually abandoned altogether in the 6th Century BCE. By that time, there were already many other written languages known in other parts of the world.

Out of curiosity, when did you think the Tower of Babel project was abandoned? And how did you arrive at that date?

Eventually, these ancient tablets found their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, where they remained buried for 2,500 years.

But you would admit that there could be others that did not find their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, correct?

Absolutely! It is reasonable to guess that there were more than a million other documents that were all lost forever. But there is still no indication that your version of the Pentateuch was among them.

It must also be noted that the Poem of Gilgamesh was an evolutionary epic

As the Bible is also.

and as I have studied this more I find that only parts of it were complete at different time periods. Interestingly enough, I have found what seems to be a prominent element in this development. It seems that the deluge part of the epic can only be dated to sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC. Which means that some of the parts of the poem are older than the Genesis version 1500 BC but the part about the flood is dated later (1300-1000 BC).

I don't know about that. But I knew that it couldn't have been written all at once. For one thing, we are to believe that Utnapishtim gave his account to Gilgamesh first-hand, in person. But that would be impossible because Utnapishtim would have experienced this flood at least 200 years before Gilgamesh ruled over Babylon, and as I said, no one has ever lived that long. But while we're on the subject of these dates, I should remind you that the Sumerian king list is hands down the oldest historic chronicle known to man, (documenting beyond the 3rd millenia BCE). And it indicates that the flood of Utnapishtim/Zuisudra/Atrahasis (and eventually Noah) was at some point in the 29th or 30th Century BCE, at least 1,500 years before that story was rewritten in Genesis.