Many people have stated that Genesis cannot be taken as history. Archaeological evidence begs to differ.
Babylonian Creation Stories
"Epics of Creation, in various forms, on tablets which were in circulation before the time of Abraham, have been found in recent years in the ruins of Babylon, Nineveh, Nippur and Ashur, which are strikingly similar to the Creation account of Genesis. The main difference is there are many gods."
Original Monotheism
"Dr. Stephen Langdon, of Oxford University, has found that the earliest Babylonian inscriptions suggest that man's first religion was a belief in One God, and from that there was a rapid decline into Polytheism and Idolatry."
Eridu, Traditional Garden of Eden
The particular spot which tradition has fixed as the site of the Garden of Eden is a group of mounds, 12 miles south of Ur, known as Eridu (Abu Sharem). It was the home of "Adapa," the Babylonian Adam. The Weld Prism says the first two kings of history reigned at Eridu. Ancient Babylonian inscriptions say, "Near Eridu was a garden, in which was a mysterious Sacred Tree, a Tree of Life, planted by the gods, whose roots were deep, while its branches reached to heaven, protected by guardian spirits, and no man enters. The ruins of Eridu were excavated by Hall and Thompson, of the British Museum (1918-19). They found indications that it had been a prosperous city, revered as the Original Home of Man.
The Eridu Region
The region around Eridu, excavations have revealed, was densely populated in the earliest known ages of history, and was for centuries dominating Center of the World; a region where many of the oldest and most valuable inscriptions have been found.
Babylonian Traditions of Fall of Man
Early Babylonian inscriptions abound in references to a tree of life, from which man was driven, by the influence of an evil spirit personified in a serpent, and to which he was prevented from returning by guardian cherubs. Among these tablets there is a story of Adapa, so strikingly parallel, to the Biblical story of Adam, that he is called the Babylonian Adam. Adapa, the seed of mankind, through knowledge, -then he became mortal, the gods, said, He shall not rest, they clothed him with mourning garment. There are two ancient Seals which seem to portray in Picture exactly what Genesis says in Words: The Temptation Seal found among ancient Babylonian tablets, now in the British Museum, seems definitely to refer to the Garden of Eden story. In the center is a Tree; on the right, a Man; on the left, a Woman, plucking fruit; behind the Woman, a Serpent, standing erect, as if whispering to her. The Adam and Eve Seal found, 1932, by Dr. E. A. Speiser, of the University Museum of Pennsylvania, near the bottom of the Tepe Gawra Mound, 12 miles north of Nineveh. He dated the Seal at about 3500 B.C., and called it strongly suggestive of the Adam and Eve story: a naked man and a naked woman, walking as if utterly down-cast and broken-hearted, followed by a serpent. The seal is about an inch in diameter, engraved on stone. It is now in the University Museum at Philadelphia.
Other Traditions of the Fall of Man
Persian: our first parents, innocent, virtuous, and happy, lived in a Garden, where there was a Tree of Immortality, till an evil spirit in the form of a Serpent appeared. Hindu: In the first age man was free from evil and disease, had all his wishes, and lived long.
Greek: the first man, in the golden age, was naked, free from evil and trouble, enjoyed communion with the gods.
Chinese: had a tradition of a happy age, when men had an abundance of food, surrounded by peaceful animals.
The flood Deposit at Ur
Within the last few years, an actual layer of mud, evidently deposited by the flood, has been found in three separate places: Ur, which was 12 miles from the traditional site of the Garden of Eden; at Fara, traditional home of Noah, 60 miles further up the river; and at Kish, a suburb of Babylon, 100 miles further up the river; and, possibly, also at a fourth place, Nineveh, 300 miles still further up the river. At Ur, the city of Abraham, the joint expedition of the University Museum of Pennsylvania and the British Museum, under the leadership of Dr. C. L. Woolley, found (1929), near the bottom of the Ur mounds, underneath several strata of human occupation, a great bed of solid water-laid clay 8 feet thick without admixture of human relic, with yet the ruins of another city buried beneath it. Dr. Woolley said that 8 feet of sediment implied a very great depth and a long period of water, that I could not have been put there by any ordinary overflow of the rivers, but only by some such vast inundation as the Biblical Flood. The civilization underneath the flood layer was so different from that above in that I indicated to Dr. Woolley a sudden and terrific break in the continuity of history.
The Flood Deposit at Kish
Kish (Ukheimer, El-Ohemer, Uhaimir), on the east edge of Babylon, on a bed of the Euphrates which is now dry, was said, on the tablets, to have been first city rebuilt after the Flood. The Field Museum-Oxford University Joint Expedition, under the direction of Dr. Stephen Langdon, found (1928-29) a bed of clean water-laid clay, in the lower strata of the ruins of Kish, 5 feet thick, indicating a flood of vast proportions. The flood layer is located just above the wall ruins. It contained no objects of any kind. Underneath it the relics represented an entirely different type of culture. Among the relics found was a four-wheeled Chariot, the wheels made of wood and copper nails, with the skeletons of the animals that drew it.
The Flood Deposit at Fara
Fara (Shuruppak, Sukkurru), home of the Babylonian Noah, about half way between Babylon and Ur. Once on the Euphrates, now 40 miles to the east. A low-lying group of mounds, beaten by the sands of the desert. Excavated (1931), by Dr. Eric Schmidt, of the University Museum of Pennsylvania. He found the remains of three cities: the top one, contemporaneous with the 3rd Ur dynasty; the middle city, Early Sumerian; and the bottom city, Pre-Flood. The flood layer was between the middle city and the bottom city. It consisted of yellow dirt, a mixture of sand and clay, definitely alluvial, water-laid, solid earth, without relics of human occupation. Underneath the flood deposit was a layer of charcoal and ashes, a dark colored culture refuse which may have been wall remains, painted pottery, skeletons, cylinder seals, stamp seals, pots, pans and vessels.
At Nineveh Also
In Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, Vol. XX, pages 134-35, PI 73, M. E. L. Mallowan, director of the British Museum Excavations at Nineveh (1932-33), describing the sinking of the pit in the Great Mound, through 90 feet from the top to virgin soil, states that 70 feet to the 90 presented five pre-historic strata of occupation, and that about half-way down, between the 2nd and the 3rd strata from the bottom, there was a stratum some 8 feet thick consisting of alternate layers of viscous mud and riverine sand with 13 distinct rises in level, which in his opinion, indicated a series of severe pluvial seasons. There was a distinct difference between the pottery under the wet layer, and that above it.
1. The fact that a vast flood covering the whole area of early civilization is established by the 8 foot layer of silt which cuts through the cultural levels of all the Euphrates Valley sites.
2. Sumerian King Lists from Lower Mesopotamia retain the tradition of a Deluge. Phrases such as, then the flood swept over the earth
after the flood, occur.
3. A Sumerian tablet of 2000 B.C. gives a full account of a flood. One man is saved by the intervention of the gods, in a huge boat.
Site of the Tower of Babel
The traditional Tower of Babel is at Borsippa, 10 miles southwest from the center of Babylon. Sir Henry Rawlinson found in a foundation corner in Borsippa a cylinder with this inscription: The tower of Borsippa, which a former king erected, and completed to a height of 42 cubits, whose summit he did not finish, fell to ruins in ancient times. There was no proper care of its gutters for the water; rain and storms had washed away its brick and the tiles of it roof were broken. The great god Marduk urged me to restore it. I did not alter its site, or change its foundation walls. At a favorable time I renewed its brick work and its roofing tiles, and I wrote my name on the cornices of the edifice. I built it anew as it had been ages before; I erected its pinnacle as it was in remote days. This seems like a tradition of the unfinished tower of Babel. It is commonly thought by archaeologists that more then likely the actual site was in the center of Babylon, identified with the ruins just north of the Marduk Temple. G. Smith found an ancient tablet reading: The building of this illustrious tower offended the gods. In a night they threw down what they had built. They scattered the abroad, and made strange their speech. This seems like a tradition of Babel. It is now an immense hole 330 feet square, which bas been used as a quarry from which to take bricks. When standing it consisted of a number of successive platforms one on top of another, each smaller than the one below, and sanctuary to Marduk on the top.
There are many more pages of archaeological facts that concern the history of Genesis.