[Turtle]

Deepwater6, on 29 October 2011 - 09:05 AM, said:

I don't remember reading about the great flood in ancient Egypt, but I do know the Bible speaks of the flood and Egypt although not together, that I know of. I seem to remember hearing that geologists found evidence of a world wide flood, I assumed that covered Egypt as well.

I think it's important to remember that back then the whole world was alot smaller to people than it is now. They didn't realize that North and South America as well as other continents were out there. A heavy rain or a tsunami that inundated a large region for an extended period of time could have been viewed as a flood sent by God.

I'm not an expert on dates, but the Bibles exact era is a mystery to me. You ask an interesting question.

so deepwater, having read most all your posts since you came here i find you on the whole an honest, humble, and genuinely enquiring person and worthy of an honest answer here. understand that sunshine is none of those things; a troll promoting a faith agenda and here to prey on those such as yourself and annoy the others. i'll leave you to figure that out as it plays out.

so you recently lamented a lack of knowledge and study in mathematics among other things in another thread and now here in this matter of literary study. inasmuch as have already called the fig a fig, here then is the calling the trough a trough. in other words, ignore sunshine and read something of the real state of affairs in regard to gilgamesh and the biblical flood story.

i will quote enough to demsonstrate to you that the story in genseis is in large part taken from the epic of gilgamesh - the rest being added by biblical authors and editors, which we discuss in another thread on biblical authorship- and i encourage you to follow the links and read the entire epic. it is as the introduction says, arguably the oldest existing written story on the planet and it is not very long. what's not to love about that? enjoy and stay tough.


Introductory Note:
Epic of Gilgamesh: Main Page

Timothy R. Carnahan said:

The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE).

The translator chose to eliminate Tablet XII for personal reasons, with support from many literary, archaeological, and linguistic experts because it appears to be more of a sequel to the first 11 tablets, containing a story about Enkidu volunteering to retrieve some objects that Gilgamesh dropped into the Netherworld.

This translation is based on the "standard" Akkadian "edition", but is filled in with excerpts from the Old Babylonian where necessary.

The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI @ AncientTexts.org

Epic of Gilgamesh said:

The Story of the Flood
...
O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu:
Tear down the house and build a boat!
Abandon wealth and seek living beings!
Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings!
Make all living beings go up into the boat.
The boat which you are to build,
its dimensions must measure equal to each other:
its length must correspond to its width.
Roof it over like the Apsu.
I understood and spoke to my lord, Ea:
'My lord, thus is the command which you have uttered
I will heed and will do it.
...
Whatever I had I loaded on it:
whatever silver I had I loaded on it,
whatever gold I had I loaded on it.
All the living beings that I had I loaded on it,
I had all my kith and kin go up into the boat,
all the beasts and animals of the field and the craftsmen I
had go up.
...
Just as dawn began to glow
there arose from the horizon a black cloud.
Adad rumbled inside of it,
before him went Shullat and Hanish,
heralds going over mountain and land.
Erragal pulled out the mooring poles,
forth went Ninurta and made the dikes overflow.
The Anunnaki lifted up the torches,
setting the land ablaze with their flare.
Stunned shock over Adad's deeds overtook the heavens,
and turned to blackness all that had been light.
The... land shattered like a... pot.
All day long the South Wind blew ...,
blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water,
overwhelming the people like an attack.
No one could see his fellow,
they could not recognize each other in the torrent.
The gods were frightened by the Flood,
and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.
The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.
Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,
the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed:
'The olden days have alas turned to clay,
because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!
...
I looked around for coastlines in the expanse of the sea,
and at twelve leagues there emerged a region (of land).
On Mt. Nimush the boat lodged firm,
Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.
One day and a second Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
A third day, a fourth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
A fifth day, a sixth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing
no sway.
When a seventh day arrived
I sent forth a dove and released it.
The dove went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a swallow and released it.
The swallow went off, but came back to me;
no perch was visible so it circled back to me.
I sent forth a raven and released it.
The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back.
It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me.
Then I sent out everything in all directions and sacrificed
(a sheep).
...

[Deepwater6]

Thanks Turtle, I'd be happy to read it. Of course, you know me I will probably have a few questions afterward

I had a sense of an agenda creeping in at the beginning, but figured everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. I sure hope that's not the case. I come to Hypography to learn the facts as best as they can be known.

[Turtle]

Deepwater6, on 02 November 2011 - 03:16 PM, said:

Thanks Turtle, I'd be happy to read it. Of course, you know me I will probably have a few questions afterward

I had a sense of an agenda creeping in at the beginning, but figured everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. I sure hope that's not the case. I come to Hypography to learn the facts as best as they can be known.

my pleasure. of course you know me; i'll be happy to answer those questions or find someone who can.

so on some more facts creeping in and your mention of localized floods rather than global. instead of jumping around to all our flood threads, i'll just point out that in one of them craig cited the evidential case for a major flood event in the Black Sea basin around 5000 bce. i found a link to one report & here's a quote to whet your whistle and the full monty for you to chow down on if you're hungry.


Ballard & the Black Sea @ national geographic

NG said:

...
• About 7,000 years ago the Mediterranean Sea swelled. Seawater pushed northward, slicing through what is now Turkey.

• Funneled through the narrow Bosporus, the water hit the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. Each day the Black Sea rose about six inches (15 centimeters), and coastal farms were flooded.
...

edit: ps that article is not as complete as i thought and it's somewhat dated. there is a more up to date summary with criticism of the theory and other references @ the wikipedia page on the topic. >>

Black Sea Deluge Theory

Quote

...Criticism
While some geologists claim it as fact that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over their suddenness and magnitude. In particular, if the water level of the Black Sea had initially been higher, the effect of the spillover would have been much less dramatic. A large part of the academic geological community also continues to reject the idea that there could have been enough sustained long-term pressure by water from the Aegean to dig through a supposed isthmus at the present Bosporus, or enough of a difference in water levels (if at all) between the two water basins.

Countering the hypothesis of Ryan and Pitman are data collected prior to its publication by Ukrainian and Russian scientists including Valentina Yanko-Hombach, who claims that the water flow through the Bosporus repeatedly reversed direction over geological time depending on fluctuation in the levels of the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. This contradicts the hypothesized catastrophic breakage of a Bosporus sill. Likewise, the water levels calculated by Yanko-Hombach differed widely from those hypothesized by Ryan and Pitman.

In 2007, a research anthology on the topic was published which makes available much of the earlier Russian research in English for the first time, and combines it with more recent scientific findings.[2]

A five-year cross-disciplinary research project under the sponsorship of UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences was conducted 2005–9.[9]

A February 2009 article reported that the flooding might have been "quite mild".[10]

According to a study by Giosan et al.,[11] the level in the Black Sea before the marine reconnection was 30 m below present sea level, rather than the 80 m, or lower, of the catastrophe theories. If the flood occurred at all, the sea level increase and the flooded area during the reconnection were significantly smaller than previously proposed. It also occurred earlier than initially surmised, ca. 7400 BC, rather than the originally proposed 5600 BC. Since the depth of the Bosphorus, in its middle furrow, at present varies from 36 to 124 m, with an average depth of 65 m, a calculated stone age shoreline in the Black Sea lying 30 m lower than in the present day would imply that the contact with the Mediterranean may never have been broken during the Holocene, and hence that there could have been no sudden waterfall-style transgression.

...

This post has been edited by Turtle: 02 November 2011 - 09:55 PM

[Deepwater6]

I read up on most of the information everybody presented. When I typed "Oldest story known to man" into the search engine it came back with Shuruppak. A Sumerian king and the end of the Urak period. There was an Archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak, but I'msure you guys new that already. Where does it fit in?

Now, If we take religion out of the conversation for a minute. These early writings all seemed to have the same goal. Which is teach humans to treat each other right or suffer consequences for your misdeeds. It seems to me, wise elders in Shuruppak or wherever this story originated decided that this would be an effective way to control the masses. This may have been prompted by elders being imtimidated by being around larger and larger masses of people as the early cities swelled.

Getting back to God. As stated in other threads I do believe in a higher power, but not in any organised religion. I walked away from the religion that I was brought up on much to the chagrin of my parents. The reason? Too many irregularities and cases completely contrary to reason in my mind. Be that as it may I don't begrudge anyone's belief in any religion. If it works for you so be it.

So, If Turtle can prove that the Epic of Gilgamesh was where this story originated from it will render that story meaningless in the Bible? If Sunshine can prove his point it will confirm the existence of a creator? It just all seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence for such a big question.

Thoughts?

[Turtle]

Deepwater6, on 03 November 2011 - 04:28 PM, said:

I read up on most of the information everybody presented. When I typed "Oldest story known to man" into the search engine it came back with Shuruppak. A Sumerian king and the end of the Urak period. There was an Archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak, but I'm sure you guys new that already. Where does it fit in?

good thinkin' lincoln. it fits in with flood stories not being unique to the bible. following your example, i found this link.
>> The 10 Oldest Books Known to Man

Deepwater6 said:

Now, If we take religion out of the conversation for a minute. These early writings all seemed to have the same goal. Which is teach humans to treat each other right or suffer consequences for your misdeeds. It seems to me, wise elders in Shuruppak or wherever this story originated decided that this would be an effective way to control the masses. This may have been prompted by elders being imtimidated by being around larger and larger masses of people as the early cities swelled.

the goal may as well have been to entertain as to instruct.

Deepwater6 said:

Getting back to God. As stated in other threads I do believe in a higher power, but not in any organised religion. I walked away from the religion that I was brought up on much to the chagrin of my parents. The reason? Too many irregularities and cases completely contrary to reason in my mind. Be that as it may I don't begrudge anyone's belief in any religion. If it works for you so be it.

So, If Turtle can prove that the Epic of Gilgamesh was where this story originated from it will render that story meaningless in the Bible? If Sunshine can prove his point it will confirm the existence of a creator? It just all seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence for such a big question.

Thoughts?

i don't hold that noah is meaningless, only that it is not historically unique, not factually correct, and not from the mouth or hand of a supernatural agent or agents. the problem i have with religion (spiritualism, mysticism, name your euphemism) here, is religion here. by here, i mean at the hypography science forum. our purpose, our interests, and our rules are quite clear on the matter. while i find belief in the supernatural a delusion, i don't go to sites promoting such belief and provoke the members. by the same token, when believers come here and willfully, deceitfully, and intentionally provoke, i have little to no patience with it. to paraphrase aristophenes, i call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.

[CraigD]

Sunshine 2118, on 30 October 2011 - 01:28 PM, said:

There is great reason why you don’t recall reading ‘great flood in ancient Egypt’ in the myths of ancient Egypt. There isn’t any but the primeval flood which in some fashion agrees with Genesis 1, and the once yearly flooding of the Nile. http://en.wikipedia...._creation_myths

The cited wikipedia articles and its references don’t appear to me to support the claim that ancient Egyptian creation myths involve a “primeval flood”. Like the earliest Sumerian creation myths, the Egyptian ones describe the the world – dry land, literally – arising from a primordial sea characterized as feminine, creative, and chaotic – the Egyptian Nu and the Sumerian Nammu.

As has been much discussed in this thread, Sumerian myth, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, describes a subsequent expunging of most of humankind from the world with a great flood, a story almost identical to the Christian Biblical flood. Egyptian myth, however, appears to lack this story, perhaps because their mundane experience with flooding lead it to be associated with benign, rather than destructive, effects?

Sunshine, do you mean by your reference above to “the primeval flood” as a feature in ancient Egyptian myth, the arising of the world from Nu? Or do you mean they had a story like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Biblical flood