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Noah's ark was round?

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  • Noah's ark was round?

    A recent tablet could shed light on the flood story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...p_ref=religion

  • #2
    Isn't that pretty much a play on "every culture has a flood story"? I admit I just skimmed the article, but it's almost like they were discounting Noah's Ark, because this "round ark" doesn't pretend to be Noah's Ark, but is a similar "myth". No?
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by iTeluog View Post
      A recent tablet could shed light on the flood story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...p_ref=religion
      Hello iT,

      This isn't really recent. The translation was quite a few years back; it's news because he's getting ready to release a book. I actually wrote Finkel when it was first publicized. This particular tablet gives another variation in the common ark story. There's no particular reason to believe it's the earliest, and good reason to believe it's not. In the earliest ark story we have, the shape isn't described, or rather the section where we'd expect it to be described is eroded and unreadable, but it's clearly a river barge out of Mesopotamia, hence rectangular.

      As ever, Jesse

      Comment


      • #4
        I have seen this news story variously used for and against a defense of the biblical account. To me, this somewhat misses the point... if one has an understanding that God appropriated existing pagan accounts to point to deeper theological purposes (as per Peter Enns's The Evolution of Adam), it doesn't have to weigh in there. (And I'm not looking to debate those particulars in this thread.)
        "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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        • #5
          Originally posted by iTeluog View Post
          A recent tablet could shed light on the flood story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...p_ref=religion
          1) If there really was a flood like the one in the Bible, we should expect alternate accounts of it.
          2) The comments section of the article was exactly what I expected.....especially since it's the HuffingtonPost.
          Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.

          -Thomas Aquinas

          I love to travel, But hate to arrive.

          -Hernando Cortez

          What is the good of experience if you do not reflect?

          -Frederick 2, Holy Roman Emperor

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
            Isn't that pretty much a play on "every culture has a flood story"? I admit I just skimmed the article, but it's almost like they were discounting Noah's Ark, because this "round ark" doesn't pretend to be Noah's Ark, but is a similar "myth". No?
            Not only a similar myth or an alternate story, this is not new news cuneiform tablets with this story on it have been around for a number of years. These are a part of the origin of the Genesis myths and stories.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
              I have seen this news story variously used for and against a defense of the biblical account. To me, this somewhat misses the point... if one has an understanding that God appropriated existing pagan accounts to point to deeper theological purposes (as per Peter Enns's The Evolution of Adam), it doesn't have to weigh in there. (And I'm not looking to debate those particulars in this thread.)
              Hello KG,

              That's pretty much the way I read it, though I haven't read Enns' The Evolution of Adam. I call it "extended metaphor," like "hitting a home run" for a business success, but using pervasive myths known throughout the region. Outside certain nooks in Christianity, the relationship between these Mesopotamian flood stories isn't controversial.

              As ever, Jesse

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by TimelessTheist View Post
                1) If there really was a flood like the one in the Bible, we should expect alternate accounts of it.
                Hello TT,

                These aren't just alternate accounts, they're earlier accounts, some predating the Noah story by ... say 2700-600 ... call it two millennia. The archaeology doesn't support a truly devastating regional flood, however. Instead, we see evidence of a number of localized floods, taking out one city or another, no doubt pushed together into one grand tale connecting them all for inhabitants who could see "the" flood in evidence each time they went out to maintain or repair the extensive irrigation canals maintained by a sequence of empires.

                As ever, Jesse

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by TimelessTheist View Post
                  1) If there really was a flood like the one in the Bible, we should expect alternate accounts of it.
                  2) The comments section of the article was exactly what I expected.....especially since it's the HuffingtonPost.
                  My thoughts exactly. Especially number 2.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    pie r round, cornbread r square!
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                      Hello KG,

                      That's pretty much the way I read it, though I haven't read Enns' The Evolution of Adam. I call it "extended metaphor," like "hitting a home run" for a business success, but using pervasive myths known throughout the region. Outside certain nooks in Christianity, the relationship between these Mesopotamian flood stories isn't controversial.

                      As ever, Jesse
                      He's fairly upfront that none of what he presents in his books is particularly controversial in scholarly circles (yet it always ends up being theological dynamite).
                      "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        It's also the subject of a new book, "The Ark Before Noah," by Irving Finkel, the museum's assistant keeper of the Middle East and the man who translated the tablet.
                        If his title is anything to go by, Finkel looks like he's going to trot out the argument that the Genesis account was copied (with a few embellishments) from older Babylonian 'myths.' Why is that? What are the grounds for saying that these stories are older than the Biblical account?
                        "Your name and renown
                        is the desire of our hearts."
                        (Isaiah 26:8)

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Ged View Post
                          If his title is anything to go by, Finkel looks like he's going to trot out the argument that the Genesis account was copied (with a few embellishments) from older Babylonian 'myths.' Why is that? What are the grounds for saying that these stories are older than the Biblical account?
                          The argument is well founded, because all the ancient records of the flood and many other parts of the OT are found in older Canaanite and Babylonian cuneiform tablets. There are no older Hebrew scriptures then those found in the Dead Sea scrolls, which date after the exile period.

                          *Two silver scrolls with blessings dated ~600 BCE were found in Israel.
                          Last edited by shunyadragon; 01-29-2014, 12:29 PM.
                          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                          go with the flow the river knows . . .

                          Frank

                          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Ged View Post
                            If his title is anything to go by, Finkel looks like he's going to trot out the argument that the Genesis account was copied (with a few embellishments) from older Babylonian 'myths.' Why is that? What are the grounds for saying that these stories are older than the Biblical account?
                            Hello Ged,

                            The Babylonian flood tales have Akkadian precursors, which in turn have Sumerian precursors. The oldest of these of which I'm aware is the Ziusudra epic, dating to c. 2700 BCE. The Biblical tale, because it is written in Hebrew — which differentiated from the Phoenician c. 1000 BCE — has a terminus pro quem over a thousand years later based strictly on the linguistics. There are other arguments for placing the Biblical tale in its received form closer to c. 600 BCE. In either case, the Biblical tale is unquestionably of more recent vintage.

                            As ever, Jesse

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Shuny / Lao

                              Yes, but must we assume that the Genesis account was copied from these older stories that we just so happened to have found? Is it not equally as possible that the various accounts came from a common source as yet not found?

                              And if they stem from a common source, could it be possible that one account (not necessarily the oldest) did a better job transmitting the original story?
                              "Your name and renown
                              is the desire of our hearts."
                              (Isaiah 26:8)

                              Comment

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