For Slacker, about that wall of text you wanted me
Current mood: satisfied
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I should've been studying, but I couldn't resist, so I read it . I probably could've been more thorough in my reading and this response, but...yeah. This response covers some of the stuff, but not all of it. Sorry .
I enjoyed reading it and I thought it made sense. Especially the Garden
of Eden story being used as a metaphor for the development of
agriculture - that was an interesting interpretation that I haven't
thought of before. I'm sure you're aware that there has been debate
about the historicity of the Genesis account, and whether the creation
story is real, metaphorical or just a story, i.e. like Jesus' parables
and intended to present a moral point.
On that, I'm undecided. There's no doubt that the evidence supporting
an "old earth" model of the universe (i.e. older than a mere 6000
years), as well as evolution by the process of natural selection, is
overwhelming, and I think that it's reasonable to say that if the
creation story in Genesis cannot be reconciled with this new evidence,
then the authority of the Bible as a whole hangs in the balance.
On the topic of the Epic of Gilgamesh, I have only a paragraph which is written in my Scofield Study Bible, which reads:
That Babylonian and Assyrian monuments contain records bearing a
grotesque resemblance to the majestic account of the creation and of
the Flood is true, as also that these antedate Moses. But this confirms
rather than invalidates the inspiration of the Mosaic account. Some
tradition of creation and the Flood would inevitably be handed down in
the ancient cradle of the race. Such a tradition, following the order
of all tradition, would take on grotesque and mythological features,
and these abound in the Babylonian records. Of necessity, therefore,
the first task of inspiration would be to supplant the often absurd and
childish tradition with a revelation of the true history, and such a
history we find in words of matchless grandeur, and in an order which,
rightly understood, is absolutely scientific
Do I agree with all of it? No, but I agree with the point that he made
about the two accounts not invalidating the myth, but rather confirming
it.
Well, the Babylonian polytheistic version in Gilgamesh predates not only Judaism, but the very first known monotheistic worship of any god, Atenism, in Egypt.
That version itself is based on an even earlier Sumarian version, certain names are different and there are some other slight differences, but it's essentialy the same.
In history, we call this a line of development and the Genesis version definately looks to have been 'developed' from these earlier versions.
Put that together with a complete lack of evidence of a worldwide flood ever happening along with the fact that the earth doesn't contain enough water to flood all land and the fact that it would be physicaly impossible to build a wooden boat of the size described without it falling apart under it's own weight and also that a boat that could contain two of every species on earth would have to be much bigger, and the whole thing looks more and more like mythology.
It may have been based on actual events though, like the deluge which happened around 7,600 years ago, just after mankind had started to become become agricultural. Because of the rising sea levels Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus and into the Black Sea, which at the time was a glacial meltwater lake.
It is estimated that ten cubic miles of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls, and that this flume continued for at least three hundred days. The event flooded 60,000 sq miles of land and anyone living around the coast of the Black Sea at the time would have been swept away to their deaths.
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For Slacker, about that wall of text you wanted me blog
. I probably could've been more thorough in my reading and this response, but...yeah. This response covers some of the stuff, but not all of it. Sorry 
. 