1. Yes, the Epic of Gilgamesh is a different kind of story. That we can agree on. It blames humankind's problems on the gods. It has a different purpose. It is more gruesome.
I'm just looking at timelines here.
The Epic derives from sources, stories, told, reshaped and retold, over a 2,000 year period.
The
earliest elements are there in a handful of Sumerian poems, dated at least to 2100BCE, possibly centuries earlier. The
latest (Akkadian) version – aka the Standard Babylonian version – and also
the final version is dated to 1300-1000BCE.
The
earliest written text of Genesis we have are in the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated to about 200BCE.
That said, the original composition of the Book of Genesis is reckoned to have occurred between 1400–500BCE, with some sections possibly originating as early as the 9th–7th centuries BCE. The consensus Documentary Hypothesis today (after many reviews and revisions) holds that Genesis was composed
after the Babylonian captivity, possibly in the fifth century BCE. Some place it earlier, in the 6th century BCE, others later, as late as the 3rd century BCE.
So
the final version of Genesis dates to probably somewhere either side of the 5th century BCE.
And I might be a tad generous here, but it's not unfair to say that about 1,000 years separates 'final Gilgamesh' from 'final Genesis' – and in that time, Israel itself has undergone significant changes, as a people, and as a set of beliefs, most notably the shift from a proto-monotheism of our God as distinct from the Gods of our neighbours, to its mature form of the One True God without equal.
Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing is eliminated. So the myths of antiquity were needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations – their origins was as old as their neighbours'.
Genesis is a
theological history. It's not the facts of history that matters, these are assumed, not argued. The narrative is not about proving history, it's about the theological significance and implication of it.
My point here is, the account in Genesis that we have now has undergone revision and redaction. It's much more likely that the common myths of origin, that Abraham was raised on, were carried by his peoples on their journeys. They were enriched and elaborated, revised and redacted, according to cultural, spiritual and theological understanding and insight. The raw elements are still there: the gods, who create a walled garden for themselves in the world, and create little workers to tend and work it, and of a falling-out, with disastrous consequences, who are the children not just of the expulsion from paradise, but of a potential genocide.
The role of the storyteller, then, is to explain how, if in these tales we lived alongside, spoke with and rubbed shoulders with the gods, that we 'now' find ourselves living by the sweat of our brows, out of touch with the gods, and apparently, by the many sufferings that befall us, in ill-favour. Are obligated to penance and sacrifice. Are we abandoned? Have we been forgotten? That is what the myths are about.
2. No, it does NOT say that humans would be the same as God. It says that they would be like God by having the knowledge of good and evil. Eating of both of those trees didn't make them equal to God.
"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" (Genesis 3:22). Not creator Gods, clearly, but having divine knowledge, and having divine immortality ...
3. So it's Hebrew heritage? I'm confused. You started the thread making it seem like everything you wrote was a fact. Was that your intention? Or do you admit that it is your opinion? Because there are so many questions that need to be asked. Chief among these is when did the Hebrew people first show up? And where? Anyone can point at the 6th century BCE. But it's hard to determine how their culture began if we can't answer the above questions.
As I understand it, the Hebrews are an identifiable Canaanite societal group whose origins goes back to Semitic-speaking peoples across the Ancient Near East around 3-4000BCE which gave rise to Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Amorites, Aramaens, Ugarites, and others. I think the term Hebrews is first used to describe a Canaanite group enslaved by Egypt.
4. In regard to Elohim and Jahweh, I too have read the Documentary Hypothesis. I have also read Darwin's Origin of Species which came out around the same time. Both books are quite old and outdated.
But not dismissed, but revised, as stated above.
5. You still don't seem to understand what I am asking you or you are avoiding the elephant in the room on purpose. So let's try this again.
The Sumerians had a unique style of record keeping. This tablet style of record keeping is very similar to the outline of the creation story in Genesis. The generations of the heavens and earth, the generations of Adam, the generations of Noah, the generations of the sons of Noah, etc. are all organized similar to the tablet style of record keeping by the Sumerians.
OK.
This style of record keeping would be from around 2000 BCE. The Hebrews wrote down their version around the 6th century BCE. So they somehow held onto an old Sumerian style of writing. That alone is odd and makes your thread seem unlikely.
Why? My thread is pointing out the commonalities between Genesis and other Ancient Near East myths (in another post I'll show how these myths crop up in Exodus). I'm saying the common education today assumes Genesis is somehow different and special, and divinely revealed, which they clearly are not, unless the original 'ür-myth' was divinely revealed, and everyone's put their own spin on its since, which I do not, in fact, rule out.
But then we have to remember that the Hebrews most likely came out of the Akkadian culture. The Hebrew language appears to have evolved out of the Akkadian language. The Sumerian language was completely different and bears no resemblance to Hebrew. This is part of the Sumerian problem. The Sumerians and Akkadians sprung up next to each other with similar customs yet completely different languages and writing styles. So why borrow your writing style from the Sumerians? Especially a style that was around 1500 years old?
I'm not talking about styles, I'm talking about stories. Text parallels suggest cultural exchange and/or shared traditions may have shaped early Hebrew traditions.
Why, Thomas, did the Hebrews do this? And how?
6. I already cited historians who placed Abraham at the time of Hammurabi. The various timelines of the patriarch lineage are a thread on their own.
The stories are older.
7. The vast majority of "scholars" ignore the fact that the Hebrews had no way of mass producing their stories until the monarchy of Israel existed.
So we have no way of knowing what those stories were. They're not ignoring evidence, there simply is no evidence to examine.
8. Here is the other question that I still don't see a logical answer to. The pagan religions have the patriarchs either living for tens or hundreds of thousands of years or have them represented as actual gods. The pagan religions blame the world's problems on conflicts between the gods. Humans don't bear culpability; it is gods who are the problem. The pagan religions make the elements into gods. So we have sun gods, moon gods, water gods, etc. The serpent is the most worshipped god of them all (alongside fertility gods). These religions often encouraged sexual promiscuity.
But what you are telling me is that the Hebrews thought it would be a good idea to create a religion where none of these gods exist.
I'm not. I'm saying Hebrew tradition evidences early polytheism, through monolatry to monotheism. In the end, in the post-exilic reforms, Yahweh emerges as the Supreme God head and shoulders above the rest, the only one worthy of veneration as God. Along the way, the Hebrews subsumed all the divine qualities to Yahweh, and got rid of or demoted other, lesser, gods. Thus El became identified as a name of Yahweh, Asherah ceased to be a goddess, consort of El and, possibly, Yahweh himself, and Baal became an enemy of God. From the 9th century BCE through to the exile, features of the Israelite religion identified as Canaanite, were rejected as proving particularly annoying if not actually detested by God: asherah poles, worship of the sun and moon, and the cults of the "high places" – the degree to which God detested such things is a measure of their value in Canaanite and unreformed Israelite belief.
A religion where humans are responsible for their sins. A religion where sexual promiscuity was a bad thing. A religion where the patriarchs were just humans, not gods. They made a religion that actually had some bits of plausibility to it. They made a religion that just doesn't seem like fun compared to the pagans. Worst of all they took away idols. People LOVE idols. We still do.
Why? And why where they successful? Can you answer this?
Because there's at least a 1,000 years between them?
Can you point me in the direction of a culture that did something similar? It is a challenge I have presented to "scholars", but none can come up with a single example of a culture whose religion reverted to something more believable.
I don't see why lack of comparison proves anything.
What was the "scholars" response to your challenges?
9. Pagans built houses. Are houses pagan? Pagans made pottery. Does that mean that pottery is a pagan custom? Pagans drank wine. Is drinking wine a pagan custom? Just because the pagans did something doesn't mean that it is automatically a pagan invented custom.
Half the time, I really don't get what you're on about?
10. Nimrod was indeed a villain. Nimrod means "the rebel". It comes from the Hebrew root verb "marad". I doubt the Hebrews would refer to a good guy as "rebel". Josephus claimed that Nimrod was a tyrant. He didn't paint him as a hero at all. He claimed that Nimrod made his people dependent on him. He wanted his people to worship him instead of God. He also resented God for killing his ancestors in the flood.
Lets look:
"And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar" (Genesis 10:8-10 – 1 Chronicles 1:10 repeats a verse above, and Micah 5:6 simply mentions the land of Nimrod).
The etymology of the name is lost, so the attribution to 'rebel' is dubious, it might also be 'valiant' – but the rebel tends to win out because of later commentary. The phrase 'before the LORD' could suggest 'in opposition to', but again its not definitive.
Nimrod is the ruler of Babylon associated with the Tower of Babel. Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions – legends – portray him as a tyrant who led Babel's builders, who turned people from God, and opposed Abraham, even attempting, unsuccessfully, to kill him by fire.
There is no evidence that Nimrod was an actual person in any non-biblical records, registers, or king lists (including the Mesopotamian ones, which are considered older than the biblical record). Scholars cannot match Nimrod with any historically attested figure, or find any historical.
In short, he's a composite figure covering various kings who opposed Israel. He is credited with being the first to introduce idolatry, and to the wearing of crowns. In short, over time his infamy has grown considerably.
11. So the Hebrews weren't trying to unite people behind a religion? I'm glad you don't think they were frauds. But if they weren't trying to unite followers, what was their purpose?
I don't see where I've misled you on this.
I'm simply saying that ancient myths, common to the region, the common history of Israel and her neighbours, were repurposed in the telling to unite people behind the a, specifically Yahwistic monotheism, and that the elements of those myths were repurposed accordingly.
