In Genesis 1:25-27, the creation of man
follows the creation of animal life, and this order is reversed in Genesis
2:19-20. A possible reason for the
reversal in order is that the animals created in Genesis 1 would cover the
globe, whereas certain animals in Genesis 2 were indigenous to the garden of
Eden. Adam was given the task of naming
the animals. Not polar bears, penguins,
aye ayes, South American tree sloths, Australian koala bears, or duck-billed
platypuses, which would have been geographically remote, but simply the animals
near to the garden. It is the offspring of this group, apparently, that Noah was instructed
to save in the flood.
All and Every
Genesis 8:17: "Bring forth
with thee every thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of
cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may
breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth."
"Every beast" and "every
fowl" that Adam named (Gen. 2:19) were the ones in this special area of
habitation. The same requirement fits
Noah's circumstances. "Every
beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl" that Noah brought off the ark
in Genesis 8:19 were likely from "all" the animals Adam named. They came from the immediate vicinity.We can only speculate on how much territory
that would cover.
It is a great temptation to take
ancient Hebrew words, translate them directly into English, and then make an
interpretation based upon what modern English-speaking peoples might have meant
had they used such words. There are
many instances where this technique will generate an erroneous result.
In Genesis 41:41,47, Pharaoh set Joseph
"over all the land of Egypt," and there were seven plentiful
years. "And he gathered up all the
food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt ..." (Gen.
41:48). All the food?The resident Egyptians ate none of it in
seven years?
"And the famine was over all the
face of the earth ..." (Gen. 41:56).Were the Americas similarly affected?Australia? China?"And all countries came into Egypt to
Joseph for to buy corn ..." (Gen. 41:57).
That would be a long trip for someone living in Scandinavia.
Now, let us use common sense
interpreting these verses. The issue is
not whether Old Testament passages can be interpreted literally. They can and should be. There were seven years of bountiful harvest
followed by seven lean years. Food was
stored up during the first seven years so that enough would be available for
the following seven. They were so
efficient that even surrounding countries could draw on their stores.
Reason needs to be applied lest we
cause a needless distortion. It would
be unreasonable to suggest that the Egyptians ate not a morsel for seven years
because, "he gathered up all the food of the seven years." It would be senseless to think the rainfall
in Peru was deficient because "the famine was all over the face of the
earth," or that Aztec Indians lined up behind Australian Aborigines at the
gates of Memphis because "all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to
buy corn ..." By the same token,
the Genesis flood narrative does not mandate a world-wide catastrophe because
"all flesh died" in it.
This interpretative constraint can be
seen elsewhere in the Old Testament. In
I Samuel, David and 600 of his men were in hot pursuit of the Amalekite
army. When David's band made contact
with the Amalekites, "behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth
..." (I Sam. 30:16).
Whereupon David smote them; only 400
young Amalekite men escaped death (I Sam. 30:17). To those who would insist that the language of Genesis 7 and 8
dictates a world-wide flood because the waters prevailed "upon the
earth," I would invite them to be consistent, and distribute the Amalekite
army over the globe also. Then explain
how David was able to eradicate them in 24 hours with only 400 men (200 lagged
behind).
The Amalekite army, in all likelihood,
occupied no more territory than did the Confederate troops at the battle of
Gettysburg. Knowing that gives us a
means of measurement we can apply to the flood. By using the Bible's own yardstick, the deluge of Noah's day
would be local, not global.
Another example of Hebrew terminology
is found in Psalm 22. This is a psalm
of David, yet a prophecy of the crucifixion, "... they pierced my hands
and my feet" (Psa. 22:16).
Matthew harkens back to David,
"the prophet," and quotes Psalm 22:18 in his account of the Roman
soldiers casting lots for Jesus's garments (Matt. 27:35). Yet, David the psalmist also wrote,
"... and all my bones are out of joint" (Psa. 22:14).
Should the word "all" in this
verse cause heartburn? No! It is entirely consistent in Hebrew
usage. Reason and common sense cannot
be cast aside when Hebrew terminology is converted into English. Likewise, reason is helpful to recognize
that the Genesis flood passages pertain assuredly to a local calamity, not a
global cataclysm.
Men and Animals Spared
Placing every kind, variety, or species
of animal, bird, and insect on a mountain top, or even on a lower foothill
after the flood, would present a gigantic redistributional nightmare. Imagine tree sloths, for example, lumbering
their way from Armenia up through Siberia, across the Bering Strait (long after
the land bridge was gone), and then down through what is now Alaska and Canada,
across the plains and deserts that are part of the U.S. and Latin America to
their present-day home in South America.
Whereupon, the giant-sized versions promptly went extinct! Drats.
If we know anything about world
geography, we also should know that migration does not explain how animals
could have traveled from Armenia to their present-day habitats. Before the flood, during the flood, and
after the flood, the world's animal populations went about their daily
business, oblivious to what transpired in Southern Mesopotamia.
The fact of animal survivors gives
needed perspective to the biblical account.
It may not be noticeable immediately from Genesis 8:17, but surviving
animal life is one basis for acknowledging human survivors as well. It may not be as evident, but when we focus
on what the Bible says, and not on what we have been told it means, we can see
there were human populations living outside the flood zone.
Ramm emphasized this point:
The
flood was local to the Mesopotamian valley.
The animals that came, prompted by divine instinct, were the animals of
that region; they were preserved for the good of man after the flood. Man was destroyed within the boundaries of
the flood; the record is mute about man in America or Africa or China.
If an abundance of
animal life over the globe was excluded from the flood, something we can verify
easily, then a consistent reading of the text also excludes mankind. Linking animals and man in the Genesis text
requires a mutual interpretation. In
ignorance, we might think all animals and all men perished in the flood. In light of general revelation, we can say
that some animals and some men perished in the flood. It would be entirely inconsistent, however, to assert that only
some animals died in the flood, but all men perished.
For Whom the Bell Tolled
In pointing to His second coming, Jesus
refers to the days of Noah. "For
as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark
..." (Matt. 24:38).
In Atrahasis, we are given a
perspective on what "eating and drinking" may mean. Although there are pieces missing out of the
account, enough has been recovered to show us the overwhelming compassion and sorrow
he must have felt in the waning hours before the rain began to fall. After the birds, cattle, and wild animals
were put aboard, Atrahasis turned to his people for whom there was no provision.
He invited his people [ ]
[ ] to a feast.
[ ] he put his family on board.
They
were eating, they were drinking.
But
he went in and out,
Could
not stay still or rest on his haunches,
His
heart was breaking and he was vomiting bile.
As regards the
Sumerians, "drinking" has a different connotation. Although some wheat was grown in Sumer, the
salty, alkaline soil was more friendly to growing barley. The Sumerians knew what to do with that. Some 40% of all the barley grown in that
region was used to produce ale. The drunken
ways of the Sumerians were so notorious, the Greeks joked that one of their
pagan gods, Dionysus, had fled from Sumer in revulsion.
The "wickedness" and
"thoughts of evil" (Gen. 6:5) which brought on the ultimate
destruction must have been manifested in those who had the knowledge and
capacity for sin, specifically those who were direct descendants from Adam and
Eve. Sumerians living in close
proximity with the Semites could have been afflicted similarly by sin, and
there is much evidence that the cancerous growth of sin had spread to them as
well.
We know that slavery, divorce, and
polygamy were practiced. The Sumerians
worshipped over 3,000 pagan gods, and brought food offerings to them. As populations grew, appetites for more
grain for food and drink put increased demands on the scarce water supply. When they dug irrigation canals upstream, it
would deprive farmers farther downstream.
Cities waged war on neighboring cities over land and water rights.
Often the Sumerian king list concludes
a list of kings at cities with an ominous phrase, "Uruk was smitten with
weapons"; "Ur was smitten with weapons"; "Kish was smitten
with weapons."
Although the Sumerians were capable of committing acts of raw
aggression, murdering and enslaving their hapless victims, the question is,
were they accountable?
God is a loving but righteous Father,
meting out punishment for disobedience.
Adam was given a commandment, he disobeyed, and was punished. When "men began to call upon the name
of the Lord" (Gen 4:26), the knowledge of both good and evil passed to
Adam's offspring.
Sin is a uniquely human attribute, but
until God determined to give a commandment specifically to Adam, it does not
appear that penalties were assigned.
History does not record such a commandment was given to native
Americans, or Black Africans, or Asiatics, or even Egyptians or Sumerians. They were not tasked by God. Why should He destroy those who were not
held to account?
When Abraham made his appeal to God to
withhold His judgment against the condemned city of Sodom if only ten righteous
people were found, he started with this question in Genesis 18:23, "Wilt
thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?"
If
God could confirm for Abraham that His judgment would not extend to punish the
righteous few for the wicked many, then He merely read into the record what He
had already established at the time of the flood. Was moral corruption prevalent among those who had yet to learn
of sin and disobedience, who were not answerable, who had not been given a
commandment? Probably so. Immorality - yes, judgment - no.
On the question, did Noah's flood cover
the entire world? Donald Boardman answered "no," and concluded:
There
is little evidence from the Scriptures concerning how God was dealing with
people in other parts of the earth. It
seems logical in the light of these evidences that, in the case of the Noahic
society, God was dealing with a local society and that his punishment was upon
a limited number of persons at the time.
Flood
Survivors
If the flood is recent and local, and
there are no gaps in the Genesis chronology which puts only 1,656 years (from
the Masoretic text) between the flood and Adam's creation, then placing both
Noah's flood and Adam's birth downstream in the history of humanity is a
necessary conclusion. Not only
unaffected animal survivors, but disinterested human survivors, were all over
the globe when Noah disembarked. From The
Cambridge Ancient History:
Although
the Flood was not the universal phenomenon that it has often been claimed to
be, there is no doubt that it was exceptional among the long series of recorded
Mesopotamian floods and that it overwhelmed parts of various cities in southern
Babylonia.
Dalley calls for
survivors in her book, Myths from Mesopotamia:
Although
Atrahasis emphasizes the catastrophic nature of the Flood, the ancient
Babylonians were well aware that not every thing was destroyed; Erra and Ishum
makes it clear that the city of Sippar survived, a belief echoed by Berossus,
who says that ancient writings were buried there before the Flood and later
retrieved.
Writing at the time of
Caesar Augustus, Nicolaus Damascenus makes mention of one who was carried on an
ark to the mountains of Armenia. His
brief account ends with a conjectural comment, "Perhaps this was the same
individual of whom Moses the legislator of the Jews has made mention."
(Hmmm, I wonder ...)
It is the beginning of Damascenus's
account that bears directly on the question of local flood survivors.
There
is above Minyas in the land of Armenia a very great mountain which is called
Baris; to which, it is said, that many persons retreated at the time of the
deluge and were saved ...
When we consider that
racially diverse populations covered the globe long before 5,000 years ago,
flood survivors are mandated.
In his book, The Biblical Flood, Davis Young concluded:
...
archaeological investigations have established the presence of human beings in
the Americas, Australia, and southeastern Asia long before the advent of the
sort of Near Eastern civilization described in the Bible and thus long before
the biblical deluge could have taken place.
In the light of a wealth of mutually supportive evidence from a variety
of disciplines and sources, it is simply no longer tenable to insist that a
deluge drowned every human on the face of the globe except Noah's family.
"All the relevant
evidence from the created order tells us that the flood was neither
geographically nor anthropologically universal," Young went on to say. Indeed, the Bible itself appears to be
cognizant of flood survivors. The
Genesis 6:4 "giants" (Nephilim in Hebrew) were some manner of
men with ancient origins who apparently were in residence prior to Noah, and
maybe, Adam. Furthermore, they appear
in later chapters. In Numbers 13:33,
the post-flood "sons of Anak who come of the giants" reflects back to
Genesis 6:4, to the pre-flood period.
This is from The Expositor's Bible Commentary:
On
the face of it, the remark presents a problem to the view that only Noah and
his sons survived the Flood, since it suggests that the "sons of
Anak" were descendants of the "Nephilim" (min hannepilim,
lit. "from the Nephilim") who lived before the Flood.
How could Nephilim be
on both sides of the flood? Because in
the post-flood period they were living in what became Canaanite country, the
region of Palestine, outside the flood zone.
Data compiled from archaeological excavations in the Near East
corroborates the local nature of the flood.
Although flood deposits have been found at sites in Mesopotamia, no
flood layers have been found in Egypt or in the Palestine region.
In Deuteronomy 2:10,11, "The Emims
dwelt therein in times past, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakims;
which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them
Emims." The Anakims were a race of
giants, descendants of Anak, who dwelled in southern Canaan.
Emims were as tall as Anakims, the Bible attests, and were the ancient
inhabitants of Moab.
In Deuteronomy 2:20,21, "That also was accounted a land of giants:
giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; a
people great and many and tall as the Anakims; but the Lord destroyed them
before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead." Joshua mentions "remnant of the
giants," "giants," or "valley of the giants" in five
verses (Josh. 12:4; 13:12; 15:8; 17:15; 18:16).
Post-flood Emims, Anakims, or
Zamzummims cannot be identified as Ubaidans, Sumerians, or Persians, but
likewise, they do not appear to be any of Noah's kin either. And this urges the question. How could there be populations unrelated to
Noah in the post-flood period, giants or otherwise, if all men died in the
flood? If the Bible has no problem with
flood survivors, it should not bother us.
Only one year after Darwin published The
Origin of Species, fellow Englishman Edward William Lane wrote The
Genesis of the Earth and of Man. In
it he said:
It
appears, therefore, that Holy Scripture does not forbid, nay, rather it
requires, a belief in the existence of Pre-Adamites of our species, whose
posterity were not destroyed with the unbelieving Adamites by the waters of the
flood.
If Bible scholars had
paid as much attention to Lane as biologists did to Darwin it is possible that
no Bible-science conflict would have developed at all!
Of Patriarchs and Kings
When the Sumerian king lists began to
surface, there was a rush to show that these were the source of the biblical
patriarchs. The Berossus list, close
companion to the Sumerian versions, was analyzed by the Assyriologist Zimmern,
who concluded:
It
can hardly be doubted that the Biblical tradition of Gen 5 (P) concerning the
antediluvian patriarchs is basically identical with the Babylonian tradition
about ten antediluvian primeval kings.
Taking the opposite
tack, G. F. Hasel made a comparative study and found "a complete lack of
agreement and relationship" between Genesis 5 and 11 and the
Sumerian kings. As is often the case,
the truth may be found between extremes.
The Genesis patriarchs and Sumerian kings cannot possibly be
"basically identical" for reasons we shall see. On the other hand, there is sufficient
commonality that to say there is "a complete lack of agreement" is
equally erroneous. We will compare by
first deriving a consensus list of Sumerian kings.
SSSSSSSSSSSs
Using
a Revised King List
So that we may
use only one list for comparison, King list W-B 62 is revised, taking into
account another primary list (W-B 444), plus five other lists (not shown). Table 1 is the result.
Step 1. Misplacing names was a common scribal error. With the other lists as guides, Enmenluanna
replaces the fragmented -kidunnu, moving him from seventh to third. This moves the eighth and ninth kings up to
positions 7 and 8.
Step 2. Enmengalanna from W-B 444 replaces the fragmented -alimma.
Step 3. Suruppak is inserted at position 9 as an intermediate
generation. Ziusudra's grandfather,
Ubartutu, reigned immediately before Ziusudra, but Suruppak was Ziusudra's father.
One king list even names Suruppak and omits Ubartutu.
We now have a revised king list for
comparison purposes.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSs
Observations
Table 2 gives us a
"spreadsheet" of the pre-flood patriarchs, including the revised list
of pre-flood kings, the Berossus list, and two other king lists to compare
alongside the Genesis patriarchs.
One transposition has been performed on
the Berossus list. Both Amempsinos and
Ensibzianna are identified as king of Larak.
Since Larak was "clearly the third city" according to Langdon,
this suggests the Berossus list has
Amempsinos out of order with Edoranchus.
Let us start with some preliminary
observations. First, the genealogies in
Genesis are just that; the early fathers of the Semites. The Sumerian king lists represent Semite
(Adamite) and Sumerian kings, although there is some disagreement among experts
as to which is which. At any rate, as
the king lists represent rulers, no purely ancestral relationships are implied,
even though royal offspring often ascend the throne.
Second, the thousands of years the
pre-flood kings reigned looks to be an error in interpretation rather than a
recording error. This can be deduced
from the post-flood kings at Kish.
After "the flood swept thereover," and the kingship was
restored, 23 kings reigned a total of 24,510 years - plus, if you can believe
it, 3 months and 3 1/2 days!
(Archbishop Ussher must have had a Sumerologist counterpart.)
Using the archaeological date of 2900
BC for the flood, that would mean the kings of Kish are still ruling today, and
have another 19,000 years to go! Where
is the error? The years the post-flood Sumerian
kings reigned appear to be off by a factor of about 60. The Sumerians used a sexagesimal system of
numbers, and that offers a clue as to how astronomical figures may be brought
into the realm of believability.
Dividing by 60 puts the total years reigned at Kish at a little over
400, a reasonable figure. It can get
more complex than that (they may have relied on moon phases rather than sun
cycles, etc.), but it's not something we need to dwell on.
To assert that the Bible genealogies
are unrelated to the Sumerian kings because of a discrepancy in the hundreds of
years of life for the patriarchs, versus the thousands of years reigned for the
pre-flood kings, misrepresents the case.
It should not be surprising that Sumerologists have been every bit as
prone to error as Bible translators, and similarly reluctant to make necessary
corrections.
Third, confusion can arise when more
than one name pertains to a single individual.
Among the difficulties is that titles or occupations have been used at
times, rather than proper names, and will look dissimilar, especially when
recorded in different languages. There
are many instances where the Bible itself uses more than one name for one
person, for example: Abram = Abraham, Jacob = Israel, Saul = Paul, Peter =
Simon = Cephas, and even Jesus = Emmanuel (corresponding, perhaps, to the
Accadian "Ea").
Fourth, Adam is a prime candidate as
Alulim at Eridu. Seth, or conceivably
Enosh, could be the second king, Alalgar.
But the fourth patriarch, Cainan, does not and should not appear on the
king lists. Eridu was overthrown. Kingship passed to the victorious city - a
Sumerian city - Badtabira. A Sumerian
city at that early date was likely devoid of foreigners speaking strange
languages. The three kings of Badtabira
should not be in the Adamic line.
So a dissimilarity is what we should
expect concerning those three kings, and that is the case. Also, no connection can be seen between any
of the kings and Jared, or with Mahalalel outside of Berossus. This sets apart at least three or four out
of the ten patriarchs as absent from the Sumerian king lists, and that is about
as far as dissimilarity can be extended.
Finally, there are complicating
factors. The genealogies are in Hebrew,
while the kings are in Sumerian, an unrelated language, and Berossus wrote in
Greek. Still, these are not
insurmountable obstacles. In Table 3 we
will see the list of patriarchs and the lists of kings are not completely
independent - there is a relationship.
SSSSSSSSSSSSS
Line-by-line Explanation
Line 1. A similarity between
Alulim and Adam can be seen just as the Accadian father-god Ilu
foreshadows the Canaanite “El” or the Moslem “Allah.” Parallels between the Sumerian Alulim, the Accadian Adapa, and
the Hebrew Adam point toward a commonality.
Clay proposed that Alorus from the Berossus list was "El-Or"
found in early Aramaic inscriptions - and therefore, a Semitic (Adamic)
name. Who would have been the first
father or king of the forerunners to the Semites if not Adam? And if Adam, special in many respects, resided
in Eridu from the start, who better to serve as king?
Line 2. Some scholars make the
connection: Alaparos = Adapa = Adam, making Adam the second king. This raises a question. If Adam was the second king, who was the
first? It seems equally reasonable to
suggest that Seth, or one of Adam's other sons, or even Enosh could have been
this monarch.
Alalgar may have been one of Adam's
offspring. There is no way of knowing,
but Poebel credits Berossus's Alaparos as the "son of" Alorus.
Furthermore, if the first king at Eridu was Adam, a non-Sumerian, the
next king, if directly related, would also have been non-Sumerian. Keep in mind, the first two names, Alulim
and Alalgar, are Semitic (or Adamic), not Sumerian names.
The Semitic (Adamic) name, Alalgar, is
entirely appropriate as applied to the covenant family. Among the meanings offered for Alaparos are
"Ox of the god Uru," and "Lamb of El."
"El," Assyrian for God (and seen in Hebrew as Elohim,
El Shadai), was the father god, first in the early Accadian trinity. Thus, the name could be rendered literally,
"Lamb of God." This
description of profound theological significance used of Jesus (John 1:29,36),
might have been applied to Seth, or even Enosh, when men began "to call
upon the name of the Lord" (Gen. 4:26).
Seth, one of his brothers, or his son may have been this second
pre-flood king.
Line 3. Alalgar's rule was
closed out when Eridu was overthrown and kingship passed to the victorious
Enmenluanna, king of Badtabira, a Sumerian city. It would be unlikely that one of Adam's immediate generations
(for example, Enosh) would have made war on his own father or grandfather. Also, Enmenluanna is a Sumerian name, making
him the first genuine Sumerian on the Sumerian King List. It follows that a non-Adamic ancestry would
be implied for this Badtabiran king and his successors.
Considering Adam's longevity, 930
years, he and at least some of his kin must have escaped the bloodshed at
Eridu. If Adam moved north about 50
miles to Erech, adjacent to Enoch, the city Cain built, this would have brought
Adam to a location where he and his entourage could find refuge and safety
among family members.
Line 4. From the name
Enmengalanna, we might suspect he was son and successor to the throne of
Enmenluanna. Adamic ancestry is equally
unlikely therefore, and is reflected by a dissimilarity between him and the
fourth patriarch, Cainan.
Line 5. In his analysis, Clay
allowed, "It seems that Mahalal-El may be represented by Megalaros
..."
A link between Mahalalel and the fifth king on the Berossus list looks
credible. But probably, he is not the
fabled Dumuzi who corresponds to Daonus, sixth on the Berossus list, as Dumuzi
and Daonus are both identified as "a shepherd" and "the shepherd."
Dumuzi was consort to Inanna, "queen of heaven and
earth." W-B 444 offers no
additional data on any of its kings with one exception, declaring Dumuzi
"divine," and his vocation as "the shepherd."
"Tammuz," the Semitic name for Dumuzi, was famous in Accadian literature with
a cult following to rival that of Elvis today.
In the Accadian legend, Adapa gained
entrance to heaven by flattering Tammuz.
"At the gate of Anu," Adapa told Tammuz how much he was missed
on earth.
A thirty-eight line liturgical hymn to the departed Tammuz
"represents the people wailing for the lord of life who now sleeps in the
lower world."
And the prophet Ezekiel had a vision
where he was "brought to the door of the gate of the Lord's house,"
and "there sat women weeping for Tammuz" (Eze. 8:14). Thus, because of the cult following, the
prophet Ezekiel bestowed biblical recognition on the celebrated Dumuzi, the
fifth Sumerian king.
Line 6. Demonstrating that
kingships were temporary and easily terminated in the land of Sumer,
"kingship passed to Larak" when Badtabira was overthrown, and
Ensipazianna became king.
It is doubtful that Jared, sixth in the line of patriarchs, could have
been king of Larak, almost assuredly an entirely Sumerian city at that early
date.
Line 7. "Sevens" often
indicate that something may be unusual or important. Here may be another example.
In Clay's words, "This king (Enmenduranna) is generally regarded as
the original of the biblical Enoch."
We might argue what he meant by "original," but a commonality
can be seen. Berossus has
"Edoranchus," so all lists show a similarity.
Enmenduranna is deemed identical with
Enmeduranki, sage and king of Sippar.
Zimmern, who first made the identification, said the name was pronounced
"Evvedoranki." "Evved or
Eved suggests the Hebrew 'Ebhed," Clay contends.
If so, this could indicate Adamic ancestry for the king of Sippar who,
according to Sumerian legend, was taken by the gods and taught divine
mysteries.
And, "By faith Enoch was translated [taken up] that he should not
see death" (Heb. 11:5).
Another consideration is that Sippar
was the cult center of the sun god. The
sun completes a cycle every 365 days, corresponding to Enoch's 365 years.
If Enoch was the king of Sippar who wrested power from Larak control,
and then was taken by God, a void would have been left in the kingship. Or perhaps, someone not of good standing
took his place. Either way,
"Sippar was overthrown, its kingdom passed to Shuruppak."
Line 8. The next three men on
the revised list lived at Shuruppak before the flood. The Sumerian records show a direct line of descent from the king
of Shuruppak, Ubartutu, through his son Suruppak to the last pre-flood king,
Ziusudra. Ubartutu was Ziusudra's
grandfather, while Noah's grandfather was Methuselah. Are Methuselah and Ubartutu one and the same?
W-B 62 ends in Ziusudra, although from
W-B 444, only "one king reigned" at Shuruppak.
This was Ubartutu. If Ubartutu
is Methuselah, who died near the time of the flood, this could explain the
discrepancies in the two king lists.
One list (W-B 62) recognizes Ziusudra who, if he ruled at all, reigned
for less than a year, or at most only a few years before the flood. The other list (W-B 444) gives him no credit
for an abbreviated rule at Shuruppak.
Line 9. Lamech begat a son: "And he called his
name Noah ..." (Gen. 5:29).
"With a brilliant name, let me make you famous," Suruppak told
his son Ziusudra.
If Noah and Ziusudra are the same person, then unless he had two
fathers, Lamech, the ninth patriarch, should be synonymous with Suruppak.
The Ashmolean Museum list, published by
Langdon, names “Su-kur-Lam” as the ninth in a
series of ten kings, and identifies him as the “son of” Ubartutu. The third syllable, “Lam,” is far too
similar to “Lamech” to be ignored.
Furthermore, continuing the link, the last king translated “Zi-u-sud-du”
is called the “son of” Su-kur-Lam.
Line 10. There is no need to
recite the accomplishments of Noah. The
names may not look alike, gift-wrapped in different languages, and touching on
different facets of the man: "he who laid hold on life of distant
days" (Ziusudra); "he saw or found life" (Utnapishtim);
"the exceeding wise" (Atrahasis); and "rest or comforter"
(Noah).
But corresponding flood stories using these names, recorded in Sumerian,
Accadian, and Assyrian, all parallel the biblical deluge. These remarkably similar accounts would be
hard to attribute to more than one man.
Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Xisuthros, Utnapishtim, and Noah all seem to equate.
What Does It
All Mean?
After a detailed analysis of Berossus,
Delitzsch agreed with Zimmern and concluded:
The ten Babylonian
kings who reigned before the Flood have been accepted in the Bible as the ten
antediluvian patriarchs, and the agreement is perfect in all details.
What Delitzsch failed to recognize is
that agreement could be expected only in instances where patriarchs were
rulers, or conversely, when the kings were also in the covenant line from
Adam. Evidently, some of the patriarchs
did reign over small kingdoms. Yet,
concurrent kingdoms were also established in Southern Mesopotamia ruled by
non-biblical monarchs. Clearly, it was
the intent of Berossus and the king lists to record a sequence of kings without
regard to ancestry, just as it was the Bible's intention to record a certain
line of ancestry whether or not they were kings.
In Sumerian, the first two letters En-
of a ruler's name denotes kingship similar to the way we use "lord"
in English. The god "Enki"
combines en for "lord" and ki for "earth" to
mean literally, "Lord of the Earth."
The Sumerian word lil can mean "air,"
"breath," or "spirit."
Enlil was second in the Sumerian pantheon after the father god, An. The possible interpretations of this name
should be obvious. A parallel could
exist between this Sumerian and Accadian god and our Holy Spirit.
If we survey the pre-flood fathers, in
both the line of Seth and the line of Cain, we see "En-" as the first
two letters more often than any other combination (Enosh, once and Enoch,
twice). It is quite possible, then,
that both Cain's son and Seth's son were rulers. This offers another clue that the seventh patriarch, Enoch, also
was a ruler.
One final thought. The Bible submits no data whatsoever on
seven of the ten pre-flood patriarchs beyond their age when the first son was
born, age at death, and that they had "other sons and
daughters." Details beyond that
are given for only three: Adam, Enoch, and Noah. And the supplementary biblical information provided for each of
them correlates directly to Sumerian and Accadian narratives.
Likewise, in all the Sumerian king
lists pertaining to the pre-flood era, additional particulars are given on only
one man, "divine Dumuzi, a shepherd." And he is the only Sumerian king, outside the line of Adam,
corroborated in the Bible by his Semitic equivalent, "Tammuz." All coincidence, do you suppose?
A Prophetic Judgment
Genesis 9:21-26: “And he drank
of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham,
the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two
brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both
their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father;
and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And
Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And
he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”
Bible scholars have wondered at this
prophetic judgment directed at Noah’s grandson weighed against the apparent
insignificance of the offense. Why was
Noah angered at his son seeing him naked and telling his brothers? The significance is understandable, however,
viewed in the context of what nakedness meant in ancient Sumer.
Pottery from third
millennium Sumer shows several naked people doing menial tasks. Except during temple rituals, naked people
were slaves and slaves were not allowed to wear clothes. A Sumerian word for slave SUBAR literally
meant “skin body.” People who failed to
pay their taxes or captured enemies who were not killed were punished with
compulsory nakedness which labeled them as slaves. This practice continued into the first millennium BC in Assyria
(Isaiah 20:4).
Noah’s embarrassment went beyond simple
modesty. He had been king of Shuruppak,
the capital of Sumer in the pre-flood era.
From his lofty seat of power he had been reduced to a drunkard, and
perhaps regarded as little more than a common slave in the eyes of his
son. It is a way of saying, “Just as
you have viewed me as a servant, your son shall be a servant.”
Summary
Noah's Flood, recent in occurrence and
confined to the Mesopotamian valley and its inhabitants, was retribution for
sin, but as Paul states, "Sin is not imputed when there is no law"
(Rom. 5:13b). Those civilizations
outside the Adamic covenant and outside the immediate area were unaccountable
and unaffected by the flood. If we take
into consideration the allowable interpretations of "earth" instead
of "land," "heaven" rather than "sky," and
"mountains" as against "hills," coupled with the Hebrew
words "all" and "every" when we would say "much"
and "many," plus the Hebrew penchant for perfect or prophetic
numbers, we should be able to understand how a Mesopotamian calamity has been
misunderstood as a global cataclysm.
The biblical, archaeological, and anthropological
evidence corroborates that God spared human populations who were outside the
Mesopotamian valley and outside of His covenant. God "winked at" their ignorance (Acts 17:30), but
targeted the Adamites in particular, obliterating those who were answerable and
willfully disobedient. Evidently the
Sumerians were hapless bystanders, many of whom perished, and some may have
become proselytes who drowned in the flood.
In Luke, the Pharisees asked Jesus to
rebuke His disciples, "And He answered and said unto them, I tell you
that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry
out" (Luke 19:40). The
"stones" in the form of inscribed clay tablets are crying out today,
confirming God's Word. Are we
listening, or are we like the Pharisees?
Notes
[i]
Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: The
Zondervan Corporation, 1982), 60.
[ii]
Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science
and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), 169.
[iii]
Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 31.
[iv]
George Constable, ed., The Age of God-Kings:
TimeFrame 3000-1500 BC (Alexandria: Time-Life Books, 1987), 27.
[v]
Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), 93-105.
[vi]
Donald Boardman, "Did Noah's Flood Cover the
Entire World?" The Genesis Debate, ed. Ronald Youngblood (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1990), 227.
[vii]
I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd and N. G. L.
Hammond, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. I, Part 2 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1971), 243.
[viii]
Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 6.
[ix]
Isaac Preston Cory, Ancient Fragments of the
Phoenician, Chaldaean, Egyptian, Tyrian, Carthaginian, Indian, Persian, and
Other Writers (London: William Pickering, 1832), 49.
[x]
Ibid., 49.
[xi]
Roger Lewin, In the Age of Mankind
(Washington: Smithsonian Books, 1988), 206-225.
[xii]
Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood (Grand
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 242.
[xiii]
Ibid., 242.
[xiv]
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Bruce K. Waltke and Ralph
H. Alexander, eds., The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 79.
[xv]
From the Hebrew word, ‘Anaqiy meaning
"long-necked."
[xvi]
From the Hebrew word, ‘Eymiym meaning
"terrors." 1991.
[xvii]
Edward William Lane, Reginald Stuart Poole,
ed., The Genesis of the Earth and of Man (London: Williams and Norgate,
1860), 103-104.
[xviii]
H. Zimmern, Urknige und Uroffenbarung
(Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1902), 539.
[xix]
G. F. Hasel, "The Genealogies of Gen 5 and
11 and their Alleged Babylonian Background." Andrews University
Seminary Studies, n.s., 16 (Autumn 1978), 361-74.
[xx]
Bendt Alster, The Instructions of Suruppak
(Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1974), 43-49.
[xxi]
Stephen Langdon, Oxford Edition of Cuneiform
Texts, Vol. II (London: Oxford University Press, 1923), 2-3.
[xxii]
One method of reconciling ages of Sumerian
kings is outlined in an article by Hildegard Wiencke-Lotz, "On the Length
of Reigns of the Sumerian Kings," Chronology and Catastrophism Review,
Journal of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (vol. XIV August
1992), 20.
[xxiii]
Albert T. Clay, The Origin of Biblical
Traditions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), 131.
[xxiv]
Arno Poebel, Historical Texts
(Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1914), 85.
[xxv]
Clay, The Origin of Biblical Traditions,
132.
[xxvi]
style='vertical-align:baseline;vertical-align:baseline'>[xxvi]. Ibid., 135.
[xxvi]
Langdon, Oxford Editions of Cuneiform
Texts, Vol. II, 3.
[xxviii]
George A. Barton, The Royal Inscriptions
of Sumer and Akkad (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), 347.
[xxix]
Samuel Noah Kramer, Myths of Enki The Crafty
God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 7.
[xxx]
Stephen Langdon, Sumerian Liturgical Texts
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1917), 42.
[xxxi]
Ibid., 285.
[xxxii]
Barton, The Royal Inscriptions of Sumer and
Akkad, 347.
[xxxiii]
Clay, The Origin of Biblical Traditions,
135.
[xxxiv]
Ibid., 135.
[xxxv]
Ibid., 136.
[xxxvi]
Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and
Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963),
141.
[xxxvii]
Lloyd R. Bailey, Noah: The Person and the
Story in History and Tradition (Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1989), 125.
[xxxviii]
Barton, The Royal Inscriptions of Sumer
and Akkad, 347.
[xxxix]
Weincke-Lotz, "On the Length of Reigns of
the Sumerian Kings," 22.
[xl]
Alster, The Instructions of Suruppak, 43.
[xli]
Clay, The Origin of Biblical Traditions,
127.
[xlii]
Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament
Parallels, 227.
[xliii]
Frederich Delitzsch, Babel and Bible
(Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1906), 41.
[xliv]
Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer
( Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 76.
[xlv]
Robert M. Best, Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra
Epic (Fort Meyers: Enlil Press,1999) p. 190-191.
