Many Ancient Near East writings have similarities to the familiar stories of the Old Testament text; the creation story of Genesis 1-2 with Mesopotamia and Enki, Noah with the Epic of Gilgamesh (text), and the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel in 11:1-9 with “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta”. The Sumerian account that parallels the Tower of Babel is not quite as easy to see, as Gilgamesh and Noah, but it does try to explain where the many languages of the world came from.
The Ancient Near East text called the “Epic of Gilgamesh” is a story that has obvious similarities to the story of Noah in Genesis 7-8. The epic, referred to as by some, as the “greatest piece of literature to come from Babylonia”, is the story of Gilgamesh’s meeting with Utnapishtim (referred to as the “Babylonian Noah”) who has obtained immortality by surviving a worldwide flood on a boat he built, with his family and all the animals of the world.[1]
There are numerous similarities like the call to bring aboard all the animals and the entire account of the dove and the raven. The story and its history are important because it predates the Genesis account and many looking for ways to refute the Bible look to this story as proof. If the Gilgamesh epic predates the Noah account then, they conclude, the writer of Genesis must have taken the store from the Ancient Near East writing.
There are generally three explanations given. The Babylonians took from the Hebrew account, the Hebrew account took from the Babylonian account, or each came from a common original historical event. For a great in-depth study of this topic, see the thesis by Nozomi Osanai entitled A comparative study of the flood accounts in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis.
Often, in our evangelical churches of today, these writings are never mentioned or referenced, and realistically there is probably little time on Sunday mornings to broach such a deep topic any more. Still, there is so much to be gained from their readings. These texts can actually clarify scripture in some cases, as well as affirm our beliefs and understanding of scripture.
The comparison of Gilgamesh and Noah is a good example. If we follow Osanai’s examples above and conclude that each account came from a common historical event, it confirms, although perhaps not conclusively, the fact that the flood account actually happened. This may not help or support a case like the exodus where almost all accounts of the Israelites exodus out of Egypt other than the Biblical account are seemingly extent, but that is addressed in a completely different manner scholastically.
As with many topics, this barely even scratches the surface, but is an area often missed in casual Biblical study today, for many reasons, which can yield many benefits.[2] This of course just barely scratches the surface of the question, “How Does Ancient Near East Writings Clarify Scripture” but it opens the door for future study and discussion.
[1] Arnold, B. T., & Beyer, B. E. (2002). Readings from the Ancient Near East. Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Baker Acedemic, 66.
[2] This was an excerpt from a longer discussion on applying the Old Testament laws to our world today. If the Mosaic Law is revelation from God, how do you explain its similarities to other ancient Near Eastern law codes? What is truly distinctive about the OT Law as revelation from God? What insights are gained from reading Hays’ article on how to apply the OT law as God’s Word today (or deal with ethical issues related to the Christian use of the Law) even though we are no longer under the Mosaic covenant (see Applying the Old Testament Law Today by J. Daniel Hays). Read Full Text on Ancient Near East Writings post.
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I love this quoted poem below. You probably won’t appreciate it unless you are a ham radio operator or understand the language but if you do, it’s quite something.
In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET.
And the ARPANET was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the deep.
And the spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the network
and ARPA said, ‘Let there be a protocol,’ and there was a protocol.
And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, ‘Let there be more protocols,’ and it was so.
And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, ‘Let there be more networks,’ and it was so.
http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/
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The Creation of Adam is a fresco painted on the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo some time around 1511 that depicts the story in Genesis of God breathing life into Adam. This painting in Vatican City is probably one of the most famous paintings in the world and was restored in the late 80′s early 90′s, and is now being used by the University of Georgia in the form of a flyer tacked up in the students dorms to educate and promote the use of condoms. All other issues aside, are we to think that university level students are unaware of a condom and its use?
Apparently UGA finished up Sexual Responsibility Week this past week (this is something we are now doing in higher education?) and this poster was created to promote… sexual health and created this STD(?) poster/flyer. It reads:
Condom Tip #5, Carefully open condom wrappers with your fingers – don’t use a sharp object.
I guess people will use anything now in the promotion of a product, but do we care any more, but this was an ad put out by the University of Georgia, not some marketing group. There will be no outrage for this because it is not making fun of the Koran, Islam, or the Muslim faith of any kind. If that were the case, people would be sued, fired, and apologies issued (although I do see that the University of Georgia has since apologized in some manner). There is just nothing that is out of bounds in the worldly view when ridiculing or making fun of the Christian faith, so this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to Believers.
The Catholic League is none to happy about it and apparently released this statement.
“I hasten to add that the University of Georgia would never choose a depiction of Muhammad to hawk condoms. Indeed, only a few years ago an inoffensive depiction of this Islamic figure in a Danish cartoon led to murder and churches being burned to the ground. One can only imagine what would have happened had he been portrayed pushing condoms to youth.”
Question is I guess, do we really care anyway? After all, I did find a similar likeness used by the Simpson’s, although they weren’t being portrayed promoting a form of birth control. We know this will never change until the new heaven and new earth are upon us? A quick scour of the left wing blogs give quite a flippant view, but I haven’t really found to much outcry against such use of the historical painting. Should we care?
I would hope that our hometown school of Auburn University would restrain from such use but they did feel it was necessary last year to have a gay pride day and parade for Auburn last year, so I guess I would take the flyer over promoting a lifestyle (being that there was no heterosexual pride parade but that’s a whole other set of topics all together).
Being somewhat interested in design and marketing in today’s web 2.0 world, I would love to know what department created this flyer in the first place. It looks and reads like a 1960′s ad… is this all we can come up with on a University level these days?
I would think at this point the University of Georgia has taken the flyers down from their dorms but if not, I would love to hear from a UGA dorm student or anyone that can email over a higher quality image of the flyer. If so, send it on to my email address scott.fillmer [at] gmail and I will post it here instead of the one above.
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Every so often I try to add in a little quote or quip posted in sidenotes. Usually a short piece that I get out of my mother-in-laws newspaper clippings she gave me. Funny how different people collect different things, papers, notes, and so on, most all of these I have never seem before and are going through them one at a time every so often.
Today I came across one called In the Beginning and it actually had a note at the bottom for its source and I was able to located it. This was something she printed off her computer in 2005, and of course it is still active on the Internet today, so I am not going to post but a blurb of it here, but it is well work a read if you want to head over Bag-o-Laughs’ post called In the Beginning.
I love humor websites about our faith, Christians, God, and mix computer related stuff in there and it’s super (another good one is John over at Stuff Christians Like). So here is the first part of In the Beginning:
In the beginning there was the computer. And God said
%Let there be light!
#Enter user id.
%God
#Enter password.
%Omniscient
#Password incorrect. Try again.
%Omnipotent
#Password incorrect. Try again.
%Technocrat
#And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
%Let there be light!
#Unrecognizable command. Try again.
%Create light
#Done
%Run heaven and earth
#And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.
If you are any bit of the computer person, jump over and read the rest of it from the source, and if the above makes no sense to you at all then you are too young to remember when IBM ran the world and everything was written out in commands (I am on the fringe of that time period I think). So what are some of your favorite God humor sites? Post a few below so we can check them out.
