>By the way, one point I have not seen mentioned in these discussions
>is the evidence from mythology and anthropology. I wrote a paper
>while I was a student at a liberal seminary, showing that an aspect
>of the documentary hypothesis didn't wash. That aspect, that Moses
>copied the creation and flood accounts from the Babylonian epic, is
>refuted by strikingly similar accounts in Polynesian and North
>American Indian legends. This, of course, is evidence of a
>collective (non Judean/Christian) memory, hence the stories must be
>true.
Flood accounts outside the Near East generally do not correlate
to the Genesis flood. The amazing closeness of Genesis to the
eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh written in Accadian, a language
precursor to biblical Hebrew, indicates a Mesopotamian origin for
the Genesis account as well.
>In fact, only the Bible has an explanation of this in the
>story of the tower of Babel. No other ancient source (that I know
>of) records the fact that humanity was initially united (hence, the
>collective memory) yet dispersed into various sects, cultures and
>languages.
Humanity not united. Even Noah's kin had dispersed prior to Babel.
Read Genesis. See which comes first, Genesis 10 or Genesis 11.
Dick Fischer
THE ORIGINS SOLUTION
http://www.orisol.com