-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Dick Fischer
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 3:59 PM
Glenn Morton wrote:
All these events left evidence of themselves, but the Mesopotamian flood
left no evidence yet we want to say it is true. Why? So that we can have a
kernal of truth in the flood story. But the lack of such evidence leaves us
with nothing.
I fear that mist and rain in Scotland has addled your brain a bit.
Nah, the rain, which has been a whole lot over the last couple of days and
may prevent me from making it to work tomorrow has been refreshing after a
life in semi-deserts.
Let me remind
you, if you don't mind. Utnapishtim in the eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh was
the
one who built a boat, loaded it with animals, and yada, yada, yada. He lived
in
Shuruppak and mentions that. The Sumerian king lists end either with
Ubartutu
(probably Methuselah) or Ziusudra, who built a boat, and more yada ... Both
Ubartutu and Ziusudra are listed at Shuruppak.
Gee, Dick, I was speaking of geologic evidence. There is no geological
evidence. I didn't know that Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh, yada, yada, yada were
geological terms. I can't find them in my Dictionary of Geology. What
version are you using?
Shuruppak was excavated and a clay layer was found and dated by
archaeologists at about 2900 BC. After the king lists end with either
Ubartutu
or Ziusudra they say: "Then the flood swept thereover. After the flood swept
thereover, kingship was restored in Kish."
Actually, clay layers are deposited by STILL waters, not rushing flood
waters. The particles of clay settle out only if the water is still.
Langdon and Watelin excavated Kish in 1928-29. They dated the bottom layer
which amounted to about one foot in thickness to 3300 BC. The thickest layer
at Kish was at a higher level, and assigned a similar date to a thinner
layer
found at Ur - 2700 BC.
Nimrod was king in Erech, the Sumerian Uruk. Uruk was excavated, and a clay
layer there was also dated between 2900 and 2800 BC. A clay layer was found
at Lagash dated to 2900 BC.
So, if the dating is accurate, Noah, at Shuruppak, was lifted by the flood
in 2900 BC, saild past Kish in 3300 BC, traveled by Ur in 2700 BC? Sounds
like quite a trip. If these dates are accurate, you have very different
events--not the single big flood of the Bible. But such details should not
be allowed to spoil the essential truth of account and your interpretation
of it. After all, that is the way I am told we must interpret this account
by many people.
It is also well known that the clay at Kish doesn't go very far--it is
local.
You have complained that the boat would have been swept in a torrent down to
the Persian Gulf, yet Mesopotamia is flat. Archaeologists have been caught
in
flash floods, and the water just rises and sits there. You have moaned that
a year
is too long for the flood to have lasted, but name any flood that could have
lasted a
year and would have required a boat.
Water doesn't just sit there. It flows. There is head upstream which will
flush the water to the south.
No boat would have been necessary for man or animals in the filing of the
Mediterranian or Black Sea. They all could have walked out at a leisurely
stroll. There are no mountains or hills for the boat to rest on, it would
have
just washed up on the beach at no higher than sea level.
Dick, this objection plays equally well against your theory. There is no
reason that someone couldn't have walked east to the Zagros Mtns--a couple
of day's walk. There is an old saying--people in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones.
In short, the cities mentioned in Sumerian texts and excavated by
archaeologists
bear the physical evidence of a massive flood. The biblical flood WAS the
Mesopotamian flood, pure and simple - deal with it.
Dick, three separate clays (which are the local in nature) and which date
over a spread of 600 years simply can't be the same flood--or are you
suggesting that the flood lasted 600 years?
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution -
www.orisol.com <http://www.orisol.com/>"The answer we should have known
about 150 years ago."
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Nov 07 2000 - 14:36:52 EST