I said:
>>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.
Glenn Morton responded:
>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?
You may no longer be a YEC, Glenn, but that doesn't mean you haven't been
well schooled in YEC tactics and still use them. If the data and evidence
supports your case, you cite data and evidence. If it doesn't, you try to
dodge
the issue. What I am pointing out is that the historical and biblical data
lines
up, and both are supported by geological and archaeological evidence.
>>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.
Mesopotamia is flat, Glenn. Boats were punted up and down the Euphrates
with ease. When the Spring floods came, the water flowed over the banks and
spread out into the desert. In essence, the rivers just widen out as they
flood.
That's why all the cities were built some distance from the rivers and were
watered by irrigation canals. This is why Kish has numerous flood layers while
Shuruppak and Lagash have only one. Kish was located closer to the Euphrates.
>>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.
Archaeologists dated the sites individually using estimated sedimentation
rates.
The earth was dated less than a billion years old when we used sedimentation.
The discovery of radiometric dating pushed the earth's age out to 4.6
billion. If
two doctors examined your body, and estimated your age at, say, 29 and 32,
would you assume the estimates were at variance, or that there were two of
you born three years apart?
>>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.
You and I are the literalists, Glenn. You and I both argue that Genesis must
have some degree of historical integrity. So how can you tell me that where
Gen. 8:4 states: "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth
day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat," it really means that Noah
abandoned the ark on the beach and hiked over two hundred miles to the
Ararat range dragging his wife and family behind?
If that is the kind of stretching of Scripture we have to resort to in
order to make
our method work, we should re-examine our method. Why would he go to the
mountains anyway?
Davis Young says in his book The Biblical Flood that the "Koran states that
the ark eventually came to rest on Judi." Young nominates one of the possible
landing sites as near mount Qardu in the Gordyaean Hills, "later Jabal
Judi." This
is close to the Tigris about 300 miles west and north of Shuruppak. A
leisurely
punt up a swollen Tigris with stops along the way to feed and tend the
animals,
and over a year to make the trip. I'm not saying this is what happened, we
don't
know for sure, but it certainly lies within the realm of plausibility.
>There is an old saying--people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
And people who live in tin houses shouldn't throw can openers :>).
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
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