Re: Seely's Views

  From: PASAlist@aol.com

  The Babylonian creation account may well have had a predecessor account, even an oral account. The dating of Abraham is sufficiently fluid that one could slip in the idea that the Babylonian account came from him or other patriarchs, but was corrupted. However, before coming to Palestine Abraham's background was itself pagan (Josh 24:2) and there is no evidence that he or the other patriarchs received any revelation about creation while wandering in Palestine. Also, it is not likely that the Babylonians, who were a major world empire, would have taken seriously a "wandering Aramean's (Deut 26:5) creation account even if the patriarchs had one. And once they entered Egypt, there would be even less likelihood of their influencing the Babylonians. So, possible, yes, but certainly not probable.

I had the earlier patriarchs in mind, namely Noah's line through Shem (and Japheth). From the time of the flood, which Kenneth Kitchen (and Hislop) dates as early 3rd millenium BC (2900 BC), by the time of Abraham and the founding of Babylon (late 3rd millenium), the patriarchal accounts would have been well-known and widespread. Given that Babylon itself was founded by a descendent of Ham, the knowedge of God passed down through Noah would have been known by the early Babylonians.

> One might also ask, what difference would it make? We no longer accept the idea that the sky is solid, or that it has a sea above it, or that the world's oceans came into existence as a result of splitting a primeval sea in two (Gen 1:6-8). So all one gains is that the patriarchs had their science wrong before the Babylonians corrupted the theology.

As for the meaning of the texts in the context of contemporary science, that is the larger issue of this discussion which I'll stay out of for now.

> Finally, I would not put much faith in Hislop. His book is not dependable.

I am interested as one who has recently read The Two Babylons for the first time what is not dependable about it. I am aware that details of the ancient world, such as the various Semitic language groups, were not known to Hislop in the 1860s, but that would not be critical to his philological tracing of pagan mythology from Babylon in its various strands throughout the word to our time. It must be something else ...

Dennis Feucht
Received on Wed Aug 25 14:28:26 2004