markfiend

(I'm not sure where to put this?)

Most of the Biblical inerrantists seem to date Noah's Flood around 2300BC.

The Ziusudra myth of Sumer (Which is commonly held to be the "source-myth" for Genesis' account of Noah) is first attested in cuneiform tablets dated also to around 2300 BC (See This Link)

However, an intervening period of history is at least alluded to in the Sumerian myths; perhaps many hundreds of years are needed to account for the reigns of intervening kings, so this sets the Sumerian date for the flood a lot earlier.

So I'm wondering how inerrantists can account for an account of the "global" flood written within only a few years (decades at the most) can refer to it as if it had happened centuries earlier?

judge

Hi there...now if...amd I say if..we can put aside any arguments WRT the speed of light which do not really relate to the flood date.
The arguments presented here for a flood in 3537 b.c. are quite good IMHO.


http://www.ldolphin.org/barrychron.html

Either the LXX or the massoretic text is wrong and it seems the hebrew may be corrupted perhaps.

markfiend

Hi there back at you

I must admit that I have no idea what relevance the speed of light has to the date of the flood.

However, if the 36th century BCE is your date, I imagine that tallies quite well with dating from Sumerian legend.

But this does not stop the problems for the 2300 BCE date I have seen most everywhere else that actually gives a date.

MortalWombat

That's interesting, considering that there were established civilizations in Mesopotamia and China well before this time that seemed to have picked up exactly where they left off after the flood.

Tristan Scott

It may be worth mentioning that the epic of Ziusudra has similarities also to the epic of Gilgamesh in that the flood story in Gigamesh was almost certainly taken from Ziusudra. Ziusudra and Utnapishtim who is the king of Shurappak in many Sumerian poems, are actually the same person. He is also the principal figure in the flood story contained in the Gilgamesh, which is, in my opinion the model for the Noah flood.

judge

The link is by Barry Setterfield more well known fof his theories the speed of light is slowing...just didn't want to get sidetracked.

If you read the following link...
http://www.grisda.org/origins/07023.htm
or even the other one I posted you will se that even by the first century two different timelines existed. Two different variations of them existed.

For some reason the one that remained in the hebrew texts used by jews in the middle ages was the shorter one (2300 b.c.) .Our english translations use this even though the early church used the longer one.

I think that the longer one is correct. The flood happened closer to 3500 b.c.

The_Unknown_Banana

Don't we have recorded history from the ancient egyptians as well? If I recall correctly, their earliest period (the Amration) began around 4000bc, by which time they were already an established neolithic culture too.

I don't know much on the general opinions of the flood story here, but a couple of books I've read (Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock being one, and a fascinating book too!) actually do suggest a flood (due to the ice age warm-up or something?) but their estimates are around 15,000 to 10,000 bc.

judge

This quote is over a century old now, but I don't know that much has changed. I stand to be corrected though.


“It is a patent fact, and one that is beginning to obtain general recognition, that the chronological element in early Egyptian history is in a state of almost hopeless obscurity.......

....There are several kinds of chronological documents, including the actual monuments. The 303 chronological value of these various sources of information is, however, in every case slight. The great defect of these monuments is their incompleteness. The Egyptians had no era. They drew out no chronological schemes. They cared for nothing but to know how long each incarnate god, human or bovine, had condescended to tarry on the earth. They recorded carefully the length of the life of each Apis bull, and the length of the reign of each king; but they neglected to take note of the intervals between one Apis bull and another, and omitted to distinguish the sole reign of a monarch from his joint reign with others ."

15. George Rawlinson, A Histoy of Egypt, 2 vols. (New York: Alden, 1886), II, p. 1-2.

The_Unknown_Banana

Egyptology has changed radically since the 1800's, well from what I've learnt in my ancient egypt course at uni anyway. My lecturer wouldn't even let us reference books older than 1980's (except actual egyptian writings of course).

Anyway, if this view was beginning to obtain general recognition, it certainly stopped somewhere - orthodox egyptologists believe they have the answers, and the chronological element in ancient egyptian history is no longer in a state of 'hopeless obscurity'. (I am somewhat skeptical on a couple of aspects - such as why/how the great pyramids were built: there was not one corpse/mummy found in any supposed 'tomb' in the great pyramids, but that's another subject :P)

judge

Firstly...anyone going by the name unknown banana has my full attention. :notworthy

So if the egyptians did draw chronological scheemes for example...what form did these take?