Here is the problem I am having with this theory that the bible stories were stolen from Sumeria.


The story of Noah and the story of Gilgamesh are similar true. But why do we auto assume that the story of Noah came from the story of Gilgamesh. Why couldn't the story of Gilgamesh have come out of the story of Noah. The same being true for any and all such stories that are now being said to have been stolen from Sumeria.


According to the bible all or most humans at one time lived in the area around Sumeria. So any and all stories, which were being passed down by mouth, would have started in Sumeria.


According to history Sumeria was the first civilization on the planet. We have since found this to be not true but that is a different story.

Back to my point Sumeria is granted the first civilization because they had a writing system. They started writing down those stories instead of just word of mouth. Word of mouth as everyone knows is not a very good way to keep a story going. Because everyone will tell it their way. So every generation the story changes slightly. Noah becomes Gilgamesh. Then later when the Israelites start to write the bible they return the story to a more accurate point. So now it looks like the story of Noah has come out of the story of Gilgamesh.

The same thing going on with all of the other stories in the first 5 books of the bible.

Right now there are three religions that use those 5 books. Jew, Christian, and Muslim. Do those 5 books contain the same stories, yes. Do the stories in all three bibles tell it the same way, no. So even writing it down does not mean that you will get the same story over time. Again every body tells the story their way to get people, in this case, to believe them to be the true religion and not the other guys.


So were the stories in the bible stolen from Sumeria yes. Does this make the stories in the bible false, no. Does this make the stories in the bible true, no. I believe that this is where faith comes in.

The fact that we cannot go back and reproduce the events of history, we have to make the most logical assumption and guesswork from the available data to form a conclusion. The bias of the individual will more than likely be the determining factor in regards to the "interpretation" that is taken. In reality, your hypothesis can be valid but historically we would have to consider that the one that is written earlier would be the first, although with oral tradition being the main source of passing on tradition and information we still have to allow this possibility. We also have to understand that with this "view" you hold, that there is an anachronism. The sumerian account would be considered the oldest as there is evidence that it was written prior to the Genesis narrative. We really have no way of "knowing" with 100% certainty, though I am open to the possibility that the Genesis narrative is older by means of oral tradition.

Kindly,

hairston

It is not that the Hebrews 'stole' the older Sumerian stories. Abraham and his tribe came from thier so they were their stories too. But being illiterate shepherds their version became different through retelling as an oral tradition.

For example, they 'forgot' that the 'serpent' in Eden was actually their own tribal God Enki, but we see that Yahweh's stories are Enki's identical stories, and that Yahweh's identity as a serpent-dragon deity is revealed throughout the Bible. It was only later, when Judaism became monotheistic, that the Creator El and and tribal dragon God Enki-Yahweh were morphed together to form one God. This is why Yahweh is so inconsistent in the Bible, and his cruelty incompatible with the God Jesus said was his father. There are even two different creation stories in Genesis, the realistic Elohim creation the parallels evolution, and the mythic, fundamentalist Yahweh creation in which man is the first creation on earth.

A billion Christians worship the Sumerian dragon god Enki, and don't even know it. They even turned him into a nonsensical "devil" and still don't realize this is the God Yahweh.

The problem is you can't prove which story came first.


Oh and Abraham was not illiterate any more than the Pharaoh of Egypt was. Or have you forgotten that the pharaoh treated him as a leader of as important as himself.


Again how do you know which story came first. Just because one story was written down first does not make it the first story.


Remember there are three main ways to control people food, fear, and knowledge. In this case religion. You control the story and change it so that it fits the way that you want to control the people.


According to the bible Abraham left sumer because he was the last man alive to believe in one god. At least in that area of the world.

Again according to the bible after the flood everybody was living in that area until God confounds the language at the Tower of Babel.


I am not saying that I am correct. What I am saying is that there really is no way to know which story came first.

Interesting questions. Here's a comparison of the the Hebrew and Akkadian creation myths.

http://www.skeptically.org/oldtestament/id14.html

So it seems that it depends on whom you ask which came first.

perhaps 'stole' is the wrong word here. DC is right Abraham's home, he came from Ur and would probably have known these stories. Is he some mythical figure constructed to explain a cultural migration and evolution?

I think of the story that was written down in genesis as the latest edition of that story, with a local levantine flavour. YHWH is not only Enki, its much more complicated than that, he is derived from and developed in parallel with a host of gods including, importantly:- An, and Enlil, and Enki of the Sumerian pantheon. Stories and attributes from these and others were absorbed.

This just means that our concept of 'god' evolved, our perception.

we can view this in both a positive and negative way.

Maybe you should read the link provided by redhen.

You can see what the authors of that link do NOT believe from the quote below



Quite evidently they do not consider the possibility that a real and literal god continued to pass on an account of creation which was coherent and believable/understandable to each culture, in an attempt to commumicate something of "his" purpose and intent to them. You have to take into consideration that the people of these societies were not like us. They had a different relationship with their god(s) . One which is still evinced in less sophisticated cultures today.

They believed in the physical existence of their gods and their power to operate in the real world on a day to day basis. The only contemporary culture ( now almost non existent) that I am aware of was the Australian aboriganal one, where people had a real spiritual connection with their gods and to whom every thing from birth to death was controlled by supernatural forces. We are so removed from such belief that we no longer accept its reality let alone understand its significance in a society

i did, I dont agree with the conservative christian view that their version is oldest.

You see that is my point. Everyone that doesn't believe in the Christian/Jewish view automatically assumes that the other so called Gods came first.

Everyone who follows the Christian/Jewish view automatically assumes that the other so called Gods came second.

Now which one is right. If the Christian view is correct then as the bible says the idea of God has been corrupted by humans to serve human needs or wants.


In my view the greatest trick that Satan every did was to make himself not exist.

The Gilgamesh flood myth is a deluge story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was added as Tablet XI to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis.[1]
Contents
[hide]


[edit] History

Gilgamesh's supposed historical reign is believed to have been approximately 2700 BC,[2] shortly before the earliest known written stories. The discovery of artifacts associated with Agga and Enmebaragesi of Kish, two other kings named in the stories, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.[3]

The earliest Sumerian versions of the epic date from as early as the Third dynasty of Ur (2100 BC-2000 BC).[citation needed] The earliest Akkadian versions are dated to ca. 2000-1500 BC.[citation needed] The "standard" Akkadian version, composed by Sin-liqe-unninni and including the flood story, was edited sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC.[4]


The majority of modern Biblical scholars accept the thesis that the Biblical flood story is linked to a cycle of Assyro-Babylonian mythology with which it shares many features. The Mesopotamian flood-myth had a very long currency—the last known retelling dates from the 3rd century BC. A substantial number of the original Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian texts, written in cuneiform, have been recovered by archaeologists, but the task of recovering more tablets continues, as does the translation of extant tablets.

The earliest of these extant tablets, the epic of Atrahasis, can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi's great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BC). Written in Akkadian (the language of ancient Babylon), it tells how the god Enki warns the hero Atrahasis ("Extremely Wise") of Shuruppak to dismantle his house (which is made of reeds) and build a boat to escape a flood with which the god Enlil, angered by the noise of the cities, plans to wipe out mankind. The boat is to have a roof "like Apsu" (the underworld ocean of freshwater of which Enki is lord), upper and lower decks, and must be sealed with bitumen. Atrahasis boards the boat with his family and animals and seals the door. The storm and flood begin. Even the gods are afraid. "Bodies clog the river like dragonflies." After seven days the flood ends and Atrahasis offers sacrifices. Enlil is furious, but Enki, the friend of mankind, defies him - "I made sure life was preserved" - and eventually Enki and Enlil agree on other measures for controlling the human population. The story also exists in a later Assyrian version.[22]

The story of Ziusudra is told in the Sumerian language in the fragmentary Eridu Genesis, which can be dated from its script to the late 17th century BC. It tells how Enki warns Ziusudra (meaning "he saw life," in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods), king of Shuruppak, of the gods' decision to destroy mankind with a flood—the passage describing why the gods have decided this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra to build a large boat—the text describing the instructions is also lost. After a flood of seven days, Ziusudra makes appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to An (sky-god) and Enlil (chief of the gods), and is given eternal life in Dilmun, the Sumerian Eden.[23]

The story of Utnapishtim (a translation of "Ziusudra" into Akkadian), an episode in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, is known from first millennium copies and is probably derived from the Atrahasis story.[24][25] Ellil, (the equivalent of Enlil), chief of the gods, wishes to destroy mankind with a flood. Utnapishtim, king of Shurrupak, is warned by the god Ea (equivalent to Enki) to tear down his house of reeds and use the materials to build an ark and load it with gold, silver, and the seed of all living creatures and all his craftsmen. After a storm lasting seven days, and a further twelve days on the waters, the ship grounds on Mount Nizir; after seven more days Utnapishtim sends out a dove, which returns, then a swallow, which also returns, and finally a raven, which does not come back. Utnapishtim then makes offerings (by sevens) to the gods, and the gods smell the roasting meat and gather "like flies." Ellil is angry that any human has escaped, but Ea upbraids him, saying, "How couldst thou without thought send a deluge? On the sinner let his sin rest, on the wrongdoer rest his misdeed. Forbear, let it not be done, have mercy, [That men perish not]." Utnapishtim and his wife are then given the gift of immortality and sent to dwell "afar off at the mouth of the rivers."[26]

In the 3rd century BC Berossus, a high priest of the temple of Marduk in Babylon, wrote a history of Mesopotamia in Greek for Antiochus Soter (323–261 BC). Berossus's Babyloniaka has not survived, but the 3rd/4th century Christian historian Eusebius retells from it the legend of Xisuthrus, the Greek version of Ziusudra, and essentially the same story. Eusebius concludes that the vessel was still to be seen "in the Corcyræan Mountains of Armenia; and the people scrape off the bitumen, with which it had been outwardly coated, and make use of it by way of an alexipharmic and amulet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark

The majority of modern Biblical scholars accept the thesis that the Biblical flood story is linked to a cycle of Assyro-Babylonian mythology with which it shares many features. The Mesopotamian flood-myth had a very long currency—the last known retelling dates from the 3rd century BC. A substantial number of the original Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian texts, written in cuneiform, have been recovered by archaeologists, but the task of recovering more tablets continues, as does the translation of extant tablets.
==============================================================


I believe I said they were linked as well. But I stated that the link may be the other way around.

According to the timing >I would think not.

Actually, I believe a convincing argument can be made (if one accepts an intelligent creator) for the Sumerian "gods" to be real entities. recodnized by both the Sumerians and later, the Cannanites and Hebrews. Enki, "the 'great dragon' who stands in Eridu", who figures in the Eden, Tower of Babel and Noah stories, seems to be the same 'dragon' in Cannanite stoires known as Yam, or Yaw, and persons unclouded by personal belief, can see that Yahweh was originally a serpent-dragon god as well. But in all of these cases, Enki, Yaw, or Yahweh were not the creator. This is a higher, heavenly god, calle Anu in Sumeria, and El to the Hebrews and Cannanites. But later, the Hebrews became monotheistic and melded Yahweh and El together. Ironically, the invented Satan would take on many characteristics of the original 'dragon' Yahweh.

The Bible is very clear that there were more 'god's' than Yahweh. Yahweh was simply the tribal god of the hebrews, just as Ba'al Haddad was of the Cannanites. These 'demigods' all served the high god El, and only later were El, and Yahweh merged together. In the early Bible and in Cannanite scripture that are seperate deities, and Yaw is a 'serpent-dragon' deity , just as Yahweh seems to be, with his winged serpent assistants, the serpent idol he ordered moses to make, and accounts of his breathing fire, having wings, and the requirement for animal (and originally human) sacrifices, that were literally his 'food'. The 'dragons' play a similar role as tribal deities all over the ancient world, so perhaps they were a kind of 'assistant' to the true creator. Both the sumerians and the hebrews recognized the ultimate creator above the local, often reptilian tribal deities that were given animal sacrifices.

I do not think any serious scholar would state the Hebrew version is older than the Sumerian version. Even the Bible states Moses was the first to record the earliest stories ca. 1200 BC. The Sumerian versions are dated to at least 2,000 BC. But I agree Enki of Eden is a real entity that was called Yaw by the Cannanites and Yahweh by the Hebrews.

We know that Deuteronomy was changed to hide the polytheistic nature of the original. This was discovered when the dead sea scrolls were found.

the fact is the Sumerian creation and flood story were in print long before the bible and Jews existed. May those stories have existed as oral tradition with the Hebrews ( if infact they actually were considered Hebrews) before Abraham? maybe but they weren't a Hebrew story and there wasn't one God they worshiped. that didn't happen until Abraham . those stories were oral tradition for the Sumerians long before the Sumerians wrote it down.

on that sense , the time scale of oral tradition alone. the Sumerians still go back further as an older group of people. being older hence their stories are older. picked up by the eventually known as Hebrews.

similarities in stories, is simply an opinionated account of the same events. This usually shows there is a consistency in the message and the story, and only slight differences, to establish the true version of the stories, one needs to gather all of them and find the whats common and stick to this, and there you will have a more accurate version of a story, granted you may lose out on some fabricated stuff.

that would only be if the Hebrews and Sumerians lived in the bulk of the same time line. they didn't. Abraham's father worshiped multiple Gods. lived in the cities that were originated by Sumerians. was surrounded by the belief systems of the Sumerians. probably worshiped alot of the same Gods. as did his fore fathers.

alot of societies that never met the Sumerians have their own flood story. but that's because floods are common things. There was never a world wide one nor did people who have them , like native Americans , ever meet the Sumerians.

what the soon to be Hebrews did was take another's religious story they had been 'raised' with by living in the same area as the older society of the Sumerians and turn it into their own. they tweaked it.

so which would be the more 'fabricated' story ? the ones the Hebrews made.

Here again is another assumption. Abraham's father worshiped multi gods so Abraham had to.

There is a chance that Abraham may have learned the original story of the flood from one of the people who was involved in it. Like Noah or one of his sons or possible from one of his grandkids.

Just because a story is written down first does not make it the first story it just makes it the first one written down.

As in another forum here the story of Bigfoot. How old is the first story of Bigfoot. Well to use your idea that would be in the early 1900s when someone told a reporter.

So what about all of those Indian stories of Bigfoot from three centuries ago do we just ignore them because they were not written down first.


We would also have to ignore all of the stories about dragons that were not written down first.

We know the Hebrews, possibly up to the Bablylonian captivitiy and the influences of Zoroastrianism ALWAYS recognized there were other gods, for it is in their own scriptures. Even Yahweh acknowledges there were other gods (one was his 'dragon' girlfriend and some were probably his relatives). His commandment was "you shall have not other gods before ME!" Technically, both the canaanites and hebrews called ALL of the gods below El as "Sons of God" and Yahweh was one of these. Both cultures originally believed El has 70 'sons' each of which looked after a tribe, and Yahweh had the hebrews, just as Ba'al looked after the Canaanites. Yahweh and Ba'al both fight over a femal deity Asheroth, and we know Asheroth was worshipped at Solomon's temple along with Yahweh. And just as Yahweh is given dragon attributes in the bible (wings, fire breathing, dragon idol, dargon assistants, etc), Asheroth was orignally a(according to her hymns) "a terrible dragon who loves beer".

Abraham may have only worshipped one god, but like every other Hebrew, undoubtedly believed in the other gods too.

I do agree with you that long before writing, early man believed in dragons, for they are depicted in stone age art. In fact world-wide legends credit 'dragons' with giving humans wisdom so they would become civilized and even in the much later Genesis story, the serpent is considered wise, and wishes the humans to be wise too. Curiously, by the time the Hebrews finally wrote down the story, it was evil to want humans to become wise. Perhaps this is becasue the hebrew shepherds disdained the cities, and agriculture based culture that the 'wise' dragons supposedly brought according to the Sumerian legends which they of course knew.

No it would not be, this is where the misconception is. Abraham came after noah. Yeh he lived among pagan and idol woshippers, namely some shcolars believe it to be india. If the latter is the case, then no sumerian there. And there is proof of Abraham being in india, via their scriptures etc, but thats a different debate. Abraham traveled in gods path alot, all over the area etc. Abraham did pick up the story of noah, either from god, or maybe from those who experienced it, or knew someone who experienced it. The point is this, although the hewbrews claim abraham as one of theirs, he was not, only through one of his sons, did the hebrews arrive, so abraham may have been sent to the sumerians as a messenger, like noah was sent to his poeple, and thus the story is repeated, but it does not mean one is copying another, it simply means the story has been passed down the generations, in order to preserve it, via an oral tradition, etc. There is no way what you suggest, supports plagarism.

Abraham , born in the Sumerian city of Ur , is seen by the Hebrew people as the father of the Jews. Where it all started . Hebrew is to have decended from the Euphrates river. Abraham took the Hebrew people from worshipping multiple Gods to one God. the Gods they worshipped before that ? probably a mix of where they lived - with the Older civilization that had been there at the time , the Sumerians.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc...hy/abraham.html

and 'noah' came after gilgamesh , the story from whom the Hebrews got the flood story. Noah wasn't a real person. you do understand that don't you ?

that the 'garden of eden' , the creation story is actually from the Sumerians -

http://www.ldolphin.org/eden/

It was in Saudi Arabia that Zarins encountered the Ubaidians, and there that he began developing his hypothesis about the true meaning of the Biblical Eden. One clue lies in linguistics: the term Eden, or Edin, appears first in Sumer, the Mesopotamian region that produced the world's first written language. This was in the third millennium B.C., more than three thousand years after the rise of the Ubaid culture. In Sumerian the word "Eden" meant simply "fertile plain." The word "Adam" also existed in cuneiform, meaning something like "settlement on the plain." Although both words were set down first in Sumerian, along with place names like Ur and Uruk, they are not Sumerian in origin. They are older. A brilliant Assyriologist named Benno Landsberger advanced the theory in 1943 that these names were all linguistic remnants of a pre-Sumerian people who had already named rivers, cities-and even some specific trades like potter anti coppersmith-before the Sumerians appeared.

Landsberger called the pre-Sumerian language simply Proto-Euphratian. Other scholars suggest that its speakers were the Ubaidians. However it was, the existing names were incorporated into Sumerian and written down for the first time. And the mythology of the lush and lovely spot called Eden was codified by being written

The name Eve does not appear in Sumerian but there is a most intriguing link---the account of Eve's having been fashioned from Adam's rib in the Garden story. Why a rib? Well, in a famous Sumerian poem translated and analyzed by scholar Samuel Noah Kramer, there is an account of how Enki the water god angered the Mother Goddess Ninhursag by eating eight magical plants that she had created. The Mother Goddess put the curse of death on Enki and disappeared, presumably so she couldn't change her mind and relent. Later, however, when Enki became very ill and eight of his "organs" failed, Ninhursag was enticed back. She summoned eight healing deities, one for each ailing organ. Now the Sumerian word for "rib" is "ti.," but the same word also means "to make live." So the healing deity who worked on Enki's rib was called "Nin-ti" and, in a nice play on words, became both the "lady of the rib" and the "lady who makes live." This Sumerian pun didn't translate into Hebrew, in which the words for "rib" and "to make live" are quite different. But the rib itself went into the Biblical account and as "Eve" came to symbolize the "mother of all living."

This and other ties with Sumerian myth are very clear, and Zarins finds it telling that although the Hebrews had close associations with Egypt, their earliest spiritual roots were in Mesopotamia. "

fact facts ........ the hebrews were influenced in thier beliefs by the Sumerians and other beliefs that came before it , as is christianity. why is that so hard to accept ?

Yeah, I think the sumerian account is older as well. I noticed that the woman also had the name "woman of the rib". I have found it very difficult to look over this problem. It seems that we can only make a theological assumption that Genesis is the real account as historically, it would be anachronistic to say that it is older. I agree for the most part.

Hairston

They have found that the story of Moses was mis dated. I don't remember if it is older or younger than they thought.

Not trying to throw the subject off, but there is speculation that the extremely long lifespan of man in the OT was a result of using a sexagesimal system of the base 60 which the Sumerians invented. So in reality, they did not live as long as the bible says. It was just a calculated figure from sexagesimal system. This is similar to the long life span of the first sumerian king that reigned for over 28,000 years.

Heres a good source that explains in depth Here

Hairston

A good link that hairston.it is a more credible explanation of the flood story and the incredible ages of some characters


fullywired

I think the bible even shows the the flood was local. Water covered the whole "earth" (which meant land in original hebrew), yet Noah could see mountains way off in the distance...how can that be?. Its the fact that the writer intended the flood to be local as it was (and we have evidence that this happened locally) and the church has mistranslated it over the years. I bet the sunday school teachers would cringe if a little child came in debating that the flood was local...because the bible says so ...hed prolly be kicked out of class and his parents would probably be banned from the church (just alittle exaggeration, i know)

Hairston (Doubting Thomas's Brother )

True. And in the original version the Sumerian Noah, does not collect every animal in the world, but merely the best specimens from all of his domestic animals (I think it was seven of each).

that is very true all humans at one point or another live around there so yea the stories would have started in that area

Well, 500 years from now, the name Hitler will replace Satan and the Nazis will replace the demonic forces. But. I don't think they will find anybody good enough to replace Jesus or God, I mean, they pretty much got that job.

I agree with Jesus and God.


on a side note I am surprised this has gotten this big.

5000 years from now the story of Jesus will be a myth ( as some think now) just like Zeus , or Jupiter or Horus.

just a matter of time.

as man evolves so do beliefs. it's inevitable.

yes and recreating it with what materials , the Gelgimish account is very plausable.First Gilgamesh actually existed.
Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM


Which Came First Noah or Ut-Napishtim?
The Babylonian tablets which contain the full story of the flood have been dated circa 650 BCE. However, portions of the story have been found on tablets from about 2000 BCE. A study of the language used in the tablets indicates that the story originated much earlier than 2000 BCE. 3 Variations of the original story have been found translated into other ancient languages. 4

Many conservative Christians believe that the flood occurred in 2349 BCE, and that the account in Genesis was written by Moses in the 1450's BCE, shortly before his death. 5,8 Thus, the Babylonian text must be a corrupted version based on a Paganized adaptation of the true story in Genesis. Alternatively, it might be an independent attempt at describing the world-wide flood.

Liberal theologians, noting the different names used to refer to God, and the different writing styles throughout the Penaeuch (first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures), believe that Genesis was assembled over a 4 century interval, circa 950 to 540 BCE by authors from a variety of traditions. 6

http://www.religioustolerance.org/noah_com.htm

As a general rule, all of the Sumerian versions of Biblical stories are far more plausible. And since it is clear they are far older than the Hebrew ones, in order for the Biblical God to be "real", by default he is on of the the Sumerian God or a composite of more than one. Enki, who tricks Adam in the Garden of Eden, warns the Sumerian Noah, and befuddles the builders of the tower of Babel, is, according to his hymns, "the great dragon who stands in Eridu". So it is an amusing irony that the character that later Christianity turned into Satan, is in reality, the Old Testament God Yahweh! And when we accept the fact Yahweh is a Sumerian dragon deity, many aspects of Yahweh in the old Testament makes far more sense, like his description of breathing fire from his mouth, smoke from is nostrils, haveing huge wings, demanding cattle and sheep (and first born chldren), orderig Moses to make a 'dragon' idol, having assistants who are winged dragons (seraphim), and even having the persians and gnostic christians state he is a dragon.

dragons aside lol ........ The Sumerian accounts are far older both textually and orally hense being an influence , among other things , on the jewish faith as well as the Christian. . I can't see how logically anyone can argue otherwise.

The Ark in the Sumerian stories was also cube-shaped (all dimensions equal). While cubes do float (think milk crates) they are also a lot less stable when compared to actual boat-shaped vessels - which the Bible-ark was shaped as (a rather interesting issue I have been thinking about, considering that the Hebrews were not ocean-farers, but desert-dwelling nomads).

Just a point I wanted to raise

~ Regards, PA

.
There was a documentary on the History Channel some time back that researched the Biblical flood story.In talking to geologists,it was shown that there was no evidence of a global flood,but there was plenty of evidence for a local flood in the Middle East in the area once known as Mesopotamia (now Iraq).The documentary also showed that it would've been impossible to construct such a large vessel out of wood,saying the wood would become soft in the water,deforming the boat and taking it down.It also stated that carrying two of every living species was quite impossible.

The "real" story,they said, was about a Sumerian merchant who traveled on a barges up and down the Tigris/Euphrates Rivers doing business carrying goods and livestock.There was a local flood in the area and he and all aboard the boat survived. it showed how he lashed togeather these barges with cargo and sailed the flood out. the barges were flat bottomed baskets it seemed

found it -------------- it was the Discovery channel.

Fragments of one text say that King Gilgamesh was buried under the walls of a river at the end of his life. Other signs point to him ending up in what is modern day Bahrain.

It isn't too hard to imagine that these texts found in Babylon and Nineveh were also there when Jewish scribes put down the words of the story into the Hebrew bible. It would be better if we today stopped trying to put a supernatural shroud around what is a good myth that can tell us about our history as humans.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1...true_story.html

Is that DC link you mentioned similar to THIS? Also, to kind of clear something up...the king james version appears to make the biblical flood appear to be global because it translates "land" as "earth". So when it says the whole earth, it actually means the whole land. Plus, if you notice in the biblical account that the whole "earth" was flooded but at the same time Noah could see mountains miles and miles away in the far distance. This is other evidence of a local flood. This is not to say that the biblical flood is more credible or older than the sumerian version, but that the biblical account shows that it was local as well.

Kindly,

Hairston

Edit: Also, let me know if that link is similar to the discovery channel documentary.

You didn't watch both docs on discorvery channel. The second one showed how they could have built such a boat with out it falling apart in the water.


also think of this.


The dimesions of the ark when tested in a scale model the ark will right itself if it turns over on it's side. at any angle excpet upside down.

The Hebrews certainly knew these stories long before the Babylonian captivity. They were woshipping a Sumerian 'dragon god' from the time of Moses, and it was Moses to made the dragon 'idol' of Yahweh. These Sumerian stories were in disfavor by the time of the Captivity. Instead, it was Persian Zoroastrian beliefs that inspired the dualistic beliefs of late Judaism and Christianity. This is when we first see a devil or satan who opposes God, just as in the Zoroastrian mythos.

In what I believe is the oldest version, Enki tells the Sumerian Noah that the flood is imminent, and he must quickly make a raft from the walls of his own reed house, and save his best animals and family. This also is the most logical.

From that point on, later versions became steadily more mythic. But this version is important because Enki is connected with Adam and Eden, and Enki also befuddles the builders of the tower of Babel. These are both tales also retained by the Hebrews, strongly suggesting Enki is Yahweh.

again the model of the ark in the bible can with stand almost any thing. Animals and people can fall off of a raft if it is storm tossed or hits white water.


So for a desert people, who steal a story, they modify the story to include a world wide flood with a boat that can with stand a 40 day storm. Pretty good for a desert people. Who would know little if anything about boats.

very similar. In that both stories were weighed and of course the story of Geligemish made more sense. I don't remember a whole lot of it but how being a merchant on the river and used to transporting cargo that he had lashed various barges togeather.

I don't remember another story like it saying they fell apart. I do remember that the the Noah account would fall apart if built.

I'd like to see it again - I was channel flipping ! between that and something else. and go figure I can't remember what else I thought it was more important to watch.

actually no , it was shown the 'Ark ' wouldn't have held togeather .

The traditional shape of Noah's Ark comes from the imaginations of 19th Century artists. It would have been about 450ft long, and experts say it would have broken apart.

What we know of the culture of what is now Iraq gives the first glimpse of the real-life historical figure behind the myth.


'Noah' might have been king of a city called Shuruppak. He would have had a kilt, a shaven head and eye make-up, like the figures portrayed in artworks created in what was then known as Sumeria.


The epic of Gilgamesh ( remember , which is far older than the bible ) says 'Noah 'had silver and gold, then the currency of wealthy merchants, suggesting he was a businessman.


Instead of building an ark to survive a great flood, he is more likely to have built boats to trade goods like beer, grain and animals.


All the big trading centres of the era were on the River Euphrates and it was cheaper to move goods by water than land. Sumerians were able to build barges about 20ft in length, and marine archaeologists have not found remains or inscriptions of larger vessels.


But they believe they would have had the technology to have built a series of barges and used them like pontoons on which a much larger boat, or ark, could have been constructed.


One Babylonian text suggests the ark came to rest on what is now the island of Bahrain, providing a very different yet plausible end to the adventure.


Could this story have provided the inspiration for the holy men who wrote the Book of Genesis 2,000 years later? When they first heard the story, how could they fail to recognise its moral power, that if humankind falls short of God's laws, there's a dreadful price to pay. Behind that moral message lies one of the world's greatest stories.



http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13495.htm

I watched both docs on this the first one stated what you did it wouldn't together.

The second one not only showed how they could have made it hold together but made it even stronger than first thought.


The traditional way of makeing a boat your right the boat would not have held together. The traditional way is to make long beams from a single peice of wood and use as few beams as possible for the length of the boat.

The way they should that the boat could be built and it would hold together was to use more ribs and only make the beams long enough to fit between the beams. thus there isn't as much weight on a single beam of wood.

I would put a link in here but I don't know what to google.

but the design as I have said before was a very well designed boat that could take almost anything that was thrown at it and stay a float.

I never said they "stole" the story. It was their story if you trust the Bible, becasue Abraham came from Ur, not far from the Persian Gulf, and there was indeed a great flood in this area.

The great flood of which there is archaeological evidence in mesopotamia seem to be an overflowing river, and a raft, made out of a reed house as the oldest story states, would be adequate.

since there are floods there almost every year I would hope there is evidence of floods there in the past.

There may be evidence of a world wide flood. We are just mis interrupting the evidence and thinking it came from an asteroid.

And there is far more than enough water in the oceans to flood the entire land scape. All it would take is to hit the earth in the right spot knocking it off on it's axis forcing the ocean water over the land.

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