Biblical Flood? Fish, squid, and shrimp fossils in the mountains of Lebanon and Peru

[Akhenaten]

'if the Book of Genesis has been changed from the original scripture, as you yourself have claimed elsewhere in this thread

You must have me confused with someone else.

Are you going to try and claim that the "DOC" in the following exchange isn't you?

Hey DOC, while you're here, how about answering that question you've been avoiding for the past couple of days of 'if the Book of Genesis has been changed from the original scripture, as you yourself have claimed...

No I haven't.

Really? Shall we take another look at how the conversation went?
This is from post #913

I believe that I actualy asked you for the "quote" in the Book of Genesis itself that names it's author. Now, no more avoiding the actual question that I asked, who does the Book of Genesis itself quote as it's author?

It doesn't on the copies, which seems to happen a lot on ancient writings.

So essentially, what you are actualy saying is that you cannot quote me the part in the Book of Genesis itself that names it's author because if it ever did name it's author in the 'original' scripture then that scripture has now been changed and the original version is lost to history, correct?

You might not know this but almost all original ancient documents have been lost and we only have the copies of those originals left.

So, let's recap, I asked you who the Book of Genesis names as it's author, you said that the "copies" of the Book of Genesis doesn't mention it's author, implying that the original did name it's author, which obviously implies a change to the original when the 'copies' were made, which then begs the question; if the original was changed, how do we know that what we read today is a trustable source?

Now please, I'm asking you politely, instead of avoiding the question or claiming that you didn't say what you actualy did say, could you please just answer the question?


Note*
This post has been edited to include the final part of the quote (which, for some strange reason I had omitted) helpfully provided by Akhenaten in the post that immediately follows this one, for which he has my gratitude.

​

Good luck with that.

 

[DOC]

...and that means the Sumerian creation and flood myths, written down on clay tablets in the "Eridu Genesis" excavated from Nippur last century actually pre-date any written account of the OT by about 1700 years, during the first Babylonian dynasty.

Where did you get the 1700 figure?

I wish I could get the link I used to respond to SlackerBabbath bringing up the previous flood accounts but since my search of all my previous posts function doesn't work for some reason, I guess I won't be able to get it without taking a half hour.

 

[Hokulele]

Where did you get the 1700 figure?

I wish I could get the link I used to respond to SlackerBabbath bringing up the previous flood accounts but since my search of all my previous posts function doesn't work for some reason, I guess I won't be able to get it without taking a half hour.

Why? Aren't you familiar enough with the contents of those arguments you have brought in that you can summarize it on your own, or do you blindly copy and paste any link you happen to think might agree with you?

 

[Akhenaten]

Yes. I confused the lot story with Noah. So much depravity amongst the "good" in the bible, it is hard to keep it straight.

Which is evidence for the truth of the biblical accounts.

No part of the bible can be used as evidence for itself.

Do you have any recollection at all of the previous ten thousand or so times you've been told this?

They report both the good and the bad unlike a ruler or country which minimalizes the bad or simply don't record it at all.

Judging by your complete inability to produce any corroborating evidence ever despite all the threads in which you've attempted to do so, it appears that they don't actually "report" anything at all. It's all just make-believe.

This is just plain wrong.

 

[DOC]

So, let's recap, I asked you who the Book of Genesis names as it's author, you said that the "copies" of the Book of Genesis doesn't mention it's author, implying that the original did name it's author...

No, it implies it "could" have not it did have the name. So the premise is not accurate.

 

[Akhenaten]

Why? Aren't you familiar enough with the contents of those arguments you have brought in that you can summarize it on your own, or do you blindly copy and paste any link you happen to think might agree with you?

​

 

[Hokulele]

No, it implies it "could" have not it did have the name. So the premise is not accurate.

So you actually have no idea what was in the original manuscript.

Got it.

(Yes, I know, I invoked the "rule of so". Sue me. )

 

[Akhenaten]

So, let's recap, I asked you who the Book of Genesis names as it's author, you said that the "copies" of the Book of Genesis doesn't mention it's author, implying that the original did name it's author...

No, it implies it "could" have not it did have the name. So the premise is not accurate.

I think you lose credibility when you post meaningless responses to unattributed sentence fragments.

 

[Akhenaten]

I'm sure that everyone also remembers that you only introduced the link after deceptively editing Gawdzilla's post to imply that he was talking about carbon dating...

Well this makes about the 15th time (since I've been on this system) someone assumed the worse, and falsely accused me of something . Actually the reason I put {Carbon} dating in there was because I knew a derailing series of joke attempts would ensue if it just said dating.

Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

- Leviticus 19:11​

Oopsie, DOC.

 

[Akhenaten]

Skeptics lose credibility when they continue to misrepresent what I say.

Would you like me to run a little mini-poll to see where the credibility lies in this thread?

Please reply directly to my posts, which you didn't do.

They way you directly replied to this post?

DOC,I am really having a hard time understanding your position, as it seems to drift about aimlessly.

Was the flood real or not?

By real, I mean a world wide flood that killed all life on earth except for those on the ark.

Anything less than that, makes the story a fiction. Saying that it was based upon a regional flood doesn't make it any less fictional.

In a similar fashion, just because Abraham Lincoln was a real person, it doesn't mean he killed vampires.

This is the reason several posters in this thread have been repeatedly asking DOC to clarify what his position actually is.


Is he asking if the fossils in Peru are evidence of the Noachian flood? The answer to that is simple. It is "no". Various well-tested and understood dating methods have shown them to be too old.
A note for DOC: Carbon 14 is NOT the only dating method, and is not the one that would be used for fossils of such age. Click here for a nice summary.

Is he arguing something else? If so, he needs to explain what he is arguing for. So far, all DOC has demonstrated is that he has not actually thought about what he believes regarding the biblical flood. Merely that he believes it. This is evidence in the complete lack of any sort of chronology for the event, and in the use of evidence and hypotheses that even a cursory examination would show to be contradictory, false, impossible, inapplicable or any combination thereof.


In addition to reminding me of certain 9/11 truther argument styles (that is NOT a ringing endorsement of logical argumentation), he reminds me of a couple of young Islamic girls who gave a (obviously scripted) talk at a presentation dinner I was recently coerced into attending. The dinner was being held to raise awareness of the plight of muslims who were being urged in their home country to accept a more mild version of Islam. But they wanted their more rigit version. The two girls talked about how they loved their burka and adored their burka. It was obvious that they believed the burka to be good, but equally obvious that they had never thought about why they loved the Burka and believed it to be good, or what the specifics of their belief was. It was very vague, and a bit disturbing (along with the segregation of women, and having a male presenter explain why women were honored Islamically, so long as they behaved in a subservient and Islamic manner). But I get off-topic.


Much like DOC. He knows WHAT he believes, in a broad sense (Jesus said flood, that's good enough for him), but he has obviously never thought about it in any detail.

He has the chance in this thread to do so. To analyze one of his beliefs, and refine what he actually believes, so that in the future he can present a coherent and structured story to the people he's witnessing to.

He has, thus far, avoided doing that.

It is a pity.

 

[DOC]

...and that means the Sumerian creation and flood myths, written down on clay tablets in the "Eridu Genesis" excavated from Nippur last century actually pre-date any written account of the OT by about 1700 years, during the first Babylonian dynasty.

Where did you get 1700 years?

It is clear evidence that the biblical account of the flood could have been inspired by earlier accounts of a local flood on the Tigris/Euphrates flood plain.

From the article "Two Evidences for Noah's Flood: Fossil Graveyards and Extrabiblical Accounts" by Charlie H. Campbell

"With so many points in common between the Gilgamesh Epic and the Biblical account, it’s not difficult to conclude that both accounts recall a common event. But some critics of the Bible look at the similarities in the accounts and argue that Moses must have stolen his idea for a flood from an earlier source. They have no evidence that this occurred except the similarities in the accounts. But similarities in different reports of historical events don’t prove plagiarism. It is very possible that witnesses with similar details in their stories are looking back to an actual event–in this case the Flood. The more witnesses who tell a similar story, the more likely the core of the story is actually true. But other critics of the Bible aren’t concerned with the similarities in the accounts. They are concerned about the differences between the accounts. And there are differences {such as the boatbuilder's name}:
<snip>
These differences aren’t surprising. As Noah’s descendants spread out from the mountains of Ararat (c. 2400–2300 BC) to the four corners of the planet [7] and the story was told and retold over the centuries, conflicting details crept into different strains of the story."

http://1peter315.blogspot.com/2011/06/archaeological-evidence-for-flood.html

 

[Akhenaten]

...and that means the Sumerian creation and flood myths, written down on clay tablets in the "Eridu Genesis" excavated from Nippur last century actually pre-date any written account of the OT by about 1700 years, during the first Babylonian dynasty.

Where did you get the 1700 figure?

See if you can work it out for yourself:

Sumerian creation myth

The earliest record of the Sumerian creation myth and flood myth is found on a single fragmentary tablet excavated in Nippur, sometimes called the Eridu Genesis. It is written in the Sumerian language and dated to around 1600 BCE during the first Babylonian dynasty, where the language of writing and administration was still Sumerian. Other Sumerian creation myths from around this date are called the Barton Cylinder, the Debate between sheep and grain and the Debate between Winter and Summer, also found at Nippur.

linky​

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.

 

[Mojo]

Well this makes about the 15th time (since I've been on this system) someone assumed the worse, and falsely accused me of something .

Yes, you have quite a bit of form in that respect.

Actually the reason I put {Carbon} dating in there was because I knew a derailing series of joke attempts would ensue if it just said dating.

Gawdzilla's post just said dating, and there had been no "derailing series of joke attempts" in the twelve and a half hours and fifty-eight posts between Gawdzilla's post and your misquoting of it.

The post speaks for itself. You introduced the word "carbon" to the quotation from Gawdzilla, and then spent the rest of it attacking carbon dating.

Did it really take you almost six days to come up with such a feeble excuse?

 

[Akhenaten]

From the article "Two Evidences for Noah's Flood: Fossil Graveyards and Extrabiblical Accounts" by Charlie H. Campbell

"With so many points in common between the Gilgamesh Epic and the Biblical account, it’s not difficult to conclude that both accounts recall a common event. But some critics of the Bible look at the similarities in the accounts and argue that Moses must have stolen his idea for a flood from an earlier source. They have no evidence that this occurred except the similarities in the accounts. But similarities in different reports of historical events don’t prove plagiarism. It is very possible that witnesses with similar details in their stories are looking back to an actual event–in this case the Flood. The more witnesses who tell a similar story, the more likely the core of the story is actually true. But other critics of the Bible aren’t concerned with the similarities in the accounts. They are concerned about the differences between the accounts. And there are differences {such as the boatbuilder's name}:

<snip>

Similarities???


Did you bother to read this post, DOC?

Well according to the original Sumerian version of the story in which a king called Atra-Hasis is warned by a god called 'Enki' about the other gods plans to kill humanity with a flood and instructs him to build a boat to save himself and his loved ones, it was a localised flood, apparently through a vally that contained all of humanity at the time. This version was later changed slightly in the version found in the Babylonian 'Epic of Gilgamesh' in which a commoner called Utnapishtim is given the same warning and boat building instructions by the same god and the flood is also changed to a global flood. This version also contains several things that are used in the final Biblical narrative. For example;

"The dove went out and returned" (Gilgamesh XI,147)
"sent forth the dove and the dove came back to him" (Genesis 8:10b-11)

"I sent forth a raven" (Gilgamesh XI,152)
"Noah... sent forth a raven" (Genesis 8:7)

"The gods smelled the sweet savor" (Gilgamesh XI,160)
"And the Lord smelled the sweet savor..." (Genesis 8:21)

"On Mount Nisir the boat grounded" (Gilgamesh XI,140)
"the ark came to rest upon the mountains" (Genesis 8:4)

"The cattle of the field, the beast of the plain" (Gilgamesh XI,85)
"clean animals and of animals that are not clean" (Genesis 7:8)

"into the ship all my family and relatives" (Gilgamesh XI,84)
"Go into the ark, you and all your household" (Genesis 7:1)

"pitch I poured into the inside" (Gilgamesh XI,66)
"cover it inside and out with pitch" (Genesis 6:14)

"And offered a sacrifice" (Gilgamesh XI,155)
"offered burnt offerings on the altar" (Genesis 8:20)

"he touched our foreheads to bless us" (Gilgamesh XI,192)
"And God blessed Noah" (Genesis 9:1)

So the Biblical account is pretty obviously based upon the earlier Gilgamesh version then, (which in turn is based upon the much earlier Sumerian version) infact if all of the authors were still alive, the author of Gilgamesh would have no problem suing the author of the Genesis version for plagiarism.
But this raises an interesting point, I take it from your posts (and please forgive me if I'm wrong about this) that you are a Christian? If that's the case then you must obviously consider the Sumerian gods to be mythological, true? So if the flood story in the Bible is based upon mythology, then doesn't that make the Biblical story itself mythological? After all, you cannot base truth upon mythology. You can base mythology upon truth, but not the other way around.

 

[DOC]

See if you can work it out for yourself:

linky​

​

Included in your post:

"Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100."

Cannonization has nothing to do with the dates the books were written so the 1700 figure is inaccurate, especially considering Moses is estimated to live around 1400 B.C.

 

[AdMan]

Included in your post:

"Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100."

Cannonization has nothing to do with the dates the books were written so the 1700 figure is inaccurate, especially considering Moses is estimated to live around 1400 B.C.

What is your evidence Moses even existed, aside from the Bible?

 

[Mojo]

Well this makes about the 15th time (since I've been on this system) someone assumed the worse, and falsely accused me of something . Actually the reason I put {Carbon} dating in there was because I knew a derailing series of joke attempts would ensue if it just said dating.

OK, let me try.

The bible talks of a {Completely impossible}* worldwide flood...

You see, even your OP admits that the Biblical flood could never have happened.




*Words added to avoid the derailing series of joke attemps that would ensue if it just said worldwide flood. So that's OK then.

 

[Akhenaten]

See if you can work it out for yourself:

linky​

​

Included in your post:

"Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100."

Cannonization has nothing to do with the dates the books were written so the 1700 figure is inaccurate, especially considering Moses is estimated to live around 1400 B.C.

I'll take that as a negative response to my "working it out for yourself" question and add it to the list of similar items, right after "learning how to quote properly" and "using the search function".

 

[DOC]

Similarities???


Did you bother to read this post, DOC?

​

Look up who edited the Gilgamesh epic and in what year it was edited.

 

[Mashuna]

Well this makes about the 15th time (since I've been on this system) someone assumed the worse, and falsely accused me of something . Actually the reason I put {Carbon} dating in there was because I knew a derailing series of joke attempts would ensue if it just said dating.

So...

You added a word to a quote in order to avoid a derail. You added the wrong word, then spent a number of posts attacking the (wrong) word that you'd added. This is either dishonest, or you really know so little about the basics of radiometric dating that you're in no position to cast doubts on its validity. I really can't see any other option; it could have been a valid mistake to start with, but it's been pointed out so often that you'd have corrected it by now, if you'd understood where you went wrong.