God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

What was the Hebrew author trying to accomplish? Having looked at the Genesis account and compared it to the Ziusudra Epic, what are we to do with it who live by the Bible and acknowledge its inspiration? I suggest we try to walk in the shoes of the earthly author and try to understand what his motivations may have been. He lived in the era of the kings of Israel. No, Moses did not write the book of Genesis. The phrase, …such and such happened when there were no kings in Israel is oft repeated. That is a clue that the book was written when there were kings in Israel. He lived in a polytheistic world with goddesses, ghosts, snakes, sacred gardens, and sacred trees [beneath which blasphemy and unholy arts were practiced]. Our author knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that participating in those customs brought spiritual death to the worshiper. Many of his own people followed those very gods. The Canaanites legends of Baal and the monstrous world of Mesopotamian deities were well-kn...

Where did the ark land? In two recent posts I discussed Robert Best’s self-published book Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra Epic, 1999, distributed by Eisenbrauns. This post follows on those and it is recommended that the reader refer to them before reading this one. For this post I also referred to Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET). In the original Sumerian epic, Ziusudra is a king in Mesopotamia (ANET, 42; Best, 256), but most of the narrative has been destroyed. According to one of the Sumerian King Lists, (ANET, 265) the king in Sumer at the time of the Flood was Ubar-Tutu, King of Shuruppak. In another, it’s Ziusudra (Best, 125). He probably lived sometime in the third millennium BCE (Best offers a flood near Shuruppak in 2900 BCE.) In the assembly of the gods, Anu and Enlil commanded that the kingship and rule of mankind should come to an end. Other deities lament, and Enki warns Ziusudra to build a boat to save himself and the seed of an...

Consideration of ancient texts is not abandoning faith This post is a continuation on the topic of Robert Best’s book, Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra Epic. He has accomplished 3 important tasks in his book. One of them is the study below in which phrases from the six Flood recensions are shown beyond all doubt to be connected to one another. The original story was most likely the Sumerian epic in the Sumerian language, written in cuneiform on clay tablets. As the story moved from there to Assyria and Babylon, written in Akkadian, then to the Hebrew Genesis account, the name of the hero changes to reflect current national names of the day. The gods change, and other details are added and dropped out. One thing becomes clear…the Genesis author knew of the other stories. He Hebraized the story to convey Israelite monotheistic theology. The Genesis account is not literal inerrant history dictated by God. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a fabulous story with a great message. I still consider it...