God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

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...

It's best to not think about it In 1999 a computer expert and inventor with a BS in Physics self-published one of the best books on Noah and the Ark that you’ve never heard of and probably haven’t read. But if you are interested in Old Testament studies, you should put this volume on your shelf, especially in light of the recent Hollywood rendition of the story. It’s called Noah’s Ark and the Ziusudra Epic, published by Enlil Press, distributed by Eisenbraun, a well-established publisher of scholarly works on the Ancient Middle East (ANE). The author, Robert MacAndrews Best, spent years researching and designing it. In a future post, I will give a little bio of Mr. Best , who is still alive at this writing, but in this post, I want to tell you why you should read it if you are at all interested in the story of Noah’s Ark. In my fundamentalist, inerrant days (the Bible is truth without error and was pretty much dictated by God and reflects His thinking without being diluted by...