Read this discussion … The Flood "Removed" not "Killed" Everyone? - #7 by swamidass
It’s feasible the flood wasn’t intended to kill so much as it was intended to clear the land.
I don’t think the flood was the blood bath it’s always assumed it was.
Why is that interesting? Converting one sort of fiction into another sort of fiction appeals to you?
No flood of the sort recorded by Mesopotamian stratigraphy would do that trick. Might kill a few dozen people, but that’s about it.
For what purpose? What land?
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Don’t be so quick to dismiss this as a fiction. These people took this stuff seriously enough to commit it to stone. These weren’t stories to them. These were historical records.
There’s actually quite a lot of good reasons, that I hope to get into eventually, to think this isn’t fiction at all. Like a crater left by a meteor, there’s a crater in our picture of human history that’s shaped just like this.
Yeah, that’s more in line with what I’m thinking.
The point, I think, was not to kill everyone, but to isolate Noah and his family.
Re: Fiction
It’s a common assumption to just dismiss the writers of these texts as being ignorant and prone to fantasy. Or worse, think that they’re intention was to create propaganda in a kind of psychological warfare to maintain power.
Let’s keep in mind these people were humanity’s first scientists. The first astronomers. The first mathematicians. They actually invented ways to learn and discern what’s certain. They don’t very often get the respect they deserve. The whole reason we have these texts to evaluate is because they invented a way to record and keep track.
Re: Crater in our picture of human history
Our evaluation of our past has always been very Western-centric. We see our progression from hunter-gatherers to farmers to civilization builders as a normal, natural progression. I don’t think it is.
In our Western-centric view it makes sense, once humans began to live settled together in communities, that close proximity and increase in population and interaction brought forth civilization.
The problem with that view is that the rest of humanity, while often did transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers, didn’t take that next step to civilization.
That only happened once. This region of the world is called the “cradle of civilization” for a reason.
What I hope to illustrate here is that the story the first few chapters of the book of Genesis tells is explaining what happened. These events, I intend to show, caused the significant shift in human history that led to the modern world we’ve become.
Clay, actually. And I wouldn’t be so sure they were historical records, not as we understand the term. So what you do is assume they’re true except that they ought to be divided by six. That’s you distorting and cherry-picking again.
How does a flood that doesn’t reach a city only 7 miles away, isolate anyone? I picture Noah sitting in his little boat in the middle of a fairly sizable lake, while people point at him from shore, wondering why he’s still in the middle.
That does violence to the meaning of “scientist”.
Sorry, but China, India, Mexico, Peru? And we’re western-centric?
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Yes, I’m considering the idea that they’re true, rather than thinking I know better already and dismissing it out of hand.
I don’t think flood evidence we have at this point is by any means comprehensive.
How?
“One major achievement was the ability to predict the movements of several planets. This took logic, mathematics, and a scientific process.” - Ancient Mesopotamia: Science, Inventions, and Technology
I wouldn’t say Mexico and Peru belongs on this list. What started in China and India also stems from this same thing.
My point is that you carefully choose and then massage all the things you consider.
Because they didn’t do anything we would recognize as science. They observed, they recorded, they did some math. No hypothesis-testing to speak of.
Why wouldn’t you say that? What makes you think China and India stem from Mesopotamia? What, in fact, makes you think Egypt did?
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I only choose what is directly relevant to the hypothesis. And I’m not massaging anything. Only pointing it out.
No? … “One major achievement was the ability to predict the movements of several planets. This took logic, mathematics, and a scientific process.” - Ancient Mesopotamia: Science, Inventions, and Technology
No, you only choose what you can mangle to support your hypothesis, as when you assume that the Sumerian king’s list ought to be divided by 6.
Oh, well, if somebody used the word “science” in a quote, that certainly proves your case.
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That’s not an assumption. Look it up. It’s a pretty common understanding. The fact that every number given is divisible by 60 is a strong indication this is not just an assumption on my part.
The quote making the accurate statement that they successfully predicted movements of the planets shows that they used scientific processes by measuring/observing/calculating and predicting.
Why? Maybe they just liked round numbers. Maybe numbers had a mystical significance? And why divide by 6 instead of 5 or 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 or 30 or 60?
Still not science. Did they develop a theory of planetary motion? No, they just devised a mathematical means of predicting events.
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You answered your own question. The Sumerians used 60 because it’s divisible by all of those numbers. It’s actually a very handy numbering system. It’s why our measure of time today is based on it.
60 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30
So we’re splitting hairs? Fine, we won’t call it science. Though my point is clear.
You will show the Sumerians the respect they deserve or we cannot be friends, John.
Considering I match up Genesis 1-11 chronologically and geographically with events throughout history, I think you greatly over-estimate my power of “massaging”. If there’s not something within that time frame in that specific region that applies close enough for me to “massage” it into context, then I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Yet, point after point, I do.
Claims that I’m just “cherry-picking” and “massaging” only go so far before they start sounding absurd.
“The Sumerians were among the first formal astronomers, correctly formulating a heliocentric view of the solar system.” - (DOC) Sumerian & Mesopotamian Civilization | Harshvardhan Kothari - Academia.edu
No, you misunderstood the question. I didn’t ask why they used base 60. I asked why you choose to divide the ages of kings by 6 rather than any other number they’re divisible by.
You think so.
As we have seen, you have to distort both Genesis and science to achieve this result, and we can now add history. One of your big events is a flood at Uruk, but we have established that it can’t be the same as the flood in the kings list and that it doesn’t have the features that you need for the flood of Noah.
This is a claim I’m not familiar with. If it’s true, you have a point.
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It appears, after a cursory google, that this is another fringe notion with no real support, and another example of you cherry-picking sources to fit your ideas.
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Because the Sumerians used a base-60 numbering system.
The only potential “distortion” was my attempt to explain birds. Out of the dozen or more creations, that’s the only one. The others you claimed I was trying to distort, like the atmosphere and the water cycle, both were not distorted and were also claimed by someone who has the credentials to back up his grasp of science who determined the same explanation independently of me.
Besides, like I said, 11 chapters, back to back, all in order, lined up with events along a chronological timeline, claims that I could simply distort the text or science to line all of that up is absurd. Your claim is simply less plausible than the alternative.
So we can call them humanities first scientists without you getting offended?
How’s this for support?
That isn’t a reason. Why is the number 6 more central to a base 60 system than the other factors of 60? Why did you decide that the ages fo the kings had to be divided by 6 rather than some other factor of 60? You seem incapable even of recognizing the question.
You have a very poor memory.
Incoherent. So your evidence of a heliocentric system is an ambiguous bit of image on a cylinder seal? Why are there 12, possibly 13 planets? This is getting close to Von Daniken level scholarship.
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