Re: RFC on new Index of Creationist claim: CG211

Ray Martinez wrote:
On Feb 4, 8:45 am, Friar Broccoli <elia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mark Isaak previously presented this entry

here:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3fb0537dbf93857anews:jb
jrkb$7p2$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Since I now have access to that part of the archive, I will be
putting
it up on February 13th, together with any additions/modifications
agreed
from comments made in this thread.

The remainder of the index can be found
here:http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
_____________________________________________________________________
CG211. The Genesis flood story predates the Babylonian version.

Title: Early tablet evincing Genesis flood
Keywords: flood, deluge, Gilgamesh, Babylon

Claim:

The flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is clearly related to
the flood story in Genesis, is known from tablets from Nineveh from
the 7th century BCE and surely is older. It was believed to predate
the
written Genesis account. But a fragmentary tablet (CBM 13532)
discovered in Nippur dated to around 2200 BCE is consistent with the
Genesis version and differs from the Babylonian version, confirming
the
priority of Scripture.

Source:

Morris, John D., 2011. Genesis, Gilgamesh, and an early flood tablet.
_Acts & Facts_ 40(11) (Nov.), 16.

Response:

1. The claim rests entirely on Hilprecht's translation of the tablet
(Hilprecht 1910).

When does any claim of this nature NOT rest on the authority of a
scholar?

Right, you are an expert on scholars: Dr. Scott, Velikovsky. For any
argument you want to make you are certain to find the right scholar. But is
"the authority of a scholar" above critcal assessment?

Isn't it more likely that someone like one of your heroes, Velikovsky, based
on the knowledge we have today, have to be considered more like von Däniken
than a scholar deserving of respect?

Because the tablet is so fragmentary, Hilprecht's
translation includes interpolations based on context, and sometimes
these are mere guesses. In particular, Hilbrecht's translation of
bringing "creeping things, two of everything" is supplied purely from
Hilbrecht's imagination based on a translation, dubious in itself,
where he renders, "instead of a number." Barton (1911) renders the
same line, "let the artisans (or people) come"....

Case in point.

....and calls Hilprecht's
version "grossly mistranslated." (See also Prince and Vanderburgh
1910.)

Without the "two of everything" line, everything in the CBM 13532
fragment is as consistent with the Babylonian flood version as it is
with Genesis.

2. The early date ascribed to the tablet is unsupportable. The exact
location where the tablet was excavated was not recorded, and when
Hilbrecht came to it, it had been kept in boxes mingling tablets from
different periods (Barton 1911). The philology and style of writing
indicate a date from the Cassite period (c. 1750-1170 BCE), and not
before the First Babylonian Dynasty (ca. 1830-1531 BCE) (Barton
1911).

Sumerian and Assyrian versions of the flood story, quite similar to
the Babylonian version, date back to 1700 BCE or earlier (Tigay
1982).


All based on the say-so of one scholar (another case in point).

Your entire piece says, essentially, whichever scholar I agree with,
is right.

And your ASSUMPTION that priority means the laters are based on or
related to the earlier is, like I just said, an assumption. Common
denominator facts in these texts corroborate the claim as true, having
occurred. The claim of Scripture is not the earliest, but the
protected version of events.

Ray


Links:

References:

1. Barton, George A. 1911. Hilprecht's fragment of the Babylonian
deluge story (Babylonian Expedition of the University of
Pennsylvania, Series D, volume V, fasc. I). _Journal of the
American Oriental Society_ 31: 30-48.
2. Hilprecht, H.V. 1910. _The earliest version of the Babylonian
deluge
story and the temple library of Nippur_. The Babylonian Expedition
of the University of Pennsylvania, Series D, Volume V, Fasc. 1.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
3. Prince, John D. and Frederick A. Vanderburgh. 1910. The new
Hilprecht deluge tablet. _The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures_ 26: 303-308.
4. Tigay, Jeffrey H. 1982. _The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic_,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

--
Friar Broccoli (Robert Keith Elias), Quebec Canada
I consider ALL arguments in support of my views


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