Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Knapp <sknapp AT megsinet.net>]

Jonathan D. Safren wrote:
> 
> The Tower of Babel narrative does not presume any first-hand knowledge
> of Babylon or of the temple-towers in Mesopotamia. It sounds more like
> second-hand knowledge filtered down to the popular writer of Gen. 10.

The stories don't preCLUDE first hand knowledge do they?  What kind of
filtering down process are you imagining?  So far it seems to me the
proposal requiring the least amount of conjecture to support it is that
the story was written after the state of Babylon had already fallen. 
The closing imagery in the story seems to fit that situation.  


> As for singling out Enuma Elish for polemic, this may have been the
> literary polytheistic creation narrative best known to the Priestly
> writer. Don't forget that Babylonian epic literature was known and read
> in Canaan before the Israelite conquest.

As I said before, I think it is a mistake to speak of "singling out" the
Enuma Elish.  The Genesis materials echo imagery of Babylonian cosmology
from a variety of sources.  J picks up on Atrahasis motifs at the least,
and P builds on that from Enuma Elish.  Both COULD have been influences
during the period of monarchy, inasmuch as the literature existed, but
we don't have as sure a basis for saying they were cultural influences
then as we do for the time after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah
has occurred.  The problem revolves around the basis and extent of
cultural contact, not the question of the existence of the literature.

-- 
Stephen A. Knapp, sknapp AT megsinet.net
PhD candidate, Old Testament Biblical Studies
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Part time faculty: Department of Theology
Valparaiso University (Indiana)