Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld wrote:



>Pastor Rocine has made an interesting observation, a warning caution about
>jumping to conclusions, in regards to the parallels under discussion between
>the Epic of Gilgamesh and its Flood story and Genesis. He posits that these
>parallels may be more cautiously accounted for as "similar reflections of a
>common human experience than more speculatively as genetically direct
>relatives."
>
>I am well aware from having read some of the vast literature in this field,
>that there are scholars who embrace Pastor Rocine's line of reasoning
>(humanist as well as fundamentalist). And under certain conditions I have no
>personal problem with this as a justifiable method of inquiry under the
>right conditions.
>
>As I have pointed earlier, scholars have identified 17 features that the
>Genesis and Gilgamesh flood stories have in common and in the same sequence.
>To say that 17 features- in the same sequence no less, are to dismissed and
>explained away as "similar reflections of a common human experience than
>more speculatively as genetically direct relatives" is not a line of
>reasoning I can accept. It is obvious to me, if not to others, that we
>possess here a genetic relationship not "reflections of a common human
>experience."
>


Dear Walter,


I have studied the details of Athrahasis in Accadian and portions of Enuma
Elish and Gilgamesh as well, and the similarities with Genesis are so
striking that the "law of probability" forbids that the parallels are
coincidental. Either Genesis adopts material from the Accadian/Sumerian
sources vice verca, or both are based on the same source.

This being said, I would like to add that I am in no way impressed by the
"evidence" that Genesis used the Mesopotamian sources. But the case reminds
me of the situation where a man was charged for murder and the prosecutor
called three witnesses who had seen him kill the victim. However, the man
insisted that he must be aquitted because he called 20 witnesses who had
not seen the murder; and twenty outrules three.

The Mesopotamian clay tablets are older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts
by 500 to 1000 years, and these tablets are evidently copies ("copy" is
even sometimes written on the tablet). But how much weight should we give
the opinion of all those researchers who never have seen older Hebrew
manuscripts than 225-250 BCE and strongly doubt that *much* older
manuscripts ever existed?

Frankly speaking, we know nothing about the origin of Hebrew Bible
autographs, and I see no compelling reason to reject the possibility that
such manuscripts existed before the time of the oldest copies of
Athrahasis, Enuma Elish, and Gilgamesh. In this post I am not arguing for
any view regarding this, just pointing out our ignorance. And we should all
be willing to admit that the basis for our own view and our *selection* of
evidence is our personal "horizon of understanding", the crucial point
being whether we believe in God and in the inspiration of the Bible, or
whether we reject this. R. Bultmann has shown that theological research
without presuppositions is impossible, and the same is true regarding
historical research. I do not say that we should not interpret
archaeological finds and old ducuments and try to find patterns, and use
all kinds of arguments to bolster our theories. But as researchers we
should allways have a humble attitude toward our material and keep in mind
that the past cannot be proven.





Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo