Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>Ian, are you an expert on fauna now? I don't claim to be. 

As I didn't claim the homour, I don't understand the 
comment.

>And I am
>rather sceptical of your claim that the climate was different then, I
>understood that the last major climate change in the region was before
>8000 BCE. 

The standard article which brings all the sources 
together is, Neumann & Parpola, "Climatic Change 
and the Eclipse of Assyria and Babylon", JNES, 
66 (1987), pp161-182.

(The effects of the climatic change is what probably 
cause the decline of both powers due to the grave 
decline in productivity of storable food resources 
and the inability therefore to support the social 
structures of control.)

>But it didn't require a climate change for elephants, lions
>and apes to live in Mesopotamia or wherever. These animals were at home
>and common in these regions until they were hunted to extinction. The
>Hebrew Bible demonstrates this well with its frequent mention of lions
>in the land.

Hunting to extinction is definitely part of the story.
Species in decline the other part.



Ian