Genesis: History of the Semitic Peoples or Not?

We lose the unique particularity of Noah and his family as the “new start.” We lose the universal judgment on the corruption of mankind. We lose the historical recreation of the world.

All those things can be true symbolically, but not historically.

None of those things compels me to believe in a global flood, since the entire eretz was flooded.

I do want to add that all the stuff you’ve posted looks really interesting, and I intend to read it all soon when I have time.

Could we potentially say that God symbolically saved Hezekiah from the Assyrians? How do you determine what is symbolic and what is not?

Hello @Dick_Fischer,

I know it has been a while since our discussion on the deluge, but I had a few questions I would like see your point of view on, if you don’t mind answering.

If the book of Genesis is historical, then it is true that the ark of Noah came to land in the mountains of Urartu. The Shurrupak Flood of 2900 BC certainly flooded Shurrupak quite badly, and damaged Kish, but it can hardly be said that it reached much further, let alone the mountains in the north. Max Mallowan summarizes the damage at Kish as follows:

" These flood deposits were most clearly stratified in a street, and it appears that htey had been violent enough to necessitate repairs in the walls which flanked it. The street walls had however been sufficiently strong to protect the houses, wherein traces of flood debris were on that account less obtrusive, and moreover in several places the debris was presumed to have been cleared away by the occupants"1

If such a flood could barely wipe away the houses at Kish, how could it bring a large craft with animals to the top of a mountain?

Sources

  1. Mallowan, M. E. L. “Noah’s Flood Reconsidered.” Iraq , vol. 26, no. 2, 1964, p. 62., doi:10.2307/4199766, p.78.

We could say that. Since there is historical corroboration, that seems silly. But read on…

I think you’re ignoring my claim that rejecting a global flood on my part rests in part on the definition of eretz.

Regardless, the rescue of Hezekiah is also symbolic. I think we get scared of “symbol.” Anything we attribute meaning to is, at some level, a symbol. That it might be symbolic doesn’t deny the referent.

A couple of examples:

  1. Dragons can be symbols. Dragons are not “real.” Jordan Peterson would say they are real–just they are very low resolution. For example, dragon means “general threat.” Or “general animal threat.” That’s real. Just like “animal” is real, even though it’s a very low resolution description compared to, say, “calico house cat.” But for the sake argument, let’s say that dragons are not “real,” and yet the symbol means something.

  2. Coffee can be a symbol. It can symbolize a critical industry in Columbia. It can symbolize getting up in the morning. We use it to refer to a meeting between two people: “Let’s do coffee.” None of those uses directly refers to a caffeinated hot drink. And yet the referent (the “caffeinated hot drink”) is “real.” It can be both a symbol and a “real referent.”

So…Hezekiah’s deliverance by God is symbolic. It has meaning that goes beyond the historical event. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be in the Bible.

I don’t disagree with this statement at all.

Since there is historical corroboration, that seems silly.

I think it is equally silly to say Noah’s flood never happened, because there is historical coroboration for it as well. As for your definition of the word eretz I have no qualms about it. I believe the conflict between our ideas is mostly fabricated by misunderstanding.

My example of Hezekiah was a poor one, it would be better to substitute it with the Exodus.

The word eretz is primarily translated “land.” The cry of the Zionists from the late 1800s to the 1940s was “eretz Israel.” So why would we jump to “the whole world”?

We wouldn’t, the flood is obviously a hyperbolic description of a devastating Mesopotamian flood.

My concern is not the lens we might look through as we read the biblical text. My concern is what the writer(s) intended. Keep in mind that the push toward the idea that Genesis 2-11 had a theological purpose came from those who read it as intended world history and knew it wasn’t very good at that, and since it is “God breathed” according to Paul, it must have some other purpose. In essence, it stemmed from a desire to rescue the text which otherwise would be just plain wrong.

I had no idea there was any historical corroboration when I began a search starting in 1984, but since I lived only 30 minutes from the Library of Congress and its treasure trove of books on the ancient Near East it just was too rich a resource to not take advantage of it, and largely unavailable to people who lived elsewhere. So when I studied theology in seminary I was assailed by text books I had to read that were written by theologians who did no research and out of sheer ignorance just opined that Genesis was “pre-history” or “proto-history.”

I can’t impart everything I learned from over 30 years spent in the Jefferson Reading Room in the LOC pouring over books and related articles gathering evidence to write my own books and journal articles. All I can do here on this forum is offer piecemeal the evidence I think is the most important to make the case.

Hi Jack:

The Hebrew word har means either mountains or hills. So the “hills of Urartu” would be a correct reading in my opinion. And Urartu was a large area north and east of Shuruppak. There is one possible landing spot south of the Lower Zab where an ark could have landed. Jebel Judi in Turkey has been considered, but I consider the elevation too imposing.

Floods deposit and scour. Ur had 10 feet of “water-laid” clay while no deposit was uncovered at Eridu only eight miles away. It’s hard to imagine a massive flood in one city while its neighbor was untouched. Deposits are spotty and unpredictable.

Floods deposit and scour. Ur had 10 feet of “water-laid” clay while no deposit was uncovered at Eridu only eight miles away. It’s hard to imagine a massive flood in one city while its neighbor was untouched. Deposits are spotty and unpredictable.

I think this is largely due to a land formation between the two. Ur was flooded so badly in this instance because of its location near the coast. Mountains and ridges provide valuble protection against floods and other natural disasters, so I don’t find an absence of a flood at Eridu inconceivable. It is for these very same reasons that flood deposits are spotty.

We still have no evidence that the flood deposits destroyed any buildings in Kish, and in my view it was important that such a large city center would be destroyed. At this point my issue with the 2900 flood is mostly chronological, but I am still troubled by the lack of deposits at Ur and Uruk, among others.

Kish was the first city the Sumerians rebuilt according to the SKL, so perhaps it was not heavily damaged. As for the boat and its course of travel, going against the current and uphill probably rules out Jebel Judi in Turkey. I think it is more likely the boat floated downstream and washed out in the Persian Gulf, then with oars or punting poles it traveled along the coast and then was poled up the Tigris until they found a suitable, secluded spot. Getting away some distance from any potentially hostile Sumerians would have been important. Pritchard and Speiser point toward mount Pir Omar Gudrun in the Kurdish region near Kirkuk, Iraq, a low-lying mountain at the beginning of the Zagros range.1

  1. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts , 94; E. A. Speiser, Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, VIII (1928): 18, 31.

It was not necessarily the first city they rebuilt, rather the first one with kingship. It is most likely that Sargon of Akkad comissioned the list, and he was from Kish. If Sargon wished to legitimize his status as king, writing down his native city as the first center of power in Sumer makes his claim Sumer quite strong.

I think it is more likely the boat floated downstream and washed out in the Persian Gulf, then with oars or punting poles it traveled along the coast and then was poled up the Tigris until they found a suitable, secluded spot.

If Noah had simply poled upriver then why did he need a dove to see if there was dry land? Doves can travel an average of 600 miles in a day, meaning that the ark was still surrounded by hundreds of miles of water when the dove found no dry land.

I think Sargon comes a little late and he isn’t named on the king List before Kish is “smitten with weapons.”

If Noah had simply poled upriver then why did he need a dove to see if there was dry land? Doves can travel an average of 600 miles in a day, meaning that the ark was still surrounded by hundreds of miles of water when the dove found no dry land.

Good question. A swollen river might explain it or perhaps while floating around in the Persian Gulf?

I think Sargon comes a little late and he isn’t named on the king List before Kish is “smitten with weapons.”

Do you mean to say Sargon is too late to be the one who initially compiled all the dynasties into the Sumerian King List?

A swollen river might explain it or perhaps while floating around in the Persian Gulf?

I doubt a river could swell enough to make land not visible, but I assume it might be possible. However, it is not possible Noah released the dove while floating in the Persian Gulf, as the Bible makes it clear he had already landed when he released the dove.

I know you are not fond of Dickin’s suggestion because there is no direct evidence confirming it, so I found yet another suggestion that has quite a bit more evidence backing it. Once more, however, this flood is placed very early by the author; maybe it is worth considering that the Sumerians used political conflation, a favorite trick of ancient peoples; Noah certainly doesn’t appear to be a king.

2nd Flood Proposition: The geomorphological and hydrogeological evidences for a Holocene deluge in Arabia

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were arguing for a global flood.

Looking back on some of the things I wrote, I can easily see how one would get confused. My point with the global flood example was that if we accept a global flood we lose truth. Why does it matter that Job or Noah were real people? I believe their stories could be symbolic and still be meaningful, but I don’t think that’s the case, their reality matters because truth matters.

Ziusudra was king and Noah was Ziusudra. A tablet recovered from Nippur contained about 300 lines with the first thirty-seven lines missing. Following is a part of the flood account originally written in Sumerian cuneiform:

"The gods of heaven and earth [called upon] the names of Anu and Enlil.

Then did Ziusudra, the king … build a mighty …

Obeying in humility and reverence, [he] … the gods, a wall …

Ziusudra, beside it, stood and hearkened."

This is the ending:

"Utu came forth, he who sheds light over heaven and earth.

Ziusudra opened a window in the great ship;

Utu, the hero, cast his beams into the interior of the giant boat.

Ziusudra, the king, fell on his face before Utu.

The king kills an ox, slaughters a sheep."1

Notes

  1. Andre Parrot, The Flood and Noah’s Ark (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 35-37.

I still think its a fair proposition to say that the Sumerians conflated the earlier flood hero with a contemporary king who had survived a flood. This idea would better make sense of Sumerian chronology, as Enmerkar clearly predates any king named Ziusudra.

Weld-Blundell Prism (WB-62) Sumerian King List

1 Alulim Eridu 64,800 453,600 388,800
2 Alalgar Eridu 72,000 388,800 316,800
3 - kidunnu Badtibira 72,000 316,800 244,800
4 - alimma Badtibira 21,600 244,800 223,200
5 Enmenluanna 21,600 223,200 201,600
6 Dumuzi Badtibira 28,800 201,600 172,800
7 Ensipazianna Larak 36,000 172,800 136,800
8 Enmenduranna Sippar 72,000 136,800 64,800
9 Sukurlam (Surrupak) Shuruppak 28,800 64,800 36,000
10 Ziusudra Shuruppak 36,000 36,000 Flood

                          --- Flood ---                                  Total	453,600	 

WB 62 is a small clay tablet unearthed from Larsa. It is the oldest dated source, at ca. 2000 BC. Note the tenth king. The last of ten antediluvian kings listed by Berossus is Xisuthros, Greek for Ziusudra.