Alice, this is a most interesting idea!
However regarding the painting you refer to several sites claim:
“This is a picture taken of one wall at Catal Hoyuk” (6,000BP=3,000BC):
See for instance:
http://arthistoryworlds.org/catal-hoyuk-paintings/
I would be tankful if you could clarify this point in order to establish well the historical facts relevant to interpret correctly.
That image may be mislabeled in my archive. I found it associated with Göbekli Tepe in the archaeology section of an old Horizon magazine. The leopard skins on the priests are indicative of Nilotic and Proto-Saharan priests. Images such as this Catal Hoyuk mural resemble the stone age Tassili rock paintings found by a French expedition in Sudan. The bull horns found at Catal Hoyuk are suggestive also of the archaic solar symbolism for the Creator.
Some of the human figures are black and others are red. That was true of the ancient Nubians. Some were black and some were red.
Adam is presented two ways in Scripture. Paul presents Christ as the new Adam who redeems the world from the fall caused by the first Adam. This is analogical, not to be taken as history. Adam is also presented as the ancestor the of the red people of Edom. Adam refers to the color of blood. Edom was Abraham’s territory and the rulers with Edomite blood are described as have a red skin tone: Esau and David, are examples. When we trace the Edomite lineages, artifacts, religious practices, etc., we conclude that these are R1b people who dispersed widely. The dark red spot in Central Africa is Noah’s homeland in the region of Lake Chad. It is called Bor-Nu, meaning “land of Noah”, and it is the only place on earth claimed by its residents to be Noah’s homeland. The Proto-Saharan rulers were known to keep personal menageries. The oldest known zoological collection was found during the 2009 excavations at Nekhen. The royal menagerie dates to about 3500 BC and included hippos, elephants, baboons and wildcats. Noah would have known about the shrine city of Nekhen. It was one of the earliest worship centers for the Horite Hebrew. One of the more intriguing discoveries at Nekhen was the redheaded man in Burial no. 79. The facial hair of the man in Burial no. 79 had been trimmed with a sharp blade.
I believe that some have thought there may be a Nilotic connection to Gobekli Tepe and others suggesting connections to other early European groups. The thing is that the structures are very advanced for that time 11-12000 years before present and they show a group with very strong celestial knowledge. Do you know of any other sites with this much sophistication that date that early? There appears to be a sophisticated people that came into this region after the younger dryas catastrophes and introduced an advanced social and technical civilization to a native population. This knowledge shows no evidence of originating here. Soon afterwards einkorn and animals are domesticated and early metallurgy is seen. Even that great human civilizer beer may have come about here! Is it not interesting that this occurs in a region many associate with Eden. Eden where Man fell from Grace by eating the fruit of knowledge of Good and evil?
If we agree that Melchizedek was a real historical person, the next interesting question is how to interpret Hebrews 7:3:
“Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.”
The interpretation I propose is the following:
Melchizedek’s episode in Genesis 14:18 refers to the apparition of a true man, who was already in Heaven seeing God “as He is”, and therefore was like the Son of God (1. John 3:2). But this entails that Melchizedek was created along with “Adam and Eve” before these sinned, and did not follow “Adam and Eve” in disobeying God’s commandment. Accordingly Melchizedek was taken by God directly into Heaven to see God and thereby became “like the Son of God”. He then came again and appeared to Abraham as “Righteous King” and “Priest of God Most High” (Genesis 14:18) to establish the Order according to which Jesus Christ “is Priest for ever” (Psalm 110:4).
Since this interpretation is tightly related to other arguments in this thread I would like to propose we continue this discussion here.
The relationship between Younger-Dryas and Göbekli Tepe is far from being well established:
http://maajournal.com/Issues/2017/Vol17-2/Matters%20arising%2017(2).pdf
Anyway, nothing in the T-shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe sems to reveal that the “artists” had a sense of law and were capable of being guilty of sin. In particular the site provides no evidence of writing, which appears in Sumer about 7,000 years later, and reveals will for performing contracts and enacting laws.
In my view Göbekli Tepe precedes the creation of “Adam and Eve” and therefore Eden as well.
Here is my theory of the flood.
Alice, according to your theory Noah “lived in the region of Lake Chad, approximately 2490-2415 BC” when “the Sahara experienced a wet period”.
According to my theory (see previous postings in this thread) Noah lived in Sumer, about 3,000 BC, when there is well documented flooding of the region around Shuruppak and various other Sumerian cities.
In my view your theory bears some difficulties which are worth to be discussed:
You claim: “Nimrod was a Cushite kingdom builder. Abraham is one of his descendants.” However Nimrod was a descendant from Ham (Genesis 10:6-8), while according to Genesis 11:10-26 Abraham was a descendant from Shem (not from Ham!). This seems to contradict your claim.
On the one hand you claim that “Abraham’s family resided in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley because that is where Nimrod built a vast kingdom”. On the other hand, in Genesis 2 “Tigris and Euphrates” are explicitly named. On this basis one should rather assume that “Adam” lived in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley as well.
The Shuruppak tablets contain contracts written in Cuneiform at about 2,500 BC (your date for Noah). This means that at this time there lived in Sumer a population of hundreds of thousands who was undoubtedly aware of legal and moral responsibility, and capable of enacting laws and being guilty of sin. According to the Peter’s Letters (2 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 3:20) one should accept that this population went destroyed in Noah’s Flood. It is not clear to me how your theory can account for this.
Most of those theories seem to hinge on one important age, the age of the Enuma Elis. Within this ancient text is the story of Utnapishtim which shares so much with the Noah flood story that it is hard to believe that they are unrelated. Some people put the Enuma Elis in the 18th century BCE, while others put it at 1100 BCE. However, I think there is a very good chance that it predates the Egyptian civilization, so I don’t find the African origin of the Noah flood story that compelling.
Analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of these rulers reveals that the lines of Ham and Shem intermarried, as did the lines of Cain and Seth before them, and the lines of Abraham and Nahor, after them.
Endogamy is a culture trait of this ruler-priest caste.
This is making some leaps that are not indicated by Genesis - “On the one hand you claim that “Abraham’s family resided in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley because that is where Nimrod built a vast kingdom”. On the other hand, in Genesis 2 “Tigris and Euphrates” are explicitly named. On this basis one should rather assume that “Adam” lived in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley as well.” Eden was bounded by four rivers and two of them are at the source of the Nile.
Noah lived during the period of the Old Kingdom, a time of great cultural and technological achievement in Egypt. This places Noah and his sons in relatively recent history, not at the dawn of human existence. They ruled over territories during the 7th, 8th and 9th Dynasties.
Many populations existed at the time of Noah and before Noah. Consider the following population estimates by urban center between 2400 and 2200 BC, the time when Noah’s flood would have occurred:
Memphis, Egypt - 32,000 inhabitants
Lagash, Iraq - 60,000 inhabitants
Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan - 40,000 inhabitants
Mari, Syria -50,000 inhabitants
Baodun settlements, China - Baodun is the largest settlement, covering an area of about 373 miles. There is no evidence of destruction by flooding though all six Baodun settlements straddled the Min River in central Sichuan province. The Min is a tributary of the upper Yangtze River.
If Adam is the progenitor of the red rulers of Edom, in fact a Red Man, as his name indicates: - 'a-dam - the blood - it is likely that Göbekli Tepe predates the time of Adam.
Thank you Antoine. I think Gobekli tepe represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of this period. No doubt there is still a lot of research ahead. It seems There is a huge connection between Sumaria and the Bible. The Bible probably draws on the Sumarian knowledge. Some suggest that Genesis 11-3 refers to the building in Sumeria. This would date Adam and the flood before the founding of Sumaria. Also the Sumerian creation myths refer to Adamu And Ed in. Is the garden of the gods. Interesting that this according to the interpretation this place Edin may mean steppe or plain such as Gobekli Tepe. All domesticated Einkorn that the Sumarians use originates from near Gobekli Tepe from about the time of the founding of Gobekli Tepe. Also interesting that Enki is often represented as a serpent. The serpent that showed Adam and Eve the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Interesting that the Annanuki were thought to bring knowledge of agriculture and civilization to the Sumaria as well as a knowledge of the heavens and Celestial awareness The Sumerians were to serve the Annanuki as if they were gods. Also from the book of Enoch. Noah’s. Great grandfather describes the watchers as tall and snake like similar to the Annanuki description. Also at Gobekli Tepe the watchers are clearly watching the heavens. We see advanced knowledge of the constellations and earths precession at Gobekli Tepe well before Sumaria is created. The watchers, Could be a group of people that first re- settled at the region of Gobekli Tepe converting the hunter gatherer natives to early civilization and teaching them their advanced technologies. Theses watchers and their offspring could have gone to Sumaria as the Annanuki to develop their technology and culture in the aftermath of the flood. It is interesting that the Gobekli Tepe watchers and the Annanuki often share a common basket in their reliefs. Suggesting that they carried the knowledge of civilization with them to their new lands.
Regarding “knowledge of the heavens” in Göbekli Tepe, for the time being we can state at most that the artists sketched constellations as they sketched animals, very much like the artists in Altamira represented hunting scenes.
The fact that no vestiges of writing have been found in Göbekli Tepe seems to refute the idea that this site reveals the presence of civilized people which may have carried civilization to Sumer in the aftermath of the flood.
However the idea you advance is interesting and I would formulate it as follows:
The builders of Göbekli Tepe were cognitively advanced Homo sapiens but without free will and sense of law. Sometime between 3,500 and 3,000 BC these creatures were endowed by God with free will, as Adam was, and became the characters referred to as “sons of God” in Genesis 6: 2-4, who contributed to increase population and civilization in the area where Noah lived. All humans around Noah sinned strong and perished in the Flood.
After the Flood God endowed with free will and sense of law all Homo sapiens population living on earth (about 14 million individuals). Among these were also surely those in Çatalhöyük. Their offspring may have been the Nephilim that according to Genesis 6:4 were on earth “also afterward”. Part of these postdiluvian Nephilim went possibly to Sumer and together with the descendants of Noah contributed to shape a new civilization, which was capable of building Babel Tower.
Thank you Antione. The Sumerians refer to their origins from the land of Arratta. Do you know of any DNA studies on the Sumerians? I think Penn State was researching this? Equally it would be interesting to see if we can get DNA from Gobekli Tepe to try to determine their origins.
There is claimed to be proto Sumerian writing dating back as far as 20,000 bp to caves in Shu-nun in what is now Ukraine near the Black Sea. These writings supposedly are claimed to refer to the Sumerian pagan Gods Enil. The Gobekli Tepe people were clearly watching the heavens and had an advanced understanding. There is a engraving on a bone that clearly shows their using sighting stones in their temple aligning the stars. That said there is no apparent strong connection between Gobekli Tepe and either Sumerian or Shu-nun cultures. But these people would not have lived in a vacuum. They would have been interacting and trading influencing each other’s culture regionally through time.
Thanks Scott,
In my view for the time being the evidence we have is not enough to acknowledge the Göbekli Tepe engravings as writing. If you have a Reference proving that I am wrong, I would be thankful to know it.
Meanwhile we have to keep to the available evidence that the first writings emerge in Sumer at about 3,500 BC.
In line with your posting I would like to stress:
One should keep in mind that in the search for truth observation is the highest authority, even higher as the Bible.
To my best knowledge the available evidence we presently have can be summarized as follows (I am thankful if someone can provide new data and prove me wrong):
The first place where writing appears is Sumer: This civilization predates civilizations in Egypt and Lake Chad region.
Geology proves flooding in Sumer about 3000 BC.
Utnapishtim flood shares much with Noah’s flood (as you well claim).
Writing is a sure sign revealing the presence of people sharing sense of law and moral responsibility.
These data strongly support the conclusion that Noah and all people capable of sinning (hundreds of thousands) lived around the so called antediluvian Sumerian cities, and that all these people (except Noah and his family) died in Noah’s flood about 3,000 BC.
As I have repeatedly argued in this thread this conclusion is in accord with both the Old and the New Testament, and fits well with the pericope of the “sons of God” and the Nephilim (Genesis 6: 2-4). Additionally the conclusion fits with what we know from science.
George,
Could you provide References for these “multiple times”?
This could help to coherently explain the Genesis narrative.
Thanks in advance.
Here you are, @AntoineSuarez:
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[My apologies that the links listed in Part 2 are not “live” links…]
Thanks George for this valuable information.
Another interesting source seems to me History Stack Exchange.
I think one can summarize the available archaeological evidence as follows:
Sumer experienced large and destructive floods. The possibility that there is a destructive local flood in southern Mesopotamia between 3100 and 2750 BC cannot be excluded. In particular “the city of Ur did experience a dramatic flood around 3100 BC…The clay deposits found by Woolley were 3.75 meter thick. This is to say that post flood at least (likely much more) 3.75 meters of sediment were found in the area. For that much sediment to be laid down you could expect that said flood consisted of a lot of water.” This flood fits rather well with my theory (see previous postings in this thread).
One could object that in this Ur-flood “no archaeological evidence of flood residue, of the same time period, was found just 23 kilometers (12 kilometers depending on source) from the city of Ur in the Sumerian city of Eridu.” [see History Stack Exchange].
However the question arises: Why a “dramatic flood” in Ur did not affect Eridu?
Apparently we are here in front of a paradox which has not yet been solved. Further archeological and geological work is needed to clarify how flooding may have occurred in this Hammar Marshes region. But in any case the evidence we already have speaks in favor of the region around the first Sumerian cities as location for a possible historical event behind the story of Noah’s Flood.
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