I am currently reading about the history of Mesopotamia. An interesting topic when we relate it to the stories in Genesis. As always when diving into a new field, the findings inspire me. I wanted to share something of that inspiration with you and give a possibility to learning together. Probably does not interest all but it may be that some are interested.
I wrote already something about the flood in another thread, although that thread was about another topic (Flat earth theories). As the other thread was about another topic, I decided to create a thread for the topic.
My question about this is since the pre flood kings in the Sumerian King’s list match the genealogies of Genesis 5 having their own versions of Adam, Abel, Enoch, and Noah, I’m assuming these Sumerian hero kings and the ones in Genesis are the same historical people but that would make the historical people that Genesis is based on pagans wouldn’t it?
Reading the Genesis stories about Noah’s flood and what happened after that got a new viewpoint after I started to read about the history of the ancient cities and towns of Sumer, Akkad and Babylon.
After the Noah’s Flood, there is a short description of what happened to the children and grandchildren of Noah. One son of Ham was Cush and one son of Cush was Nimrod, who is described as a mighty hunter/warrior.
Genesis 10:10 tells that “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in[d]Shinar.[e]11From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir,[f]Calah12and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.” (NIV)
Uruk and Kalneh (usually interpreted to be the same as Nippur) were ancient cities that started as villages during the fifth millennium BC and grew into cities during the fourth millennium BC.
Akkad (Agade) was the town that Sargon selected or built to be the ruling center of the Akkadian empire, somewher around 2330-2300 BC.
Babylon was a small town during the Akkadian rule. It was established around 23th century BC.
If all these cities existed at the time of Nimrod, he should have lived after the 23th century BC.
An interesting detail is that the story of the tower in Babel comes after the story of Nimrod, in Genesis 11. As Babylon is mentioned already in the earlier story, it suggests that all the stories in Genesis 1-11 are not arranged in a temporal order. Rather, they may be a collection of separate ANE stories that were selected and compiled with the purpose to tell a grand message about the works of the true God to the people of the polytheistic ancient world, in a way and language they could receive.
What Genesis 11 tells about Babylon is that it was founded by people coming from the east, from Elam (current Iran). Either they were from the tribes of the east or they were originally Sumerians that had an influential role in Elam during that time. Research suggests that people from early Sumerian cities established trade outposts in Elam/Iran and gradually became a dominant force in that area. For the grand story, that is just a sidestep that may shed a bit more light about the ancient context.
That Genesis and the Sumerian king list (pre-flood) would talk about the same persons is an interpretation that probably would not get support from the historians. Anyhow, an interesting suggestion.
The people in the area were basically polytheists. That is also what the Genesis tells about the city and culture from which Abram/Abraham started his journey. It is told that God called Abram and he left the polytheistic culture behind to follow the true God. Further stories in Genesis reveal that the relatives of Abram had ‘housegods’ even after that time.
The city (Ur) was known as a place with a temple dedicated to the Moon god.
The people in the general area believed in a mixture of Sumerian and Semitic gods. In the ancient Sumerian pantheon, the highest god was Enlil. In the Semitic parts of Mesopotamia, the highest god was called An. During the dynamic history of developing beliefs, An got a higher position than Enlil. The people mentioned both Enlil and An when they appealed to the highest gods but set An at the top.
Well, what does get support from the Ancient Near Eastern scholars is the the genealogy in Genesis 5 is a polemic against the Sumerian Kings List. It has the first ruler Alulim which is similar to Adam (Adam is also similar to a Sumerian figure called Adapa), you’ve got Dumuzid the Shepherd king whose also a god associated with shepherds and short lifespans (Abel), you’ve got the seventh king, who like Enoch is associated with the sun and is taken into heaven to learn the secrets of the gods, and then you’ve got the last king of Shuruppak (a city associated with a great flood layer) who built an ark and saved humanity from the flood brought down by the gods.
These are clearly similar or the same characters as in Genesis 5. I don’t think that ancient people just made up fictional kings from thin air and oral traditions preserve things very well so I think these people serve as a historical reference point for the two lists. The Bible depicts the line of Adam starting with Enosh I think as “calling on the name of YHWH” so it depicts this specific line of people as following the God of Israel or his Mesopotamian equivalent which I think would be An. It could also be that the Bible records a more faithful story about this. It after all did remember Eden in the Persian Gulf Oasis so it has a long memory.
Scribes of the ANE world could invent mythological characters or write about mythologized persons.
Whatever is true, the Sumerian king list is the only list of influential pre-flood persons outside of Genesis. As such, it is the best (only) available non-biblical text source. How we interpret the list is another matter.
It is possible that the biblical stories can be more accurate - I can support that idea. What is written on cuneiform tablets is the version that an elite scribe had heard in his social circles. There probably were other versions of the ancient history circling in the society but these were not written down by the scribes. Overall, the ANE texts were not texts written to describe everything. They only wrote what was relevant for a small elite of rulers, administrators, religious leaders and rich people.
Well, they could have but I have a theory about myths. I think oral traditions of what are taken to be historical events in mythology record something real always, it always has a basis in fact. It’s just wrapped up in hyperbole, symbolism, and the dreamlike atmosphere of myth like a mythical telephone game. Archeology keeps catching up with myth. They used to say the Hittites and their iron chariots didn’t exist because they were only found in the Bible, they used to say that Troy was a mythical city. They were wrong. Even the Romans descending from the Trojans has its basis in a later than the Trojan war orientalization of the Italian Peninsula where Anatolian technology and culture deeply influenced people like the Etruscans.
This is entirely possible; a theological order is actually more likely. From one perspective the first eleven chapters are a set of answers to “How Did We Get Here?” in the sense of the situation the readers found themselves in.
Or use real persons in mythologized lists. The phenomenon of “ancestor claiming” may play a part in such genealogies, linking people by blood who weren’t actually related, using well-known figures/names to make a point.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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