The original legend was from ancient Babylonia 750 bc 1000 years before the biblical version was written. The flood was sent by pagan gods and the hero was not noah but a man named Atrahasis.
The original story even includes the famous line in the noah story the animals went in two by two.
Erm christians you got some explaining to do lol.
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Oops 1750 bc
Lol theres also an ancient babylonian story of a babylonian king who as a baby was cast adrift in a basket by his mother to save his life sound familiar? Rofl.
Anyone remember the tower of babel turns out it was based on a babylonian ziggurat lol
See the jews were exiled to ancient Babylonia so absorbed their stories and hated the babylonians so basically made fun of the ziggurat.
And lets not forget christianity plagiarised judaism. So theres a long history of religious plagiarism.
I wonder with all this plagiarism is there any chance that the christian god existed seeing as christianity is based on judaism which in turn is based on Babylonia and the babylonians worshiped pagan gods.
Yea, if you check the origins of Abraham, he was a Sumerian. It makes sens that later on his myths were copied as the Jewish myths.
Just watched a documentary where based on the tablet that was found recently they built an arc. So hence the posts.
Interestingly the arc was actually circular (the jews made mistakes when they copied it) and far from carrying 2 of every animal was actually designed to protect small villages from local floods.
A circular arc makes more sense, it had already been proven that an arc made to the specs in the bible would have twisted itself apart.
The circular shape spreads the load evenly.
It doesn't matter whether the story of the Noah's ark is real or not. Even if I'm a Christian, I'm not really confident that all that was in the bible is true. All I know is that God is real. He had made me feel secure and blessed for all these years.
O.K.
How do you know that god is real ?
Tell us your proof.
I'm sure we'd all like to be enlightened.
Mardze, your imaginary friend "made you feel secure and blessed for all those years."
You invented your own version of Christianity according to your own feelings. that is why Jesus seem to always agree with your morality.
He represents the good you, or what the good you would do.
This is what brainwashing does to people, it makes them create their own reality where they have their own personal Jesus.
That is why there is a 1000+ different denomination of Christianity, they just don't have the same imaginary friend although they all call him Jesus.
It does not matter that at least half of the book has been proven wrong that its full of lies should be a foghorn.
I really think that this whole story is a legend trying to penetrate history.
Its a local ancient babylonian legend based on local regular flooding. A sort of story to tell children to prepare them to get in the arc when the next flood comes. It just got stolen and blown out of all proportion.
If you look at some of the historical stories of the time, many of them do coincide with other stories in other points in time. I wonder if they are all really the same story and, because of the way news traveled back then, it just took on some changes to fit other peoples' beliefs.
You guys are quick to jump on whatever you think will make theists look stupid, whether it's accurate or not.
Yes there are quite a few flood stories in ancient times. It was a common theme, and something like an epic flood probably did happen in ancient Sumeria (not Babylon). Scholars think probably around 2900BC. Then the stories were passed down and shared across different people groups. You forgot to mention the Epic of Gilgamesh, which actually even tells the story of a person passing down the story of the epic flood. That's how it worked back then. It's not plagiarism. It's telling stories. And none of them are trying to describe actual historic weather events - not in detail anyway. There was just no way to get the details exactly right over 1000 years. They're passing down stories that occurred a long time before any of the versions we have. They were more intent on communicating ideas. In most of the ancient cultures water symbolised chaos (you can see this in Genesis 1 too), and a flood was because the gods were angry.
But as the stories were passed on, each people group took the stories and adapted them and made them their own. The story of Noah's ark in the Bible has some marked differences to the other ones. If you want to know what it's all about, Peter Enns has written a great article about all of these flood stories and the ancient world here....
http://biologos.org/blog/gilgamesh-atrahasis-and-the-flood
Sorry that was meant to be Mesopotamia, not Sumeria.
Sorry again, I just realised you were talking about Enuma Elish, the Babylonian story. Yep, these were all part of the similar cultures in ancient Mesopotamia. There are also flood stories from other parts of the world too - China, the Mayans (from memory). That doesnt mean there must have been one massive flood that covered the world (as some Christians would say). It was just a pretty common theme for the ancient people. Floods would have been devastating.
This article might be better. That last one was a series of three. And this one talks a lot more about the Babylonian story Lmale mentioned at the top.
http://biologos.org/blog/genesis-1-and-a-babylonian-creation-story
beneames, thank you for answering in an articulate, thought out manner. I respect you sir.
Its just even the scentance the animals went in two by two was not original come on noah is clearly made up.
I had a conversation once with a theist about noah and it went like this:
How on earth could the animals travel from all over including austrailia?
Goddidit
How could noah have built the arc he had no knowledge of ship building?
Goddidit
How cone the animals didnt kill each other?
Goddidit
How could 14000 animals have fit on the arc its not big enough?
Goddidit
How could they feed the animals?
Goddidit
How did the arc not just twist apart like real ship builthers say it would?
Goddidit
How did all the trees and plants not die?
Goddidit
It went on but you get my point.
Yep they were probably adapting a pretty common story. Ancient people groups did this a lot. But then they tweaked the stories to communicate different morals or truths about the gods or whatever.
There are other ancient flood stories across the world, but it is notable that the ones from ancient mesopotamia are so similar. It suggests that there probably was some kind of large flood event way back in their history, that each people group "remembers" in slightly different ways. For the Israelites, it was "because there was great wickedness" - greed, selfishness etc, and so God wanted to rescue a "righteous" family and through them fill the world again. For the other nations it was more because the slaves (humans) weren't obeying their masters (the gods) properly, and therefore the gods wanted to wipe them out (interestingly Russell Crowe's Noah movie depicts the story with these themes instead of the Israelite ones).
It's not meant to portray literal history (eg Kangaroos from Australia and polar bears from the Arctic circle). If you heard the story for the first time you'd see this instantly. It feels like an Aesop's fable. It's only become an issue because Christians have said "The Bible is all literal" - which is nonsense. The Bible never claims that, and it's clear that God loves stories right the way through. To these people I always point out Jesus' parables (The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son etc). Were these literal? No? Well why can't there be parables in the old testament as well?
beneames:
"You guys are quick to jump on whatever you think will make theists look stupid"
beneames
"If you heard the story for the first time you'd see this instantly. It feels like an Aesop's fable. It's only become an issue because Christians have said "The Bible is all literal" - which is nonsense."
Can't you see that you self correct yourself Beneames.
We call these guys that sprout such nonsense STUPIDS, that's all, so we are right to call most theists stupid.
Most theists think that god creating hell for most of us as a good thing.(not including you).
At least up to a 200-100 years ago nearly all theists believed this nonsense without any doubt. Else they would have had their head cut off. Galileo is a fine example of what happens if you have just a different opinion, imagine if you go and tell those theists that their flood story is just a story and not the truth. It really doesn't matter what facts and logical arguments you bring to the table because they are just artificially made STUPID.
Hell to me is the worst concept religions have come up with.
I cannot accept a god who is claimed to be all loving and merciful taking time and effort to create a place of eternal pain. Its not like hell always existed and god had no control it was a deliberate creation.
I would not oppose a religion that offered a reward for being good say heaven and a finite punishment for being bad even if the punishment was oblivion or rebirth to try again.
A choice between heaven and oblivion would be acceptable to me. And in the case of the god described in the bible i would chose oblivion over being his eternal slave.
Hey guys, sorry I've had a huge amount of personal stuff going on lately. I haven't had the mental capacity to debate this stuff unfortunately - you guys make me think a lot :)
Jeff you're right. I realise I'm debating against the stuff that a huge amount of Christians say. We both think they need to rethink what they've been brought up with.
Lmale, there are actually a lot of Christians who believe something similar to what you described - that nonbelievers just cease to exist. There's a verse in the new testament somewhere that allows for something like that, but I can't remember where it is sorry.
How many of you know here that Archeological research has discovered a boat shaped object with exactly the same dimensions as those of the Ark on Mount Judi....??
Here is the link :-)
http://youtu.be/EfJEYMhlno8
I am aware, there were 2 objects found believed to be the ark at different times. Both have been determined to likely not be the ark for various reasons but there are those who will not accept this those who want to believe they are. I actually find the idea of finding the ark quite interesting. I think if it were found it would lend a degree of validity to the story of Noah's Ark but it would not answer all the questions or verify all the claims various religions have made about it.
Of course this is something religions should take advantage of to lend credence to the story of Noah's Ark but should they also be careful to verify and not to make assumptions or come to conclusions of too soon as it may actually not benefit but instead hurt their standing in a way. Also, another thing religious people should be careful of is the assumptions they would make if it were in fact proven that the object found on that mountain was in fact the Ark. Years ago I did a bit of research into this and if memory serves me right, it was found to be inconclusive as to whether or not it was or was not the Ark and there were several inconsistencies. Of course there could be new developments that have occurred since my research so maybe its time I looked into it again. Also judging by comments I saw above it is likely that others on here have seen the documentaries surrounding the boat like object which was further uncovered by the earthquake..
"Searches for Noah's Ark, sometimes mockingly referred to as arkeology have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c.275–339 AD) to the present day. Despite many expeditions, no scientific evidence of the ark has been found. The practice is widely regarded as pseudoscience, more specifically pseudoarchaeology." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searches_for_Noah's_Ark
Give it up the arc was 'found' 8 times to my recollection and all 8 have turned out to be bullshit. Theres no reason to believe any part of the arc (were it real and not a story stolen from the ancient babylons whod version contained instructions for a boat that actually worked when it was built recently. Note it was round the bibles design was fundamentally flawed) would have survived. It was supposedly out in the open so would have rotted, before you should but wood can petrify look up the conditions required to petrify wood. Out in the open does not meet the conditions.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood
I think it's interesting that so many people have been looking for the ark over the centuries. The story isn't presented in the Bible as factual history. Two of every kind of animal? Please. So looking for the ark is kind of like looking for Mordor, or for Harry Potter's wand.
That is why I like Beneames over the other theists :)
At least he has some very basic common sens.
I agree.....he does use logic, too many face palms give me a headache LOL!!