I'd like to reply to Sono:
2. Was the flood of Noah local or global? (A favorite topic of Harmony's) The original flood story was from the sagas of gilgamesh which pre-date the christian flood story by many many years. Though there is theory that it could also be a re-write about the flooding of the euphrades river and a merchant that was caught in it.
Firstly, the flood story is Hebrew, not Christian. Secondly, the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh as originally written did not contain a flood story at all. The flood story was added to the Epic by the Assyrians in the 7th century BC, postdating the Hebrew flood story (which was written no later than the 10th century BC). The Sumerian and Akkadian flood stories preceded the Hebrew flood story and share some narrative details, but there is no evidence of literary dependence on them in the writing of the Genesis account. It would be difficult to explain how the Hebrews would have had access to the cuneiform copies of the Akkadian and Sumerian myths, especially since they didn't read or write the language, and cuneiform had been an exclusively scribal language for centuries before the Hebrews were captured in the Babylonian exile of the 7th century.
The one flood story which the Hebrews could most plausibly have had access to would have been the 7th century Assyrian flood story which was added to the earlier text of the Epic of Gilgamesh borrowed from the Akkadians. But the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh is itself almost a direct copy of the Akkadian Atrahasis Epic (even to the extent of using the original hero's name, when the name of the hero in the Epic of Gilgamesh is different), and is radically different to the Genesis account.
And what reason can be provided to explain why the Hebrews accessed, assimilated, and actually
corrected the fllood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh? Why borrow that part of the Epic, of all things, take it out and correct its inaccuracies, change it so substantially that there are almost no common details left, and expand it into something completely different?
Of all the flood stories of the Ancient Near East, the Biblical flood account is superior because it is scientifically credible and plausible, whereas the others are not:
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Sumerian: There are 7 days to build a completely enclosed ship of unspecified material and dimensions (but which contains people, sheep, and oxen at least), presumably with standard construction techniques such as tension trusses and longitudinal strength beams, which must survive heavy storms for 7 days, and a flood which has to cover Mesopotamia using only 7 days of rain.
There isn't enough time to build the ship, it lacks an opening for ventilation and light, or for the rain to flood Mesopotamia, and the ship wouldn't have the strength to survive heavy storms described in the Eridu Genesis ('all stormy winds gathered into one', and 'the evil wind had tossed the big boat about on the great waters').
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Akkadian: There are 7 days to build a completely enclosed ship of reeds not wood, presumably using standard construction techniques and equipped with some kind of tension trusses, which must survive heavy storms for 7 days, and a flood which has to cover Mesopotamia using only 7 days of rain.
There isn't enough time to build the ship or for the rain to flood Mesopotamia, it lacks an opening for ventilation and light, and the ship wouldn't have the strength to survive the heavy storms (even timber wouldn't be strong enough, certainly not reeds).
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Assyrian: There are only 2 days to build a completely enclosed cube of reeds (which have to come from one man's house), full of animals, people, silver and gold, as well as thousands of measures of oil, without tension trusses, with 9 rooms in seven decks, which must survive heavy storms for 6 days (which has to cover Mesopotamia using only 6 days of rain), equipped with punting poles for propulsion and steering (which cannot be used), handled by a man who cannot see where he is going while the ship is under way and who sends out the wrong birds to sight for land.
This is the most implausible of all the flood accounts. There isn't enough time to build the ship, or for the rain to flood Mesopotamia. The ship's shape and dimensions are nothing like ships of this era, are totally unseaworthy, and the ship wouldn't have the strength to survive heavy storms ('the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land... the storm was pounding, the flood was a war').
The punting poles could not have been used in a ship which is completely enclosed, the navigator can't see anything while the ship is under way, only opens a hatch after the ship has run aground, and is completely unqualified for the task, showing an ignorance of standard nautical procedures.
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Genesis: There are 120 years to build a large timber barge similar in size and shape to an Egyptian obelisk barge, with standard construction techniques for timber vessels such as tension trusses and longitudinal strength beams, together with numerous internal compartments which may have acted as primitive bulkheads.
It has three decks (making four levels), and only has to ride out 40 days of rain (more than enough to flood Mesopotamia, together with the underground water), without battling storms, heavy waves, and the open sea. It has a large skylight the length of the ship for ventilation and light, a closable porthole with limited visibility for navigation, and is handled by a navigator who knows how to use birds to check for the proximity of land and its suitability for disembarkation.
The fact that the Genesis account is the most historically plausible is strong evidence that it was written by someone personally informed about the event, whereas the Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian stories sound like mythologized descriptions written long afterwards by people with no personal knowledge of what happened, or even the knowledge to reconstruct accurately what really took place:
‘Since both Noah and Utnaphistim are scouting for land--albeit not to navigate--the bird that nautical customer dictates sending first is the raven.’
‘On the other hand, the Akkadian Deluge stories all betray ignorance of proper nautical terminology, and in one version of Atrahasis, the poet makes the reason quite clear when he has Atrahasis exclaim: 'I never built a boat...Draw a picture of it on the ground...let me see a picture so I can build a boat' (DT 42:13-15, in Lambert, 128).
Thus, as Assyrian writing about something he was ignorant of has changed the customary order of the birds used as navigational aids.’ [1]
‘The accuracy with which birds are described in the historical literature is striking. The book of Genesis says that Noah used first the raven and then the dove to determine whether the water had subsided (Gen. 8:6-13).
Whereas the raven continued flying to and fro from the ark until the water subsided, the dove returned quickly to the ark the first time she was let go, returned with a newly plucked olive leaf in her beak the second time, and did not return the third time.
A. Heidel noted the superiority of the biblical account to the parallel account in the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic where Utnapishtim, called "the exceedingly wise," first sent a dove, then a swallow, and finally a raven (A. Heidel, Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels [1963], pp. 252f). Noah, whose wisdom is nowhere mentioned, showed much more knowledge about birds.’ [2]
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All external sources cited below have been quoted (with references), from Glenn Miller’s paper ‘Is Genesis merely a rip-off of other ANE lit?’, 2005.
[1] R. David Freedman, “The Dispatch of the Reconnaissance Birds in Gilgamesh XI”, JANES, vol 5:127.
[2] International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, article ‘BIRDS’, 1976.