Genesis II - from Cain thru Noah

Preface

In my writings about the Bible I have permitted myself some jibes at leftists, or rather, at leftism [love the sinner, hate the sin]. That is for two, no, three reasons. 

• 1. My whole life I have resided in strongly liberal and leftist circles. It’s what I see that I react to. If I had resided among business suits, in football or in prostitution, my discontent would probably target the hypocrisy of those particular milieus. One of you - known for his or her intelligence - specifically told me not to trust my own experience, but rather go on ‘respected, credible news sources’. By the way, doesn’t such a comment show how collectivist leftist ideology is? You can’t defend ourselves, leave that to the government; you can’t know anything, leave that to the specialists… Not ten minutes later the same person told me a story from these so called credible news sources of which I knew at once that it either couldn’t be true or it couldn’t be representative. It was about Dutch folklore. I grew up in that culture. It didn’t make any sense whatsoever.*  Especially with the media propaganda going haywire these days, I “calls them as I sees them”.

• 2. I have seen the left become extremely and dangerously intolerant during the last decade or two. Some layers of this society, especially the college campuses, begin to look like the Marxist-Leninist systems of the last century with their catch phrases (then: ‘bourgeois’, ‘revisionist’, ‘elite’, now: ‘elitist’, ‘white’ and ‘male supremacy’, ‘privileges’, ‘diversity’, ‘racial insensitivity’) to discriminate against people because of deviating opinions. A closer look at the history of the Warsaw Pact shows what a great and direct attack this impulse is on freedom. Multiple teachers have told me how they nowadays have to watch what they are saying - in education, where free discussion should be encouraged! Even the catch phrases have become irrational: social justice is not justice if it is different from normal justice: you can’t have it both ways. Diversity, the left’s excuse to install policies I find downright racist, reduces humans to pieces of furniture: ebony, ivory, how many of each, where to place them? The ability to trust the police is not a privilege, it is a human right, and calling it a privilege erodes human rights, because it implies that I can and should renounce some of these inalienable human rights out of solidarity to my ‘less privileged brothers’. Affirmative action, according to Tom Sowell, hurts everybody it touches, though in different ways. It is racist, and prolongs racism by still calling someone a ‘black man’ instead of a man. Gay rights cannot be different from human rights or they are not rights but artificially and randomly imposed privileges. Hate-free zones are erected, which however do not forbid hate for deviating opinions: leftists are allowed hate. Trigger warnings kill every genuine dialogue. In my 50+ years here on this planet I have never found the left as rigid and hateful as I find it now. I never thought that a Pravda-style propaganda culture could be instituted without compulsion from the state, but I believe I see it happening now by means of a systematic erosion of reason. The one kind of propaganda that’s almost undetectable is our own.

• 3. Most of my readers are liberals or leftists. Let me, for once, not be preaching to the choir …

This is all directed to leftism, not liberals. For the difference, see Dennis PRager. “Liberals embrace free speech, leftists do not. Liberals support America, leftists do not. For a liberal, race is insignificant, for a leftist it is not.”

From age 12, the time I became aware of and interested in politics, I have invariably found that there is no moral difference between left and right, correction, between people on the left and on the right. I believe that one of both camps has a better understanding of human nature and therefore healthier political ideas; but in the people embracing these ideas I see no qualitative difference: in both parties I have seen saints, sinners, loving people and downright assholes. This is one of the things I have become most certain about in my life. If you disagree with me in this I would strongly suggest you check your premises, because I believe you are mistaken, influenced by the particular propaganda you have been subjected to.

But now, after the footnotes, let’s talk Bible.

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Footnote:

* The accusation was that in Holland, black kids were forced to play Black Pete (Zwarte Piet) in school. Given the social identity of Holland, which was has long been as leftist as Berkeley or Oberlin, and the general atmosphere of tolerance in that society, this either cannot have happened or it must have been the one wacko idiot who proves the rule. When I grew up, Black Petes were invariably impersonated by women in 16th-century male costumes and a huge amount of soot on their exposed skin, who don’t look like real Africans at all. The technique of finding the one wacko exception and advertise that as the rule has of course always been a popular and extremely effective device in the entire history of propaganda.

** I don’t like the term conservative. Chesterton once seems to have said that conservatives hold on to the old bad policies while progressives adopt new bad ones. I like Judith Herzberg’s definition of progressivism, which criticizes everything, especially its own rigid dogmas and propaganda. Trey Parker of South Park has said something to that extent as well. In that respect I should call myself “progressive”. But what I really am is a humanist - not in the sense it is used right now, but in the sense of taking the human individual and his or her soul in the deepest sense as foundation of my world view. This footnote once belonged to a passage in the text that has now been taken out; I thought it worth leaving here on its own.

Okay, now let’s talk Bible.

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Genesis 4: the first murder

• 4 Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. 16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.

The first thing that grabs our attention is how much is missing from this story. Why did Cain and Abel suddenly decide to sacrifice to the LORD? God didn’t tell them they should do that. I don’t buy Sarna’s explanation that sacrificing “is an inner need”, except as an inner need to influence the cosmos to our own purposes: magic. Sacrifice comes from the time gods were thought to be blind natural forces. What’s innate is perhaps an idea that if I give something of my earnings to the cosmos, the cosmos will be favorably disposed towards me. Of course there is also the idea that ending the life of an animal requires some form of compensation. But I don’t buy that the need to give something to God is innate, or children would want to do that all the time. The next questions however are more problematic. Where is the land Nod? Where did Cain find a wife? Exactly whom was Cain so afraid of being murdered by? Mom? Dad? One or two unmentioned sisters? No one else was around! We cannot avoid the conclusion that the story originally described an event of a later age, in a populated world, and it got inserted for some purpose, probably to show our nature by presenting “the first murder”. Perhaps the story was akin to Romulus’ murder of Remus at Rome’s beginnings: an archetypal pointer at sin lurking at the center of each young republic, like our own, with Hamilton and Burr.

The whole chapter 4 is now attributed to J, the Jahwist, our mensch-oriented author. I am following Harold Bloom’s feminization of the author, even though I am almost sure J was a man, but don’t we need a soprano in our opera? She therefore is the author that uses the verb “know” in the biblical sense. She is also real fond of puns. The name Cain comes from the verb קנה, qanah, or liqnot in the infinitive, which used to mean ‘acquire’ - now it means ‘to buy’. What is also interesting is that Abel does not get a pun (הֶבֶל‎ hével,  הָבֶל, havel,‎ means ‘breath’, ‘nothingness’). That is significant given that Adam, Eve, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, Ishmael, all of Jacob’s children, and Moses all get their puns (almost all by J, some by E, but not before C - In my life I tend to avoid P before C).

The next viewpoint is agriculture vs. stock breeding. Throughout the 20th century, Cain and Abel’s occupation have been interpreted. Sarna: “It has been costomary in modern times to interpret this narrative as reflecting the traditional rivalry between the nomad and the farmer, and to see in God’s preference for Abel, the shepherd, the motif of the nomadic ideal in Israel. This interpretation is untenable.” Yet, I can hardly believe that this detail in the story has always been meant to be as random as it is now, so let me venture an uneducated speculation. Archeologists like Finkelstein argue for an emergence of Israel and Judah from the Palestinian hill country, possibly grown from marginal groups called Habiru and Israel in Egyptian sources. God’s preference of fauna over flora may reflect some chauvinism reminiscing of an original breeder’s* class, even though scholars have often argued for a mixed economy for everybody at the time. Agriculture presupposes settlement, cattle breeding allows for nomadic life-styles. Even though this is not a factor in the today’s form of the story, which is about sin, it may have been something that once played a role in the it - remember, the story was originally covering a much later time period, with a populated earth. I believe Abel’s nomadic profession meant something to somebody at some time, a meaning that it lost once it got moved up to a position this early in the cosmology.

In its final form however, the story of course describes the first murder. All other creation stories and mythologies I know had murder intrinsically present right at the beginning: Tiamat’s slain body formed the earth, Ouranos swallowed his own children. Only in a world of good and evil with a supreme and good God is there a first murder showing the fallen state of mankind - instead of murder just being part of life. Archetypically, fratricide is also prevalent. Rome started out with Romulus murdering Remus. Hodr kills Baldur in Norse legend; Osiris killed by his brother Set (no relation to “our” Seth, or is there?), who, with his eagle head may have stood model for C.S. Lewis’ demon Tash. Sultan Achmalach (1608 -1664) had his 64 brothers executed when he ascended the throne, but that story, which I just made up, is only funny in Dutch. His son was Asmagheilis Maghallas.

Nahum Sarna points out that the murder happened during pious deeds - the danger of sin creeping in our most spiritual moments, in the center of our creeds. Garrison Keillor talks about a Lake Wobegon saloon called something like Johnnie’s Saloon and Concert Hall as being more Christian than most churches: less pride and more forgiveness. Also noteworthy is, again, God punishing individually, just like in the Snake and Tree incident. Only Cain is punished. And mercy mixed with correction: God makes a sign protecting Cain from murder.

One could ask whether or not Cain knew that Abel was going to die. I find that question pointless. As we have seen, the story originally was set in a time when the earth was filled with people and murder was already a known thing. By asking God for protection, Cain shows he knows what murder is, even that anyone can kill an unprotected man. Archetypically the story shows the first murder, without much need for hairschplittereien; but if we have to to look at it from a lawyer’s perspective, I’ d say at least the crime is premeditated. Cain went out with Abel to the fields - the first mafia trick of luring the victim to an unobserved place to send him to the fishes. As far as punishment is concerned, I believe God could not kill Cain for a reason that I have not found mentioned anywhere, but of which I am certain in my most humble but adamant opinion, and which I will attempt to explain now.

Figure 1.

At the end of the chapter, the birth of Seth is announced, supposedly our ancestor. Here on the right are Cain’s and Seth’s genealogies from Gen. 4 (J) and 5 (R). - I have always thought the similarity between the two genealogies too striking to be coincidental. I believe most scholars find too much difference in the names, but can they they be any more resembling without losing every shred of credibility? The two versions of the Sumerian King List below in the next chapter, one from around 2000 BC and the other by Berossos shortly after 300 BC (!) show a similar partial resemblance, while those are supposed to record the same people! —— More importantly, the whole point of the Cain story is that just like Australians are descendants of convicts, we all descend from a murderer. We all are created in Adam, know sin in Eve and Adam and are transformed in Christ, we murder in Cain, show our faith in Abraham, wrestle with God in Jacob, cross the sea in Moses and fight windmills in Don Quichote (about the Dutch nationality of Ce(es) -r- Van Tes(sel)’s hero another time). Somewhere on the road, somebody decided that this parentage was too harsh on us and invented a ‘clean’ ancestor. I don’t know if that is the same person who changed Isaac’s sacrifice into a Hollywood ending and who forgot or did not dare to add Isaac to the narrative of Abraham’s return from Mount Moriah, leaving a very suspicious single set of footprints. I have seen this practice of softening the wound often in Greek mythology. Iphigenia gets sacrificed. Iphigenia gets saved at the last moment and Artemis puts a buck in her stead, while flying her over to a sanctuary where she becomes her priestess, performing human sacrifices to her divine savior. Quite convenient. Later she will have to face having to sacrifice her own brother Orestes on that altar in the kind of mythical plot in which ancient literature so often anticipates Victor Hugo; and for which she somehow gets dispensation also, but does she? He has just murdered their mother in revenge for her killing their father Agamemnon. Greek mythology, next to Tiramisu and … well, you know** … is my favorite thing.

Perhaps it was J herself who still had us be Cain’s descendants. Except for the striking similarities between the two genealogies, isn’t it quite convenient that both genealogies have Lamech at their end? R, the Redactor, only had to change a few letters and add a few names, extending the new genealogy to the number 10, matching the 10 descendants of Noha, correction Noah to Abraham, getting half of the biblical number 40***. By the best of my knowledge, Cain’s genealogy does not return anywhere else in the Bible. The only line in Seth’s genealogy not by R or G, the Genealogist, or Gurkentortenliebhaber - is the etymology in 5:29 of Noha, correction Noah’s name, which comes from the root נוּחַ “rest” -

• 5:29 (Lamech) named him Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.”

Why had God cursed the land? Surely, God wouldn’t be such a Jerk to throw upon Seth the burden of Cain’s crime, except …. if Lamech was Cain’s descendant who had to pay for either his own or his ancestor’s act of fratricide…!

Then there is the issue of the crafts. In Gen.4, in Cain’s genealogy, three important early crafts, cattle breeding, music and metallurgy come from Cain’s, not Seth’s Lamech. Why would especially musicians who bring joy to the soul come from a murderer if not we all came from the same sinful lineage? But more specifically, if we are Seth’s descendants, if Noha, correction Noah was Seth’s descendant, then Gen.: 4:20-22 explaining the origin of all nomadic cattle breeders, musicians and metal workers as descending from Tabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain makes no sense, as then all of Cain’s descendants were Darwined away in the Flood.

Finally, the younger brother motive. From the very beginning, God takes a preference for the brat. Abel, Seth, perhaps also Noha, correction Noah if she correction he was originally part of Cain’s offspring, in which case he may have had three older brothers; then Arpachshad (3rd in line), Isaac, the famous case of Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, Perez, son of Judah, Moses, David. Especially Ephraim and Perez are examples of possible creative imitation of the motive which may well find its origin in Jacob’s story. I wonder how much this reflects the state of Judah’s original position compared to Israel, that was destroyed in 722 while Judah lived. Or Israel’s position as new kid on the age old block of nations of the Near East. I’m also reminded of Avis’ Car Rental’s phrase in the 1980s We are second so we try harder.

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Footnote:

* Condoleeza Rice is having small talk with Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende at some conference. Condie: “Do you have hobbies?” Balkenende “Yes, I fok horses.”Condie, shocked “Pardon?!!! Balkenende, pleased: “JA, PAARDEN!” (fokken, from which the name Fokker, means to breed).

** Victor Hugo of course. Please pay attention.

*** 40 years in the desert (Numb. 32:13), 40 days Jesus in the desert, rain fell for "forty days and forty nights" during the Flood (Genesis 7:4), Noah waited for forty days after the tops of mountains were seen after the flood, before releasing a raven (Genesis 8:5-7); Moses spent three consecutive periods of "forty days and forty nights" on Mount Sinai (Deut. 9:11,25, 10:10); spies were sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan (promised to the children of Israel) for "forty days" (Numbers 13:2, 25); Saul (Acts 13:21), David (2 Samuel 5:4), and Solomon (1 Kings 11:42) reigned for 40 years; Goliath challenged the Israelites twice a day for forty days before David defeated him (1 Samuel 17:16). I think it’s about 40 times I have tried to get under 170 lb.

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Genealogy and numbers

As we have seen, Genesis’ chapter 5 seems by R or a chronicle R was using which I once copied as G, perhaps from Gambabündenhin-und-herschüber or something. In the Sifra, the Halachic Midrash to Leviticus, Rabbi Ben Azzai once discussed with Rabbi Akiba - this was in the 1st or 2nd century - about which Bible verse was the greatest in the Tenach. Akiba said Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18); but Ben Azzai chose 5:1, these are the descendants of Adam, because it meant that we all are created in God’s image (=> Sarna, Genesis).

This genealogy draws us into numbers. I tried to avoid them by avoiding the 4th Book of Moses, but I should have known better. Why did the patriarchs grow so old? When we make a comparison with several other lists, like the Sumerian King List that ran until about 2000 BC, we find really ridiculously long life spans, that however begin to become normal with or around Gilgamesh. This probably reflects the paradise archetype we also find in Greek mythology, the assumption of an ideal primeval world. That it is an archetype shows the illusion Karl Marx succeeded to impose upon half the population of the ‘ideal primeval society’ to which socialism would ‘help us return’. The general assumption among many anthropologists and historians of in the mid 20th century of a blissful primeval matriarchy, and perhaps  Margaret Mead’s ‘ideal’ society in Samoa, may also have been induced by this archetype.

Below is a chart comparing three lists: 1. one of the two versions of the Sumerian King List (W.B. 144) found engraved on rock tablets from around 2000 BC —- 2. Berossos’ list, Babylon, 290-78 BC, a late record of the same tradition, at that time already over 2,000 year old —- and 3. Genesis 5, where the years from patriarch to patriarch is counted, up to the flood (with the total life spans in brackets):

W.B. 144 Berossos Genesis 5 till next // total

• Alulim 28,800 yrs Alaros 36,000 yrs Adam 130 yrs (930 yrs)

• Alangar 36,000 yrs Alaparos 10,800 yrs Seth 105 yrs (912 yrs)

• Enmenluanna 43,200 yrs Amelon 46,800 yrs Enosh 90 yrs (905 yrs)

• Eumengalanna 28,800 yrs Amenon 43,200 yrs Kenan 70 yrs (910 yrs)

• Dumuzi I 36,000 yrs Megalaros 64,800 yrs Mahale’el 65 yrs (895 yrs)

• Ensibzianna 28,800 yrs Daonos 36,000 yrs Jared 162 yrs (962 yrs)

• Enmenduranna 21,000 yrs Euegoraches 64,800 yrs Enoch 65 yrs (365 yrs, God took him to Heaven)

• Ubardudu 18,600 yrs Amampsinos 36,000 yrs Methuselah 187 yrs (969 yrs)

• —— Opartes 28,800 yrs Lamech 182 yrs (777 yrs)

• —— Xisudros 64,800 yrs Noha, correction Noah till flood 600 yrs (950 yrs)

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241,200 432,000 1,656 (8,575)

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Note the name Xisudros in Berossos’ list, that is the Sumerian Noha correction Noah, Ziusudra, see below in the Flood chapter.

The Sumerian antediluvian reigns were measured in Sumerian numerical units known as the s(z)ar (units of 3,600), ner(d) (units of 600), and soss (units of 60). The first list, W.B. 144, to which I have found access, begins thus with the First Dynasty of Eridu with its 241,000 years of “kingship”: "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years. After the last king, “the flood swept over”. This is followed by the First Dynasty of Kish: “After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish.” This dynasty of Kish consisted of 17,980 years, with 140 and 1500 years as minimum and maximum for each ruler, so comparing to the antediluvian kings somewhat like the solar system compares to a galaxy. The number 1200 appears (years) 3 times, the number 900 four, the number 840 three times, the numbers 960 twice. Seventeen of the 23 numbers are dividable by 12, all but two by 10, and those two are multiples of 5 one of which, 625 = 5 x 5 x 5 x 5. Incidentally, 17,980 = 20 x 23 x 29. The suggestion that these numbers tell a story by themselves is, if not inescapable, at least irresistible (the factor 23 divides Genesis’ number 1656).

The King list continues "Then Kish was defeated and the kingship was taken to E-ana.(Uruk, or Erech, today Warka)"

Ruler epithet Reign today’s scholaship

• Meshkiangasher “The Son of Utu” 324 yrs now placed in the 27th century BC

  “Meshkiangsher walked into the sea and disappeared”

• Enmerkar “Son of M., the king of Uruk, who built Uruk “ 420 yrs

• Lugalbanda “The Shepherd” 1200 yrs.

• Dumuzi II “The fisherman, whose city was Kuara. He captured …” 100 yrs. “… Enmebaragesi singlehandedly” - 2600 BC

• Gilgamesh “Whose father was a Phantom (?), Lord of Kulaba”. 126 yrs. 2600 BC, contemporary with Aga of Kish (Epic of Gilgamesh)

• Ur-Nungal “Son of Gilgamesh” 30 yrs

• Udul-Kalama “Son of Ur-Nungal” 15 yrs

• Lá-baszom (or Labashum) 9 yrs. (I think the first is my error, sorry)

• Ennuntarahanna 8 yrs

• Messze or Meshe. “The Smith” 36 yrs.

• Melemanna 6 yrs

• Lugalkitun 36 yrs

"Then Unug was defeated and the kingship was taken to Urim (Ur)."

I am making this excursion to show ancient man’s fascination with numbers. We are so intent to create order in the chaos of reality that we try to see natural law and consistency in everything: that’s how astrology, whether true or false*, originated. The way the numbers went from szars to nerds from the antediluvian list to I Kish, followed by the emergence of normal human years at after Gilgamesh is fascinating. After that moment, with one dynastic exception, the years is basically realistic. A similar change we find in the Bible where after Schlomo and Jeroboam/Rehoboam, the history of the divided kingdom suddenly takes the form of historical chronicles.

Joe Campbell, in Masks of God: Oriental Mythology points out that the totals of the antediluvian kings in three versions of the Sumerian King List, when divided by 1200 (a “cosmic cycle” in the Mahabharata) yield 201, 380 and 360 (!) respectively. Berossos’ number 432,000 is extremely interesting. In the Mahabharata, 360 x 1200 = 432,000, exactly one Cosmic Year. In the Icelandic Edda, Odin’s Heavenly Halls have 540 doors through each which 800 warriors go, resulting in the same perfect number of 432,000, which also happens to be 250 x12 x 12 x 12. If I had that amount in dollars, none of you would “ever see my fat ass again”.

What does all that have to do with Genesis’ total of 1656? Except that it is the sum of 2 x 3 x 12 x 23 or 3 x 4 x 6 x 23 or 8 x 9 x 23, it is also dividable by 72, which is the number of year the equinox precesses 1º in the zodiacal sphere. This is the minuscule lag of 50 seconds difference from year to year at the exact moment of the spring equinox at or around 3/21. This makes that the sun at the spring equinox (the moment the sun is exactly at the equator and day and night are exactly equal in length) moves through the zodiacal signs over a period of 2160 years, 1º per 72 years. Today, this point has moved from Pisces into Aquarius, but in Christ’s time it was in Aries, where it still according to astrology.

(Astrology has not taken this little lag into account except in its description of time periods like the Age of Aquarius, where we have now progressed into. The idea that we are progressing from a universal, mystical age (Pisces) into a more political, socially oriented one (Aquarius) is suggestive. The first two millennia BC were supposed to be an age of the Ram, a new impulse, the Axial Age, with the Golden Fleece as banner; while the Bull of Crete and the earlier cultures fit as well in a stage that consolidation and settlement were influential. We can of course find about anything we like justified in mythology. Stretching my imagination I could see Gemini in the epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, of which Castor and Pollux may be a late reflection, and wouldn’t the flood concur with Cancer? This however is UFO territory, so let’s get the hell out of here)

Aastronomically this precession is real. The precession of the equinox is completed within 12 x 2160 = 25,920 years. If you divide that by one Zoss (60), you get 4320, which is akin to Borossos’ 432,000 years and the cosmic cycle, as we have seen. It is also the consequence of the Sumerian sexagesimal counting system: 60 x 60 x 60 x 60 = 12,960,000, which, if you double it and take some zeros away, yields 25,920, the years it takes for the precession of the equinox. As Campbell suggests: “The result only of a sheer (but quite wonderful) accident?”** Whether or not the Babylonians knew about the equinox, which Hipparchus of Bithynia even didn’t quite get right around 130 BC, we are dealing with quite round numbers. —— ‘But wait, there is more!’ —— Julius Oppert (1825 - 1906) compared the Berossos King List (the Sumerian ones had not been dug up yet) with Genesis and discovered that both total numbers had the factor 72 in common: 432,000 : 72 = 6000 —-- while 1656 : 72 = 23. In the Jewish calendar, one year = 365 days, so 23 years including leap years = 8400 days, that is, 1200 seven-day weeks —- multiply that with 72, and we get 86,400 seven-day weeks in 1565 years.*** . The Babylonian year on the other hand consisted of 72 weeks of 5 days, followed by 5 festival days. Counting one year for one day (quite usual in ancient times, one type of astrological prediction is based on that principle, which we find in the Bible as well) - the amount of weeks in 432,000 days is 86,400 as well (note that in the Jewish years we counted the leap years but in the Babylonian weeks we did not). “A point=for=point correspondence of calendric systems is implied (…)” (Campbell).

To add my micro penny, the full ages of all 10 ancestors combined, 8,575, is also a combination of the holy numbers 7 and 5, for instance in 7 x 7 x 7 x 5 x 5 or any combination thereof: 25 x 343; 35 x 245; 49 x 175 etc. If I try that with my year of birth or with 1946 I don’t get anywhere.

Clearly ancient man expressed himself in numbers, and I would not be surprised if those numbers are not part of a symbolism now lost.

I’m thinking of Lamech with his 777 years, and the “other Lamech” with his “surely I will be avenged 70 times 7 times” - yet another argument supporting the idea that these two Lamechs were orginally one and the same. I’m thinking of Enoch who was “taken up by God” (little vasistas**** on the mythic past again) at 365 years, referring not only to the amount of days in a Jewish year, but also to both Bach’s BWV 365, Jesus meine Zuversicht and Mozart’s concerto in E flat (!) for two (!!) pianos (!!!). I’m thinking of Miss Stephanopolis*****, but that’s private.

All right. It’s time to move on from this bit of pseudo-Kabbalistic drivel.

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Footnotes:

* Please don’t come with the usual platitudes to refute astrology. I did an in-depth study of this discipline at a young age for about a decade; you didn’t. Astrology doesn’t claim that planets influence our lives, like homeopathy it does not claim to work on the physical plain. I know that if you formulate any one particular birth chart, say Joe Biden’s, say Joe Biden’s, and you were to give that to a class of people, and you were to give that to a class of people, with each person in the class believing the chart is his or her own —— most people would find themselves in that chart But doesn’t that just show human gullibility?  Most people would find themselves in that chart. But doesn’t that just show human gullibility? It says nothing about astrology, just like whatever we believe about God doesn’t say anything about Who God really is …. ******

** To me, B sharp is already a huge accident.

*** We count 52 weeks in one year, but that only adds up to 364 days.

**** A vasistas, I was explained during a vacation in France in 1975, is a small attic window, or, as I’m learning now, a small panel window in a door. It comes from Marie-Antoinette, who on her first travel into France as bride to the less than lucky Louis XVI pointed at such a fenêtre and asked “Was ist das?”. She may not have been that interested any more on her last trip to the guillotine….

***** One of my favorite jokes in the sitcom F-r-i-e-n-d-s is the sign announcing the Greek Orthodox Anastasakis - Papasifakis wedding. Jennifer Aniston’s original name was Anastasakis, I believe her father Anglicized it.

****** The boat is sinking. Kennedy: Save the women! Nixon: Screw the women! Gary Hart: Do we have time? Joe Biden: Do we have time? I should of course be the last one to be bothered by the Democrat candidate’s “plagiarism”, I just like the joke. Same with the female reporter back in 1988 saying on TV that “in her heart it is Bush, but in her bush it’s Hart".

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The Nephilim

The beginning of Genesis 6 is a short mysterious paragraph of 4 verses about the Sons of God. It is generally attributed to J. Normally this is passed over quickly, but I find these little odds and ends more interesting than the big stories that are written fairly late with a strong theological purpose in mind. Aside from the footprints of a more remote past, I believe God may work strongest when we are not thinking ideologically and categorically, and go by blueprints and images. Here are all passages in which these Nephilim are alluded to:

• Gen. 6:1 When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

• Num 13:32 (…) “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

• Deut. 2:10 “The Emim—a large and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim — had formerly inhabited it. 11 Like the Anakim, they are usually reckoned as Rephaim, though the Moabites call them Emim.” (all NRSV)

• Ezekiel 32:27 They lie with the warriors, the Nephilim of old, who descended to Sheol with their weapons of war. They placed their swords beneath their heads and their shields upon their bones, for the terror of the warriors was upon the land of the living. (=> Ronald Hendel, omitting the לֹ֤א ‘not’ according to the Greek and the Syriac).

Who are these Nephilim, giant sons of God’s People and the daughters of Eve? Is that a remnant of a former Canaanite mythology like the Mycenaean origin of many myths and sagas of the Greek world? As (should have been) said before, the Torah in its eventual form has been molded on a very purposeful theological idea, and many original myths and legends probably never made it past the heavy scrutiny of the Levites or the Aaronite temple priests. I believe we have a window on that earlier, 2nd millennium world here. I’m thinking of the heroes of the Trojan War and earlier Aegean exploits, of heroes engendered by gods in human females or goddesses impregnated by human males: Achilles (Thetis), Aeneas (Aphrodite), Heracles (Zeus), Perseus (Zeus), Dardanos (Zeus), Theseus (Poseidon), Agenor (Poseidon), Jesus (Jahweh), Ivanka (Trump). I’m thinking of the 10 avatars* of Vishnu: Matsya, Kurva, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Budd-ha** and the future Kalki***. In that view, Lamech who wanted to be avenged 77 times, and Nimrod, the hunter “before the LORD”, לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה, son of Kush son of Ham son of Noah (Gen. 10:8-10), also seem to be part of an older mythology. W. F. Albright****  must be mentioned here because of the footnote.

I believe that most scholars and especially websites are digging in the wrong ground, because the universality of myth and legend is not properly understood. Everything we know about the Nephilim is strongly filtered by a 6th or 5th century theological propaganda and the many legendary offsprings of that mindset. That includes all the Jewish and Christian traditions, which tend to elaborate on the nature of angels and humans and whether or not the two should be joined together in … you know; all of which I believe totally misses the point.***** What we do not have is material from the earlier, mythical mentality that almost certainly produced the story of which this was a remnant. Comparison with mythical heroes, sons of gods and goddesses mentioned above, seems a more fertile territory. Hendel (an illegitimate descendant of Handel from his Italian time, but don’t believe everything I say) points out the twofold nature of the traditional Nephilim as “giant and fallen”, which connects them to heroes like Achilles, Agamemnon and every quarterback in the NFL. But me too dumb main? ‘What do I know?’

I get the strong impression that J placed the story of the Nephilim before the Flood as to facilitate our understanding for why God acted the way He did; sort of illustrating the kind of bad behavior God was fed up about. Equally strong is my impression that the 4 verses here discussed had an entirely different purpose and meaning originally.

Figure 2. Archeologists Chuck Magyar and Slick “The Buzz” Goldfinger excavating the remains of my ancestor “Bubba” Schiffer.

This is one of the many breeding grounds for conspiracy theories. Maybe this is a place to tackle this subject briefly. A conspiracy theory is a theory for which there is no refutation imaginable (“the government hushed it up”, “God works in mysterious ways”), which therefore has no scientific value. UFO’s may give a good example. The chance that a civilization from outer space can come here without either making their presence unquestionably known or remain totally invisible (the shape of flying saucers as well as all the imagery of extra-terrestrials is of course entirely a product of human imagination) is infinitesimal (how I love using that word in a sentence!); the chance however that people imagine flying objects to come from outer space is not even disputable, it is a certainty. We believe what we want to believe, whether it is the myth that most blacks are killed by white cops (which is false) or that God put the dinosaur bones in the earth to confuse human science. Also, conspiracy theories are always about power. Some or other all-powerful institution makes minced meat of any evidence anyone could muster against the theory; it also puts the believer in an all powerful position against the ignorant non-believer. Cherchez le Pouvoir!!! Conspiracy theories are therefore, just like WWF wrestling, a huge power projection, the kind harbored in secret by “the grocer who wallows in pride and ambition at night while weighing raisins in the day time” (Godfried Bomans, somewhere). The picture on the right seems to come from a YouTube video. I have never found a trace of such giant skulls in any credible archeological or paleontological publication, they probably make no sense thermodynamically, so I am pretty sure this is of the same kind of forgery as the three-handed men or reptile-delivering moms at the register of the supermarkets I used to marvel about in my youth.

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Footnotes:

* Since the movie Avatar, no one knows what an avatar is any more.

** I once mentioned Buddha to a Hungarian colleague (granted, he was a violist). He asked: Boot-huh? Hungarians do not pronounce the name of the Indian god the same as their own capital.

*** I’m amazed at the memory I used to have 30 years ago: I still remember almost all of those names - perhaps a misspelling here and there - the second Avatar I have seen spelled Kurma as well, for instance. Kalki will have a Key to the universe called Keeki the Kalki key, which will be called for by the sound of a mighty horn, the Keeki the Kalki key Caller. This natural horn will be tuned in E flat, the Keeki the Kalki Key Caller Key. Whenever in a Hindu service this key is called for, it will be the Keeki the Kalki Key Caller Key Call, and the priest calling for it the Keeki the Kalki Key Caller Key Call Caller. All Hindu priests have charts mapping out the liturgy from their point of view, so this priest’s chart called the Keeki the Kalki Key Caller Key Cal Caller Key - etc.

**** William Foxwell Allbright. Names often seem to come in clusters. In biblical scholarship we have Albright, Bright, Alt, Wright, Freedman and Friedman (and surprisingly, Freud). Compare Ronald Reagan and Donald Regan in the 80s, or the two presidents Bush, of which the last discovered, while browsing in the White House photo albums, a former president also called Bush. Also: Andrew Luck and Drew Lock in the NFL since 2010.

***** The origin of the name Nephilim, “the fallen ones”, agrees with these pejorative interpretations, though that etymology may be uncertain.

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Figure 3: Standard of Ur, “Peace side”, c. 2600 BC, British Museum

The Flood

The biblical Flood story has many antecedents. We have have two stories from Mesopotamia with many fragments of third versions that have come to light. Tablet 11 from the Gilgamesh Epic is in Akkadian, which functioned as the ancient world’s Latin of the 2nd millennium BC, and dates from 1300 - 1000 BC, though the story itself reaches back to the third (!) millennium BC. Gilgamesh is believed to have lived in or close to the 27th century (!) BC, from which time we also have the famous Standard of UR, seen above. You find him in the King List above, from the entry of which (“son of a ghost”) we can conclude that he had come to power by his own means (which, incidentally, is the original Greek meaning of the word tyrant). This was the time that wheels did not yet have spokes, and horse-back riding had not yet been discovered. The flood story was originally not part of the Gilgamesh epic, it seems to have been incorporated in it at some point in its rich and looooong history.

Gilgamesh, on his vain and fruitless journey to achieve immortality, meets Utánapishiltem or however his name, Ziusudra in Sumerian, Atrahasis (‘wise man’) in yet another tradition, and is amazed that this immortal is not a god but a man. Utánapishiltem or however his name begins to explain how the gods decided to destroy mankind, allegedly because of the noise made by millions of transistor radios that unadapted adolescents were constantly playing on their unmufflered motorcycles. Or something. Utánapishiltem explains to Gilgamesh:

• “Shuruppak, a city that you surely know, situated on the banks of the Euphrates,

  that city was very old, and there were gods inside it. The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the Flood.

  Their Father Anu uttered the oath (of secrecy), Valiant Enlil was their Adviser,

  Ninurta was their Chamberlain, Ennugi was their Minister of Canals.

  Ea, the Clever Prince(?), was under oath with them so he repeated their talk to the reed house:

  “Reed house, reed house! Wall, wall! O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubartutu:

  Tear down the house and build a boat! Abandon wealth and seek living beings!

  Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings! Make all living beings go up into the boat.”

Ea was talking to the wall because they had sworn an oath not to tell any of this to humans. Note the minister of canals (my italics). Irrigation was so crucial to the sun-scorched, semi-desert-like Mesopotamian economy that not only did they have a secretary for it, they even had a major god for that function.

Follows the measures of the boat, which has to be as long as wide, with 6 decks, 7 levels, 9 compartments; bitumen, pitch, veggie oil, the whole nine. Carpenters and other workmen are fed day after day, until the boat is built, at least five days, perhaps seven. Shamash, the Semitic sun god, had it rain breads and wheat, before the actual rain and wind came. Noteworthy is the two sorts of gods: the Annunaki from the underworld and the heavenly Igigigi. the first made the flood happen, the last were dead scared!

• The gods were frightened by the Flood, and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.

  The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.

  Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth, the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed:

  'The olden days have alas turned to clay, because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!

  How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods, ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people!!

  No sooner have I given birth to my dear people than they fill the sea like so many fish!'

  The gods--those of the Anunnaki--were weeping with her, the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief(?), their lips burning, parched with thirst.

  Six days and seven nights came the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land.

  When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding, the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman writhing (in labor).

  The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up. I looked around all day long--quiet had set in. and all the human beings had turned to clay!

  The terrain was as flat as a roof. I opened a vent and fresh air (daylight!) fell upon the side of my nose.

  I fell to my knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down the side of my nose.

Gods who are afraid: a 2nd millennium view of the pantheon. Clearly, the Torah as we have it now was not from those early times ….

• On Mt. Nimush the boat lodged firm, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway. (Mt. Nimush is believed to be in Assyria, now Iraq Ns.)

• One day and a second Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway. A third day, a fourth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway. A fifth day, a sixth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway.

• When a seventh day arrived I sent forth a dove and released it.

• The dove went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me.

• I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me.

• I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back. It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me - rather, it settled in Baltimore, forever out of my reach … (that last bit I slipped in myself Ns.)

This is followed by an elaborate ritual of sacrifices. Then a strange thing happens. Enlil gets wind of the survival of Utánapishiltem, or however his name, and throws a fit. Ea explains that Enlil did wrong not to warn the council of the gods about his plan to destroy the humans.

• Ea spoke to Valiant Enlil, saying: 'It is yours, O Valiant One, who is the Sage of the Gods.

  How, how could you bring about a Flood without consideration Charge the violation to the violator,

  charge the offense to the offender, but be compassionate lest (mankind) be cut off, be patient lest they be killed.

  Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that a lion had appeared to diminish the people!

  Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that a wolf had appeared to diminish the people!

  Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that famine had occurred to slay the land!

  Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that Erra had appeared to ravage the land!

  Instead of your bringing on the Flood, would that commercials would occur every ten minutes on TV! (I made that one up too Ns.)

  It was not I who revealed the secret of the Great Gods, I (only) made a dream appear to Atrahasis,

  and (thus) he heard the secret of the gods. Now then! The deliberation should be about him!'

  Enlil went up inside the boat, and, grasping my hand, made me go up.

  He had my wife go up and kneel by my side. He touched our forehead and, standing between us, he blessed us:

  'Previously Utanapishtim was a human being. But now let Utanapishtim and his wife become like us, the gods!

  Let Utanapishtim reside far away, at the Mouth of the Rivers.’ They took us far away and settled us at the Mouth of the Rivers."

I have no idea how how Enlil, the god of the wind, got swayed to accept Utánapishiltem or whatever his name. Perhaps he saw that Ea had outsmarted him by speaking to the hut, thus not breaking his oath, and was Utánapishiltem now under an honorable protection.

The Atrahasis (as we saw, another name for Utánapishiltem or however his name) has survived in several different versions, of which the one in Old Babylonian, as far as I understand, is the most complete, from around 1650 BC, so about a whole millennium before Genesis in its final form. From its synopsis in Noha, correction Noah Kramer’s translation I conclude that the story is basically the same. Wiki says that the earlier versions had more anthropomorphic qualities and I believe Inanna (Ishtar) was “surfeited with grief and thirsting for beer” - that’s my kind of story… I like the Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown, also a center for something else I, hear. “You throw like a girl” would be a compliment to me in that sport. But I digress.

Greek mythology has several flood stories. The Ogygian flood (the name Ogyges and Ogygian is synonymous with "primeval"), is said to have covered the whole world and was so devastating that Attica remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops. Plato in his Laws, argues that this flood had occurred ten thousand years before his time. Also in Timaeus  and in Critias he describes the "great deluge of all" as having been preceded by 9,000 years of history before the time of Solon in the 6th century BC. According to Plato, a flood also swallowed the continent of Atlantis.* In the Deucalion legend , the Bronze race of humans (reminiscing to the Nephilim…) angers the high god Zeus with their constant warring. Zeus decides to punish humanity with a flood. The Titan Prometheus, not from Tennessee, advises his son Deucalion to build a chest. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, after floating in the chest for nine days and nights, land on mount Parnassus, among other candidate places. When the rains ceases, he sacrifices to Zeus. Then, at the bidding of Zeus, he throws stones behind him, and they become men, while the stones thrown by Pyrrha become women. The couple appears, among many later works, in Goethe’s Faust II.

In the Iliad’s 12th book, an Achaean (“Greek”) wall is destroyed with the help of Poseidon, the god of the sea, who is however supposed to be their ally. Researchers see a remnant there of an older flood story. The Dardanian flood story has Dardanos being the survivor, with his ark coming to rest on Mt. Ida.His grandson Tros eventually moved from the highlands down to a large plain, where he built the city of Troy, named after him. That strategically situated city controlled the Hellespont, a narrow strait between Europe and Asia not too far from Istanbul, now known as the Dardanelles.

In Hindu mythology, texts such as the Satapatha Brahmana, dated to around the 6th century BC, and the Puranas contain the story of a great flood, "Pralaya", wherein the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu warns the first man, Manu, of the impendingu floodu, and also advises him to buildu a giantu boatu. In Zoroastrian Mazdaism, Ahriman tries to destroy the world with a drought, which Mithra ends by shooting an arrow into a rock, from which a flood springs; one man survives in an ark with his cattle. At Mardi Gras, in the South of Holland, they destroy the world not with a drought but with draught beer, which at that time, I’ve heard though, resembles a couple doing it in a canoe: both are f#$%ing close to water …

Figure 4: The Eve of the Deluge, by William Bell Scott 1865

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In Who wrote the Bible I present the Biblical version of the flood, separated by author. To keep it somewhat concise, here is J’s version, the Yahwist’s, who did not care about numbers, measurements, and instead of a transcendental Elohi’m shows a very human Jahweh Who regrets His actions twice, and Who closes the door of the ark Himself. Also with 7 pairs of all ritually clean animals, for reasons of sacrifice (yonder I explained that clean animals are fit for sacrifice, unclean animals are not, so sheep are clean, Michael Moore** is unclean).

Res Publica parva casus bonus sit, quia nolo Michaelem Moronem habere in horto meo. Cave, amice! Quem clamas amicum, comes? Quem clamas comem, socie? Quem clamas socium, jackass!!!

J’s version:

• Gen 6:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

• Gen. 7:1 The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” 5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth, 12 and rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 16b Then the Lord shut him in. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark (and those birds that found a place to perch on the roof and the masts Ns.)

• Gen. 8: 1 And the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth.  6 After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. 13 Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

  22. “As long as the earth endures / seedtime and harvest / cold and heat / summer and winter / day and night / will never cease.” (NIV)

P’s version can be read in my other article Who Wrote the Bible, or combined with J and the others in any Bible you can find. As said before, P has the measurements, Noah’s genealogy and other such priestly matters. Again, it is marvelous that these parts of the different authors can so often be read as separate stories. It is strange that Campbell in his Oriental Mythology gets J and P mixed up, saying that P is mentioning 7 individuals of the clean animals. This is indeed not typical for a Priestly Author who considers sacrifice the most important thing in the world; except if P knew and wrote in addition to the J story; or else if he wished to downplay Noah’s sacrifice because it was not done in the Temple of Jerusalem. This checks out, because Noah’s sacrifice is described by J, the Jahwist, with its landmark the LORD in English translations. Incidentally, it does strike me how the Gilgamesh version has the tempest last a week, J 40 days and P over a year. This is how a story gets e—l—o—n—g—a—t—e—d.

Nice is also the link between the Flood and Wandering through the parting Red Sea in the Exodus, in which the Deluge is reversed.

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Footnote:

* This is probably the reason why quacks like Graham Hancock began to collect evidence for an older age of civilization than hitherto assumed - proving beyond reasonable doubt that with today’s amount of data, anything whatsoever can be suggested if one digs deep enough. The temptation to take ancient writings - in this case Plato - literally is clearly not restricted to religions.

• “On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition, most famously Ignatius L. Donnelly in his Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Plato's vague indications of the time of the events—more than 9,000 years before his time —and the alleged location of Atlantis—"beyond the Pillars of Hercules"—has led to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.” —— (Wikipedia 9/29/2020)

Like UFOs, lost civilizations form another trigger for the imagination of sometimes quite smart people to go wild; sometimes, the two get combined, as in Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods and its gazillion sequels. The segment about the Piri Reis map shows that the above mentioned Graham Hancock may not only have been a quack but also a crook, who had no trouble presenting other people’s assertions as his own - at least I don’t remember finding any trace of the name von Däniken when I read his book Fingerprints of the Gods, while I knew the name well. It may be my oversight.

• Von Däniken wrote in Chariots of the Gods? that a version of the Piri Reis map depicted some Antarctic mountains that were and still are buried in ice, and could only be mapped with modern equipment. His theory relies on the book of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings by Charles Hapgood. A.D. Crown, in Some Trust in Chariots, explains how this is simply wrong. The map in von Däniken's book only extends five degrees south of the equator, ending in Cape São Roque, which means that it doesn't extend to Antarctica. Von Däniken also said that the map showed some distortions that would only happen if it was an aerial view taken from a spaceship flying above El Cairo, but in fact it doesn't extend far enough to the south to cause visible distortions in an aerial view. Von Däniken also asserts the existence of a legend saying that a god gave the map to a priest, the god being an extraterrestrial being. But Piri Reis said that he had drawn that map himself using older maps, and the map is consistent with the cartographic knowledge of that time. Also, the map is not "absolutely accurate" as claimed by von Däniken, since it contains many errors and omissions; a fact that von Däniken did not correct when he covered the map again in his 1998 book Odyssey of the Gods (…) —- (Wikipedia 9/29/2020)

Not only the Piri Reis map, but also Hancock’s allegation that the pyramids must have been built much earlier by others I find in von Däniken’s work. One of the arguments these authors employ to convince unsuspicious curious readers is that today’s scholarly disciplines are locked in their own ivory towers. The one time I actually found a real example of such specialism-induced tunnel vision (musicologists not knowing history, cf. => my blog post the Margrave of Brandenburg), one of you who had literally related this specific flaw in scholarship to me, refused to take me seriously.

** One thing I heard Michael Moore say on TV is his wondering what conservatives have against the state: the state is us. One of the reasons I am for small government is that I don’t want Michael Moore in my backyard.

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Of the few things I learned in school was the phenomenon archetype, of which the Flood posed as an example. Archetypes are universal images triggering deeply settled contents in the collective subconscious of every human being, ‘inherited’ from our primeval ancestors. The Flood is such an archetype. That means that there doesn’t need to be a direct or even indirect historical connection between the many flood stories all over the world. Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed in 1947 on a self-built raft, the Kontiki, from South America to Polynesia to show that primitive man could have sailed the oceans. In 1970 he traversed the Atlantic in an Egyptian style papyrus boat to support the same theory. Such attempts may be valuable in showing the possibility of historical connections, but are irrelevant (unanwendbar) in evaluating archetypical phenomena like floods or pyramids: not only were the oldest Meso-American pyramids built 2000 years later the Egyptian ones, and are they unrecognizably different in shape, the phenomenon archetype also means that when humans begin to build houses, they are bound to arrive some day at pyramids and ziggurats. If the triangle and its 3-dimensional equivalent, the pyramid, is not as blueprint engraved in our subconscious, as Plato states, then at least the form is a natural, logical end-stage of every house-building culture’s primitive architectural development. It is innate in matter’s molecules. The pyramid is perhaps the most effective, though also most cost-effective way to create elevation, something that has its attraction to early builders, before more sophisticated edifices like palaces, temples and CN towers begin to catch their imagination. Campbell somewhere shows the boundless ego-trip seen in Pharaohs. The temptation to think we are God even now becomes acute when in a situation that no one dares to challenge one’s opinions.

Figure 5: This view of Neuschwanstein castle (I did not have a phone at the time or I would have taken a panorama shot) captures the two-fold nature of cultivated vs. wild landscape that I so clearly remember from that walk in 2010, for which I incidentally sacrificed my chance to go to the Oberammergau Festsschpüle: arguing that 150 performances in 7 months in a normal indoor theater hall is 1. not a pageant, and 2. not really that special for a classical musician to watch. The spectacle I saw instead was breathtaking …

Flood stories as archetypal blueprint. I am sure the many disaster movies made today are not taken from old literature. Images innate in our psyches inspire to the making of them. One of my two most memorable walks took me up the Tegelberg past Neuschwanstein Castle near Füssen, Swabian Bavaria, Germany, Europe, Earth, Solar system, Milky Way, where a series of increasingly riveting views show Second King Ludwig’s castle connected by an imaginary line to the older and more remote castle Hohenschwangau (perhaps just visible on Figure 4 as the yellow speck in the distance immediately left of the castle’s most west (left-)ward tower); with to the left the rough, uncultivated mountains of the Voralps, two still lakes, deep green when I saw them, and to the right the man-made, cultivated, pruned, preened landscape of civilization, with two recreational lakes, the town of Füssen, even a quaint little chapel in the midst of farmlands. Such is the human psyche, with the well-ordered landscape of the ego keeping the elements in control on the right, and the green, wild, mountainous emptiness on the left. The flood archetype is when the wild, uncontrolled forces, desires and fears, of the subconscious merge up and overflow the ego, destroying its attempts to create order in a chaotic, indifferent universe. We want it so badly, though we are dead-scared of it. How priests, philosophers and politicians mold the image to their particular propaganda is immaterial. It is the image that draws us in. Even though a monster of Loch Ness probaly never existed in human times (the last non-flying dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago), the colossus is very alive in our minds. Judeo-Christianity has two, nay three such moments in its mythology: first Leviathan, the West-Semitic equivalent of Tiamat, sea monster that had to be tamed at the beginning of creation: the taming of the blind brute instincts by the regulating mind, of which we only find remnants of older traditions in the Bible, for instance Job 3:8: “May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.”. Then Moses’ splitting of the Red Sea. And in between, the Flood. Even in the case of direct borrowing of elements, like we have here, we still have to account for why this particular tale got borrowed, rather than how Ninhurság became the minister of irrigation in the Sumerian pantheon.**

Figure 34-24-32

I had two deluge experiences in my life, and I am not talking about my basement. The first time was my conversion to Christianity***. The second time was triggered by the music of … a female vocalist. Give me a moment to think of her … yeah … wow … All right. I began to collect her recordings. I began to find information about her. I began to dream about her, daydreams, but also at night, not often, but when I did, it was deep and powerful. One dream transported me to an emotional Elysium rarely experienced before or after for an entire week, even though she did not even appear in it! It gave me the energy and will to compose a cello sonata. It widened my musical horizon: adding the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra and especially Nelson Riddle to my favorites. Part of a poem I wrote shortly after that moment on June 11, 12 or 13, 2014 shows exactly the kind of emerging subconscious contents that also get expressed in the Flood stories of the world (==> as you can see in figure 34-24-32 on the right). It should be noted - despite the perhaps ‘less than appropriate’ naming of the image - that lust takes no part in this: these lingering subconscious stirrings come from much, much deeper - especially since music was a factor. Music Schopenhauer calls the only real window on reality as it is, the dinge an sich, and even though I don’t think Kantian philosophy is the ideal way to approach true human experience, the comment does imply and strongly suggest the power and significance of this otherwise most useless of all human activities. Projection is the way God created for us to become whole by making contact with ourselves, that is, those gods and demons lingering in that unfathomable realm of our subconscious. It is easy to lose track of these immeasurable powers from within when - what frequently happens - we confuse this Terra Incognita with our conscious part, the ego, which we rightfully disallow such power: “we are not capable of that”.**** But when the subconscious is on the move, the ego is like Noha correction Noah’s ark floating on the waters, keeping its integrity by letting itself be guided by the waves, maybe with a sail and a rudder for steering by*****. With such a perfect metaphor, can we still be in any doubt as to the true archetypical nature of the image?

In our story we find the unpredictable God, who also wanted to almost randomly kill Moses in Exodus 4:24, as well as the merciful God who promises never to destroy the world any more, no matter how much of a mess we make of it. This is the power of the Bible, of Homer, of Gilgamesh, Astérix: archetypal images channelled into a cosmology, a theology, a set of values, giving it universal meaning. Ideology is dogma, rational, fallible, man-made approach of reality; Images are real, overpowering, alluring, enticing, inspiring, life-giving.

Sometimes a flood is inspired by or inspires to the notion of a the cyclical pattern of creation, in which the gods create and destroy at given, esoterically predicable moments. Stephanopolis urbs Transylvaniana pulcherrima ad pedem Carpathorum montium. Punctum.

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Footnotes:

** It was of course not Ninhurság. Neither was it Fiatalság or Bolondság. They probably took turns anyway, like we used to do in the cello group of La Petite Bande. Sitting next to the master, Hidemi, was scary, but I probably learned more from those moments than from anything else in my life, and but for his brilliant and insightful master, would surely never have become half the beer connoisseur I am now.

*** Most Christians would call it my conversion to heresy, but I was a true law-abiding Church-going Christian from 1993 till 1996. About the meaning of heresy another time.

**** I’m not implying God does not not exist, I’m implying that God works through our subconscious. Maybe I should write an article of the Fashion Bible: what is subconsciously expressed in the fashion styles of world history. Let alone art.

***** It should also be quite clear that if ever, God forbid, we have such an overwhelming experience triggered by a person, that the integrity of the person in question should always remain uncompromised. These are MY projections, connections I make with MY subconscious, and in spite of the overwhelming feelings of communion, togetherness I may experience toward the person who unknowingly triggered all these projections, the projectee has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this, and deserves to be left in peace. Let’s Joe Biden this once more: THE PROJECTEE DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE BOTHERED!!! Those who cannot resist bothering the person whom they are projecting unto, in spite of the noble and loving character of the phantasies they may be harboring, are, in the least damaging cases, acting like downright assholes.

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Finally one more word to biblical literalists: it is this story more than any other that is irreconcilable with the idea that the “It’s in the Bible so it must be true”. GK Chesterton put it in finer terms than I ever could, with his love for the paradox :

• “It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand.” 

For all I know, God could have created the world in six 24-hour periods. If I had any reason other than the infinitely childish idea of literal biblical truth to consider this as a possibility, I might take it seriously. The Red Sea migh have split at Moses’ lifting his hockey stick*. But no idea in the world will convince me that 16 million individuals of 8 million species (plus a few hundred “clean” animals) would survive a ship voyage for over a year (what did they eat?), that just cannot be; even if God created a miracle to make it happen, it would not make any sense and I refuse to consider things that do not make sense.

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Footnotes:

* Johannes Scotus Minor recently published a paper for Scientific Canadian that Moses used a hockey stick for his incantations in front of the Pharao and at the Red Sea. He also demonstrates that the stone that killed Goliath was a puck, and the Red Sea (יָם זַמְבּוֹנִי) froze.

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Figure G. 10:1-32 - Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Pastrami populating the post-diluvian world (did I say Pastrami? I mean Japheth …)

The List of Nations

• Gen. 9:1 God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.

  6 Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
      by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
  for in his own image
      God made humankind.

  7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”

In Genesis 9, God’s first covenant is made, with Noha, correction Noah. We are again given the dominion over all plants and animals. We can eat every beast as long as we do not cook it in its own blood. Later its mother’s milk is added, which gives rise to the ‘Fleischedich Tomahawk joke’.* Obviously, the Israelites and Judahites were quite aware what they were doing to the animals whose flesh they ate. Garrison Keillor tells a story about a pig farm, when as a little boy he would tease the pigs in death row by throwing hickories or chestnuts at them. One uncle took him aside and said if I see you do that again I’ll beat the crap out of you, you hear? Even in America there used to be a respect for animal life about to be taken.

A life for a life. The death penalty instated. I am somewhat ambivalent about this subject. First, let me repeat an observation I once found, that most people who are for the death penalty are against abortion, and the other way round. What says that about the appreciation of human life in either opinion? I believe that whoever really appreciates human life should be against both, with one caveat: the idea of the death penalty comes from a respect of human life that the murderer has violated. Ayn Rand says that whoever takes a human life forfeits his own. On the other hand there is the blunt, fairly randomly operating institution called the justice system, where I don’t know how many cops (I mean this literally, I don’t know) frame an unjustly accused defendant to satisfy an inner need for cosmic order, if not worse, direct personal gain: the wish for a certain uncouth individual to be the murderer makes him the murderer. In Holland I used to feel safe from this sort of atrocious behavior on the part of law enforcement: at least they couldn’t put me to death. It was the Leopold and Loeb case (elaborately reported in Wikipedia) that swayed my opinion. Two students who had such a low estimation of human life that they took one just for the excitement and the (false) pride in showing their (erroneously believed) superiority over the justice system’s intelligence. It is interesting that the very case in which abolishment of the death sentence was first - and successfully - pleaded, gave me my reason for enforcing it. Anyone might be pardoned, not these two scumbags. The idea that those dirtbags are even interviewed makes my blood boil. Where is the interview with the kid they killed? Therefore, my idea of the death penalty is 1. yes, but only for murder, and 2. only when premeditated, and 3. only without any extenuating circumstances. I also believe that killing a blackmailer, if it can be proven in a court of law, is self defense.

What we take from this bible verse is the uncompromisable significance of a human life.

That that is not always clear in this society shows a speech I once heard by Elisabeth Youngstown or Ashtabula or Canton or something, who said that the only reason why one could be against abortion is discrimination against women. This is sheer erosion of human values. No, Madam Sandusky or Sharon or Akron or whatever your name, the reason to be against abortion is that abortion is taking a human life. I am not telling anyone how to vote on abortion, but at least the premises have to be clear. Mrs. Warship doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the possibility that abortion is murder; and that is scary. But I apologize. I heard her say this with my own ears, I did not get this from a ‘credible and respected news source’ whose help I need to ‘explain to me what she was saying’. My bad.

P’s contribution here ends with the beautiful idea of the rainbow as mnemonic sign for God to show Himself and man, that when it storms, it will never be a biblical Flood any more.

• 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”( NRSV)

J takes up the thread with a hilarious and very human story explaining why Canaan is cursed.

• 20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21 He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” 26 He also said, “Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. 27 May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.” (NRSV)

Noha, correction Noah’s sons are Shem, Ham and Japheth. Ham sees the sleeping young woman correction old man Noha, correction Noah naked (no correction), and must have laughed about it (J writes “told about it”). Shem and Japeth immediately cover him up respectfully. When Noha, correction Noah hears about what happened, he curses Canaan, Ham’s son, (not Ham!), who henceforth will be the servant of Shem’s descendants. A typical J type of etiology for a situation later experienced. We will see this many times again, for instance in my favorite crime story in Gen. 34. But why was Canaan punished for Ham’s blasphemy?

This story has of course had priests and rabbis discuss this for 2500 years, with their usual blinders and tunnel vision. Modern specialists point out that in 1st millennium Babylonia, seeing a man’s genitals was considered a serious matter. Most exegetes of the last 2000 years did not know that of course, so they assumed sodomy (even I “added” a slightly mocking attitude when I made my now deleted synopsis). This is how churches ruin religion and religion ruins true spirituality. This seem to have consistently been the mentality of all church councils, under the rule that a horse made by a committee is a camel, or however that line goes. Reading between the lines, they always find something “in” the story, and more often than not it is sexual, and always guilt-oriented. Onan’s story shows how the real meaning* of the Bible gets ignored by those people, whom we find in every religion in leadership positions. And it gets worse. The Latter Day Saints used the curse of Ham to prevent the ordination of black men to its priesthood, until 1978! The church has always been a channel for pure superstition, and worse, lust for power; and that channeling did not always get softened by scripture’s innate wisdom. You know me as a sworn enemy to today’s political correctness, but this downright racism from the Mormons makes my blood boil. I thought that Christianity was pretty impervious to racism. Obviously I was dreaming.**

This is how religion always gets corrupted. Kahlil Gibran accuses Paul of putting the shackles back on that Jesus had come to liberate us from. He obviously did not know about Pseudo-Paul and the 2nd century interpolations that downgraded women to an inferior position and sanctioned slavery, probably to make Xianity more attractive to the Roman establishment, and in all probability downright against Paul’s own beliefs.*** But the mechanism is what counts: when overzealous spiritually inferior souls in leadership positions make us feel guilty and add rules that come from a humanly foreign, soulfully inappropriate ideal of “perfection”, where the perfect really becomes the enemy of the good.

The list of nations is a Hebrew geography lesson. Noha correction Noah’s sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth. The total of grandsons (nations) is 70, 14 Japhethites, 30 Hamites and 26 (2x13) Shemites. That expresses the whole world captured in a nutshell. The number 70 we also find in Jacob’s household going to Egypt and the total of elders in the Mosaic desert; and in the Ugaritic pantheon (Ugarit is in Syria on the coast, its culture very akin to Canaan). Among other things. Again, numbers speak. The division of nations has nothing to do with race or language. Canaan, considered to speak Hebrew not only by today’s historians but also by Isaiah, is a Hamite. The Elamites, with an Indo-European language, are classified under Shem. As the map shows, Ham has peoples in black Africa, Anatolia and Mesopotamia.

Bonus 2 will give a glossary of most of these 70 geographical names, including a little exploring of the mythical figure of Nimrod, mentioned above in the chapter about the Nephilim - a glimpse of the region’s mythic past.

Incidentally, the worldview professed in this list as well as in the rest of the Bible, differs completely from the Egyptian, who only considered Egyptians “human”. All others were descendants of demons.

Two things stick out here. One is that the Hebrews saw themselves emphatically not as Canaanites, descending from another son of Noah. The meaning of this separation, that cannot be overestimated, is that Jahweh’s people had a different, purer idea of the one and only God, that’s why reverting to paganism was considered so blasphemous. In the biblical view, man started out monotheistic, paganism with multiple gods only started with the dispersion of nations after the Tower of Babel. The other, more important point is rather a repeat of Genesis 5: all nations come from the same ancestor, Noha, correction, Noah:**** we are all each other’s brothers. So we can see that the Bible works on multiple levels: qua nation, Israel is separate from the other nations; qua man, we are all brothers. That’s one of the innate powers of Judeo-Christianity. Israel cannot allow itself to get its mission corrupted by paganism: but God is for all people. In our individual lives idem ditto. On the universal level we need to have compassion for our tormentors; but on the personal level we have all the right in the world to defend our lives against their toxic infiltrations, and extract our presence from theirs.

‘Wunst’ more about biblical literalists; yet another narrative that’s factually refuted by almost all research disciplines in the world: history, geology, archeology, botany, chemistry, physics, etc. Our species developed in Africa, many thousands of years before the Bible says it did, even with the impossible lifespans listed, which when found in any other text are taken with a few kilos of salt. Just like conspiracy theories are if not invented then surely spread by people who don’t have a clue about the topic they discuss: most of those that shout out that the state hushed up president Kennedy’s murder don’t understand how the state works; those that take Noah’s ark literally don’t know the first thing about biology; those that believe we all came from Mesopotamia around 4004 BC don’t have a clue about history.

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Footnotes:

* Onan got punished by God not because of the carnal sin of masturbation, but because he refused to give his brother’s widow the children Jewish custom forced him to grant her (Gen:38:9). Spilling his seed was an insult to the custom, and as such perhaps a rightful revolt - but it was also an insult to the person of his widow in law, in in that capacity he insulted God.

** I know that Mormonism may not be representative for Christianity - but my reasoning is that in a social issue like this, if the Mormons sanctioned racism for a century, many churches will probably have done so as well. Besides, doesn’t the utterly ‘respectable’ Roman Catholic Church still bar half the population from being a priest, in spite of what an apparent severe chronic drought in human resources?

*** Today, the works generally accepted as genuinely Pauline are Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon (GeT CRaPPy), and even those sometimes have interpolations, which can be detected by their 1. interrupting the flow of the story, 2. being non-sequiturs, 3. with a different, often opposite message from the bulk of the text, etc. The case that people like Dominic Crossan make (In Search of Paul, with Jonathan Reed, 2004) is that Paul was an egalitarian in all viewpoints, gender, race and nationality. They would of course, in this day and age - but Paul’s honoring women and placing them in church leadership positions cannot be denied, nor can his insistence that at least one slave be liberated.

**** If we really descended from Noha we might be better people.

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Babbling bricks

• 11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” 5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused*] the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (NRSV)

• Fast Footnote: * Hebrew Balal בָּלַ֥ל modern בלבל = confuse.

Figure 104º 300/365 - I’m most impressed by the giant ducks in this modern impression of a Sumerian town, probably too small for Babylon …

Nahum Sarna (Understanding Genesis) points out that a Mesopotamian reader would not have been very pleased by the account in Genesis 11. First of all, how could the deity be displeased by the main building of his splendiferous city, the center of the world? He wouldn’t have liked the corruption of his city’s name to something like English babbling. He would have frowned at the use of the cost-expensive (?) oven-baked bricks as main material for his temple tower (sun-baked bricks seem to have been used for ziggurats). Finally, he would have cringed at the idea that not gods, but common men built the city of which the Enuma Elish exalted its divine origin. However, as Sarna points out, the author of this story, be it J or an older writer whose story she used, seems extremely familiar with Babylonian culture. In Palestine, stones, available in plenty, were used for building rather than bricks. And yet, the story completely misses the mark historically. It is completely ignorant of the real function of the ziggurat, the pyramidish structure at the center of every Mesopotamian city, about 30 of which have been excavated by now. It leaves us with the wrong impression that Babylon lived with an unfinished Tower “till this day”, which is the opposite of the world city status like Paris, London or New York Babel actually had for about 1500 years. There is really no reason to believe that this ziggurat was left unfinished until long and I mean loooong after the final destruction of the last Babylonian empire by Cyrus in 539 BC. Only after the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD (!) did Babylon’s cultural significance disappear, and only after 1000 AD did travelers begin to describe ruins. Babylon is mentioned in medieval Arabic writings as a source of bricks, said to have been used in cities from Baghdad to Basra - which answers my question how the ziggurat, this much sturdier equivalent of the Notre Dame de Paris could ever have been dismantled: Islamic State shows that nothing is sacred in this sometimes horrible world.

Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, which were graves, the ziggurat was an artificial mountain, on the top of which sacrifices were made to the godhead, and via which the godhead would descend on earth - compare Mount Olympus as seat of the gods in Greek mythology. The biblical author however fully ignores this function and attributes the building effort to vainglory. Sarna downplays that aspect, but I see connections to the Garden of Eden story, also by J, where:

• Gen. 3:22 耶 和 華 神 說 (oh, sorry) Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

… God seems somewhat nervous about us becoming too much like Him. Not that I believe for one moment that God is really that “jealous” (Ex 20:5 etc.), but J sure saw it that way. More conservative* websites point out the danger of technology. Technology, like science, is amoral: the A-bomb doesn’t care if it is in the hands of Hitler or Roosevelt. Technology comes with human responsibility. My homeopath Luc once put it this way: man should not have been able to invent the number 0 before he had first learned a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with technology. In that respect I agree with that conservative website. This is of course implied in J’s version of both the Tree and the Tower stories. Technology without soul is Tolkien’s Mordor**.

Sarna tells me that in Mesopotamia, where rocks were a rarity, oven-baked brick was used for houses, sun-baked brick for temples. He also calls the oven variety more brittle. I understand he means that the biblical author knew everything she needed to know about Mesopotamian life, and deliberately misused the information to demythologize the hollow pretensions of the most monumental prominent city in the then known world. Thus, the story becomes one more vehicle for showing Jahweh’s omnipotence. It also shows that monuments don’t get us closer to God. “Not the monumental achievements of human ingenuity, but only the human heart can forge a link with God” (Sarna p.77).

I will end here, right in the middle of Genesis 11. What follows already concerns the Patriarchs. I’m sure I will come out with a commentary of those stories. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to scold about Dinah’s rape, not by Shechem - that was an act of passion - but by her own brothers. Also, the pretended un-scarifice of Isaac is too important to ignore.

In the Bonus Materials you will find a few more flood stories, the promised List of Nations, and a poem I wrote about that walk above Neuschwanstein Castle.

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Footnotes:

* Funny that in Christian terms I am absolutely not conservative. I guess the term is entirely dependent on what one wants to conserve…

** When mentioning the Lord of Rings, I’m always exclusively referring to the book. The film I find a slap in the face of storytelling in all its aspects.

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Figure 432,000. The Flood, seen from the Ark, or something.

Bonus I: Flood stories over the world

In the Kalevala rune entitled "Haava" (‘The Wound’, section 8), Väinämöinen attempts a heroic feat that results in a gushing wound, the blood from which covers the entire earth. The global quality of the flood is evident in original variants of the rune. In one variant collected in Northern Ostrobothnia in 1803/04, the rune tells:

• The blood came forth like a flood —— the gore ran like a river: —— there was no hummock —— and no high mountain —— that was not flooded ——- all from Väinämöinen's toe —— from the holy hero's knee.

The rune's motifs of constructing a boat, a wound, and a flood have parallels with flood myths from around the world. Some ‘sources’ (?) consider this story to have borrowings from Phoenician, Persian, biblical and Greek mythology, others however, see it as a relic of the earliest Asiatic life of one of the Finnish ancestors, the Ugrian tribes.

India: Puluga, the creator god in the religion of the indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, sends a devastating flood to punish people who have forgotten his commands. Only four people survive this flood: two men and two women. I mention this because the indigenous Andamanese people appear to have lived on the islands in substantial isolation from that time until the late 18th century, so it is very well possible that their flood story has not been influenced by the ones from Mesopotamia.

China: The Great Flood of Gun-Yu (Chinese: 鯀禹治水 Gǔn yǔ zhìshuǐ), also known as the Gun-Yu myth, was a major flood event in ancient China that allegedly continued for at least two generations, which resulted in great population displacements among other disasters, such as storms and famine. People left their homes to live on the high hills and mounts, or nest on the trees. According to mythological and historical sources, it is traditionally dated to the third millennium BCE, or about 2300-2200 BC, during the reign of Emperor Yao. However, archaeological evidence of an outburst flood on the Yellow River, comparable to similar severe events in the world in the past 10,000 years, has been dated to about 1900 BC (a few centuries later than the traditional beginning of the Xia dynasty which came after Emperors Shun and Yao), and is suggested to have been the basis for the myth. In general, real Chinese history, though extremely venerable, doesn’t seem as old as the legends seem to make it: the Shang Dynasty didn’t start till about 1600 BC. I remember from my Chinese studies that the 黃河 Huáng Hé, the Yellow River, changed its course through history such that sometimes it mouthed at the other end of the enormous 山東半島 Shandong peninsula. Surely such a thing would find its sediments in folklore. What impresses me about this is the unlikelihood that this story could have been borrowed from the Middle East. China had its own history. Any flood story must have come from the immediacy of the experience, not from far away tales, reinforced, again, by the archetypal power of the image.

Thai folk tales tell about Pu Sangkasa-Ya Sangkasi (Thai: ปู่สังกะสา-ย่าสังกะสี) or Grandfather Sangkasa and Grandmother Sangkasi, according to the creation myth of those Thai people folktales, were the first man and woman created by the supreme god, Phu Ruthua (ผู้รู้ทั่ว). A thousand years passed, their descendants were wicked and crude as well as not interested in worshiping the supreme god. The god got angry and punished them with a great flood. Fortunately, some descendants survived because they fled into an enormous magical gourd. Many months passed, the supreme god had compassion on the humans that had to live in the difficult period of their life, so he had two deities Khun Luang and Khun Lai climbed down a massive vine linking an island heaven that floated in the sky to the earth in order to drill the enormous gourd and take the surviving humans to a new land. The water levels had been come down already and there was the dry land. The deities helped the surviving people and led them to the new land. When everyone arrived in the land called Mueang Thaen, the two deities taught the humans how to cultivate rice, farming and building structures

I found 18 North American flood North American stories mentioned at Wiki. I don’t know how many of them were borrowed from us European intruders. Some of them seem that way. That would still leave the question why this particular image got loaned, rather than the iota in homo-i-ousious or the particular precursor of the Gilette or Braun machine William of Ockham used to use to avoid looking like Genghis Khan.

The Choctaw Flood story

• Our people have always had a tradition of the Deluge, which happened in this way: There was total darkness for a great time over the whole of the earth; the Choctaw doctors or mystery-men looked out for daylight for a long time, until at last they despaired of ever seeing it, and the whole nation was very unhappy. At last a light was discovered in the North, and there was great rejoicing, until it was found to be great mountains of water rolling on, which destroyed them all, except a few families who had expected it and built a great raft, on which they were saved.

Ojibwe: Great Serpent and the Great Flood

• Nanabozho’s cousin had been seized by his enemy the Great Serpent. He followed the track. It passed the great river, climbed mountains, and crossed over valleys until he came to Manitou Lake. Nanabozho could see, at the bottom of the lake, the house of the Great Serpent. It was filled with evil spirits. In the centre of this horrible group was the Great Serpent himself, coiling his terrifying length around the cousin of Nanabozho. Nanabozho, seeking revenge, said to the clouds, "Disappear!"  And the clouds went out of sight.  "Winds, be still at once!" And the winds became still. And to the sun, "Shine over the lake with all the fierceness you can. Make the water boil." Then Nanabozho changed himself into the broken stump of a withered tree. 
  The lake boiled to its very depths. Soon the Great Serpent and all the evil spirits came slowly to the surface of the water and moved toward the shore. The Great Serpent glided into the forest and wound his many coils around the trees. From the stump, Nanabozho watched until all the serpents were asleep. Then he silently placed an arrow in his bow, and shot the Great Serpent in its heart. Followed by its terrified companions, howling with rage and terror, the Great Serpent plunged into the water. The water of the lake began to swell upward and to pound against the shore with the sound of many thunders. Madly the flood rolled over the land, over the tracks of Nanabozho, carrying with it rocks and trees. Nanabozho, fleeing before the angry waters, and all the villagers fled to the mountain top. There he gathered together timber and made a raft. Upon it the men and women and animals with him placed themselves. For many days, they floated along on the face. At long last, the flood began to subside. Soon the people on the raft saw the trees on the tops of the mountains. Then they saw the mountains and hills, then the plains and the valleys. When the water disappeared from the land, the people who survived learned that the Great Serpent was dead and that his companions had returned to the bottom of the lake of spirits. There they remain to this day. For fear of Nanabozho, they have never dared to come forth again. (Here I see no trace of our Flood story).

Eskimo (Orowignarak, Alaska):

• "A great inundation, together with an earthquake, swept the land so rapidly that only a few people escaped in their skin canoes to the tops of the highest mountains."I found 18 other such North American flood stories. The question will of course always be in how far these stories are borrowed from us Europeans, but that doesn’t negate the enormous pull that this image has on humans everywhere on earth.

Nu’u.

• In Hawaiian mythology, Nu'u was a man who built an ark with which he escaped a Great Flood. He landed his vessel on top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Nu'u mistakenly attributed his safety to the moon, and made sacrifices to it. Kāne, the creator god, descended to earth on a rainbow and explained Nu'u's mistake

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Bonus 2: Glossary of the List of Nations in Gen. 10.

Noha correction Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Here are their lineages:

Japheth

Japheth’s sons were thought of as the Mediterranean Europeans, Anatolians, and northern Middle Easterners, the name Ashkenaz among them. Many of them are Indo-European. Gomer (=> Cimmerians, Black Sea, 7th 6th centuries); Magog (from Ez. 38 and 39), not found outside the Bible; Madai (=> Medes, Persians); Yavan (=> Ionians, Greece); Tubal and Mesheg are named in Ez. 27:13, Tubal doubled from Cain’s line, both found in Assyrian sources and Herodotus, always in connection with metallurgy;  Tiras (=> Teresh or Tursha of the Egyptian list of Sea Peoples, who appeared at the Bronze Age Collapse). Ashkenaz (=> the famous Scythes, Indo-Europeans from the steppes!); Riphath (???), Togarmah (=> Anatolia, close to Haran); Elishah (=> Alashiyah = Cyprus); Tarshish (=> Tarsus? Tartessus, Spain? Tharros, Sardinia?); Kittim (=> Kition, on Cyprus, inh. by Minoans, then Mycenaeans, finally Phoenicians in 9th century BC); Dodanim (=> Dardanaeia? Troy, cf. Dardanelles);

Ham:

Mizraim = Egypt, Kush (=> Ethiopia - NIV places it in SE Mesopotamia; the name, like our word “Indian” refers to multiple locations, see *Nimrod, below); Put (=> Libya) and Canaan. Seba could be a dialect of Sheba, a tribe that branched away. Havilah means “sandy land” if it is Hebrew, it could be Egypt or Arabia, and in Gen. 2:11 it is said to contain gold and previous metals. Sabtah, Raavah, Sabteca (???). Nimrod has an aura of mythology around him. His ancestry from Kush may refer to another use of that name: either Kish, the Sumerian city that on the king list followed the deluge, and therefore remained prestigious for a thousand years even at times it didn’t have much actual power. Or else the Cassites, a Caucasian people who ruled Babylon for 4 centuries after 1595 BC. Nimrod, it says here, amassed an impressive Empire in Mesopotamia, conquering Babel, Erach. Akkad and Kalne (which may actually not be a city but a word meaning all of them). He is said to have built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen. Calah’s Assyrian name is Nimrud!  Many speculations to Nimrod’s identity have been made, probably all no good, like the motor of my last 2002 Honda or the recipient of one of my favorite pop songs; including the Mesopotamian god Ninurta or a conflation of two Akkadian kings Sargon, his grandson Naram-Sin (2254–2218 BCE), and the Middle-Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BCE), who was known for his passion for hunting. Wikipedia mentions a connection with Uruk (Erech) that lost its prominence around 2000 BC. However, Dutch folklore’s retracing Saint Nicolas (Sinterklaas, Santa Claus) to Spain shows how slippery geographical identifications are in lore: the real Saint Nicolas lived in Asia Minor. Nimrud incidentally was the capital of the Assyrian Empire between the 880s and 706 BC, therefore, when the older part of the Torah got written down. Nineveh became its capital after Nimrud, in the 7th century. In later Jewish traditions, Nimrod is placed in opposition to Abraham, his alleged rebelliousness contrasted with the patriarch’s faith; possibly based on the root of his name מרד, m-r-d, meaning to revolt, rebel —— Mitzraim’s sons include the Ludim, not to be confused with Lud son of Shem (below), Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim, and the Caphtorim, “from which the Philistines come”. —— Among Canaan’s sons are Sidon, the famous Phoenician port city, sometimes used for all of Phoenicia; Heth (ancestor of the Hatti, who were later swamped with Indo-European Hittites who took over the name; the Hatti spoke a pre-semitic, pre-indo-european language and might have been “indigenous”; and the Jebusites (?), the Amorites (=> Amurru in Akkadian), the Girgashites (=> Karkisha, Anatolia? Charchemish, Syria?), the Hivites (?); the Arkites, Shinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, Hamathites refer to cities in Lebanon. The Trilobites lived up to 251 million years ago but are not in the Bible. The Arvadites were of course the ancestors of Árpád who entered Hungary with his Magyars in 896 AD, though I don’t remember exactly when I made that up. Some of these Canaanite tribes will resurface later in the Patriarch narratives. Again, the author wanted to refute any alleged relation between Hebrews and Canaanites. This “lie” has been successful for over two millennia!

Cheese:

Sons of Clovis: Camembert (Normandy), Brie, Reblauchon, Port Salut, Roquefort, Gruyère, Tomme de Savoie. —— Sons of Romulus: Romano, Parmiggiano, Mascarpone, Gorgonzola, Mozarella, Mozarella Buffa, Provolone. —— Sons of Tell: Emmenthal, Gruyère (unclear if this is a different Gruyère from the French descendant), Appenzeller (semi-hard), Tilsiter, (=> Tilsit, Swiss Alps), Raclette, Bleuchatel, Freiburger. —— Sons of Brinker: Edam, Gouda (pronounced How Duh in Holland), Leerdammer, Leidsche (with cumin) —— Sons of El Cid: Manchego, Castellano, Ibiza. —— These are all from extra-biblical sources.

Shem:

“We” are Shem’s descendants, the “Semites”, called last, for a climactic effect. Shem, or Sem, begat Elam (=> Persia), Asshur (=> Assyria), Arpachshad (=> puzzle), Lud (which Josephus places in => Lydia = western Antatolia) and Aram Khatcheturian, therefore Armenia (I’m kidding, the Aramaeans where in Syria, and their language. Aramaic, succeeded Akkadian as the lingua franca in the Iron Age). Lud cannot be identical with the Hamitic Ludim (see above). Of Aram’s sons, Uz is the only one further known. Two regions named Uz are mentioned, one northeast of Canaan near Haran, and the other between Edom and Arabia, fringing on the desert therefore. Mash may be mountains in the anti-Lebanon, called Mashu in the Gilgamesh epic. Arpachshad begot Shelah who begot Eber. “We” are all sons of Eber עֵבֶר , whose name is the root of both “cross over” and “Hebrew”, עִברִית, indicating that the Hebrews where those that crossed over, a motive wonderfully coincides with the Exodus. Shem’s line gets further continued, from Eber to Peleg and Joktan. Joktan begat Almodad, (= ‘beloved one’), Sheleph (Shalph or shalph in Yemen?), Hazarmaveth, Jerah (Warach?), Hadoram (Dauraum, Yemen?),  Uzal, Diklah (‘dekel’ = palm tree, so some oasis?), Obal, (Abil is a common place name in Yemen like Springfield) Abimael (=God is indeed my father, therefore a prophecy for Dr. Kennedy, cf. *Apologetics), Sheba, (this is probably Schlomo’s Sheba), Ophir (like his “brother” Havilah, a source of gold, Gen. 2:11), Havilah,(=> Gen. 2:11), Jobab (unknown - my addition Yomama on the map in Africa was inspired by this name). These were Yemenite tribes, though few of these names are corroborated by Assyrian records of the Arabian peninsula. It is believed that this list is a remnant of an older story, alluding to kinship with or even origin of Israel. Freud did think Jahweh came from the desert areas….

Table of Nations. According to Dutch scholar 文藝復興 Wenyi Fuxing Steffens (he was the fifth child of a father who know that every fifth child in the world was Chinese), Noah had five sons, not three.

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Bonus 3

A day in early September 2010

Illustrations:

Figure 1: List of Cain’s and Seth’s descendants over a photograph of I believe Mt. Sinai

Figure 2: Some picture from Youtube. I don’t even what to know what it is because it is clearly forged.

Figure 3: The Standard of Ur, Sumer, 2600 BC, British Museum. Shown is the “Peace side” of this box-like artifact. Not shown is the “Sex Side”, because it doesn’t exist.

Figure 4: The Eve of the Deluge, 1865, by William Bell Scott.

Figure 5: Neuschwanstein Castle is near Füssen at the “feet” of the map of Germany, in Schwabish Bavaria. about 60 miles south of Augsburg.

Figure 34-24-32: Part of my poem Rock Singer from Summer, 2014. Photo is of … I’m sure you can figure it out from my youtube recording Clorinda.

Figure G 10:1-32: Map of the biblical ethnography according to Gen. 10, with some additions by me.

Figure 104º 300/365: Mesopotamian Ziggurat by Jos Antonio Penas (modern)

Figure 432,000: Study of Sea, Sky, Whight 1827, by William turner, detail.

Figure HC (Hors Catégorie): Neuschwanstein again with my poem Above Neuschwanstein Castle (2015)

Blog cover photo: Nimrod, 1832, by David Scott - Glasgow

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Bibliography: (this list still is still in the phase of the orange cones)

Arnold, B., Genesis (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)

Campbel, Joe: Masks of the Gods: Oriental Mythology 1962

Hebrew Myths, 1963/4/83

Cross, Frank Moore: From Epic to Canon, 1998

Dalley, Stephanie: Myths from Mesopotamia, 1989

Friedman, Richard Elliott: Who Wrote the Bible? 1987

Grabbe, Ancient Israel, 2017 - an overview of what we know about the historic Bible time and how we know it.

Sarna, Nahum: JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, 5749 (1989). this book reads from left to right, even though 80% in it in in English.

Sarna, Nahum: Understanding Genesis, 1966