Pre Flood Artifacts?

I'm not sure where this topic should go - perhaps Dates and Dating, The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy or even Miscellaneous.Rrhain's post on art styles made me think of another question.Are there any remnants of a Biblical Pre Flood culture? If so:How are they identified?
How are they dated?
Where have they been discovered?
What kind of condition are they in?
Do they support the idea of man's total depravity at that time?Curiously
PM1K

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.I'm taking the Great Flood part of this forum to be separated from geology this time.This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 09-16-2004 10:57 AM

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Do they support the idea of man's total depravity at that time?

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Sort of. We'd have to pick a date for the flood itself before we could say "before" or "after" but the cultures of mesopotamia stretch back to about 4000BC or so, as I recall.Now these mesopotamian cultures made a big deal out of sex; they had a major goddess (Ishtar/Innana) whose temple (in later periods IIRC) had formal cult prostitutes. Mesopotamian society considered "free love" to be one of the their societies main virtues, andnone of the things that distinguished humans from animals. There are complaints in their texts about people screwing in the streets and so forth. And it is this culture that is demonsised by the bible by reference to the "whore of babylon", and which was definitley considered by the patriarchs to have been morally corrupt.But of course, its likely that the flood myth itself was stolen from these mesoptamian cultures, as it was a big part of their own mythology, with striking similarities to the biblical myth.

HYMN OF LOVE FROM INANNA TO TAMMUZ
Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you,
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you,
Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.
Bridegroom, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey,
In the bechamber, honey-filled,
Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey.
Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me,
Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies,
My father, he will give you gifts.
Your spirit, I know where to cheer your spirit,
Bridegroom, sleep in our house until dawn,
Your heart, I know where to gladden your heart,
Lion, sleep in our house until dawn.
You, because you love me,
Give me pray of your caresses,
My lord god, my lord protector,
My (Dumuzi), who gladdens Enlil's heart,
Give me pray of your caresses.
Your place goodly as honey, pray lay (your) hand on it,
Bring (your) hand over it like a gishban-garment,
Cup (your) hand over it like a gishban-sikin-garment.HYMN FROM INANNA TO TAMMUZ
Inanna sang:
"He has sprouted; he has burgeoned;
He is lettuce planted by the water.
He is the one my womb loves best.My well-stocked garden of the plain,
My barley growing high in its furrow,
My apple tree which bears fruit up to its crown,
He is lettuce planted by the water.My honey-man, my honey-man sweetens me always.
My lord, the honey-man of the gods,
He is the one my womb loves best.
His hand is honey, his foot is honey,
He sweetens me always.My eager impetuous caresser of the navel,
My caresser of the soft thighs,
He is the one my womb loves best,
He is lettuce planted by the water."--All this is a far cry from the Mosaic patriarchal view of womens sexuality. Thus it is likely, IMO, that this alleged "corruption" is (relatively) sexually liberated mesopotamia.

Footnote: why lettuce? Because:

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A lettuce plant has a short stem initially, but when it blooms, the stem lengthens and branches, and it produces many flower heads that look like those of dandelions, but smaller. This is called "bolting". When grown to eat, lettuce is harvested before it bolts.

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This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-17-2004 07:26 AM

Good information, thanx contracycle.Anyone have anymore?PM1K

Oh well...PM1K

Sorry, I would love to give my opinion on it, but I'm not an expert in flood geology, or any field of geology in that matter. I've been waiting for people to post, too.

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The Laminator
For goodness's sake, please vote Democrat this November!

At the least, maybe your opinions will get some discussion started.thanx
PM1K

Relics of Noah's FloodFor all my googling, I can only find this article in various different forms. Seems the Black Sea is the only place where possible signs of a Pre Biblical Flood culture exists. With such wide spread devastation I would expect more evidence to exist. I am missing something?Oh and where can I find a good map of what the world looked like before the Flood? I'm still googling the Nuzi Tablet and it definitely looks interesting.thanx
PM1K

The Nuzi Map is one of the older maps for sure. But the speculation by Brian is pretty extreme. Here is a link to some of the other information on the Nuzi Map. It paints a slightly different, less exciting origin.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Contracycle, you mention that we need to pick a date for the Flood.Rrhain posted a great Biblical Chronology that connects the Flood with the construction of the First Temple: http://EvC Forum: The continuation of art styles through a speculated flood -->EvC Forum: The continuation of art styles through a speculated floodIt is 1277 years between the two events, according to a literal interpretion of the Bible.So if we could just connect the construction of the First Temple with a verifiable date then we'd be set and have a date to pin down and work with. He cites the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is a perfectly valid source, but not one likely to impress many of the people who disagree with him about the validity of the flood.So what can we use to date the construction of the First Temple?I have a suggestion. I have not read it anywhere else, which leads me to think that maybe there is something I am missing. Perhaps it has been discussed here before, and I just couldn't find it. If that is the case is there a pointer somewhere? Am I missing something?The Bible tells us that David and Solomon often teamed up with a King Hiram of Tyre.2 Samuel 5 vs. 11: And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house. (KJV)1 Chronicles 14: vs. 1 Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and timber of cedars, with masons and carpenters, to build him an house. (KJV)1 Kings 9 vs 11: Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire,) that then king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. (KJV)1 Kings 9 vs. 26-7: And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which [is] beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. (KJV) (That fleet then sails for Ophir. From context it would appear that the Tyrian fleet showed the Hebrew fleet the way.)From this it follows that King Hiram of Tyre and King David and King Solomon must have been contemporaries. Now it just so happens that we do know the dates of some of the Kings of Tyre. According to a couple of sites easily findable via Google ([1] as an example), King Hiram I ruled Tyre from 969-936 BCE. King Hiram II ruled Tyre from 739-730. King Hiram III ruled Tyre sometime after 640 BCE (he was the 4th King to rule after that year). (Unfortunately, you see, my copy of _The Phoenicians and The West_ by Aubet is at my parents house, so I can't get an authortative cite until the weekend, but those are dates based on several chronicles, I do believe. If anyone is interested I can look them up in that source to see if she says more about how those dates were determined and to confirm the Googled cites.)So which king is it? King Hiram III probably ruled at about the same time that Ezekiel was writing or during the Captivity. Hiram II was a rough contemporary of Jeroboam II. So that pretty much means that Hiram I must be the Hiram referenced as being a friend of David and Solomon. This also fits the length of ruling, David and Solomon both had seemingly strong relations with Hiram, which would be difficult to square with the nine year rule of Hiram II (approximately 20 years pass between the 2 Samuel/1 Chronicles reference and the 1 Kings reference to Hiram).Therefore, from the evidence in the Bible plus the general agreement of historians of Phoenicia, the Noachian Flood would have to be around 2300 BC, +/- 10 years or so (because of Hiram's 30 years length of rule plus the roughly 20 year gap between Samuel and Kings). To dispute that is to disagree with either the plain words of the Bible or the generally agreed upon historical facts.Thus, any culture that shows continuity across that time period would be an argument against the Flood, and any region whose artifacts showed a sudden, strong Hebraic influence at about that time period would be an argument for the Flood.Are there *any* regions which meet the latter description? I am unaware of any, but I am not the most widely read of men. I suppose that is what the OP was asking about.[1]: Tyre - WikipediaChris Manteuffel

Great Post Chris!When I first proposed the thread I was hoping to get info about what evidence we have left of any preflood civilizations. If they were evil and corrupt enough to wipe out surely their artifacts would give clues into that decay. Alas not much has been posted and I've not found much surfing the web.Where are all the sites devoted to complete and utter evil?
Where are all the devices of a society who spent every waking hour dreaming up new ways to go against God?Am I off base to think that something must have been survived?Forever Wondering
PM1K

Cool site Jar.Did you get a chance to look over some of the other maps on that site?Thanx for link
PM1K

Well, there is Egypt of course. If Egypt is supposed to be part of the "new world", post flood, then the Israelites are missing from the historical record for a long, long time between the first Egyptian temples and Moses, roughly.I still find your question hard to parse, tho. The bible does not refer to other states or societies before launching into the story of Noah, it refers only to "men" (and Nephilim but thats another issue), so by implication the evilness to which god is responding is the evilness of the Israelites.What I tried to offer before was some information about other regional cultures which had different views to those of the Israelites and why the isrealites might have thought them to be "evil".Yes, its true that UNDER an identifiable geologic flood layer, there should be evidence of human habitation, if the flood story is true. But seeing as there is no identifiable flood layer, the flood story is not true.But if you like, Jomon pottery is 9000 years old and thats longer than the entire life of the world according to the bible, IIRC, so presumably that predated the flood and has survived. I suspect some of the older Mesopotamian citites are also older than the world in the biblical scheme of things, so I suppose they count.