The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible. Which came first?

Just a question. How can you date something that never happened?

lol. well, it's hard to say it never happened. there's some indications of problems. really, we're just pitting texts against each other. i'm just saying that i prefer the exodus date.wa have a hard-coded date in one text -- we know when the city of raamses was built, and there's a somewhat hard-coded date in the other (we know about when solomon reigned, but it takes some arithmetic. the problem is that the length of time between the two is messed up somewhere. the addition of the lengths of time in judges, and the figure in kings (which i think are different, too) would push moses back much further.what i'm saying is to keep the absolute date in exodus, and the relative date in kings, and assume the error was in the timeline between them.

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אָרַח

Hi Ray, Think he was in his early 40's when he wrote this, but he maintained the 13th c date until he died.He originally accepted the 15th century date based only on the biblical text, and interpreted all his early finds through the biblical texts rather than on their own, but all biblical archaeologists were taking this faulty appraoch back then. He stuck to the 15th c date for at least eleven years, before finally abandoning it as a useless cause.Albright originally went with the 15th century date, until he was forced to change to the 13th through what he saw as overwhelming evidence for the late date. He wrote an article in 1934, while excavating Bethel where he uncovered a 13th century destruction level, the article is: The Kyle Memorial Excavation at Bethel, BASOR 56, pp 2-15.I do have a photocopy of this article somewhere, but cannot for the life of me find it. However, I remembered that Bimson quotes from the article, so this is from J. J. Bimson, Redating the Exodus and Conquest, JSOT, Sheffield, 1978, p. 21."In reaching this obvious and inescapable conclusion, the writer abandons a position he has held for eleven years, and adopts the low date for the Israelite conquest of central Palestine" (1934: 10).Later, in 1939, Albright wrote:"The burden of proof is now entirely on those scholars who still wish to place the main phase of the Israelite conquest of Palestine before the 13th century B.C." (Albright W. F. The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in Light of Archaeology, BASOR 74, pp 11-23, quote p.23)Since the 1930's, very few scholars have adhered to the 15th century date, as the evidence is hugely stacked against them. When people such as Albright and Nelson Glueck abandon the 15th century date, that should demonstrate how strong the contrary evidence is.Brian.BTW, the eyes are great, thanks for asking, everything went well, there is still a little swelling in the right eye so things a teensy bit out of focus, but overall I am well pleased. Isn't it great that mankind is now correcting some shoddy workmanship

Hey,Eyes are almost brand new!Still cannot see God though, maybe next time!Thanks for asking mate.Brian.

I think any text that mentions Kings Of Israel would need to be dated, at least the insertion would have to be dated, roughly to post 11th/10th c BCE, since there were no kings of Israel before that timeBrian.

precisely.

I guess it needs another (dare I say it?)Exodus thread to list all the direct and indirect evidence against the validity of the (proposed new title)Alleged Journey from Egypt through Sinai to the Promised Land with a Swag of People.ABE swapped 'name' for 'title' to give it a bit more class.This message has been edited by Nighttrain, 12-14-2005 04:44 AM

If forced, I'd propose the Shasu.This message has been edited by ConsequentAtheist, 12-14-2005 09:29 AM

it would also be plausible if the books had any sort of voice continuity. if you read it to have the same author it's so jumpy and weird. people concentrating on different things and repeating themselves but in different words and contradicting themselves... weird. you'd have to be schitzo to write that on your own.wait. maybe that explains it. voices, hallucinations...This message has been edited by brennakimi, 12-14-2005 09:48 AM

wow. i've never heard of that before but it sounds reasonable enough. i shall read more.*edit*
Studies in Relations between Palestine and Egypt during the First Millenium B. C.: II. The Twenty-Second Dynasty, Donald B. Redford, Journal of the American Oriental Society > Vol. 93, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 3-17this suggests otherwise but i must look for more.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 12-14-2005 09:59 AMEdward F. Wente, Shekelesh or Shasu?, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Jul., 1963), pp. 167-172.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 12-14-2005 10:10 AM

That assumption has never seemed logical to me. Saying "In those days Israel did not have Kings" does not automatically place the origin in a period after a time when Israel did have Kings.Would it not be reasonable for me to say today "In those days the US did not have a King"?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Reasonable and accurate - but odd.I know we're talking about religious texts rather than conversation but if you did say "In those days the US did not have a King" to someone I would expect them to laugh and say "And we still don't" or "Well we never did before or since either".I would have thought the most reasonable deduction you could make from "In those days Israel did not have Kings" was that at at some time prior to it being written - but not necessarily when it was written - Israel had had Kings.Of course my opinion on this is pretty much worthless I don't anything about the idioms or styles of ancient Hebrew religious texts. For all I know "In those days Israel did not have Kings" could just as well be a way of contrasting Israel with the countries around it which did all have Kings.This message has been edited by MangyTiger, 12-14-2005 02:39 PM

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I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

But if the US was surrounded by other nations that did have kings, would it not be reasonable for us to mention that we did not. Translation, particularly between two such different languages as english and the various semitic ones, is always fraught with uncertenty. When we are also trying to deal with great separations in time periods, there can be even more variation.Imagine the posibbilities for mistranslation even among folk of the same period speaking the same language. I'm reminded of a young girl from Leicester that moved into the apartment above me when I was a young single bachelor. When meeting her for the very first time as she carried groceries up the stairs to her apartment, she suggested that I "Knock her up some time." How disappointed I was to learn that it simply meant to call her or drop by.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

well, whether or not it's fictional, we can still try to determine when it was supposed to be set.my newest personal pet hypothesis is that the first half of exodus (the, uh, exodus part) wasn't actually about egypt at all. i'm thinking that the dates of the component documents in the torah indicate that it may have actually been written about the babylonian exile, in a "keep hope" kind of way, with "egypt" as a code-word for the other captors."mosheh" and "messiah" are spelled remarkably similar. so what may have been an earlier nomadic tradition about recieving god's law in the wilderness might have been brough together with a newer and fictional tradition.i'm sure there's some problems with this idea, some of which might be explained by the redaction process. i'm not especially attached to it, just throwing it out. i don't care if it's a fiction, i just want to know how it came to be, and why.

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אָרַח

stop it. you're sounding like my mom.

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אָרַח