Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
0 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Are Arabs & the Syrian government covering up a 2400B.C. Hebrew text of Genesis 1?
Nimrod
Member (Idle past 4916 days)
Posts: 277
Joined: 06-22-2006


Message 1 of 2 (508085)
05-10-2009 1:33 PM


I really am sorry to say that there has been some serious slander from respected fundamentalist "scholars" like John Ankerberg (a dispensationalist who fundi's love to hold up as a qualified scholar on all things biblical/historical).
Page Not Found - JA Show
Many fundamentalists (including on this site)often reference the Ebla Tablets as proof that Genesis 1 dates from before the Mesopotamian cosmological texts.They get very angry when people dismiss their claims (one person stomped out of here damning everybody for not accepting the Ebla tablets).
This issue really needs to be set straight.
Firt, let me lay the background.
The Ebla Tablets were found in the mid-70's and their chief linguist/epigraphist was an Italian gentleman named Giovanni Pettinato.The Ebla tablets were in a new language plus there was a confusing way Sumerian logograms were (or were not) used,and were open to much interpretation.
In the infant stage of translation/decipherment , there were a ton of bad translations made.One mis-translation seems to be an ancient copy of a text much like Genesis 1 and whats more, the language was then interpreted as the "proto-Canaanite" language.Remember that Hebrew is the "language of Canaan" (Is. 19:18) and linguistic scholars feel that the difference between Canaanite and Hebrew is strictly chronological.(Hebrew was a later dialect).
Fundamentalists were going wild at the time.
Here was a partial translation of the first lines (in later pages he gave the complete translation)
Pettinato
Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Translation of Ebla: Un Impero Inciso Nell'Argilla) (Hardcover)
Publisher: Doubleday (September 1981)
p244
Lord of heaven and earth:
the earth was not,yet you created it.
the light of day was not, you created it.
the morning light you had not {yet} made exist.
These words echoing the first chapter of genesis have not been taken from the Bible but rather from a literary text found in... the royal library of Ebla.
....
p.56
"Eblaite"... demonstrating a close relationship with Ugaritic, Phoenician , and Hebrew.Its strict affinity with these languages suggests that Eblaite be classified as paleo or Old Canaanite.
Now, there were a lot of misreadings of these texts which later scholars including the leading new epigraphist (replacing Pettinato) corrected.It is now considered an East Semitic language that is removed from the intimate relationship with West-Semitic Hebrew (though all Semitic languages share many similarities of idiom and such which no other language family even comes close to matching).
Here is the Anchor Bible correction of the early mis-reading.I am only taking a few sentences from a rather large multi-page entry.
Anchor Bibe Dictionary
Volume 2
D-G
Robert D. Biggs
p.266
The supposed Creation of the World story found... has attracted a certain amount of interest. ....The text is more convincingly interpreted ... as a list of Sumerian personal names beginning with Lugal followed by two lines of literary quotations...
Lugal is the Sumerian word for Lord (though the word literally means "big man" but later developed into a special meaning of "lord").It was a Sumerian logogram used in the Ebla language.The rest of the text was mistranslated.
It wasnt the only misreading in the Ebla texts.Pettinato felt that the texts indicated that there was a major Syrian "empire" which was the forst of its kind.Later epigraphists rejected that (due to faulty translations) and minimize the importance of Ebla.
It is such a slander to the new team at Ebla when they are accused of falsifying both archaeological data and text translations simply because dispensationalists like Ankerberg claim the Syrian government is forcing them to out of (so-called) hatred of Jews.A hatred that exists only in Ankerbergs "prophecy"-obsessed imagination.
Ankerberg doesnt mention it but the new archaeological team (though anybody can translate texts, so there is no grounds for a cover-up anyway.The Ebla texts have been shared with the world almost from day one)actually minimizes the splendor that the old mis-translations gave to Syria. Would the Syrians diminish their own civilization simply in an effort to hide their relations with Jews? (not to mention the fact that Syrians know that they are related to Jews anyway,regardless of readings from the Ebla texts!)
This slander of epigraphers, archaeologists, and scholars needs to stop!
This prophecy-obsessed hatred of Arabs and Syrians needs to stop!
Fundamentalists need to make their historical claims in an honorable way and stop the hate fest.Accept the conclusions of hard-working scholars and make the case for Genesis in an appropiate way that doesnt foster ignorance and bigotry.
(I suggest the Bible Accuracy forum)

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Admin, posted 05-15-2009 7:20 AM Nimrod has not replied

Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 2 of 2 (508626)
05-15-2009 7:20 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Nimrod
05-10-2009 1:33 PM


I've been waiting to see if there would be any interest in the sister thread you proposed, "Most Historians said 'David didnt exist' till the Tel Dan discovery", before deciding whether to promote this one. No one's responded to that thread, so I'm going to close this proposal.
Both seem like good topics, but I could tell that there's something, maybe tone or style or presentation, I'm not really sure, that somehow doesn't invite participation. You might want to try proposing them again, I'd suggest being much, much briefer and trying to be more clear in describing the issue. You can introduce more material later during discussion.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Nimrod, posted 05-10-2009 1:33 PM Nimrod has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024