In this lesson, David Capoccia explains how archaeologists date their finds, showing that the process that appears in the news as precise and objective is actually very interpretive. David Capoccia then discusses how dating methods have been used to create a timeline for Egypt and the Middle East that contradicts the Bible. In the last part of the lesson, David Capoccia begins to explain some archaeological evidence that has to do with the Genesis account of creation.
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you email some people said that they didn’t get it for some reason but it’s a bit of a change of plans today I originally thought we’d be looking at archeology related to Creation the flood and the Patriarchs but there’s a big issue when it comes to archeology and how archaeologists determine how old something is and I plan to talk about that as part of today’s Sunday school but I realize it’s actually going to take the majority of our time it’s important for us to talk about that because as I present to you the dates the archaeologists assign to the different objects we talk about or the different texts you may get a little bit confused because you’ll say wait that that doesn’t line up with the Bible how could it be that date so we need to talk about that if we have a little bit of extra time today we’re also going to be starting talking about archeology related to Creation we’ll examine One Creation account from the Babylonians but last week we were introduced to our study of biblical archeology so let’s review a little what is biblical archeology what is biblical archeology it’s just like regular archeology except it’s related to the events of the Bible specifically it’s the people and times that the Bible describes you don’t have to believe the Bible to be a Biblical archaeologist but if you’re studying the people of Egypt or the Assyrians or the Israelites the Philistines then your biblical archaeologists is biblical archeology science yes Dwayne right everything that’s right so it’s called a science but technically it’s not science it’s not a true science where you can do tests in a lab not that kind of science it’s a historical science also called a forensic science kind of like a crime scene investigator or detective he has to look at the past assemble the clues and try and reconstruct what happened now as a forensic science or historical science on what is biblical archeology heavily dependent well sometimes it’s dependent on scripture if you’re a maximalist yes you will use the scripture but not necessarily assumptions is the is the more basic thing that archeology and biblical archeology is reliant on what you assume to be true you are presuppositions your preconceived ideas they’re going to affect how you interpret what you find they’re going to affect the different objects that you find now some will claim because archaeologists have not found evidence of something spoken about in the Bible then that thing must not have existed and the Bible must be wrong well how do we respond to that if I didn’t find it it doesn’t exist yeah Eric exactly that itself is not proof there’s a wrong assumption there the Assumption it’s not true that just because you haven’t found it it doesn’t exist what might be the explanation well we haven’t found it yet we haven’t found it yeah it’s still out there we just haven’t found it yet and as I said last week that’s happened many times oh there’s no evidence of David there’s no evidence that David have existed uh weighed a little bit and they find evidence for it no evidence of Nebuchadnezzar wait a little bit oh and they find evidence for it yes that’s actually I was about to quote that phrase but that’s a good way to remember it absence of evidence is not evidence of absence just because you haven’t found something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist it might not be found yet or maybe there’s a good reason that we’ll never find it maybe there’s just something about the event that took place that it’s not going to leave evidence behind as I said also last week we don’t know what we don’t know absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence but those who hate the Bible those who don’t believe the Bible they make that error all the time oh I didn’t find it must not have been true moreover as we said last week the Bible does not need proof from various places from archeology for us to believe it why because it’s its own proof it makes sense of the universe it accurately lays out what we know in our hearts what God has placed in our hearts to be true about the world be true about ourselves and to be true about God when God Saves someone he makes the truthfulness of his word obvious it makes it obvious to the person reading it or hearing it so they say oh of course this is true and without God opening someone’s eyes the truthfulness of his Bible no amount of evidence or argument will be able to persuade him the Bible is what reveals and proves God as I told you last week and to sum up just a little bit what I was saying archeology cannot prove or disprove the Bible but it’s not useless how is biblical archeology useful for us I gave you three ways what’s one of them yeah direct confirmation to some of the Bible’s details it biblical archeology does confirm the accuracy of some details of the Bible and that’s not to prove the Bible but that’s to encourage us that’s to encourage our faith you’re saying oh look here’s another thing that does confirm that the flood happened this way or here’s another thing that confirmed that the marriage contract that happened with Abraham is consistent with or the marriage Customs that were showing up with Abraham is consistent with other marriage Customs at the time that encourages us what else can biblical archeology do it can directly confirm details of the Bible it also provides provides context it gives us a greater appreciation of the Bible as something real and the the times and people of the Bible what they actually believed and lived through and makes the world of Bible full of color finally it also provides correction it can protect us from misunderstanding certain people or places or practices in the Bible because we have extra information about them so it provides confirmation correction and context any questions about what we learned last week again thank you younger students for being with us but if you have questions too you can ask them and you can also answer my questions all right let’s start talking about dating I know I’m not talking about boy girl dating but archaeological dating we need to talk about how archaeologists determine the original time period of an object or building that they uncover because we might think we get this impression from the news we might think that dating an object in archeology is really easy just as simple as running a few quick tests okay this object came from 1750 BC actually in reality the process of archeology is a lot more subjective and archaeologists cannot be as confident as they sometimes seem when it comes to the dates of certain objects in fact we’ll also see the timeline that is the the basic framework the outline of history that many biblical archaeologists use to arrange events in history that timeline is wrong the timeline being used by many biblical archaeologists today is wrong they have the wrong framework for putting together historical events how is that the case well we shall see later on in this lesson here’s our full outline we’re going to overview how archaeologists date something how they date something that they find then we’ll talk about the problems that sometimes come up with their dating methods then we’ll identify one specific issue currently plaguing dates in biblical archeology and then finally if we have time we’ll begin looking at some of the archeology related to Creation archeology related to Creation in the Bible let’s pray before we go on we’re gone we thank you that you are true and that we can trust your Bible we can trust the word that you’ve given us above all of man’s theories all of man’s research all of man’s steady thank you for revealing it to us God give me the ability to explain well and help the people to understand so they can be discerning so that they can be edified in Jesus name amen as I said before we begin our survey in Earnest we’ve got to talk about dates for example you’ve seen heard of the great pyramids in Egypt these are the Great Pyramids of Giza when were those built according to archaeologists may not have heard the dates I’ll tell them to you they estimate they based on their research say 2600 to 2500 BC that is 2600 BC to 2500 BC the pyramids must have been built in Egypt but when I tell you those dates if you’ve been in our Sunday school class little red flag should go off in your head you should feel some Discord why right the flood takes place after those dates according to the Bible the flood took place around what time 2 350 BC around that time so the pyramids would have had to have been built according to these archaeologists Before the Flood that can’t be right because the flood would have destroyed the pyramids and this means the periods pyramids would have to be built before the Tower of Babel the separation of the peoples the Egyptians shouldn’t exist by that time it shouldn’t be separate peoples because the Tower of Apple happens around 2240 BC so why do archaeologists assert this date that conflicts with the Bible do they know something we don’t do they have evidence that disproves the Bible or that shows our interpretation is wrong maybe we got the flood wrong maybe maybe it took place much earlier maybe the Bible wasn’t clear about that well again this is why it’s important for us to understand how archaeologists date what they find first of all unlike the pyramids most archaeologists are most archaeological information is found in the ground it’s buried so an archaeologists uncover this information they have to document their discoveries they have to record it according to stratigraphy big word stratigraphy does anybody know what stratigraphy is it has to do with the layers you may notice the word strata you maybe remember that also from our previous Sunday School curriculum stratigraphy is the analysis of soil layers according to the idea that what you find in the ground the soil in the ground is going to appear according to uniform principles okay what does that mean well basically the older section of soil is where is it going to be in the ground yeah further down the older something is the further down it’s going to be and the younger or earlier something is it’s going to be where further up earlier sections are going to be towards the top older section is going to be towards the bottom archaeologists call this the law of superimposition it’s just what happens naturally new things get put on get built on top older things are down below this is the same concept that’s used in geology remember geology study of rocks and soil often has to do with fossils geologists infer they conclude that fossils found further down in the soil are older than fossils and bones found closer to the surface that makes sense same thing with archeology objects or structures found further down in the ground must be older than the structures found further up but this is not always true what might cause an object that’s not very old to appear deeper in the ground than expected yeah Steve it’s possible I suppose that if something’s really heavy and I know the the composition of the soil it might sink a little bit lower than it normally would though that probably is not the I don’t know if that would have the effect all the time have that effect all the time there is a simpler way that young objects early objects might find their way into layers that are actually quite old yeah Craig okay there there could be some change in the ground itself earthquake or volcano some sort of seismic disturbance how else might it get down there yeah Roy okay yeah River flood there there are different definitely ways that climate and shifts in the terrain can change the order of the strata but there’s actually an even simpler way that something might get in the wrong place if somebody digs a hole in the ground and bury something right we’ve all heard of buried treasure this goes against the law of superimposition if someone makes a cut into the strata for whatever reason that dirt or whatever they put is going to be the wrong age conversely what my cut what might cause an object that’s very old to appear in a younger strata to appear in an earlier strata again some of those geological forces that you talked about but again something even simpler could cause that if somebody who actually dug down they say oh look I found something here and they take it and they put it into their own life this is simply the idea of antiques right you’ve got some things in your house that if archaeologists were to do archeology centuries from now and they’re looking trying to date the things in your house and be like this doesn’t fit with the rest this is really old what is it doing up here that’s because we save some things that are really old or we repurpose some things that are really old especially in ancient times there’s no reason to mine out some more stone or some more marble if you can just use what they already had just use that wall again I mean it’s pretty sturdy just use it again so that’s going to mess up stratigraphy a little bit without archaeologists paying attention to it so what they do proper stratigraphy analysis of the layers requires that you separate everything you find into sections into sections of soil which they call contexts I know that’s not the most helpful term because we talk about context in a different way in this class but they separate what they their little dig site into sections of soil called contexts and you see that actually in this picture here you see various layers there and they’re all numbered when an archaeologist has to do is as he digs search for any signs that the layers were Disturbed that they were changed were there Cuts made into certain layers were deposits made on top of certain layers and then before he dates any of the objects within those layers it has to analyze and Define the relationship of the contexts the sections of soil in time how do they relate to one another he might say well one or I don’t know if you can all see the numbers up there but he’ll look at the various pieces of soil and say all right this one came before this one and this one came before that one this one came before that one it has to arrange them all into a timeline once that’s done then you can start to determine how the objects how old specifically the objects and structures within those pieces within those sections of soil are but how does he determine a specific date well archaeologists use two main types of dating two methodologies of dating and they usually use them both together they they want to be as accurate as possible so they’ll use a number of dating methods but the two main types are relative dating and absolute dating I already mention that they look at the various contexts relative dating and absolute dating well what are what do those mean I’ll tell you relative dating is the analysis of a particular object in light of the general body of archaeological knowledge you analyze a particular object by comparing it to all the archaeological data all the archaeological information that we already have about that kind of object an archaeologist takes an object he’s found and he asks hmm have we ever found an object that looked like this before and when we did did we ever uncover any clues as to when in time this object was used or not used let me illustrate this with a theoretical example let’s say an archaeologist on a dig finds a sword with a unique shape if he wants to date The Sword if he wants to figure out when it how old it is he looks to see if any other digs have found similar swords alongside alongside some sort of time clue see if they’ve ever found swords like this before and if there were Clues as to when that sword was used well he does this and it turns out there were two other such swords in the archaeological record one was buried with a stone inscription that was commissioned by a certain pharaoh who we infer due to other time Clues and other cross references this Pharaoh reigned between 1 and 950 BC that’s cross-reference number one for this sword the other cross-reference the other sword was buried with a monument commemorating a momentous battle between the Egyptians and the Babylonians when did that battle take place again look for more time Clues look at cross references and you get a consensus that the battle took place around 900 BC okay so from these two cross references these two other swords how will the archaeologist archaeologists date his new archaeological find if he’s using relative dating between 1 and 1.
between a thousand and nine hundred because that’s where the other swords were dated right this is what relative dating is you take an object and you compare it to the other information you have about that kind of object this is a logical inference this is not this is not crazy this makes sense and the more data you have the more the more swords you say that you found or the more time Clues you found next to those swords the more precise and more accurate your relative dating of any object will be more information you have the better your relative dating you may notice however this method is very reliant on Cross referencing you have to cross-reference your cross-reference with other cross references Define the answer you’re looking for what if there’s a source that many archaeologists have been using as a cross-reference that turnouts to be inaccurate if that First Source is flawed then the objects dated with that First Source are going to be dated inaccurately and the objects dated with those dated objects they’re going to be inaccurate too and so on what you get is a chain reaction of false information a whole system of dates and ages can come crashing down if an important dating Source turns out to be false or misinterpreted why do I bring that up I’ll tell you a little bit later but that’s relative dating archaeologists are aware of some of the issues with relative dating which is why they’re very excited about the second kind of dating absolute dating what is absolute dating absolute dating is the use of some physical property of an object to determine its age probably the most famous form of absolute dating is radiocarbon dating also known as carbon dating developed by Willard Libby in the late 1940s this method you may know it uses the natural breakdown of one kind of carbon atom c14 into another kind of carbon atom C12 to figure out how long ago an object that has carbon some sort of living thing figure out how long ago it died you can find out the age of a tree for instance using carbon dating just look at how the carbon atoms change one to another there are many other kinds of absolute dating and I’ll just throw out some terms to you so you get a sense of this dendrochronology thermoluminescence dating Optical dating potassium archon dating archaeomagnetic dating lead corrosion dating amino acid dating obsidian hydration dating rehydroxylation dating and probably more the great thing the exciting thing for researchers using this kind of dating is that you can use these methods to date almost anything and you don’t need a great amount of archaeological data to compare it to you can just find that one thing if there’s nothing like it so what use your absolute dating but there’s a problem with absolute dating as we’ve noted before all of these methods all these types of absolute dating that use the physical properties of an object they all must make one basic assumption to work that assumption must be true and what is that assumption yes Dwayne yeah uniformitarianism or to say that more plainly the things that we observe today especially the rate of change let’s say the rate of carbon changing from one form to another that has been constant over time all the rates have been constant nothing has Disturbed that rate that is a very important assumption with all these methods but it’s not necessarily true as even the uniformitarian scientists admit carbon dating as I said last week it must be calibrated you have to adjust it a little bit to account for variables that have that will affect the reading but which variables do you account for and how do you account for them things like was there water nearby how long ago was this did fossil fuels in the air interfere with the exchange of carbon or if it was really recently what about nuclear testing that will also affect carbon dating additionally and you may have heard of this before you may have not carbon dating often gives several readings that are not close to one another when you carbonate an object or if you do any of these types of absolute dating you’ll get several readings one test result for an object say using carbon dating might give you 10 million years another result may say it’s 1 million years old and another result we’ll say 40 000 years old how do you know which one is correct well this is where we discover that absolute dating is not absolute at all in light of the different dates these different results a scientist or archaeologist will often eliminate results that he does not think could be correct that is the scientist or the researcher or the archaeologist he already has an idea in his mind as to what kind of date he’s looking for so he disregards results that are too far removed from that expectation in other words absolute dating is very subjective it’s very subjective how an archaeologist interprets the results will greatly affect the resultant dates of the objects he analyzes now this doesn’t mean you can’t use absolute dating at all that’s that’s totally useless even creationists even people who believe the Bible sometimes make arguments based off of absolute dating carbon dating but it does mean as I’ve emphasized that your assumptions are key your assumptions are key especially if you believe the Bible is not true that’s going to really affect the dates you come up with so what are these issues in relative and absolute dating have to do with the Bible well as I said right now biblical archeology is greatly hampered by the use of a flawed timeline a flawed timeline and support for this timeline all goes back to one guy manatho who’s moneto wow we don’t know too much about him in fact we don’t even have the original documents that he wrote but we do get a little bit of information about him from other writers other ancient authors because he wrote an important work monatho wrote a history of Egypt people like Josephus you may have heard of him first century Jewish historian sexist Julius Africanus a third century Christian historian and eusebius of caesarea 4th century Christian historian they all mentioned moneto and they include fragments of his writing in their own Works maneitha was apparently an Egyptian historian and priest who lived in the third Century BC so that would be um about 300 to 200 BC and he wrote a list he wrote a history that included a list of Egypt’s ruling dynasties what’s a dynasty yeah Dwayne that’s right dynasties we think of as like ruling houses um one king his descendants that come after him they’d be part of the same Dynasty we actually get that idea partly from Minato that that dynasty concept really comes from him so he’s writing these dynasties of Egypt and as it and he records them in a work called the history of Egypt I want to read two excerpts from this work with you the first excerpt comes from eusebius’s version of monathos History here’s what it says from the Egyptian history of Minato who composed his account in three books these deal with the gods of the demigods the spirits of the dead and the Mortal Kings who ruled Egypt down to Darius King of the Persians hey we’ve heard of him before the first man or God in Egypt is Hephaestus who is also renowned among the Egyptians as the discoverer of fire his son Helios the sun was succeeded by sosus then follow in turn Kronos Osiris Typhon brother of Osiris and last theorus son of Osiris and Isis these are the first to hold sway in Egypt thereafter the kingship passed from one to another and on unbroken succession down to bidis through 13 900 years the year I take however to be a lunar one consisting that is of 30 days what we now call a month the Egyptians use formally to style a year okay let’s break this down a little bit according to eusebius who’s recording what monatha wrote who were the first rulers in Egypt what kind of beings Gods right the gods you may notice names like Osiris and Isis those are names of Egyptian gods these Gods supposedly rule for 13 900 years but eusebius doesn’t see how that could possibly be true so he offers an explanation that’s way too long what’s his explanation for such a large number hey what’s that that’s right he says their year is really just months that must be what it is actually there’s no evidence of that but eusebius is trying to figure out how they could get such a big number now today’s archaeologists are not going to take this part of the list too seriously don’t believe that God’s really ruled Egypt and they don’t necessarily believe that they’ve lived for that they Reign for 13 900 years but let’s look at another section of the document this section describes those who came after the Gods those who ruled after the gods now this excerpt comes from Africanus sorry the writing’s a little bit smaller but hopefully you can still see it in succession to the spirits of the Dead the demigods their first Royal house numbers eight Kings the first of whom was the first of whom Menace of this reigned for 62 years he was carried off by hippopotamus and perished ethosis his son for 57 years he built the palace at Memphis and his anatomical works are extant for he was a physician his son for 31 years his son for 23 years in his Reign a Great Famine sees Egypt he erected the pure pyramids near kokome with the Fidos his son for 20 years Mi bidos his son for 26 years semepsis his son for 18 years and his reign of very great Calamity befell Egypt benicus his son for 26 years total 253 years foreign this sounds a lot more believable doesn’t it what aspects of this text make it sound historical yeah specific years right specific years of these rains what else yeah Steve okay right we do see some things that coincide with the Bible what were you what were you looking at right okay yeah Great Famine great Calamity does this line up with what we’ve seen in other sources namely the Bible what else might make this seem more believable okay if we do see some of these names and other sources then that would make it sound more believable and one particular name we do Menace he is actually quoted in other Egyptian sources as being the first ruler in Egypt we have specific names we have specific years we also get some specific details about these rulers on the sudden so and so was a did great work in anatomy or so-and-so was killed by a hippopotamus why would you include that if that wasn’t historical that gives a little bit more reality to what you’re talking about foreign ‘s history the rest of his lists goes through the other dynasties of Egypt and talks about how many years each one of them reigned now as I said we only have fragments of his work today and there are discrepancies between the fragments in terms of the number of years nonetheless moneto he wrote a comprehensive list of Egypt’s rulers of the dynasties and this work provided a framework for the egyptologists that’s the archaeologists who study Egypt it required a framework to recreate the history of Egypt you can organize it according to the dynasties of Monaco and this is what they did using monathos history and interpreting it as a consecutive chronology that is one Dynasty came right after the dynasty that came before Etc there’s no overlapping by using this history and comparing it to a few other on or uncovered sources they created a timeline that is still used today for Egypt why does this matter because once Egypt’s timeline was created using relative dating other Middle Eastern events were dated because Egypt frequently interacted with its neighbors including Israel what results is a timeline that contradicts the Bible and it cast out on the Bible’s historicity Egypt is founded as we said before the tower battle takes place the pyramids are built before the flood The Exodus according to the current timeline is supposed to have taken place in 1290 BC under the reign of Ramses the great but this is more than 150 years off of what the Bible presents it’s no wonder that many archaeologists in Egypt can’t find evidence of a mass Exodus of Hebrew slaves during Ramsay’s reign because they didn’t leave during his reign but according to the timeline they did where’s the evidence and it’s not just the Bible’s chronology that the current archaeological timeline contradicts as more archaeological discoveries have been made regarding the hittite and the Assyrian Empires we discovered that the timeline does not match up with what we get in other histories for example according to the current system of dates for Egypt the hittite Empire which was based in Turkey had already been annihilated by 1180 BC 1180 BC the Hittites were destroyed Ramses III celebrated victory over a certain group of sea people and he mentions happens to mention that the sea people had already completely destroyed the Hittites so we date that to 1180 BC but there’s a problem because Assyrian documents other documents historical documents from the Assyrians have the Assyrians fighting with the Hittites in the 8th and 9th centuries BC between 800 and 700 or not yeah 800 to 700 the Hittites are supposed to be fighting against the Assyrians but how’s that possible when the Egyptians or according to our Egyptian timeline they’ve already been destroyed moreover the same King’s names are mentioned in the Assyrian documents as in the Egyptian ones the same Kings of the Hittites and other rulers but the Assyrian documents are supposed to be taking place much later so we have a conflict these two timelines don’t match up who’s right the Assyrian timeline does line up well with well-established dates like Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem the Egyptian timeline has a number of problems it can’t line up well with the historical details presented by other nations histories the conclusion then is that the traditional Egyptian chronology is wrong it’s inaccurate it’s a bad framework and even some some secular archaeologists have acknowledged this one of them called the current chronology a quote gigantic academic blunder unquote and another said quote the only real solution to the archaeological problems which have been created is to pull down the whole structure and start again reconstructing from the foundation upwards unquote will they do this will archaeologists create a new framework well there’s a lot of reluctance I think with the phrase too big to fail because there are so many cross-references that have already been made using Egypt’s timeline though many good alternative timelines for Egypt and the Middle East have been proposed it appears that the archaeological Community as a whole will not budge from the system that they’ve already created they won’t be adopting a new timeline anytime soon they’d rather be are there content with little spot fixes if you look at the Hittites on Wikipedia for instance you’ll read that the hittite empire did indeed go extinct around 1180 BC but then smaller neo-hit type kingdoms rose up after them and those are the ones that the Assyrians dealt with so they have their explanation much better solution is to interpret monathos history differently and make sure that the true timeline makes sense of historical records not just in Egypt but elsewhere especially the Bible you can find more information about this conflict between the traditional Egyptian chronology and the Bible’s chronology and answers in genesis.org two articles there that talk about does Egyptian chronology disprove the Bible what’s the bottom line for us the bottom line for you how should we react to the dates proposed by archaeologists related to Egypt and the Middle East we need to remember the subjective nature of these dating distinctions even the most absolute dating methods are subject to assumption and interpretation we need to also mentally transfer the dates that we hear from archaeologists to a date that fits with the Bible we know that they’re operating according to a timeline that’s flawed so when they say something like Egypt was founded in 3000 BC we just transfer that in our minds no not 3 000 around 2100 BC you say the great parents were built in 2600 no not 2600.
that can’t be the pyramids must have built sometime after the Babylon the flood probably between 2000 and 1700 BC so I wanted to get that clear before we examine the specific archaeological piece of evidence question so far okay I think you’re tracking with me change gears as they say let’s actually begin talking about some of the archaeological evidence related to the first events of the Bible this week this week and next week we’re going to look at excerpts from a number of ancient texts that have to do with creation the flood and the confusion of languages at Babel because we do hear about those things even from other sources than the Bible we start with creation let’s actually reread part of the Bible’s creation account so open your Bibles of Genesis Genesis chapter one we’re going to read verses one to eight and then jump down to verses 26 to 31 and then verses one to three in chapter two we hear about the beginning of creation the creation and the creation of man this is going to be helpful for comparison first one in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth the Earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters then God said let there be light and there was light God saw it the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness God called the light day in the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning one day then God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the water Waters from the waters God made the expanse and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse and it was so God called the expanse heaven and there was evening and there was morning a second day skip down to verse 26.
then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the Earth God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them God bless them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the Earth and God said behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the Earth and every tree which has fruit yielding seed it shall be food for you and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and everything that moves on the earth which has life I have given every green plant for food and it was so God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day thus the heavens and the Earth were completed and all their hosts by the seventh day God completed his work which he had done and rested on the seventh day from his work which he had done and God blessed the seventh day and Sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made okay we’re familiar with this creation account this true creation account but there are other creation accounts from Israel’s neighbors from other ancient cultures we’ve heard of some of those I think before I don’t know if we talked about creation accounts in our answers Bible curriculum but we did talk about flood accounts but let’s hear one of the creation accounts from Israel’s neighbors in Babylonia not so much for direct confirmation of the Bible but for context this account is called the enuma Elish the Babylonian creation myth this story was discovered on seven clay tablets in 1849 as part of the library of asherbanapal in Nineveh which would be modern-day mosul in Iraq archaeologists date these tablets they date their writing from the 7th Century BC though they conjecture the original story was written sometime in the 18th to 16th centuries BC which would be before the first books of the Bible were written now it would take too long to read the whole thing so let’s let me just give you a few excerpts first an excerpt from the beginning these are the first nine lines of the enuma Elish when in the height heaven was not named and the Earth beneath did not not yet bear a name and the Primeval apsu who begat them and Chaos Tiamat the mother of them both their Waters were mingled together and no field was formed no Marsh was to be seen one of the Gods none had been called into being and none bore name and no Destinies were ordained then were created the Gods in the midst of Heaven stop right there do we see any similarities to the biblical account yeah Eric what do you mean okay we certainly do have water at the beginning which we also see similarly at the beginning of the creation account here we see mingling of the waters probably salt and fresh water mingling together we do see that any other similarities to the Bible yeah go ahead I understand okay the Earth is beneath the heaven um we do have Heaven and Earth I don’t think we have the expanse quite yet here certainly in Genesis we have the expanse very quickly but Heaven and Earth are present at the beginning of the of the Genesis account that is they are created verse one in the beginning God created heaven and the Earth but here we don’t hear about the creation of the heavens other than that they were begotten from appsu or it says in line three and it probably will absolute who begat them having a nurse so he somehow did something with Heaven and Earth we also see that the Earth and Heaven are formless they’re not completely done which is similar to the Bible because God says in in the beginning the Earth was formless and void but uh what are some differences we’ve already mentioned one or two of them there’s some differences between this and the Bible yeah I did yeah we don’t start out with one God we start out with two gods apsu and time at and then there’s gonna be more what Roy we’ll get a better sense of that thanks for that comment we’ll get a better sense of that as we look at more of the account but here we don’t quite see the the historical tone the logic of sequential events that we see in Genesis 1 a little bit more poetic here a little bit more mythological sounding uh we have as we’ve said in terms of differences Heaven and Earth are said to be born from apsu or maybe time at absu and timing are the first existence there are many gods and what’s the first creative act according to this account not light but the gods right line nine then we’re created the Gods in the midst of Heaven Earth and Heaven were begat by this primeval pair but the first creative act is the gods the gods come forward after the gods are brought forth to fill you in on some of the the next events in the new malish this first set of gods Bears God’s children time at who’s apparently some sort of she Dragon she becomes angry with these new Gods these younger gods they did something that really upset her so she decides that she’s going to destroy them all the younger Gods get word of this plan and they appoint Marduk the storm God and the patron deity of Babylon they appoint Marduk to fight on their behalf against timeat armed with several weapons and the powers of various Gods mardak armarduk fights time at and kills her here’s another excerpt from Tablet 3 that describes what happens after he’s slays this godmother then the Lord Marduk rested gazing upon her dead body while he divided the Flesh and devised a cunning plant he split her up like a flat fish into two halves one half of her he established as a covering for heaven he fixed the bolt he stationed a Watchman and made them not to let her Waters come forth he passed through the heavens he surveyed the regions thereof and over against the deep it swept the dwelling of new dimud god of the ocean okay we’ll pause there and do a little bit of analysis what’s similar to the biblical account here are there any similarities yeah no can I say that again okay right we do see a limitation right the limitation of two sets of water we’ve got no D mood and the oceans but we’ve also got the waters being Limited in the sky we even specifically see a division taking place out of time its body and one of the results in heaven and we don’t see it here but the other results in Earth so we do see a splitting of waters and we do see a limiting of that what else do we see that’s similar or is there anything else yeah Roy that’s right he rests for a moment after his great Victory but then he starts working again and he decides to slice her up so what’s different here what’s different from here in the biblical account as I already mentioned we have the formation of or the completion of Heaven and Earth with time its body what else you may notice that this is a kind of gruesome form of creation I didn’t show you the previous line but it talks about bashing in her skull it’s a little different than the biblical account it’s a very violent sort of creation the creation is also not ex nihilo that is it’s not out of nothing but out of what out of the Dead Sea Dragon out of a vengeful goddess the heavens and earth are made time at the battery time at’s body becomes several parts of the creation her other half is made into Earth one half is made into the heavens her weeping eyes become the type the source of the Tigers and the Euphrates her tail becomes the Milky Way and Marduk is the one bringing all this to past he also orders the stars and the moons and he makes sure that they all move properly to make the seasons correct martyr cause causes the vegetation to grow but then the other gods start to complain what is it that they’re complaining about well that’s the last section I want to show you tablet six we hear about how mardic responds to their complaints when Marta heard the word of the Gods his heart prompted him and he devised a cunning plan he opened his mouth and unto EA the water God he spake that which he had conceived in his heart he imparted unto him my blood will I take and bone will I fashion I will make man that man made something I will create man who shall inhabit the Earth that the service of the Gods may be established and that their shrines may be built okay so this excerpt described the creation of man how does Marduk create man yeah he uses his flesh and blood or at least that’s what he says he’s going to do he’s going to use his own Blood and Bone to Fashion man now other sources for the Babylonian creation account say he actually didn’t use his own there was another God that was still kind of rebelling and Marta kills him and uses that God’s Flesh and Blood to make man or his bone and blood but God doesn’t do that and the Bible we know that God forms man from the Dust and breathes his Spirit into him and he Fashions woman from man’s bone for what purpose does maduke make man to serve the gods to do their necessary service and to build the shrines that’s what the gods were complaining about marduki done a great job with the heavens and the grass but we need people to worship us we need shrines we need we need service don’t worry guys I got it covered I’ll make man and that’s what he does that should stop the gods complaining so we’ve heard a couple of excerpts from the enuma Elish we know a little bit about the works background but pulling this together let’s see if we can answer this question what is the purpose of writing this text the enuma leash why was it written yeah believe yeah so this has a lot to do with the gods are specifically one God right because the hero of this story is Marduk yes there is some explanation of Origins but as many scholars have noted that’s not really the point of this account it’s really all about Marduk it’s really about all about how he’s Supreme and how he deserves worship and if Marduk deserves your reverence and obedience then what else does because mardic is the patron deity of Babylon the city of Babylon so the ruler of Babylon is connected with Marduk so if Marduk is supreme then maduk city is supreme and the king or ruler of that city is supreme it’s all about getting the people to follow the leader of Babylon and to follow his God it’s worthwhile to note that Marduk was not always the chief of the Gods in the Mesopotamian Pantheon it used to be the god of another city but when that City lost its power suddenly Babylon becomes powerful it becomes feared and so therefore does its God and we need to justify to justify people following Babylon so let’s insert Marduk as the chief God and that’s what they did so we’re seeing some parallels between a few parallels between this account and what the Bible says but we also see some pretty dramatic differences but this was the context of Israel’s neighbors this is what people were teaching and believing around Israel we’ll hear more next week about other texts and other archaeological information related to Creation the flood and Babel and we’ll also hear and respond to this skeptical charge that the writers of the Bible they borrowed they borrowed the creation myth the flood Mist the confusion of languages myth they borrowed that from the Babylonians or the Egyptians and they just tweaked it to serve their own needs could that really be the case we’ll answer that question next week but that’s all for today any questions or comments before we end all right let’s pray Lord God thank you that you are not like the gods of the Nations lord it’s something that you record in your scriptures many times but there really are not other gods but even Lord in their fantasies God these these gods are horrible they’re vengeful they are Petty they are not self-sufficient they’re like humans God we thank you that you are that there is no one like you and that you have all power you are not simply the storm God but you control the whole universe and Lord we thank you that you have revealed yourself to us we thank you that you have revealed yourself in history I think that you’ve called out for yourself with people and that you’ve grafted us into that people thank you for your generosity thank you for your compassion thank you for your greatness Lord you are Supreme Lord we thank you that that you have a cause us to come to know you bless the rest of this worship service today in Jesus name amen