Ok. Now it's time for a perfect example of what can happen in a world with great literature - and no copyright law.
While you may have never read, nor even heard about Sumer, Akkad, Gilgamesh, Enkidu, Enlil, Ziusudra (or Zi-ud-sura), Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, et al, I'm just gonna throw some things out here, and see if any of it rings a bell.
I sent forth a Raven and released it.
The Raven went off, and saw the water slither back
it eats, it scratches, it bobs but does not circle back to me.
So on the seventh day he loosed a single Raven,
which flew around and found a place to land so it returned not.
I then released a Raven, to soar in search of land.
The bird took flight above the more shallow seas
found food, and found release, and found no need to fly back to me.
Sound vaguely familiar?
Check this out.
And he sent forth a Raven, which went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Genesis 8:7 KJV
... and sent out a Raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.
NRSV Genesis 8:7
I bet you recognize it now!
It's Noah and the Ark. Right?
Well no, it's not.
It's Utnapishtim and the Flood, damn near word for word (depending a little on the translation), and it predates, by a considerable margin, anything in The Book, the earliest actual copies of which, the Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls, date between 150 BCE to 70 CE.
For comparison:
We have a hard copy of Ziusudra (on a baked clay tablet, talk about "hard copy!") dated to ∼1,800 BCE, or 500 - 600 years before the generally accepted dates for Moses "receiving" The Law.
We have Atrahasis in hard copy (ditto), dated to ∼1,646-26 BCE. Or between 300 - 400 years before the generally accepted dates for Moses.
And we have a copy, by the Scribe Sin-lige-unninni, dating to 1,300 - 1,000 BCE.
aka Circa Moses.
And what with the modern consensus being that the hebrews didn't begin the active recording, compilation, and editing (redaction is such a... harsh word), of their "history and law" (The Tanakh / Torah), until either during, or shortly after, the Babylonian captivity, (betwixt and between 586 to 536, and possibly even later, BCE), or, in other words, a period of time during which they would absolutely have been exposed to Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian mythology, well, you know, I don't want to be casting aspersions here, but, it being included, (damn near word for word), in the Tanakh seems, well, just a might maybe, convenient? can I say? It just makes me a little teeny bit suspicious that the hebrews might have picked the story up during the Babylonian "captivity", 586 - 537 BCE, and thought it would make a nice addition to Genesis!
"But I'm no scholar, so I could be wrong."
"That's true."
"But fortunately for me, I have an advantage over the scholars."
"Say What?!"
"Yup. I have a way to check it out!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"How!?"
"Why, the wabac* machine, as a matter of fact! *(it's pronounced "way back".)
So, that being said, let us begin our journey in time.
We'll go back, back, back! Way Back! (You know... I think I left Sherman and Mr Peabody in Ancient Sumer during an earlier post. Keep an eye out for them while we're here, cause lord only knows what might have happened! We might need to rescue them!)
("Just turn that big dial counterclockwise if you would, please.")
("Is this far enough?")
("No! Back! Back further! Further!")
("Here?")
"Yes! That's it! All the way back to the (now) Persian Empire, during the reign of Cyrus the Great. A time when men were men, women were women, and the sheep were... sheep! A time when everyones hair was perfect, beards were square, and all was right with the world."
(Start the flashing lights, whirring noises, sense of vertigo, and end with a big bang!)
"Where are we now?"
We find ourselves wandering through the Great Bazaar, in The Square of the King, in the Great Walled City of Anshan, in Beautiful Sunny Persia. (or Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Persia, Iraq. The name changes, but the land remains the same.)
It's a nice sunny afternoon in early April, (before the heat sets in), 536 BCE, and we just happen to overhear the conversation of a young married couple.
And who could they be?
Let's move a little closer and find out.
Well I'll be hornswoggled! It's Mo (Moses) Ahkenahtenstein, and his lovely wife Zippy. They're out enjoying a rare day off together. As a matter of fact, today they're engaged in a little shopping spree. You see, they've managed to get a little bit set aside, (Mo has been working as a shepherd for several years, but he dreams of being a writer), and they're thinking about taking King Cyrus up on his offer of free relocation/return to Jerusalem Lane, in Promised Land Estates! (Where Great-great-great Gramma and Grampa lived! (Back before the revolt). You know, the revolt where that mean old King Nebuchadnezzar came down and hauled them all off to Babylon as a punishment?)
Hey! It looks like Zippy has found something interesting in the bargain cuneiform tablet section of Crazy Akmed's Discount Clay Tablet Center! Let's listen in!
"Oh Mo! Moses! Yoo hoo! Sweetie! Come over here! Look! Just look at this adorable little cuneiform tablet! Just look! Look here! See! Read it! See? Wouldn't this make just the loveliest addition to your Genesis story? What Genesis story? Oh Mo, don't be silly! You know perfectly well! That little history of the world, our people, and god thingy you're working on? Just think about it! If we put this little Utnapishtim thingy in between The Creation and the Tower of Babel, (now Mo honey... Don't you make that face at me! Now Mo, sweetie, you know as well as I do that the story just doesn't have any flow through that section at all! You know it doesn't!), it needs something there, and I just know that this will give the story that certain something! You know I'm right, don't you Mo sweetie?! I'm certain it's what you've been looking for! Do let's take it with us! Please!"
So they took it back to Israel, (or was it Judah?).
No, that's not right. Mo and company ended up wandering in the sinai for forty years. (Moses can't read a map? Who knew!) Anyway, you can guess what happened, good old Mo ended up including that little old Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian/Persian story in his magnum opus, the Pentateuch. The very pentateuch that would, eventually, become an important part of the worlds best selling book ever! And I bet you that they have never, to this day, paid shekel one in royalties to the Sumerians/Akkadians/Babylonians/Persians, or to their heirs or assigns! (I wonder... If someone could prove direct descent from Mo, would they be eligible for royalties?
Or, what if someone could prove direct descent from the scribe Sin-Lige-Unninni, could they sue Israel?
Either way, what with interest and compounding and who knows what all, whoever won, they'd be richer than Bill Gates! (I was going to say Croesus, but I thought that would be too obscure.)
I can hear the lawyer for the prosecution now, "So they were carried off and held 'captive' in Babylon, wah, wah, wah. That's no excuse for theft! Anyway if the Israelites had simply learned how to get along with others, instead of revolting every time some foreign invad... um, ruler, tried to put up some little tiny statue somewhere, the invading Empires would stop burning down the city, knocking down the Temple, and dragging them off into slavery!"
"Objection! Prejudicial and irrelevant!"
"Prejudicial and irrelevant? Your Honor, remember how in Exodus the defendant(s) stole everything they could lay their hands on just before they were deported from Egypt as non-desirables? You know, just before Pharaoh kicked them out of Egypt? Does Your Honor detect a pattern here? I believe that indicates a continuing pattern of behavior which is relevant to the plaintiff's allegations!"
"Objection denied!"
Of course I could be casting aspersions on the wrong people historically, since it's also possible they could have borrowed the story earlier in their history, much earlier say, like, what if the ancestral Ibri had some contact with either the Sumerians or the Akkadians, way back when. Yeah. It could have been way, way, back there. Say, pre-Patriarchs. Long before they even became hebrews and wandered off down Egypt way. (If they actually did. The Egyptian Period is deeply problematic historically.) So that would be pre-mosaic.
Not that it makes any real difference, since it will work just fine either way!
So anyway, whoever is responsible, there it is, in The Book.
And now, back to the present!
So there it is. In black and white. "Ziudsura/Atrahasis/Utnapishtim and the Flood" simply renamed "The story of Noah and the Ark". Ha!
Anyway, whoever was responsible, pre-patriarchal or post prophetical, do they credit their source? No sir! They just pretend like it was whoever's idea all along! Like no one was ever gonna check. Jeez! There they were, all those Prophets yammering away, big G this, and big G that, this future, and that future, blah, blah, blah, for centuries! And NOT ONE of them foresaw the internet? Second raters, everyone of them. And as for not crediting? You try doing that on one little term paper and see where it gets you. (It was an honest mistake! One teensy little oversight when I was typing. Jeez! Miss just a couple of little tiny quotation marks here and there, forget a reference or two in in the bibliography.... I mean anyone could make a mistake like that! But would they listen? Oh No.... Academic probation, letters in "The File", the phone call home. What a nightmare.)
Still I have to wonder what else they might have taken back to "the promised land" after their captivity. There's quite a few things I can imagine they took with them, but there's one thing, sadly, that I know they didn't take. And I have to say, from a 21st century perspective, that it's too bad they didn't. But just imagine they had. Just imagine "what if ?" What if, when they were returned to "their" promised land, they had taken Cyrus' the Greats philosophy of religious and cultural tolerance along for the ride. Just imagine what the world might be like today....
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