- For my own amusement purposes and to save screen space, I almost always refer to the deity as "G". It's my personal shorthand and is to be read as "Big G".
So, I was talking about the story of Raven and Noah a while back. Semi sorta examining the original source material for the biblical version of the story, which, it turns out, was lifted pretty much intact from one or more of the following:
A: The Sumerian Creation Epic, Zi-Ud-Sura and the Flood.
Found on an original clay tablet, dating to around 1,800 BCE
B: The Atrahasis Flood Story.
Again on clay tablets, dating 1,646 - 1,626 BCE
Versions A and/or B would likely be the source material (Urtext is such a pretentious word), that the ancestral Ibri would have brought along if they wandered down out of mesopotamia and into what was to become the promised land, sometime after 1,800 to 1,600 BCE. (And possibly as early as 2,000 BCE.)
Then there's
C: Utnapishtim and the Flood original version, or:
D: Utnapishtim and the Flood as related in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Scribal identification dating it to between 1,300 - 1,000 BCE
C and/or D would be the version(s) that the hebrews would have been exposed to during the babylonian captivity, and therefore would most likely have brought back with them on their return to the promised land after Cyrus the Great repatriated them.
C and D make a lot of sense to me, as the generally accepted time period for the beginning of the assembly of the Torah/Tanakh is either during, or shortly after, the Babylonian captivity.
Now, sometimes when I'm bored and can't think of anything better to do, I will log in to aig (answers in genesis) just for the entertainment value, and to see what preposterous nonsense they're advancing today. (It usually induces feelings of amusement, outrage, intense disbelief, and despair. It's quite bracing, but I don't recommend it in large doses.) And a while back I came across a lovely paper analyzing whether the Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian stories actually were the source material for the story of Noah and the Flood in the book.
As aig is dedicated to advancing the belief that the book is the inerrant, revealed, word of G himself, you can guess which side the paper comes down on. There are lovely graphs, language analysis, charts, tables, etc etc etc. It looks really impressive, and the author comes to the conclusion that the fragments and clay tablets found are "not reliable". In what way they are "unreliable" I never could figure out. They're just, "unreliable". Which, of course, they would be, being that they are merely actual hard copies, dating between 1,800 to 1,000 BCE. Whereas the earliest extant copies we have of any of the old testament, date between 150 BCE to 70CE and are commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. (There is a tradition that the Torah actually dates to 2,000 years before creation itself. Though what possible meaning can be ascribed to the concept of "2,000 years prior" to the beginning of everything, including, but not limited to, day and night, wet and dry, light and dark, here and there, existent and non-existent, is beyond the limited ability of my mind to grasp.)
Hmmm. Oh me of little faith.
But that's enough mind bending for the moment, now it's time for the Big Question...
Why didn’t Raven come back to the Ark, and tell Noah the scoop?
When I was in Sunday School, a thousand years ago when belief was mandatory, (Under pain of, at the very least, verbal humiliation, and/or possible corporal punishment), I was told that Raven was being disobedient (which is a sin) by not returning to the Ark.
But, looking no longer with the eyes of a child, nor thinking as a child. And with, I’m not the least sorry to say, an ever increasing distrust of received “wisdom.” I must now ask, was Raven disobedient?
or... Smart!
Let us carefully examine the situation as presented.
According to the book, Noah didn’t specifically ask Raven to return, and hey, if you could finally fly outside, breathing fresh, clean, air, would you want to return to the Ark? I mean think about it, you’ve been locked up tight, in this huge fricken boat, packed cheek by jowl with one pair each of most birds and beasties, and seven pair each of certain privileged critters, with no plumbing (and there’s not word one in the book about G turning shitting off for the duration - He’s G fer crissakes, he could do it if he wanted to) and no ventilation, for at least one hundred and fifty, and possibly well over three hundred days ! I mean seriously, can you imagine the smell?
Now, regarding the duration of the trip - the book is rather vague regarding how all the various and sundry stated elapsed times are to be dealt with, which may be why it took Bishop Usher for freakin ever to figure out that the Deity most likely created dry land on or about October 25th, 4004 BC, probably in the afternoon - about tea time perhaps? after all, G is an Englishman - and even that date is founded on more than a little guesswork, and what I consider to be an unwarranted number of questionable assumptions. So, I can read it as one hundred fifty days total, if Moses is just being repetitious (Moses? Repetitious?) or well over three hundred days, if I’m supposed to sum all the elapsed times given. There are months and days given, but I presume they’re months and days in the Pre Babylonian Exile, Hebrew Lunar Calendar, though I suppose they could be from some ancient Sumerian calendar, but trying to figure it out gives me a headache.
I’m certain someone has figured it out, but I have better things to do with my time. Like laundry. You want to know, you Google it.
Anyway - Back to the smell issue.
Imagine you are Raven; you have finally been set free from this huge, stinking, boat, (made of gopher wood!) that you’ve been locked up in for the better part of a year. A boat which is packed to the gunnels with all these eating and pooping animals. A boat with no ventilation, no plumbing, and no anti-motion sickness pills!!! Elephantses, cattles, wildebeestses, duckses, geeses, doveses, asses, horses, giraffeses, and so on, with at least two of everything! Even piggies!
(Why in the world did God say “save the pigs”?)
That is a lot of shit.
I’ll tell you something, I spent several years of my early youth in farm country, and a year in my early twenties caring for livestock. I’ve slopped hogs, I’ve milked goats, I’ve forked silage, I’ve shoveled shit, I’ve experienced the piquant olfactory ambience that can only be found downwind of a freshly manured field on a warm spring day. I’ve been downwind of a hog farm in Nebraska on a hot summer night (now that’s a smell that will stick with you for a long time, Eau de’ Squashed Skunk is Attar of Rose by comparison).
Or, for you urban types, imagine the smell of well ripened garbage, after it’s been fermenting on the sidewalks of a major city, during a mid-summer garbage strike for, oh, three or four weeks at 100+ degrees and 100% humidity.
Eeewwwwwwww!!!!!
So what would you do?
I guarantee, you'd do just like Raven, and Haul Ass out'a Dodge!
Nope. Raven wasn’t disobedient,
Raven was smart !
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