All right, we have a question about the ancient flood tales. And this brother wrote here, he said, " There are stories that predate the Bible by centuries that tell the exact same story with very minor differences in detail about the flood.
For example, the Sumerian texts and the Atrahasis both describe an almost identical flood story with one man hearing from God in preparation for a flood that would wipe out mankind and animals entering the ark two by two, the flood lasting seven days, etc., doves being released to see if the flood was over. I want to believe in the validity of Scripture, but how do you justify carbon-dated tablets showing stories that look as though the Bible has borrowed from them?
In any other case where a text comes after a previous one and is identical, we would assume it being taken at least some inspiration from its predecessor. So why are we not able to apply this same line of reasoning or logic here? Okay, I'm glad you've asked this question. And this has stumbled a lot of young Christians. They're presented with things like this in college. I remember I was, and I was going through a period of doubt in my life. And so I myself wondered about this. You know What do we think about this?
And I was too busy with my college studies to be able to devote any time to it. But yeah, years later, after I was out of college, I was able to look into it in more detail. Okay, well, this starting point is the question, is the flood an historical event or is it a myth that never happened? Okay, that's the starting point. Now, as a Christian, I believe that it is a historical event, that there was a flood like is described in the book of Genesis. Now, it's funny for much of my life.
I used to give a sermon dealing with the flood, and I was aware of these different accounts. And to me, they corroborated the biblical account. So in other words, if something this catastrophic really happened, that this is a historical event that affected the whole world, that all mankind on Earth today have descended from Noah, that this is part of our common history, then you would expect that other people groups other than the Jews would have an account of that flood.
And so, yeah, I remember in my research discovering that there are actually over 200 different flood accounts among various peoples around the whole world. It isn't just these ancient ones or the ones that you mentioned, like the Sumerian one. But rather, almost every people group around the world, I mean, just tribal groups on islands who you wouldn't think would hardly ever deal with floods, that they have these stories about a flood.
And about half of them, in fact, according to my notes, over half of them, there is a favored individual or family that is saved in a boat along with some of the animals. And the boat eventually rests on a mountain. So to me, that you have so many accounts from so many people groups, and that they agree on some basic points that there is a favored individual who is saved in a boat, whether you call it an ark or a boat, and that the animals are saved.
Obviously, if everything is wiped out, if it's a global flood, somehow the animals have to be saved. And it's not particularly illogical that the boat is going to rest on a mountain, you know, on the higher ground. It wouldn't have to turn out that way. And like you say, in many of the accounts, it doesn't end up on a mountain. But you know massive floods are not that common in human history. I have dealt with one in my lifetime. It was caused by a hurricane. And you read about them in the news.
But most people haven't lived through a massive flood where you know gigantic you know whole cities were wiped out and that kind of thing. That's an unusual event that all these different people groups would have that. So to me, this corroborates the Bible account. Now, what you say there that on any other thing, if you have two accounts and one is older than the other, you would assume that the later one has borrowed from the earlier one. Now, that's actually a fallacy.
I don't mean that you said people assume that. It might be true that people assume that. But to assume that is a fallacy. Oh, I'm trying to think of what is called oh boy. Oh, boy. I can't say it's a Latin term. But it means because something came before the other, therefore, it caused the other. That's fallacious reasoning. Because the sun comes up in the morning doesn't mean that that's why I wake up after the sun. There might be an indirect connection there.
But whether the sun comes up or not, I get up when I get up, usually from an alarm clock or from when I wake up on my own. Because one event precedes another, doesn't mean the other came from it. Likewise, because you have two accounts of something, it does not imply, let alone prove that the later account copied from the earlier one, particularly when they're from different countries, different languages, different people groups.
You certainly need more evidence than that to say, oh, one is the true one and everything else copied from it. And like I say, when we're dealing with the flood, because there's around 200 accounts from people all over the world, I think that's stretching it to say all these different people, I could say, even on Pacific Islands, that they somehow had read or had a copy of the Sumerian account.
For example, let's say that you came across several different accounts about Haley's Comet, or I think maybe now they're calling it Halley's Comet, but whatever. It's appeared at different times in human history. All right. I don't know if it was the last one. The most famous one in my lifetime was in the early 1900s. It was something we all heard about when I was a boy. And different people wrote accounts of it. Now, let's say the very first one to get his account written.
Does that mean that everyone else who wrote an account of Halley's Comet copied from his? No, it doesn't mean that at all. You don't even know if they had a copy of his account. It is just as likely or more likely they each saw the same event. They witnessed it. And they wrote down their account, and they may have written it down at different times. I mean, someone may have seen it, let's say, as a teenager. And then that person, when he or she is maybe writing in their, they may be in their 60s.
They're writing an account of their life, the memories, lifetime memories. Yeah, when I was a teenager, I remember seeing Halley's Comet. Well, does that mean they copied from all of the other accounts? No, it's still their own eyewitness account. So the fact that these others may be earlier, then the Bible text doesn't mean the Bible text is based on them at all. Another example I could give would be the arrival of Europeans in what we call the New World.
I mean, you would have accounts of their arrivals by Indian groups in Mexico, in the Caribbean, in South America, in North America, in Canada, Alaska, many different areas. And these accounts would have been written by people groups who had no connection with each other, no trade among themselves. I mean, there was trade among the Native Americans, but not necessarily the Native Americans living in New England had trade with the Native Americans living in Central America.
I don't think there's any evidence of that happening, okay? But these people wrote accounts, or let's say they did, or they had oral accounts of the arrival of the Europeans. Does that mean that one borrowed from the other? No. It just means they both experienced the same event, but they were in different places. Now, because a given written account, the fact that it was put into writing before the Book of Genesis was written, doesn't mean that the account itself is older.
Now, I don't have the Akkadian and the Sumerian versions here with me. I think I have excerpts of them. But I do have the epic of Gilgamesh that I've read numerous times. All right. Now, they say that it predates when the Book of Genesis would have been written by Moses. You know If you're a believer, you believe that Genesis was written by Moses, it was written maybe about the year 1500 BC, that this is older than that. Okay, let's just say that is true.
I don't have any way to independently either disprove that or to prove it. But let's just say that is true. Because someone put their account into writing first, doesn't mean that their account is older. The illustration I just gave of people writing about Halley's Comet, okay? So when it appeared in the early 1900s, and I don't know the year, let's say it was 1910, okay? I'm just guessing. All right. Let's say the very next day, after it was first seen, and I don't know how long he was up in the sky.
Usually, comets are visible for you know days or weeks on end. All right, let's say the first day it was seen at all, somebody wrote a detailed account of it, all right? Let's say 10 years later, somebody who was there and witnessed it wrote their account of what they remember about it. And then let's say I mentioned the person in their 60s that this person writes an account while they're writing a memoir of their life. Okay?
Now, because the one that was written in 1910 predates the one written in 1960 or ' 70 by some 50 years or more, does that mean that the account is older? No, because both accounts are the same date. They were eyewitnesses. It's just that one has put it down in writing before the other one put it in writing. Okay? So we don't know that the epic of Gilgamesh is older than the account in Genesis.
The account in Genesis, as Christians, we would believe this was handed down by Noah to his children and that they handed it down you know to Abraham, et cetera, and it reached Moses, or God revealed it to Moses directly. This is what happened and illuminated Moses on the correct fact. Now, the epic of Gilgamesh, I would have to believe that some of the descendants of Noah, they handed it down generation to generation. And as it got handed down, it got changed a little bit.
As they began to believe in a multiplicity of gods, they changed this, they changed that. And the same with all of these other versions. And after the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel that people went throughout the Earth, they all would have carried a memory of this gigantic event that had happened in human history. They were all descendants of Noah who went through it and his children who went through it. So they were their descendants.
They would have heard about this and they would have passed it on. But when something is passed, whether it's in writing or particularly when it's word of mouth, yeah, it gets changed. And you get changes of languages and you have misunderstandings of different things. And so you have all of these variations talking about the same event. Now, you said in your question that these other accounts are almost identical to the one in Genesis. Now, there I would disagree with you. They are not almost identical.
They have many similarities, but they also have significant differences. I mean, again, in the bookcase behind me, you know I've got the epic of Gilgamesh. And I mean, I reread it after I got your question in. It's not very long. And the differences are not minor. Now, there's some similarities. There's a devastating flood that covers the Earth, destroying most of humanity. A special boat is built to save a chosen individual along with the animals, or a certain set of animals.
A bird or birds are sent out to find dry land after the flood subsides. That's in both the Epic of Gilgamesh and in the book of Genesis, okay? So you have some similarities. If it's a historical event, you would assume there's some similarity. Okay, but here are some differences. The Bible account features a single all-powerful God, while the epic of Gilgamesh involves a complex pantheon of gods. They have conflicting motivations. They're fighting among themselves.
And you know I've read excerpts of the Sumerian stories and some of these other accounts. I mean, one of them, the reason for the flood is that humans were making so much noise on Earth that the gods couldn't sleep. So they decided they were going to wipe out the humans. And that was the reason for it. I mean, it's silly things like that. There's so many absurd features in the epic of Gilgamesh. I mean, it's not like, oh, you're just reading another version of Genesis. You are not at all.
In the Bible, the flood is a punishment for human wickedness. Well, as I said, in the ancient Babylonian accounts and in the Sumerian, all of these other ones, the reasons are either unclear or they're very capricious. Now, the Noah figure in the epic of Gilgamesh, his name is Gilgamesh rather than Noah. And he's not necessarily the exact same person, but it's that figure. It's based on Noah. In the Bible, Noah is a righteous man.
In the epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is a war hero, quite different than you have with Noah. And like I say, go and read those other accounts, and you'll see there is as many differences as there are similarities. It's unbelievers who put out these things that, " Oh, they are almost exactly alike, and the Sumerian one is older. " No, they have enough similarities that I think we can believe they are describing the same historic event.
But there's enough differences that I would say it's hard to believe the Bible writer was sitting there and using Gilgamesh as his source, and he comes up with such a different version of the same historical event. If he was copying that, he would have just kept it the same. Instead, he has a very different version of it.
So, yeah, I believe the Bible account is based on an account that is the original that was either handed down by God's people in an uncorrupted form, or God revealed the events to Moses so that he could write them down accurately. So even though the Sumerian version might have been written down earlier than the Book of Genesis, it doesn't mean that it's an earlier account. It just means it was put in writing earlier.
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