StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 12:13 pm
As long as you consider Hebrew writers incapable without Greek prompts you are free to consider otherwise unfathomable. Maybe don't expect all to take your word for it. 5th century Berossus? For your book perhaps find an editor.
It has nothing to do with "Greek prompts". From all the evidence we have, these narratives existed in two known forms: 1) cuneiform tablets, most of which are dated to the second millennium BCE and come from eastern Mesopotamia and 2) Greek versions of the stories that began to appear in the 4th century BCE. But the writing from Berossus provides a Greek translation of every single one of the sources used in Gen 1-11 all in one writing.
Additionally, as far as I know, all of the Greek translations originated from Babylonian writers who had experience with the cuneiform and knew Greek as a secondary language.
So what is the proposition? How, supposedly, were Hebrew writers accessing these stories in the 5th or 4th century BCE? You think they somehow were reading cuneiform tablets? Where did they get the tablets? How did the learn cuneiform? Why did they have an interest in it?
What is the model for how Hebrew priests/scholars came in contact with these narratives, took an interest in them, and crafted them into an account of the origins of the world? Why did they choose ancient Mesopotamian stories to do with this? Why not use Canaanite/Israelite creation stories?
If you claim that the Canaanites/Israelites were the ones to adopt these Sumerian/Akkadian stories, then why is there zero evidence of them in the archaeological/literary record?
That's the problem here. There is no indication, from any source at all, of these stories having an impact on Semitic culture prior to the 3rd century BCE, none. There are no images of Noah or the Ark, no images of Adam and Eve, no images of the Tree of Life or the serpent, etc. BUT.. once you hit the 3rd century BCE, then you do find such images and/or stories.
So its an explosion, all at once, of an interest in Adam, Eve, Eden, Noah, that we can see evidence of starting in the 3rd century BCE. Then we have the Enoch writings, which center around Gen 1-11, and the Gnostics which focus on Gen 1-11, and Jewish communities throughout the diaspora where we find an interest in Gen 1-11 and the Noah story. We find sermons on Noah, etc. But yet, prior to the 3rd century there is total silence and not only that, there is total silence from Gen 12-Deut 31. There is no indication that the writers of the rest of the Torah knew anything about Adam, Eve, Noah, etc.
So how do you explain that?