Questions About my Religion Intro
Don’t worry, although I am a posting maniac tonight, this entry will not be nearly as long as my last on religion.
I received quite a bit of feedback (although for some odd reason, nobody wanted to start a discussion in comments, it was all via e-mail, phone, or in person) both positive and negative, but the positive outnumbered the negative by a wide margin.
Here is a quick listing of some of the questions I received, and some quick answers.
- Do you believe that people like Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus really existed?
For the most part, yes, I do. i think that historical and archeological evidence supports the fact that they did. They are listed in the question in the order in which I am sure they existed.
I think there was a real person in which the character Noah was based, and I think that there is a good bit of evidence for a catastrophic flood at one time in the ancient Middle East. The flood story is presented in the mythos of many, many ancient cultures. The story in Genesis is not the oldest version of the flood story, either. I believe that honor belongs to the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The person who survived the great flood in that story is named Utnapishtim, and there are a GREAT number of similarities to the Noah story. For instance:
Tear down the house and build a boat! Abandon wealth and seek living beings! Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings! Make all living beings go up into the boat.
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI
Sound familiar? How about this?
Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make it an ark with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch… Put an entrance to the ark in its side, make it with bottom, second and third decks.
— Genesis 6:14, 16, Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures
Contrast that with:
I laid out its (interior) structure and drew a picture of it (?).
I provided it with six decks,
thus dividing it into seven (levels).
The inside of it I divided into nine (compartments).
Utanapishtim continues four lines later:
[I poured] three times 3,600 (units of) pitch …into it
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI
The similarity in structure and vocabulary is striking. I’ll go into more detail later on Noah, but let’s just say that I believe that Noah was based upon a real person. He might not have been named Noah. He might not have been named Utanapishtim, either.
The evidence for Abraham (Ibrahim in most Islamic contexts) is circumstantial, but still somewhat convincing. This has already gotten longer than I intended, but suffice it to say I will return to this subject in my next entry.
In my opinion, the evidence for Moses is even stronger, and it is very difficult to find an individual of any faith that does not acknowledge that Jesus existed. He most certainly did (although, the name Jesus is anglicized). Most, but not all people know that he is a major player in the Koran, as well as the Bible. In general, he is recognized as a prophet and is held in generally high regard by Muslims. Again, a subject for more discussion later.
- How can you say that it is more likely that the Book of Mormon or the Koran were inspired by God, and the Bible isn’t?
Go look again. That’s not what I said. The original Hebrew scriptures may very well have been divinely inspired. I said that the Bible, taken as a whole (and certainly not the English version that we read) is not the literal word of God. The only scripture that I am aware of that any of us may have read the original is the Book of Mormon, as it is the only one originally written in English. Translations are never exact, and when we’re talking about attributing words to a deity, I think that exact is the only standard that works. Call me a stickler.
(Yes, by that standard, the Koran I have read is no more official [as I do not read a single word of arabic], and the fact that the Church of Latter Day Saints has made edits to the Book of Mormon [their own website admits minor changes] makes it suspect too.)
More later.