Was Adam a Caveman?

by Dr. David Livingston  

Modern anthropology teaches that "man" has been developing for a very long time -- as much as five million years. On the other hand, the Bible indicates that man has only been around for a few thousand years. Can the two positions be reconciled, or must one be rejected with only the other being acceptable? Which position does the scientific evidence really support? How did modern anthropologists arrive at their conclusions? Let us examine the origins of modern evolutionary thinking that is behind the theoretical statements about "early man" being hundreds of thousands of years old and some of the finds used to support this belief system; we will contrast them with the Biblical version of the origins of man. Man's Life Directly from God A display in the Field Museum in Chicago showing early concepts of Neanderthal Man. Although still in use, it is hopelessly out of date. What does the Bible actually say about the origin of man? Genesis 2:7 says, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Notice first in this verse that man was not created out of some lower form of life (ape, chimpanzee, or hominid) as some theistic evolutionists claim. He was made, or fashioned, by the very hand of God out of 'aphar - inanimate dust, dirt, or clay. The Hebrew word for "formed" is the word used when a potter shapes his vessels. As a pottery vessel is lifeless, so man's body was originally lifeless. Life in man's body came directly from God's spirit, or "breath." When God gave life to man, he became a "living soul." To further emphasize that man was not related to lower forms of life, this "living soul" is the same kind of life animals have (Genesis 1:30, 7:22). That is, although man is infinitely above animals, his "animal life" came directly from God, not from some other animal. Thus, the Bible portrays an anti-evolutionary beginning for man. There is no way to reconcile the philosophy of human evolution with the Biblical narrative of the creation of man by God. The "Development" of Man Another area of major conflict between the Bible and evolutionary philosophy is in the development of man. Evolutionary anthropology postulates a scenario of early man as brutish with low intelligence. The theory is that over many tens or hundreds of thousands of years "man" evolved enough intelligence to move into caves, accidentally learned to make and use fire, and after tens of thousands of years as a hunter-gatherer, he eventually domesticated grain and animals. Of course, the accouterments of civilization did not appear until relatively recent times -- within the last five thousand years. The Biblical scenario is much different, with man highly intelligent from the beginning (Genesis 4:1-4). When Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve, came with their sacrifices, Cain was a "tiller of the ground." The text does not say that Cain brought in wild wheat or wild barley. It says he brought that which he had raised by farming, his produce of the ground = "domesticated" crops. Thus domesticated grain or vegetables are available at the beginning of man's existence. (The Hebrew is not clear as to what he actually brought.) Next, the text does not say that Abel brought wild sheep; it says he was a "keeper of sheep." He offered from the flocks of his field = "domesticated" animals -- in the very beginning. Domestication implies a long process of change from a wild to a tame state. But the Bible seems to imply that God created some things wild and some things for man's use -- already "domesticated," and intelligent man used them immediately. Even if God did create them "wild," Adam and his descendants"domesticated" them very early, not over a long period of time. In the Biblical account, man knew how to talk from the very beginning, knew how to use fire, knew how to do all kinds of things that we are given the impression took hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary development. Not long after the events related in Genesis 4:1-16, Cain's close descendants exhibited all the elements of "civilization." Lamech's son, Jabal, was the "father" of those that live in tents and have livestock. This indicates knowledge of the cultivation of fibrous plants and weaving, and, of course, the continuation of raising domesticated animals. Jabal's brother, Jubal, was known as the developer of both stringed and wind musical instruments which would, of necessity, include the knowledge of music composition, and probably included other fine arts as well. A stepbrother, Tubal-cain, forged implements of bronze and iron. Bronze is not copper only; it is an alloy of both copper and tin. This indicates an early knowledge of smelting and metal combinations. And, with the knowledge of smelting, iron was already in use. So we see that according to the Bible, arts and industry had already developed during the very lifetime of the first man and woman -- Adam and Eve were still living at this time, as well as Cain. Can Discoveries of Early Man Be Reconciled with the Biblical Account? How can one reconcile scientific theories with the third and fourth chapters of Genesis, and even the second chapter of Genesis, where we have the activities of Adam and Eve and their children? These first people appear to be highly intelligent. They knew how to make fire from the very beginning -- they offered sacrifices. Furthermore, on the face of it, it seems that it was not very long ago. Can that be reconciled with modern archaeological discoveries? In what follows, we will examine the evidence presented for prehistoric man in museums in the U.S., and in the British Museum of Science. One should examine museum evidence for himself, being careful to read everything in the display captions. We will consider two models: one is the evolutionary model, the other is the creation model. If there is a third model, it might be that man came to earth from some other terrestrial body. But that possibility reverts to one or the other of the first two models. Either God made more beings or man evolved from some lower form of life. If evolution can be falsified and it can be shown that the evolutionary story for man's origin lacks evidence to support it, then one of the two models will have been displaced, leaving only one. It is not necessary to prove creation. Nor is it likely that we will find evidence for creation anywhere but in the Bible (except for several ancient near eastern creation myths); it happened such a long time ago. There can be no question that accepting the creation model is a matter of faith. On the other hand, evolution is a statement of faith also because, as will be seen, there is little, if any, evidence for it. Stone-Age Is Not Necessarily Early Was the Stone-Age a period of time long ago? Not necessarily, there are people living in the Stone-Age today in many places. They know how to make stone tools and weapons. Because people used stone implements does not mean they lived a very long time ago. Time magazine pictured people in Surinam who live in the stone-age. They are called "Stone-Age Tribesmen." In Mindanao, Philippines, National Geographic magazine (August 1972) introduced the world to the Tasaday people who live in caves and are in the Stone-Age. The title of the article was, "First Glimpse of a Stone Age Tribe." The Tasaday are stone-age cavemen, but they are intelligent people. They can make a fire by simply twisting a stick. They know a lot of other things that we do not know, we know a lot of things they do not know. The fact that they do not know what we know does not make them unintelligent. One must remember this concept as he investigates stone-age people. The following quotation from the National Geographic, (mentioned above) shows how completely fooled anthropologists were about the Tasaday,"They were making stone axes and, catching my fascinated stare, a man rose and brought them to me. They were crude, as crude as the oldest tools of the European Paleolithic." Paleolithic is the Old Stone-Age. "Paleo" is old; "lithic" is stone. These are not Neolithic -- New Stone-Age people, nor are they Mesolithic -- Middle Stone-Age people; they are Paleolithic. Yet, they are making implements today, this very moment, that as soon as they are finished, look to experienced anthropologists as though they are several hundred thousand years old! Since the intensive research on the Tasadays by experienced anthropologists was conducted, it has been discovered that the "stone-age" Tasadays of the Philippine Islands are frauds. They were only acting out the part of stone-age, cave men, apparently as a tourist gimmick. Yet they were the subject of a full length article with pictures in the National Geographic. They completely fooled experienced anthropologists who went to study them. But there are legitimate stone-age people today. In New Guinea, Borneo, Africa, Central America, and other places where civilization has not yet gone, men still use stone implements of all kinds. Throughout history, in every generation, some people have used stone implements and lived in caves. Not everyone, of course, but in any age there are always some stone-age cavemen. It was this way even as America developed. Indians used stone implements while "civilized" settlers used metal implements and firearms. It was true in the Middle Ages as well as at the turn of the first millenium. It was also true that, while the empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia flourished with high civilizations, some around them used stone implements and lived in caves. Even the Israelites lived in caves from time to time (Judges 6:2). Somehow, if one uncovers evidence of the stone-age, he has to prove that those remains are actually from a very long time ago by some other means than the fact that stone implements were in use. When caves are excavated, one should not assume that he will find remains of earliest, or even early, mankind. Finally, when it is said,"The Stone-Age was a period in man's development a long time ago -- hundreds of thousands of years ago -- now we are in the modern period," it is not necessarily so. Cavemen Today In Cappadocia, Turkey, a large area with unusual geological oddities has been developed as a cave-city. Everyone in the area lives in caves hand-hewn into these strange geological formations. But they have electricity and wear clothes. Actually it is a nice place to live. In the summer it is cool, and in the winter it is warm. No one thinks of these people as having regressed. As a matter-of-fact, these are very inexpensive dwelling places, unusually well insulated and highly habitable. You might think that it's that way only in Turkey. But today along a stretch of the Rhone River in France, many families live in caves. Pictured at left is a "caveman" and his family. Behind him is what looks like a stone house. It is actually the blocked-up entrance to a cave in the hillside. Along the Rhone River, for 50 miles there are dozens of French families living in caves. In the morning they climb into their Renaults and Peugeots and go to work, returning in the evening to their caves and a normal life - with electricity and other modern niceties. In our country people have realized with the energy crunch that perhaps a cave is not such a bad place to live. A man in Phoenix, Arizona (pictured at right), found a cave nearby on a hillside, modified and furnished it. People in Phoenix are jealous of this man because he is in a cave which did not cost him anything except a little refurbishing. What I am trying to point out is that we are not so intelligent. We build our houses on top of a hill, and the wind and cold in the winter drive us out because it is so hard to heat. But cavemen, using their heads, utilized these ready-made shelters. They were every bit as intelligent as we are. Natural caves like this, found by the hundreds in Israel, are used to shelter animals. In a similar cave, it is believed the Son of Man was born. There are thousands of caves in Palestine. Shepherds use them to shelter their animals at night. Caves were used as stables in ancient times, while travelers stayed in a building above. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was probably born in a cave. In Nazareth a huge church has been built over a cave because this cave was, traditionally, the grotto of Joseph and Mary, the cave where Jesus may have lived as a child. So Jesus, in one sense, could have been a "caveman." Whether it is true that Jesus actually grew up in this very cave or not, someone in Nazareth did. So much for Stone-Age caveman! Even though some people lived that way does not mean that they lived a long time ago, nor that these were brute hominids developing into Homo sapiens. Their remains, when found, may not be very old! An Evolutionary Myth There is a myth in human evolutionary theory which says that as the brain increases in size, intelligence increases. Based on this theory, the chimpanzee with a smaller brain is less intelligent, and modern man with the largest brain, is the most intelligent (picture at right). In the American Museum of Natural History in New York City one can find a display which says, "Intelligence is the most outstanding trait of the hominids. The best index of it available to us in the fossil record is the brain size as measured by the capacity of the bony brain case." Above that caption are various brain models(seen at left) with the cubic content of each brain represented by a cylinder with stripes. What is most astounding is that Neanderthal Man had a larger brain than modern man. In this exhibit, Homo sapiens (at top of photo) has a brain size of 1,450 cc, while Neanderthal (just below it) has a brain size of 1,625 cc. Now what do we make of the statement, "The larger the brain, the greater the intelligence?" If that were true, Neanderthal Man should have gone to the moon and we should be back in caves. How inconsistent the statement below the display is, compared with the actual display! Another myth is that a low, sloping forehead is an indication of less intelligence. This falsehood is not as strong an idea among evolutionists, but the transitional forms from ape to man are always shown with low, sloping foreheads. Neanderthal man is always shown with a low, sloping forehead. But a bust of a Roman ruler of Egypt a little after the time of Christ has a low, sloping forehead. He could not have been an unintelligent man. Indeed, even King Gustav of Sweden, on a 100 Kroner banknote, has a sloping forehead (see picture to right). This characteristic is no indication of a lack of intelligence. Impressions Rather than Facts Consider a display in a museum which begins with modern man, then points back toward an ape ancestor. (There are no actual connections between them.) The skulls in the display are simply lined up and pointed backward to give the impression that man came from apes. It is easier to produce artistic impressions than to present factual data. Evolutionists often deny that they say, "Man came from an ape." But in the British Museum of Science in London, one of the largest natural science museums in the world, a display once and for all belies that fact (assuming it is still there). No evolutionist should deny saying that man comes from an ape. Here, in a museum seen by thousands of people every year, a sign plainly says, "Man is an animal." In another section one discovers a caption claiming that "all human beings are animals, mammals, primates, and apes." Other displays declare that we are related to apes and that our closest living relatives are probably gorillas and chimpanzees (see display to right). The next time someone denies that they say we came from apes, simply tell them the British Museum of Science is telling that to thousands of people every year. Another representation is found in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Here one can see a painted impression that man and ape come off the same stem (picture to left). It looks like they branched off from the same ape-like ancestor. But it does not display the missing links -- it is not a case of one "missing link"; there are no connections at all! Paucity of Evidence for Human Evolution A Time/Life children's book in the Emergence of Man series says, "It is now a proven scientific fact that man was millions of years in the making. The path of his evolution is marked by dead ends and new beginnings, the waysides strewn with relics of his various forms. Although many of these remains are at best minimal, they are enough to sketch out the key stages of his march through time. The chief problem facing anthropologists today is to fill in the gaps." Wait a minute! Read that first sentence again, then the last. How can it be a "proven fact" if the biggest problem is to fill in the gaps? Several museum displays will be examined to see what is used to prove human evolution. At Fossil Man's Hall of Fame in the Field Museum in Chicago, a caption reads, "In the study of human evolution there will always be room for differences of opinion and for doubt. Although occasional finds of fossil human remains may contribute greatly to knowledge of human development, theories of human evolution should not be based on specimens that are exceedingly fragmentary and lack important parts. Is evolution based on specimens that are exceedingly fragmentary and lack important parts, or do they really have solid evidence? The principles are: the evidence should not be fragmentary, and the specimens should not lack important parts. Let us examine the actual evidence -- from all over the world -- presented in museums. Most of the examples are well-known; almost everyone has heard of them. Java Man First let's look at Java Man, or Pithecanthropus erectus -- "erect ape man." The remains were found in a gravel bed on the island of Java, Indonesia. The man who found them in the 1890s was Dr. Dubois, an ardent evolutionist, who went to Java to find a missing link. And guess what -- he found it! But how did he find it? He dug through a gravel bed as big as a gymnasium for a full year, finding dozens of bones -- animal bones and human bones -- but he selected only three for Java Man. It was not a burial; they were just random bones, and probably the three bones are not even associated with each other. But he came back to Europe announcing, "Here is the missing link!" Today school children everywhere know about Java Man; they are told about it from the early grades in public schools. One of the bones is a thigh bone (seen at left). It is on display in the American Museum of Natural History. It has an accretion on it, a calcium deposit, which can be ignored. Notice the dark bone and a (white) modern bone behind it for comparison. There is no difference except that the darker bone is larger. Scientists agree that the dark bone, the bone of supposed Pithecanthropus erectus, is exactly like a modern leg bone, and, as seen in the picture, it obviously is. The jaw bone has been judged by scientists to be a modern jaw bone. The skull cap has a low, sloping forehead. Dr. Dubois originally thought it was a human skull cap, but before he died, he finally agreed with his accusers that it was actually the skull cap of a gibbon, a great ape, and not human at all. Dr. Dubois claimed that Pithecanthropus erectus -- Java Man -- is a "missing link" 500,000 years old. Where did he get that figure? He simply pulled it out of the air; there is no support for it. Why must our children be required to learn about Java Man in school, as if he were one of the pillars of human evolution? The entire evidence available is only two modern bones and the skull cap of an ape, not even from a burial but found scattered throughout a gravel bed. It is ludicrous that anyone should be expected to believe that this is an authentic missing link. Peking Man Next, consider highly-touted Peking Man, supposedly 400,000 years old. What about him? We cannot show any remains of Peking Man because they were all lost in World War II. A display in the Field Museum in Chicago says 40 individuals were found. It says they were "from 350,000 to 500,000 years ago according to different geological estimates." What is another word for estimate? A "guess." They guess they are that old. But the next paragraph falsifies the first one because it says, "The cranial capacity of the known specimens range from 850 cc to 1,300 cc, an average of 1,075 cc; the upper end of the range overlaps with modem man." So they are small, modern men. The following paragraph reads, "The limb bones of Homo erectus, including both Java Man and the Peking varieties, are indistinguishable from those of modern man." So how can it be said they are 350,000 to 500,000 years old? They may be only a few thousand years old, for all we know. They are no different from modern man, so what does this show us about missing links and about human evolution? Nothing. The bones have disappeared anyway. So much for another pillar of human evolution - Peking Man! Nebraska Man A third example is Nebraska Man. It was reconstructed from one tooth found in Nebraska in 1923. In 1925, at the famous Scopes Trial, Clarence Darrow held up this very tooth as evidence of human evolution. The London Illustrated News (6/24/1922), out of that one tooth, reconstructed a complete man and woman and published a drawing seen on the front page (pictured at left). The problem with all this is that in 1927 scientists took a better look at that tooth and realized it was the tooth of a peccary - a pig (Science 66:579). This is a case of a pig making a monkey out of a man! Piltdown Man Evolutionists do not like to be reminded of Piltdown Man. Maybe that is because he was featured as a pillar of human evolution in museums around the world until the 1950's. Piltdown man was discovered about 1910 in England. In the early 1950's researchers did some detective work and discovered that finds associated with Piltdown Man were planted by someone at the spot where the skull was found. There is an elaborate display of what detectives found in the British Museum of Science. When the jaw bone and pieces of the skull bone were dated it was found that the jaw bone was only a little over 500 years old, and the skull was only 600 years old. When first found, it was claimed that Piltdown Man was 500,000 years old. After more investigation, it was concluded that Piltdown Man was a hoax; he was deliberately planted by somebody who was anxious to prove evolution (see Recommended Readings). Now everyone knows that he was a fake. In the meantime, he had been used as one of the pillars for human evolution. Take away Piltdown Man, wipe out Nebraska man, Java Man and Peking Man; they were all modern men or hoaxes. What is left of the original specimens used to formulate theories of human evolution? Not much. Heidelberg Man Heidelberg Man has been presented as one of the best examples of human evolution. All that is available, however, is a jaw supposedly 500,000 years old found in the 1860's in Germany. The jaw was found in a gravel quarry at a depth of about 80 feet. This quarry is located in a river valley. You would expect a river, the Neckar River in this case, to deposit many feet of gravel as it floods year after year. Instead of dating it 500,000 years old because the jaw was found 80 feet deep in river gravel, there is no reason to think it is more than a few thousand years old. For instance, in Korea we excavated some pottery from the pre-Christian era near the surface of the ground. But, in the nearby river bed, while excavating the basement for a bank building, the very same type of pottery was found at a depth of 25 feet -- 25 feet of deposit in only a little over two thousand years! Scientists generally agree that the Heidelberg jaw is modern. lts apparent young age does not support the theory of human evolution, even though it has been used as one of the main supports for it. Neanderthal Man Neanderthal Man in the Field Museum (most recent concept). Compare with earlier version at the beginning of this article. Next consider Neanderthal Man. First in importance, is that we find Neanderthal remains in burials. At the Carmel Caves in Israel, several actual burials were excavated. One of them has been mounted in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, and is identical to modem man. Most astonishing here, is that buried next to Neanderthal Man, is modern man. Instead of being separated by tens of thousands of years, it looks like they were contemporaries. For many years, Neanderthal Man was represented as an imbecilic, bent-knee'd, stoop-shouldered type in the Field Museum in Chicago. But over the years researchers have developed a new view of Neanderthal Man. This new view is prevailing, fortunately. That is, that Neanderthal is really a modern man, one of us. Note the new display in the Field Museum showing an erect, intelligent person (picture at left). At the Smithsonian Institution (in Washington, DC) is this very important statement, "Because Neanderthal and modern man share these two important characteristics, an average brain size of 1,330 milliliters and burial of the dead, they can be grouped together in the same species, Homo sapiens" Neanderthals, then, were Homo sapiens -- modern man. At another display (pictured at right) the caption under a skull replica says, "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis." Most people are not aware that modem man used to be called Homo sapiens, whereas he is now called "Homo sapiens sapiens" because "we have a new brother". Our brother is Homo sapiens neanderthalensis; he is a modern man, just as we are, with living examples still found here and there. Neanderthal Man can no longer be a "missing link". Cro-Magnon Man with his sophisticated art forms and paintings (examples are well known cave paintings), is even more advanced than Neanderthal Man, and was obviously a highly intelligent race of modern man. What has happened to the pillars on which the original theories of human evolution were built? We have examined most of the evidence on which the theory was originally based, and found it entirely lacking. Other early examples only make the situation worse; later examples do not help the theory, rather they bring it more than ever into question. The Biblical Story of Man's Creation Has No Competitor There is no need to doubt what the Bible says about the creation of man. God created him out of the dust of the earth. It is a matter of faith; we cannot prove it. But our connection is with God, not with monkeys and apes. God made apes. He made man. But He did not take an ape and make a man. He made man special out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life; so our life has come directly from the Lord. You and I are a special creation. Finally, for Christians, the special creation of Adam (the first man), by God, is of primary importance. Both Adam and Jesus must be historical persons for two reasons at least: First, "For as in Adam all died (spiritually), even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians 15:22). (See also Romans 5:12f.) It would have been pointless for Jesus Christ to give his life for sinners if there was no original sin by the first man Adam (per Genesis 3). Secondly, Jesus' very own genealogy begins with Adam (Luke 3:23-38). It is very difficult to understand how anyone could claim to be a Bible believer and maintain that the first man, Adam, was made from a brute beast. The diagram above, drawn by a German evolutionist, comes to its climax in a black ape becoming a black man, becoming a brown man (also illustrated in other pictures herein), who then (according to the theory of evolution and depicted in other photos above) becomes a white man. This evolutionary theory has fostered much racial persecution over the years. Hitler even picked up on this theory, claiming even "white" was not high enough, that we must be "Aryan". Some even today hold to this conclusion. This diagram is from an older publication but illustrates the origins of this theory and some of the thinking behind some racial attitudes. It has been included in order for you to better understand one of the serious problems that the theory of evolution has caused and why we believe that God's creation of us is so important. As stated above, you and I are a special creation. For Further Reading. "Getting at Our Roots," "Lucy and Dating Fossil Finds." 1991 ABR Newsletter, May-June. Bowden, M., 1977 Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? Kent, England: Sovereign Publ. Cousins, Frank W., 1971 Fossil Man. Emsworth, England: A.E. Norris & Sons. Gish, Duane T., 1985 Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record. El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publ. Weiner, J.S., 1980 The Piltdown Forgery. New York: Dover Publ.

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Creation Stories of the Ancient Near East

by Dr. David Livingston

One Viewpoint Many professors in colleges, universities and seminaries today agree with the following ideas and teach them to their students. This is one reason young people who have had a strong religious faith lose it when they go to college. For many centuries, Jewish and Christian theologians agreed that the accounts of the world's origin given in Genesis were not only inspired by God, but owed nothing to any other scriptures. This extreme view has now been abandoned by all but fundamentalists.1 These authors are probably correct that all but Bible believers (fundamentalists) have abandoned this view. The abandonment of the Genesis Creation Story as a factual account has become so prevalent that some denominations now treat it as "myth" in their Sunday School material. However, the fundamentalist view is not "extreme". It is based on fact. The Genesis Creation Story does not owe anything to the creation myths of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The latter were written for a completely different purpose. They are not really about the creation of the universe at all. They are related to the "genesis" of a certain king's reign. Priest-scribes wrote them to establish the king's (and his god's) supremacy. Each myth is different with its local adaptations. The Biblical history has unity, never changing, as the myths do with each succeeding king. The first account of Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:31) was composed at Jerusalem soon after the return from the Babylonian Exile (500 BC). God is here named "Elohim". The second account (Genesis 2:4-22) is also Judaean, possibly of Edomite origin, and pre-Exilic (600 BC). Here God was originally named "Yahweh" (YHVH), but the priestly editor has changed this to "Yahweh (YHVH) Elohim" (usually translated as "the Lord God"), thus identifying the God of Genesis 1 with that of Genesis 2, and giving the versions an appearance of uniformity. He did not, however, eliminate certain contradictory details in the order of creation.2 This interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 agrees with many scholars. Their opinions are that the Creation stories were made up quite late, precluding any Mosaic authorship. They claim ( without proof other than some seeming similarities) that they were borrowed from the literature of other nations. Even though competent scholars have demonstrated that the Pentateuch (Torah) is much older than these men claim, the critics, nevertheless, continue to press their viewpoint. That their contentions hold sway even among church educators can be seen in a sample from a publication for the instruction of laymen. Out of these sources (Genesis through Numbers) they formed what is called the "Priestly History." The motive for the formation of this history was Israel's own situation. The community had been destroyed and the people scattered. How should they plan for the future? The priests turned to the past for their guidelines . . . [Ed. i.e., they composed the "Books of Moses" from oral tradition and the myths of the other nations of the ancient near east.] And so their Priestly History became the foundational document by which the exiles from Babylonian slavery sought to organize themselves. 3 The author above espouses the theory that the priests "made up" the Books of Moses as a means of pulling the Israelites together and organizing them as a nation. Looking at it this way, religion could be used as an "opiate." By this theory, Genesis is simply a semi-historical preamble for the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy. In the latter, the Tabernacle is described, the priestly order is laid out, the sacrificial system and feast days are all instituted. The above authors claim that these Old Testament books (the Tanakh) were written for the same purpose as all other Ancient Near Eastern documents were written - to control men through religion. To continue with the Layman's Introduction, The heart of this history is the story in Exodus 1-15 of the deliverance by God of Israel from Egypt. This key event, by which the exilic priests interpreted the meaning of history, was the central event to which Israel had looked for centuries . . . The narratives in the book of Genesis seem to have been added as a preface to the history of God's salvation described in Exodus through Numbers . . . the creation stories in the Bible do not give us a scientific description, but a symbolic one. They were trying to present the theological meaning of creation . . . The writers of the Old Testament, however, borrowed motifs and allusions from the myths of Mesopotamia and Canaan as means of describing the significance of God's acts in the world. They never borrowed the mythological materials unchanged, but always transformed them into ways of describing the actions of the one God of the world . . . So we do not read this creation story for accurate information about the process of creation.4 It is very important to keep in mind that we are still reading picturesque literature. In answer to the question "Did it happen exactly this way?"' - We must answer "No!" This is parabolic literature, not historical literature. The growth of civilization, for example, depicted in chapter 4 is patently nonhistorical.5 Many scholars teaching in seminaries train ministers and rabbis who, in turn, teach things similar to the above. We hope the reader will discern the error in their interpretation. Many today consider the Bible's Creation Story a "myth." They believe it has "evolved" and is written for the same basic purpose as the truly mythical creation accounts of the Ancient Near East. These scholars seem incapable of understanding that the Bible is history and the myths of the ancient near east are little more than political propaganda. Characteristics of this position are the following: Religion has evolved. Thus man will get better and better.6 Adam and Eve were not real people. They were only symbolic, or mythical persons (but - - we know that Jesus and Paul spoke of them as real people). Israel did as other nations did. Their leaders "manufactured" the Torah to control the people. The Torah (5 books of Moses) was written late, 600-500 BC, thus it was "borrowed" from other literature. The possibility is rejected that Genesis was written early, enabling all others to borrow from it. There is always the possibility that this kind of writer is guilty of that which they accuse the Bible writers, that is, of "using" a philosophy of the evolution-of-religion to control other people's understanding of God's Word. Another Viewpoint The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth forth His handiwork. Another viewpoint is that the myths and legends of creation are serious attempts by the ancients to philosophize on the origin of the universe and man. The myths are then compared with the Bible and similarities and differences analyzed. Although many scholars, both conservative and liberal, espouse this interpretation of creation legends and make valuable contributions to our understanding of both myths and the Bible, that is not the viewpoint that will be discussed in this article. Comparisons will be made, but with the understanding that the composers of the myths had a far different purpose in mind for them than is commonly supposed. Memphite Theology A "creation" account from Egypt describes a god who created everything by the word of his mouth. It was the god Ptah who "spoke, and it was." Although there are some striking reminicences of Genesis 1, they are not as close as it may seem at first. The complete account is not like Genesis at all. In examining this account called the Memphite Theology, one finds that the god Ptah thought. There was a thought-process involved, then he spoke. But Yahweh-Elohim of Scripture does not go through a thought sequence. In creating, He is all-knowing at all times. What is actually being set forth in this Egyptian "creation" myth is that a "new" god, Ptah, the god that put Pharaoh on the throne, is better than all previous gods. The basic purpose of the myth, then, is to vindicate the new Pharaoh's right to the throne. In reading carefully, what one discovers is that the new god is patently nothing more than the god-hood of the new king. When the First Dynasty established its capital at Memphis, it was necessary to justify the sudden emergence of this town to central importance. The Memphite god Ptah was therefore proclaimed to have been the First Principle, taking precedence over other recognized creator-gods. Mythological arguments were presented that the city of Memphis was the "place where the Two Lands are united" and that the Temple of Ptah was the "balance in which Upper and Lower Egypt have been weighed." 7 Atrahasis Creation Epic The Atrahasis Creation Epic The Atrahasis Creation Epic was discovered and first translated in 1876. However, only one-fifth of it had been known until 1965. Then in a museum cellar there was discovered a number of clay tablets which were recognized to be part of this same account. Now about four-fifths of the myth is available. It is probably the most important creation myth of the Ancient Near East outside the Bible. It dates to about 1500 BC, or 3500 years ago, but it probably comes from an earlier source. So it was written before the time of Moses. According to some scholars, Moses would have borrowed from it. As we examine it, see if you agree. Actually, no account of the creation of the world is found in the Atrahasis Epic. It is concerned exclusively with the story of man and his relationship with the gods, which is hinted at in the beginning statement, "When the gods, manlike . . ." The introduction describes the situation at the outset of the story, when the world had been divided between three major deities of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. A.R. Millard analyzed this "New Babylonian Genesis" text.8 The quotations in the following section are found in his article. The gods took one hand in the other, They cast the lot, made division! Anu went up to heaven. Enlil ... the earth to his subjects. The lock, the bar of the sea, They gave to Enki, the prince. In this text, Anu is the god of heaven, Enlil the god of the earth, Enki is the ruling king. The introductory description of the world situation in the Atrahasis Epic depicts the junior gods laboring at the behest of the senior deities. Note that the gods are like men. When the gods, manlike, Bore the labor, carried the load, The gods' load was great, The toil grievous, the toil excessive. The great Annunnaku, the Seven, Were making the Igigu undertake the toil. The underlying idea of the Atrahasis Epic and the other Babylonian Creation stories is that man was made to free the gods from the toil of ordering the earth to produce their food. The gods instructed the Mother-goddess (Nintu) to: Create a human to bear the yoke. Let him bear the yoke, the task of Enlil, Let man carry the load of the gods. Let them slaughter one god, So that all the gods may be purified by dipping. With his flesh and blood Let Nintu mix clay. So let god and man be mingled Together in the clay. After she had mixed the clay She called the Anunna, the great gods. The Igigu, the great gods, Spat upon the clay. Mami opened her mouth And said to the great gods, You commanded me a task And I have finished it. I have removed your toil I have imposed your load on man. Basic Purpose of the Atrahasis Epic Priest-scribes "created" a caste-system with the king on top in the god's image, and they themselves as administrators of the god's kingdom. (Common) man was "created" to support the whole system. The point is, the king throughout all the ancient near east was presented as "son" of the local god, his "image" on earth. Therefore, all service done the king was service done to the gods. All religion (including creation legends) was contrived as an "opiate of the people" (see: "Who Were the Sons of God in Genesis 6?"). Babylonian Creation Epic This text relates the creation of man and beast, rivers and vegetation, then states, "He built up a dam at the edge of the sea." As the next line describes the draining of a swamp, this may have been related to that, but mention of the sea suggest that the dam's purpose was to keep the land from sea floods. Throughout the ancient near east, at the very beginning of history, it was believed that anyone who founded a city, or rebuilt it, was its creator, and that anyone who drained a swamp, thus creating new land, deserved a place with the gods.9 Alexander the Great, in founding Alexandria, Egypt (among other cities he founded named "Alexandria"), acquired a place with the gods for so doing. The people of the ancient near east understood that concept. These creation stories do not actually deal with the creation of the universe, but with the creation of some new land, a city, or an empire. The patron god of that area, then puts his "son" in control of it (according to myths contrived by the priesthood). A bilingual Creation story speaks of the creation of the rivers and canals, without naming the agent of creation, then concentrates upon making man to maintain them. Other Akkadian texts indicate man's purpose is to uphold earth's order so that there will be produce to feed the gods. The god in the temple and his "son" in the palace (representing him) must live in a manner befitting a god. Many able studies have been made of the similarities between Genesis and other Creation stories. Taken out of context, some sentences sound similar to the Bible account. But a careful consideration of the whole clearly indicates basic differences. Some of the accounts have crassly immoral sections. Enuma Elish Creation Epic Enuma Elish Creation Epic This was a part of the New Year (Akitu) festival, and was recited on the fourth of eight days. George Roux points out that this festival "resulted from the confluence of two powerful currents of religious thought: an extremely ancient fertility cult, originally common to the whole prehistoric near east, and a more comparatively recent Sumerian cosmogony."10 Roux here says what we have been trying to say. That is, in pre-flood times sex was perverted to the "nth" degree. Then, in post-flood times, a violently anti-Yahweh religio-politico system was manufactured incorporating sex deviations. He further says, "In the Babylonian akitu-festival Sacred Marriage and the myth of Creation were harmoniously blended together." Of course, in all this, Yahweh was not given the slightest credit for anything. In this Babylonian version, Marduk, who had been a minor deity before that time became a major one by being proclaimed the creator of the country. (Later, Asshur was substituted for Marduk in the Assyrian version.) Actually, very little is said about creation. The purpose of the myth seems to be that through intercourse between the gods (represented by the king and queen on earth), everything is assured of functioning properly for the coming year. Roux points out that Enuma Elish was an acceptable explanation of the universe to the deeply religious Babylonians, . . . It made good the fact that men must be the servants of the gods; it accounted for the natural wickedness of humanity, created from the blood of evil Kingu; it also justified the exorbitant powers of Marduk (originally Enlil) by his heroic exploits. But, above all, it had like the sacred marriage, a powerful magical virtue. If every year for nearly two millennia Enuma Elish was recited by the priests of Babylon on the fourth day of the New Year Festival, it was because the Babylonians felt that the great cosmic struggle had never really ended and that the forces of chaos were always ready to challenge the established order of the gods.11 . . . Enuma Elish is not primarily a creation story at all . . . It is first and foremost a literary monument in honor of Marduk as the champion of the gods and the creator of heaven and earth. Its prime object is to offer cosmological reasons for Marduk's advancement from the position as chief god of Babylon to that of the head of the entire Babylonian pantheon . . . (the account of his victory over Tiamat) was added not so much for the sake of giving an account of how all things came into being, but chiefly because it further served to enhance the glory of Marduk and helped to justify his claim to sovereignty over all things visible and invisible. Next to the purpose of singing the praises of Marduk comes the desire on the part of the Babylonian priests, who were responsible for the composition of this epic, to sing the praises of Babylon, the city of Marduk, and to strengthen her claim to supremacy over all the cities of the land. Babylon's claim to supremacy was justified already by the fact that it was Babylon's god who had conquered Tiamat and had created and organized the universe. It was further supported by tracing Babylon's origin back to the very beginnings of time and by attributing her foundation to the great Annunnaki themselves, who built Babylon as a dwelling place for Marduk and the gods in general (Tablet VI:45-73). Our epic is thus not only a religious treatise, but also a political one. 12 (Our emphasis.) The reason for the substitution of Marduk in the Babylonian version was the fact that with the political ascendancy of the Semites (beginning with the First Babylonian Dynasty, 19th-16th centuries BC) the city of Babylon became the capital of the great Babylonian empire and the cultural center of the whole Mesopotamian world. With the rise of Semitic Babylon to its lofty position as metropolis, Marduk had to be raised to the rank of the chief deity of the Semitic pantheon, and this was accomplished by attributing to him deeds which had originally been performed by the older gods. It is a social thesis in the sense that it puts man in his 'proper' place; namely, by making him a servant of the gods whose duty it is to supply them with their daily needs . . . That was the reason for his having been 'fashioned' and that was his function in life.13 (Our emphasis.) Supposedly, there are parallels between the Genesis account and the Babylonian account of creation. One is hard put to find them. But, four may serve to show how unlikely the "parallels" are: I. Creation of the firmament and earth: The Lord (Marduk) trod upon the hinder part of Tiamat, And with unsparing club he split her skull. He cut the arteries of her blood And caused the north wind to carry it to out-of-the-way places. When his fathers saw this, they were glad and rejoiced And sent him dues and greeting-gifts. The Lord rested, examining her dead body, To divide the abortion and to create ingenious things therewith. He split her open like a mussel into two; Half of her he sat in place and formed the sky as a roof, - - - - - - - - - - - The Lord measured the dimensions of the Apsu, And a great structure, its counterpart, he established, Namely Esharra (the earth), The great structure Esharra which he made as a canopy.14 Can this be considered a serious attempt at explaining origins? We see it rather as a deliberate attempt to explain the already existing order in terms that give all credit to Marduk, god of the city of Babylon. II. Creation of the luminaries: He created stations for the great gods; The stars their likenesses, the signs of the zodiac, he set up. He determined the year, defined the divisions; For each of the twelve months he set up three constellations (etc.)15 (compare this with comments in Romans 1:18f) This is obviously an attempt to use already existing heavenly bodies to establish the usefulness and function of astrology -- at the heart of divination -- a vital activity in a tightly controlled religious state. Where did astrology originate? It originated in the very area where these things were written supported by this type of mythical literature. Astrology was already in vogue when Enuma Elish was written. It was part of the local religio-political system. III. Creation of man: (See references above.) Like other creation accounts, its purpose was to give the impression that man was created to serve and feed the gods. IV. The "Rest" after the "Creation": Scholars have looked for the concept of a day-of-rest in Babylonian texts. But outside Israel there is no Sabbath in ancient near eastern cultures anywhere, neither in Mesopotamia nor in Egypt. In Babylonian the word sabbatu is found. But it has something to do with the moon and only occurs once a month, or at most, every 15 days. It has nothing whatever to do with the Old Testament concept of a day of rest. The Sabbath was instituted by Yahweh, in the very beginning, for His followers to keep as a sign of their belief that He is the Creator. There is no "Sabbath" in this creation myth at all. The closest statement that comes to it is: Now, O Lord, who hast established our freedom from compulsory service, What shall be the sign of our gratitude? Come, let us make something whose name shall be called "sanctuary." It shall be a dwelling for our rest at night; Come, let us repose therein! There let us erect a throne dais (platform), a seat with a back support! On the day that we arrive (for the New Year's festival), we will repose in it.16 Who will repose in it? The King will. Posing as "son" of Marduk, he will sit on the throne of the patron god. The Babylonian "creation" myth is actually political propaganda in a religious cloak. It is meant to support the "divine right" of a king to rule (as a tyrant). Counterfeit "divine" kings promulgated their claim to authority as "son of the creator." In other words the "rest" is really in a place in the sanctuary where the king sits on his throne representing the god, in this case Marduk. So the "rest" is really a rest of triumph, of gaining complete control over the realm. There is no concept of a Sabbath rest here. Myth and History The creation stories we have considered are myth. What is a "myth"? And what is real history? Why do men compose myth? A myth is the attempt of a culture to overcome history, to negate the forces and ravages of time, and to make the universe amenable and subject to man. The myth reveals a hatred of history. History shows movement in terms of forces beyond man and in judgment over man; history rides heavily over man, is inescapably ethical, shows a continuing conflict between good and evil, and clearly shows man to be the actor, not the playwright and director. And this man hates. To fill a role he never wrote, to enter on stage at a time not of his choosing, this man resents. The purpose man then sets for himself in his myths is to end history, to make man the absolute governor by decreeing an end to the movement that is history.17 To destroy history, to make out of history a fantasy, a fairy tale, men take a kernel of history and expand it into a great myth. Men thus mold history to their own liking. What have we, then, in the "creation" myths? We have a king who wants to be like a god. He cannot be a god, really. But in a myth he becomes a god, or like one, and does great exploits. In this view, Rushdoony explains that myths are used "to make man the absolute governor by decreeing an end to the movement that is history." Where his myths acknowledge men's lot in history, man ascribes his sorry role, not to his depravity, but to the jealousy of the gods . . .18 This is certainly true of the ancient near eastern (and most other) myths. Clever men used myth as religio-politico propaganda in order to deceive the populace into thinking a ruler was divine or "son" of the divine, and that he had his "right to rule" from a god -- but, a god created by ingenious men through "cunningly devised fables," making the fiction sound plausible. On the other hand, precisely the opposite is true with the factual history recorded beginning with Genesis 1. The early chapters of Genesis are true history, not myth. Writers like Laurin, Graves and Patai try to make myth out of history. They put the writings of Israel into the same class as the religio-politico fabrications of ancient near eastern city-state systems. They have assumed (without proof) that Genesis was written by priests (during the time of the kingdom), to use in controlling Israel's religious life. They fail to grasp that these Bible stories are history; whereas myths are used as political propaganda. Modern writers must not impose their own "religious evolution" presuppositions upon Scripture. In so doing, they themselves may unwittingly be trying to control peoples' understanding of Scripture. Let God's Word be what it is -- true history. Communism used the myth of "evolution" to rule God out of the universe (by trying to make Him unnecessary). Clever men used a non-religion to explain the universe and, along with the "party line," developed their own "opiate" to control people. Evolution (biological and religious) is itself a myth and is taking our nation down a dangerous path. Evolutionary philosophers try every way possible to prove man happened by chance. They place great hope in science's ability to create life, and eventually even "man," unaware that man created by man will be a monster. These philosophers and pseudo-scientists are the modern attempt to push God out of the universe, even as rulers of the ancient near east tried to do. In one of the Flood myths, it says that man became noisy and bothered the gods. This made the gods angry and that is why the gods destroyed man with a flood. The Bible, on the other hand, says man was rotten, so vile that he had corrupted the whole earth. The only remedy was to obliterate him. Conversely, in the myths, the gods are no good; man is all right. Men were simply bothering the gods (like flies), so the gods destroyed man. It was the gods' fault, not man's. Ruling God Out of His Universe . . . The goal of the myth, progressively more clearly enunciated in time, has become the destruction of history and the enthronement of man as the new governor of the universe.19 Rulers of the ancient near east were trying to rule God out of the universe and to govern it themselves. To facilitate this they composed "creation" myths. We can understand them by looking at it like this - Whoever "created" me, owns me. If someone else convinces me that he (or his god) did it, I am his slave.20 That is the motivation behind the creation myths of the ancient near east. They were written to keep people in bondage. Whoever is responsible for making you and the things you have is your owner. If he has then turned over this ownership to me and I have become his steward, then I own you. That is the theory of rule in the kingdoms of the ancient near east. The kings' scribes say as much in their literature on clay tablets. They claim to own all the people and all the land. The gods created those things for their own service and then put "King So & So" in charge, with a group of administrators to help the king supervise all of their god's creation. The myths are simply religio-politico propaganda. Not serious attempts to describe the origin of all things. If one adopts this as a premise, the purpose and meaning of ancient near eastern literature becomes more apparent. The Biblical Creation Account On the other hand, the Biblical Creation story has to do with purpose in life and in the universe. If the Creation Story was "borrowed" from other cultures -- then it is only a guess at Truth, and no better. If all life arose by chance - - then there is no purpose, just fate. But if Genesis 1-2 is Absolute Truth revealed by God the Creator, as we assert, then we have a message of purpose, life, and hope. Darkness becomes Light, Night becomes Day. Moses could not have borrowed from the creation stories of Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are for a completely different purpose. They are not about the creation of the universe at all. They relate to the "genesis" of a certain king's reign. They are written to establish his (and his god's) supremacy. Each story is different because of local adaptations. Just as Genesis begins with the Creation, establishing Yahweh's supremacy, so "divine" kings begin their reign by claiming authority through being the "son" of a "creator." The Genesis creation account was almost certainly written first. The Master of Deceit then led ambitious and unscrupulous men to counterfeit the truth. Parallels may be discovered between the principle of manipulated religion, used to govern these ancient kingdoms, and the opposite of that principle in the Bible. Religious history and secular history are related. They cannot be separated. In order to understand history, one must comprehend God's working in history first, then examine how the opposition works through the deceit of the Adversary. Creation of Man in Scripture In Scripture, man is a clean break from lower forms of life. Evolutionary teaching on the origin of man and Biblical teaching on the origin of man are mutually exclusive. One cannot believe both. They are each an article of faith. The "missing link" between man and his beginnings, according to Scripture, is God. But, He is not "missing" at all. He has been there all the time. The reason we say that evolution and creation are mutually exclusive is because of what Genesis 2:7 says in Hebrew, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." The "LORD" in this verse is Yahweh (or Jehovah -- YHVH). (When it is spelled "Lord," the Hebrew is "Adonai.") Jehovah (YHVH) is the covenant God of Israel. In Genesis 2:7, Yahweh (YHVH) is the God who formed man.21 The word for "formed" is the Hebrew verb yatsar. It is used to describe the actions of a potter making a vessel. As the potter's wheel spins, he shapes the clay with his fingers. The design is in his mind, but he shapes the vessel with his hands. The mechanics God used in forming man, we do not know. But the word used to describe it is suggestive. In Hebrew the word "man" is adam. Some say that adam means "mankind." But where did "mankind" come from? Obviously, from man, the first man. God formed man from the "dust" ("dirt") of the ground. The word for "ground" is adamah. Adam was made of adamah (a female form of the noun).22 Man was formed. But he was still lifeless. There was no continuity whatever with any lower form of life. Man was lifeless until something else happened. The next phrase says, "He breathed (or blew) into his nostrils the breath of life, the mishnat chayyim (the very breathing in and out of life) and man became a living soul (or being)." When God blew man's breath into his nose, He also blew in his being! (Paul used this terminology when he spoke much later to the Athenians in Act 17, "In Him we live and move and have our being.") The moment He withdraws His breath from our nostrils, we lose our life and we become dust again. We lose our being, as far as the physical body is concerned. But, once we have being, we cannot be destroyed altogether. This truth is evident in that just before the final judgment, all will be raised again, our being joined with a new body, then the final judgment. And all will go to one place or another, like it or not. That is God's plan. "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). This is why we insist that evolution and Biblical Creation are mutually exclusive in describing the origin of man.23 Our God created the entire universe. He ordained the Sabbath as a time for us to demonstrate that we believe in His creation. We rest one day because He rested one day. In keeping a rest day, we witness to Him as Creator (Exodus 31:13f). "The Sabbath is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" (Ex 31:17) In closing, compare Psalm 100 with the Creation myths of the ancient near east: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God; It is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise; Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; And his truth endureth to all generations. Footnotes Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths, London: Cassell (1964), p. 21. (Our emphasis.) op. cit., p.24. Robert B. Laurin, The Laymen's Introduction to the Old Testament, Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press (1970), pp. 27, 28. (Our emphasis.) op. cit., p. 30, 31. op. cit., p. 34. (Our emphasis.) But, cf. 2 Timothy 3. James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Princeton: Univ. Press (1955), pp. 4-6. Referenced as ANET in following notes. Tyndale Bulletin 18 (1967) pp. 3-18. Fustel de Coulange, "Worship of the Founder," The Ancient City, Garden City: Doubleday (1873) pp. 142-146. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, England: Penguin (1964) p. 361. op. cit., p. 96. Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, Chicago: Chicago U. Press, 2nd ed., 1951, pp. 10-11. (Our emphasis.) Isaac Mendelsohn, Religions of the Ancient Near East, New York: Liberal Arts Press (1955) p. 17. A complete translation of Enuma Elish is found in Mendelsohn. See also the doctoral dissertation of Joan Delano, The "Exegesis" of "Enuma Elish" and Genesis 1 - 1875 to 1975: A Study in Interpretation, Milwaukee:Marquette U. (1985) Available from U. Microfilms, Ann Arbor MI. Heidel, pp. 42-43; ANET, p. 67. Heidel, p. 44; ANET, p. 67. Heidel, p. 48; ANET, p. 68. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science, Nutley, NJ: Craig Press (1967) p. 1. Rushdoony's main thesis is to explode the myth of evolution. But his explanations apply equally well in our discussion. Ibid. ibid. But, if I surrender my authority to the Living Creator - I am free! The word elohim is the word for "God." The first chapter of Genesis says that God made man. The second chapter says yahweh (YHVH) elohim, the God who is the Saviour God, the God who makes covenants with man is Creator. Yahweh (YHVH) is the self-existant God, always has been and always will be. Most scholars think yahweh (YHVH) is taken from the verb "to be." Perhaps this is where the idea of "Mother Earth" originated. Nations the world over speak of "Father Heaven" and "Mother Earth." For a beautifully written, inspiring treatise on this subject see: James L. Kelso's chapter "Man's Closest Relative is God," in Archaeology and the Ancient Testament, Grand Rapids: Zondervan (1968).

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© 2003 David Livingston    

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Taken from: http://davelivingston.com/creationstories.htm

Anakim Giants In Egyptian Texts



Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devarim_(parsha)

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Numbers 13:22 and 28 refer to the “children of Anak” (יְלִדֵי הָעֲנָק, yelidei ha-anak), Numbers 13:33 refers to the “sons of Anak” (בְּנֵי עֲנָק, benei anak), and Deuteronomy 1:28, 2:10–11, 2:21, and 9:2 refer to the “Anakim” (עֲנָקִים).

 

John A. Wilson suggested that the Anakim may be related to the Iy-‘anaq geographic region named in Middle Kingdom Egyptian .... [AMAIC does not accept conventional dating] ... pottery bowls that had been inscribed with the names of enemies and then shattered as a kind of curse. (Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by James B. Pritchard, 328. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. ISBN 0-691-03503-2.)

 

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And from: http://biblesuite.com/a/anakim.htm

Multi-Version Concordance
Anakim (10 Occurrences) Deuteronomy 1:28 Where are we going up? our brothers have made our heart to melt, saying,'The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to the sky; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.'" (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Deuteronomy 2:10 (The Emim lived therein before, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim: (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Deuteronomy 2:11 these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Deuteronomy 2:21 a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim; but Yahweh destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and lived in their place; (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Deuteronomy 9:2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, "Who can stand before the sons of Anak?" (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Joshua 11:21 Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel: Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Joshua 11:22 There were none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some remain. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Joshua 14:12 Now therefore give me this hill country, of which Yahweh spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and great and fortified cities. It may be that Yahweh will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as Yahweh spoke." (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Joshua 14:15 Now the name of Hebron before was Kiriath Arba, after the greatest man among the Anakim. The land had rest from war. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV) Jeremiah 47:5 The hair is cut off from the head of Gaza; Ashkelon has come to nothing; the last of the Anakim are deeply wounding themselves. (BBE RSV)


And from: http://adventuresofprincessmitzi.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/giants-found.html

REAL GIANTS
 

Chronicled by Mitzi

Remember the story in the Bible where God told moses to "send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel" (Numbers 13:2). These 12 spies were dispatched in 1443 BC. After forty days these spies returned and reported what they had seen to Moses and the whole congregation. They said "We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fuit." However, there's a big HOWEVER here "The people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there."

The people were discouraged. But this Caleb guy quieted the people in verse 30 and suggested eagerly to go up at once and occupy it, for they are well able to overcome it. The spies continued with their report saying "we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers and so we seemed to them."

Below are photoshopped images that may be a good semblance of the Anakim.



I guess the Bible isn't exaggerating when it says Israelites were mere grasshoppers compared to the giant Anak's size. It's highly possible, many things have happened and evolved from the last 3,000 years.

The Israelites "raised a loud cry" (Numbers 14:1) and grumbled against Moses and Aaron saying "We should have died in Egypt! Or in the wilderness! Why is God bringing us into this land to fall by the sword?" (vv 2, 3). These people who complained were 20+ y.o. men that were part of the army. Because of their unbelief (after all the signs and plagues God shown in Egypt), God did not permit them to enter the promised land anymore. So they got what they wished for, to die in the wilderness. But then they changed their minds and rebelled once again saying "Okay! We'll go and fight them!" Well God wasn't with them anymore, so they lost.

The remaining Israelites were smaller in size which made it more difficult and quite impossible to drive out the giants. I guess God was at work again to prove His power. He has been using the faithful weak who holds onto nothing but Him to conquer giants. The greater the discrepancy between the weak and the giant, the greater view of His glory is revealed. That's God's amazing math! :)

Key Locations Early in the Exodus Route

Professor Emmanuel Anati writes: (The Mountain of God: Har Karkom, pp. 184-185. Map added):

5. Pi-hahiroth, Migdol and Baal-Zephon

After having penetrated the desert of Etham, "Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, ‘Tell the sons of Israel to turn back [author’s italics] and pitch camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, facing Baal-zephon’" (Ex 14:1-2). The Book of Numbers gives a virtually identical version of the events: "They left Etham, turned back [author’s italics] to Pi-hahiroth which faces Baal-zephon, and encamped before Migdol" (Nb 33:7).

 

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The three place-names serve to define precisely where the encampment was set up and which route was taken (which incidentally must have seemed quite strategically ingenious to the biblical narrator). "… You are to pitch your camp opposite this place, beside the sea. Pharaoh will think, ‘Look how the sons of Israel wander to and fro in the countryside; the wilderness has closed in [author’s italics] on them" (Ex 14:2-3).

This seems to describe an apparent deadend, which, however, did have an exit that required a certain kill in using it. It also must not have been far from the Egyptian roadblocks, because the Pharaoh discovered where the Hebrews were hiding within quite a short time.

The three sites mentioned at this point are very important, in that they actually determine the route taken by the Hebrews. They are all Semitic names; none are Egyptian. This, however, can be said of almost every site mentioned in the Bible, incusing Succoth, Rameses remains an exception.

Pi-hahiroth means Mouth of the Canals, and by definition refers to an outlet on the sea coast. Though a number of scholars have sought this outlet on various shores, the most likely thesis is that it was allocated at the mouth of one or more of the artificial canals built by the pharaohs to drain the eastern Delta of the Nile, and that it was therefore located along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In fact the actual topography of the Nile valley farther south, with its hills and mountains that rise between the river and the Red Sea, makes this the only plausible location for Pi-hahiroth. There is a marshy hinterland along the coastline east of Port Said that is quite difficult to cross for a fifty kilometer stretch. The remains of an ancient branch of the Nile estuary have been identified near Tell el-Farame, which rises from the surrounding plain at the edge of this area. Pi-hahiroth must have been located in the immediate environs.

A canal had already been built in the thirteenth century B.C. [sic] to connect the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Suez that utilized part of a branch of the Nile estuary and drew water directly from the Nile itself. This antecedent of the Suez Canal goes back to the reign of Pharaoh Seti I (1326-1300 B.C. [Anati follows the conventional dates - Seti should actually be dated about half a millennium later than this]. It was subsequently widened and deepened several times, by Darius King of the Persians, among others (Herodotus IV:39), and was restored during the Ptolemaic period. Herodotus recounts that: "from the northern sea to that which is called the southern or Red Sea, the shortest and quickest passage, which is from Mount Casius [i.e., along the strip of land on Lake Serbonis], the boundary between Egypt and Syria, to the Gulf of Arabia [i.e., the Gulf of Suez], is a distance of exactly 115 miles… One hundred and twenty thousand of the Egyptians, employed upon the work in the reign of Necos [pharaoh Neco], lost their lives in making the excavation" (Herodotus II:158).

Tell el-Farame is identified in literature as Pelusion, the Graeco-Roman city at the gateway of Egypt, an was at the height of its power during the fifth century B.C. Herodotus recounts that the transit route that came from Asia arrived here (the Roman Via Maris; Herodotus II:141). He also relates how the branch of the Nile farthest to the east known as the Pelusiac flowed nearby (Herodotus III:5): "From Cadytis (Gaza) … till you reach Yensus (Han-Yunis) are the Arabian king’s; after Yensus the Syrians again come in, and extended to Lake Serbonis, near the place where Mount Casius juts out into the sea. At Lake Serbonis … Egypt begins".

The Semitic word migdol means "tower", and refers to a roadblock or defence tower along an international route. Here it can only refer to a tower on the Way of the Sea, that is, the Way of the Land of the Philistines that today still joins Gaza with El-Qantara along the Mediterranean coastline. The fortified stations that have left traces on this trail had the function in various periods of controlling this important route which has always constituted the principle passage between Asia and Africa. Several stations were named after the pharaoh who had commissioned them to be built or restored, such as Migdal Seti or Migdal Merneptah.

The remains of a sort of roadblock in the area of Rumani have been found not far from Tell el-Farame. Although the local archaeological finds refer to later periods, it is nonetheless plausible that the biblical Migdol was located at this site or in its immediate vicinity.

The name Baal-zephon signifies Lord of the North (Baal = Lord; zephon = north), and refers to a cult site dedicated to this divinity. The name was clearly in use at the time when the texts of the Book of Exodus were compiled, but it is not certain since when. As with many other names from this same period, Baal-zephon must simply be considered a geographical reference, although of the highest value since it can be precisely located.

In actual fact, Graeco-Roman documents speak of a temple at Baal-Zephon that at the time was still in use as a singular site, at Ras Burun, Mount Casius on the northernmost point of the peninsula on that tongue of land that divides the Serbonis lagoon from the sea. It was a cult site for sailors and had been rededicated to Zeus Casios (O. Eissfeld, 1932; W.F. Albright, 1948; cf. Y. Aharoni, 1979, p. 196). Pottery was found here during the exploration of the area in 1956-57 that is identical to examples recently unearthed at Ein Qudeirat and Har Karkom. It has been classified as belonging to the Early Bronze Age (M. Dothan, Hadashot Archeologiot, 24, 1957). This could prove to be a particularly significant element for our research.

Reexamining the biblical description after the above remarks, the image of the Israelite camp "in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, facing Baal-zephon" can be said to depict the western outlet of the strip of land that seals the Serbonis lagoon. This is an internal sea by the Mediterranean, a relic of the great ancient Delta of the Nile where reeds and marsh bushes grow in abundance. An indirect confirmation of the situation of the Sea of Reeds by the Sea is given in Joshua (24:6): "I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, and you came to the Sea; the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen as far as the Sea of Reeds". Here the Sea of Reeds was in the environs of the (Mediterranean?) Sea. Lake Serbonis is the only body of water in the area in question that corresponds to the topographical descriptions in this passage. It is also the only one that could be called Sea of Reeds. And lastly, throughout the entire Pentateuch, when the term yam appears without adjectives or proper names, it refers invariably to the Mediterranean Sea.

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Did Israel Help To Build The Pyramids?

The longstanding debate over who built the five pyramids of Giza, West of
Cairo, was rekindled at the first official visit of an Israeli delegation to Egypt, in
1977.
"We built the pyramids," said the late Prime Minster Menahem Begin at
the National Museum in Cairo. He spurred fury among Egyptian historians and
archeologists. Subsequently, the Egyptian press was full of protest articles.

We think that Begin may have been right.

Maybe the Egyptian Pyramids Weren’t Built by Union Workers After All

 

Thursday, March 3, 2011, 8:00 AM

Joe Carter| @joecarter

Back in January 2010, I posted a link to an article on MSNBC which claimed that a new archaeological findings revealed the work was performed by skilled laborers who had the perks of a labor union.
Mark Shiffman, an assistant professor of Humanities at Villanova University wrote in yesterday to dispute the claim. With his permission I’ve reposted his reply below:

Ancient sources unanimously claim that the pyramids and Egypt’s grand construction projects were carried out by slave labor. The Greek historian Herodotus (Histories 2.124) was told by Egyptian officials that 100,000 Egyptians (probably a number exaggerated to impress him) were forced by Cheops or Khufu to build his great pyramid in Giza. The Book of Exodus shows the Hebrews as slaves making bricks (though does not mention pyramids), and the ancient Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities, 2.9) makes the explicit claim that they did work as pyramid builders. These were all written over 1000 years after the fact.
In the 1990’s, archaeologists began to excavate the cemeteries around this pyramid. They found hundreds of tombs, many of high political and religious officials, but also many of construction overseers and artisans. They also began examining the remains of the fields and estimating from animal bones how much meat the workers ate.
Based on this evidence they concluded that the workers were well fed, and that the head workers and the skilled artisans were Egyptians with status. Graffiti also indicate that there were various work crews with different colorful names and rivalries with one another.
Now the hype enters in. The main spin doctor for the interpretation of this information is Dr. Zahi Hawass [he has since been sacked], serving at the time the story hit the press (January 2010) as Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. He has a PhD from Penn, which has one of the best archaeology programs in the world. He is also a political appointee with a flair for PR who has continually demonstrated his interest in boosting Egypt’s image. He worked for the recently ousted Mubarak, an autocratic ruler trying to project a democratic image. (He also had the misfortune to accept a higher cabinet position just before the recent protests, and now many of his critics are starting to speak out against him: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/is-the-face-of-egyptian-culture-the-next-to-topple/article1913442/)
Hawass has an interest in pumping up the view that the ancient Egyptians loved their Pharaohs and were proud to work on their monuments: “And that’s why the pyramid was the national project of Egypt because everyone had to participate in building this pyramid. By food, by workmen, this way the building of the pyramid was something that everyone felt to participate, and really it was love. They are not really pushed to do it. When the king takes the throne, the people have to be ready in participating in building the pyramid. And then when they finish it, they celebrate.”
In the same interview, the main American archaeologist on the excavation project (Dr. Mark Lehner, University of Chicago and Harvard) is more restrained:
“There’s some evidence to suggest that people were rotated in and out of the raw labor force. So that you could be a young man in a village say in middle Egypt, and you had never seen more than a few hundred people in your village, maybe at market day or something. And the King’s men come and it may not have been entirely coercion, but it seems that everybody owed a labor tax. We don’t know if it was entirely coercive….
“Anyway, we think that that was the experience of the raw recruits. But there must have been a cadre of very seasoned laborers who really knew how to cut stone so fine that you could join them without getting a razor blade in between. And perhaps they were the stone cutters and setters, and the experienced quarry men at the quarry wall. And the people who rotated in and out were those doing all the different raw labor….”
In other words, the few at the top of the process, who have tombs near the pyramid (how many?) were skilled and recognized officials, and the rest (to bring the total up to anywhere from 5000 to 40,000) included conscripted Egyptian peasants and may or may not have included domestic or foreign slaves.
An Egyptian tourist site (apparently managed by an American company) proudly displays this interpretation in a fairly balanced, though ambiguously worded, version:
“Slaves there may have been. But the pyramids were built by Egyptians, by stonemasons, artisans, artists and craftsmen. While skilled craftsmen and management staff worked year round, farmers would come from the provinces during the inundation period to do the heavy work.”
Now comes in the sloppy reporting of these results.
MSNBC simply gives the world the interpretation of Hawass: We found tombs of the workers, and they were not slaves or foreigners, but respected Egyptians. No analysis, no questions raised.
Likewise the Times. Discover and the Guardian do likewise, though they at least take the trouble of consulting other Egyptology experts (and the Guardian implies proper caution by putting “proof” in scare quotes).
Then the First Things site picks up the MSNBC report and gives it the headline: Egyptian Pyramids Built by Union Workers, Not Slave Labor
In the article, however, we find the more modest claim: “the work was performed by skilled laborers who had the perks of a labor union: work only ninety days a year, eat steak and lamb every day, luxury burial benefits, etc.”
In other words, the workers (or at least some of them) were well fed and not worked to death and got respectable tombs. The suggestion of union organization in the headline is not in any of the evidence.
So a certain proportion (maybe 25%?) of the workers were Egyptians of high status, a large number of Egyptian peasants were ordered to come do the hard labor, and we don’t know how many slaves may have been employed in the work. Given the prevalence of slavery in the powerful nations of the ancient world, it would be surprising if there were not a significant number, and none of the evidence rules this out. On the other hand, there seems so far to be no direct archaeological evidence for the presence of slaves; but since they are not often honored with tombs, they can be hard to trace.
Two things are worth noting in assessing the “no slaves” claim and the evidence. One is that no one bothers to tell us in the broadcast sources how many tombs specifically belonging to workers have been found and what proportion of the workforce they might represent. One would have to ask that direct question of a knowledgeable scholar or consult the Egyptology technical literature. The other is that Dr. Hawass controls access to archaeological sites in Egypt, so that it is against the interest of any Egyptologist who wants to dig there in the foreseeable future to criticize his version of the conclusions too directly.
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Taken from: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/03/03/maybe-the-egyptian-pyramids-werent-built-by-union-workers-after-all/