Did the flood really occur?

[popeyespappy]

Even this is propaganda, Pap. There's a fine book called "The View From Nebo" by Amy Dockser Marcus who details a number of archaeological finds. One concerns cunieform records from the period when the Judahites were in Babylon. As she notes on page 174:

The Book of Chronicles states that the deportees from Judah were servants in Babylon, but, in fact that wasn't the case for most of the exiles. Instead, they obtained land from the state and were considered the king's tenants. Fathers were able to bequeath the land to their sons. Most positions in the empire were open to Jews. Some were engaged in crafts and commerce, others absorbed into huge state projects that were paid salaries from the state treasury. Former Judeans even got posts in the imperial administration and rose to senior positions. A huge bureaucracy was needed to run such a far-flung empire. Educated, literate exiles like the ones from Judah were quickly integrated into the civil service.

Kicked in balls again for listening to Biblical scholars. I guess that’s what I get. I’m going to have to start treating the term as an oxymoron. I do want to make sure I understand what you are saying though. You aren’t disputing the Mesopotamian origins of much of the material in the Old Testament. Just that it got there though a different method than I proposed.

Got any other recommended sources? I’ve found something on Google books. Judah and the Judeans in the Persian period by Oded Lipschitz, Manfred Oeming, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.


Quick change of gears…. What do you know about the Ugaritic archives? There’s a n00b over on the other AF talking about them, and I’m not familiar with them.