@@clovismerovingian7764you're not coping you're speaking facts bro i been looking into this lately. I used to a be a little donkey like the guy who commented against you. But after doing research I found the truth.
The fact that Gilgamesh story is older than Noah’s and yes you could say their differences are big, and you can’t deny the other 200+ flood myths across the world and the striking resemblances between Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood story. Yes it doesn’t PROVE it was borrowed, but it can’t be DISCOUNTED either. At the very least it’s interesting and to be honest as a non believer the fact that this story is told across the world reinforces for me the possibility that something like this could have happened, rather than discount the story.
Very well said. I believe it's also important to remember that the Hebrew language didn't exist when the flood is believed to have happened. So while the story was written in Sumerian and Akkadian first, the tradition existed in Jewish culture for thousands of years before Genesis was written. There's no way of really knowing which culture knew the story first. Apologies if any of this is addressed in the video. I'm not a historian/scholar/archaeologist, and far from an expert. I just saw your comment before I started watching and found it interesting.
@UniverseAnomaly All history is probabilities. NOAH is extremely unlikely. All oral traditions develop over time. Why are we debating Noah.? It didn't happen and couldn't happen in the way with results portrayed. Besides. Makes God an incompetent, nasty piece of Work. Sentient creatures deserve better care.
@@steveburris6543 they will find Noah's arch if they haven't already. Just like the rest of the Bible has been historically accurate this will be shown to be true very soon.
It is recorded in the epic of Gilgamesh that Utnapishtim made an ark that was square. It was shaped like a cube. Noah's ark was rectangular. A cube is the least stable boat model that exists. A cube will capsize at the slightest wave. Noah's ark was six times as long as wide, and ten times as long as high. It turns out that those are the best proportions for a stable freighter. Noah's ark really is the best boat model you can possibly have. Dutch author Ben Hobrink talks about this in his book, 'Moderne Wetenschap in de Bijbel' (Modern Science in the Bible).
Very good point, Leon! The dimensions of Utnapiahtim’s vessel are clearly untenable for being a seaworthy boat and mark a stark difference to the Genesis account.
@@davenewton4862 it did float, but it also capsized and flipped upside-down and right-side-up continually while it was floating. Hence my use of the term untenable.
@@WesHuff from an article about this in the Daily Mail: "Sadly, however, the Ark was not as perfect as it seemed and when launched, water began leaking into the hull. A pump was used to keep it afloat. Despite this, Dr Finkel said that the inferior bitumen was to blame, but the Babylonian design was watertight and produced a stable vessel."
@@davenewton4862 So I just looked up the citations and the dimensions. What Dr. Finkel went off of was the vessel version in the Atrahasis Epic (as I mention in the video was what the flood narrative in Gilgamesh was most probably borrowed from), where the vessel is circular. However, by the time that it gets to the versions of Gilgamesh it states that the boat's "walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height, the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times its cubits each." This would make it a perfect square of 120 cubits per side (with 6 decks and 7 levels with 9 compartments in each as described in the Epic XI).
☺️ the flood legend is in over 100 cultures It's a world wide event I would wish to believe that such a world wide event would be recorded in majority of this worlds cultures
@garybowman5783 Ad ho·mi·nem attacks weaken your stands. The world is filled with a flood event if you bother to investigate. It's your soul if you don't believe in a living God
I remember 30 years ago in a humanities college course the liberal Methodist professor telling us about the “many” stories of Gilgamesh and he basically told us the Bible borrowed from these stories. This was a stumbling block to me and seeded doubt for so many years.
They are agents of satan and it also happened to me too, although in a different way. I believe he controls all the systems of the world with the main goal to deceive so that we all miss out on God's salvation.
There's a huge oversight here. The date of the flood is at least 2,500 BC in other words the story is older than Gilgamesh which is dated from various versions 1600 - 2100 BC. There are approximately 200 or more variations of the story in cultures throughout the Earth. It's like having witnesses at all points of the globe that testify to this event, even in places that a flood story would not even be thought of in the region as it would appear to be impossible, yet is nevertheless engrained into the human experience. In different accounts the sizes of the boat would not fit a large population, or be seaworthy, or the duration in order to achieve the height of water would not be long enough, the receding of the waters would have been catastrophically too fast, or in other cases much fewer people and animal types all of which seem to miss important details that are left out of the account that are not realistic, but the Bible account is. It's the accurate original and not the compacted, or mistated summary of others. The original story was handed down by Noah and eventually to Abraham then 400 years later or so Moses recorded the faithful account in Genesis as the permanent, accurate record of God's story.
Absolutely. The Flood was a worldwide event, so one would expect to have accounts of it from cultures all over the world. One would also expect that these stories, as they drift further and further from the original account, would become less detailed and more prone to inaccuracies, the actual "telephone game" that the unscholarly accuse the Bible of being.
You do realize , Hebew language didn't develop until around 1000 BC. How could have Hebrews known about the flood if their language didn't exist until 1500 years after alleged Biblical Flood.
@AskOurPastor, unfortunately, based on the work done by people like Gad Barnaea, Schlomo Sand and Yonatan Adler, there is little to no evidence for the existence of a 'Moses'. The Torahic narratives don't seem to have existed in any form till at least the 6th or 7th century BCE, and weren't formalised into the Torah till at least the 5th or 4th century BCE. Beyond that, there is no evidence of the 'observance' of the Torah, till after the Maccabean period. There also has been no evidence found for the 'exodus' and 40 years of being stuck in the wilderness, but such a huge group of people as claimed in the Bible.
I have to challenge you on this If you're main defense is that there are more differences than there are similarities to stories from older traditions and religion that is a weak argument. I'll keep this short and simple, think about this If I wanted to steal somebody else's story or if there was an old fictional book that I love and wanted to replicate it and make it my own, I would keep a few important similarities, but then add my own creativity thoughts, motives, and interest, or personal agendas. i would not copy it verbatim, one hundred percent and then be found to be a fraud later on You understand what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, we cannot prove or disprove if the stories from the bible were copied from older traditions and religions, but to try to disprove it because of differences, falls flat
Yes but if you read Gilgamesh and compare it to Noah, Gilgamesh is the one with all the added details and variations. Noah is the bare bones version. Why copy a story and strip it of everything? If someone copies a story, they add to it. Gilgamesh added to Noah.
Yes correlation is not causation But we see multiple similarities At a certain point we have to be open minded that all the similarities is not just a mere coincidence But I’m speaking about how all cultures we influenced by an ancient advanced culture So less of the idea that stuff was stolen vs just having similar literature due to ancient advanced culture influencing all cultures
Comparison: The flood stories of Noah (from the Bible) and Utnapishtim (from the Epic of Gilgamesh) share several similarities, reflecting their shared origins in ancient Near Eastern traditions. Here’s a breakdown of the key parallels: Similarities 1. Divine Warning Noah: God warns Noah about the impending flood to cleanse the Earth of wickedness (Genesis 6:13-17). Utnapishtim: The god Ea/Enki secretly warns Utnapishtim about the gods' decision to destroy humanity with a flood. 2. Construction of a Vessel Noah: God instructs Noah to build an ark of specific dimensions using gopher wood. Utnapishtim: Ea tells Utnapishtim to construct a massive boat with precise dimensions, resembling a cube in shape. 3. Preservation of Life Noah: Noah brings his family and pairs of animals (male and female) to repopulate the Earth. Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim saves his family, artisans, and animals of every kind. 4. The Flood Noah: The flood lasts 40 days and nights, covering all the mountains (Genesis 7:12, 7:19). Utnapishtim: The flood lasts 6 days and 7 nights, submerging the land. 5. Resting of the Boat Noah: The ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat as the waters recede (Genesis 8:4). Utnapishtim: His boat rests on Mount Nisir. 6. Sending of Birds Noah: Noah sends out a raven and then a dove to find dry land. The dove returns with an olive branch (Genesis 8:6-12). Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. The raven does not return, indicating dry land. 7. Post-Flood Offerings Noah: After the flood, Noah offers a sacrifice to God, who makes a covenant never to destroy the Earth by flood again (Genesis 8:20-21). Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim makes a sacrifice to the gods, who regret the flood and vow not to destroy humanity again. --- Differences 1. Reason for the Flood Noah: The flood is a punishment for human sin and corruption. Utnapishtim: The flood is decreed because humans had become too noisy and disturbed the gods' peace. 2. Role of Deity/Deities Noah: The monotheistic God directly commands and interacts with Noah. Utnapishtim: Multiple gods are involved; Ea/Enki secretly helps Utnapishtim against the will of other gods. 3. Outcome for the Hero Noah: Noah lives an ordinary life after the flood and becomes the father of post-flood humanity. Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim and his wife are granted immortality by the gods and live forever at the edge of the world. --- These similarities suggest that the Noah story and the Epic of Gilgamesh stem from a shared cultural tradition, possibly originating in Mesopotamia, where flood myths were common due to the region's geography and history of devastating floods.
Great post But they were referring to younger dryas impact “theory” flood Because wasn’t just some regular flood and we can see scars and remnants of the damage this ancient flood had on earth
If you don't understand this story comes from the same stream you're lying right to yourself These aren't small similarities. It's obviously all from the same story whatever it is however it started.
If I may humbly respond to your question. Please note that the Bible doesn't give us the comprehensive details we may want, it focuses on tracing the main issues like creation, origin of sin, murder and such. Just like in the movies we're not given all the details, most are cut out, otherwise it'll be too long. Similar with the Bible; imagine if God instead of saying, He created the fish, He gave details of each one of them, same with trees, insects before reaching the creation of Man. Adam had other sons and daughters Genesis 5:4 but it focuses on these two. Cain married one of his sisters and established a city. The same way Jacob had 12 sons but we're not given details of each one of them but the main characters. Please don't miss out on the grace of God. Only because you're not given the many details you demand. God has given what is necessary in His wisdom for our salvation. Understand the Bible teaches that we have all sinned by breaking the law. Such as Do not lust, lie, steal, commit adultery etc. We have been sentenced to death but our souls face a second death - a life sentence into the lake of fire. God has provided a fine by giving His Holy Son Jesus to die in our place and redeem our souls. If only we would believe Him to receive Salvation. Then we would be saved, embrace a new lifestyle that is led by Jesus. Whom we acknowledge or confess as LORD and saviour by studying and following His teachings. Thank you
@@1jumbojumbo1 not at all, approach truth with humility, conduct an in-depth research, reason critically, and evaluate evidence honestly. If the truth of Jesus is undeniable, acknowledge and submit to it. Thank you.
@1jumbojumbo1 you can read for yourself and find this information to draw your conclusion, but you have to read from the sources, not just be quick to type comments without doing your research.
Just because it was weitten first does not mean it is older. These were stories passed down verbally for many generations before they took written form.
Lets not take for granted that each book of the Bible was not put together as it is now but they where separate text written by different people during different periods. I am no scholar but as far as Genesis goes the concept of monotheism was not so set in stone yet. As when Yawheh spoke he spoke in plural Let us us make man in our own image. Man has now become as one of us knowing good from evil. I understand when you go to church they try to explain this as the heavenly host or the future trinity. However, it is very unlikely that whoever wrote those text had any concept of the new testament in mind.
You’re completely wrong and the idea they didn’t know about the “future Trinity” is wrong. If you actually know the Bible you would clearly see the Trinity in the Old Testament and Genesis. You’re speaking out of complete ignorance.
Very interesting. I feel better about the story not being copied in the Bible. I have always thought that Noah was alive during the time of Gilgamesh and possibly the Mesopotamians beat the ancient Hebrews to the story. But it sounds like they are truly different stories and there is even an earlier version that Gilgamesh had originated from. Cheers and thanks Wes. ✝️
Moses knew about the Epic of Gilgamesh. He had access to the greatest knowledge of his day. Mosas was raised an Egyptian Prince. He was taught at the best schools. He had the best tutors. They most likely had the biggest library in the world. Of course he knew all the old stories
It’s such comparisons made between different cultures from large spans of time…give me a good reason why I am not a Christian anymore even if I value the meaning behind the books of the Bible. Anyone who gives a greater account to particular minds Apostle or NOT…who could carry these oral traditions long enough until they were written…will see all it is is just that a line of communication overtime not the evidence what is accounted for is the case. …Dr. Huff 8’ the end to me proves only one thing; these specific account had the privilege to be able to carrying on their consensus of meaning whether Christian, Jewish, Greco-Roman, Aztec or Egyptian…all considering that being orally or literary were not abilities all people had as education of any formal sense was for the select few. Whatever parallels exist in historical past, distal or proximal, only demonstrates not the existent of Gods nor gods or of floods and Individuals such as Noah or Gilgamesh?!? But that those who were linguistically superior (or rather distinct) more able to communicate across time certain things they valued to their human experience. Take note: accounts of whatever scripture or historical text only give a line of communication between such individuals nothing more nothing else- not the truth nor complete evidence of the experience of individuals. I don’t believe in the Bible b/c it’s only important to the people who seek consensus through it like all people do with any example of language.
Read Atra Hasis as well as epic of Gilgamesh, their flood stories have many shared narratives and it’s obvious that the Noah story is the same story. Read Irvin Finkle books or watch his videos on the similarities. Irvin Finkle is far more qualified than Wes
My only thought in response (in addition not rebuttle, obviously) to this is: It's pretty obvious that if globally (not just the ANE) you have similar stories about a global flood, and a dude and a boat... with animals, etc. etc. etc. Similar events in scope and scale - with maybe key players being different and maybe specific animals being listed, that means that something DID happen. However, it was likely before things were written and so while people spread out (Babel), the narrative shifted and changed over time. For example, my dad doesn't remember how i crashed the car. He wrote a letter adding all these details that just weren't true to the original event from 20 years ago. Key details were correct - but the peripherals in it - incorrect. Anyway, great thoughts! Been appreciating your stuff for a while!
How about a dude saved a few goats from a flood using a raft, and he embellished a bit. Play a few hundred years of telephone game, and voila! Some ancient fiction author realizes how cool a story it would make if it had some more embellishments added. Does this sound like it’s at least a remote feasible possibility? Be honest…
@@Godwin_7 Sure, it is a "remotely feasible possibility". But makes even less sense. It makes more sense that a real flood happened that was spread over time and gets changed as more people tell the story.
There really was a big flood in the area where the Noah/Gilgamesh story originated. I could easily imagine lots of people scrambling for boats in a effort to preserve what they have. I’m sure wherever in the world there was a disaster, stories were told of it. Are you saying nobody ever related stories of local floods to their kin? Or embellished a story until now? Or that there were no fiction writers back then (story-tellers, before writing was invented)? Had the lie not been invented yet? Now what do you think is more likely…
Loving the content! We should also consider how ancient tribal priestly classes had their own polemics, counter-texts, borrowing, and diffusions. I believe the biblical text employs all of those devices, especially in light of how each of the ten plagues mock Egyptian gods to show the supremacy and exclusivity of YHWH. So, although there are similarities between ancient Near Eastern origin myths, angel battles, and flood accounts, the biblical text portrays the most accurate and fully correct revelation of the ancient past each of those ancient tribal priestly classes were attempting to portray.
If we look at the Utnapistim story in the Gilgamesh tale, we can see something very funny. The Utnapistim story itself is a side story to the Gilgamesh story, and it is a myth borrowed from somewhere, and the flood itself is a story that was lengthened because of Gilgamesh, rather than ending cleanly. In the first place, why did Anu take Utnapistim and his wife to another place after the flood had already ended? And he moved the large ship that could carry people and all animals to Mutnusu? This is just a device to make Gilgamesh and Utnapistim meet. Furthermore, if we look closely at the structure of the island where Utnapistim lives, we can see that it is none other than the island where the waters of the lower world flow, that is, the underworld. In other words, the meeting between Gilgamesh and Utnapistim is ultimately a variation of Gilgamesh's exploration of the underworld. Gilgamesh's encounter with Siduri, the owner of the inn on the border of the underworld, was ultimately nothing more than a shaman who could travel to the underworld connecting Gilgamesh to another point in the underworld. If we structurally examine the various myths of the world, the simpler one is more likely to be the origin of two similar myths. In the first place, myths were 'acted' through speech, not writing, and realistic scenes were always added to increase their validity or persuasiveness. On the other hand, written records tend to become simpler as the social implications or common knowledge at the time they were written increased. In other words, by the time the Gilgamesh myth was collected and compiled into writing, many variations had already been spread through oral tradition. So which one is older and more original: the simple Noah's flood, which has no oral structure modifications, or the Utnapishtim myth, which has a complex structure with clear traces of various additions? Now that I think about it, I find myself laughing.
I have to challenge you on this If you're main defense is that there are more differences than there are similarities to stories from older traditions and religion that is a weak argument. I'll keep this short and simple, think about this If I wanted to steal somebody else's story or if there was an old fictional book that I love and wanted to replicate it and make it my own, I would keep a few important similarities, but then add my own creativity thoughts, motives, and interest, or personal agendas. i would not copy it verbatim, one hundred percent and then be found to be a fraud later on You understand what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, we cannot prove or disprove if the stories from the bible were copied from older traditions and religions, but to try to disprove it because of differences, falls flat
The British Museum has a cuneiform tablet about a guy told to build a large vessel. Round and with instructions. That makes at least two different stories about “the flood” in Mesopotamia. Irving Finkel, a fun curator of the museum, wrote a book about the tablet and does presentations you can find on RUclips. “The Ark before Noah” or “The Flood before Noah”. Some friends helped figure out the instructions and they built a scaled down one in India. Oh, that ancient was also supposed to load up a lot of critters. He definitely wasn’t the guy in Gilgamesh. From my limited understanding of “races” most of the indigenous of Southwest Asia are Semitic. That includes the indigenous who follow Judaism, Christianity, or Islamism. Also the Iraqis, Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, some mixing with Indo-European Persians, the Saudi Arabians, etc.. Through invasion they spread across N. Africa and into parts of Europe. Some think Abraham was from Sumer. The earliest known decent writing system is cuneiform. It was very adaptable and used by those who spoke different dialects or languages for thousands of years. I think cuneiform was still being used as recently as 400 BC. Anyway, is it cultural appropriation when one version or another was part of the ancient mythology of a large people group? A people that did not stay in one place? There are flood stories around the globe. Obviously there were survivors around the globe. Most of them probably thought they were the only survivors. There us no evidence of a global flood that covered the planet in the time periods of any of the myths. When the planet had very little or any above water landmasses there were no critters even close to being apes. But there was a lot of flooding and huge rising of ocean levels sometime between 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens were on every continent except maybe Greenland. Humans are far from infallible. Plus there are always storytellers who tweak the tales they tell. For many reasons. To assume any were exactly told orally over thousands of years is naive. The changes in languages would change the stories too.
Fantastic video wes! I appreciate your scholarly approach to the subject, and i very much enjoyed how you presented the material. I hope the nay sayers dont get in your head. You've got a new fan!
all I see is people saying , it came before the bible , the bible took the stories yet how far back to manuscripts go? when did Moses write down the book? what about simply hearing orally or witnessing the things of God? it seems these writings even if they did come before a complete bible OR EVEN the manuscripts for that matter or original texts that these writings only support the scriptures by recording the events . The King James bible is one of the best selling books around the world and continues to be , not the epic of gilgamesh , and for good reason .
The reason is because those who invaded and conquered the world at that time rewrote history. What about the council of Nicae 325 ad. The problem with the validity of the Bible is man wrote it. Point blank period. If I said God inspired me to add to the Bible a new book, I'd be thought of as insane. Sometimes logic and reason trumps everything.
@@whynot1548 Who said it was lol. Just some points of interest that will kill all of this. If you want an argument. Let's get into the dates. And not the ones propagated by egyptolgy. How old is the Bible? Who wrote it, and how is it validated?
It isn't just the Sumerians, I was on Signal Mountain in Chattanooga and there was a plaque posted with a Cherokee flood myth. So did the Cherokee steal the myth from the Sumerians?
Make no mistake. Whether it's this dude trying to convince you of his religion or Billy trying to heist you. If either one of these people tell you that God can be understood or reached by reading or hearing or seeing, they are lying or don't know any better. He who claims to know knows nothing. He who claims nothing, knows.
@sonofsparda629 why would those people lie? What would they have to gain by making up stories of a global flood or copying what someone else already wrote? Logic dictates that the flood happened. Every culture has its own noah-like story. Logic also dictates that the dinos and man lived side by side. How? We have proof!!! But science doesn't want to believe. How come you won't question them as to why they lie???
Wouldn’t it be more likely that the Biblical event was simply retold in a cultural telephone game throughout the world and was preserved best by prophets in scripture?
All religious texts are stories based off other stories. They cannot be proven nor disproven for the most part. Large sections of history are educated guesses from scholars who may or may not be correct. The best you can shoot for is the simplest idea is hopefully correct, but there is no guarantee. Two people can read the same text and come up with completely different interpretations.
10:55 Let's not forget: Reading was wildly elitist and books or writings were amazingly scarced. Trying to make a point by saying "See how they are so different therefore they can't be a copy or reteling of that story" is biased. You convinced me more about the story of the Eden being a mishmash of another story than otherwise (and I have never heard about this up until now). It's pretty easy for oral tradition to miss or adapt the details. I remember a professor once stating that the Greek, for instance, where not interested in historic accuracy ratter telling a story that would elevate what happened. Today we are used to the idea that everything must be fact checked and documented, otherwise it can't be considered truth but consider this: throughout milenia oral traditions, people forgeting or actually adapating to its liking stories and I can totally see these detail differences emerging. When I was at the Church they used to say how the copists of ancient Bible were so accurate and how they absolutely never chanced a single letter and It can be truth from a certain point on but I sincerly doubt Moses (which is supposed to be the guy who wrote the first 5 chapters of the bible) heard all of this from God (which in any place is said he did, it's only assumed). Also let's consider that indeed Moses narrated the 5 first books of the bible and It's was not God telling all though his ears, and again it is never stated it was: Where did he heard these? The same story of Moses states that he fled Egypt, how far did he travel? How many cultures did he had contact with or at least would be a stretch to think some of these storyteller from acient times or the people from where he lived that told that adpated version of an ancient story and them he came back rescued his people and told these stories because it was "common knowledge"? The idea of a "Let's fact check" will never hold up in ancient texts. And all of this is me considering that was ACTUALLY Moses that narrated these 5 first chapters because someone once pointed something pretty interesting: The closer the Bible stories came to the "current" Israelites the less "magical" they become. Consider that after David "God" stopped oppening the sea, sending plagues against their enemies, raining fireballs from the sky, turning people in pillars of salt, giving a man the power an army (which I absolutely think the Greeks heard the "Myth" of Samson when creating the story of Hercules), making the ground open and swallow people, having the arc pulverize someone that thouches it and so on and he just decided that Israel would be destroyed over, and over and would be taken captive. What happen? Did God loose his powers or did he gave up? None of these answers will be any good for a beliver. It would be more coherent to assume that these deeds from the past were exagerations from oral traditions. Maybe Samson did exist and he might have been a amazingly strong and fiercful warrior and he might even be a cautionary tale on why you shouldn't let your guard down (because he was playing with a enemy hooker and was dumb enough to tell his "secret"). But the tale about this man being exagerated or elevated (like the Greeks used to do with their stories) makes more sense.
I didnt watch this video all the way but I believe many of the records in the bible are based on those of the Egyptians. The Egyptians probably had records going way, way back.
There are some surviving texts on papyrus or other paper like materials, but most ancient Egyptian records around today are those carved in stone. I suspect much of the practices condemed in the Bible (idolotry etc.) were influenced by ancient Egypt, but the scriptures themselves are written after the Exodus, when they left Egypt behind.
I did an assessment on this last year and the message I came to was that the ancient near eastern (ANE) people were using ANE thinking to convey biblical truths whilst also directly challenging ANE beliefs and ideologies. And like Wes says, you see that clearly when you analyse the differences. It truly shows the creative ingenuity of the authors, and how different and lovely our God is compared to the ANE gods. Great video.
As a thinking Man. My question is, How was it possible to assemble all the animals in the world by a hand full of people. Then feed them, scoop poop, treat for illness etc....not to mention mix fresh water species with salt water species. You must realize how stupid this whole story sounds right?
The Bible says verbatim what kind of animals were on the ark. To summarize, basically all Land animals that had limbs and lungs. You can read it yourself.
The Bible is modern rendition I study Sitchin work And sounds like they had dna of the animals I come from a different school of thought and looking through different lens of course
This is great. My only other thought I had about this is flood stories from different regions prove that there was a flood. If the story from Genesis is true, then you would expect other cultures to have records of it as it spread through Noah, ham, shem and japheth and their families regarding what actually happened. In other words if what the epic of Gilgamesh says is true about building a boat in the sacrifices and all that to me it only lends credibility to the veracity of the origin.
☺️ the flood legend is in over 100 cultures It's a world wide event I would wish to believe that such a world wide event would be recorded in majority of this worlds cultures
Can we have Wes Huff and Paul Wallis discuss these issues. I respect these two bible scholars, but they have divergent views. Wes seems to be making more sense after watching his debate with Billy.
One simple quote that we find in the Babylonian. Creation Smith is that the lions can lay with the lamb. And we find such quotes and the Old Testament. I can't keep doing this like come on, man
as a German Biologist and Pythagorean - we face this mystery of the Younger Dryas era and the hypothesis of a Comet Impact - that dramatically changed Climate - the sea level rising more than 100 Meters from sudden Ice Melting. we may have remnants of oral traditions witnessing such an event - all over the earth - not only on one location. The story of “Atlantis” may originate from there. Göbekli Tepe may be related to that. The oral tradition may be part of cultural Identity - to trace the history of a tribe - a nation - back to the origins - and claim originality, uniqueness - a sort of racial arrogance and justification of Superiority over others. Who can be killed, enslaved, conquered, eliminated... For me as a Biologist it is part of Anthropology - how Taboos emerge - the fear of the Unknown, fear of GODS - who can destroy - El Shaddai as a God of Revenge... we have lost the connection to those ancient oral traditions - we do wild Phantasies to create our own entertainment. Ancient Humans lived in a harsh environment - with horrible destructions. We have no imagination how hard that life must have been. may be living in Mosul and Aleppo can give an idea... when Mariupol was destroyed from the Air - and sank into the Black Sea ...creation of a new Myth...
@Wes Huff I am a German Biologist, Biochemist Ph D - I listen to nobody. Science = STUDY. Mathematoi - - Pythagoras...study!The Younger Dryas is an enigma to study! We are fast accelerating to Human Extinction...
@@raginald7mars408 I'm sure you've listened to somebody. At minimum you're reading individuals like Graham Hancock, who are the modern scholastic advocates for what you've described. Your initial comment could have summarized 2 episodes of recent Joe Rogan podcasts. That was the only reason I (jokingly by the way) made the moment. I'm not sure what being *German* in particular adds to you being a biologist. Unless you're specifically studying the biology of Germans? I didn't mention the Younger Dryas Thesis in my video at all so I was commenting more in jest then anything else.
@Wes Huff we are conditioned by the culture we grow up. I have All the horrible European traits you despise. A Warning. You may not appreciate Independent Study - not listening to anybody. it is a scientific puzzle to study the last rapid intense global warming - and it may have fuelled our modern Religions. Charles Darwin was forced to study Theology. As he never listened to anybody - he became a better Biologist - the Art of Study... not listening - Akkus matoi - Listeners - not Scientists - Pythagoras - study...
@@raginald7mars408 With all due respect, I really am not following how much of what you're saying has anything to do with my original video. Nonetheless, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to my own lack of understanding and incompetence.
I believe the common traces in the Bible and the earlier accounts of human origins don't have to be dismissed like this. It's fantastic to find both the meaning in the common line and the meaning of the new perspective that is given to Israel. In God's intelligence all those facts have their loved place.
Gilgamesh was a king in the epic. He was Japeths great great grandson. The epic told of Noah's flood. They had not read Genesis to know much on the flood. Except that it happened.
Wes, I know that your channel is a cross between educational, academic and apologetics but I have a spiritual angle I’m curious about. From what we can tell there are a couple hundred flood stories from across the world. This would make sense from a complete destruction of everything and a reset from a common landing point, also taking into consideration the Tower of Babel. But were only certain parts of Genesis given to Moses from God, or was most of it? I’m curious because the creation accounts sound like the Words of the Creator, the Ten Commandments obviously are, the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are, as well as many others. And we know from scripture that God was very close with Moses. What is the academic possibility that Moses’ account of the flood are simply God clarifying the story during discussions with Moses? I know by injecting the spiritual into the conversation it complicates the academic/scientific part of my question, but is it possible that the story of Noah is more recent than other versions, because God told Moses a clarifying explanation, rather than Moses just stealing from previous stories to make his own? The size, shape and contents of the Arc, seem more realistic than the older forms mentioned in other narratives to me. Of course, this is with the caveat that I am a Christian and I take the Word of God over all else and so I want to ensure to others that my biases are clearly accepted from my vantage.
Thank you very much Wes. You have a awesome gift from God and im happy for you having that 🙏 i just find your channel and im thankful to learn more because im bad at reading . God bless you and keep up the good work brother 🙏
It makes sense that people that live close together will have stories that match up to a point. The Bible gives more of an overview of this time. Even when parts of the story matches, the view of who God is is completely different. The Jewish/Christian God is the only one that is outside of creation. All the other gods were created beings.
I look at it as not a mythical story but documentation of an event, like if CNN covers a story then 3 weeks later ABC does. It doesn't mean ABC plagiarized CNN, it just means they covered it too.
Abraham the father of the Hebrew people was from the city of Ur which is a Summerian city. I think like many people your own biases get in the way. What makes the bibles version of the flood story more truthful than some older writing like the epic of gilgamesh or for that matter any ancient flood srory? I am a believer in Jesus and the only living God, however I dont just dismiss other cultures and religions writings just because I do not subscribe to it exactly.
The difference is that Jesus considered the OT authoritative and God’s word. So, if you believe Jesus then you would believe in the reliability of the OT. Also, the Epic of Gilgamesh, though historically inaccurate, does corroborate the biblical message. For instance, the Bible speaks of angels having sex with women and creating giant offspring (Genesis 6:4). Enkidu and Gilgamesh seem like the giant offspring that would have been brought about by the Genesis 6:4 event. A flood occurred after those events. That parallels what the Bible says. Now, why are there similarities in the writings? 1. Because the flood and events surrounding it are true and are being told by another source (not inspired though). 2. After the flood and after Babel God set up angels to rule over the nations (some where in Deuteronomy 30 or 32 Maybe verse 12? I can’t check while typing this comment) . Anyways, those angels set themselves up as gods and always told bits of truth but twisted it so that the local people would worship them. Hence, the dissimilarities in the stories. Michael Heiser talks about this stuff some.
@@TwitchyTheologian Not just any angels, but fallen angels. Anyway, nobody is willing to believe this because theyre hung up on alien theories that were created to replace the common knowledge of the proven existence of the remains of Nephilim that had been discovered over time. Goliath and his brothers were also Nephilim.
I’m here because of debate with him and Billy and something is not right about Wes. I call 🧢. All of his videos are to debunk all of the stuff that would make someone walk away from Christianity but then when I watch the videos they just don’t do it for me. It’s too convenient. It’s always “ we believe” or “most scholars believe”. That’s opinion then, not fact. He is biased imo.
Everyone has biases, and Wes has clearly stated his in other videos. When referring to scholars of a field, it is typical to refer to them as a group, but if you want specific annotation or references, RUclips videos probably not the right place for them. If you have serious scholarly questions, you may need to do some serious scholarly research. At the end of the day you, like everybody else, will have to make up your mind based on the information you have before you. There’s no way you can know everything there is to know before making up your mind about almost anything. The preponderance of evidence… And then some faith.
So.. you're just going to conveniently leave out the eridu genesis and the atrahasis from the sumerians that have more parallel similarities to the flood story and only look at the one epic of gilamesh? Instead of looking at all of them to come to an actual scholarly conclusion. That's interesting.
@@Drewman56 Thanks for shedding light on the concept of motifs-truly groundbreaking! It's always refreshing to hear how simple thematic overlaps are chalked up to coincidence by true scholars. Really makes one wonder about the depth of analysis being applied. Such a pleasure to engage with someone who navigates the nuances of ancient literature with such... clarity.
In playing a game to telephone, I can pass on a message that will be a completely different after it passes by everyone in my workplace in the space 24 hrs. Look at the time span between the ancient tablets and the torah and it won't be illogical to think that 1 is a copy from the other.
Gilgamesh was a young king of Sumerian city-state of Uruk (c.2112-2004 BC, 3rd Dynasty of Ur) who sought out his ancestor Ut-napištim (either Noah, Shem, Ham or Japheth) who was on Noah's ark to learn the secret of eternal life. He was born after the flood that happened in 3298 B.C. and he would have had been told about the event and very likely also would have had 'fact checked' the event with the other three. Gilgamesh narrative about the flood was an account of what he had learned and was not from a first-hand experience. When people are ignorant of the timeline from the beginning, they make themselves to appear as fools.
Hey wes i was curious if you've read "the ugaritic texts and the Bible" by jerry Neal or similar studies comparing the two (the Hebrew Bible and the ras shamra ugaritic texts) and what your thoughts are.. thanks
I heard that Sumerian was descendants of Noah. So it is logical that they kept the story of their ancestor. And then Moses through revelations received that story and wrote it in Genesis.
@@melvincarter9640 do the math, or watch pastor Allen Nolan's tower of Babel sermon where he goes over the math. It was only 100 years after the flood I believe
@@melvincarter9640 Noah lived 350 years post flood, and Nimrod (that built Babel) was his great grandson, so it is conceivable that all had learned about the flood at this point in time.
@larrymoore2571 dude that still don't mean that Noah was alive during that time period. Noah was the head of his clan and if you look at the Genealogy of Genesis Peleg was the 5th or 6 generation after the Flood. According to the Bible the tower of Babel was an act of rebellion so I really doubt that Noah would have taken part in that act especially after serving the flood.
Seeing the title of this "Cultures all over the world have the same stories" ya. same stuff happened. Most cultures, wandered further and further from God. Fortunately Abraham held on And, new-aged mysticism borrows HEAVILY from the babylonian talmud.. and idk, revelation talks about the world right now, God Bless EVERYONE!
I'm pretty sure during French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and Second World War people thought Revelations was about their time too. It is not a prophetic book about the future, just as how Nostradamus didn't predict Hitler. at best the Bible predicts astronomical patterns like the Maya calendar or Hinduism, but this is an interpretation which has been suppressed, clearly evident when one has read the scrapped Book of Enoch, which has original fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls and a 2000+ year history in Ethiopian Ge'ez, so it's not a lateral fabrication.
@@FlyingTeacup I'm certain countless times felt like the end :) And scripture does a fair bit more. Tons of things "It's just a metaphor" have come true; seemingly impossible things.. I don't expect to convince anyone; i can only warn and when people see the blatant things that will come.. they may remember
In geometry, the 5-cell is the convex 4-polytope with Schläfli symbol {3,3,3}. It is a 5-vertex four-dimensional object bounded by five tetrahedral cells. It is also known as a C₅, pentachoron, pentatope, pentahedroid, or tetrahedral pyramid.
For those who are not familar with linguistics... Akkad took a huge chunk out of Sumeria. Sumeria became a language isolate. Out of Akkadian, came forth semitic tree: Assyrian, Hebrew, Canaanite and others. You can see that Hebrews base a lot of their language to that of Akkadians. Something you will see pretty much erased out of the history books to confuse and to obscure. But its where the Tower of Babel is really located... It is based in this same story - one surrounding languages and legends when you figure out the real location.
I'm surprised that not every single culture had the flood story, to begin with! Because the flood account would be passed down from generation to generation. It was that big of a deal! In other cultures it would, finally, get distorted such as the Gilgamesh
I am from India, here hindus have flood story too,with one man Manu and his family saved by Vishnu diety who came as fish, is this also copied from Mesopotamia 😂😂😂
Could you point me to some resources to see the similarities you are talking about between the other cultures that we know didn’t interact? I’d like to see how similar their stories are. At first glance to me the similarities between Noah and Gilgamesh seem pretty striking rather than minor details. And it makes sense that there would be significant differences because I doubt they stole or borrowed or plagiarized but rather stories were just influenced and got mixed in as they were retold.
I've read from a Christian writer about this topic, He wrote, If the epic of Gilgamesh is physically written before the Bible I don't see how that would give authority over the Bible. That would just be an older book that talks about what happened in history.orfari there wouldn't be any reason to accept it what It says as more factual or TRUE over the Bible says (in regards to their differences in details around the same events) Another christian writer wrote, The great flood story is told in many variants, in almost every culture in fact the name noe or Noah remains. Many of the pantheistic religious Shane rosters with same gods, date's stories & More. Not just related culture such as Egyptian, Roman, Greek Norse line up. But also native American & other indigenous group world over.the tunes are almost the same.to the more esoteric such as south American & Asian pyramids having the same setup & motifs, although stylistic difference occur. Everything else remains the same The Bible holds an explanation for this. 1) Genesis 11:1 whole earth was of one language 2) said to one another, let us build us a city & a tower (tower of babel) make us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the earth.. 4) Lord came down & said let us confused their language... So the Lord scattered them upon the face of the whole earth. This explains the phenomena to a tee. Similarities in the pantheistic religion are Retelling of Nephilim stories from the time of Jerod before the flood. Gilgamesh may have indeed been written before Genesis, but they both Tell the same story. I think base upon the many other historical & archeological facts we have Found studying the Bible vs the non reliable items found in Gilgamesh The genesis account is more accurate story so far
I believe your argument is very flawed. As a supposedly scholar, I find it very troubling that you can't just admit this is a very strong case proving the later story was very possibly copied from the original.
According to traditional biblical chronology, the Flood of Noah is often estimated to have occurred around 2300-2500 BCE (though these dates are debated). The flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh was written down around 2100-1800 BCE (this would indeed place its written version after the traditional date of Noah's Flood). However, The Epic of Gilgamesh was not "created" when it was first written down. It was based on much older oral traditions from Sumerian mythology that existed for centuries, possibly even before 2500 BCE. These stories already contained reflections on the nature of human life, death, and the afterlife, themes that would become central in the epic. This means that the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh might have existed in oral form BEFORE the supposed date of Noah's Flood if one follows a literal biblical timeline. From an archaeological and historical perspective, large floods occurred in the ancient Mesopotamian region (modern-day Iraq) where both the Sumerian civilization and later Babylonian empires thrived. These localized floods may have inspired the mythological flood stories in both the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah's Flood. Instead of seeing the Epic of Gilgamesh as a "copy" of the biblical flood or vice versa, both stories may be drawing on a shared cultural memory of real flood events that affected ancient Mesopotamian societies.
In the bible the snake did steal imortality from humanity in fact we traded imortality for knowledge. Even god says now we have become like him knowing between good and evil. Then god takes our imortality and well you know the rest. So yeah the snake did steal our so called plant of imortality and offered us another.
Genesis was written in about 1400 BC and the Israelites were not captured and exiled to Babylon until about 800-900 years later. Much of the Old Testament was already written well before this period of exile. Among all of the other excellent points you make here, it defies reason to think the Jews copied Babylonian stories.
It’s obvious that the stories are similar and obvious that each culture would adapt them to their own beliefs. The Bible is inspired by Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Canaanite (and probably more) religions. Apostle Paul borrows “in Him we live and move and have our being” from a hymn to Zeus. Even Jesus quotes an Egyptian proverb “the kingdom of heaven is within you” Personally, I think they were “borrowed” and refined to a better way of being, which is displayed in Christ. Him being the fulfillment of what every religion/culture is in search of
Wes... could the similarities between Noah and Gilgamesh demonstrate a shared historical narrative rather than a copy of one from the other? In other words, Noah is the Jewish account of the flood, whereas Gilgamesh is the Mesopotamian account of the flood. Differences are due to religion and geopolitics. Both serve as written evidence of a flood, but both written from different anthropological perspectives. As a Christian, I ascribe to Noah, but I do find it fascinating how there are many other flood accounts throughout the world. What are your thoughts?
All other stories take from Judaic history which is the original . If they would have kept God in their knowledge , the history would have been the same as in the books of Moses . But since they believed in pagan gods, they wrote their own history as they saw it . Hence, Fish Gods and Rain Gods and the whole Pantheon of men of renown who made names for themselves
Humans She in turn roused her son Enki, the god of wisdom, and urged him to create a substitute to free the gods from their toil. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.
I wouldn't say the story was plagiarized. The Bible is a collection of history. It's author is history. The Gilgamesh version is or was considered history. I know it's debated if Bible stories are just myth, but people back then thought they were history.
Lol it’s not historical It’s mythical , only inspired by real story / retelling of The people back then may know it’s not historical, the person who compiled it as well We, hundreds thousand years later might be fool enough (some of us) to thnk it’s as legit as toothfairy and santa claus
Well said, i had read. a lot about the actual story while people just say becuase theres a flood gilgamesh is noah, not knowing he isnt even the hereo in the sumerian tale.
Gilgamesh was a nephilim giant survival story, while noah was a human who was “true in his generations”, meaning he hadnt bred in with the offspring of fallen angels. Of course there were many flood survival stories. It was a global flood.
Anyone here after the Billy Carson drama to learn more?
You better believe it!!!
Yep
Ya and im diggin everything but the totally 80s background music 😝
Never even heard of Wes until the billy carson thing so billy actually did me a favor
Yep, he got exposed
Genesis 1-11 is a polemic against Mesopotamian stories, history, and theology. Its not plaguerizing from them but refuting them.
Cope
@Hunter-cl6bw Yes, I'm coping using the mainstream scholarly opinion on this.
@@clovismerovingian7764you're not coping you're speaking facts bro i been looking into this lately. I used to a be a little donkey like the guy who commented against you. But after doing research I found the truth.
Agree. I think William lane Craig believes that as well.
Yes. Tower of Babel
The fact that Gilgamesh story is older than Noah’s and yes you could say their differences are big, and you can’t deny the other 200+ flood myths across the world and the striking resemblances between Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood story. Yes it doesn’t PROVE it was borrowed, but it can’t be DISCOUNTED either. At the very least it’s interesting and to be honest as a non believer the fact that this story is told across the world reinforces for me the possibility that something like this could have happened, rather than discount the story.
Very well said. I believe it's also important to remember that the Hebrew language didn't exist when the flood is believed to have happened. So while the story was written in Sumerian and Akkadian first, the tradition existed in Jewish culture for thousands of years before Genesis was written. There's no way of really knowing which culture knew the story first.
Apologies if any of this is addressed in the video. I'm not a historian/scholar/archaeologist, and far from an expert. I just saw your comment before I started watching and found it interesting.
@UniverseAnomaly All history is probabilities. NOAH is extremely unlikely. All oral traditions develop over time.
Why are we debating Noah.? It didn't happen and couldn't happen in the way with results portrayed.
Besides. Makes God an incompetent, nasty piece of Work. Sentient creatures deserve better care.
Fundamentalist Christian's, like Huff, are the reason nobody respects church
@@steveburris6543 they will find Noah's arch if they haven't already. Just like the rest of the Bible has been historically accurate this will be shown to be true very soon.
This is what Billy Carson should have said 😂
It is recorded in the epic of Gilgamesh that Utnapishtim made an ark that was square. It was shaped like a cube. Noah's ark was rectangular. A cube is the least stable boat model that exists. A cube will capsize at the slightest wave. Noah's ark was six times as long as wide, and ten times as long as high. It turns out that those are the best proportions for a stable freighter. Noah's ark really is the best boat model you can possibly have. Dutch author Ben Hobrink talks about this in his book, 'Moderne Wetenschap in de Bijbel' (Modern Science in the Bible).
Very good point, Leon! The dimensions of Utnapiahtim’s vessel are clearly untenable for being a seaworthy boat and mark a stark difference to the Genesis account.
@@WesHuff A scaled-down round ark was built based on its description in a 3700 year old cuneform - it floated just fine.
@@davenewton4862 it did float, but it also capsized and flipped upside-down and right-side-up continually while it was floating. Hence my use of the term untenable.
@@WesHuff from an article about this in the Daily Mail: "Sadly, however, the Ark was not as perfect as it seemed and when launched, water began leaking into the hull. A pump was used to keep it afloat.
Despite this, Dr Finkel said that the inferior bitumen was to blame, but the Babylonian design was watertight and produced a stable vessel."
@@davenewton4862 So I just looked up the citations and the dimensions. What Dr. Finkel went off of was the vessel version in the Atrahasis Epic (as I mention in the video was what the flood narrative in Gilgamesh was most probably borrowed from), where the vessel is circular. However, by the time that it gets to the versions of Gilgamesh it states that the boat's "walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height, the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times its cubits each." This would make it a perfect square of 120 cubits per side (with 6 decks and 7 levels with 9 compartments in each as described in the Epic XI).
I believe the flood story is told in over 300 cultures.
Even more than 300, ruclips.net/video/lM0RgVz5gjg/видео.htmlsi=GG7-etoJcF3mVRQG
100% correct
☺️ the flood legend is in over 100 cultures
It's a world wide event I would wish to believe that such a world wide event would be recorded in majority of this worlds cultures
Amd your cult texts came thousands of years later. Your is the last remake of the story. So how's yours true when you fictionalize history. 😂😂
@garybowman5783 Ad ho·mi·nem attacks weaken your stands.
The world is filled with a flood event if you bother to investigate.
It's your soul if you don't believe in a living God
I remember 30 years ago in a humanities college course the liberal Methodist professor telling us about the “many” stories of Gilgamesh and he basically told us the Bible borrowed from these stories. This was a stumbling block to me and seeded doubt for so many years.
They are agents of satan and it also happened to me too, although in a different way.
I believe he controls all the systems of the world with the main goal to deceive so that we all miss out on God's salvation.
Satan has been at work plagiarizing God since the garden. Not the other way around.
Consider that Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, in Sumeria. Wouldn't he have brought the tech and knowledge of that civilization?
There's a huge oversight here. The date of the flood is at least 2,500 BC in other words the story is older than Gilgamesh which is dated from various versions 1600 - 2100 BC. There are approximately 200 or more variations of the story in cultures throughout the Earth. It's like having witnesses at all points of the globe that testify to this event, even in places that a flood story would not even be thought of in the region as it would appear to be impossible, yet is nevertheless engrained into the human experience. In different accounts the sizes of the boat would not fit a large population, or be seaworthy, or the duration in order to achieve the height of water would not be long enough, the receding of the waters would have been catastrophically too fast, or in other cases much fewer people and animal types all of which seem to miss important details that are left out of the account that are not realistic, but the Bible account is. It's the accurate original and not the compacted, or mistated summary of others.
The original story was handed down by Noah and eventually to Abraham then 400 years later or so Moses recorded the faithful account in Genesis as the permanent, accurate record of God's story.
Absolutely. The Flood was a worldwide event, so one would expect to have accounts of it from cultures all over the world. One would also expect that these stories, as they drift further and further from the original account, would become less detailed and more prone to inaccuracies, the actual "telephone game" that the unscholarly accuse the Bible of being.
More proof that the great deluge was around 12,800 yrs ago
You do realize , Hebew language didn't develop until around 1000 BC. How could have Hebrews known about the flood if their language didn't exist until 1500 years after alleged Biblical Flood.
@AskOurPastor, unfortunately, based on the work done by people like Gad Barnaea, Schlomo Sand and Yonatan Adler, there is little to no evidence for the existence of a 'Moses'.
The Torahic narratives don't seem to have existed in any form till at least the 6th or 7th century BCE, and weren't formalised into the Torah till at least the 5th or 4th century BCE. Beyond that, there is no evidence of the 'observance' of the Torah, till after the Maccabean period.
There also has been no evidence found for the 'exodus' and 40 years of being stuck in the wilderness, but such a huge group of people as claimed in the Bible.
@Shawner666 and English is about 1400 years old. You discussing thousand year old texts written in another language. Please get an education
Thank you, I was searching for this for a very long time
Keep up doing God’s work. You’re doing a great job debunking all this New Age Billy Carson nonsense.
I think your critique here is quite harsh since so many details are the same. They obviously have a common base
These people are half wits
Provide counter evidence or just stop.
@Azul901 Read the text and stop ignoring what you chose. Plenty evidence has long been provided
@Azul901 you don't read or accept anything outside your belief so why even ask for evidence in the first place
The common base is that there was a global flood.
I have to challenge you on this
If you're main defense is that there are more differences than there are similarities to stories from older traditions and religion that is a weak argument.
I'll keep this short and simple, think about this
If I wanted to steal somebody else's story or if there was an old fictional book that I love and wanted to replicate it and make it my own, I would keep a few important similarities, but then add my own creativity thoughts, motives, and interest, or personal agendas. i would not copy it verbatim, one hundred percent and then be found to be a fraud later on
You understand what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, we cannot prove or disprove if the stories from the bible were copied from older traditions and religions, but to try to disprove it because of differences, falls flat
Yes but if you read Gilgamesh and compare it to Noah, Gilgamesh is the one with all the added details and variations. Noah is the bare bones version. Why copy a story and strip it of everything? If someone copies a story, they add to it. Gilgamesh added to Noah.
Yes correlation is not causation
But we see multiple similarities
At a certain point we have to be open minded that all the similarities is not just a mere coincidence
But I’m speaking about how all cultures we influenced by an ancient advanced culture
So less of the idea that stuff was stolen vs just having similar literature due to ancient advanced culture influencing all cultures
Comparison:
The flood stories of Noah (from the Bible) and Utnapishtim (from the Epic of Gilgamesh) share several similarities, reflecting their shared origins in ancient Near Eastern traditions. Here’s a breakdown of the key parallels:
Similarities
1. Divine Warning
Noah: God warns Noah about the impending flood to cleanse the Earth of wickedness (Genesis 6:13-17).
Utnapishtim: The god Ea/Enki secretly warns Utnapishtim about the gods' decision to destroy humanity with a flood.
2. Construction of a Vessel
Noah: God instructs Noah to build an ark of specific dimensions using gopher wood.
Utnapishtim: Ea tells Utnapishtim to construct a massive boat with precise dimensions, resembling a cube in shape.
3. Preservation of Life
Noah: Noah brings his family and pairs of animals (male and female) to repopulate the Earth.
Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim saves his family, artisans, and animals of every kind.
4. The Flood
Noah: The flood lasts 40 days and nights, covering all the mountains (Genesis 7:12, 7:19).
Utnapishtim: The flood lasts 6 days and 7 nights, submerging the land.
5. Resting of the Boat
Noah: The ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat as the waters recede (Genesis 8:4).
Utnapishtim: His boat rests on Mount Nisir.
6. Sending of Birds
Noah: Noah sends out a raven and then a dove to find dry land. The dove returns with an olive branch (Genesis 8:6-12).
Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. The raven does not return, indicating dry land.
7. Post-Flood Offerings
Noah: After the flood, Noah offers a sacrifice to God, who makes a covenant never to destroy the Earth by flood again (Genesis 8:20-21).
Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim makes a sacrifice to the gods, who regret the flood and vow not to destroy humanity again.
---
Differences
1. Reason for the Flood
Noah: The flood is a punishment for human sin and corruption.
Utnapishtim: The flood is decreed because humans had become too noisy and disturbed the gods' peace.
2. Role of Deity/Deities
Noah: The monotheistic God directly commands and interacts with Noah.
Utnapishtim: Multiple gods are involved; Ea/Enki secretly helps Utnapishtim against the will of other gods.
3. Outcome for the Hero
Noah: Noah lives an ordinary life after the flood and becomes the father of post-flood humanity.
Utnapishtim: Utnapishtim and his wife are granted immortality by the gods and live forever at the edge of the world.
---
These similarities suggest that the Noah story and the Epic of Gilgamesh stem from a shared cultural tradition, possibly originating in Mesopotamia, where flood myths were common due to the region's geography and history of devastating floods.
Great post
But they were referring to younger dryas impact “theory” flood
Because wasn’t just some regular flood and we can see scars and remnants of the damage this ancient flood had on earth
If you don't understand this story comes from the same stream you're lying right to yourself
These aren't small similarities. It's obviously all from the same story whatever it is however it started.
😂ikr
I have a question. If Adam was the first man, who were the people in the territory that Cain went to after killing Abel?
If I may humbly respond to your question. Please note that the Bible doesn't give us the comprehensive details we may want, it focuses on tracing the main issues like creation, origin of sin, murder and such.
Just like in the movies we're not given all the details, most are cut out, otherwise it'll be too long.
Similar with the Bible; imagine if God instead of saying, He created the fish, He gave details of each one of them, same with trees, insects before reaching the creation of Man.
Adam had other sons and daughters Genesis 5:4 but it focuses on these two. Cain married one of his sisters and established a city.
The same way Jacob had 12 sons but we're not given details of each one of them but the main characters.
Please don't miss out on the grace of God. Only because you're not given the many details you demand. God has given what is necessary in His wisdom for our salvation.
Understand the Bible teaches that we have all sinned by breaking the law. Such as Do not lust, lie, steal, commit adultery etc. We have been sentenced to death but our souls face a second death - a life sentence into the lake of fire.
God has provided a fine by giving His Holy Son Jesus to die in our place and redeem our souls.
If only we would believe Him to receive Salvation. Then we would be saved, embrace a new lifestyle that is led by Jesus. Whom we acknowledge or confess as LORD and saviour by studying and following His teachings.
Thank you
So your advice is to just ignore what does not make sense to us?
@@1jumbojumbo1 not at all, approach truth with humility, conduct an in-depth research, reason critically, and evaluate evidence honestly. If the truth of Jesus is undeniable, acknowledge and submit to it.
Thank you.
@1jumbojumbo1 you can read for yourself and find this information to draw your conclusion, but you have to read from the sources, not just be quick to type comments without doing your research.
@@edwnji Thanks for your response. are you saying That Cain practised incest with his sister?
Just because it was weitten first does not mean it is older. These were stories passed down verbally for many generations before they took written form.
Lets not take for granted that each book of the Bible was not put together as it is now but they where separate text written by different people during different periods. I am no scholar but as far as Genesis goes the concept of monotheism was not so set in stone yet. As when Yawheh spoke he spoke in plural Let us us make man in our own image. Man has now become as one of us knowing good from evil. I understand when you go to church they try to explain this as the heavenly host or the future trinity. However, it is very unlikely that whoever wrote those text had any concept of the new testament in mind.
You’re completely wrong and the idea they didn’t know about the “future Trinity” is wrong. If you actually know the Bible you would clearly see the Trinity in the Old Testament and Genesis. You’re speaking out of complete ignorance.
In Hebrew you can use plural words to describe something singular
@@BonzTrinitarianyou would also clearly see that there are 2 differing accounts of the creation story and Noah’s story
@@lukeanthony8755 You’re high
Very interesting. I feel better about the story not being copied in the Bible. I have always thought that Noah was alive during the time of Gilgamesh and possibly the Mesopotamians beat the ancient Hebrews to the story. But it sounds like they are truly different stories and there is even an earlier version that Gilgamesh had originated from. Cheers and thanks Wes. ✝️
Thank you for all your great content! I learn so much. All the details you present are so fascinating. Thanks Wes!
Moses knew about the Epic of Gilgamesh. He had access to the greatest knowledge of his day.
Mosas was raised an Egyptian Prince. He was taught at the best schools. He had the best tutors. They most likely had the biggest library in the world. Of course he knew all the old stories
You mean Moses?
@@michaelmorgan2880 yes
@@Michael-oe3zjThere has never been a global flood, and it is likely that Moses never existed.
Yes.We had to have a spiritual awakening for a reason because we werent taught the truth/real history and DNA confirmed it.
True!
What did dna do?
You cant read dna, you can only hope some guy in a labcoat is telling the truth.
It’s such comparisons made between different cultures from large spans of time…give me a good reason why I am not a Christian anymore even if I value the meaning behind the books of the Bible.
Anyone who gives a greater account to particular minds Apostle or NOT…who could carry these oral traditions long enough until they were written…will see all it is is just that a line of communication overtime not the evidence what is accounted for is the case.
…Dr. Huff 8’ the end to me proves only one thing; these specific account had the privilege to be able to carrying on their consensus of meaning whether Christian, Jewish, Greco-Roman, Aztec or Egyptian…all considering that being orally or literary were not abilities all people had as education of any formal sense was for the select few.
Whatever parallels exist in historical past, distal or proximal, only demonstrates not the existent of Gods nor gods or of floods and Individuals such as Noah or Gilgamesh?!?
But that those who were linguistically superior (or rather distinct) more able to communicate across time certain things they valued to their human experience.
Take note: accounts of whatever scripture or historical text only give a line of communication between such individuals nothing more nothing else- not the truth nor complete evidence of the experience of individuals.
I don’t believe in the Bible b/c it’s only important to the people who seek consensus through it like all people do with any example of language.
I don't believe you because this is a horrible use of grammar in language.
@ Goodbye Troll. 🧌
Read Atra Hasis as well as epic of Gilgamesh, their flood stories have many shared narratives and it’s obvious that the Noah story is the same story. Read Irvin Finkle books or watch his videos on the similarities. Irvin Finkle is far more qualified than Wes
Wes has made just as much a fool of himself as Carson did !
My only thought in response (in addition not rebuttle, obviously) to this is: It's pretty obvious that if globally (not just the ANE) you have similar stories about a global flood, and a dude and a boat... with animals, etc. etc. etc. Similar events in scope and scale - with maybe key players being different and maybe specific animals being listed, that means that something DID happen. However, it was likely before things were written and so while people spread out (Babel), the narrative shifted and changed over time. For example, my dad doesn't remember how i crashed the car. He wrote a letter adding all these details that just weren't true to the original event from 20 years ago. Key details were correct - but the peripherals in it - incorrect.
Anyway, great thoughts! Been appreciating your stuff for a while!
How about a dude saved a few goats from a flood using a raft, and he embellished a bit. Play a few hundred years of telephone game, and voila!
Some ancient fiction author realizes how cool a story it would make if it had some more embellishments added.
Does this sound like it’s at least a remote feasible possibility? Be honest…
Good logical point my dude
Happy to find sane people here
@@Godwin_7 Sure, it is a "remotely feasible possibility". But makes even less sense. It makes more sense that a real flood happened that was spread over time and gets changed as more people tell the story.
There really was a big flood in the area where the Noah/Gilgamesh story originated. I could easily imagine lots of people scrambling for boats in a effort to preserve what they have. I’m sure wherever in the world there was a disaster, stories were told of it. Are you saying nobody ever related stories of local floods to their kin? Or embellished a story until now? Or that there were no fiction writers back then (story-tellers, before writing was invented)? Had the lie not been invented yet? Now what do you think is more likely…
Loving the content!
We should also consider how ancient tribal priestly classes had their own polemics, counter-texts, borrowing, and diffusions. I believe the biblical text employs all of those devices, especially in light of how each of the ten plagues mock Egyptian gods to show the supremacy and exclusivity of YHWH. So, although there are similarities between ancient Near Eastern origin myths, angel battles, and flood accounts, the biblical text portrays the most accurate and fully correct revelation of the ancient past each of those ancient tribal priestly classes were attempting to portray.
Coming from Islam, I can affirm the same concepts u mention are in book, and the supplementary canon (hadith)
I've heard these claims before and are documented on RUclips. Wes is someone of immense learning and what he says, is probably the correct conclusion.
Thanks for this video Wes! Keep doing what you're doing. Your content has been a big help to me!
If we look at the Utnapistim story in the Gilgamesh tale, we can see something very funny.
The Utnapistim story itself is a side story to the Gilgamesh story, and it is a myth borrowed from somewhere, and the flood itself is a story that was lengthened because of Gilgamesh, rather than ending cleanly.
In the first place, why did Anu take Utnapistim and his wife to another place after the flood had already ended? And he moved the large ship that could carry people and all animals to Mutnusu?
This is just a device to make Gilgamesh and Utnapistim meet. Furthermore, if we look closely at the structure of the island where Utnapistim lives, we can see that it is none other than the island where the waters of the lower world flow, that is, the underworld.
In other words, the meeting between Gilgamesh and Utnapistim is ultimately a variation of Gilgamesh's exploration of the underworld. Gilgamesh's encounter with Siduri, the owner of the inn on the border of the underworld, was ultimately nothing more than a shaman who could travel to the underworld connecting Gilgamesh to another point in the underworld.
If we structurally examine the various myths of the world, the simpler one is more likely to be the origin of two similar myths. In the first place, myths were 'acted' through speech, not writing, and realistic scenes were always added to increase their validity or persuasiveness.
On the other hand, written records tend to become simpler as the social implications or common knowledge at the time they were written increased.
In other words, by the time the Gilgamesh myth was collected and compiled into writing, many variations had already been spread through oral tradition.
So which one is older and more original: the simple Noah's flood, which has no oral structure modifications, or the Utnapishtim myth, which has a complex structure with clear traces of various additions?
Now that I think about it, I find myself laughing.
I’m more convinced Genesis borrowed from Babylon’s after watching this video
I have to challenge you on this
If you're main defense is that there are more differences than there are similarities to stories from older traditions and religion that is a weak argument.
I'll keep this short and simple, think about this
If I wanted to steal somebody else's story or if there was an old fictional book that I love and wanted to replicate it and make it my own, I would keep a few important similarities, but then add my own creativity thoughts, motives, and interest, or personal agendas. i would not copy it verbatim, one hundred percent and then be found to be a fraud later on
You understand what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, we cannot prove or disprove if the stories from the bible were copied from older traditions and religions, but to try to disprove it because of differences, falls flat
The British Museum has a cuneiform tablet about a guy told to build a large vessel. Round and with instructions. That makes at least two different stories about “the flood” in Mesopotamia. Irving Finkel, a fun curator of the museum, wrote a book about the tablet and does presentations you can find on RUclips. “The Ark before Noah” or “The Flood before Noah”. Some friends helped figure out the instructions and they built a scaled down one in India. Oh, that ancient was also supposed to load up a lot of critters. He definitely wasn’t the guy in Gilgamesh.
From my limited understanding of “races” most of the indigenous of Southwest Asia are Semitic. That includes the indigenous who follow Judaism, Christianity, or Islamism. Also the Iraqis, Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, some mixing with Indo-European Persians, the Saudi Arabians, etc.. Through invasion they spread across N. Africa and into parts of Europe. Some think Abraham was from Sumer. The earliest known decent writing system is cuneiform. It was very adaptable and used by those who spoke different dialects or languages for thousands of years. I think cuneiform was still being used as recently as 400 BC.
Anyway, is it cultural appropriation when one version or another was part of the ancient mythology of a large people group? A people that did not stay in one place?
There are flood stories around the globe. Obviously there were survivors around the globe. Most of them probably thought they were the only survivors.
There us no evidence of a global flood that covered the planet in the time periods of any of the myths. When the planet had very little or any above water landmasses there were no critters even close to being apes. But there was a lot of flooding and huge rising of ocean levels sometime between 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens were on every continent except maybe Greenland.
Humans are far from infallible. Plus there are always storytellers who tweak the tales they tell. For many reasons. To assume any were exactly told orally over thousands of years is naive. The changes in languages would change the stories too.
Fantastic video wes! I appreciate your scholarly approach to the subject, and i very much enjoyed how you presented the material. I hope the nay sayers dont get in your head. You've got a new fan!
With God, all things are possible! ❤
all I see is people saying , it came before the bible , the bible took the stories yet how far back to manuscripts go? when did Moses write down the book? what about simply hearing orally or witnessing the things of God? it seems these writings even if they did come before a complete bible OR EVEN the manuscripts for that matter or original texts that these writings only support the scriptures by recording the events . The King James bible is one of the best selling books around the world and continues to be , not the epic of gilgamesh , and for good reason .
The reason is because those who invaded and conquered the world at that time rewrote history. What about the council of Nicae 325 ad. The problem with the validity of the Bible is man wrote it. Point blank period. If I said God inspired me to add to the Bible a new book, I'd be thought of as insane. Sometimes logic and reason trumps everything.
Flavius Josephus
That is not an argument. At all, pal
@@whynot1548 Who said it was lol. Just some points of interest that will kill all of this. If you want an argument. Let's get into the dates. And not the ones propagated by egyptolgy. How old is the Bible? Who wrote it, and how is it validated?
It isn't just the Sumerians, I was on Signal Mountain in Chattanooga and there was a plaque posted with a Cherokee flood myth. So did the Cherokee steal the myth from the Sumerians?
Make no mistake. Whether it's this dude trying to convince you of his religion or Billy trying to heist you. If either one of these people tell you that God can be understood or reached by reading or hearing or seeing, they are lying or don't know any better. He who claims to know knows nothing. He who claims nothing, knows.
Everybody always has to question the Bible. It gets old people
Right
Should we just blindly obey what we have been taught and never decide for ourselves?
@sonofsparda629 why would those people lie? What would they have to gain by making up stories of a global flood or copying what someone else already wrote? Logic dictates that the flood happened. Every culture has its own noah-like story. Logic also dictates that the dinos and man lived side by side. How? We have proof!!! But science doesn't want to believe. How come you won't question them as to why they lie???
Wouldn’t it be more likely that the Biblical event was simply retold in a cultural telephone game throughout the world and was preserved best by prophets in scripture?
All religious texts are stories based off other stories. They cannot be proven nor disproven for the most part. Large sections of history are educated guesses from scholars who may or may not be correct. The best you can shoot for is the simplest idea is hopefully correct, but there is no guarantee. Two people can read the same text and come up with completely different interpretations.
Fantastic huff does it again😁😁😁👍
Great stuff
10:55 Let's not forget: Reading was wildly elitist and books or writings were amazingly scarced.
Trying to make a point by saying "See how they are so different therefore they can't be a copy or reteling of that story" is biased.
You convinced me more about the story of the Eden being a mishmash of another story than otherwise (and I have never heard about this up until now). It's pretty easy for oral tradition to miss or adapt the details. I remember a professor once stating that the Greek, for instance, where not interested in historic accuracy ratter telling a story that would elevate what happened. Today we are used to the idea that everything must be fact checked and documented, otherwise it can't be considered truth but consider this: throughout milenia oral traditions, people forgeting or actually adapating to its liking stories and I can totally see these detail differences emerging. When I was at the Church they used to say how the copists of ancient Bible were so accurate and how they absolutely never chanced a single letter and It can be truth from a certain point on but I sincerly doubt Moses (which is supposed to be the guy who wrote the first 5 chapters of the bible) heard all of this from God (which in any place is said he did, it's only assumed). Also let's consider that indeed Moses narrated the 5 first books of the bible and It's was not God telling all though his ears, and again it is never stated it was: Where did he heard these? The same story of Moses states that he fled Egypt, how far did he travel? How many cultures did he had contact with or at least would be a stretch to think some of these storyteller from acient times or the people from where he lived that told that adpated version of an ancient story and them he came back rescued his people and told these stories because it was "common knowledge"? The idea of a "Let's fact check" will never hold up in ancient texts.
And all of this is me considering that was ACTUALLY Moses that narrated these 5 first chapters because someone once pointed something pretty interesting: The closer the Bible stories came to the "current" Israelites the less "magical" they become. Consider that after David "God" stopped oppening the sea, sending plagues against their enemies, raining fireballs from the sky, turning people in pillars of salt, giving a man the power an army (which I absolutely think the Greeks heard the "Myth" of Samson when creating the story of Hercules), making the ground open and swallow people, having the arc pulverize someone that thouches it and so on and he just decided that Israel would be destroyed over, and over and would be taken captive. What happen? Did God loose his powers or did he gave up? None of these answers will be any good for a beliver. It would be more coherent to assume that these deeds from the past were exagerations from oral traditions. Maybe Samson did exist and he might have been a amazingly strong and fiercful warrior and he might even be a cautionary tale on why you shouldn't let your guard down (because he was playing with a enemy hooker and was dumb enough to tell his "secret"). But the tale about this man being exagerated or elevated (like the Greeks used to do with their stories) makes more sense.
I didnt watch this video all the way but I believe many of the records in the bible are based on those of the Egyptians. The Egyptians probably had records going way, way back.
There are some surviving texts on papyrus or other paper like materials, but most ancient Egyptian records around today are those carved in stone. I suspect much of the practices condemed in the Bible (idolotry etc.) were influenced by ancient Egypt, but the scriptures themselves are written after the Exodus, when they left Egypt behind.
No. And Joseph taught Egyptians . Etc.....Egyptians were influenced by Moses too. I don't buy it
Problem is we don't have many Egyptian records to go off of
I did an assessment on this last year and the message I came to was that the ancient near eastern (ANE) people were using ANE thinking to convey biblical truths whilst also directly challenging ANE beliefs and ideologies. And like Wes says, you see that clearly when you analyse the differences. It truly shows the creative ingenuity of the authors, and how different and lovely our God is compared to the ANE gods. Great video.
Great explanation. I love the Jon Claude Van Dame parallel haha.
As a thinking Man. My question is, How was it possible to assemble all the animals in the world by a hand full of people. Then feed them, scoop poop, treat for illness etc....not to mention mix fresh water species with salt water species. You must realize how stupid this whole story sounds right?
The Bible says verbatim what kind of animals were on the ark. To summarize, basically all Land animals that had limbs and lungs. You can read it yourself.
The Bible is modern rendition
I study Sitchin work
And sounds like they had dna of the animals
I come from a different school of thought and looking through different lens of course
@@anthonyurso3554exactly! Somebody come tell this man you can not put all those animal on a boat -it would sink 😂
Maybe there are parallel because the event actually happened
Hindu, Bhuddist and Shinto temples are Noah’s ark theme parks in granite.
Chief pagan gods are all based on Noah’s life and activity’s.
This is great. My only other thought I had about this is flood stories from different regions prove that there was a flood. If the story from Genesis is true, then you would expect other cultures to have records of it as it spread through Noah, ham, shem and japheth and their families regarding what actually happened. In other words if what the epic of Gilgamesh says is true about building a boat in the sacrifices and all that to me it only lends credibility to the veracity of the origin.
Thank you for your video! Very informative
☺️ the flood legend is in over 100 cultures
It's a world wide event I would wish to believe that such a world wide event would be recorded in majority of this worlds cultures
Hard to look at Wes for too long. Almost as if the devil is coming out of him and into myself.
Can we have Wes Huff and Paul Wallis discuss these issues. I respect these two bible scholars, but they have divergent views. Wes seems to be making more sense after watching his debate with Billy.
Paul Wallis or Marius Baglioni !
One simple quote that we find in the Babylonian. Creation Smith is that the lions can lay with the lamb. And we find such quotes and the Old Testament. I can't keep doing this like come on, man
as a German Biologist and Pythagorean - we face this mystery of the Younger Dryas era and the hypothesis of a Comet Impact - that dramatically changed Climate - the sea level rising more than 100 Meters from sudden Ice Melting. we may have remnants of oral traditions witnessing such an event - all over the earth - not only on one location. The story of “Atlantis” may originate from there. Göbekli Tepe may be related to that. The oral tradition may be part of cultural Identity - to trace the history of a tribe - a nation - back to the origins - and claim originality, uniqueness - a sort of racial arrogance and justification of Superiority over others. Who can be killed, enslaved, conquered, eliminated... For me as a Biologist it is part of Anthropology - how Taboos emerge - the fear of the Unknown, fear of GODS - who can destroy - El Shaddai as a God of Revenge... we have lost the connection to those ancient oral traditions - we do wild Phantasies to create our own entertainment. Ancient Humans lived in a harsh environment - with horrible destructions. We have no imagination how hard that life must have been. may be living in Mosul and Aleppo can give an idea... when Mariupol was destroyed from the Air - and sank into the Black Sea ...creation of a new Myth...
Someone's been listening to the Joe Rogan podcast...
@Wes Huff I am a German Biologist, Biochemist Ph D - I listen to nobody. Science = STUDY. Mathematoi - - Pythagoras...study!The Younger Dryas is an enigma to study! We are fast accelerating to Human Extinction...
@@raginald7mars408 I'm sure you've listened to somebody. At minimum you're reading individuals like Graham Hancock, who are the modern scholastic advocates for what you've described. Your initial comment could have summarized 2 episodes of recent Joe Rogan podcasts. That was the only reason I (jokingly by the way) made the moment. I'm not sure what being *German* in particular adds to you being a biologist. Unless you're specifically studying the biology of Germans? I didn't mention the Younger Dryas Thesis in my video at all so I was commenting more in jest then anything else.
@Wes Huff we are conditioned by the culture we grow up. I have All the horrible European traits you despise. A Warning. You may not appreciate Independent Study - not listening to anybody. it is a scientific puzzle to study the last rapid intense global warming - and it may have fuelled our modern Religions. Charles Darwin was forced to study Theology. As he never listened to anybody - he became a better Biologist - the Art of Study... not listening - Akkus matoi - Listeners - not Scientists - Pythagoras - study...
@@raginald7mars408 With all due respect, I really am not following how much of what you're saying has anything to do with my original video. Nonetheless, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to my own lack of understanding and incompetence.
I believe the common traces in the Bible and the earlier accounts of human origins don't have to be dismissed like this. It's fantastic to find both the meaning in the common line and the meaning of the new perspective that is given to Israel. In God's intelligence all those facts have their loved place.
Enki-du…is that Scooby’s brother?
Gilgamesh was a king in the epic. He was Japeths great great grandson. The epic told of Noah's flood. They had not read Genesis to know much on the flood. Except that it happened.
Ever consider theyre both seperate but related traditions concerning the memory of an actual event?
Wes, I know that your channel is a cross between educational, academic and apologetics but I have a spiritual angle I’m curious about.
From what we can tell there are a couple hundred flood stories from across the world. This would make sense from a complete destruction of everything and a reset from a common landing point, also taking into consideration the Tower of Babel.
But were only certain parts of Genesis given to Moses from God, or was most of it? I’m curious because the creation accounts sound like the Words of the Creator, the Ten Commandments obviously are, the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are, as well as many others. And we know from scripture that God was very close with Moses. What is the academic possibility that Moses’ account of the flood are simply God clarifying the story during discussions with Moses? I know by injecting the spiritual into the conversation it complicates the academic/scientific part of my question, but is it possible that the story of Noah is more recent than other versions, because God told Moses a clarifying explanation, rather than Moses just stealing from previous stories to make his own? The size, shape and contents of the Arc, seem more realistic than the older forms mentioned in other narratives to me.
Of course, this is with the caveat that I am a Christian and I take the Word of God over all else and so I want to ensure to others that my biases are clearly accepted from my vantage.
Does the Babylonian flood myth supply any extra information on the Noah flood story? Possibly the stories come from a common source?
Thank you very much Wes. You have a awesome gift from God and im happy for you having that 🙏 i just find your channel and im thankful to learn more because im bad at reading . God bless you and keep up the good work brother 🙏
It makes sense that people that live close together will have stories that match up to a point. The Bible gives more of an overview of this time. Even when parts of the story matches, the view of who God is is completely different. The Jewish/Christian God is the only one that is outside of creation. All the other gods were created beings.
I think theres common tales that are shared for the purpose of teaching.
I look at it as not a mythical story but documentation of an event, like if CNN covers a story then 3 weeks later ABC does. It doesn't mean ABC plagiarized CNN, it just means they covered it too.
Exactly. It’s obviously the same event.
I enjoy your videos but I don’t think you need background music lol. Regardless thank you for what you do.
I think music stops you tube blocking videos based on certain words used. I could be wrong…
Abraham the father of the Hebrew people was from the city of Ur which is a Summerian city. I think like many people your own biases get in the way. What makes the bibles version of the flood story more truthful than some older writing like the epic of gilgamesh or for that matter any ancient flood srory?
I am a believer in Jesus and the only living God, however I dont just dismiss other cultures and religions writings just because I do not subscribe to it exactly.
The difference is that Jesus considered the OT authoritative and God’s word. So, if you believe Jesus then you would believe in the reliability of the OT. Also, the Epic of Gilgamesh, though historically inaccurate, does corroborate the biblical message. For instance, the Bible speaks of angels having sex with women and creating giant offspring (Genesis 6:4). Enkidu and Gilgamesh seem like the giant offspring that would have been brought about by the Genesis 6:4 event. A flood occurred after those events. That parallels what the Bible says. Now, why are there similarities in the writings? 1. Because the flood and events surrounding it are true and are being told by another source (not inspired though). 2. After the flood and after Babel God set up angels to rule over the nations (some where in Deuteronomy 30 or 32 Maybe verse 12? I can’t check while typing this comment) . Anyways, those angels set themselves up as gods and always told bits of truth but twisted it so that the local people would worship them. Hence, the dissimilarities in the stories. Michael Heiser talks about this stuff some.
@@TwitchyTheologian Not just any angels, but fallen angels. Anyway, nobody is willing to believe this because theyre hung up on alien theories that were created to replace the common knowledge of the proven existence of the remains of Nephilim that had been discovered over time. Goliath and his brothers were also Nephilim.
I’m here because of debate with him and Billy and something is not right about Wes. I call 🧢. All of his videos are to debunk all of the stuff that would make someone walk away from Christianity but then when I watch the videos they just don’t do it for me. It’s too convenient. It’s always “ we believe” or “most scholars believe”. That’s opinion then, not fact. He is biased imo.
Everyone has biases, and Wes has clearly stated his in other videos. When referring to scholars of a field, it is typical to refer to them as a group, but if you want specific annotation or references, RUclips videos probably not the right place for them. If you have serious scholarly questions, you may need to do some serious scholarly research. At the end of the day you, like everybody else, will have to make up your mind based on the information you have before you. There’s no way you can know everything there is to know before making up your mind about almost anything. The preponderance of evidence… And then some faith.
So.. you're just going to conveniently leave out the eridu genesis and the atrahasis from the sumerians that have more parallel similarities to the flood story and only look at the one epic of gilamesh? Instead of looking at all of them to come to an actual scholarly conclusion. That's interesting.
Motifs aren't proof of being a ripoff
@@Drewman56 Thanks for shedding light on the concept of motifs-truly groundbreaking! It's always refreshing to hear how simple thematic overlaps are chalked up to coincidence by true scholars. Really makes one wonder about the depth of analysis being applied. Such a pleasure to engage with someone who navigates the nuances of ancient literature with such... clarity.
In playing a game to telephone, I can pass on a message that will be a completely different after it passes by everyone in my workplace in the space 24 hrs. Look at the time span between the ancient tablets and the torah and it won't be illogical to think that 1 is a copy from the other.
Which story is older? The epic of Gilgamesh it the story of Noah?
Gilgamesh
Pretty irrelevant if you can't actually prove borrowing and there are good reasons to conclude that they are fundamentally different
@@rayzas4885 Fundamentally similar, in detail dissimilar. But both are just stories.
The first one
Only one is written by eyewitness….
Gilgamesh was a young king of Sumerian city-state of Uruk (c.2112-2004 BC, 3rd Dynasty of Ur) who sought out his ancestor Ut-napištim (either Noah, Shem, Ham or Japheth) who was on Noah's ark to learn the secret of eternal life. He was born after the flood that happened in 3298 B.C. and he would have had been told about the event and very likely also would have had 'fact checked' the event with the other three. Gilgamesh narrative about the flood was an account of what he had learned and was not from a first-hand experience.
When people are ignorant of the timeline from the beginning, they make themselves to appear as fools.
Hey wes i was curious if you've read "the ugaritic texts and the Bible" by jerry Neal or similar studies comparing the two (the Hebrew Bible and the ras shamra ugaritic texts) and what your thoughts are.. thanks
I heard that Sumerian was descendants of Noah. So it is logical that they kept the story of their ancestor. And then Moses through revelations received that story and wrote it in Genesis.
Noah would have been alive when the tower of babel was built, would explain why all the civilizations seem to have a flood record.
I doubt Noah was alive at the time of the tower of babel
Or he just passed down the story to his offspring like every other oral tradition
@@melvincarter9640 do the math, or watch pastor Allen Nolan's tower of Babel sermon where he goes over the math. It was only 100 years after the flood I believe
@@melvincarter9640 Noah lived 350 years post flood, and Nimrod (that built Babel) was his great grandson, so it is conceivable that all had learned about the flood at this point in time.
@larrymoore2571 dude that still don't mean that Noah was alive during that time period. Noah was the head of his clan and if you look at the Genealogy of Genesis Peleg was the 5th or 6 generation after the Flood. According to the Bible the tower of Babel was an act of rebellion so I really doubt that Noah would have taken part in that act especially after serving the flood.
As a believing Christian, I dont think you argued this point well. Its not convincing.
Seeing the title of this
"Cultures all over the world have the same stories" ya. same stuff happened. Most cultures, wandered further and further from God. Fortunately Abraham held on
And, new-aged mysticism borrows HEAVILY from the babylonian talmud.. and idk, revelation talks about the world right now, God Bless EVERYONE!
I'm pretty sure during French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and Second World War people thought Revelations was about their time too. It is not a prophetic book about the future, just as how Nostradamus didn't predict Hitler. at best the Bible predicts astronomical patterns like the Maya calendar or Hinduism, but this is an interpretation which has been suppressed, clearly evident when one has read the scrapped Book of Enoch, which has original fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls and a 2000+ year history in Ethiopian Ge'ez, so it's not a lateral fabrication.
@@FlyingTeacup I'm certain countless times felt like the end :)
And scripture does a fair bit more. Tons of things "It's just a metaphor" have come true; seemingly impossible things..
I don't expect to convince anyone; i can only warn and when people see the blatant things that will come.. they may remember
I mean, if you took either Advil or Arsenic, you’d solve your headache problem.
In geometry, the 5-cell is the convex 4-polytope with Schläfli symbol {3,3,3}. It is a 5-vertex four-dimensional object bounded by five tetrahedral cells. It is also known as a C₅, pentachoron, pentatope, pentahedroid, or tetrahedral pyramid.
The difference is gilgamesh is etched in stone (original) the bible no originals just copies
For those who are not familar with linguistics... Akkad took a huge chunk out of Sumeria. Sumeria became a language isolate. Out of Akkadian, came forth semitic tree: Assyrian, Hebrew, Canaanite and others. You can see that Hebrews base a lot of their language to that of Akkadians. Something you will see pretty much erased out of the history books to confuse and to obscure. But its where the Tower of Babel is really located... It is based in this same story - one surrounding languages and legends when you figure out the real location.
I'm surprised that not every single culture had the flood story, to begin with! Because the flood account would be passed down from generation to generation. It was that big of a deal! In other cultures it would, finally, get distorted such as the Gilgamesh
I love it when Christian scholars gain popularity by ending the careers of self proclaimed experts in ancient texts.
"Plagiarism" makes absolutely no sense in a world predating copyright....
I am from India, here hindus have flood story too,with one man Manu and his family saved by Vishnu diety who came as fish, is this also copied from Mesopotamia 😂😂😂
Yeah.
Could you point me to some resources to see the similarities you are talking about between the other cultures that we know didn’t interact? I’d like to see how similar their stories are.
At first glance to me the similarities between Noah and Gilgamesh seem pretty striking rather than minor details. And it makes sense that there would be significant differences because I doubt they stole or borrowed or plagiarized but rather stories were just influenced and got mixed in as they were retold.
I've read from a Christian writer about this topic, He wrote,
If the epic of Gilgamesh is physically written before the Bible I don't see how that would give authority over the Bible. That would just be an older book that talks about what happened in history.orfari there wouldn't be any reason to accept it what It says as more factual or TRUE over the Bible says (in regards to their differences in details around the same events)
Another christian writer wrote,
The great flood story is told in many variants, in almost every culture in fact the name noe or Noah remains. Many of the pantheistic religious Shane rosters with same gods, date's stories & More. Not just related culture such as Egyptian, Roman, Greek Norse line up. But also native American & other indigenous group world over.the tunes are almost the same.to the more esoteric such as south American & Asian pyramids having the same setup & motifs, although stylistic difference occur. Everything else remains the same
The Bible holds an explanation for this.
1) Genesis 11:1 whole earth was of one language 2) said to one another, let us build us a city & a tower (tower of babel) make us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the earth..
4) Lord came down & said let us confused their language... So the Lord scattered them upon the face of the whole earth.
This explains the phenomena to a tee.
Similarities in the pantheistic religion are
Retelling of Nephilim stories from the time of
Jerod before the flood.
Gilgamesh may have indeed been written before Genesis, but they both Tell the same story.
I think base upon the many other historical & archeological facts we have
Found studying the Bible vs the non reliable items found in Gilgamesh
The genesis account is more accurate story so far
I believe your argument is very flawed. As a supposedly scholar, I find it very troubling that you can't just admit this is a very strong case proving the later story was very possibly copied from the original.
Would open a can of worms that would destroy their Beliefs!
According to traditional biblical chronology, the Flood of Noah is often estimated to have occurred around 2300-2500 BCE (though these dates are debated). The flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh was written down around 2100-1800 BCE (this would indeed place its written version after the traditional date of Noah's Flood).
However, The Epic of Gilgamesh was not "created" when it was first written down. It was based on much older oral traditions from Sumerian mythology that existed for centuries, possibly even before 2500 BCE. These stories already contained reflections on the nature of human life, death, and the afterlife, themes that would become central in the epic. This means that the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh might have existed in oral form BEFORE the supposed date of Noah's Flood if one follows a literal biblical timeline.
From an archaeological and historical perspective, large floods occurred in the ancient Mesopotamian region (modern-day Iraq) where both the Sumerian civilization and later Babylonian empires thrived. These localized floods may have inspired the mythological flood stories in both the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah's Flood.
Instead of seeing the Epic of Gilgamesh as a "copy" of the biblical flood or vice versa, both stories may be drawing on a shared cultural memory of real flood events that affected ancient Mesopotamian societies.
In the bible the snake did steal imortality from humanity in fact we traded imortality for knowledge. Even god says now we have become like him knowing between good and evil. Then god takes our imortality and well you know the rest. So yeah the snake did steal our so called plant of imortality and offered us another.
Genesis was written in about 1400 BC and the Israelites were not captured and exiled to Babylon until about 800-900 years later. Much of the Old Testament was already written well before this period of exile. Among all of the other excellent points you make here, it defies reason to think the Jews copied Babylonian stories.
It’s obvious that the stories are similar and obvious that each culture would adapt them to their own beliefs.
The Bible is inspired by Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Canaanite (and probably more) religions. Apostle Paul borrows “in Him we live and move and have our being” from a hymn to Zeus. Even Jesus quotes an Egyptian proverb “the kingdom of heaven is within you”
Personally, I think they were “borrowed” and refined to a better way of being, which is displayed in Christ. Him being the fulfillment of what every religion/culture is in search of
Thank you Billy
Very good, tired of these folks, new to Wes, since he caught a Billy Goat
Wes... could the similarities between Noah and Gilgamesh demonstrate a shared historical narrative rather than a copy of one from the other? In other words, Noah is the Jewish account of the flood, whereas Gilgamesh is the Mesopotamian account of the flood. Differences are due to religion and geopolitics. Both serve as written evidence of a flood, but both written from different anthropological perspectives. As a Christian, I ascribe to Noah, but I do find it fascinating how there are many other flood accounts throughout the world. What are your thoughts?
(sigh), so happy I found your channel 🫶🏽
All other stories take from Judaic history which is the original .
If they would have kept God in their knowledge , the history would have been the same as in the books of Moses .
But since they believed in pagan gods, they wrote their own history as they saw it .
Hence, Fish Gods and Rain Gods and the whole Pantheon of men of renown who made names for themselves
Humans
She in turn roused her son Enki, the god of wisdom, and urged him to create a substitute to free the gods from their toil. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.
I wouldn't say the story was plagiarized. The Bible is a collection of history. It's author is history. The Gilgamesh version is or was considered history. I know it's debated if Bible stories are just myth, but people back then thought they were history.
Lol it’s not historical
It’s mythical , only inspired by real story / retelling of
The people back then may know it’s not historical, the person who compiled it as well
We, hundreds thousand years later might be fool enough (some of us) to thnk it’s as legit as toothfairy and santa claus
"It's author is history."
Which author?
I’m sure the “great flood” story was passed down orally before Genesis
Well said, i had read. a lot about the actual story while people just say becuase theres a flood gilgamesh is noah, not knowing he isnt even the hereo in the sumerian tale.
Gilgamesh was a nephilim giant survival story, while noah was a human who was “true in his generations”, meaning he hadnt bred in with the offspring of fallen angels. Of course there were many flood survival stories. It was a global flood.