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I had a class in college that focused in large part on Gilgamesh. It was one of the few classes I enjoyed in college. I loved that my very religious teacher sai

I had a class in college that focused in large part on Gilgamesh. It was one of the few classes I enjoyed in college. I loved that my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. I thought it did the opposite and showed that the Bible is just another book of myths with some historical events peppered in, like Gilgamesh. She didnt love that.

newbamboo 5y ago
Because it’s a bad take and conveys a shallow, simplistic understanding of literature as either fact or myth. Viewing literary artifacts in such a way is too black and white, overly modern and just not very useful when it comes to serious study.
- dartharva 5y ago
  How exactly should literature be viewed then? I am having difficulty understanding what exactly your complaint is about the objective filters about something being fact or myth when it's (by definition) an unambiguous state of being for most ideas and legends, literary or otherwise. How does talking about it damage "serious study"?
lalos 5y ago
Or maybe the Bible and Gilgamesh comes from the need to pass on important lessons and facts to the next chunk of humans i.e. this is why it's important to learn how to make boats, sometimes climate changes and you need a backup plan, don't eat pork because God says so -- and also because if not properly cooked you'll get trichinosis (they didn't know this but throwing a label of pork = evil is good enough). If you read the bible at face value it has pretty basic rules of society.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > If you read the bible at face value it has pretty basic rules of society. Specifically, the portion of the Ten Commandments which instructs how to relate to other people (as opposed to relating to God) is just as relevant today as it was when written.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Specifically, the portion of the Ten Commandments which instructs how to relate to other people (as opposed to relating to God) is just as relevant today as it was when written. Sure, but the parts of the rest of the exodus narrative (either in Exodus or Deuteronomy, the two places the Ten Commandments appear) that discuss dealing with other people are...less so.
- burnafter185 5y ago
  Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens" has an interesting take on religion. Essentially they form a fictional narrative that deigns this and that. In doing so they create a system which can thread together far larger groups of people, we're thought to be near maximum capacity in dealing with 150 people (according to Dunabr's number). But the fictional narratives of religion (and later government, laws, corporations...) help us to identify our personal relationships, and also help us to ascertain expected behavior, both of self and of other. Thus we can drastically expand interoperability between individuals and groups. This is of course entirely contingent on belief, which basically serves the argument issued in "The Social Contract". He defines this as inter-subjectivity. I think it's a pretty interesting take.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  A large portion of the Pentateuch boils down to: > Some people came to the chief with a conflict. He went into a special tent, "communed with the storm-god", and came out with some new rules for how to manage a tribe of herders that has grown beyond Dunbar's number. Repeat that, mix in an origin story, some king lists, and tribal-unification propaganda and (modulo some path dependency) you'll have a book that people will be treating as the literal truth 2500 years later.
  - x3iv130f 5y ago
    I would phrase the Bible as a whole to be about something entirely different then what you have described. It is the description of a people's experience of their God, stretching across thousands of years and dozens of generations. Reading it gives the feeling that you have lived many many lifetimes seeing cities, dynasties, and empires rise and fall. Who that God is, is something puzzled throughout and not done justice by comparison to any single nature spirit or polytheistic deity.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Yup. If you lived in tribes the 10 commandments would be a pretty solid set of rules to make sure you don't all kill each other.
dotancohen 5y ago
> my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity > of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. You very religious teacher was not alone. At the time when Gilgamesh was first translated, this was the prevailing thought.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  It still provides limited credibility to the idea that the Bible can be used as a historic document. Their teacher seemed to be using it to say the Bible is literally true, which is a ridiculous argument as Gilgamesh has examples of people unrelated to Noah surviving.
  - throwaway946513 5y ago
    Rather than as a specific historical 'religious' document for evidence, I've seen using it as a guide to search for evidence of other potential events. One potential explanation for these similar great flood stories have made me think of the Black Sea narrative that it may have flooded within the last 10k years, causing the rise of these stories. It may not be true, as it could also be formulated a a flood story to explain the flooding of rivers for farming, and that one time there was a 'great flood' that initialized it for "us".
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      I've also seen arguments (unsourcable at the moment) that the Tigris and Euphrates used to drain separately, and that the adjustment when they merged could have come at approximately the same point in pre-history. Given the proximity to the origin points of both stories, (and seen from within their flood plains where people were already living) that would have looked like a huge flood, after which the local geography would have looked very different.
JackFr 5y ago
The “validity” of the Bible is an ill-posed concept. It’s neither valid nor invalid. It’s pretty poor as a history, but a treasure as a historical document. Understood literally, it’s bizarre, contradictory and rambling. Read in cultural and historical context it’s an enlightening (if not _inspired_ ) look at mankind’s place in the cosmos and how one should live knowing that you will die.

newbamboo 5y ago

Because it’s a bad take and conveys a shallow, simplistic understanding of literature as either fact or myth. Viewing literary artifacts in such a way is too black and white, overly modern and just not very useful when it comes to serious study.

dartharva 5y ago
How exactly should literature be viewed then? I am having difficulty understanding what exactly your complaint is about the objective filters about something being fact or myth when it's (by definition) an unambiguous state of being for most ideas and legends, literary or otherwise. How does talking about it damage "serious study"?

lalos 5y ago

Or maybe the Bible and Gilgamesh comes from the need to pass on important lessons and facts to the next chunk of humans i.e. this is why it's important to learn how to make boats, sometimes climate changes and you need a backup plan, don't eat pork because God says so -- and also because if not properly cooked you'll get trichinosis (they didn't know this but throwing a label of pork = evil is good enough). If you read the bible at face value it has pretty basic rules of society.

dotancohen 5y ago
> If you read the bible at face value it has pretty basic rules of society. Specifically, the portion of the Ten Commandments which instructs how to relate to other people (as opposed to relating to God) is just as relevant today as it was when written.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Specifically, the portion of the Ten Commandments which instructs how to relate to other people (as opposed to relating to God) is just as relevant today as it was when written. Sure, but the parts of the rest of the exodus narrative (either in Exodus or Deuteronomy, the two places the Ten Commandments appear) that discuss dealing with other people are...less so.
burnafter185 5y ago
Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens" has an interesting take on religion. Essentially they form a fictional narrative that deigns this and that. In doing so they create a system which can thread together far larger groups of people, we're thought to be near maximum capacity in dealing with 150 people (according to Dunabr's number). But the fictional narratives of religion (and later government, laws, corporations...) help us to identify our personal relationships, and also help us to ascertain expected behavior, both of self and of other. Thus we can drastically expand interoperability between individuals and groups. This is of course entirely contingent on belief, which basically serves the argument issued in "The Social Contract". He defines this as inter-subjectivity. I think it's a pretty interesting take.
InitialLastName 5y ago
A large portion of the Pentateuch boils down to: > Some people came to the chief with a conflict. He went into a special tent, "communed with the storm-god", and came out with some new rules for how to manage a tribe of herders that has grown beyond Dunbar's number. Repeat that, mix in an origin story, some king lists, and tribal-unification propaganda and (modulo some path dependency) you'll have a book that people will be treating as the literal truth 2500 years later.
- x3iv130f 5y ago
  I would phrase the Bible as a whole to be about something entirely different then what you have described. It is the description of a people's experience of their God, stretching across thousands of years and dozens of generations. Reading it gives the feeling that you have lived many many lifetimes seeing cities, dynasties, and empires rise and fall. Who that God is, is something puzzled throughout and not done justice by comparison to any single nature spirit or polytheistic deity.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Yup. If you lived in tribes the 10 commandments would be a pretty solid set of rules to make sure you don't all kill each other.

dotancohen 5y ago

> my very religious teacher said the flood story in Gilgamesh added to the validity > of the Bible since it is another historical account of a large flood. You very religious teacher was not alone. At the time when Gilgamesh was first translated, this was the prevailing thought.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
It still provides limited credibility to the idea that the Bible can be used as a historic document. Their teacher seemed to be using it to say the Bible is literally true, which is a ridiculous argument as Gilgamesh has examples of people unrelated to Noah surviving.
- throwaway946513 5y ago
  Rather than as a specific historical 'religious' document for evidence, I've seen using it as a guide to search for evidence of other potential events. One potential explanation for these similar great flood stories have made me think of the Black Sea narrative that it may have flooded within the last 10k years, causing the rise of these stories. It may not be true, as it could also be formulated a a flood story to explain the flooding of rivers for farming, and that one time there was a 'great flood' that initialized it for "us".
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    I've also seen arguments (unsourcable at the moment) that the Tigris and Euphrates used to drain separately, and that the adjustment when they merged could have come at approximately the same point in pre-history. Given the proximity to the origin points of both stories, (and seen from within their flood plains where people were already living) that would have looked like a huge flood, after which the local geography would have looked very different.

JackFr 5y ago

The “validity” of the Bible is an ill-posed concept. It’s neither valid nor invalid. It’s pretty poor as a history, but a treasure as a historical document. Understood literally, it’s bizarre, contradictory and rambling. Read in cultural and historical context it’s an enlightening (if not _inspired_ ) look at mankind’s place in the cosmos and how one should live knowing that you will die.