A Human Paradox

[Birdjaguar]

What is my story? Your link says people made it to Australia 46kya, thats quite a bit later than the 60-65 kya I've seen in the research. If we started out as slaves, some undoubtedly escaped but they died out or got absorbed by earlier Eurasian peoples - the migration responsible for us seems to have occurred sometime after 70 kya...

Now here's the interesting thing about the Bible and Sumerian myth, there's a passage in Genesis claiming God's 'spirit' would reside in man only 120 years and the Flood would end us (flesh and blood).
But the Sumerians attributed to their gods a 'divine year', "God's year" was 3,600 years. We can see this belief embodied in various kings lists, pre-flood monarchs (gods) lived and reigned for very long periods of time, even 'mythical'.

Multiplying 120 x 3600 gives us 432,000 years... That number shows up in the architecture of Angkor Wat and mythology of the Vikings (thru 540 doors will go 800 warriors to face the wolf at the end time). But that was 432,000 years before the flood, or about 445,000 years bp. According to the Sumerian myth the gods labored 40 years before rebelling and that led to our creation as labor. Multiply 40 by 3600 and we get 144,000 years. Subtract that from 445,000 and we get ~300,000 years ago for this rebellion of the gods (sounds a bit like Lucifer's disobedience).

So starting around 300,000 years ago the Sumerian gods began the process of making us. Their first goal was labor but eventually the gods making us took pride in their creation and produced smarter critters. Another god didn't like that, he didn't want us roaming around disrupting his domain. Hence we have a god in Genesis intent on wiping us out while saving us - two different gods were the main actors and the monotheists combined them into one somewhat schizophrenic deity.

By being selective with one's choices, you can make any calculation seem coherent. Yours isn't.

The Genesis 6:3 mention of human life span being now limited to 120 years happens just before the flood. If biblical men lived 120 years and Sumerian gods lived 3600 years, what does multiplying them together actually achieve? The Sumerian gods lived 830 times as long as men (3600/120). OK I get that. If a generation is 20 years, then I can see that humans live no more than 5 generations and gods about 180 generations (3600/20). But multiplying the longest possible human life (which never happens) by the life of the gods in years, is crap math that means nothing. You like it because you want the answer to fit.

If Adam lived 70,000 years ago and you count years to the flood by looking at the lives of the biblical patriarchs down to the flood, you get 1656 years. So are you saying that the flood happened 68,344 years ago?

Which Sumerian myth tells the tale of mankind's creation and rebellion of the gods after 40 years of labor? The Marduk one?

Spoiler :

5 This is the book of Adam’s history. In the day that God created Adam, he made him in the likeness of God.+ 2 Male and female he created them.+ On the day they were created,+ he blessed them and named them Man.*3 Adam lived for 130 years and then became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and he named him Seth.+ 4 After becoming father to Seth, Adam lived for 800 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 5 So all the days of Adam’s life amounted to 930 years, and then he died.+6 Seth lived for 105 years and then became father to Eʹnosh.+ 7 After becoming father to Eʹnosh, Seth lived for 807 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 8 So all the days of Seth amounted to 912 years, and then he died.9 Eʹnosh lived for 90 years and then became father to Keʹnan.10 After becoming father to Keʹnan, Eʹnosh lived for 815 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 11 So all the days of Eʹnosh amounted to 905 years, and then he died.12 Keʹnan lived for 70 years and then became father to Ma·halʹa·lel.+ 13 After becoming father to Ma·halʹa·lel, Keʹnan lived for 840 years. And he became father to sons and daughters.14 So all the days of Keʹnan amounted to 910 years, and then he died.15 Ma·halʹa·lel lived for 65 years and then became father to Jaʹred.+ 16 After becoming father to Jaʹred, Ma·halʹa·lel lived for 830 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 17 So all the days of Ma·halʹa·lel amounted to 895 years, and then he died.18 Jaʹred lived for 162 years and then became father to Eʹnoch.+ 19 After becoming father to Eʹnoch, Jaʹred lived for 800 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 20 So all the days of Jaʹred amounted to 962 years, and then he died.21 Eʹnoch lived for 65 years and then became father to Me·thuʹse·lah.+ 22 After becoming father to Me·thuʹse·lah, Eʹnoch continued to walk with the true God* for 300 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of Eʹnoch amounted to 365 years. 24 Eʹnoch kept walking with the true God.+ Then he was no more, for God took him.+25 Me·thuʹse·lah lived for 187 years and then became father to Laʹmech.+ 26 After becoming father to Laʹmech, Me·thuʹse·lah lived for 782 years. And he became father to sons and daughters.27 So all the days of Me·thuʹse·lah amounted to 969 years, and then he died.28 Laʹmech lived for 182 years and then became father to a son. 29 He named him Noah,*+ saying: “This one will bring us comfort* from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that Jehovah has cursed.”+ 30 After becoming father to Noah, Laʹmech lived for 595 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Laʹmech amounted to 777 years, and then he died.32 After Noah reached 500 years of age, he became father to Shem,+ Ham,+ and Jaʹpheth.+

 

[Berzerker]

By being selective with one's choices, you can make any calculation seem coherent. Yours isn't.

The Genesis 6:3 mention of human life span being now limited to 120 years happens just before the flood.

The 120 years refers to the period of time between the arrival of the gods and the flood. That 120 years are divine years, Sumerian sars... A sar is 3600 so 120 years = 432,000 years. These sars appear in various kings lists of pre-flood rulers, their reigns were in multiples of 3600 years. These beings not only created us they would later breed with us too, the sons of god saw the daughters of man and took them for wives. Their children were the nefilim, they were on the earth before and after the flood. This might be why we see the declining lifespans of the Hebrew patriarchs, they were demigods with gradually less divine blood.

If Adam lived 70,000 years ago and you count years to the flood by looking at the lives of the biblical patriarchs down to the flood, you get 1656 years. So are you saying that the flood happened 68,344 years ago?

I dont know when Adam lived, the word can refer to a man or mankind. People were made in the image of "Us" (gods), male and female, and told to be fruitful and multiply. Then at some point later God took a/the man eastward to his Garden (Persian Gulf). This creates a problem in the narrative if we assume Adam was the first man. How can the male and female created on the 6th day be fruitful if God takes the man eastward to his Garden?

The 6th day people were a group, not two people. And Adam was either one of them or their descendant. Jewish lore says Adam's first wife was Lilith and they didn't get along, but if Adam was the first and only man, why did he wait to be kicked out of the Garden to be fruitful and multiply? Seems like he had been disobeying God's instructions to the 6th day people the whole time.

I think Genesis is describing the evolution of our kind from a more primitive human, one altered by god for a purpose - work. The Sumerians called these people 'lulu' and Genesis identifies labor as Adam's reason for being in the Garden.

Which Sumerian myth tells the tale of mankind's creation and rebellion of the gods after 40 years of labor? The Marduk one?

I'll look around for it... But Samuel Noah Kramer relates one myth that claims this rebellion led to our creation as labor by binding the image of the gods onto an existing creature roaming Enki's southern domain. The Zulu have a myth about their ancestors - the 'artificial ones' - at war with the apemen. How long do you think that oral tradition has survived?

 

[Senethro]

Much less coherent than the plot of comparable media like Stargate. You're going to need some serious editing before you go submitting scripts to anyone.

 

[Berzerker]

the god in that movie enslaved people too

 

[Valka D'Ur]

the god in that movie enslaved people too

He's saying that Stargate, which was first a movie, and then a TV series, makes more sense than your convoluted Babylonian nonsense.

I hope somebody invents time travel some day and makes it possible for you to meet some ancient Babylonians. You'd see that they're not 3600-year-old gods; they're just ordinary humans like the rest of us, doing the best they can with what they have, and some of them are smart, some less smart, and others are totally out to lunch.

 

[Ryika]

If they're not 3600-year-old gods, why are they 3 meters tall?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The 120 years refers to the period of time between the arrival of the gods and the flood. That 120 years are divine years, Sumerian sars... A sar is 3600 so 120 years = 432,000 years. These sars appear in various kings lists of pre-flood rulers, their reigns were in multiples of 3600 years. These beings not only created us they would later breed with us too, the sons of god saw the daughters of man and took them for wives. Their children were the nefilim, they were on the earth before and after the flood. This might be why we see the declining lifespans of the Hebrew patriarchs, they were demigods with gradually less divine blood.

That was not what you said before. You said humans were limited to 120 years and gods lived 3600 years. Then you multiplied the two. Now you say that the 120 years aren't human years, but some how refer to the life span of gods. Please link me to your source for this. Which kings lists? So you are saying that the patriarchs were all Nefilim?

The early list names eight kings with a total of 241,200 years from the time when kingship “descended from heaven” to the time when "the Flood" swept over the land and once more "the kingship was lowered from heaven" after the Flood.

The average length of each reign was 30,000 years. You claim the god kings reigned for 432,000 years. that is 200,000 more than what the Sumerians claimed.

I dont know when Adam lived, the word can refer to a man or mankind. People were made in the image of "Us" (gods), male and female, and told to be fruitful and multiply. Then at some point later God took a/the man eastward to his Garden (Persian Gulf). This creates a problem in the narrative if we assume Adam was the first man. How can the male and female created on the 6th day be fruitful if God takes the man eastward to his Garden?

The 6th day people were a group, not two people. And Adam was either one of them or their descendant. Jewish lore says Adam's first wife was Lilith and they didn't get along, but if Adam was the first and only man, why did he wait to be kicked out of the Garden to be fruitful and multiply? Seems like he had been disobeying God's instructions to the 6th day people the whole time.

I think Genesis is describing the evolution of our kind from a more primitive human, one altered by god for a purpose - work. The Sumerians called these people 'lulu' and Genesis identifies labor as Adam's reason for being in the Garden.

It is interesting that you seem to date lots of things that have no actual supporting data with ease, but Adam's date which is scrupulously recorded eludes you. Just sayin'.

I'll look around for it... But Samuel Noah Kramer relates one myth that claims this rebellion led to our creation as labor by binding the image of the gods onto an existing creature roaming Enki's southern domain. The Zulu have a myth about their ancestors - the 'artificial ones' - at war with the apemen. How long do you think that oral tradition has survived?[/QUOTE]I believe that the Rig Veda is probably the longest oral tradition that we can actually track. Its origin is dated to about 1400 BCE. Sanskrit appeared after that and the first items written down were the verses of the Vedas. But even the written texts had problems because the language changed over time:

Although the text of the redacted version of the Rig Veda was transmitted unchanged, by 500 BC Sanskrit had changed so much that commentaries were necessary to make sense of the Rig Vedic hymns.[94] The Brahmanas contain numerous misinterpretations, due to this linguistic change,[94] some of which were characterised by Sri Aurobindo as "grotesque nonsense."[94]

So after 1000 years of first oral transmission then written transmission, there was a mess to clean up. You are saying that an oral transmission of 100,000 years is acceptable.

I found the various Kramer texts. Here are the two that mention the creation of men. Certainly wide interpretation is possible. The rebellion among the gods created conflict, but mankind's creation was not related to that fight. Krmaer position is that the gods failed at growing grain and raising sheep/cattle and men/women were needed to do that.

In those days, in the creation chamber of the gods,
In their house Dulkug, Lahar and Ashnan were fashioned;
The produce of Lahar and Ashnan,
The Anunnaki of the Dulkug eat, but remain unsated;
In their pure sheepfolds milk, . . ., and good things,
The Anunnaki of the Dulkug drink, but remain unsated;
For the sake of the good things in their pure sheepfolds,
Man was given breath.

At the pure word of Enki and Enlil,
Lahar and Ashnan descended from the Dulkug.
For Lahar they (Enlil and Enki) set up the sheepfold,
Plants, herbs, and . . . they present to him; p. 54

For Ashnan they establish a house,
Plow and yoke they present to her.
Lahar standing in his sheepfold,
A shepherd increasing the bounty of the sheepfold is he;
Ashnan standing among the crops,
A maid kindly and bountiful is she.

Abundance of heaven . . . ,
Lahar and Ashnan caused to appear,
In the assembly they brought abundance,
In the land they brought the breath of life,
The decrees of the god they direct,
The contents of the warehouses they multiply,
The storehouses they fill full.

In the house of the poor, hugging the dust,
Entering they bring abundance;
The pair of them, wherever they stand,
Bring heavy increase into the house;
The place where they stand they sate, the place where they sit they supply,
They made good the heart of An and Enlil.

Here is the final tablet of the marduk story where it talks about the creation of men. I noted those lines.

Spoiler :

The Babylonian Legends of Creation[/I] ]
O god TUTU, who art ZI-AZAG, was the third name they gave him--holder (i.e., possessor) of holiness,

20. God of the favourable wind, lord of adoration and grace,
21. Creator of fulness and abundance, stablisher of plenty,
22. Who turneth that which is little into that which is much.
23. In sore straits we have felt his favouring breeze.
24. Let them (the gods) declare, let them magnify, let them sing his praises.
25. O TUTU, who art the god AGA-AZAG in the fourth place--let men exult.
26. Lord of the holy incantation, who maketh the dead to live,
27. He felt compassion for the gods who were in captivity.
28. He riveted on the gods his enemies the yoke which had been resting on them.
29. In mercy towards them he created mankind,
30. The Merciful One in whose power it is to give life.
31. His words shall endure for ever, they shall never be forgotten,
32. In the mouth of the Black-headed 50 whom his hands have made.
33. O God TUTU, who art the god MU-AZAG in the fifth place--let their mouth recite a holy incantation [to him],
34. Who by his own holy incantation hath destroyed all the evil ones.


Click to enlarge
Portion of a tablet inscribed in Assyrian with a text of the Seventh Tablet of the Creation Series. [K. 8522.]

35. O god SHAZU, the wise heart of the gods, who searchest the inward parts of the belly,
36. Who dost not permit the worker of evil to go forth by his side,
37. Establisher of the company of the gods ... their hearts.
38. Reducer of the disobedient ...

[Lines 39-106 are wanting. The positions of the fragmentary lines supplied by duplicate fragments are uncertain; in any case they give no connected sense.]

107. Verily, he holdeth the beginning and the end of them, 51 verily ...

108. Saying, "He who entered into the middle of Tiâmat resteth not;

109. "His name shall be 'Nibiru' the seizer of the middle.

110. "He shall set the courses of the stars of the heavens,

111. "He shall herd together the whole company of the gods like sheep.

112. "He shall [ever] take Tiâmat captive, he shall slit up her treasure (variant, life), he shall disembowel her." 52

113. Among the men who are to come after a lapse of time,

114. Let [these words] be heard without ceasing, may they reign to all eternity,

115. Because he made the [heavenly] places and moulded the stable [earth].

 

[timtofly]

For one thing carbon dating has just recently arrived at the point that reliable dating has changed from 10,000 years to 50,000 years. That is why speculation has changed from humans being around for 50,000 years to several 100,000's of years.

The biblical view has always been conservative. The Egyptian kings list has longer life spans than the account in the OT. The point has always been there was a catastrophic event that drastically changed life on earth, but neither ancient account fits into modern evolutionary processes.

The point about ape man could just be ancient racism, instead of trying to force evolution into the historic record. The point is entropy and the decay of life, not the biological advancement of life on earth.

Modern humans accept such a catastrophic event, they just hold to a more constant approach instead of catastrophic change that ruins their constant, over millions of years, gradual changes.

 

[Berzerker]

The point about ape man could just be ancient racism, instead of trying to force evolution into the historic record. The point is entropy and the decay of life, not the biological advancement of life on earth.

Adam is described as primitive, he didn't think in terms of good and evil, he was unashamed of his nakedness, and God apparently gave Adam his choice from among the other animals (huh?) but none was found to his liking (what happened to the female(s) made on the 6th day?). His son married one of them after murdering his brother (aint we special?). The Bible recognizes evolution when God says he knew us before we were born. If its our nature, then God didn't make us from scratch... And if he did, he's responsible for our nature. But "let us make man in our image" comes from the Sumerian myth describing how the image of the gods was combined with an existing creature roaming God's southern domain...

He's saying that Stargate, which was first a movie, and then a TV series, makes more sense than your convoluted Babylonian nonsense.

and I pointed out the movie depicts an alien god enslaving people... The writers know their mythology.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Where in the Sumerian myths does it say that humans were enslaved? I can't find it.

 

[Berzerker]

That was not what you said before. You said humans were limited to 120 years and gods lived 3600 years. Then you multiplied the two. Now you say that the 120 years aren't human years, but some how refer to the life span of gods. Please link me to your source for this. Which kings lists? So you are saying that the patriarchs were all Nefilim?

Complaints of the Lower Gods
[1] When the gods were man
they did forced labor, they bore drudgery.
Great indeed was the drudgery of the gods,
the forced labor was heavy, the misery too much:

[5] the seven great Anunna-gods were burdening
the Igigi-godsnote with forced labor.

[Lacuna]

[21] The gods were digging watercourses,
canals they opened, the life of the land.
The Igigi-gods were digging watercourses
canals they opened, the life of the land.

[25] The Igigi-gods dug the Tigris river
and the Euphrates thereafter.
Springs they opened from the depths,
wells ... they established.
...
They heaped up all the mountains.

[Several lines missing]

[34] ... years of drudgery.

[35] ... the vast marsh.
They counted years of drudgery,
... and forty years, too much!
... forced labor they bore night and day.

http://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/104-106-the-epic-of-atrahasis/#creation

The 40 years are in sars (divine years = to 3600 human years each), 3600x40=144,000 years. So 432,000 years before the Flood (~13 kya) the gods arrived and started working and the rebellion happened 144,000 years later or about 300,000 human years ago. Thats when 'we' should start appearing in the record, and we do... But that doesn't mean these early peoples survived to become us, the gods probably continued making modifications and those later people eventually produced the last wave of expansion within and beyond Africa replacing (with a little admixture) earlier humans along the way. The Zulu myth describes the war between their ancestors ("the artificial ones") and the ape men. That myth has survived since the extinction of the ape men, how old? Maybe 50,000 years, 100,000? More than that? I imagine African hominins didn't last too long with us around. I'd be curious to see how long the erectus population from which we probably 'evolved' survived in Africa.

The average length of each reign was 30,000 years. You claim the god kings reigned for 432,000 years. that is 200,000 more than what the Sumerians claimed.

Wiki has a nice page on the Atrahasis with a link to kingslists, but the one with 432,000 comes from Berossus.

http://cura.free.fr/11kings.html

Ten kings (gods) ruled for 432,000 years and then the Flood happened. Are these kings actually Adam and the Hebrew patriarchs? I dont think so, Adam is described as not only human, but primitive. But that doesn't mean Genesis didn't borrow the notion of 10 prediluvian kings for their patriarchs.

It is interesting that you seem to date lots of things that have no actual supporting data with ease, but Adam's date which is scrupulously recorded eludes you. Just sayin'.

Zecharia Sitchin did the work, I'm just posting off memory of his books. Those dates are based on Mesopotamian myths and their kings lists and where they intersect with the Bible. Thats how Sitchin saw the connection between the 120 years of Genesis before the flood with the 120 sars from Berossus' prediluvian kings list. He figured out the passage in Genesis:

Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” (NASB) Genesis 6:3

could be interpreted to mean that because man was also flesh, he would be doomed to die in the flood...
All flesh was corrupted, all flesh would be destroyed - including man. In the Sumerian myth its unclear God sent the Flood, it was an impending disaster the gods were to keep secret - one disobeyed. Thats why we have God and the Serpent in Genesis, they're brothers in Sumerian lore who dont always agree.

I believe that the Rig Veda is probably the longest oral tradition that we can actually track. Its origin is dated to about 1400 BCE. Sanskrit appeared after that and the first items written down were the verses of the Vedas. But even the written texts had problems because the language changed over time:

So after 1000 years of first oral transmission then written transmission, there was a mess to clean up. You are saying that an oral transmission of 100,000 years is acceptable.

The number 432,000 is quite conspicuous in those texts, wouldn't you agree? Details are prone to miscommunication, but the notion of a Great Flood is worldwide. And an African myth about fighting with ape men!?! There are other myths about earlier peoples killed off and replaced, and they're called ape men in new world myth too. Both sides of the Atlantic have a myth about ape men being replaced by us.

As for Kramer's myth mentioning the discovery of a creature roaming Enki's domain upon which the image of the gods would be bound, it comes from a book he compiled called "Mythologies of the Ancient World". He wrote the section on the Sumerians.

google 432,000 and 1656 and you'll see the possible connections

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/planeta12/12planeteng_12.htm

try that page, it has several relevant myths about our creation and purpose

 

[Birdjaguar]

http://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/104-106-the-epic-of-atrahasis/#creation

The 40 years are in sars (divine years = to 3600 human years each), 3600x40=144,000 years. So 432,000 years before the Flood (~13 kya) the gods arrived and started working and the rebellion happened 144,000 years later or about 300,000 human years ago. Thats when 'we' should start appearing in the record, and we do... But that doesn't mean these early peoples survived to become us, the gods probably continued making modifications and those later people eventually produced the last wave of expansion within and beyond Africa replacing (with a little admixture) earlier humans along the way. The Zulu myth describes the war between their ancestors ("the artificial ones") and the ape men. That myth has survived since the extinction of the ape men, how old? Maybe 50,000 years, 100,000? More than that? I imagine African hominins didn't last too long with us around. I'd be curious to see how long the erectus population from which we probably 'evolved' survived in Africa.

Wiki has a nice page on the Atrahasis with a link to kingslists, but the one with 432,000 comes from Berossus.

http://cura.free.fr/11kings.html

Ten kings (gods) ruled for 432,000 years and then the Flood happened. Are these kings actually Adam and the Hebrew patriarchs? I dont think so, Adam is described as not only human, but primitive. But that doesn't mean Genesis didn't borrow the notion of 10 prediluvian kings for their patriarchs.

I followed that link to the kings list and compared it to this one in Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_King_List. They are not the same. I read further and have to post what followed the list. It is quite a piece of writing. The best part begins with bolding.

The ancient Sumerian system of numeration was sexagesimal (based on 60), which gave rise to our division of the hour into 60 minutes and of the circle into 360 degrees. The key names of the numbers were 1, GES or GESH; 60, also GES or GESH (the base unit); 3600, SAR or SHAR ... The disappearance of Sumerian numeration can be dated to the 15th century B.C. (cf. Georges Ifrah, Histoire universelle des chiffres, Paris, 1981; Paris, Laffont, 1994).

All the numbers are divisible by 3600, with the exception of the last two, which are divisible globally. Hence the last two antediluvian kings are said to have reigned for eleven periods. In total, five cities were governed by eight kings during 67 saroi, or periods of reign.

I suggest a double decoding principle, as follows: the total sum of the duration of the reigns in question, and the sum of the products of those durations (beginning at each end and calculating toward the center value), two by two, the first combined with the last, the second with the seventh, the third with the sixth, and the fourth with the fifth.

This approach yields 67 for the first sum, and 275.658 (= 41.328 + 58.33 + 96 + 80) for the second value. Subsequently I multiply the first value by 10 and divide the second by 10 (the reasons for this operation follow below). The results are 670 and 27.5658respectively.

These numbers are those of the cycle of the eclipses and of the anomalistic cycle of the moon. In point of fact, solar and lunar eclipses recur at the same moment after each 54 years, or 669 synodic months (approximation 0.15%). By synodic rotation of the moon is understood the interval between two full moons or two new moons. The period of 54 years is attested in a tablet from Uruk (cf. F. Thureau-Dangin, "Tablettes d'Uruk," Textes Cunéiformes du Louvre, 6, Paris, 1922, and Bartel van der Waerden, Science Awakening II: the Birth of Astronomy, 1965; English rev. ed., Leyden, Noordhoff, 1974, p. 103).

One-third of this period of 54 years, called saros by the Greeks, i.e. 18 years and 11.3 days, is the classic cycle of solar and lunar eclipses, and includes 29 lunar eclipses and 41 solar eclipses. The Saros cycle is the period of return of the Sun and Moon to their initial positions relative to the Earth: this return is possible because of synchronization between the synodic and anomalistic revolutions of the Moon. In effect, the period includes exactly 223 synodic lunar cycles and 239 anomalistic revolutions. The anomalistic revolution is the interval of time that separates two passages of the Moon at its perigee across the point where it is closest to the Earth. This relation between synodic months and anomalistic months of the Moon was known to Babylonian astronomers, who used it to predict the return of lunar and solar eclipses. Van der Waerden points out that "The duration of an eclipse is highly influenced by the anomalistic movement of the Moon, but that influence is neutralized if one takes these 223 months as a block" (op. cit., p. 103).

The second number (27.5658) is that of the anomalistic lunar cycle (in reality 27.555, or an approximation of 0.04%). Hence these two numbers relate to extremely precise data concerning knowledge of lunar motion, and take on even more significant shape if one keeps in mind that it was Ishbi-Erra (2017-1985 B.C.), the founder of the Isin Dynasty, who imposed on the greater part of southern Mesopotamia the lunar calendar of Nippur, to the detriment of numerous local competing calendars (cf. Mark Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, Bethesda (Md.), CDL Press, 1993).

Hence the list of antediluvian kings of the Isin Dynasty is an encoding of astronomical data concerning the various lunar periods. The number 10, which serves as multiplier and divisor in this coding, was not chosen arbitrarily, since it was probably at this point, perhaps even under the Isin Dynasty, that the decimal system replaced the Sumerian hexagesimal system.

Well it turns out that the author of that link is an astrologer. I don't want to denigrate astrology, but I can't say that they would be my first choice as reliable in interpreting history.

I can't post any more tonight, but I'll try to pick it up tomorrow.

 

[Berzerker]

yes, there are different kings lists... dont read astrology, read the myths. I'm not sure what you meant to spoiler, nothing bolded there

 

[Birdjaguar]

In the spoilered and quoted text begin at the third paragraph: I suggest a double decoding principle, as follows

You should use the wiki list.

 

[Berzerker]

I see only 1 paragraph

The ancient Sumerian system of numeration was sexagesimal (based on 60), which gave rise to our division of the hour into 60 minutes and of the circle into 360 degrees. The key names of the numbers were 1, GES or GESH; 60, also GES or GESH (the base unit); 3600, SAR or SHAR ... The disappearance of Sumerian numeration can be dated to the 15th century B.C. (cf. Georges Ifrah, Histoire universelle des chiffres, Paris, 1981; Paris, Laffont, 1994).

 

[Birdjaguar]

I unspoilered it. See if you can see it now.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The biblical view has always been conservative. The Egyptian kings list has longer life spans than the account in the OT.

This should be a pretty good clue that the "world is only 6000 years old" idea is pure baloney.

There are archaeological sites in India that go back over twice that far, and sites in North America that are at least 14,000 years old.

The Bible recognizes evolution when God says he knew us before we were born.

I have no idea where you get evolution out of that.

.and I pointed out the movie depicts an alien god enslaving people... The writers know their mythology.

And I was just explaining the post. That doesn't mean I agree with any of this mythology stuff as being anything more than made-up stories. I've never been a fan of Stargate. It might have palatable without all the mythology claptrap (portals to other worlds is an interesting subgenre of SF that doesn't need ancient gods to make it interesting), but I've only seen a handful of episodes before deciding it's just not for me.

And an African myth about fighting with ape men!?!

That's about as significant as an Inuit myth about fighting with a polar bear.

 

[Berzerker]

I unspoilered it. See if you can see it now.

Yes, and what was your point? You wanted the kings list showing 432,000 years divided up into 120 sars, Berossus provided us with that list.

I have no idea where you get evolution out of that.

If God knew our nature before we were born, then God knows something about where we came from. We came from African hominids, that was our nature before God's interference in our evolution.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If God knew our nature before we were born, then God knows something about where we came from. We came from African hominids, that was our nature before God's interference in our evolution.

Have you run that line of nonsense past your local pastor/priest/whoever else may be applicable?

You still haven't shown one shred of proof that there ever was a God/god/Goddess/goddess/other supernatural characters to interfere with anything.

Evolution happens, and species either adapt to change successfully or they don't. That's why we've got extinctions going on right now, as so many species of plants and animals are increasingly incapable of adapting to how humans are ruining this planet.

 

[Berzerker]

There's a world of myth out there that says otherwise... And now we're discovering the date of our emergence falls within the time frame established by the Sumerians. How did they know "we" started appearing <300 kya?