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Hello <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>,
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The account of Noah is a rich treasure trove of information about our awesome God. Often times it is overlooked as fairytale-ish but there are quite a few indictors within the text that show us that the original author was writing history rather than fiction. For example Genesis 7 & 8 go into a significant amount of detail about the shape and construction of the ark, those that were brought onto the ark, how long the flood took place, as well as detailed particulars about how the flood ended. All of these details are indicators that the author of these chapters was speaking about an historical event rather than a religiously oriented mythical story. But not only do we have indicators of the flood being an historical event in Genesis, we also see records of it in other Ancient Near Eastern writings. One such example that I often receive questions about is the Gilgamesh Epic.
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This text from the Babylonians shows remarkable similarities to the Genesis account and is often times used to show that the
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Bible is not unique and was merely borrowed from other cultures, but if you look closely at the accounts you will see that there are some key differences. The Genesis account of the flood is invested with historical details, set in the context of a historically oriented narrative, yet the Gilgamesh account is written in the style of myth legend. This means that the greater context of the Gilgamesh narrative is to promote and esteem Gilgamesh and the flood narrative is only briefly mentioned and intermixed with the greater propaganda of the piece. The Gilgamesh flood account provides very few specifics to paint a whole picture. Yet, the one thing the Gilgamesh epic does supply is corroboration of the Genesis Flood. When an investigator is trying to figure out what took place in a criminal situation, one of the things they rely heavily on is corroborating testimony. Basically this means they are looking for multiple sources to relay the same story so that they can know that the events presented are reality rather than fiction.
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This is what we have with the Gilgamesh epic, we have an account of a worldwide flood that wiped out all the inhabitants of the earth except a single man (or family based on Genesis) as a punishment from the gods. The similarities of the records show us that the flood of Genesis was
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a real historical event that took place, and the differences in the two narratives show the differences in how that event was remembered by the different nations that recorded it into their history books. This is pretty cool! How awesome is our God that He in His infinite wisdom knew that roughly 6000 years later people would be questioning the flood and so He made sure that we had additional resources that supported the historical reliability of His word! This is how much God loves you, so much so that He wants to answer your questions. He has provided a way for you to know Him, KNOW Him. He doesn’t want you to be uncertain about His existence or love so He has provided corroboration so that you can have certainty in His word. How cool is that! We have a God who cares about our questions! So when was the last time you brought your questions to God? When was the last time you sat at His feet and allowed Him to pour certainty about who He is and how much He loves you into your bruised and weary soul?
For videos on the Flood and Gilgamesh, visit our youTube channel!
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Photo from Exodus Books
(http://www.exodusbooks.com/category.aspx?id=8218)
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For those in the greater Jacksonville area we will be having a networking event Dec 10th at Jaxon Social where you can come out and meet us, learn more about DoubtLess Faith and network with other people from the Jacksonville area. We would love to have you! RSVP on the Facebook event page.
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