[Avodah] Birds & Fish in the Mabul

[Lisa Liel]

On 10/31/2011 10:37 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 12:30:53PM +0200, harchinam wrote:
> :>  How do you explain the apparent evidence of continuous human habitation,
> :>  going back thousands of years before the mabul, in the Americas, Australia
> :>  and  Asia -- and the lack of evidence of any interruption and world-wide
> :>  wipeout of  human life ca. 4000 years ago?
>
> : What evidence? There is none, really...
>
> A recent example http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/334517.stm --
> written material found at Harappa, which was a city in what's now Pakistan
> in the years 3500 - 2600 BCE. So, evidence of non-Hebrew and civilization
> before both the mabul and the migdal. (And, in fact, dating not too long
> after the Seder Olam's dating of the eviction from Gan Eden.)
>    
That begs the question, though.  Since I doubt they found coins that had 
"3500 BCE" stamped on them, those dates are conjectural.
> Proto-Elami text dating 3100-2600 BCE. Even Elmaite cuneiform predates
> these events.
>    
Ditto.  This isn't accurate.  Elamite cuneiform predates the Early 
Bronze Age.  How the EBA is dated would determine whether or not Elamite 
cuneiform predates the Mabul.  I'd maintain it doesn't.
> The Kish Tablet has Sumerian text in proto-cuneiform, also dating to
> 3500 BCE, and several HUNDRED such documents were found at Uruk. Also,
> texts from 2800 BCE or so at Tel Harmal.
>    
Are you seeing a pattern here?  Everything seems to end (or rather, 
begin) around 3500 BCE according to conventional dating.  If that dating 
is incorrect, it still leaves us with a fairly general cut-off across 
the board, even if it's at another date.  That seems likely to be coeval 
with the Dor HaPalga.
> Two nations even had a peace treaty signed in Elami in 2600 BCE.
>
> There is A LOT of evidence from before 2102 BCE (the mabul according to
> Sefer Olam) and 1765 (the SO's date for the migdal).
>    
But that's the problem.  Sometimes assumptions are hidden.  When 
archaeologists or paleontologists find remains, they date those remains 
to a stratigraphic or geologic age.  Or a subset of that age.  That part 
is science, though even there, there's a lot of interpretation of data 
involved.  And that would be fine if such results were reported that 
way.  If an inscription of Hammurabi is reported as dating to the the 
First Dynasty of Babylon, which is known through mutual ties to have 
been coeval with part of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, which in turn left 
remains at Middle Bronze Age sites in Israel, all of that is true.  But 
when someone reports that Hammurabi died in 1798 BCE (according to 
what's called the "long chronology") or 1750 BCE (according to what's 
called the "middle chronology") or 1686 BCE (according to what's called 
the "short chronology"), they're giving you actual information filtered 
through a conjecture.  And doing so without either telling you that 
they're filtering it, or sharing what conjectures they're using to do so.

Lisa