5.1: Noah's Ark - a monotheistic version of a polytheistic tale

Good video as usual.

> Good video as usual

Thanks!

Dude, YOU are a fucking first class IDIOT.

Keep in mind that Yahweh in Genesis is not the omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent. God of later Jewish and Christian theology.

The writer of Genesis saw Yahweh in the mode of other ancient near-eastern deities.

For the writer Yahweh's behaviors really were not contradictions.

> For the writer Yahweh's behaviors really were not contradictions.

Agreed, but Jews and Christians today don't read the bible as a collection of contributions from different authors with different ideas about god--they read it as one book about one Omnipotent God.

So yes, the author who saw as god as neither omnipotent nor omni-benevolent wasn't putting together a contradiction-filled story -- although I doubt that's a defense that would comfort many believers!

Nice video Mr. Gates. Personally, given the omniscience of the Judeo-Christian deity, Yahweh supposedly knowing that all this would happen from the start, it feels like a petulent child throwing away his toys because they don't do what he wants them to.

Considering the various ways their god intervenes in later books (Jesus, even in Moses' case, although since Yahweh also prohibited Pharoah from releasing them...), drowning them seems so utterly unneccesary.

> a petulent child throwing away his toys because they don't do what he wants them to.

Good analogy!

> Considering the various ways their god intervenes ... drowning them seems so utterly unneccesary.

Maybe the pre-flood population was so bad that they were beyond hope--even for an omnipotent god!

On the 7th day the flood ended. No more noise was heard, man and animal had been annihilated. Because there was no noise _all_ the gods rested on this 7th day, which was recast as the Hebrew Shabbat or Sabbath via a "new twist": instead of gods resting on a 7th day after destroying the earth one god rests after creating the earth. The Hebrews are refuting Mesopotamian concepts via inversions of myths. Enlil is berated by Enki and Ishtar for drowning innocent people! A chastened Enlil repents!

> The Hebrews are refuting the Mesopotamian concepts via inversion of myths ...

The Mesopotamian myths had the distasteful aspect of the gods (i.e. "nature") not caring about man -- but in that way, the Mesopotamian stories were, I'm almost tempted to say, more accurate! Or at least, the storytelling hung together better: no need to twist reality into saying that a loving righteous god is in control of the tides and tsunamis.

Mans' noise disturbed the god Enlil who could not rest by day nor sleep by night. Man was created to replace the noisey Igigi gods who for 40 years worked day and night without rest in Enlil's garden at Nippur. They rebelled, man was made to replace them. The Igigi's noise was transferred to man. Man's noise was that of the Igigi: Objecting that they had no rest from toil in Enlil's garden in edin/eden! Overworked man's noise was ended by a flood which brought silence and rest for Enlil.