Should One NOT Read Donald J. Wiseman?

Does Genesis 1 through 11 have an author prior to Moses? · Whoever the "Astute Observer" was — Science and Factually Exact Are Not the Same · Should One NOT Read Donald J. Wiseman? · For Anyone Disputing the Relevance of Genesis 5 and 11, the Genealogy of Matthew is a Go To

That would be going too far.

When he states that Old Sumerian writings were present since 3000 or even 3500 BC, I disagree. 3500 BC was before the Flood, 3000 BC was shortly before the Flood or perhaps shortly after it depending on whether you go by the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day or the chronology of George Syncellus.

Wiseman had no access to carbon dates.

But the dates he gives are close to these, and the chronology that was conventional in the early 1900's had already been monitored by lying moves of Satan (often enough in the records of ancient non-Hebrew peoples under his influence) in ways that would tend to match what God could tell him the later carbon dates were going to be.*

So, what are 3500, 3300, 3000 and 2800 in carbon dates, if we translate this to Biblical dates (using the Roman martyrology)?**

1935 B. Chr.

82.73 pmC, so dated as 3485 B. Chr.

1868 B. Chr.

84.1262 pmC, so dated as 3318 B. Chr.

1778 B. Chr.

85.9766 pmC, so dated as 3028 B. Chr.

1756 B. Chr.

86.4346 pmC, so dated as 2956 B. Chr.

1711 B. Chr.

87.3468 pmC, so dated as 2811 B. Chr.

(1778 + 1756) / 2 = 1767

(85.9766 + 86.4346) / 2 = 86.2056

1250 + 1767 = 3017

The real dates would be 1935 BC, 1868 BC, 1767 BC and 1711 BC.

Does this deny the related practise between Babylonian scribes and the parts of the Genesis that first used these systems? No.

Here are two of them, around page breaks*** 41 and 51:

Tablet series				Contents
1		1:1 to 2:4		This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth.
2		2:5 to 5:2		This is the book of the origins of Adam.
3		5:3 to 6:9a		These are the origins (or histories) of Noah.
4		6: 9b to 10:1		These are the origins (or histories) of the sons of Noah.
5		10:2 to 11:10a		These are the origins (or histories) of Shem.
6		11:10b to 11:27a		These are the origins (or histories) of Terah.
7 & 8		11:27b to 25:19a		These are the origins (or histories) of Ishmael and Isaac.
9~11		25:19b to 37:2a		These are the origins (or histories) of Esau and Jacob.

Evidence of these literary aids may be observed in the following significant repetition of words and phrases connected with the beginning or ending of each of the series of tablets, now incorporated in the book of Genesis.

1:1 God created the heavens and the earth.
2:4 Lord God made the heavens and the earth.
2:4 When they were created.
5:2 When they were created.
6:10 Shem, Ham and Japheth.
10:1 Shem, Ham and Japheth.
10:32 After the Flood.
11:10 After the Flood
11:26 Abram, Nahor and Haran.
11:27 Abram, Nahor and Haran.
25:12 Abraham's son.
25:19 Abraham's son.
36:1 Who is Edom.
36:8 Who is Edom.
36:9 father of the Edomites (lit. Father Edom).
36:43 father of the Edomites (lit. Father Edom).

The very striking repetitions of these phrases exactly where the tablets begin and end, will best be appreciated by those scholars acquainted with the methods of the scribes in Babylonia, for those were the arrangements then in use to link the tablets together. I submit that the repetition of these words and phrases precisely in those verses attached to the colophon, 'These are the origins of ... ', cannot possibly be a mere coincidence. They have remained buried in the text of Genesis, their significance apparently unnoticed.

However, that P.J.Wiseman did the original work, republished*** by his son D.J. Wiseman, cited by Charles V Taylor and Damien Mackey alike, doesn't mean he saw all issues correctly. It is perfectly OK to depend on one purely human author for an idea, while stating he was plain wrong on some other account. One thing Wiseman did not have access to was this:

Prehistory: The Making Of The Human Mind (English Edition) Format Kindle
Édition en Anglais de Colin Renfrew (Auteur)
https://www.amazon.fr/Prehistory-Making-Human-Mind-English-ebook/dp/B00AJ20NR4/

So, what difference does this make?

Well, it records human sacrifice in the III Dynasty of Ur, servants sacrificed to keep the company of the dead king. Here° is from the French translation:

La découverte la plus spectaculaire fut effectuée non loin de là, dans le grand cimitière dela ville sumérienne d'Ur, par Sir Leonard Woolley. En 1928, il exhuma les "tombes royales", des tombeaux intacts datant de 2300 av. J.-C. remplis d'or et de lapis-lazuli, et portant la trace des rites funéraires, dont la mise à mort de dizaines de serviteurs qui accompagnent leurs maîtres. (P. 38)

Did Wolley already date them like that? Did Wiseman know?

The thing is, if you believe God is good, you don't believe He would allow this to take place around the ancestors of Abraham. Yet, 2300 BC, that's before the birth of Abraham. Whose native city many consider was this Ur of Woolley, rather than the Urfa way further North-West in Mesopotamia.

I'm not suggesting, even if the date had been correct, that Thera, Nachor or Sarug would have been involved in this horror, but some who pretend that Genesis 1 to 11 is essentially, as to the story line if not theology "pagan myth" point to the idea of Abraham having been born into an (entirely) pagan family. To me, this is obviously false, since carbon dated 2300 = 1644 BC in real time:

1655 B. Chr.

91.4498 pmC, so dated as 2395 B. Chr.

1633 B. Chr.

93.3283 pmC, so dated as 2203 B. Chr.

1644 (obviously)

(91.4498 + 93.3283) / 2 = 92.38905

650 + 1644 = 2294

And since real time 1935 BC, when Abraham was 80, is carbon dated (by reed mats from En-Gedi / Asason Tamar) to 3500 BC, meaning that this horrible human sacrifice certainly took place some important time after Abraham had already left whatever Ur he came from.

Sarug to Abraham played the role of Lord Francis of Sales to the young saint, of the same name, when telling the young saint "Calvinism is a young religion, I've seen it born" — because Sarug was indeed anterior to the time of idolatry.

Genesis 11, LXX / English : 22 And Seruch lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot Nachor. 23 And Seruch lived after he had begotten Nachor, two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died. 24 And Nachor lived a hundred and seventy-nine years, and begot Thara. 25 And Nachor lived after he had begotten Thara, an hundred and twenty-five years, and begot sons and daughters, and he died. 26 And Thara lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Arrhan.

2015 (birth of Abram) + 70 (of Thera) + 179 (of Nachor) + 130 (of Sarug) = 2394 BC. When Sarug was 94, he was very far from seeing this kind of human sacrifice, here are his early days in themselves and translated to carbon dates:

2399 B. Chr.

57.0291 pmC, so dated as 7049 B. Chr.

2287 B. Chr.

63.387 pmC so dated as 6037 B. Chr.

Ah, that's more like it. Sarug was from an earlier and saner age than Abraham, not an earlier and insaner one. Even the temporary resurgence of cannibalism (a pre-Flood sin), in Herxheim, El Toro and Fontbrégoua, start after Sarug was already a man, and far away in the west.°° So, really no trace of idolatry from when Sarug was small, nor of even more evil practises, like the III Dynasty of Ur ... or whenever this evil was.

The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to have been a nascent empire.

The Third Dynasty of Ur is commonly abbreviated as Ur III by historians studying the period. It is numbered in reference to previous dynasties, such as the First Dynasty of Ur (26-25th century BC), but it seems the once supposed Second Dynasty of Ur was never recorded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Dynasty_of_Ur

I actually traced the horror to the First Dynasty of Ur.

The introduction of massive death pits at Ur is usually associated to Meskalamdug, one of the kings of Ur that was also known as the paramount ruler of all the Sumerians. He started the practice of such a massive entombment with the sacrifice of soldiers and an entire choir of women to accompany him in the afterlife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meskalamdug

It has also been suggested that the Great Death Pit was the tomb of Mesannepada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesannepada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Cemetery_at_Ur

This first year of the 26th C. BC was obviously 2600 BC:

1678 B. Chr.

89.4653 pmC, so dated as 2598 B. Chr.

The Hebrews were already in Egypt, at a very safe distance from being contaminated by Meskalamdug or Mesannepada.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Blasius
3.II.2024

* That is raw carbon dates, or standard calibrations, carbon dates in assuming the original carbon content of the atmosphere was 100 pmC, or vaccillating closely around that value.

** Real dates to carbon dates, here as in the following:

Creation vs. Evolution: New Tables
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

*** Percy John Wiseman, Clues to Creation in Genesis
https://info2.sermon-online.com/english/PercyJohnWiseman/Clues_To_Creation_In_Genesis_1977.pdf

° Quoted via my post:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Colin Renfrew, Marxisme, Anthropologie A-Chrétienne
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2018/10/colin-renfrew-marxisme-anthropologie.html

°° See my post:
Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Abraham Ended Evil Cannibals
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/02/abraham-ended-evil-cannibals.html