Why is it certain that Noah's flood and the creation story are based on mythology?
The absolute impossibility of Noah's flood is a clincher here. The existence of preexistent older evolved mythology is evidence. The Creation story has absolutely no relevance to what is the documented historical, geological, and paleontological evidence we have.
Why isn't the flood story of Gilgamesh evidence that the flood of Noah is real?
It is not evidence for Noah's Flood involving the Hebrews, It is the origin of the Noah myth handed down through the Babylonians and Canaanites a record of a local catastrophic flood on the Tigris Euphrates Valley recorded in Sumerian records. Yes, mythology in all cultures evolves from some facts like the Greek Epic Iliad and Odyssey.
Is any creation story the same as the Biblical one,
Well, as far as mythology goes every ancient culture writes its own story, but like the Noah flood, there is abundant evidence the Creation story evolved from older oral myths, and written Sumerian, Babylonian, and Canaanite Creatin stories. The names change based on the culture, but the stories are similar.
which imo can even fit what science has discovered about the early earth etc. That is good evidence for me and I believe it even if I don't have other evidence except faith.
Nothing is the scientific knowledge of the history of the Earth fits the Biblical Mythology.
I'm not splitting up what is academically true and what is truely true. True is true for me and I disagree with people deciding the Bible is false because of their opinion and what they see as a lack of evidence even when evidence exists.
What is claimed as true or 'Truth' is not an issue with science and academic history. The factual evidence is what stands as true facts and not ancient historical narratives.
The domestication of camels is shown archaeologically to go back to the 3rd Millenium but Finkelstein and his university say no domestication until the first millenium. This is the mindset of minimalists. The camels of Abraham have to be anachronistic.
Finkelstein is referring to the Palestine region and he is correct.
The actual archaeological evidence for the domestication of camels is different for different regions. In the Palestine region, it is ~930 BCE, In Sumeria it is 2000 to 1500 BCE
Domesticated camels weren't known in Israel until about 900 B.C., when there were major changes in copper production throughout the region.
www.nationalgeographic.com
Historians believe these stories took place between 2000 and 1500 B.C., based on clues such as passages from Genesis, archaeological information from the site of the great
Sumerian city of Ur (located in modern Iraq), and an
archive of clay tablets found at the site of Mari (in modern Syria).
Using radiocarbon dating and evidence unearthed in excavations, Israeli archaeologists
Erez Ben-Yosef and
Lidar Sapir-Hen have pegged the arrival of domesticated camels in this part of the world—known to scholars as the Levant—to a much later era. They were also able to more precisely pinpoint the time span when that arrival occurred.
"By analyzing archaeological evidence from the copper production sites of the Aravah Valley, we were able to estimate the date of this event in terms of decades rather than centuries," Ben-Yosef said in a
press release put out by Tel Aviv University last week.
The study was able to "narrow down the range in which domesticated camels were introduced to 30 years," said Sapir-Hen, an archaeozoologist who studies the role of animals in ancient human culture, in a phone interview. It's "sometime between 930 and 900 B.C."
Copper and Camels
The
Aravah Valley marks the Israeli-Jordanian border as it runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. This area was a center of copper production beginning as early as the 14th century B.C. and ending in the late 9th century B.C.
Archaeologists have identified an interesting pattern in their studies of animal remains from sites in this valley. Large quantities of camel bones appear only in the levels dated from the last third of the 10th century through the 9th century B.C.
The camels appear suddenly, following major changes in copper production throughout the region.
This period coincides with the invasion of Egyptian king
Sheshonq I—known in the Bible as Shishak-in 925 B.C.
Archaeologists now wonder if the events are connected. After Egypt conquered the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, it may have reorganized the copper business and introduced camels as a more efficient means of transport than the donkeys and mules used previously.
This would have had huge economic and social consequences for the Levant, opening it to parts of the world that lay beyond vast deserts, to which it had never before been connected.
Camels were probably first domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula in the early first millennium B.C. Archaeologists base this date on mortality profiles of excavated skeletons, the gender of the animals, and lesions on leg bones that would have resulted from the repetitive stress of working as pack animals.
It's good for people who go by the changing opinions science and in particular archaeology no matter what and no doubt they have what they see as good reasons.
With science, archaeology, and history it is the objective evidence that stands, and of course, this is constantly changing
I'll stick to my faith and the archaeological evidence that supports it even if it is not as significant in parts of academia and the parts of academia where it is significant are just maximalists anyway.
But discoveries keep happening and opinions change.
The problem remains the archaeological evidence as a whole does not support what your faith believes. The best you can do is that individual persons and events of the Pentateuch have been confirmed by archaeological and historical evidence.
Well they justify their opinions of course.
No, it is based on actual evidence supported by every major academic university in the world concerning the nature of ancient narratives of all ancient religions. When you go beyond the scientific, archaeological, and historical objective evidence it does represent many diverse conflicting opinions where many disagree. The work of the major academic universities pretty much agrees with healthy constructive debate and the search for more evidence and research.
