No Answers in Genesis

The “inspiration” for this posting is a segment via Fox & Friends. As we all know, Fox News is a “reliable” source of information, hence their segment on July 1 that covered a visit by co-host Ainsley Earhardt caught my eye.

Side note: Yes, the air quotes there are doing rather a lot of heavy lifting in the above, but don’t let that put you off, stick with me here.

First a quick reference – You can find the 5 minute clip that aired on the Fox News website (here).

Was this segment credible journalism?

Hell no, of course not, this is Fox News. For five minutes you get a tour of the life-sized replica of the $100 million boat that will never ever float. Watch and you get to see the Answers in Genesis spokesperson, Bryan Osborne, walk them through it all. Towards the end of the segment it cuts back to a dialog between Ms Earhardt and her co-hosts with clips taken during the visit. She continues to gush glowingly about how truly wonderful it all is like this …

Earhardt: I saw a lot of Senior citizens walking around because there is so much information, if I … I need to go back by myself and just spend a few hours reading everything about Noah. Look at this wall, there is so much valuable literature and information there ..

Co-Host: History

Earhardt: Absolutely … and you know people thought he was absolutely crazy …

Meanwhile back in our reality, from me, and I would speculate also from you, that it is a very strong “Absolutely Not”.

What do we actually know?

The Genesis story is not history, and is not factual. People did not think “Noah was crazy” because there was never a global flood, that never happened. But hey, you know this.

Here are the fundamental scientific facts …

• There is no archaeological or historical evidence that Noah existed
• There is no credible verifiable evidence that a worldwide flood ever occurred in human history

What well known and well established by scholars is that the book of Genesis combined earlier oral and written traditions and came together in the form we are now familiar with either during or after the Babylonian Exile (587–539 BCE).

As for the flood myth contained within it, we also know that the Biblical version is a ripped off copy of the far far older Babylonian flood myth. Yes the myth was around thousands of years before even the oral traditions that some of Genesis rests upon.

The far older Babylonian flood myth is recorded as part of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

In the early 1850s about 15,000 fragments of Assyrian cuneiform tablets were discovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh by Austen Henry Layard, his assistant Hormuzd Rassam, and W. K. Loftus. The British Museum then hired George Smith to translate and study these over the next decade. He got chosen for this because he had a natural talent for cuneiform.

Smith became rather famous in 1872 for his translation of the Chaldaean account of the Great Flood. He himself had earlier become deeply astonished when he successfully translated the flood myth and realised that this was a far older non-biblical version of the Genesis flood myth, with very different set of gods. This set of deities flooded the world for different reasons, but the story itself was in essence more or less the exact same story. According to the accounts of his coworkers in the reading room, on the day of the discovery, when Smith realized what he was reading he “began to remove articles of his clothing” and run around the room shouting in delight.

• Guardian Article from 2014 by a historian reviewing Irving Finkel book on the topic – The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood by Irving Finkel – review

Over the years more or more flood tablets have turned up. Three distinct Mesopotamian incarnations of the myth have now been identified, one recorded in Sumerian and two in Akkadian. What is now very clear is that ancient stories of a flood myth prevailed within the Mesopotamian region long before the Genesis narrative repurposed it.

Here is a bit of a side interest topic. The following is the British Museum’s Irving Finkel explaining how we learned to read and understand cuneiform …

Irving Finkel is the curator in charge of cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum, of which the Middle East Department has the largest collection of any modern museum. This work involves reading and translating all sorts of inscriptions, sometimes working on ancient archives to identify manuscripts that belong together, or even join to one another. He is the author of The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood.

You can read more about Irving’s quest to explore the Noah’s Ark myth in …

• “The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood”: https://geni.us/zU95bVO
• Also you can learn more about cuneiform writing in “Cuneiform”: https://geni.us/eMPb

Tell me the Older Flood Myth Story

Below is the older flood story written long before the Genesis one. What you will find are very distinct parallels including the divine warning, boat-building, animals, bird-testing, mountain landing, sacrifice, and divine promise—but details and divine roles differ significantly. Very clearly Genesis has taken this and then adapted and reshaped it to blend into a new theology.

The hero in the following story is Utnapishtim. It is just possible that an abbreviation of Utnapishtim/Utna’ishtim as “na’ish” was pronounced “Noah” in Palestine.

Via here, we have the translated text of Lines 1-203, Tablet XI …

Ea leaks the secret plan

1. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh a secret story that begins in the old city of Shuruppak on the banks of the Euphrates River.
2. The “great gods” Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, and Ea were sworn to secrecy about their plan to cause the flood.
3. But the god Ea (Sumerian god Enki) repeated the plan to Utnapishtim through a reed wall in a reed house.
4. Ea commanded Utnapishtim to demolish his house and build a boat, regardless of the cost, to keep living beings alive.
5. The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length and be covered over like Apsu boats.
6. Utnapishtim promised to do what Ea commanded.
7. He asked Ea what he should say to the city elders and the population.
8. Ea tells him to say that Enlil has rejected him and he can no longer reside in the city or set foot in Enlil’s territory.
9. He should also say that he will go down to the Apsu “to live with my lord Ea”.

Note: ‘Apsu’ can refer to a freshwater marsh near the temple of Ea/Enki at the city of Eridu.

Building and launching the boat

1. Carpenters, reed workers, and other people assembled one morning.
2. [missing lines]
3. Five days later, Utnapishtim laid out the exterior walls of the boat of 120 cubits.
4. The sides of the superstructure had equal lengths of 120 cubits. He also made a drawing of the interior structure.
5. The boat had six decks [?] divided into seven and nine compartments.
6. Water plugs were driven into the middle part.
7. Punting poles and other necessary things were laid in.
8. Three times 3,600 units of raw bitumen were melted in a kiln and three times 3,600 units of oil were used in addition to two times 3,600 units of oil that were stored in the boat.
9. Oxen and sheep were slaughtered and ale, beer, oil, and wine were distributed to the workmen, like at a new year’s festival.
10. When the boat was finished, the launch was very difficult. A runway of poles was used to slide the boat into the water.
11. Two-thirds of the boat was in the water.
12. Utnapishtim loaded his silver and gold into the boat.
13. He loaded “all the living beings that I had.”
14. His relatives and craftsmen, and “all the beasts and animals of the field” boarded the boat.
15. The time arrived, as stated by the god Shamash, to seal the entry door.

The storm

1. Early in the morning at dawn a black cloud arose from the horizon.
2. The weather was frightful.
3. Utnapishtim boarded the boat and entrusted the boat and its contents to his boat master Puzurammurri who sealed the entry.
4. The thunder god Adad rumbled in the cloud and storm gods Shullat and Hanish went over mountains and land.
5. Erragal pulled out the mooring poles and the dikes overflowed.
6. The Anunnaki gods lit up the land with their lightning.
7. There was stunned shock at Adad’s deeds which turned everything to blackness. The land was shattered like a pot.
8. All day long the south wind blew rapidly and the water overwhelmed the people like an attack.
9. No one could see his fellows. They could not recognize each other in the torrent.
10. The gods were frightened by the flood and retreated up to the Anu heaven. They cowered like dogs lying by the outer wall.
11. Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth.
12. The Mistress of the gods wailed that the old days had turned to clay because “I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods, ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people who fill the sea like fish.”
13. The other gods were weeping with her and sat sobbing with grief, their lips burning, parched with thirst.
14. The flood and wind lasted six days and six nights, flattening the land.
15. On the seventh day, the storm was pounding [intermittently?] like a woman in labour.

Calm after the storm

1. The sea calmed and the whirlwind and flood stopped. All-day long there was quiet. All humans had turned to clay.
2. The terrain was as flat as a rooftop. Utnapishtim opened a window and felt fresh air on his face.
3. He fell to his knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down his face. He looked for coastlines on the horizon and saw a region of land.
4. The boat lodged firmly on mount Nimush which held the boat for several days, allowing no swaying.
5. On the seventh day he released a dove that flew away but came back to him. He released a swallow, but it also came back to him.
6. He released a raven that was able to eat and scratch, and did not circle back to the boat.
7. He then sent his livestock out in various directions.

The sacrifice

1. He sacrificed a sheep and offered incense at a mountainous ziggurat where he placed 14 sacrificial vessels and poured reeds, cedar, and myrtle into the fire.
2. The gods smelled the sweet odour of the sacrificial animal and gathered like flies over the sacrifice.
3. Then the great goddess arrived, lifted up her flies (beads), and said
4. “Ye gods, as surely as I shall not forget this lapis lazuli [amulet] around my neck, I shall be mindful of these days and never forget them! The gods may come to the sacrificial offering. But Enlil may not come, because he brought about the flood and annihilated my people without considering [the consequences].”
5. When Enlil arrived, he saw the boat and became furious at the Igigi gods. He said “Where did a living being escape? No man was to survive the annihilation!”
6. Ninurta spoke to Enlil saying “Who else but Ea could do such a thing? It is Ea who knew all of our plans.”
7. Ea spoke to Enlil saying “It was you, the Sage of the Gods. How could you bring about a flood without consideration?”
8. Ea then accuses Enlil of sending a disproportionate punishment and reminds him of the need for compassion.
9. Ea denies leaking the god’s secret plan to Atrahasis (= Utnapishtim), admitting only sending him a dream and deflecting Enlil’s attention to the flood hero.

The flood hero and his wife are granted immortality and transported far away

1. Enlil then boards a boat and grasping Utnapishtim’s hand, helps him and his wife aboard where they kneel. Standing between Utnapishtim and his wife, he touches their foreheads and blesses them. “Formerly Utnapishtim was a human being, but now he and his wife have become gods like us. Let Utnapishtim reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers.”
2. Utnapishtim and his wife are transported and settled at the “mouth of the rivers”.

OK, now that I’ve laid a foundation that enables you to see that Genesis was simply copying older myths, let’s now dig a bit deeper and ponder this question – why was $100 million spent building an utterly pointless religious folly, what inspired it?

Let’s talk about Biblical Literalism

Answers in Genesis is driven by the belief that every word within the bible is divine and literal truth.

This not only leads to the belief that there really was a 600 year old guy called Noah who build a boat and saved all the species of animals that we are familiar with from a worldwide flood sent by an angry god, but also that planet earth and the rest of the entire universe, all two trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billion of stars, is only 6,000 years old.

In other words, such a literal belief in the text introduces a vast array of challenges. For example, planet earth apparently predates the rest of the universe. Many questions abound – how did the animals on the ark not consume each other, and what were they fed with? How did the polar bears get to the arctic, and kangaroos get to Australia? … etc…

The scientific methodology, as we know it and understand it, confirms none of it, but instead reveals a vastly different far older world, and so we have grown up and put aside simple but wrong religious answers.

Undeterred in any way by today’s scientific understanding, Answer in Genesis simply plows on with the promotion of this mythology as fact, and rejects well-established fact as myth. You might be tempted to consider the thought that they simply lack a bit of knowledge and so you might them embark upon a mission to fill that gap. What you will quickly discover is the existence of a complete immunity to reality, and the embrace of a fantasy in which your facts can be easily discarded because they do not matter.

Putting aside thinking about how to successfully communicate with cultish literalists for the moment (we will come back to it), there is one other very important point to appreciate – the vast majority of Christians on planet earth are not biblical literalists. Even within the Jewish community, Genesis is most often interpreted as myth, metaphor, or allegory—it is important for Jewish identity and theology, but not factual history.

The modern literalist interpretation of the Bible is very recent and not in any way historical, and only really takes root between 1910 and 1915 via a series of essays published in the U.S. defending “fundamental” Christian beliefs. They included a strong stance on biblical inerrancy and there we start to see the emergence of literal interpretations of Genesis. That is what laid the foundation for much of the modern Christian fundamentalism that we see today – yes, it really is that new and recent, so much so that even the Mormons have an older theology.

Just how crazy are the people in the Answers in Genesis cult?

Very.

I’m very serious. When you start with the belief that every word in the Bible is literally true then you will end up believing rather a lot of utterly ridiculous stuff. Here are my two favourite examples …

Example 1 – Unicorns are real because they are in the bible

Since 2008 the Answers in Genesis website has been promoting the “truth” that Unicorns are real …

To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.

Some people claim the Bible is a book of fairy tales because it mentions unicorns. However, the unicorns in the bible were real animals, not imaginary creatures. ….

…God points out in Job 39:9–12 that the unicorn, “whose strength is great,” is useless for agricultural work, refusing to serve man or “harrow (plow) the valley.” This visual aid gave Job a glimpse of God’s greatness. An imaginary fantasy animal would have defeated the purpose of God’s illustration.

That’s a cue for a rather obvious objection, so they have a handy rebuttal ready…

The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.)

There is a rather good reason for not doubting the Dodo was real. Not only do we have eyewitness accounts, and drawings, but we also have actual stuffed examples.

This, and much more is the “valuable literature and information” that Fox & Friends was promoting as “Amazing History“

Let’s move on to my next favourite example of utter and very obvious nonsense.

Example 2 – Flying Fire-breathing Dragons are Real

Answers in Genesis truly do claim that Dragons are not just myths. They are also not just going for something sort of dragon’ish, they are jumping in with flying fire-breathing dragons, and promote this with “logic” such as this…

Many dragon legends such as what we find outside the Bible could be embellished, but the basic characteristics of dragons can be found in known creatures. Some dragon descriptions fit well with certain dinosaurs. Fossil pterosaurs reveal dragon-like wings. Certain beetles shoot out burning chemicals, so is a fire-breathing dragon really that far-fetched?

“But why would they assert something as stupid as this?”, you might howl back in utter disbelief.

The rebuttal is of course this — it is what the bible says, so it just must be literally true. Here is the specific bible verse …

The burden against the beasts of the South. Through a land of trouble and anguish, From which came the lioness and lion, The viper and fiery flying serpent, They will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys, And their treasures on the humps of camels, To a people who shall not profit. (Isaiah 30:6)

Neither parody nor a poe, this is all “truth” as far as Answers in Genesis is concerned.

If you did begin to buy into all of this utter nonsense then you might perhaps wonder what happened to these flying fire-breathing dragons.

They have a made-up answer really to roll…

Land and air dragons would have been taken on Noah’s Ark and probably existed for some time afterward, based on the descriptions we see in the Bible and legends and artifacts worldwide. But they died out due to the curse of sin, with factors such as environmental and habitat changes, food source problems, genetic mutations, and diseases. Also, man most likely played a role in the demise of dragons, as we read in the legends of dragon slayers.

Pity all those poor unemployed dragon slayers once the last fire-breathing dragon had been dispatched.

Beyond the bible says so, their “evidence” is this …

Dragons are memorialized in legends, historical accounts, and artwork from around the world. To name a few, there’s an Aboriginal depiction of a water monster that resembles a plesiosaur, an ancient historical account of serpents in Egypt with bat-like wings, the epic poem Beowulf with its account of a fiery flying serpent, and Native American petroglyphs (etchings in stone) that resemble dragons. Dragons are depicted on flags, emblems, tapestries, maps, pottery, pictographs, and more.

This is a level of “evidence” leads you to conclude that Krypton is real because look at all those stories, books, posters, and movies about Superman.

Am I being unfair, have I simply cherry picked one obscure and long forgotten dragon reference from a dusty corner of their website.

Nope, not at all.

It is plastered all over their website in multiple pages and is rather hard to miss.

For example …

• Dragon Legends — Truths Behind the Tales
• Tannin: Sea Serpent, Dinosaur, Snake, Dragon, or Jackal?
• Dragons: Legends & Lore of Dinosaurs
• Dinosaurs & Dragon Legends
• Hank Hanegraaff’s Abuse of Biblical Truth
• The Dragons of Peru
• Slaying the Dragon Myth
• etc…

We live in a world where breathing thinking adults were motivated to spent more than $100 million building a life size replica of an Ark that never actually existed so that they could then proceed to promote it all as “truth”.

It’s not just AIG

Here is a fascinating clip by the Good Liars, two comedians, and when they found when they visited a creationist conference and interviewed a few of the people there.

You will not be educated … but you will be entertained …

Why was Fox & Friends promoting this weird cult?

I call it weird, because it really is. There is no ducking that it is a socially accepted form of weirdness, so it gets a bit of a free pass.

However, to see the hosts gushing about an Ark visit for five minutes still leads you to wonder why.

The answer is that some very blatant deception was in play.

What nobody in the segment tells you, and also what Ark Encounter does not mention in all their social media promotions of the segment, is that it was all bought and paid for. They are legally obliged to reveal this, and so the text telling you what is really going on appears very briefly at the start of the segment (but blink and you would miss it) …

The Motivation for doing it is clear. Answer in Genesis desperately needs the PR because their ticket sales are falling.

I can understand why. It is expensive to go. It costs $64.99 per adult, but if you wanted to include their “museum”, then it becomes $109.99 per adult. Once somebody have done it once, then why would anybody consider a return visit, especially at that price?

All of this utter lunacy that we are awash with leads me on to one further question, a rather important one.

How do you engage with somebody caught up in utter nonsense?

Obviously I’m not just thinking about Answers in Genesis. In the world we live in today we face a truly unprecedented challenge. Literally millions have embraced a political cult of personality. I don’t even need to expand upon what I mean by that, you all know immediately. So the key question is this – how do you even begin to have a meaningful conversations that lead to successful interventions?

As I mentioned earlier, simply deploying facts will reveal a complete immunity to facts. The almost instant rebuttal will be “Oh that’s just the devil tricking you“, or for those caught up in the political cult run by you-know-who, “Oh that’s just the lying media“.

However, meaningful interventions really can be accomplished.

You need to deploy these four things – Empathy, Strategy, Patience, and Emotional discipline. Regarding that last one, it may indeed be tempting to scream, “but that is utterly absurd and stupid“, and good as it might feel, it will not accomplish anything except to perhaps increase a divide.

Very briefly, when engaging one-on-one …

• Build trust – it is friends that tend to influence, not enemies, so be a friend. Ask questions like, “I’ve noticed you’re really passionate about this. Can I ask what led you to it?”, be interested in them and not the belief.
• Don’t attack and judge, just ask open questions – “Have you ever had any doubts about X?“
• Align with Common Core values – Don’t try to obliterate their identity, but instead tap into it – “You clearly care about truth and justice—that’s admirable. Would you be open to seeing how others live out those values too?”
• Don’t attack, and Don’t embarrass – They will simply lock down and refuse to engage

Yes but what if …

• They say something extreme – Try, “That’s intense—what got you thinking that?”
• They ask what you believe – Try, “I see things differently, but I’m open to hearing where you’re coming from.”
• They bring up a conspiracy – Try, “What do you think would make that claim hard to fake?”

… but also remember to take care of yourself. If you feel overwhelmed, you can simply exit like this, “This is a tough topic for me. Can we come back to it another time?”

The bottom line is this:

There are answers in Genesis, but they are simplistic primitive answers that we now know to be wrong. Beyond the very tiny bubble of belief is a far more complex awe-inspiring universe full of wonder and mystery. Much is yet to be discovered, but what we have learned is truly amazing stuff, so let go of the simple but wrong answers and let you mind expand far beyond our pale blue dot. As you embark upon that journey, you can also help free others from the cultish chains that we often inherit and then willingly ensnare ourselves with.

Further Reading

What actually works, where can you find more details on how to have conversations with “them” that are truly meaningful? (Side tip: It is distinctly possible that “them” just might be you or me).

This following book from 2022 is well worth checking out (Yes I have a copy, yes I listen to his podcast so I am a fan, and no I’m not being paid to promote it, I simply think this is an excellent book) …

• How Minds Change: The New Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion by David McRaney
• Guardian review of the book here
• Yes the Guardian has a link on their website to a copy for 18.99, but just pop the title into google for a far more cost effective option.

Another topic to dive into is what is termed “Deep Canvassing” …

• Start here within the Wikipedia page on it, and then if still interested, move on to the deep canvassing website here.

If you stuck with me here right to the end, then I hope you enjoyed this little journey and managed a get a few useful tips from it all.

If you also have any tips or guidance for others reading this, or pointers towards some really good resources on how to have challenging conversations, then please do feel free to drop the details into a comment.