GREAT DISCOVERIES OF THE BIBLEtotheends.com/gdbnot1.pdf · Study Notes for Great Discoveries of the Bible ... us reduced to a primitive lifestyle by the catastrophe of the Flood

To The Ends of the Earth Ministries

— presents —

Study Notes for

Great Discoveries of the Bible

Lecture #1

Copyright © 2003, 2015 by Jeffrey J. Harrison

Many Scripture verses have been translated or modified by the author to bring out details

of the original Greek or Hebrew text. Otherwise:

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,

©Copyright the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

Used by permission.

For more information on Landmarks of Faith Seminars, contact:

Jeff Harrison

To The Ends Of The Earth Ministries

[email protected]

www.totheends.com

GREAT DISCOVERIES OF THE BIBLE Lecture #1: Before the Flood, Noah, and Babel

INTRODUCTION TO CHRONOLOGY AND ARCHEOLOGY

“Archeology is the science of digging a square hole and the art of spinning a yarn [making up a story] from it”

(Anson Rainey)

Archeology gathers information by digging pits in the ground and making a careful record of what it finds. But it

doesn’t discover cultures, periods of time, or history: it finds old things and dirt. The archeologist assigns

ages, dates, and periods to the discoveries based on his own ideas or ideas popular among archeologists at the

time.

History requires a human observer in the past to record what happened. Archeology can only observe objects in the

present--the way they appear today.

Ritual object: A label often used by archeologists for an unusual object, the use of which is unknown.

Material culture: The physical remains of an ancient society.

Radiometric dating: Any of several dating techniques that measure the relative amounts of

radioactive isotopes.

Carbon 14 dating method: Measures the decay of carbon isotopes in once-living plants and

animals.

Circular reasoning: Reasoning from one unproven assumption to another. It proves nothing.

Most methods of dating the earth give dates between only 5,000 to 10,000 years old. These include measurements

of elements in the oceans of the world.

Dinosaur bones have been carbon dated to only 5,000 years old.

Unfossilized dinosaur bones have been found by both creationist and evolutionist teams in Alaska.

Lava flows only a hundred years old give radiometric dates in the millions of years.

Egyptian artifacts for which we know the date from history give carbon 14 dates hundreds of years older than they

actually are.

Layers in the Grand Canyon do not date in the proper age sequence (older at the bottom, younger on top).

The Stone Age (Creationist view): Represents not primitive types of men over a long period of time, but men like

us reduced to a primitive lifestyle by the catastrophe of the Flood. Very few human remains have been found,

which matches a Biblical (short), rather than an evolutionist (long) Stone Age.

CREATION

The Santal people of India: Preserve the memory of Thakur Jiu, the Creator God, whom they used to worship.

The Chinese: Preserve the memory of Shang Ti, the “Lord of Heaven,” the Creator God that they originally

worshipped. This worship took place without idols, and with sacrifice on an altar like Noah or Abraham.

The Canaanites: Originally worshipped El, the Creator God.

Fully 90% of the world’s folk religions acknowledge an ancient Creator God!

The Sky-God belief: The name anthropologists have given to belief in a Creator God associated with the sky.

The Mbaka of the Central African Republic: Believed that Koro, the Creator God, sent his son with an important

message to mankind. They were waiting for white-skinned men to bring them that message—which happened

when missionaries arrived.

The Lahu of Burma: Were waiting for white men to appear and teach them from a white book about Gui’ Sha, the

Creator God.

GREAT DISCOVERIES OF THE BIBLE: Before the Flood, Noah, and Babel Lecture #1: Page 3


The evolutionary view of religion claims that religion began as the worship of natural forces—of thousands of little,

local spirits in streams and trees. This evolved first to a belief in a small number of “high gods,” and finally to

a single unified god in the most advanced societies.

The truth about religion is that people around the world started with a belief in a single Creator god, and this belief

degenerated over time into the worship of a multitude of gods and spirits. (Wilhelm Schmidt, a German

scholar, has published 4,000 pages of evidence of this monotheistic belief among hundreds of native tribes.)

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The Miautso people of China: Preserve until this day the genealogy of their tribe going all the way back to Adam.

(See Table of Nations diagram.)

Gen. 3:24: “And in front of the Garden of Eden he put the cherubs and the flame of the whirling sword to guard

the way to the tree of life.”

Worship of trees: May in some places preserve a degenerated memory of the Tree of Life: as among the

Canaanites, the Mayans, and the Germans (Irminsul).

The Karen tribe of Burma: Worshipped the Creator God, Y’wa. Y’wa made Tha-nai and Ee-u (the first man and

woman) and put them in a garden. And he forbid them to eat from one of the trees of the garden. But Mu-

kaw-lee (Satan) deceived them and convinced them to eat the forbidden fruit. From that time on, their

ancestors became servants of Mu-kaw-lee.

One Chinese character for death: Shows two mouths (in other words, two people), and a tree.

On the city gate of Babylon (the Ishtar gate), there were images of a snake with legs (a dragon), which they

worshipped as their chief god (Marduk).

In the ancient apocryphal story of "Bel and the Dragon," Daniel proves that the dragon they worshipped in Babylon-

-some kind of living, dinosaur-like animal—was not a god by feeding it lumps of tar, fat, and hair until it died.

“And in that same place there was a great dragon, which the people of Babylon worshipped.... Then Daniel

took pitch, and fat, and hair, and mixed them together... this he put in the dragon’s mouth, and when he ate it,

the dragon burst open. And (Daniel) said, `Look at what you worship’” (Bel 23, 27).

Gen. 3:14: “And the LORD God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any

animal and more than any living being of the field. On your belly you will go and you will eat dust all the

days of your life.’”

Gen. 1:21: “And God created the great sea monsters (tanninim).”

The Jewish rabbis agree that the serpent in the garden “stood up straight like a reed, and he had feet” (Gen. Rab.

19:1, 20:5).

Coelacanth: A fish that supposedly died out 70 million years ago, but is still alive today.

Living Fossils: Plants or animals once claimed to be extinct by the evidence of the fossil record, but which have

been found alive and well.

Job 40:15-: “Behold now Behemoth...his strength is in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He

bends his tail like a cedar tree... His bones are tubes of bronze, his bones are like bars of iron... For the

mountains lift up food to him...”

LONG LIFESPANS

“But let no one, on comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and with the few years that we now live, think

that what we have said of (their long lifespans) is false.... I have for witnesses to what I have said all those that

have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian

History, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean (Babylonian) Monuments, and Mochus and Hestiaeus, and

besides these, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician History, agree to what I here

say; Hesiod also, and Hecataeus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus relate

that the ancients lived a thousand years....” (Josephus, Antiquities 1.107-8).


Dragonflies once had a 3 foot wingspan. Cockroaches grew to 1 foot in length. Some millipedes were longer than a

human leg. Mayflies had a 3½ inch wingspan.

(1b)

Mosses that today grow to 1 inch in height grew to 2 or 3 feet in height. Horsetail reeds that today grow to 5 or 6

feet in height were up to 50 feet tall!

Giant mammals included the giant ground sloth, the giant rhino, and others.

DATE OF THE CREATION

Saxon and Welsh chroniclers, using ancient pagan genealogies, figured the date of the Creation at 5193 BC.

The ancient Irish, who preserved similar ancient genealogies, put the date of the Creation at about 4000 BC.

The ancient Maya in South America put the beginning of this current age in a world-destroying catastrophe of water

at 3113 BC, which is remarkably close to the Biblical date of the Flood.

MEMORIES OF THE FLOOD

The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic: Includes a Babylonian version of the Flood story.

Utnapishtim: The Babylonian name for Noah.

About 200 stories of a world-wide Flood have been recorded from around the world! They come from Europe (9),

the Middle East (8), Africa (15), Asia (37), North (78) and South America (22), even from Australia and the

islands of the Pacific Ocean (27).

Seven common elements in world-wide Flood stories: 1) This was a Flood that flooded the entire earth. 2) The

Flood took place because of the disobedience of mankind, except 3) for one tiny group of people, usually a

single family, that did not disobey. 4) One man of this family was warned in advance of the coming Flood. 5)

This small group were the only ones to survive the Flood. 6) They survived by floating in the water, often on a

single boat (though sometimes by going to the top of a very high mountain). 7) From this tiny group, the entire

earth was repopulated.

Other preserved elements include: 1) That the Flood was caused by waters coming from under the earth (the

“fountains of the great deep” in Genesis), 2) that exactly 8 people survived, 3) that the survivors save animals

along with themselves, 4) that these animals are brought in pairs, 5) that the boat comes to rest on a high

mountain, 6) after which a test is done to see if the waters have dried up, often using birds, 7) that a rainbow is

associated with the story.

NOAH'S ARK

Claims that the ark could still be seen were made not only by Josephus the Jewish historian, but by Berosus the

Chaldean, and Nicolaus of Damascus, plus dozens of ancient Christian and Muslim writers.

Gen. 8:4: "The ark rested on the mountains of Ararat"

Urartu: The ancient region of Ararat, north of ancient Assyria.

Agri Dagh: Mountain at the eastern edge of Turkey, popularly known today as Mt. Ararat.

The Ararat Anomaly: An ark-shaped object spotted on top of Mt. Ararat.

Cudi Dagh: Mountain in southeastern Turkey associated with the Ark before the 12th cent. AD. Ancient Christians

built a monastery on the summit called the “Monastery of the Ark.”



AFTER THE FLOOD

The Covenant with Noah was intended to prevent the

situation that brought the Flood from ever

happening again.

Gen. 6:11,13: "Now the land was corrupt in the

sight of God, and the land was filled with

violence.... Then God said to Noah, `The end of

all flesh has come before me, for the land is

filled with violence because of them, and look!,

I will destroy them with the land.'"

Gen. 9:4: "Yet flesh with its life, its blood, you will

not eat"

Acts 15:20: "...that they avoid the defilements of idols and fornication and what is strangled and blood"

SHINAR (SUMER)

Gen. 11:2: “And it happened in their journeying in ancient times that they found a valley in the land of Shinar

(Sumer), and they lived there”

Gen. 11:1: “And all the earth was of one language and the same words”

At Shinar or Sumer is the first evidence of writing and literature, of law, of city-states, of the potter’s wheel, the

sailboat, the plow, metalworking with bronze, of advanced musical and architectural forms, of weaving,

leatherwork, and masonry.

TOWER OF BABEL

Gen. 11:4: "Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower and its top will be in the heavens..."

Ziggurat: Name of the temple towers or stepped pyramids of Mesopotamia, of which the Tower of Babel was the

earliest example.

Babel (Bab-illu): "Bab" = gate, "illu" = of the gods.

Gen. 6:2: "The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves"

Nimrod: Biblical figure (Gen. 10:8,9) associated in popular imagination with the Tower of Babel. Credited with

the origins of warfare, idolatry, magic, astrology, and human sacrifice.

Both modern and ancient history trace astrology and certain kinds of magical divination back to ancient Babylon, as

well as the development of idolatry into a politically powerful institution. It has also been connected with the

origins of human sacrifice and ritual prostitution.

The evolutionary view of the origin of human language claims that languages started out very simple, as a series of

grunts, and got increasingly more complex over time, as human society grew more and more complex.

The truth about language is that the oldest known languages are the most complex--even the languages of

supposedly "primitive" tribal peoples, while modern languages spoken in "advanced" societies have been

considerably simplified over the years.

THE SPREAD OF BABYLONIAN RELIGION

Early Bronze Age: Marked by the appearance of elaborate defensive fortifications around cities. This is what

archeologists and historians have long called the origin of "civilization": walled cities to protect you from the

murderous attacks of other "civilized" people.

The oldest pyramids in Egypt are step-pyramids (at Saqqara and Maydum.)

THE BIBLICAL LAWS OF NOAH

1) Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 9:1,7; cmp. Gen. 1:28).

2) The eating of animals is permitted, with the exception of blood, which is forbidden (Gen.

9:3,4; cmp. Gen. 1:29).

3) The penalty for murder of a human being by either man or beast is death, a penalty to be executed by human beings (Gen. 9:5,6).


Pyramids can be found in Eurasia in Sudan, Ethiopia, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Ireland, England, Germany,

Norway, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Burma, Russia, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, New Guinea,

Australia, Tahiti, Western Samoa, and Micronesia. They can be found in the Americas in Mexico, Belize,

Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru, and in the United States in Wisconsin, Illinois, Alabama, Louisiana,

Minnesota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky,

West Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, Florida; as well as in Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, California, North Dakota,

South Dakota, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Virginia, and Oklahoma.

The earliest pyramids outside of Sumer all appear at about the same time: 2700 BC, the same date given by Genesis

(in the Septuagint) for the Tower of Babel. The early step-pyramids of Egypt date to 2600 BC. The earliest

pyramids in Greece are dated 2700-2100 BC. The oldest pyramids found in Uzbekistan are dated to 2700 BC.

The earliest pyramids in China’s Shensi province are dated to 2500 BC, and in Inner Mongolia to the same

general time frame (~3,000 BC). Even the earliest step pyramid in England is 2660 BC, and the earliest in the

New World, in Peru, is dated to 2627 BC. This is an amazingly consistent date for the appearance of pyramids

around the world!

Sumerian and Babylonian ideas that still affect us today: the 12 zodiac signs, the 360° circle, the 60 minute hour,

and the 24 hour day.

Astrology today is based not on where the stars actually appear in the sky today, but on how they appeared more

than 4,000 years ago.

Other common elements of Babylonian world religion include: a fascination with the stars and planets, astrology,

human sacrifice, and idolatry.

Gen. 8:21: "For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth"


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GREAT DISCOVERIES OF THE BIBLEtotheends.com/gdbnot1.pdf · Study Notes for Great Discoveries of the Bible ... us reduced to a primitive lifestyle by the catastrophe of the Flood