achilles12604 wrote:Beto wrote:I don't think Achilles said there were no children or otherwise, but this seemed like a very important issue to me. I find a city devoid of children to be a statistical improbability. How does the scripture deal with that?
I deal with this quite simply.
Scripture is written by men with an agenda. Now there is good physical evidence for an occurence around Sodom which would have been close to what was described in the bible. However, this does not necessarily mean that it in fact was God's doing. These events were ascribed to God by men with said agenda.
If you read
THIS thread you will see my conclusions about S and G.
firstly
So even if we can admit that eventually there might have been a city completely evil (btw there were no children there)
secondly, great thread on sodom. i find we will agree. im jsut too lazy to do the reaseach on teh biblical events, so ill supply a second argument on other cultures.
as i usually say, interpretation is everything. i believe in teh bible. i believe in teh bible as much as i believe in any other ancient text. i believe that gilgamesh was teh king of uruk. an exerpt from an essay: "Marduk, after conquering Tiamat and Qingu, orders the creation of a city for his followers. He tells the Anunnaki to “create Babylon, whose construction [they request]” (Dalley 262). This gives a plausible explanation for the existence of their city... The Enuma Elish also functioned to show a shift in authority. When a group was dominant, the most powerful god would be the central city’s patron god. The Akkadians located Babylon as their axis city, so when they were in power, they expressed the Babylonian god, Marduk, as dominant. Dalley describes Marduk founding cultic centers for Ellil, "the king of all populated lands" (321), signifying the dominance of the Babylonians (255). myth can be used to explain many aspects of society. they can be natural events, beyond the scope of the current population. in a lecture, one possible explanation of the events in egypt, the 10 plagues, all explained as natural phenonmenon. every single one. i'm not trying to swing this argument either way, just suppling food for thought.
by the way: mesopotamian society was the near eastern society before teh abraham. Marduk, tiamat, qingu, ellil are all gods in this culture. dalley translated mesopotamian cuniform tablets into english.the akkadians and babylonians are teh citizens of two different 'tribes.'
if one on this forum doesn't know o fthe mesopotamians i highly suggest reading their literature. there are so many myths in this culture that have so many parallels it is impossible to suggest that many stories of the bible are not based on these people's myth
