Flood Stories—the Epic of Gilgamesh, part 1, ”The Story”

We’ve all lost a friend whose death hit us hard. Paul McCartney lost John Lennon. David lost Jonathan, and Gilgamesh lost Enkidu. Despite his semi-divine birth, the power of the throne, and his unrivaled physical strength, the death of his dear friend suddenly brought young King Gilgamesh face to face with his own mortality and subsequently led him on a quest to find eternal life. In his travels Gilgamesh learns of Utnapishtim, the “Babylonian Noah,” who along with his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods, so Gilgamesh undertakes a treacherous distant journey from his home in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk through darkness, across mountains and over treacherous seas to the home of Utnapishtim who explains to Gilgamesh how he received immortality as a reward for obediently constructing an ark at the gods’ instruction and for surviving the flood sent by them to destroy all mankind because (at least in one version) man had disturbed the gods’ rest by making too much noise.

Written in Akkadian cuneiform on twelve clay tablets, the Epic of Gilgamesh bears some striking parallels to the biblical flood story and, along with hundreds of other flood stories from different cultures, it reinforces support for the Bible’s claim of a universal flood. Most of the tablets were unearthed in the excavation of King Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh from 1849-1851. They were later transported to the British Museum, catalogued, and stored in its basement where they remained essentially unread until 1872 when a young employee named George Smith dedicated himself to that arduous task. Imagine his surprise and joy when his eyes caught these words from tablet XI, “The ship rested on the mountains of Nizir.” This discovery in particular motivated him to return to Nineveh to search among the thousands of fragments still uncovered there for any remaining portions of the epic. More remarkable than finding a needle in a haystack, Smith succeeded!

-Daniel McCabe

Trivia (Answer below)

Which one of these is NOT one of the five pillars of Islam?

God in Genesis (1-11)

In the early chapters of the book of Genesis we are introduced to character qualities of God that lay the groundwork for his additional actions and revelations throughout both the remainder of the Old Testament and the New Testament. God is …

Creator—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (1:1), and “man became a living being” (2:7).

Triune—“Let Us make man in Our image” (1:26).

Sustainer—“See, I have given you every herb …. and every tree; to you it shall be for food” (1:29), and “Then God remembered Noah … so Noah went out [of the ark]” (8:1, 18).

Designer—“Then God saw everything that He had made and indeed it was very good” (1:31).

Revealer of His will—“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (2:17), and “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door” (4:7).

Redeemer—“They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (3:7), but “for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin and clothed them” (3:21), and “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (6:8).

Judge—“You are cursed” (3:14), “cursed is the ground” (3:17), and “I will destroy man” (6:7).

Restorer—“[The Seed] shall bruise [the serpent’s] head” (3:15).

Friend of Man—“Enoch walked with God” (5:22, 24), and “Noah walked with God” (6:9).

Grieving Father—“He was grieved in His heart” (6:6).

Covenant Maker—“I will establish My covenant with you” (6:18), and “I will establish My covenant with you” (9:9).

-Daniel McCabe

The Fountain of Sultan Qaytbay

The songs from my childhood still ring in my ears even after all these years. Did anyone else learn the rhyme, “In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”? Sure seems like a long time ago that I learned it in a noisy classroom inside South Ward Elementary School. On the other hand, I don’t remember Mrs. Taylor or Mr. Little ever teaching me this rhyme, “Ten years before Christopher lived a sultan, who once donated a beautiful fountain.” Ok, it’s not as catchy, but it’s true! Columbus landed … wait, where? I had to look it up, and turns out he first landed in the Bahamas. I didn’t remember that one either, did you? But the fountain of the sultan in my inferior rhyme landed in Jerusalem, a world away.

Sometimes you find beautiful things or people in the shadow of other more beautiful things, and that’s certainly true of Sultan Qaytbay’s fountain, which sits at the base of a spectacular terraced staircase that leads up to the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Most eyes are drawn to the gold-leafed dome that’s so rich in history, for below it once stood the Jewish Holy of Holies, and they completely miss the Muslim sultan’s smaller 550 year-old public water fountain on the lower level despite its superb Islamic architecture, making it arguably the second most beautiful edifice on the Temple Mount.

Sultan Qaytbay commissioned and donated this red and cream-stoned fountain in 1482 for use by worshippers and the poor. Built over an underground cistern that collected rainwater, a caretaker pulled up water through a hole in the floor of the fountain using a bucket and a rope, and he shared it with worshippers, travelers, the poor and their animals which drank from troughs built into the outer stone walls below ornate windows on three sides. Decorated with Koranic inscriptions, a stepped doorway on the east side, a stone bench beneath the southern window, star-shaped stone patterns inside the building and an ornate dome topped with a bronze crescent, the fountain was constructed by Egyptian craftsmen under the supervision of a renowned Christian architect.

Perhaps one more rhyme before I close—“it’s no longer used any more, but you should definitely stop and adore.”

-Daniel McCabe

Hamartiology – Result of Sin

We live the result of sin every day, for sadly the result of the first sin was death. God warned Adam and Eve, “The day you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.” They didn’t drop dead that day, but they did die spiritually, and one day in the future physical death would also come for them, for “the wages of sin is death.” This verse not only refers to spiritual death, but also to physical death. We must pay the price for our sin. Even Christians pay this price because we too have sinned. One day my body will die as a result of sin—as a result of the curse. I will die physically unless I’m raptured first, but that’s a topic for another day. Now, of course, we know as Christians that we can have eternal life because our sin-guilt has been forgiven and we will also experience the presence of God fully after we die, but we must still die physically someday.

There are other permanent effects on humanity as well, including increased pain in childbirth and laborious work, both part of the curse for mankind. By the sweat of his brow, Adam would now have to work hard and Eve would also suffer pain, for the curse of sin strikes at the very roles of men and women in this life. Spiritually, Adam’s sin resulted immediately in mankind’s alienation of fellowship from God and his enslavement to sin, and those are by far the most painful effects of sin. In John 8:32 Jesus said, “The truth shall set you free.” Jesus talks about being set free from sin, but His opponents were bothered by that. “We’ve never been in bondage to anybody,” they replied. Well, yes, they have whether they realize it or not, for every person is enslaved by sin, and even though it’s our fault, we can’t blame it on anyone else. We kind of have to sin. We’re fallen and we do it all the time. So the truth shall set you free though we still wrestle with sin even after we’re saved. We are still tempted and fall sometimes. However, we are free from having to sin. We are now free to choose to resist temptation. We can avoid sin. We will never be fully successful at avoiding it while walking on this earth. We will continue to wrestle with the flesh, but we are free to resist temptation. We are free to not sin. As sinners, we are an object of God’s wrath because He is just, but if we are saved, then we get to escape that ultimately.

Now, the sinful nature is pervasive even for the redeemed. We must continue to wrestle with its influence. We see this in Romans 7:23. Paul says, “I do what I don’t want to do, and I don’t do what I want to do.” We also see this in Galatians 5 and James 4. It’s an obvious reality that any honest person can admit and acknowledge, “I do fall. I do wrestle with this flesh and I hate that I do.” That’s the big difference between a believer and an unbeliever. Believers hate their sin. They hate the fact that they do sin. I know that I sin and I hate it. But unbelievers don’t have that conception of hating their sin. They’re slaves to it.

-Adam Keim

The Gallio Inscription

I love how archaeology repeatedly confirms the accuracy of the Bible, corroborating, for example, important names and dates recorded in the Bible. According to Acts 18:12, “When Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat.” Although Gallio refused to hear their case against Paul, arguing that it was a matter of religion rather than a matter of Roman law, the mention of Gallio’s name is quite significant.

Sometimes called the Delphi Inscription, having been discovered at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece around 1905, this limestone, Greek inscription, written by Emperor Claudius, assures the city’s leaders of his support in all efforts to revitalize their cult of Apollo and to repopulate their city after years of steady decline. In the inscription Claudius also references “Junius Gallio, my friend and proconsul,” and from time markers in the inscription and other Roman sources, it is apparent that Gallio resided in Corinth, Greece and served as proconsul of Achaia between May 51 and April 52 A.D. in agreement with Acts 18:1, 12. Furthermore, by comparing Roman sources with details found in the Bible, it has been established that Paul stood before Gallio in the summer of 51 A.D. The Gallio Inscription is thus a tremendous find that has enabled Bible teachers to date the Apostle Paul’s second missionary journey with considerable accuracy as well as all his future travels and even a great deal of the early history of the church.

-Daniel McCabe

Answer to the Trivia

F. Reading the Koran