Eridu Genesis 2)
Expeditions & Discovery
In the 19th century, western institutions, including museums and universities, funded expeditions to Mesopotamia in hopes of finding physical evidence which would corroborate the historicity of biblical narratives. The 19th century saw the unprecedented practice of increasingly critical readings of the Bible which questioned long-held beliefs regarding its divine origin and supposed infallibility.
Cuneiform tablets contained a number of stories which appeared in the biblical narratives & predated them; among these was the Sumerian Flood Story.
This age of skepticism would see the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 suggesting that human beings, rather than created by God as “a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5), evolved from primates. In 1882, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche published his work The Gay Science, containing the famous line, “God is dead and we have killed him”, alluding to the seeming triumph of technology and secularism over traditional religious belief.
Prior to the rise of secular skepticism, and even during the period when Darwin and Nietzsche were writing, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world, completely original, and of divine origin. This view was encouraged by the work of the archbishop James Ussher (l. 1581-1656), creator of the Ussher Chronology which, relying primarily on the Book of Genesis and referencing other biblical narratives, dates the creation of the world to 22 October 4004 BCE at 6:00 pm. Since the Bible was believed to have been written by God, it was infallible and could be trusted not only in dating the age of the earth but for any other aspect of human existence.
Expeditions & Discovery
In the 19th century, western institutions, including museums and universities, funded expeditions to Mesopotamia in hopes of finding physical evidence which would corroborate the historicity of biblical narratives. The 19th century saw the unprecedented practice of increasingly critical readings of the Bible which questioned long-held beliefs regarding its divine origin and supposed infallibility.
Cuneiform tablets contained a number of stories which appeared in the biblical narratives & predated them; among these was the Sumerian Flood Story.
This age of skepticism would see the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 suggesting that human beings, rather than created by God as “a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5), evolved from primates. In 1882, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche published his work The Gay Science, containing the famous line, “God is dead and we have killed him”, alluding to the seeming triumph of technology and secularism over traditional religious belief.
Prior to the rise of secular skepticism, and even during the period when Darwin and Nietzsche were writing, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world, completely original, and of divine origin. This view was encouraged by the work of the archbishop James Ussher (l. 1581-1656), creator of the Ussher Chronology which, relying primarily on the Book of Genesis and referencing other biblical narratives, dates the creation of the world to 22 October 4004 BCE at 6:00 pm. Since the Bible was believed to have been written by God, it was infallible and could be trusted not only in dating the age of the earth but for any other aspect of human existence.