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The translation of a Babylonian clay tablet in the collection of the British Museum is hailed as a breakthrough for biblical archaeology and proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament. The deciphering of a cuneiform inscription on a clay tablet dating from 595 BC, revealed a reference to Nebo-Sarsekim, an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, which confirms the historical existence of the same figure in the Book of Jeremiah.
In 2007, after hearing about the discovery, Geza Vermes, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, said that the discovery revealed that “the Biblical story is not altogether invented.” He also added that “this will be interesting for religious people as much as historians.”The Babylonian clay tablets at the British Museum have already proved to have great similarities with the Bible. The 11th tablet in the Epic of Gilgamesh, also called the Flood Tablet, is the most famous of all cuneiform tablets. It describes how the gods sent a flood to destroy the world, and like Noah, Utnapishtim was forewarned and built an ark to preserve the animals. After the flood, like Noah, he sent out birds to look for dry land and this pre-dating flood story is accepted by scholars to be the inspiration of the flood in the Bible. The tablets in the Epic of Gilgamesh are also very interesting to the study of Near Death Experiences, as there are many similarities between the two. Under the original title – “He Who Saw the Source” – Gilgamesh goes on the search for eternal life. On tablet 9, he travels through a dark tunnel and after finding light at the end of the tunnel, Gilgamesh ends up in a glorious Jeweled Garden that share similarities to the Garden of Eden. With the knowledge gained from this journey to the other side, Gilgamesh restores the temples of the land, and therefore, his journey can be considered to have been the inspiration of the religion of his time. With this connection, is likely that Gilgamesh had an Near Death Experience (NDE) and that this was the original source and inspiration of Babylonian religion that later inspired the Bible.
For more about the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Near Death Experiences, you can read this article: http://www.ndelight.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19:joomla-overview&catid=29:the-cms&Itemid=37 |
