'The Epic of Gilgamesh." was published by Penguin Press 1999. It is very early poetic tales written in Akkadian in cuneiform on clay tablets about 2,400 B.C. Andrew George has given us a recent translation of this under the same title. Gilgamesh appears in the list of Sumerian Kings as a ruler in the first Dynasty of Uruk.

In this interesting book we read of King Sargon who appears in the list of Sumerian kings as the fifth ruler of the First Dynasty of Uruk. We read a story of King Sargon. "My mother, a priestess, conceived me and bore me in secret, she put me in a basket of reeds, sealed its lid with pitch; she cast me adrift on the river from which I could not arise, the river bore me up and brought me to Aqqi, a drawer of water." Now read the story of Moses in Exodus 2:1-10. Baby Moses was put in a reed basket, sealed with pitch and placed on the Nile river then found by the Pharaoh's daughter.

The question is, did the Hebrews borrow this story from the Babylonians when they were held captive there 586 to 538 B.C. and include it in the myth of the Hebrew escape from Egypt? The names are changed but the story of baby Moses in a reed basket on the Nile is basically the same.

There is another story from Babylon, the story of Noah's Ark, which has also been borrowed from the Babylonians. The names have been changed to make a Hebrew myth but the basic story is the same (Gen. 6:1 to 8:22). Here is a short precis of the original flood story written in cuneiform in the time of Gilgamesh, several hundred years before the Hebrew story of Noah and the Ark was written.

Their gods wished to destroy mankind but preserve one devout family and the animal species. Utnapishtim the son of Uba-Tue was told to demolish the house and build a boat, to spurn property, to save life! The dimensions of the boat were to be equal. She should have a roof. The boat was to have six floors thus dividing it into seven. At dawn the carpenters, workers and materials arrived. The pitch was carried by the children. Utnapishtim set the hull in position. Her area was one acre. Into nine compartments he divided her interior. The boat was finally finished. All the living beasts and the creatures of the wild, together with everything he owned including his family was loaded aboard. He says, "I went into the boat and sealed the hatch."

At the first glimmer of dawn there arose a black cloud, "Within it was Adad the Storm God. The gods Shulla and Hanish were going before him bearing his throne over the mountain and land. The god Errakal was uprooting the mooring poles, Ninurta passing by made the weirs overflow. All that was bright turned to darkness. Then came the deluge."

For six days and seven nights the wind blew and the deluge flattened the land. Then the deluge ended. Utnapishtim opened the hatch and looked out on to the desolation. The boat had grounded on Mount Nimush. After a further seven days, he let out a dove but it returned for there was no place to land. Then in time he let out a swallow and it also returned for there was no place to land. Finally he let out a raven but it found food and did not return. They all got out of the boat and Utnapishtim made an altar and sacrificed to his gods. "The gods did smell the savour sweet." Sumer lies between two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. There have been many floods in that area, some greater than others.

On three occasions during the Gilgamesh flood story, it was said that "as the Sun-God appointed, in the morning he will send you a shower of bread-cakes and in the evening a torrent

of wheat." This story has obviously been borrowed by the Hebrews to include in the story of how the children of Israel were said to have been fed after leaving Egypt during their forty year journey through the desert! The Hebrew god was said to provide food from heaven each day, "I am going to rain bread from heaven and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day" (See Exodus 16:4 to 35). And again "When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning." (Exodus 16:8).

Are these stories also borrowed from Babylon? We should remember that Jews had been captured by King Nebuchadnezzar, taken to Babylon as slaves and held there from 586 to 538 B.C. That was hundreds of years after the Gilgamesh story of the ark had been written in Cuneiform writing. Babylon was the centre of civilisation at that time. The Hebrews would certainly have learned to write and become familiar with Mesopotamian mythology. We can feel sure that the Hebrews had borrowed this story from Mesopotamian Mythology .

Magnus Magnusson in his book 'The B.C. Archaeology of the Bible Lands' tells us "despite the mass of contemporary records that have been unearthed in Egypt, not one historical reference to the presence of the Israelites has yet been found." Later on he says "the story of the Bondage and the Deliverance is above all a statement of faith, rather than history."

Extensive archaeological work by Israeli archaeologist EHezer Oren over a period of ten years failed to provide a single shred of evidence that the Biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt ever happened. The nation of Israel traversing a semi-desert for forty years would have left an extensive trail of debris including human and animal bones, pottery and implements of all varieties. No evidence of this kind has ever been found! There has never been reliable archaeological evidence that the Israelites were ever held captive or escaped from Egypt.

The Bible story of the Hebrews escaping from Egypt starts with a whole series of magical events. First there was the copied story of baby Moses in the reed basket on the Nile. Then the talking bush which burned but was not consumed followed by the magical rods of Aaron and his brother Moses. Aaron threw his rod down and it became a snake. He took it up and it became a rod again in his hand. This is followed by ten plagues, all of which required magic, l^' All the water in the land is fumed to blood. 2^nd A plague of frogs in their houses and even in their beds. 3^rd Aaron stretches out his magical staff and the dust of the ground became gnats. 4^th Now a plague of flies. 5^th A plague of disease among the livestock. 6^th A plague of boils on humans and stock. 7^th A plague of thunder and hail in tropical Egypt. 8^th A plague of locusts. 9'¹' A plague of unnatural darkness. Id¹¹' and final plague; the first born of every female human and animal is said to have died in one night. None of these plagues touched the Israelites!

Finally Pharaoh is said to have given his

permission for the Israelites to leave Egypt. They left having 'borrowed' valuable things from the Egyptians, "and so they plundered the Egyptians." (Exodus 12:36). No thought of ethics here.

Shortly after they got to the desert, Moses counted the people. He arrived at the astonishing figure of "Six hundred thousand men on foot besides children". (Exodus 12:37) Later on Moses counts the people again and comes up with "from twenty years old and upwards, everyone able to go to war in Israel, their whole number was six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty." (Numb. 1:45-46). This constitutes an increase of 3,550 men more than the first count. Add women, children and the old and sick. The total must have been in the vicinity of two million persons.

The fairy tale magic continues. God put a pillar of cloud to lead them by day and a pillar of fire to illuminate them at night. They come to the Red Sea and Moses stretches out his magic staff and the "waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry grand, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued_and went into the sea after them." ( Ex. 14:21-23) How long do you think it would take to get six hundred thousand men, an equal number of women and a few thousand children over the Red Sea, plus, of course donkeys, cattle and sheep. All this while the sea is banked up upon both sides. When the Israelites got safely to the other side, Moses stretched out his magical rod and the waters came together again on the following Egyptian army, drowning them all!

The story is incredible. We come up against the immutable laws of the universe. There are over twenty individual acts of magic running in sequence in this story. Another word for this would be fiction, certainly not history. Only fairy tales can build a story like this. Fairy tales are not facts. They can only survive in fiction or in mythology.

The fairy tale magic does not stop there. A day or a week or more later the people are thirsty with no water in sight. (Exodus 17:6) Moses strikes a rock with his magic rod and out pours enough water to satisfy about two million people and thousands of livestock! The magic goes on. A little further on the people complain that the water is bitter. They cry out "what shall we drink.....the Lord showed Moses apiece of wood, he threw it into the water and (magic again), the water becomes sweet." (Exodus 15:25). After 40 years wandering, they come to the river Jordan. The Red Sea magic is repeated "the waters shall be cut off and they shall stand in a single heap." Have you ever seen water standing in a heap?

All the thousands of Israelites, men, women and children including large herds of livestock cross over on dry land before the river returns to normal.

Having arrived at the promised land they march seven times around the nearby walled city of Jericho. A trumpet sounds, they all shout in unison and magic happens again, the walls of the city fall down! But did the walls really fall down? I lived and worked in Jerusalem for six years and nine months, and have seen the excavations at Jericho several times. The city walls did not fall down! Archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon spent years excavating the city of Jericho. She concluded that the walls of Jericho were destroyed around 2300 B.C. That is over a thousand years before Joshua is said to have conquered the Canaanites. Scholars are convinced that the whole story of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt is a figment of imagination, probably dreamed up when the Jews were held captive in Babylon.

Can you believe all those magical deeds performed by the rods of Moses and Aaron? If the story of an escape from Egypt is true, why was there a need to fill it out with magical happenings?

There is no evidence or Egyptian records of a pharaoh drowning in the Red Sea. No record of a national tragedy when, as the Bible story states, every first-born child and the first-born of livestock in the land mysteriously died one morning. There is no archaeological evidence at all that the Jewish nation ever was held in slavery or lived in Egypt. These mythical stories were invented while the Jews were held captive in Babylon. They include ancient myths borrowed from Babylon. The Hebrews were busy myth making, building a national religion.

There is no historical proof or any other evidence backing up the stories or the persons mentioned in Genesis and Exodus, the first two books of the Bible. The sad fact is that the Jews have celebrated the Passover each year as a literal fact for over two and a half thousand years since they supposedly fled from Egypt. Nor is there any historical evidence that Moses ever existed apart from the Bible.

You will see that the first two books of the Bible are largely mythology. Several stories are taken from the myths of Babylon adapted and modified to conform to Jewish names and places. The Hebrew story of Noah and the ark appears in Genesis chapters five to ten. The rest of the book is taken up with the goings and comings of the tribe. Exodus is pure fiction supported by magic. None of Genesis can be verified. These two books form the basis of the Hebrew religion. There is good evidence that these Bible stories were invented by the Jews while they were held captive in Babylon 586 to 538 B.C.? If this is the case, what else in the Bible is manufactured or modified to support their religion? They mention the tower of Babel, which could be read Babylon Ziggurats. Then the story of baby Moses in a basket on the Nile and other Gilgamesh stories of food being rained down from heaven, night and morning the copied story of the great flood. How much were the Jewish leaders influenced by Babylonian