Although I did not find any ancient near eastern texts to be companion text to the Old Testament, as Matthews suggests in his forward, several of the texts were enlightening, and broadened my understanding and appreciation to the Old Testament. In this report I will highlight and summarize those texts, provide a perspective on the importance of this type of background material, and finally, connect the texts and perspective to the overall effectiveness of the Old Testament Backgrounds Course #207.

An Appreciation of Some ANE Texts

The Book Content. The table below shows the texts included in this book.

The Book of Genesis	The Books of Samuel and Kings	The Book of Proverbs
The Enuma Elish Story.	The Mari Prophecies	The Teachings of Ahiqar
The Atrahasis Story	The Stele of Mesha	The Teachings of Ptah-Hotep
The Story of Ra and The Serpent	The Karatepe Inscription	The Teachings of Am-en-ern-ope
The Memphis Creation Story.	The Annals of Shalmaneser III	The Books of Job and Eccl
The Story of Gilgamesh	The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser	The Story of Keret
The Story of Anubis and Bata	The Annals of Tiglath-Pileser III	The Sufferer and The Soul
The Book of Exodus	The Annals of Sargon II	The Farmer and The Courts
The Treaty of Ramses II and Hattusilis III	The Siloam Inscription	The Sufferer and The Friend
The Story of Sargon' s Birth	The Yavne-Yam Inscription	The Song of Songs
The Books of Lev, Numbers, Deut	The Lachish Letters	Egyptian Love Songs
The Story of Balaam	The Arad Ostraca	The Book of Daniel
The Code of Hammurabi	The Annals of Sennacherib	The Visions of Neferti..
The Sumerian Code	The Annals of Nebuchadnezzar II
Appendix
The Hittite Code	The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah	Outline of Mesopotamian History
The Middle Assyrian Code	The Cylinder of Cyus	Outline of Egyptian History
The Book of Joshua	The Book of Psalms	Outline of Israelite History
The El Amarna Letters	The Hymn to the Aton	Bibliography of Texts
The Stele of Merneptah m	The Stories of B a' al and Anat	Parallels Chart
The Book of Judges	The Lament For Ur	Abbreviations
The Story of Aqhat	The Diary of Wen-Amon	The Gezer Almanac

Genesis Parallels

The Enuma Elish Story. Written in the Akkadian language using cuniform script, this Mesopotamian story had precious few parallels to the book of Genesis. Rich with mythical gods who fight, it speaks of a watery chaos in creation, and it alludes to the building of the city of Babylon. Any other parallels mentioned by Matthews seem to be very obtuse.

A striking observation from this account is the lack of detail and clarity. This childlike writing style pales in comparison the rich writing of the Bible recorded probably 100-200 years later.

The Atrahasis Story. A Sumerian creation and flood story that was copied and translated by the Babylonians and the Assyrians in many editions. It is written in simple lyric style beginning with a world containing only gods. Humans were made to serve the gods, became a nuisance to the divine assembly and overpopulated. Several attempts to eliminate the humans were foiled by Enki's (a god) advice to King Atrahasis (a man). Finally, look at the similarities to Noah's episode- "Pull down your house, build a barge"..."Make the joints strong, Caulk the timbers with pitch. I will gather the flocks of birds for you food,"... "He closed the door And sealed it with pitch."

For seven days and seven nights the flood covered the earth, Nintu and the divine assembly wept. There is remarkable parallel here to the Bible. One could guess that because of their past, the Summerians passed on an account of a world flood. It is embellished with myths about their gods, but parallel in content to the Biblical account. Matthews' bias drives him to conclude that the Hebrews included portions of the Summerian mythology; rather than recognizing the difference between a God preserved account and mans passed on account.

The Story of Gilgamesh. An interesting story found on clay tablets in Nineveh in Iraq in 1872. Perhaps it is the catchy name 'Gilgamesh'; perhaps it is the lyrical style, but this story of the deeds of Gilgamesh, Enkidu and Utnapishtim is captivating and parallels several Bible themes. Most interesting of these parallel threads is the account of the world flood. It includes exacting detail of the historical Bible account. Though there is a plurality of gods, it also captures the interesting theme of Gilgamesh's quest for eternal life. One can well imagine these descendants of Noah, generations removed, passing on nuggets of truth about God. These nuggets became shrouded in mythology and ignorance. It is an atrocity that Matthews misses this logic stating instead that "Ancient Israel retells the Utnapishtim episode of The Story of Gilgamesh in The Story of Noah and the Ark." The more I read his comments, the more his blind bias bothers me, and the more concern I have about CBTS who did not even mention this ungodly and worldly bias found throughout the required reading for this course.

The Story of Anubis and Bata. I thought that the Egyptian hieroglyphic characters caused the childish narrative style, but here is one written in a cursive style of Egyptian writing called "hieratic", that is extremely simplistic in style. Even the rich detail and deep narrative styles of the Bible do not sway Matthews bias; he accuses the Ancient Israelites of stealing their Cain and Able 'story' from this childish Egyptian narrative. Obviously I did not think to much of this story. It does show seeds of God's truth about Cain and Able; about Jacob and Esau, that filtered through tongues to show up in Egypt.

The Levitical Parallels

The Code of Hammurabi. Matthews says "The Code of Hammurabi is a treatise on legal theory, political science, and social organization." There are two hundred and eighty-two case laws. They have striking similarities and differences from God's laws spelled out for Israel. It is interesting that Matthews finally admits that "the parallels either result from direct contact,... or simply demonstrate that two cultures with some shared values develop similar procedures for resolving the same judicial questions."

The laws have to do with stealing, kidnapping, robbery, slavery oaths, sex and marriage. It is interesting that they deal with moral dilemma and they are similar to God's laws, except for an occasional hand being cut off.

The Sumerian Code . The Ur-Nammu Code is the oldest ANE law code recovered by archeologists. The Sumerian Code from 1800 BCE belongs to this oldest enduring legal tradition. The codes are generally determined by the principle of restitution paid to the victim, rather than by the revenge taken on the convict. The only articles given here deal with a son disowning his parents and with a daughter being raped. The minimal sample is not sufficient to develop Bible parallels.

The Book of Joshua

El Amarna Letters. Of a total of 540 clay tablets, about 378 have been translated. They are diplomatic correspondence written to Pharaohs by the governors they appointed in Palestine. These Pharaohs had little real control of Palestine. The letters often sound the alarm and ask for troops to be sent to protect Egyptian interests. These letters are interesting and the style and information sheds much light on the culture and events of the time.

The Proverbs

The Teachings of Ahiqar. Many of these sayings seem to be lifted right out of the Book of Proverbs; to the point that you can imagine that Ahiqar was directly aquatinted with copies of Solomon's works.

A Perspective on the Importance of ANE Texts

Lastly there is a renewed appreciation for the accuracy, detail and style of the Bible. The childishly written ANE texts about world floods and mans relationships with god's, causes one to love God's plan whereby He guarded the details and truths by using His chosen people to carefully pen and pass them on. Hebrews, the guardians of God's truths, are a blessing to all the generations of the earth, as He promised in Genesis.

The ANE Texts and The effectiveness of CBTS' Course #207.

The review of these ANE texts is essential for the broadening of ones OT background knowledge, however CBTS' insufficient emphasis of the modernistic bias of Victor H. Matthews is alarming. There have been attacks against the historical accuracy of the Scriptures since the Garden of Eden. Matthews, required reading here, is not subtle about his disbelief Bible accuracy. He continual pounds on the idea that the Ancient Hebrews only copied these ideas and styles. Describing the Enuma Elish Story, Matthews says "the technical cosmological language common in ancient Near Eastern creation stories began to appear in the Hebrew Bible." It cannot be overemphasized that this is not the philosophy of CBTS. Instead it was passively condoned in the lecture and readings of Course #207, Old Testament Background. For God's sake, lets not get so caught up in education and mans knowledge that we forget there is a war on out here.

Note: I must look at CBTS through a telescope focused on a TV screen. I expect that often my reactions to what I see there may be dismissed as extreme. I don't go to chapel services, nor interact with staff and student. I do, however, see the lecture in vivid detail, read the books, and base my (extreme) reaction on observation and sincere concern.

For a Bible Believer, there are three major realizations in the review of ANE Texts. First there is a recognition that the Biblical truths of the OT permitted the world. All generations of Noah were aware of creation, Cain & Able, God's dissatisfaction with man, the world flood, that destroyed all of mankind but one family, and the desire that man fellowship and serve an almighty God. These themes show up over and over in all cultures, in all people and that rings with the truth and the accuracy of our God preserved account, the Bible. Second, and perhaps more subtly, is a recognition that the preaching of Christ is foolishness to men. Matthews, Benjamin, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings look at all these similarities in accounts and determine in their logic, not that there is a common historical fact, but that God's chosen people are copy cats. Surely, they say, these older manuscripts are the most accurate sources of all these Bible writings. Their blind bias almost exceeds that of Westcott and Hort who believed the same about Greek texts and provided us an ASV!

The End