WEBVTT 00:06.570 --> 00:11.730 Good evening to you, and the first thing I wanted to mention was a few weeks ago, 00:12.090 --> 00:16.250 somebody said to me, oh, you got taught by an ancient historian, how old is he? 00:17.110 --> 00:21.690 Which reminds me of some time ago when I was visiting somebody, and I came across 00:21.690 --> 00:26.110 this lady, and because I'm a Christian, and she said, well, she said, oh, 00:26.150 --> 00:27.310 I'm a believer as well. 00:27.870 --> 00:29.130 I said, oh, that's amazing. 00:29.770 --> 00:31.730 I said, so how long have you been a believer? 00:31.870 --> 00:34.230 Oh, about 5,000 years or so. 00:34.230 --> 00:38.050 She said, which is a very strange thing, sometimes you come across. 00:38.930 --> 00:42.590 Well, this evening I'm going to be speaking about Genesis, tracing Genesis 00:42.590 --> 00:44.750 through the ancient cultures. 00:45.190 --> 00:49.570 And I'll be looking at, particularly focusing on the first 11 chapters of 00:49.570 --> 00:54.250 Genesis, and seeing if there's any possible evidence in some of the ancient 00:54.250 --> 00:54.730 cultures. 00:55.630 --> 00:59.330 Before I do that, I just want to mention something, a couple of quotations, 00:59.330 --> 01:06.070 real quotations from teenage blunders in their GCSE exams in ancient history. 01:06.650 --> 01:11.350 And I just remembered I must switch my mobile off, in case that goes off. 01:13.990 --> 01:21.310 And real life quotations from some teenagers in their GCSE exams. 01:22.110 --> 01:27.770 The first one, the Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we 01:27.770 --> 01:28.710 wouldn't have history. 01:29.390 --> 01:31.030 The Greeks also had myths. 01:31.530 --> 01:33.290 A myth is a female moth. 01:34.810 --> 01:36.850 Extraordinary, isn't it, what you sometimes get in exams. 01:37.530 --> 01:42.610 Another one, Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people 01:42.610 --> 01:43.110 advice. 01:43.770 --> 01:44.510 They killed him. 01:45.130 --> 01:47.890 Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. 01:48.850 --> 01:52.170 After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline. 01:56.230 --> 01:59.110 I remember I used to be a teacher and marking some of these things had 01:59.110 --> 02:01.530 extraordinary things sometimes. 02:02.530 --> 02:03.270 But they're amusing. 02:04.190 --> 02:05.770 But there's also something about it. 02:06.170 --> 02:10.430 A couple of students I mentioned beforehand, yes, they had some true things 02:10.430 --> 02:13.330 that were there in those statements. 02:14.090 --> 02:15.710 Yes, the Greeks did have myths. 02:16.590 --> 02:20.070 No, Herodotus, as I was taught, I mean, I was taught he was a father of 02:20.070 --> 02:20.410 history. 02:21.090 --> 02:22.110 But actually he wasn't. 02:22.530 --> 02:26.650 That was just one of those things that was thrown out when I was, I suppose, 02:26.730 --> 02:30.290 doing my, in those days, GCE O-Level. 02:31.950 --> 02:33.230 And other things as well. 02:33.310 --> 02:37.370 Socrates was a famous Greek teacher, but he did not die from an overdose of 02:37.370 --> 02:40.950 wedlock, but of, anybody know what he was supposed to have died of? 02:40.950 --> 02:41.890 Hemlock. 02:42.530 --> 02:42.950 That's right. 02:43.030 --> 02:43.670 A form of poison. 02:45.170 --> 02:50.430 And these days I found that very often we are, everything seems to be sort of taught 02:50.430 --> 02:53.790 through Darwinian evolutionary glasses. 02:54.050 --> 02:57.590 So it doesn't mean, it doesn't matter what it is, it includes ancient history too. 02:59.050 --> 03:04.430 And because of this particular academic bias that we actually often miss out some 03:04.430 --> 03:09.070 things which would be even right under our nose, which could be very exciting and 03:09.070 --> 03:11.650 unlock certain things in our understanding of history. 03:12.490 --> 03:15.670 So tonight I want you to, to take you through something about ancient history, 03:16.110 --> 03:20.670 let it speak for itself, and you as a listener to make your own judgments. 03:22.810 --> 03:27.650 With the advent of Darwin's Origin of Species, 1859, as I said, a lot of the 03:27.650 --> 03:33.290 things were viewed through evolutionary understanding, which included the Bible, 03:33.750 --> 03:37.350 and it was a growth of liberal scholars, particularly in the 19th century going to 03:37.350 --> 03:41.870 the 20th century, and became very sceptical of the Bible. 03:42.090 --> 03:45.610 I want to just say in the outline, as we are going through tonight, 03:46.350 --> 03:51.010 we are going to be looking at the antiquity, how far we can trace Genesis 03:51.010 --> 03:54.690 back, looking at creation, the views of creation. 03:55.850 --> 04:01.450 The first ancestors, the fall, that is when the first human beings, 04:01.690 --> 04:05.950 according to the Bible, something went wrong a long way back, and they lost their 04:05.950 --> 04:07.070 contact with their creator. 04:08.110 --> 04:11.870 The flood, that was mentioned in Genesis. 04:14.010 --> 04:19.290 The table of nations, how after the flood the people spread through the ancient 04:19.290 --> 04:19.670 world. 04:21.590 --> 04:24.810 And the Tower of Babel, when there was a confusion of languages. 04:25.910 --> 04:29.990 And if I get time at the end, something which will find out what on earth is that, 04:30.050 --> 04:31.110 the desire of the nations. 04:33.470 --> 04:37.590 I want to have a look first of all, looking at the first part, antiquity of 04:37.590 --> 04:37.930 Genesis. 04:41.230 --> 04:45.130 And here is this chap I was mentioning earlier about evolutionary understanding 04:45.130 --> 04:48.950 and influence on biblical thinking. 04:48.950 --> 04:54.710 And he was a man, Julius Welhausen, who was one of the German high critics. 04:56.070 --> 04:59.150 And one of the things he came up, he was, there was a bunch of them, 04:59.190 --> 05:03.130 but he was particularly well known for the theory, which is called either documentary 05:03.130 --> 05:10.770 hypothesis or literary theory, or some people refer to it as the JEPD, 05:10.930 --> 05:12.110 which I'll explain in a moment. 05:12.990 --> 05:17.650 Now, traditionally, both Jews and Christians had accepted that Moses had 05:17.650 --> 05:22.970 written the first five books of the Bible, around about 1450 to 1400 BC. 05:24.610 --> 05:29.390 Well, Welhausen came along and he began to look at it in a different way, 05:29.470 --> 05:35.010 through his understanding of words and literature and so forth, applying that to 05:35.010 --> 05:39.430 the first five books of Moses, as they've been traditionally called. 05:39.430 --> 05:46.050 So they had this JEDP, which is, J basically was short for the name Jah, 05:46.450 --> 05:50.130 or Yahweh, which is one of the names of God in the Old Testament. 05:50.850 --> 05:57.490 And he reckoned that there were various writers that had written those books of 05:57.490 --> 05:59.230 the Old Testament. 06:00.130 --> 06:04.670 And the first one, he reckoned, had been written by some person about 850 06:04.670 --> 06:05.030 BC. 06:05.830 --> 06:12.490 The second one, E for El, or Elohim, a word for God. 06:13.730 --> 06:17.490 Again, he thought it was another writer who had written in about 700 BC, 06:17.970 --> 06:21.510 because he thought you couldn't have these two names being the same God, there must 06:21.510 --> 06:22.330 be different writers. 06:23.910 --> 06:27.970 And then D was short for Deuteronomy, the last book of the books of Moses, 06:28.610 --> 06:33.190 which he reckoned a scribe had written around about 621 BC. 06:33.710 --> 06:38.690 And the last one, priest, who had gone over the whole lot, and it had been 06:38.690 --> 06:42.730 written about 500, putting things together, and then maybe refined and 06:42.730 --> 06:48.310 purified later on, even by somebody else later back as 200 BC. 06:51.010 --> 06:58.690 The only trouble is, when we actually look at it, the first thing is that there was 06:58.690 --> 07:01.950 an understanding, because evolution sort of affected the whole way that people 07:01.950 --> 07:04.470 thought, including understanding of religion. 07:04.570 --> 07:07.990 They thought that the concept of God had evolved. 07:08.150 --> 07:11.670 In other words, it had been a form of simple animism, right through to magic, 07:12.310 --> 07:15.850 right through to many gods, finally to monotheism, or one creator God, 07:16.350 --> 07:18.990 because that fitted in the theory of evolution. 07:20.190 --> 07:23.250 However, and I'm going to go and look at this a bit later, I'm actually going to 07:23.250 --> 07:27.350 show you the exact opposite is what we find in the archaeological and 07:27.350 --> 07:29.310 anthropological record. 07:29.990 --> 07:35.870 But another thing that they thought was that Moses, there's no way, back in sort 07:35.870 --> 07:42.650 of 1450 or so BC, would ever have had a concept of a sort of complex legal system, 07:42.950 --> 07:45.310 which you mentioned, which is mentioned in his writings. 07:45.310 --> 07:49.050 Therefore, it couldn't have been written so early. 07:49.630 --> 07:56.310 But archaeologists after Wellhausen had actually dug up the Code of Hammurabi, 07:56.870 --> 08:02.770 about 1700 BC, which actually contains quite amazing legal understanding. 08:03.390 --> 08:04.830 But he wasn't the only one. 08:05.570 --> 08:11.190 There was also the laws of Lippit Ishtar, the king of Isin from Babylonia, 08:11.950 --> 08:13.930 which was founded in 1945. 08:14.550 --> 08:17.070 And that was dated about 1875 BC. 08:17.870 --> 08:22.530 There was also the laws of Eshunna, about 1900 BC, founded in 1947. 08:23.130 --> 08:25.650 The result of that was some of the evolutionists who had followed 08:25.650 --> 08:28.350 Wellhausen's understanding actually changed their minds. 08:28.350 --> 08:32.330 And they started saying, well actually Moses had copied it from an earlier 08:32.330 --> 08:32.790 source. 08:33.170 --> 08:34.430 So it went round the other way round. 08:34.510 --> 08:36.950 So it was actually far more ancient than Moses. 08:37.070 --> 08:37.970 They had to accept that. 08:38.530 --> 08:41.730 So they changed their mind to fit what they wanted. 08:42.710 --> 08:46.550 And then we look at the Ebla tablets. 08:46.730 --> 08:52.270 Thousands of these were discovered and dated around about 2300 BC. 08:53.330 --> 08:53.850 Which is amazing. 08:53.930 --> 08:59.470 What was exciting about it was in the very same tablet written by the same scribe you 08:59.470 --> 09:02.830 would find the two names El and Ya. 09:03.690 --> 09:09.110 The different names of the God mentioned in Genesis in the Bible. 09:10.890 --> 09:14.350 And obviously that completely defeated the idea that these had been two different 09:14.350 --> 09:17.030 scribes writing a long, long time apart. 09:17.850 --> 09:22.010 Just a simple dig and finding some evidence silenced that. 09:23.830 --> 09:28.570 There was a man called Professor Alberto Casuto who was a well-known biblical 09:28.570 --> 09:28.970 scholar. 09:29.890 --> 09:34.430 And he actually said, I did not prove that the pillars were weak or that each one 09:34.430 --> 09:36.990 failed to give decisive support. 09:37.370 --> 09:39.670 But I established that they were not pillars at all. 09:40.230 --> 09:41.270 That they did not exist. 09:41.790 --> 09:43.210 That they were purely imaginary. 09:43.210 --> 09:48.750 In view of this, my final conclusion that the documentary hypothesis is null and 09:48.750 --> 09:50.450 void is justified. 09:51.070 --> 09:52.510 Others, he went even further. 09:53.570 --> 09:58.310 Professor Archie Gleason even said that this theory wouldn't even stand up. 09:58.390 --> 10:00.150 It would be thrown straight out of a court of law. 10:00.970 --> 10:04.830 So let's look something about the beginning of Genesis. 10:05.930 --> 10:09.730 The first thing is that, as I said, traditionally, Jews and Christians have 10:09.730 --> 10:19.050 reckoned that Moses had written the books of the first five books, 1450 to 1400 BC. 10:20.590 --> 10:26.050 And the question I asked was, okay, but what happened before Moses? 10:26.850 --> 10:30.710 Where did he get his information from for Genesis, for example? 10:31.850 --> 10:36.750 And was it all oral tradition just passed down by the campfire? 10:37.610 --> 10:41.850 Or were there actually written records that existed before Moses that somehow 10:41.850 --> 10:44.190 Moses may have had access to? 10:45.030 --> 10:48.550 The fact is the Bible does not actually speak at all about that. 10:49.190 --> 10:53.510 Jesus, the apostles, and the Jews all accept Moses as the first five books. 10:54.570 --> 10:59.130 But nevertheless, it makes you wonder, where did you actually get the earlier 10:59.130 --> 10:59.730 parts from? 10:59.730 --> 11:05.550 You think Moses, actually, he was a prince of Egypt. 11:06.710 --> 11:11.510 And it says in Acts of the Apostles that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the 11:11.510 --> 11:11.890 Egyptians. 11:12.370 --> 11:18.390 In other words, he had access to libraries, and information, and scholars, 11:18.950 --> 11:20.650 and a position of authority. 11:21.910 --> 11:26.830 He would have been trained in reading and writing Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic 11:26.830 --> 11:32.670 script, and also probably translating from Babylonian, and Sumerian, and possibly 11:32.670 --> 11:34.670 Arcadian, which are some of the ancient languages. 11:34.670 --> 11:42.430 If we look at a king, Ashurbanipal of Assyria, later, but he said this, 11:43.310 --> 11:47.270 I have read the artistic scripts of Sumer, and the dark obscure Arcadian, 11:47.390 --> 11:51.570 which is hard to master, and I now take pleasure in reading of the stone 11:51.570 --> 11:52.970 inscriptions before the flood. 11:52.970 --> 11:57.850 That came from a huge library from Nineveh that was discovered by archaeologists. 11:58.750 --> 12:03.030 So the fact was that people actually were far more educated and literate than we 12:03.030 --> 12:04.110 actually gave them credit to. 12:04.210 --> 12:08.250 Certainly, the people who were very critical of the Bible in the early days 12:08.250 --> 12:11.050 didn't realise just how much stuff there was. 12:13.050 --> 12:17.010 You think Joseph was also prime minister to Pharaoh. 12:18.430 --> 12:23.010 Again, he would have had access to all sorts of information about history, 12:23.130 --> 12:23.510 and so on. 12:24.930 --> 12:26.250 And then we get to Abraham. 12:27.310 --> 12:31.110 Now, Abraham, again, we tend to think about, a lot of people think, Abraham is 12:31.110 --> 12:34.590 this guy in a tent with all these people, you know, with the sheep, trying to kick 12:34.590 --> 12:35.530 him out of the tent or something. 12:35.530 --> 12:40.690 But actually, he came from Ur of the Chaldees, which was an ancient city, 12:41.330 --> 12:44.750 and it was highly advanced, highly sophisticated for its time. 12:46.150 --> 12:53.890 And if, for example, we look at some of the exquisite Sumerian jewellery from Ur 12:53.890 --> 12:57.690 of the Chaldees, absolutely beautiful, some of the things they had in those days, 12:58.350 --> 12:59.290 artistic work. 12:59.770 --> 13:00.950 But it wasn't just that. 13:02.190 --> 13:05.890 We look at some of the schooling in those days. 13:07.150 --> 13:10.170 And this is a mathematical clay tablet. 13:11.610 --> 13:14.610 And you can see on the top of that, you've got all these lines and triangles 13:14.610 --> 13:20.510 and calculating distances of shorter side and longer side, hypotenuse and all that 13:20.510 --> 13:20.830 kind of thing. 13:20.890 --> 13:22.170 Don't ask me, I'm not very good at maths. 13:22.170 --> 13:28.090 But they, presumably, were pretty good at it, going back sort of 5,000 years or 13:28.090 --> 13:29.030 something like that. 13:29.230 --> 13:31.070 And they were being taught. 13:31.190 --> 13:32.590 These are things that were dug up. 13:33.710 --> 13:36.370 This is the education of the children in those days. 13:38.130 --> 13:39.370 And literacy was very high. 13:40.190 --> 13:41.550 Architecture in those days. 13:42.190 --> 13:45.010 Now that's obviously an artist's picture there. 13:45.790 --> 13:49.750 But the buildings, I tell you what, they lasted much longer than a lot of our 13:49.750 --> 13:52.270 buildings in the 60s and 70s, which are kind of falling down. 13:53.130 --> 13:54.090 These are amazing. 13:54.210 --> 13:58.430 In fact, I was talking to an architect who was building some amazing houses. 13:58.610 --> 14:02.690 He'd actually modelled it on some of the Sumerian architecture, because he said it 14:02.690 --> 14:03.850 was some of the best in the world. 14:04.490 --> 14:06.630 Not only that, they had sewerage systems. 14:07.130 --> 14:10.170 They had underground heating in their houses. 14:12.490 --> 14:13.610 That kind of thing. 14:14.090 --> 14:15.010 It was quite amazing. 14:16.190 --> 14:17.590 They had a postal system. 14:18.950 --> 14:19.710 Can you imagine that? 14:19.870 --> 14:22.390 I mean, imagine your letterbox, somebody clunks in one of these clay 14:22.390 --> 14:23.690 tablets, bonk, crash. 14:24.870 --> 14:26.410 But they actually were doing that. 14:26.610 --> 14:30.990 And you read some of the accounts, some of the letters on these clay tablets. 14:31.470 --> 14:33.270 And about really mundane things. 14:33.750 --> 14:36.210 About a woman's dyed her hair to please her husband. 14:36.970 --> 14:41.070 And could he come back from his business trip soon to sort out the sun? 14:41.890 --> 14:43.090 And there's another one about a son. 14:43.190 --> 14:43.690 He's really angry. 14:43.750 --> 14:44.650 He wants to thump somebody. 14:44.750 --> 14:45.990 He's asking dad for advice. 14:45.990 --> 14:50.330 And all this kind of typical everyday life kind of things that we have to deal with, 14:50.850 --> 14:53.470 they were there on some of these clay tablets. 14:54.950 --> 14:59.550 So, if they were dealing with those kind of things, how much more so the really 14:59.550 --> 15:03.830 important things, such as genealogies, history and so on. 15:08.480 --> 15:14.200 Quotation here from Professor William Albright, who was a leading archaeologist. 15:14.280 --> 15:17.500 He said, concerning Abraham and the patriarchs, that's Abraham, Isaac and 15:17.500 --> 15:17.820 Jacob. 15:18.400 --> 15:23.160 He said, aside from a few diehards among older scholars, there is scarcely a single 15:23.160 --> 15:26.860 historian, biblical historian, who has not been impressed by the rapid 15:26.860 --> 15:32.800 accumulation of data supporting the substantial historicity of the patriarchal 15:32.800 --> 15:33.780 tradition. 15:36.160 --> 15:37.700 Something else is very interesting. 15:38.080 --> 15:43.220 If you read in some of the chapters of Genesis, you come across editing of place 15:43.220 --> 15:44.720 names for clarity. 15:44.820 --> 15:47.900 This is not corruption of text, but this is actually to clarify what's 15:47.900 --> 15:49.060 actually already there beforehand. 15:49.060 --> 15:56.320 For example, you come across the name of a place called Bela, which the person 15:56.320 --> 16:00.080 afterwards, to clarify it for those who will read it, because they didn't 16:00.080 --> 16:04.060 understand the names of these places, he says, which is Zohar. 16:04.060 --> 16:07.280 See, for example, imagine here in Edinburgh, we call this place Edinburgh. 16:07.380 --> 16:12.740 At one time it was called Dunedin, or my parents live near a place called 16:12.740 --> 16:14.680 Chester, which once was called Deva. 16:15.600 --> 16:18.320 Or if you're in London, it was once called Lugdunium. 16:18.960 --> 16:21.740 So these different names that there are, which change. 16:21.740 --> 16:26.960 And so what you have here, I believe you've got Moses actually writing it, 16:27.340 --> 16:30.660 but he has access to information before him. 16:31.340 --> 16:37.120 And so he has these names, Vale of Sidin, which again is understandable for the 16:37.120 --> 16:41.240 people he's there with, is called, which is the Salt Sea, or En Mishpat, 16:41.780 --> 16:42.660 which is Kadesh. 16:43.600 --> 16:45.700 Hobar, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16:46.320 --> 16:48.700 Vale of Sheva, which is the King's Dale. 16:49.640 --> 16:53.200 Bir Lachiroi, behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. 16:54.080 --> 16:58.120 Kiriath Arba, can you imagine living in these places, you know, where do you live? 16:58.320 --> 17:04.100 Oh, Bir Lachiroi, oh that's, what about, oh I come from Jirath Arba, goodness, 17:04.520 --> 17:06.760 the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. 17:06.760 --> 17:14.040 So I believe what we're actually looking at is older records which are there in 17:14.040 --> 17:14.400 Genesis. 17:15.900 --> 17:17.620 Now here's an extraordinary thing. 17:19.200 --> 17:21.660 I once came across this and I thought, what? 17:22.480 --> 17:25.860 It mentions Genesis chapter 5, the book of Adam. 17:27.180 --> 17:28.820 I thought, a book of Adam? 17:29.780 --> 17:30.800 That's an amazing thing. 17:30.800 --> 17:34.980 It says in Genesis chapter 5, this is the book of the genealogy of Adam. 17:35.420 --> 17:38.740 In the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 17:39.160 --> 17:43.220 He created them male and female and blessed them and called them mankind in 17:43.220 --> 17:44.080 the day they were created. 17:44.660 --> 17:48.480 So I thought, is it possible that there were some really ancient clay tablets 17:48.480 --> 17:50.080 which people had access to? 17:51.180 --> 17:52.600 Was there really a book of Adam? 17:53.120 --> 17:53.860 Hmm, interesting. 17:53.860 --> 17:58.300 There's actually a book of, it's an apocryphal work from about 250 BC. 17:58.800 --> 18:01.000 It's called the book of Asatir. 18:01.640 --> 18:05.620 And it speaks about this book of Adam and in fact other things as well. 18:06.640 --> 18:08.720 But interesting sort of side point there. 18:10.200 --> 18:20.520 If we look at Josephus in Antiquities, and he was quite a careful historian. 18:20.600 --> 18:21.400 He was a Jewish general. 18:22.180 --> 18:26.740 And he writes this, and the time of the flood, it's known as flood, is written 18:26.740 --> 18:31.860 down in our sacred books, those who then lived having noted down with great 18:31.860 --> 18:34.620 accuracy both births and deaths of illustrious men. 18:34.620 --> 18:39.200 In other words, the Jewish people understood that there were very early 18:39.200 --> 18:43.380 writings, such as on the flood and other things like that, which have been actually 18:43.380 --> 18:45.680 recorded at some point. 18:49.480 --> 18:53.140 Berossus was a Chaldean priest at the Temple of Bel. 18:54.700 --> 18:58.940 And there are a number of accounts about the flood in Sumerian Babylonian 18:58.940 --> 18:59.560 understanding. 19:01.500 --> 19:04.680 But in this case, what you have is a reference here. 19:04.780 --> 19:12.040 It says, the deity Cronus appeared to him, that Zuthros, which is another name for a 19:12.040 --> 19:16.520 Noah, in a vision and gave him notice that upon the fifteenth day of the month of 19:16.520 --> 19:20.460 Dacia there will be a flood by which mankind will be destroyed. 19:21.320 --> 19:26.040 He therefore enjoined him to commit to writing a history of the beginning, 19:26.520 --> 19:28.800 progress and final conclusion of all things. 19:29.740 --> 19:33.300 So it's not just something we have in Jewish understanding, the Hebrews, 19:33.780 --> 19:37.760 but it's something also in other cultures that there were very early writings 19:37.760 --> 19:39.100 concerning some of these things. 19:41.600 --> 19:46.760 So a man called Professor Sir William Dawson once wrote, I've long thought that 19:46.760 --> 19:50.920 the narrative in Genesis 7 and 8, talking about on the ark, can be 19:50.920 --> 19:56.020 understood only on the supposition that it is a contemporary journal or log of an 19:56.020 --> 19:59.500 eyewitness incorporated by the author of Genesis in his work. 19:59.500 --> 20:05.000 Now this man is, not just anybody saying that, but he's a chap who actually was a 20:05.000 --> 20:09.020 chairman of the Royal Society of Canada and also the chairman for the American 20:09.020 --> 20:11.500 Association for the Advancement of Science. 20:12.960 --> 20:13.680 Food for thought. 20:15.560 --> 20:21.480 Well let's move on to creation and creation in the ancient world. 20:22.120 --> 20:27.100 And what we find is there are essentially two views, pantheism and monotheism. 20:27.420 --> 20:31.280 Pantheism basically that everything is God, monotheism there's one God that 20:31.280 --> 20:32.020 created everything. 20:34.180 --> 20:39.360 And if we look at the typical pagan cyclic universe, it had a beginning, it went 20:39.360 --> 20:45.080 through and it had an end, there's silence for a bit, it starts all over again and it 20:45.080 --> 20:45.540 continues. 20:45.640 --> 20:50.040 In fact, look at this New Scientist, I saw this article for New Scientist 20:50.040 --> 20:53.420 magazine, here's the cyclic universe and there's a serpent, the cosmic serpent, 20:53.860 --> 20:55.460 which you often find in ancient history. 20:57.060 --> 21:00.880 Mark helped me with that one, I'll actually get that one whirring around. 21:01.980 --> 21:04.480 But that was something that was believed then. 21:04.960 --> 21:11.140 Often people think, you know, multiverse theory, matrix and so on, many universes. 21:13.300 --> 21:16.180 It was around before by the Greeks, they were discussing it at the time of 21:16.180 --> 21:19.120 Augustine and people are discussing it again today. 21:19.120 --> 21:22.560 There's nothing new under the sun, as one wise person once said. 21:26.670 --> 21:30.830 If we look at Genesis, the first few verses it says, In the beginning God 21:30.830 --> 21:31.990 created the heavens and the earth. 21:32.430 --> 21:37.030 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, 21:37.250 --> 21:40.510 and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 21:40.950 --> 21:44.510 Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 21:45.430 --> 21:50.670 I mentioned earlier beforehand about evolution thinking, really going right 21:50.670 --> 21:51.670 through even through religion. 21:52.590 --> 21:57.690 I mentioned about people believing that the simplest form of animism, magic, 21:58.250 --> 22:01.770 had evolved through to polytheism, lots of gods finally through to 22:01.770 --> 22:03.510 monotheism, one God creating everything. 22:04.590 --> 22:08.970 People like Fraser, you may have read Fraser's book or come across at the Golden 22:08.970 --> 22:10.250 Bough, he was one of those people. 22:10.930 --> 22:13.770 Tyler and Durkheim and others, they spoke about this kind of thing. 22:14.510 --> 22:19.270 However, what we find in the ancient religions, as time went on, as 22:19.270 --> 22:24.230 archaeologists dug, and as anthropologists studied amongst tribes, remote tribes, 22:24.350 --> 22:25.790 they found it was actually the opposite. 22:25.790 --> 22:29.630 They found a shadowy figure in the background, who was a supreme creator, 22:30.170 --> 22:33.450 and that something had gone wrong, and it actually devolved, it's actually 22:33.450 --> 22:38.610 gone the opposite direction, it corrupted from a purer form, through to polytheism, 22:39.010 --> 22:41.530 and through to simple magic and spells and so forth. 22:41.530 --> 22:45.430 In fact, if you look at today, even in our own time, what's called the 22:45.430 --> 22:49.210 New Age movement, we've seen that this country one time was very strongly 22:49.210 --> 22:50.670 monotheistic sort of Christian. 22:51.230 --> 22:55.950 But since the 60s, the last sort of 40 years, there's been an amazing movement of 22:55.950 --> 22:59.430 lots and lots of people just in a short period of time of 40 years, getting 22:59.430 --> 23:04.010 involved in animism, various forms of crystal healing therapy and spells and all 23:04.010 --> 23:06.590 that kind of thing, very popular, and it can happen quite rapidly. 23:06.590 --> 23:12.650 If we look at Professor Langdon, he was an archaeologist from Oxford 23:12.650 --> 23:18.690 University, he said, in his understanding in Sumerian history, he said, the history 23:18.690 --> 23:23.470 of the oldest religion of man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme 23:23.470 --> 23:26.910 polytheism, and a widespread belief in evil spirits. 23:26.910 --> 23:31.610 It is, in a very true sense, the history of the fall of man. 23:33.050 --> 23:36.810 And then we have another leading anthropologist. 23:38.930 --> 23:44.550 This is Professor Evans Pritchard, again from Oxford University. 23:44.550 --> 23:49.990 Whereas before the 1930s, an evolutionary concept of religion was that it developed 23:49.990 --> 23:54.870 from animism and magic to polytheism and then finally to monotheism, fieldwork 23:54.870 --> 23:59.570 reversed this and anthropologists now realise that belief in one God preceded 23:59.570 --> 24:00.950 all other religious concepts. 24:01.330 --> 24:06.050 This gradually corrupted to polytheism and finally to the placating of an extensive 24:06.050 --> 24:07.830 array of nature spirits. 24:13.840 --> 24:17.280 Let's look at some of the things in the early ancient historical record. 24:17.880 --> 24:24.180 This is one clay tablet from Syria, Ebla creation account, 2300 BC. 24:25.260 --> 24:30.680 And it speaks about the god Lurgu, the great one, the creator, who speaks by 24:30.680 --> 24:34.160 the power of his word and the whole universe comes into being. 24:35.960 --> 24:37.540 There, a very ancient sort of record. 24:39.240 --> 24:40.160 Let's have a look at another one. 24:40.820 --> 24:45.420 The Enema Elish, the seven tablets, some people have dated them 1894, 24:45.580 --> 24:50.580 could have been the earliest originals, some have said 1595, some of the ones 24:50.580 --> 24:52.100 we've got are later. 24:52.100 --> 24:57.120 But, what you have, the first people, they found there were seven tablets and 24:57.120 --> 25:00.520 immediately thought, seven, like seven in Genesis, well it's not actually 25:00.520 --> 25:02.620 necessarily corresponding to that at all. 25:03.380 --> 25:07.900 And in fact you read it, it's full of things like decapitation and sort of gods 25:07.900 --> 25:11.560 fighting each other and it gets pretty barbaric and pretty nasty at times. 25:11.560 --> 25:19.120 But nevertheless, you do find some things in there with a parallel with Genesis, 25:19.300 --> 25:23.580 such as light being created before the sun and the stars and the order of creation 25:23.580 --> 25:26.100 being the same in the bits that we do have. 25:26.480 --> 25:31.640 The mention of the deep and chaos and the time of rest on the seventh day after man 25:31.640 --> 25:32.180 is created. 25:34.000 --> 25:38.360 Unfortunately, there are a number of lines missing and that's a real shame because 25:38.360 --> 25:41.680 we'd be able to look at things like the order of how things came into being, 25:41.780 --> 25:42.800 living creatures and so on. 25:43.620 --> 25:47.780 But nevertheless, what you are seeing, I believe, are traces of an earlier, 25:48.040 --> 25:54.640 purer form, which is a sort of a proto-Genesis or proto-Hebrew 25:54.640 --> 25:55.560 understanding. 25:56.240 --> 25:57.400 Let's look at another one. 25:58.800 --> 26:02.860 An Egyptian creation account from Heliopolis about 1800 BC. 26:04.240 --> 26:07.880 It says this, I am the creator of all things that exist that came forth from my 26:07.880 --> 26:08.120 mouth. 26:08.480 --> 26:12.620 Heaven and earth did not exist, nor had been created the herbs of the 26:12.620 --> 26:13.980 ground, nor the creeping things. 26:14.640 --> 26:18.900 I raised them out of the primeval abyss from a state of non-being. 26:18.900 --> 26:23.300 In other words, there was some creator that brought the whole lot into existence. 26:24.900 --> 26:29.780 We find the same thing in Hindu-Indian cultures. 26:29.960 --> 26:32.340 There are about 120 creation myths. 26:32.720 --> 26:36.040 Most of them have an eternal universe and there are many gods. 26:36.700 --> 26:40.040 But occasionally you get glimpses of a kind of a genesis in there. 26:40.540 --> 26:42.840 And here we have one from the Upanishads. 26:42.840 --> 26:46.000 He, that's God, is the never-created creator of all. 26:46.740 --> 26:47.460 He knows all. 26:47.820 --> 26:52.220 He is the pure consciousness, the creator of time, all-powerful, all-knowing. 26:53.100 --> 26:58.340 A Chinese creation account originally from at least 2205 BC. 26:59.360 --> 27:03.520 And they had these ritual hymns which were recorded and kept going right the way 27:03.520 --> 27:03.740 through. 27:04.280 --> 27:08.160 They had an understanding of a creator called Shangdi, which eventually became 27:08.160 --> 27:10.200 sort of, they sort of turned into sort of heaven. 27:10.340 --> 27:14.600 But originally the concept was a creator, supreme spiritual creator of everything. 27:15.320 --> 27:16.640 And there's this particular hymn. 27:34.700 --> 27:36.920 Well, let's move on now to the first ancestors. 27:37.100 --> 27:38.240 Meet the first ancestors. 27:39.220 --> 27:44.080 And according to the Bible you have Adam, who is the first man who is created by the 27:44.080 --> 27:45.320 minerals of the ground, by the dust. 27:45.780 --> 27:47.040 And God breathes life into him. 27:47.540 --> 27:51.900 And then he puts him to a deep sleep and produces his wife out of his side. 27:52.320 --> 27:53.820 And you have that in Genesis chapter 3. 27:54.880 --> 27:58.940 Well, let's have a look at a few things here. 28:00.460 --> 28:03.840 You have a Babylonian kind of Adam and Eve. 28:04.720 --> 28:06.980 Again, you have a bunch of gods. 28:07.080 --> 28:10.340 You have a goddess involved with things. 28:10.800 --> 28:12.400 There are different gods in different places. 28:13.300 --> 28:18.300 The creation of man from clay is often, you find in Babylonian, Sumerian and 28:18.300 --> 28:22.220 Arcadian understanding, is that there's the blood of a god mixed together with 28:22.220 --> 28:23.780 clay to form a human being. 28:25.000 --> 28:27.020 But you have a first couple. 28:28.340 --> 28:32.660 And with the Sumerian Adam you have this. 28:32.800 --> 28:34.700 There's actually a first man called Adamu. 28:35.700 --> 28:37.800 And there's a paradise called Dilmun. 28:38.900 --> 28:42.720 A place that was pure and clean and bright where the lion kills not, the wolf 28:42.720 --> 28:43.720 snatches not the lamb. 28:44.120 --> 28:46.300 There was no disease, pain, deceit or guile. 28:48.040 --> 28:53.860 And the god Enki, great names, the god Enki, says to the goddess 28:53.860 --> 28:58.020 Ninhursag, another great name, that his side hurts him. 28:59.240 --> 29:04.400 And she says that she's caused a goddess called Ninti, lady of the rib, 29:05.000 --> 29:07.880 to be born for him from his rib, from his side. 29:08.780 --> 29:14.640 So you have traces of this sort of Genesis account amongst all these sort of gods and 29:14.640 --> 29:14.940 so on. 29:15.740 --> 29:20.480 In the Chinese account you have a record of the book called the Wai Xing. 29:21.780 --> 29:23.820 And what you have is goddess made out of the clay. 29:24.240 --> 29:28.420 If you look in ancient Egypt, in the pyramid text, we read that the god Khnum, 29:28.520 --> 29:32.560 if I pronounce it properly, formed man out of clay on a potter's wheel. 29:32.560 --> 29:35.640 And the goddess Hekat breathed life into him. 29:36.480 --> 29:37.360 And so it goes on. 29:37.440 --> 29:40.460 And you trace it right through African cultures, right through and so on. 29:40.500 --> 29:42.880 There's so many it would take too long to go through them all. 29:43.640 --> 29:50.120 But I want to look now at the so-called fall of man or the temptation in the 29:50.120 --> 29:52.060 Garden of Eden as Genesis mentions it. 29:52.920 --> 29:54.740 Now this was a clay tablet seal. 29:56.360 --> 30:00.400 Some people said it was as many as 3000 BC. 30:01.020 --> 30:03.620 I think a bit less than that, but that's what it's been put as. 30:04.180 --> 30:05.720 Very small, but this has been enlarged. 30:06.420 --> 30:13.120 But if you look and you see, you have a man over there, you probably can't see it 30:13.120 --> 30:14.500 very well, but he's got horns in his head. 30:14.500 --> 30:16.660 And there's a woman over here with some horns. 30:17.180 --> 30:18.060 There's a fruit tree. 30:18.940 --> 30:22.820 And there's a serpent upright behind her. 30:23.480 --> 30:27.220 And there's this fruit here that's the centre of what's going on. 30:27.780 --> 30:30.720 Now when first people discovered that, they said, ah, they called it the 30:30.720 --> 30:34.340 temptation seal because it was obvious to them it was the Garden of Eden story in 30:34.340 --> 30:35.160 Sumerian culture. 30:35.320 --> 30:39.220 But somebody came along and said, no, no, no, I reckon it's just somebody's 30:39.220 --> 30:39.900 date business. 30:40.780 --> 30:43.080 I think, what a funny thing to have a date business. 30:43.780 --> 30:45.880 And then somebody else said, well, it couldn't be Adam and Eve because 30:45.880 --> 30:46.720 they've got clothes on. 30:47.700 --> 30:52.440 Good point, because Adam and Eve up to this point were naked according to 30:52.440 --> 30:52.740 Genesis. 30:53.280 --> 30:57.060 However, if you understand Sumerian Babylonian culture, you have to try and 30:57.060 --> 30:57.900 understand a few things. 30:58.860 --> 31:01.540 There was a sense of a cosmic serpent right through. 31:01.720 --> 31:03.900 And I'll show a few of those things a bit more. 31:04.840 --> 31:08.640 Enlightenment or Godhood was something to be celebrated. 31:09.940 --> 31:13.800 You see, in the Bible, for human beings to become God is seen to be sinful. 31:14.440 --> 31:19.020 But in the Sumerian Babylonian culture, it was a wonderful thing to celebrate your 31:19.020 --> 31:20.780 enlightenment as becoming a God. 31:20.780 --> 31:24.120 So they were clothed, celebrating this thing. 31:24.740 --> 31:27.340 And just in the same as Genesis, you have the serpent upright. 31:28.020 --> 31:32.960 It's there apparently giving wisdom and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in 31:32.960 --> 31:33.220 the middle. 31:38.000 --> 31:40.560 Here's an interesting one, which I discovered recently. 31:41.700 --> 31:44.460 It's called the bronze tree of, I don't know how to pronounce that, 31:44.780 --> 31:46.200 Zhang Xingdui. 31:47.660 --> 31:48.500 I don't know. 31:48.600 --> 31:51.360 But anyway, I came across this interesting thing. 31:51.420 --> 31:53.160 It's actually nearly four meters tall. 31:53.820 --> 31:54.600 It's pretty big. 31:54.600 --> 31:58.780 And it was discovered, this culture of the Zhang Xingdui people. 31:59.760 --> 32:03.500 They existed in China between 2600 and 800 BC. 32:04.580 --> 32:08.780 Unfortunately, I can't really show it on this picture because it's quite small 32:08.780 --> 32:09.020 here. 32:09.080 --> 32:10.280 I wish I could show a really big one. 32:10.920 --> 32:12.860 But you have a dragon. 32:13.180 --> 32:13.800 I don't know if you can see. 32:13.860 --> 32:17.200 It's got horns and it's a dragon, which goes right underneath the whole 32:17.200 --> 32:17.480 thing. 32:17.480 --> 32:19.320 And this is supposed to be a tree. 32:20.320 --> 32:22.800 You can't see from where you are, but there are fruit. 32:22.880 --> 32:24.080 There's fruit on the tree. 32:25.140 --> 32:30.120 And there's also a hand, which is down here, which is reaching out for the fruit. 32:31.340 --> 32:35.020 Now, what do you think about that when you put those things together? 32:35.280 --> 32:37.920 Bear in mind, this is an ancient thing from China. 32:38.380 --> 32:39.440 Just hang on a minute. 32:39.540 --> 32:40.920 Let's have a look at something else. 32:44.140 --> 32:45.500 Chinese pictograms. 32:45.840 --> 32:50.160 Scholars discovered ancient pictograms, 1000 BC, even going back a few thousand 32:50.160 --> 32:50.960 BC. 32:51.800 --> 32:53.320 And they found this story. 32:54.900 --> 32:55.480 A serpent. 32:58.020 --> 32:58.700 Trees. 33:00.480 --> 33:01.160 Negative. 33:01.440 --> 33:02.220 No, don't. 33:03.460 --> 33:03.820 A woman. 33:09.240 --> 33:09.880 Trees. 33:09.880 --> 33:11.080 Desire or covet. 33:14.590 --> 33:15.790 Two persons. 33:17.890 --> 33:18.450 Stop. 33:21.610 --> 33:22.250 Garden. 33:25.090 --> 33:26.610 Equals stumble or fall. 33:26.970 --> 33:29.890 In other words, two people were amongst these trees. 33:30.470 --> 33:32.030 They were supposed not to do something. 33:32.550 --> 33:33.150 They did it. 33:33.490 --> 33:35.030 Somehow there was a serpent involved. 33:35.030 --> 33:36.470 And they fell. 33:37.510 --> 33:43.990 And, in fact, what you find in ancient writing is that, going right back to the 33:43.990 --> 33:49.730 Zu dynasty, we find writings about angels, Chinese angels there, who were guarding 33:49.730 --> 33:53.430 the way to heaven. 33:53.970 --> 33:58.210 Just like you find in Genesis, that there were the cherubim who were 33:58.210 --> 34:01.470 guarding the way to heaven at this time of rebellion. 34:04.170 --> 34:07.510 Let's have a look at Tutankhamun now. 34:08.230 --> 34:08.910 And some of the Egyptians. 34:12.090 --> 34:12.550 Beautiful. 34:12.950 --> 34:14.190 Absolutely amazing thing it is. 34:14.790 --> 34:15.750 There is Tutankhamun. 34:16.030 --> 34:16.890 You have the cobra. 34:17.890 --> 34:20.990 And you have the whole headdress, which is a beautiful sort of cobra. 34:21.670 --> 34:25.010 But you see that right through the Egyptian pharaohs. 34:25.510 --> 34:27.850 You see this almost obsession with the serpent. 34:29.350 --> 34:31.570 And it's to do with divinity. 34:32.670 --> 34:34.470 Divine pharaohs that you see. 34:35.510 --> 34:36.930 Hold on to that bit as we go on. 34:38.310 --> 34:43.970 You see, in the Minoan culture, the Minoan goddess. 34:45.110 --> 34:49.410 Over and over again you find women to do with the worship of a serpent, 34:49.790 --> 34:53.650 often with trees, in ancient cultures celebrating these things. 34:54.990 --> 34:58.250 In the palace at Knossos, the archaeologists discovered there were a lot 34:58.250 --> 35:03.450 of spiral symbols in there, which again symbolised the cosmic serpent. 35:07.780 --> 35:09.520 Pandora, that's the Greek tale. 35:10.060 --> 35:14.280 According to the Greek version, Pandora was told, the first woman, 35:14.420 --> 35:16.940 she was told not to open up this box, this wooden casket. 35:18.140 --> 35:23.880 And she was tempted and she opened it up and all the evils came into the world. 35:30.500 --> 35:32.520 The Garden of Hesperides, another Greek one. 35:32.520 --> 35:35.100 And here you have women with a tree. 35:35.820 --> 35:38.180 The tree is not a very good tree there actually, that artwork, because it 35:38.180 --> 35:40.860 actually had gold apples, gold fruit on it. 35:41.440 --> 35:45.940 And the serpent was guarding this particular tree. 35:47.900 --> 35:53.980 You find it, as I mentioned, the Babylonian cosmic serpent appears right 35:53.980 --> 35:59.780 the way through a lot of the astrology and the cultures, the culture of Babylonia. 36:04.340 --> 36:06.600 You find it in Scandinavian people. 36:07.640 --> 36:12.880 And what you've got here is the ancient serpent who is nibbling away at the tree, 36:13.560 --> 36:18.340 the tree of life where all the animals and so on are, right at the root of the world 36:18.340 --> 36:18.800 as it were. 36:24.680 --> 36:28.580 And here, in Hinduism, you have the cosmic serpent. 36:29.080 --> 36:35.780 And if you look, you can see this, again, whoops, I'm gone, I should have 36:35.780 --> 36:36.900 gone there, there we go, 36:40.960 --> 36:44.120 there we go, that's the one. 36:44.120 --> 36:46.260 There's a whole bunch of cobra heads here. 36:47.060 --> 36:49.780 And here's the god Vishnu lying on this serpent. 36:50.600 --> 36:56.020 And here, instead of having a fruit tree, you have the lotus plant, which was seen 36:56.020 --> 36:59.760 to be very similar to that of gaining knowledge of the gods. 37:00.460 --> 37:03.400 And so you see it right through, shown in different ways in the cultures. 37:11.430 --> 37:18.090 And again, in Hinduism, a form of yoga, and they believe in these seven energy 37:18.090 --> 37:19.270 points going right to the body. 37:20.590 --> 37:24.030 They sit and believe it's like in the shape of a pyramid, we'll find that later 37:24.030 --> 37:24.330 on. 37:24.330 --> 37:28.370 And they believe in a thing called Kundalini, or the serpent force within. 37:28.690 --> 37:33.310 By various forms of meditation and mantras and so forth, they're seeking to raise up 37:33.310 --> 37:37.550 what they call the serpent force within, a psychic energy, so that they themselves 37:37.550 --> 37:38.610 become as god. 37:39.330 --> 37:42.650 So if you think about, put that into mind concerning the perspective of Garden of 37:42.650 --> 37:46.210 Eden, you find these things traced right through the ancient cultures. 37:47.390 --> 37:48.510 Let's move on to the flood. 37:52.020 --> 37:54.160 Now, was it a global flood? 37:54.300 --> 37:57.120 Well, over 500 cultures mention a flood. 37:57.960 --> 38:00.840 Now a lot of these, you have to bear in mind, were actually local floods. 38:00.960 --> 38:04.940 Some of them record a whole number, like in North American Indians, 38:05.080 --> 38:06.920 a number recorded of local floods. 38:07.380 --> 38:10.840 Some were missionaries, Christian missionaries, who took that message of the 38:10.840 --> 38:13.600 flood and it was mixed with tribal understanding. 38:16.200 --> 38:21.200 However, you do find there's, in the ancient world, a talk about a global 38:21.200 --> 38:21.700 flood. 38:22.480 --> 38:27.740 The thing about Genesis, if you think, if it's only a local flood, you have the 38:27.740 --> 38:31.680 highest mountains covered by water in a Genesis account, which would be very 38:31.680 --> 38:34.420 difficult for it to be a local flood, because water finds its own level. 38:34.420 --> 38:37.780 And secondly, the rainbow was supposed to be a sign of God's promise. 38:37.900 --> 38:39.900 He'd never destroy the whole world by a flood again. 38:40.460 --> 38:44.200 So if it was only local floods, if Noah's flood was only local, 38:44.620 --> 38:48.960 then God's broken his promise hundreds and hundreds of times since, because there are 38:48.960 --> 38:50.420 many, many local floods since. 38:50.420 --> 38:56.180 And if you can't promise, take him in his word there, can you take him in on his 38:56.180 --> 38:57.780 word on other things as well? 38:59.620 --> 39:07.240 If you look at a picture of a local flood, that would be an artist's depiction of the 39:07.240 --> 39:12.180 ark sitting on the ocean, the water there, right above the mountain tops, 39:12.280 --> 39:13.120 which looks a bit foolish. 39:13.940 --> 39:19.740 Another thing, a silly ark mentioned, often you see this in Sunday school or 39:19.740 --> 39:22.860 something, a little cute little ark, usually with elephants and giraffes 39:22.860 --> 39:25.660 sticking out, and a smiley white bearded Noah. 39:26.660 --> 39:30.700 But actually the ark was something really quite different in the dimensions 39:30.700 --> 39:31.640 mentioned in Genesis. 39:32.400 --> 39:38.460 And if you can just see, there's a little person down there, helping another person 39:38.460 --> 39:38.960 to get up. 39:39.800 --> 39:41.840 So it was a massive thing with three layers. 39:44.920 --> 39:48.520 Let's look at some flood quotations from other ancient historians. 39:50.340 --> 39:51.980 Well, here's one. 40:15.670 --> 40:19.230 That's Hippolytus, 200 AD. 40:19.230 --> 40:22.410 Let's have a look at another one, going back later. 40:40.050 --> 40:44.250 Look at another one, even older. 41:11.510 --> 41:15.430 And what you have in common with all these things, it's not just rain coming down, 41:15.850 --> 41:19.170 they emphasise most of the rain came from up. 41:19.230 --> 41:20.990 Burst out from the earth's crust. 41:21.710 --> 41:25.110 And there's talk about fire with it, and earthquake, and volcanic activity, 41:25.290 --> 41:28.790 and whole geological transformation that's going on. 41:29.410 --> 41:36.390 To such an extent that, for example, scientific Americans sculpturing the earth 41:36.390 --> 41:37.210 from the inside out. 41:37.850 --> 41:45.330 A kind of volcanism, which has been recorded, of reforming the earth at some 41:45.330 --> 41:47.090 point in the history of the earth. 41:47.090 --> 41:52.190 Or, subterranean oceans bursting out. 41:52.290 --> 41:55.610 Scientists have discovered there's an awful lot of water under the earth's 41:55.610 --> 41:55.890 crust. 41:56.890 --> 42:01.270 And that's the kind of thing the Genesis and the ancient historians were referring 42:01.270 --> 42:01.590 to. 42:02.490 --> 42:09.230 There's also another interesting artefact that was discovered, going back a few 42:09.230 --> 42:12.270 thousand years before Christ. 42:12.270 --> 42:17.030 And this one was the ten pre-flood kings mentioned. 42:17.730 --> 42:20.630 I won't give you the list, I probably wouldn't even be able to pronounce them. 42:21.070 --> 42:24.090 But nevertheless, it's interesting, because in the book of Genesis it speaks 42:24.090 --> 42:27.410 about ten patriarchs before the flood. 42:31.240 --> 42:32.280 Here's Josephus. 42:32.960 --> 42:34.800 He's speaking about the actual ark. 42:35.860 --> 42:39.820 After this, that's the flood, the ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in 42:39.820 --> 42:40.240 Armenia. 42:40.700 --> 42:44.560 However, the Armenians call this place Aboterion, the place of descent. 42:45.040 --> 42:48.240 The ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the 42:48.240 --> 42:49.340 inhabitants to this day. 42:51.200 --> 42:55.700 Now all the writers of the barbarian histories make mention of this flood and 42:55.700 --> 42:56.240 of this ark. 42:56.700 --> 43:00.880 Among them whom is Berossus the Chaldean, for when he is described in the 43:00.880 --> 43:03.240 circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus. 43:03.240 --> 43:07.880 It is said there is still some part of the ship in Armenia, the mountain of the 43:07.880 --> 43:12.600 Chordians, and that some people carry off pieces of bitumen which they take away and 43:12.600 --> 43:18.660 use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs or attacks by evil spirits, 43:18.780 --> 43:19.420 I suppose, or something. 43:20.080 --> 43:24.260 Hieronymus, the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities and 43:24.260 --> 43:28.080 Nicaeus and a great many more, make mention of the same. 43:29.940 --> 43:33.420 So what he is saying is basically all the ancient historians he had come across all 43:33.420 --> 43:36.620 knew about this great big ark on top of a mountain. 43:36.860 --> 43:40.240 But people were hacking off chunks of it and taking it all over the world as a 43:40.240 --> 43:40.880 pilgrimage site. 43:41.400 --> 43:43.980 Whether or not it exists today, I don't know. 43:45.100 --> 43:48.140 Time will tell whether there is anything left and maybe there are traces of it, 43:48.180 --> 43:48.580 who knows. 43:48.740 --> 43:51.360 But certainly the ancient world, as far as they were concerned, 43:51.840 --> 43:53.820 it did exist as a remnant. 43:55.300 --> 44:00.500 Others, of course, the Gilgamesh flood, clay tablets, mentioning about the flood. 44:00.580 --> 44:02.080 And they have different names for a newer figure. 44:02.860 --> 44:08.740 But speaking of the same thing, the Chinese flood, they had pictograms. 44:08.800 --> 44:12.300 Unfortunately, that's not the one I was trying to get, but I had to find a slide, 44:12.380 --> 44:13.060 so I put that one up. 44:13.160 --> 44:16.460 It's a tortoise on the belly of a tortoise. 44:16.580 --> 44:19.200 They used to write their inscriptions, their pictograms and everything on it. 44:19.200 --> 44:23.100 But they have an understanding of the Chinese flood, with eight people on board, 44:23.180 --> 44:23.900 the same as Genesis. 44:26.140 --> 44:31.440 The Hindus, they have eight people, again, on board a great big boat. 44:31.540 --> 44:35.060 And animals, like the other ancient historians, animals were collected, 44:35.180 --> 44:37.440 put on the boat, and there were just a handful of people. 44:39.020 --> 44:41.460 Of course, how they repopulated the world, of course, is interesting, because they 44:41.460 --> 44:41.780 were all men. 44:42.320 --> 44:44.300 But anyway... 44:45.180 --> 44:47.100 After the flood, so what happened after the flood? 44:49.020 --> 44:54.500 Well, the interesting thing is, the descendants of Noah, the Bible said 44:54.500 --> 44:58.280 they are at a certain place, which would have been in an area of Anatolia, 44:58.360 --> 45:02.860 which spreads through that part of the world, part of Iran, Armenia, through into 45:02.860 --> 45:06.120 Syria, and through into Iraq and so on, and Turkey. 45:07.440 --> 45:13.820 And what people have discovered is that the origin of corn comes from that same 45:13.820 --> 45:16.940 area, which was then taken and spread through the world. 45:16.940 --> 45:23.760 In fact, if you look here, the Fertile Crescent, this area here, and you can see 45:23.760 --> 45:27.680 how it was taken and spread through different parts of the world. 45:32.020 --> 45:34.520 Agriculture, generally speaking, begins in the same area. 45:37.540 --> 45:44.880 And here's a quotation from a conference that took place in 1969, a world 45:44.880 --> 45:47.760 conference on this. 45:47.760 --> 45:52.200 What we see today is decisive evidence that agriculture in the old world arose in 45:52.200 --> 45:58.440 a single connected region, a nuclear zone of Anatolia, Iran, and Syria. 46:00.440 --> 46:03.360 Let's look at the origin of domestic animals. 46:04.920 --> 46:09.680 Again, what we find, scientists tell us, it's the same area that you find that. 46:12.400 --> 46:16.040 And you find there are thousands of bones of different animals that were found, 46:16.380 --> 46:19.320 domestic animals, whether sheep or goats or dogs and so on. 46:20.420 --> 46:23.020 Domestication is the sum of the bones that were discovered in that area. 46:24.440 --> 46:29.220 It was the origin of metallurgy, of metalworks, of going right back, 46:29.320 --> 46:34.700 in fact, they reckon, the oldest metal factory was found by a chap called Dr. 46:34.780 --> 46:38.480 Kriap Makurdzian in Medzamo, 15 miles from Ararat. 46:38.480 --> 46:41.700 And it was dated about 2,500 BC. 46:45.190 --> 46:49.400 You also find the origin of wine, very important for those who like wine. 46:49.980 --> 46:51.080 But this was here. 46:51.540 --> 46:53.140 The vineyards spread again. 46:53.220 --> 46:59.680 The earliest record of wine was found and carbon dated from that same place. 47:01.500 --> 47:02.820 Origin of language. 47:04.920 --> 47:08.640 Again, language being sort of traced back to various, a group of languages, 47:08.860 --> 47:12.760 but a number of people reckon there was a proto-language from that same area. 47:15.340 --> 47:17.260 And here's something from Scientific American. 47:17.580 --> 47:21.920 The landscape described by the proto-languages now resolved must be 47:21.920 --> 47:25.360 somewhere in the Crescent that curves around the southern shores of the Black 47:25.360 --> 47:29.580 Sea, south of the Balkan Peninsula, east across the ancient Anatolia. 47:30.440 --> 47:33.060 That's today the non-European territories of Turkey. 47:33.340 --> 47:35.960 And north to the Caucasus Mountains. 47:37.320 --> 47:39.220 From Scientific American, 1990. 47:43.860 --> 47:46.920 Let's move on to the Table of Nations. 47:49.600 --> 47:54.020 And the spread of people and how they got dispersed from that area. 47:55.200 --> 47:56.440 And what we find is this. 47:57.340 --> 47:58.360 Noah's family tree. 47:59.200 --> 48:01.240 And you have, there's Noah. 48:01.620 --> 48:03.040 Shem, Ham, Japheth. 48:03.680 --> 48:05.960 You have this line with Shem, Elam, Asher. 48:06.380 --> 48:09.540 Elamites through into Persia, Asher, an area of Assyria. 48:10.180 --> 48:16.400 And Amorites and Kashites through into the Far East and through into Africa. 48:17.440 --> 48:20.520 Mizraim into Egypt and part into areas of Libya. 48:21.580 --> 48:23.560 Canaan into a land of what we call Israel. 48:24.760 --> 48:27.280 Gomer, this is going west now. 48:27.280 --> 48:28.900 Any Welsh here? 48:29.800 --> 48:30.440 There's a few. 48:30.780 --> 48:31.700 I've got Welsh blood in me. 48:32.660 --> 48:35.460 Gomer, the Gomerians became the Cimmerians. 48:35.600 --> 48:37.920 And that's how you get Kimru, Wales. 48:38.680 --> 48:40.660 And they spread right through into Europe. 48:41.200 --> 48:46.040 Magog going up north with Meshech into an area of Russia and Scythia, as it was 48:46.040 --> 48:46.320 called. 48:46.980 --> 48:50.480 Madai Persians, Javan going to the Greek islands right through. 48:51.640 --> 48:53.080 And so on. 48:53.080 --> 48:57.900 And I haven't got time, unfortunately, to take a whole session just on that. 48:58.060 --> 49:00.300 But it's just amazing. 49:01.080 --> 49:05.080 Scientists who have actually investigated it show the accuracy of it. 49:07.960 --> 49:12.920 That shows you something of dispersal of the people as they spread through from the 49:12.920 --> 49:15.840 area going far afield. 49:19.830 --> 49:21.570 Here's a quotation from somebody. 49:24.730 --> 49:28.310 It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature. 49:28.730 --> 49:32.130 The Table of Nations remains an astonishingly accurate document. 49:32.750 --> 49:35.750 Professor William Albright, who was a Dean of Biblical Archaeology. 49:36.270 --> 49:36.770 And another one. 49:37.290 --> 49:40.770 The so-called Table of Nations remains, according to all results of monumental 49:40.770 --> 49:46.050 explorations, an ethnographic original document of the first rank which nothing 49:46.050 --> 49:47.170 can replace. 49:48.330 --> 49:51.990 Professor Coucher, who was a leading archaeologist. 49:54.430 --> 49:55.410 Tower of Babel. 49:57.930 --> 50:00.670 Well, they were called ziggurats in the old days. 50:00.750 --> 50:04.790 And this is one, a reconstruction based on what they would have been like. 50:07.730 --> 50:10.990 And here's a, sort of a, somebody's sketch. 50:11.570 --> 50:16.470 There was a temple dedicated to gods and a very part of their religious system. 50:18.750 --> 50:21.270 Here you have them spreading further afield. 50:21.370 --> 50:26.930 And this is Pharaoh Joseph's step pyramid, 2600 BC or thereabouts. 50:27.590 --> 50:32.130 And it was a forerunner of the Egyptian pyramids, but very similar to the Sumerian 50:32.130 --> 50:32.450 ones. 50:32.950 --> 50:36.410 In fact, some people, some scholars reckon it was the Sumerians actually came over by 50:36.410 --> 50:36.770 boats. 50:36.770 --> 50:41.630 And the very first pharaohs and the very first Egyptian civilization we know of 50:41.630 --> 50:44.650 came via Sumeria, is what some would say. 50:46.850 --> 50:50.710 And here's an Egyptian pyramid which, of course, developed. 50:51.010 --> 50:56.190 And instead of having seven steps, it developed its own cultural style. 50:57.330 --> 51:00.170 Nevertheless, it was a burial place for a divine pharaoh. 51:01.870 --> 51:06.750 The Aztecs and other parts of the world, they had their own sort of pyramids. 51:06.750 --> 51:07.810 As it spread through the world. 51:09.870 --> 51:11.950 Let's look at the Tower of Babel itself. 51:12.250 --> 51:14.770 Now, this is an interesting thing that was discovered. 51:16.010 --> 51:21.950 And if you look here, you have the sun, you have... 51:21.950 --> 51:24.210 See, they often refer to the ziggurats, big like mountains. 51:24.990 --> 51:27.170 And here you have this, and you have a whole load of people. 51:27.630 --> 51:32.290 And you have a very large giant of a person, which some scholars reckon could 51:32.290 --> 51:33.070 have been Nimrod. 51:33.650 --> 51:36.170 Which is known in the ancient accounts as well as the Bible. 51:37.030 --> 51:42.090 And who was responsible for the building of the Great Tower, which we know as the 51:42.090 --> 51:43.170 Tower of Babel. 51:44.770 --> 51:47.030 There's an interesting quotation from Nebuchadnezzar. 51:47.090 --> 51:49.450 Now, I always think about Nebuchadnezzar, he was a very eccentric man. 51:50.370 --> 51:51.950 And he was a bit full of himself. 51:52.130 --> 51:55.310 In fact, he was obviously reminded a bit of also Saddam Hussein. 51:55.750 --> 51:56.670 Some of the things he got up to. 51:56.770 --> 51:59.130 But he's in the 6th century and there's this inscription. 51:59.130 --> 52:02.770 I have completed... he's talking about one of these ziggurats. 52:03.330 --> 52:06.350 I have completed its magnificence with silver, gold and other metals. 52:06.770 --> 52:08.550 The most ancient monument of Babylon. 52:09.010 --> 52:10.330 I built and finished it. 52:10.870 --> 52:13.330 A former king built it, but he did not complete its head. 52:14.130 --> 52:18.430 Since a remote time, people abandoned it without expressing their words. 52:18.490 --> 52:19.570 That was his understanding. 52:19.730 --> 52:23.710 So he came across this ancient... he refers to it again as being very ancient 52:23.710 --> 52:24.730 ruins. 52:25.390 --> 52:27.790 And he rebuilt it for his own glory. 52:27.790 --> 52:29.550 And it was at Borsippa. 52:30.170 --> 52:32.850 And it seems to be the most ancient of the ziggurats. 52:35.130 --> 52:38.570 Tara Babel is mentioned by some of the ancient historians. 52:39.730 --> 52:41.750 It's a Babylonian one from 1450 BC. 52:42.170 --> 52:44.650 The building of this temple offended the gods. 52:45.230 --> 52:47.190 In a night they threw down what had been built. 52:47.590 --> 52:50.270 They scattered them abroad and made strange their speech. 52:50.730 --> 52:52.890 The progress they impeded. 52:53.190 --> 52:55.810 So you have the same thing about this temple, whatever it was, a ziggurat. 52:55.810 --> 52:57.250 It offended the gods. 52:57.370 --> 52:59.510 Of course, Genesis says it was God, not the gods. 53:00.610 --> 53:02.650 And it was... the whole thing came to an end. 53:02.690 --> 53:03.410 The people were scattered. 53:04.450 --> 53:08.570 And there was a confusion of languages, just like it mentions in Genesis chapter 53:08.570 --> 53:08.870 11. 53:10.950 --> 53:11.790 Here's another one. 53:12.070 --> 53:14.330 They built a high tower where now is Babylon. 53:14.970 --> 53:18.890 And when it was already close to heaven, the gods sent winds and ruined the entire 53:18.890 --> 53:19.270 scheme. 53:19.710 --> 53:24.030 And men, having till then been all the same speech, received now from the gods 53:24.030 --> 53:25.030 many languages. 53:25.030 --> 53:29.890 And that was a Greek historian called Abidinus, about 350 BC. 53:30.610 --> 53:34.810 And then we have the origin of language, which has been disputed. 53:37.350 --> 53:42.450 And some scholars reckon there were 11 foundational languages in the world from 53:42.450 --> 53:45.170 all the other languages that have come out of that. 53:45.690 --> 53:52.230 But some have argued for a proto-language for the 11, but it's so difficult to 53:52.230 --> 53:52.970 actually pin it down. 53:52.970 --> 53:54.810 It's been argued back and forth over it. 53:55.330 --> 53:58.050 However, here's one person says this. 53:58.110 --> 54:02.810 The science of language thus leads us up to the highest summit from which we see 54:02.810 --> 54:05.210 into the very dawn of man's life on earth. 54:05.810 --> 54:08.930 And where the words which we have heard so often from the days of our childhood, 54:09.390 --> 54:13.710 and the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, assume a meaning more 54:13.710 --> 54:18.150 natural, more intelligible, more convincing than they ever had before. 54:19.110 --> 54:25.390 And that was Professor Max Muller, the science of language, who was one of 54:25.390 --> 54:29.470 the leading exponents of language theory. 54:31.890 --> 54:37.970 I want to end with a couple of quotations that I'd come across, which really said 54:37.970 --> 54:43.950 for me, it's in their own words and these are sort of experts, what I felt as I 54:43.950 --> 54:49.770 spent 25 years working through ancient history and trying to dig around and find 54:49.770 --> 54:56.050 out bits and pieces to see whether Genesis did have indeed some reliability, 54:56.370 --> 54:59.550 some historical truth, or was it just legend and myth. 55:01.470 --> 55:09.040 And this is a quotation from Professor Howard Vose, a biblical archaeologist. 55:09.300 --> 55:14.860 I once summed through the book of Genesis and mentally noted that each of the 50 55:14.860 --> 55:18.500 chapters was either illuminated or confirmed by some archaeological 55:18.500 --> 55:19.180 discovery. 55:19.620 --> 55:23.040 The same would be true for most of the remaining chapters of the Bible, 55:23.380 --> 55:25.900 both the Old Testament and the New Testament. 55:28.040 --> 55:29.540 And finally another one. 55:34.900 --> 55:40.480 It has been my long experience that when the Bible is rightly understood and 55:40.480 --> 55:44.160 interpreted, it is never contradicted by archaeological and historical evidence, 55:44.460 --> 55:48.360 when that too has been subjected to strict scrutiny. 55:48.360 --> 55:51.700 And that was Professor Donald Wiseman, who is one of the world's leading 55:51.700 --> 55:52.360 Assyriologists. 55:53.080 --> 55:54.120 And there could be others too. 55:54.200 --> 55:58.080 I could have taken from Professor Kenneth Kitchen, leading Egyptologist and various 55:58.080 --> 55:58.380 others. 56:01.760 --> 56:08.540 But I just want to leave it with that and hope you've enjoyed tonight and the talk. 56:08.600 --> 56:10.240 I hope you found it interesting. 56:10.620 --> 56:14.640 I was struggling a bit with clicking continually trying to get the thing going. 56:15.400 --> 56:20.320 But my own personal thing I found, as I said, over the years, looking through 56:20.320 --> 56:24.260 the evidence, not that I know it all or found it all or perhaps we won't 56:24.260 --> 56:28.020 necessarily find all different things, but what I have found is substantial 56:28.020 --> 56:32.280 evidence confirming the biblical record as it is. 56:32.820 --> 56:34.860 And one of the things I did find was amazing. 56:35.380 --> 56:37.740 I mentioned the last bit there about the desire of the nations. 56:38.520 --> 56:43.400 Right back in Genesis, in chapter 3, there is mention, it talks about the 56:43.400 --> 56:46.260 serpent and you've got the Adam and Eve and they've sinned, they've gone wrong, 56:46.600 --> 56:47.340 they're trying to be gods. 56:47.840 --> 56:53.140 And it mentions there that God promises in front of them all, one day a man's going 56:53.140 --> 56:58.680 to be born of a woman, he's going to crush the head of this serpent, this devil 56:58.680 --> 57:00.980 figure, this evil spirit creature. 57:03.540 --> 57:06.780 And this man, whoever it is, is going to crush that and the serpent's going to try 57:06.780 --> 57:07.660 and bite at his heel. 57:07.780 --> 57:10.580 Well, the interesting thing, it was like a first prophecy. 57:11.460 --> 57:16.560 And the anticipation that you found in the ancient world of some divine being that 57:16.560 --> 57:24.120 would be born, who would break the power of sin that held us captive and deliver us 57:24.120 --> 57:28.000 from an evil spirit and bring us back into a relationship with God. 57:29.160 --> 57:32.280 And, of course, in the Jewish understanding you read right through there 57:32.280 --> 57:35.360 are hundreds of prophecies going right through and it gets sharper and sharper, 57:35.480 --> 57:40.700 like looking with binoculars, focusing, until eventually it focuses on the person 57:40.700 --> 57:41.580 of Jesus Christ. 57:42.340 --> 57:45.760 But in the ancient world, I often wondered when I studied, why was it there was a 57:45.760 --> 57:50.960 huge surge of pagan people of all cultures turning to Christ? 57:51.940 --> 57:55.660 And I think one of the reasons was, when those early Christians went out, 57:56.260 --> 57:59.700 with their biblical understanding, a lot of the people recognised the things 57:59.700 --> 58:00.440 they were talking about. 58:00.540 --> 58:02.640 They recognised the Adam and Eve story. 58:02.700 --> 58:03.700 They recognised the flood. 58:03.700 --> 58:05.340 They recognised the Tower of Babel. 58:05.420 --> 58:08.940 They recognised a number of these things in their common history. 58:09.500 --> 58:12.600 But things had been sort of corrupted and confused. 58:12.940 --> 58:14.300 And what came through was a clarity. 58:15.100 --> 58:21.000 And many of them were anticipating a divine being who would come, who was even 58:21.000 --> 58:25.320 symbolically in some of their fertility rites, represented by death and 58:25.320 --> 58:29.640 resurrection, connected with fertility, but also the longing for this, 58:30.060 --> 58:34.540 of overcoming death, of some sort of divine saviour, who would actually come 58:34.540 --> 58:35.120 into the world. 58:35.900 --> 58:39.860 Some of the cultures, even, quite extraordinary, in ancient Hindu culture, 58:40.420 --> 58:45.100 had this system, this is before Buddhism came, before 600 BC. 58:46.000 --> 58:50.780 They actually would pin a goat up onto a tree, drive nails into its hand, 58:50.860 --> 58:53.700 they would put a crown of thorns, it's got a balusha on its head, 58:54.560 --> 58:55.840 and they would spear it. 58:57.120 --> 58:59.240 And then that one would be like a fellowship meal. 59:00.160 --> 59:03.540 And it was something to do with sin, appeasing sin, and so on. 59:03.780 --> 59:07.900 And then they would take another goat out, which would be a sign of a new life. 59:08.960 --> 59:13.380 Now if you know anything about the Old Testament, that very same thing is to be 59:13.380 --> 59:14.640 found in that system. 59:15.140 --> 59:19.120 But also, people like the Chinese anticipated something. 59:19.800 --> 59:23.320 There was a king, there was a great drought that came on the world, 59:23.660 --> 59:25.060 about 2000 something BC. 59:25.860 --> 59:29.980 And they had a temple system, they sacrificed to God in the temple, 59:30.520 --> 59:31.980 and the king was also the high priest. 59:32.660 --> 59:38.380 And they brought out, they said, well, we can't stop this, we can't get the 59:38.380 --> 59:40.740 rain, it's drought continually. 59:41.100 --> 59:44.960 The king was prepared to offer himself, and he, funny enough, he disguised himself 59:44.960 --> 59:48.300 as a sheep, he put a sheep's wool on, and was prepared to, as it were, 59:48.420 --> 59:49.960 symbolically give his life on the altar. 59:49.960 --> 59:51.540 And then the rain came. 59:51.600 --> 59:57.520 And what they did was, in thanksgiving to God, they then anticipated one day the 59:57.520 --> 59:58.840 Lamb of Righteousness would come. 59:59.680 --> 01:00:03.620 That he would be the one who would bring them back to the relationship with God 01:00:03.620 --> 01:00:05.620 that their ancestors had lost contact with. 01:00:06.060 --> 01:00:08.520 And you find over and over again, when missionaries have been in the world, 01:00:08.800 --> 01:00:12.780 they come across tribes where they knew about an ancestor, this great supreme God, 01:00:13.080 --> 01:00:15.980 and something went wrong, they lost contact with that God, and they were 01:00:15.980 --> 01:00:18.840 worshipping the sun, moon, stars, serpents, whatever. 01:00:19.700 --> 01:00:24.580 And some of them, even like Korea, knew about the son of God would come into 01:00:24.580 --> 01:00:25.000 the world. 01:00:25.500 --> 01:00:30.660 It's one of the reasons why Korea has been such a remarkable place in the world of 01:00:30.660 --> 01:00:35.000 very fast, rapid church growth, because the early Christians realised 01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:37.480 that, and they said Hanunim was the name of the creator. 01:00:37.980 --> 01:00:40.460 And the promise was that his son one day would come into the world. 01:00:41.080 --> 01:00:43.480 And they recognised it as Jesus Christ. 01:00:43.480 --> 01:00:48.800 Well, thank you very much for tonight, and I hope you've enjoyed that. 01:00:49.540 --> 01:00:50.000 Thank you.