From Babel to Canaan

by
Damien F. Mackey

Ian Wilson (Lost World of the Kimberley. Extraordinary Glimpes of Australia’s Ice Age)
writes of “the similarity between the 'Ubaid and the Kimberley figures”, Australian
aboriginal art closely resembling that of the al-‘Ubaid’ culture of Mesopotamia.

PRE-DYNASTIC

Modern DNA studies have proven to be most useful in determining the origins and ethnic
connections of the various peoples of the world.
Gavin Menzies uses DNA to great effect in his fascinating book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis:
History's Greatest Mystery Revealed (2012), though I would not accept his highly inflated
dates, e.g. 100,000 BC, or even earlier, for the Neolithic Minoans already as a maritime
people.
Nor would I accept that these highly resourceful people were actually called “Minoans”.
That is a fallacy based on Sir Arthur Evans’ fascination with mythology, and the legend of
King Minos, son of Zeus.
But Menzies’ use of DNA studies has enabled him to identify, for instance, Anatolia as the
country of origin of the “Minoans” (at least immediately prior to their arrival in Crete). These
people were more likely the Philistines whom Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem
and its Ramifications, 1971) has traced back to Neolithic I Knossos (Crete) based on their
distinctive type of pottery, whose design he describes in the following passage (his
emphasis):
The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first
interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration
is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a
combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a
“Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is
attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into
this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great
profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast
of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. ….

Sensationally, Australian aboriginal culture, art and design, have been found at the
mysterious megalithic complex of Göbekli Tepe, in southern Turkey (Armenia). This site,
conventionally dated c. 12,000-10,000 BC, is causing palaeontologists/archaeologists to
scratch their heads. Humans were not supposed to have been that technologically advanced
way back then.
One writer, Bruce R. Fenton, has actually surmised “A Global Aboriginal Australian
Culture? The Proof at Göbekli Tepe”. After tens of thousands of years of evolving in
Australia, presumably, the aboriginals arrived in Turkey and created these
sophisticated megaliths with their fine (aboriginal-like) designs.
I would have it the other way around, of course - these technologically capable descendants
of Noah later finding their way ‘Down Under’, where they – long and distantly separated
from their mother culture – lived far more rudimentary lives, though their cultural
achievements in Australia ought by no means to be underestimated.
Tamil speakers have recognised a definite similarity between their language and that spoken
by Australian aboriginals. Though it needs to be noted that - as with the American Indians -
there were many aboriginal nations and many versions of the language.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oceania/tamils-and-sumerians-among-first-
reach-australia-and-antarctica-021743
“Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken mainly in southern India, amongst other locations, but
surprisingly as we shall see—also spoken in Australia!”
Ian Wilson (Lost World of the Kimberley. Extraordinary Glimpes of Australia’s Ice Age)
writes of “the similarity between the ‘Ubaid and the Kimberley figures”, Australian
aboriginal art closely resembling that of the al-‘Ubaid’ culture of Mesopotamia (which I think
may have been Sumerian-Chaldean).
Dr. William Colin Willkie has written a book, The First Spoken Language 2nd Edition: Have
Australian Aboriginal people been speaking ancient Sumerian for 60,000 years? Paperback –
16 Mar 2017.
Years ago I picked up from a university library a book written by Dr. Charles James Ball
(Chinese and Sumerian, London: OUP, 1913), showing extensive Sumero-Chinese linguistic
comparisons. That fact, I recall, had amazed me at the time.
Of great interest to me these days is the suggestion that Sumerian is actually the old
Chaldean, perhaps related through Heth to the ancient Sin(ites), the Chinese, both as
offspring of Canaan (Genesis 10:15, 17).
We read that there were giants on earth before and after the Flood.
They still existed in Palestine, e.g., “the Rephaïtes”, in the time of Abram (Genesis 14:5);
during the Exodus; and even down to the time of David (Goliath).
The ancient king Eannatum of Lagash (c. 2500-2400 BC, conventional dating) may have
been a bit of a ‘throwback’.
He described himself as “the giant son of Ningirsu”, and he, like Cain of old, liked to erect
boundaries, king Eannatum having set up a boundary stone, for instance, at the limits of a
field that he had taken from the king of neighbouring Umma.
Lagash and Umma are conventionally supposed to have been situated in Sumer.
Dr Anne Habermehl has thrown a geographical spanner into the works, however, by
suggesting that - along with her view that Akkad was in NE Syria rather than in Sumer -
some of these places, such as Umma, also Erech, may also be found in NE Syria/Turkey:
https://answersingenesis.org/tower-of-babel/where-in-the-world-is-the-tower-of-babel/

For instance, ancient Umma, the capital of King Lugalzagisi, could well be the little-
known Tell Amuda, located on the Turkish side of the border, just north of the
modern city of Amuda (Szuchman 2007, p. 78). This would make sense because
Lugalzagisi ruled over Erech as well as Umma; and Tell Aqab and this Tell Amuda are
not far apart (Hamblin 2006, pp. 64–66). (Tell Shermola, sometimes also called Tell
Amuda, located at the city of Amuda itself, is a more recent mound, however, and
dates back only to the middle of the second millennium BC at most (Buccellati and
Kelly-Buccellati 1995; Szuchman 2007), and therefore could not be the ancient
Umma of the Sumerian King List.) In another example, “Kish” could have been the city
of Urkish (Urkesh), that is, Kish of Ur, located just east of ancient Amuda/Erech and
north of Tell Brak/Akkad; Sargon’s move from his first capital of Kish to Akkad (Heinz
2007) would therefore not have involved a great distance. Eridu, the first city in the
King List, could well have been Aridu (Tell Arada) just west of Urakka (see the map by
Parpola 1987). These places are all in a fairly small region not far from Tell
Brak/Akkad in the Upper Khabur region of North Syria.
[Answers Research Journal March 23, 2011, Vol 4, pp. 25–53 “Where in the World Is
the Tower of Babel? Her note 15.]

The long-lived Neanderthals - who may not have been exceptionally tall - were likewise (as
the giants) on earth before and after the Flood. But not for too long, it seems (Genesis 6:3):
“Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal;
their days will be a hundred and twenty years’.”
We find traces of the Neanderthals as far afield to the west as Spain and southern England.
The Lascaux caves in France attest the extraordinary mastery of art and the astronomical
knowledge of so-called ‘primitive’ man. Worryingly, it is not unknown for those with an
evolutionary agenda in the realm of palaeontology to ‘doctor’ skulls and limbs so as to keep
alive their worldview that humans have evolved from ape-like forms. As we shall learn
below, in the case of Dr. Jack Cuozzo: “ Few scientists are ever allowed access to original
skulls, but have to make do with replicas on display in museums”. Dr. Cuozzo himself,
though, “… x-rayed Neanderthal skulls in Europe, and found out the truth - and the lies
about man's 'evolution' … findings [that] put Dr Cuozzo and his family in some danger …”.

No one has summed up evolution more succinctly, yet more pithily, than did the prolific
British writer, G.K. Chesterton, when he made this comment about the missing link: “The
evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is
missing”. Chesterton,
in his book on Saint Thomas Aquinas, contrasted Homo Sapiens with what he wittily called
Simius Insipiens:

…. It is a pity that the word Anthropology has been degraded to the study of Anthropoids. It
is now incurably associated with squabbles between prehistoric professors (in more senses
than one) about whether a chip of stone is the tooth of a man or an ape; sometimes settled
as in that famous case, when it was found to be the tooth of a pig.
It is very right that there should be a purely physical science of such things; but the name
commonly used might well, by analogy, have been dedicated to things not only wider and
deeper, but rather more relevant. Just as, in America, the new Humanists have pointed out
to the old Humanitarians that their humanitarianism has been largely concentrated on things
that are not specially human, such as physical conditions, appetites, economic needs,
environment and so on– so in practice those who are called Anthropologists have to narrow
their minds to the materialistic things that are not notably anthropic. They have to hunt
through history and pre-history something which emphatically is not Homo Sapiens, but is
always in fact regarded as Simius Insipiens. Homo Sapiens can only be considered in
relation to Sapientia. ….

Pat Franklin, who has enthusiastically accepted the views of Dr. Jack Cuozzo, has written the
following quite dramatic review (2012) of Cuozzo’s controversial book, Buried Alive:
http://www.thefreepressonline.co.uk/news/1/2365.htm

Neanderthals - the amazing truth is in the teeth, reveals American

orthodontist.
….
American orthodontist Dr Jack Cuozzo has revealed the astonishing truth about ancient
man. Few scientists are ever allowed access to original skulls, but have to make do
with replicas on display in museums. 

Dr Cuozzo saw the real thing, x-rayed Neanderthal skulls in Europe, and found out the
truth - and the lies about man's 'evolution'.

His book, 'Buried Alive,' * tells the tale of how he took his family (wife and five
children) to Europe along with special x-ray equipment.  He was allowed access to
original fossils and was shocked to find that Neanderthal fossils had in some cases
been altered, bones put together in the wrong way, and sometimes measured
inaccurately to give a false impression. 
These findings put Dr Cuozzo and his family in some danger, and at one time they
were fleeing across France and trying to get away from two cars which began tailing
them.

In a motel they had to barricade their doors to stop intruders. Dr Cuozzo hid the x-rays
in a comic book carried by one of his children, while himself carrying a packet labelled
as x-rays, just in case they were confiscated at the airport. They were all very relieved
to get back on American soil.

That was in 1979, when creationists were just beginning to really get to grips with
evolution versus truth. So what was so important about x-rays of old bones that
sinister men began chasing a dentist and his family around France?

One of the first skulls x-rayed was a Neanderthal child, apelike of course. But Dr

Cuozzo found that the lower jaw was out of alignment. 
As an orthodontist, he could see exactly how the teeth fit together and how the jaw
should be correctly positioned, and when it was, the skull was not apelike at all!  
Another skull was the same - appearing apelike until he put the jaw into correct
alignment, with the wear on the teeth matching perfectly.

He was astonished to see that a fragment of another skull was being altered, with the
chin being removed to make it appear more apelike. The picture of that is also in the
book, along with the original skull as it looked when it was dug up, chin intact.
Later he looked at another famous skull, this time in Germany – a 'teenage
Neanderthal.' 
He found once again that the replica skull on display was made to look apelike, but a
color slide purchased at the museum showed that the lower jaw was dislocated,
positioned 30mm out of its socket! This brought the upper jaw 30mm forward, looking
more like a muzzle, and very apelike.

Other Neanderthal fossils in museums had been scrubbed clean of red ochre, which
was smeared on the skin as a burial custom across Europe and the Middle East, much
as corpses now are made up by morticians to look more lifelike. As the Neanderthal
rotted in the ground, the red ochre would get on the bones and teeth.  This would
have been a clear indicator that Neanderthals were human, with established burial
techniques, and that would have been against evolutionary philosophy. Therefore, the
red ochre was washed off, and not mentioned in scientific journals. But Dr Cuozzo's
equipment examined the inside of the skulls as well as the outside, and there the red
ochre was clearly visible.

On one trip he and his family also found a cave which had been taken off the official
list of ancient sites open to the public in southern France, where the Neanderthal
caves are tourist attractions. He reasoned that if the cave was off limits, it might
contain something which did not fit in with evolutionist teaching.

They finally found the cave of Bernifal, which was partly blocked off and had no
lights. 
They had four flashlights with them, and took flash pictures of all they could before a
Frenchman arrived and chased them out. Their pictures show a cave carving of a
dinosaur butting heads with a mammoth! Dinosaurs are supposed to have died out 65
million years ago, long before mammoths supposedly 'evolved'. So no wonder the cave
was shut. The picture is in his book.

Dr Cuozzo's conclusions are that Neanderthals, the brutish 'cavemen' depicted in

movies and textbooks, were post-Flood (Noah's Flood) humans. They lived much
longer than we do, and matured much more slowly. 
They had better teeth and bones and a larger brain. They were not brutish or
arthritic, did not have rickets or syphilis, and he suspects that their eyes were also
superior to ours, possibly with functions we have lost.

His thoughts about their eyesight are extrapolated from seeing their caves. The walls
in some cases were white crystalline structures when they were discovered with their
cave paintings, but they have become discolored since artificial lighting was put up for
tourists. If they were in use by Neanderthals, and not smoke damaged then, how
could those ancient people see to paint the cave walls? He wonders if they had eyes
which could see in the dark, a function we may have lost ….

'Buried Alive' is a fascinating book, chilling in its revelations of how dangerous it can
be to fall foul of the establishment. 
There is a lot of money and power tied up with evolution philosophy, and
academics who control university departments and museums have a lot to lose if
 evolution is proved wrong, which I believe it has been, many times over. But the
evolutionists are not going to give up their beliefs just because they are wrong! And
they are certainly not going to drop the inaccurate and misleading textbooks in schools
and colleges! ….

It can defeat the whole purpose of scientific research when dictator-like palaeontologists and
archaeologists, entrenched in positions of authority and power, and clinging rigidly to an
agenda, demand adherence to their often-warped Weltanschauung, and even withhold, or
distort, essential research data.
Nimrod was such a bullying type of dictator.
Kingdoms of “money and power” (see above) are the antithesis of the Kingdom of Jesus
Christ, defined by Truth (John 18:37).

NIMROD AND BABEL

That tricky Hebrew word, kol (‫)כָל‬, that we read e.g. in Noah’s Flood narrative (Genesis 7:3),
and again in Shem’s account of the Babel incident (11:1), “the whole earth”, Creationists
invariably, and wrongly I believe, interpret in a vast, or global, sense, leading to a global
Flood, in the first instance, and to a whole humanity speaking just the one language, in the
second. “And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech”.
Only two verses earlier we can read of nations speaking different “tongues: (10:31): “These
are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their
nations”.
My interpretation of the situation (and I am more than happy to be corrected) is that those
who arrived in “the land of Shinar”, from of old, were a tightly knit bunch and of the same
“language”. And that the phrase “the whole earth” (‫ָָארץ‬
ֶ ‫ה‬-‫ )כָל‬ought, in this particular case, to
be translated as “the whole land” [i.e., of Shinar].
The Pentecost event as narrated in the Book of Acts (2:1-13) is sometimes referred to as a
‘reversal of Babel’, when “God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (which is far
from intending a global geography, by the way), of different languages, each understood the
message of the Holy Spirit as if spoken in his own language.
At least one commentator, though, has surmised that the Babel-ites were resisting the Divine
command to multiply and fill the earth, and were clinging to one language for the sake of a
defiant unity.
If there is any truth to this, then it might suggest a dictatorial enforcement, by a Nimrod, of a
single language and a one specified culture, as we find today in, for instance, authoritarian
China, with its persecution of the Uighurs (Uyghurs).
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/06/china-uyghur-persecution-concentration-camps
“The suppression of the Uyghur also has both a direct and indirect benefit.  It represses an
entire population and that repression serves as a threat to any other group that would
challenge Chinese hegemony.  The construction and maintenance of the concentration camps
is meant to “re-educate” the rest of China, and indeed the world, at the same time it tortures
the Uyghur and extracts all elements of their independence.
…. Their culture and language (an Asian Turkic language similar to Uzbek) have been
degraded, and they occupy the lowest rungs of the social and economic hierarchies”.
The unity in diversity of the Pentecostal event would then be the opposite of the enforced
diversity into unity (Babel) as is also being demanded today by the proponents of identity
politics.
Ours is a very tolerant society, for, as Karl Popper remarked: “In order to maintain a tolerant
society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance”.
It has likewise been remarked that: “The virtue of tolerance is the only virtue left when all
the other virtues have gone”. Woe betide those who do not conform to the dictates of the
‘tolerant’!
And that is exactly what it must have been like under the oppressor, Nimrod.
Nimrod was the first world emperor (at least after the Flood) (Genesis 10:8-12): “Nimrod …
became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it
is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The first centres of his kingdom
were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.
From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen,
which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
Nimrod may have been one of the few post-Flood potentates to end up in the ancient
pantheon, some suggest as Ninurta, and/or Marduk, and even as Bacchus (Bar-Cush), and as
other deities.
It would likely have been with Nimrod that dynastic history commenced.
He, as well as having perhaps accumulated a variety of divine appellations, may also require
to be filled out with an impressive bunch of alter egos - conventionally considered to belong
to various individual kings. I shall come back to this later.
My foremost preference for the historical Nimrod would be, as has been suggested by others
(e.g., Dr. Douglas Petrovich), the mighty Sargon I ‘the Great’ of Akkad.
However, I would be looking for his capital city of Akkad, not in Sumer where it has
unsuccessfully been sought, but in NE Syria, in line with the thesis of Dr. Anne Habermehl
who strongly favours the impressive site of Tell Brak for Akkad (or Agade).
And where was the Tower of Babel?
Habermehl, who may correctly have identified the site of Akkad, cannot suggest one for
Babel. It must have been in the vicinity of Calneh and Carchemish, referred to in Isaiah 10:9:
“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?”
For the LXX (Septuagint) version “… has varied in their translation here considerably from
the Hebrew. They render these verses, ‘And he saith, Have I not taken the region beyond
Babylon, and Chalane, where the tower was built?’”:
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/isaiah/10-9.htm
The addition of the phrase “… where the Tower was built” may well be an editorial gloss.
Since “Babylon” here replaces Carchemish, then the latter may have been the original
“Babylon”, or Babel, where the Tower was built. That is how I would reconstruct the verse.
As we are now going to find, the conventional picture regarding the archaeology for the
famous Akkadian and Ur III dynasties is hopelessly inadequate. Here is what I have written
on this:
“Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to
reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100).
Most interesting, now, that Anne Habermehl’s geographical re-location of the Babel
incident:
… finds a most significant and sophisticated ancient culture to accompany it: namely,
HALAF.
…. The long Akkadian empire phase of history … so admired by subsequent rulers and
generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this [before] ….
 
 “The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?
The Ur III founder, Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.
 
…. here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.
Archaeologists have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!
This is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been
expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower
Mesopotamia.
We read of this incredible situation of a missing culture in the following account by Dr.
R. Matthews, from his book, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and
Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?
id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA1
The problems of fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into
historical sequences are epitomised in the ongoing debate over what, if anything,
characterises Akkadian material culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and
McMahon 1995; Nissen 1993; J. G. Westenholz 1998).
Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to
reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100).
The bleakest view has been put thus: ‘If we didn’t know from the texts that the
Akkad empire really existed, we would not be able to postulate it from the
changes in settlement patterns, nor … from the evolution of material culture’
(Liverani 1993: 7-8). The inference is either that we are failing to isolate and
identify the specifics of Akkadian material culture, or that a political entity
apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass
without making a notable impact on settlement patterns or any aspect of material
culture.
Obviously, that “a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian
empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on … any aspect of material
culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter is that a whole imperial culture has been
almost totally lost because - just as in the case of so much Egyptian culture, and in its
relation to the Bible - historians and archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong
geographical place at the wrong chronological time.
It is my view that, regarding the Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one
needs to look substantially towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to “Lower
Mesopotamia”. And that one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the Akkadian one. The
most important contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a completely new vista
for the central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical events associated with it. The
potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had begun his empire building, not in Sumer,
but in the Sinjar region, and had then moved on to northern Assyria. Thus Genesis
10:10-11: “The beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and
Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah
and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
And these are precisely the regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf culture
arose and chiefly developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.
 Understandably once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase
dated to c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the
Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s “A
Better Model for the Stone Age” (http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age)
becomes so vital, with its revising of Halaf down to the Late Chalcolithic period in
Palestine, to the time of Abram (Abraham):
…. In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic',
Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to show that the fourth stage of the
Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Northern
Mesopotamia, and that this particular Chalcolithic culture was contemporary with
the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon.5:25 ....
…. This was very significant, especially as the phase of Halaf culture so embodied
was a late phase of the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some
degree of contemporaneity of the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with
the early part of the Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria ….
This finding was not a theory but a fact, slowly and very cautiously realized, but
devastating in its effect upon the presently held developmental history of the
ancient world. This being the case, and bearing in mind the impossibility of
absolute dating by any scientific means despite the claims to the contrary, the door
is opened very wide for the possible acceptance of the complete contemporaneity
of the whole of the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole of the Neolithic
and Chalcolithic of Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is
seen to be contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.) ….

Dr. Osgood had estimated the Halaf culture as having spread from east (Assyria) to the
west: “First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region.
From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the
Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system …”. Most likely,
it was the other way around, with Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Halaf culture) firstly
having established his kingdom in the “Sinjar region”, biblical “Shinar” (Genesis
10:10): “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in
Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah
and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.
Andrew Moore had, as we read before, argued for a contemporaneity of the Chacolithic
phase of Halaf culture with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon ….
Archaeologically, we are now on the eve of the city building phase (inspired by
Nimrod?) that will be a feature of Syro-Palestine’s Early Bronze Age. Presumably the
Canaanites were heavily involved in all of this work (Genesis 10:18): “… the Canaanite
clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as
Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha”. ….
Some have suggested that Nimrod was the same as the biblical Amraphel King of Shinar at
the time of Abram (Genesis 14:1). According to certain traditions, Nimrod was an older
contemporary of Abraham, whose idolatrous father Terah had faithfully served Nimrod:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112333/jewish/Nimrod-and-Abraham.htm
“Nimrod entrusted into his hands the command of his armies and made Terah the highest
minister in his land”.
David Rohl has claimed parallels between Enmerkar (-KAR meaning "hunter"), king of Uruk
(C27th BC, conventional dating), hence “Enmer the hunter”, whilst others have opted for
Narmer, who may, however, have been a ruler in Egypt.
He is attested in a sherd found in early Arad in Palestine. According to Dr. Osgood:
We have placed the end of the Chalcolithic of the Negev, En-gedi, Trans Jordan and
Taleilat Ghassul at approximately 1870 B.C., being approximately at Abraham’s 80th
year. Early Bronze I Palestine (EB I) would follow this, significantly for our
discussions. Stratum V therefore at early Arad (Chalcolithic) ends at 1870 B.C., and the
next stratum, Stratum IV (EB I), would begin after this.
Stratum IV begins therefore some time after 1870 B.C. This is a new culture
significantly different from Stratum V.112
Belonging to Stratum IV, Amiram found a sherd with the name of Narmer (First
Dynasty of Egypt),10, 13 and she dates Stratum IV to the early part of the Egyptian
Dynasty I and the later part of Canaan EB I. Amiram feels forced to conclude a
chronological gap between Stratum V (Chalcolithic) at Arad and Stratum IV EB I at
Arad.12:116 However, this is based on the assumption of time periods on the accepted
scale of Canaan’s history, long time periods which are here rejected. ….
What we can positively dismiss is the old suggestion that the biblical Amraphel was the
(superficially named) Hammurabi, who, as we shall find, belonged centuries after Amraphel.

Egypt would soon follow Akkad with its First Dynasty.

Mizraim, or “Egypt”, a brother of Cush, son of Ham (Genesis 10:6), is mentioned directly
after Nimrod as father of various sons (vv. 13-14): “Egypt was the father of the Ludites,
Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came)
and Caphtorites”. Today, “Miṣr" (Arabic pronunciation: [mesˤɾ]; "‫ )" ِمصر‬is the Classical
Quranic Arabic and modern official name of Egypt”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt
If Mizraim had been a ruler of part of Egypt, he may be one of the pre-dynastic or proto-
dynastic rulers (King Scorpion or some other).

CANAANITES

Dr. John Osgood has, in his important series, “A Better Model for the Stone Age”, identified
the Acheulean culture (generally associated with Lower Palaeolithic), as part of a migration
into Palestine of Canaan-ite peoples: https://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age

Acheulean
The characteristic feature of this culture was, of course, the large hand axe prominent in it.
Comment has already been made about the possible relationship between the virgin forests,
an early spreading people, and the necessity to use hand-axes in much of their culture. The
widespread common relationship of these tools in Europe, Asia and Northern Africa
certainly is not inconsistent with the biblical model of the recent origin of the spread of
people from the Middle East into diverse places having initially similar cultures.
….

From the dispersion of Babel into the virgin forested lands of Palestine came the families of
Canaan - Genesis 10:15-19. The initial number of families is unknown, but they are
represented culturally by the Palestinian Acheulean artifacts.

Their culture was consciously adapted to their new environment of heavily forested country
and wet climate with large lakes in land basins, much of the water being left-over from the
 great Flood. The wet climate would have produced heavy sedimentation of the open land
and friable conditions in many caves, which nonetheless were good protection from the
climate.
From the Acheulian background two different developments came - the Mousterian and
Aurignacian of Palestine.
At Carmel the Mousterian shelters suffered collapse, possibly from earthquake,15:176
ending Mousterian habitation in them. Geographically at least, the Aurignacian appears to
have given rise to Kebaran culture.

The Natufian appears to have been invasive, probably from the north, but possibly having a
memory of a riverine background:

‘All that may be said at present is that the Natufian settlers came from an Alluvial
environment and brought with them a tradition of building in clay or pise.’ 18

Moore affirms that Natufian to PPNA then PPNB formed one cultural continuity.
A new invasion from the north came with the PNA culture, continuous with PNB. But
against the biblical model, this also must have been a Canaanite culture, 5:23 as was all before
it.
Proto-Urban possibly followed, contemporary with Ghassulian culture (North8) and possibly
had a relationship with the Esdraelon culture of the North Palestine area. But with it came
rock-hewn tomb burials, suggesting a possible connection with the Hittites of Genesis 23:9.

We seem to be on surer ground when identifying Ghassul with the Amorites (see ‘The Times
of Abraham’, this volume), a wave of Canaanites which came down through southern Syria.
They were perhaps related to the defunct Hassuna culture driven out by Halafian expansion,
which enveloped Hassuna and Syria, and more particularly, Aram-Naharaim. ….

The Canaanites (Sidon; Heth; Jebusite; Amorite; Girgasite; Hivite; Arkite; Sinite; Arvadite:
Zemarite; Hamathite – Genesis 10:15-18) were, of course, a cursed race of peoples due to the
unsavoury act of “Devilled Ham” (9:22-25).

Maritime skills were already well advanced by the time of Sargon of Akkad, if we are to
believe his boast that ships from Magan (Egypt) and Meluhha (Ethiopia) docked at the quays
of his capital city of Akkad.
For some strange reason historians, who cannot locate Akkad in Sumer, deny the proper
identity of Magan and Meluhha, which they think can designate, respectively, Egypt and
Ethiopia, only after 1500 BC, but must otherwise be referring to some other places, e.g. Gulf
of Oman (Magan) and the Red Sea coast of Egypt (Meluhha), with other places also thrown in
for good measure.
It is abundantly clear that when the later Mesopotamian kings, such as Esarhaddon, referred to
Magan and Meluhha, they specifically meant Egypt and Ethiopia.
So why wouldn’t Sargon of Akkad?