Archeologists vs The Bible

Why connecting Genesis and the Symbolic Revolution is professionally dangerous

Archeologists can’t handle the truth

The FAQ page on Tepe Telegrams, the official blog of Gobekli Tepe (GT), includes this gem:

THERE ARE RUMOURS THAT GÖBEKLI TEPE CAN BE RELATED TO THE ‘GARDEN OF EDEN’ DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE. IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THIS?

“We disagree wholeheartedly with any parallels drawn between Göbekli Tepe and the ‘Garden of Eden’, for which there is absolutely no archaeological evidence. Certainly, Göbekli Tepe lies in a chain of hills north of the Harran plain, the scene of numerous biblical narratives, though this is where any associations with the Bible end. Anything more is pure conjecture.”

This raises more questions than it answers. The geography is right, but we can be certain none of the symbolism holds up? Nothing about snakes, or a more sophisticated appreciation of agency? It’s not a fringe idea that myths can last thousands of years, particularly something as culturally important as the invention of religion and agriculture. This post explains why archeologists take such an aggressive line against any connection between Genesis and GT.

Cauvin’s Symbolic Revolution

Jacques Cauvin was a French archeologist who specialized in the prehistory of the Near East. Culminating decades of fieldwork, he proposed the Agricultural Revolution resulted from a preceding Revolution of Symbols. Humans began to see themselves not as passive members of nature but as agents who controlled their environment¹. The domestication of plants and animals was built on this new relationship with nature. In The Birth Of The Gods And The Origins Of Agriculture, Cauvin writes:

“…it seems that ‘religion’, far from being purely irrational, first developed a sort of ‘transcendental logic’ at a non-utilitarian level, a logic that was then applied to the real world, imprinting on it new significances in a novel and different system of relations. This cognitive aspect of the Revolution of Symbols is fundamental.”

These new ideas about human agency were packaged in the cult of the Great Goddess, which he describes as “female monotheism.”² Near the end of his book, Cauvin reflects:

“The book of Genesis, the foundation myth of our civilisation, has surprised the writer. There is a homology between the process which recent research suggests for the beginnings of subsistence production and the biblical scenario. On the one hand, we have seen that a psychological-cultural process seems to have anticipated the new mode of exploitation of the environment. On the other hand, an event that is equally psychological in its essence, the Fall of Man, engenders consequences that one could think recount everything that the study of artistic representations of the Neolithic has suggested to us. Scarcely veiled in the symbolic language, one reads first of a feeling of human finiteness (‘nudity’) in response to a distancing from the 'divine', which is now perceived as inaccessible. This brings about the end of a certain easy quest for subsistence in the Garden of Eden, and thus the beginning of labour ‘by the sweat of the brow’. This sequence outlines precisely the first beginnings of cultivation (Cain), then of herding (Abel, the younger brother). With all these traits that expressly characterise the Neolithic Revolution, it is difficult not to think that this is what the stories are about. And why should we be surprised, when the book of Genesis and the beginnings of farming shared a cradle in the same region of the world?

Genesis was certainly not composed in the Neolithic, but it is known to bring together more ancient texts that were collected around 900 BC in which there must have figured the most ancient memories of those dark ages that the people of the Levant could put into writing. One can also compare the story of the Fall with the myth of Prometheus, the hero who, in Greek tradition, brought fire, farming, and technology to men. That was a crime that was again followed by punishment, attesting the same guilty memory that people in the Near East had retained of their gradual gaining of control over nature. The robust materialism of our scientific data should not condemn us to indifference to the way that people in antiquity perceived and related these same events that we are dealing with.”

Clearly, he’s no Christian apologist—just an archeologist who read Greek and Hebrew myths and heard echoes of the past he reconstructed from layers of Levantine dirt. Elsewhere, he wonders if the ritual masks found across the Levant (including GT) are the forerunners of those used to celebrate Dionysus³. (And therefore linked to the many Mediterranean mystery cults, which I write about here, here, and here.)

“Just don’t call it the Garden of Eden”

Gobekli Tepe was first surveyed in 1963, but its importance wasn’t realized until German archeologist Klaus Schmidt re-appraised the site in 1994 and started excavations. According to Schmidt, the findings proved Cauvin right⁴. The Neolithic revolution was triggered by a shift in ideas rather than a material cause like climate change. There are various interviews where Schmidt speaks highly of Cauvin. Yet, the Tepe Telegrams page about Genesis sums up the official position with a quote from Schmidt: “Just don’t call it the Garden of Eden.” What gives?

There’s actually no mystery. The interview in Science which produced that quote explains:

“A 2006 cover story in the German weekly Der Spiegel speculated that the site might be linked to the biblical Garden of Eden. Much to Schmidt's dismay, Turkish papers picked up the story, and the ensuing debate about whether the site was the birthplace of Adam—considered a Muslim prophet—briefly threatened to derail further excavation on religious grounds.”

Science is a human project with its share of personal and political jockeying. With their job on the line, archeologists at GT are highly incentivized to downplay any connection the site has to Adam and Eve. Additionally, there are hosts of psuedoarcheologists selling tours of the site. If you order fast, you can get the $4995 Early-Bird special from Andrew Collins, author of such books as:

• Gobekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods: The Temple of the Watchers and the Discovery of Eden⁵

• Denisovan Origins: Hybrid Humans, Göbekli Tepe, and the Genesis of the Giants of Ancient America

• The Cygnus Key: The Denisovan Legacy, Göbekli Tepe, and the Birth of Egypt⁶

The first title promises to:

• Detail the layout, architecture, and exquisite carvings at Göbekli Tepe

• Explore how it was built as a reaction to a global cataclysm

• Explain that it was the Watchers of the Book of Enoch and the Anunnaki gods of Sumerian tradition who created it

• Reveal the location of the remains of the Garden of Eden in the same region

It must be very annoying for archeologists to watch their painstaking work be sold most successfully by hustling mad-libbers. One understands the impulse to put a kibosh on it.

Tying themselves in knots

Even so, Tepe Telegrams’ treatment of Genesis mostly jousts a straw man. For example, consider how the geography is handled:

“The topographical situation of this idyllic garden delivered in the Old Testament (which, as probably most people would agree, is not exactly and specifically a proper historical source) tells of a river flowing from Eden, dividing into four streams: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates (Genesis 2, 10-14). While the latter two are well-known toponyms in the region to this day, the other two however don’t really fit into the picture, somehow raising the suspicion they might be as figurative as the mythical gold-land of Havilah through which the Pishon is said to wind. Besides, there are no water sources at Göbekli Tepe at all (actually one of the arguments against an ideal settlement situation, cf. this discussion). Göbekli Tepe hardly ever was a flourishing garden in the literal sense.”

The Bible’s genealogy of Adam implies he lived in roughly 4,000 BC. Anyone who thinks Genesis is describing GT is already, by definition, not a literalist. It’s 5,000 years too old. Before reading their comment, it hadn’t even occurred to me that GT is physically near where Genesis describes Eden.

As it was written, Eden at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates.

The accompanying document even demonstrates that Karacadağ is known for its springs (i.e., the requisite water source), which I thought was a nice touch. The Karacadağ mountains, pictured above East of Eden GT, are where wheat was domesticated. Right between the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, just like Genesis said. This is somehow not framed as a win. As for the other two rivers, who knows what Pishon and Gihon refer to? Unmarked (and perhaps now-dry) tributaries? Mythic fabrications? It doesn’t seem that important. Genesis was written down 7,000 years after the Agricultural Revolution; 2/4 landmarks demonstrably correct is impressive. Though, taking some liberties with tributaries, one apologist⁷ produced this map:

Found on Karakadag’s Wikipedia page. The naming convention EDEN.png was a bit of a giveaway of the ulterior motive.

This is not an endorsement of his identification of Pishon and Gihon. However, if you read over the arguments, it’s striking that the amateur Christian apologist’s work, which describes divine “accidents” leading to certain leads, is more even-handed in dealing with possible shortcomings of his position. Archeologists should hold themselves to higher standards.

Snakessss

Figure 9) “Symbolic objects defining the ritual community of Göbekli Tepe.” From a paper by GT archeologist Jens Notroff, who writes Tepe Telegrams. By my count, at least 7/12 of these objects depict a snake, and two more (2 and 12) are borderline. Snakes are the defining symbol of GT.

Consider, further, Tepe Telegrams’ treatment of snakes. 28.4% of the representations at GT are snakes, double the second most commonly depicted animal, the fox, at 14.8%. And this counts groups of animals as just one occurrence. Snakes, which are often carved in bunches, account for half of all identifiable animals if you break them up as individuals. This is addressed:

“But what about the snakes?” is an argument often put forward in favour of the Eden narrative. Yes, there are depictions of snakes at Göbekli Tepe. A lot, actually. Quite a lot. It almost is a snake pit rather than the single seducer trying to sell forbidden fruits. And what about all those other animal reliefs? There are spiders and scorpions, foxes and vultures, cranes, ducks, and boars. And more. In numbers certainly equalling those of snake reliefs. So, this sole focus on the serpent seems a bit unfair towards the other animals. Are we going to ignore all these additional animals (and few human depictions)  – or how do these fit into the story?” 

I guess the only connection that would count is a single, enormous serpent statue? This is a strange standard, considering Eden was chock full of other animals—Adam named them, after all. Further, this passage is written by Jens Notroff, an author on the paper containing the runes above (Figure 9). Most of the items he labeled “Symbolic objects defining the ritual community of Göbekli Tepe” feature snakes. As long as Eden isn’t the topic, snakes are acknowledged as the primary symbol of the site, rivaled only by the anthropomorphic pillars (which represent initiates? Gods? …Adam?).

It’s a Biblically illiterate debunking. More than that, it fails the basic truth-finding standard of steelmanning opposing views. Genesis suggests a timeline where self-awareness produced cosmic alienation, followed by agriculture. Tepe Telegrams treats snakes like the big thing that Genesis can claim to get right, failing to even mention the Agricultural or Symbolic Revolutions. Again, the author is familiar with Cauvin⁸.

The Schooling Effect

The archeologists at GT have the weight of authority, so other scientists repeat their claims. Take Crecganford, a comparative mythologist with a popular YouTube channel. He promises to only use official sources and clear up much of the misinformation and wild speculation one hears about GT. You may be forgiven for thinking the title of his presentation, “When Humans Became Gods: the Myths and Religion of Gobekli Tepe,” is a reference to the Bible. After all, the snake tempted Eve, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” However, Crecganford uses the phrase independently to describe the religious innovation at GT. In fact, he argues that the religion and mythology at GT left no cultural legacy and were completely forgotten. For example, he concedes GT artwork has marked similarities to styles in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, he argues:

“The art forms found in Gobekli Tepe were abandoned and then reinvented in later cultures. And so this could suggest that the religion and beliefs practised here also died out with the art when the site was abandoned. That's not to say other cultures didn't have similar religions, but certainly the Neolithic farmers who were about to dominate the landscape here did not have their cultural beliefs significantly influenced from the culture at Gobekli Tepe.”

That is not a very parsimonious model, and it goes directly against Schmidt and Cauvin’s contention that cultural advances typified by GT were requisite for agriculture. Also, consider the proto-writing on the runes found at GT. Why should all those snakes be completely disconnected from the Egyptian hieroglyphs for goddess (𓆗, rearing cobra) or to speak (𓆓, cobra)? Or from the Semitic character nun (נ), which developed from 𓆓, and is the first character of the tempter’s name (נָחָשׁ, nachash)? Note that for Egyptians, speaking has to do with creation. The first god, Atum, called himself into being by saying his name. His first item of business? Fighting the serpent Apep. Further, recent research on the proto-writing system of cave art has shown the continuity of certain symbols, including the serpentiform, for tens of thousands of years. What is the evidence of a sudden cultural break following GT? How do we know their serpentiforms were a dead end?

It’s also internally inconsistent with Crecganrod’s own channel, which specializes in long-lasting myths. In other videos, he argues serpent rituals go back 17 kya, the Odyssey goes back 20 kya, the Cosmic Hunt goes back 40 kya, the Seven Sisters go back 100 kya, and creation myths go back 140 kya. The evidence for these myths’ longevity tends to be much weaker (and a priori less likely, given the age) than for persistent cultural memories of the Symbolic Revolution (e.g., snake worship being involved in realizations that produced alienation).

In one video, Crecganford even argues that the pan-Eurasian story of fighting a dragon goes back 12,000 years to the pre-pottery Neolithic (PPNA). Check out the map he puts up. The red circle is the putative origin of the myth:

This is precisely the time and place of GT! Taken together, his model is one of a snake-fighting motif and associated rituals that developed by at least 17 kya. These were important parts of PPNA culture 12 kya, except at GT (notwithstanding all snakes). GT’s cultural footprint was basically nill. However, the snake mythology of neighboring PPNA sites became one of the most popular stories in the world, retold from China to Egypt to Norway.

A simpler story emerges with a bit of scientific street smarts. Jacques Cauvin was on to something. Gobekli Tepe is part of the Symbolic Revolution that preceded agriculture. This transition is remembered in various myths and is the foundation of subsequent cultures built on their primitive religion (e.g., Ubaid, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Hebrew). Klaus Schmidt distanced himself from Adam and Eve to protect the project, and less urgent biases against conjecture and grand theories kept that burning even after Schmidt’s passing.

I’m not saying that’s the whole story. One could argue, as Cauvin did, that archeologists are biased towards materialist explanations to explain cultural changes and, therefore, don’t have eyes to see Genesis at GT. Further, many introductory courses in archeology teach about the field’s nascency when foolish generations treated the Bible as history. The workforce is over-inoculated against the Good Book. On the flip side, even if one is very skeptical of a connection, the political situation at GT is relevant. “Man whose job depends on dismissing an idea dismisses the idea” is the lowest form of evidence.

This post seeks to lay out a sufficient explanation of why archeologists don’t want Gobekli Tepe to be Eden and are willing to forward such bad arguments to that end. Science sometimes really cannot handle the truth. This is the reality of working in a fallen world where even scientists must be agents choosing good, evil, and everything in between. Cognizance of those distorting pressures helps us navigate the literature on politically sensitive topics.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Archeologists vs Ancient Aliens, which highlights Tepe Telegrams’ selective reasoning when engaging another nemesis. And please share the blog!

1. “The desire to change, the ‘progress’ which results and which will accelerate from this time on, everything that will characterise the later course of human history down to our own time, and which contrasts with the hundreds of millennia of previous slow evolution, can be traced back to this ‘cultural revolution’, where the idea that man can do things for himself brought into question his integration and role in nature and the cosmos.
This new chasm which was formed between god and man is dynamic in effect. It has no direct effect on the environment, but it must have completely modified the portrayal that the human spirit makes of itself, and, through some kind of release of the necessary energy to see them through, it must also have stimulated new initiatives, like the countervailing effect of an existential malaise never previously experienced. Till then spectators of the natural cycles of reproduction in the living world, Neolithic societies now took it on themselves to intervene as active producers.
It is by no means irrelevant that the emergence of divinities took human form from the start. The Goddess is immediately depicted as a woman: this humanisation of art from the Khiamian period was the clearest and the most spectacular change noted. The supreme authority of that time, for all that it is distant in relation to man, is not totally alien to him. The fact that, through Her, humanity and nature emanate from a common source, since human infant and young animal are associated with her in Anatolia, can speak volumes on the novel metaphysical step of this period: not only is the Neolithic Goddess enrolled in the historical vanguard of the creationist theologies which follow, but in a certain manner man also recognises himself in all that surrounds him, since at the level of their symbolic genesis a personalised unifying principle reconciles empirical man and the natural world that he confronts.” ~The Birth Of The Gods And The Origins Of Agriculture

2. He uses that phrase when explaining the relationship of the Neolithic Goddess to that of the Paleolithic Venus Statues and Bronze Age myths:

“Throughout the total duration of the Neolithic across the whole of the Near and Middle East, a unique 'ideology' is found, expressed through different modes and artistic styles that at times contribute to the differentiation of cultures; and we shall see other examples. It is organised around two key symbols: one, female, has already taken human form. Can she perhaps be derived from the first female statuettes known in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe and spread as far as Siberia? But these at that time counted for very little in relation to the huge predominance of animal representations. What is new at this time is their number, and also the indication that she was not only a 'fertility symbol' but a genuine mythical personality, conceived as a supreme being and universal mother, in other words a goddess who crowned a religious system which one could describe as 'female monotheism' in the sense that all the rest remained subordinated to her. The other, incarnate in the form of the Bull, is male but in an essentially zoomorphic expression. At Çatalhöyük he appears subordinated to the Goddess by filial relationship, but he nevertheless ranks as the second supreme figure, made immediately and absolutely clear by the intensity of his depiction, the privileged size and the placing of his image. It is possible, as J. Mellaart has suggested, that a symbolic system which knew the mythology of the son who is also the spouse already existed in the Neolithic, analogous to what the much later texts of the tablets of the Mesopotamian Bronze Age reveal to us, but at this date with nothing in the religious art yet so specifically indicated. The Bull may be born of the Goddess, but no married couple, no 'divine couple’ in the proper sense, was yet explicit.”

3. “These objects are of prime importance for our attempt to reconstruct the religious thinking of the PPNB. Although they are heavy to carry, they appear to us to be inseparable from a ceremonial context that other indications would also suggest. They also seem to tip the balance in favour of ceremonies of a public character, since one could hardly imagine them used to cause fear in the family setting. Finally, if the mask were thought of as to be worn by an 'actor' who temporarily personifies some supernatural being, it is possible that we may be looking at the very, very ancient origin of the sacred theatre of the east Mediterranean world.”

4. And not just Schmidt. As a recent paper put it:

Cauvin’s early critique of this materialistic trend in cultural anthropology has, in recent times, won out, particularly in regard to the recent discoveries of the pre-historic settlements of Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük in the Anatolian peninsula, where a broad consensus has formed in affirming the central role of some form of religion or spirituality in what is inferred as primitive rites and rituals.

5. The absolute bleeding edge of bookmanship: sub-sub-titles

6. Pre-GT books include:

• Origins of the Gods: The Qesem Cave, Skinwalkers, and Contact with Transdimensional Intelligences

• Lost World of the Human Hybrids: Watchers, Giants and the True Founders of Civilization

• LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences

• Atlantis in the Caribbean: And the Comet That Changed the World

• Path of Souls: The Native American Death Journey: Cygnus, Orion, the Milky Way, Giant Skeletons in Mounds, & the Smithsonian

• Alien Energy: UFOs, Ritual Landscapes and the Human Mind

• The New Circlemakers: Insights into the Crop Circle Mystery

7. Another apologist makes the case for Karacadag a couple years earlier.

8. CF Archeologists vs Ancient Aliens, where Notroff ignored the bullroarer despite it being obviously germane and having written a paper on the bullroarer at GT.