Good Friday’s big question: Is doubt good?

[Igel]

87. Why do you think they were borrowed?

Simply because of the time they were written down?

First attestation is merely that. Unless the writers of Gilgamesh sat in their offices and decided to make up the tale out of whole cloth on the day it was written, it had a history and a geographic spread prior to being written down. The only thing we could say, then, it when it was first written down.

There are good Polish words first attested in Russian sources. It's a common novice's mistake to somehow assume the words didn't exist until they were written down--even though they clearly have a time depth of 2000 years or more before first attestation. And, at that time depth, almost certainly weren't being used in the areas where the words are used today.

The Gilgamesh epic is the same. Was it initially developed along the rivers in Mesopotamia? Was it imported from elsewhere and embellished later? Was it borrowed after it was fully formed, or was it in gestation and split into several varieties before its final Babylonian form gelled?

No good information. Not enough known. Not lots of attestations over the course of many years, and not enough information about either the civilizations adjacent to Mesopotamia or the civilizations that preceded the ones we do know.

Most of the real reason for the meme was the 19th century desire for all old texts that were contrary to then-current assumptions to be wrong. Troy couldn't exist because Homer couldn't have written it and nobody could keep such a tradition alive. The ancient Hebrews didn't have writing, so no part of the OT could be older than so many hundred years BC. All ME culture originated in the only civilizations we knew existed, Egypt and Mesopotamia, with the latecomer Phoenicians, which were mentioned in the Greek and Latin sources that we trusted. As facts contrary to the assumptions have arisen, most people forget the conclusions long-based on these assumptions and just accept the facts as isolated facts.