Stupid e-mail stuff

[avanta7]

It never ceases to amaze me what people send out as e-mail to everyone they know, expecting the recipients to ooh and ahh and say "Wow! I never knew that!" and then send it on to everyone they know. I usually check on Snopes and send "reply to all" with the Snopes link debunking the latest urban legend to make the rounds.

This process has trained my sister to ask questions before sending anything out. Here's the latest thing she passed along:
~~~~
Angela,

You're the expert with this stuff. Is this one true???


VERY INTERESTING-

1. The Garden of Eden was in Iraq .

2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq , was the cradle of civilization!

3. Noah built the ark in Iraq .

4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq

5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq !

6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq !

7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq .

8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq .

9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel

10. Amos cried out in Iraq !

11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem .

12 Daniel was! in the lion's den in Iraq !

13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq ( Jesus had
been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the Fiery furnace!)

14. Belshazzar , the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in
Iraq .

15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into
Iraq .

16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq

17. The wise men were from Iraq

18. Peter preached in Iraq .

19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon ,
which was a city in Iraq!

And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often
mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is
Iraq ! However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible The names
used in the Bible are Babylon , Land of Shinar , and Mesopotamia . The
word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers . The name Iraq , means country with deep
roots.

Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant
country in the Bible
No other nation, except Israel , has more history and prophecy
associated it than Iraq .

And also, This is something to think about! Since America is
typically represented by an eagle. Saddam should have read up on his Muslim
passages ..

The following verse is from the Koran, (the Islamic Bible)

Koran (9:11 ) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a
fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the
lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still
more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah;
and there was peace.

(Note the verse number!) Hmmmmmmm?!
I BETTER NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED This is
a ribbon for soldiers fighting in Iraq . Pass it on to everyone and
pray. Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM . This is not
a jokeone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that
they love you. Do not break this chain. Send this to 13 people in the
next 15 minutes. Go.
~~~~
Hi Sis,

I think you know that I take the Bible seriously, although I don't take it literally. Here's what my research came up with:

1. The Garden of Eden was in Iraq. -- True, after a fashion. No one knows if "The Garden of Eden" actually existed. However, the Genesis account places it at the juncture of four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon, and the Gihon. (Gen. 2:10) Of these, only the Tigris and the Euphrates are known. They run through the country now known as Iraq. (source: any world map you choose to look at)
   
2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization! -- True. Mesopotamia is a region now incorporated by the country of Iraq, and is where most scholars believe "civilization", that is, settlements and trade, began about 3500 BCE. Evidence of farming dating from as early as 8000 BCE has been found in Palestine, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The ancient cities of Ur, Uruk, and Eridu (in what is now Southern Iraq) are among the earliest urban areas known. (source: Rand McNally's Atlas of World History)
   
3. Noah built the ark in Iraq. -- True, with caveats. Again, we don't know if the Ark (or Noah, for that matter) ever existed. Let's back up a little bit. When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden, we are not told where they went. We can assume they left heading east because God set an angel with a flaming sword at the east entrance to the Garden. (Gen. 3:24) Since they were on foot, they probably didn't travel terribly far before settling down and starting their family. Noah is one of Adam's descendents through Seth, Adam's third son. (See the genealogy in Gen. 5) Nowhere does the Biblical account tell where Noah lived; however, we can more or less safely assume he farmed his ancestral lands. Now, back to the Flood. Genesis 6-8 tells of Noah and the Flood in a story that closely parallels other Sumerian flood stories, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic, with appropriate cultural substitutes. All of this means that, yes, if Noah built an Ark, he built it in Iraq. (sources: The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger & Michael D. Coogan; and Don't Know Much About the Bible by Kenneth C. Davis)
   
4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq. -- True. The Tower of Babel, if such a thing were ever built, was located on a plain in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 11) According to the footnotes in my New Oxford Annotated Bible, this plain was in the basin between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. So, again, yes, it was in Iraq.
   
5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Iraq. -- True, but he left there at a young age (while he was still Abram) and moved to Haran, which he then considered his ancestral home. See Gen 11:31 and Gen 24:10.
   
6. Isaac's wife Rebekah was from Nahor, which is in Iraq! -- True. Nahor was near Haran. Rebekah was a cousin of Isaac, the daughter of his mother's brother's wife's son. See Gen. 24.
   
7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq. -- True. Again, she was a relative, a cousin, in fact: the daughter of his mother Rebekah's brother Laban. See Gen. 28.
   
8. Jonah preached in Ninevah, which is in Iraq. -- True. Ninevah was a city located on the Tigris River. (See just about any map of the ancient world in the back of just about any Bible.)
   
9. Assyria, which in is Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel. -- Almost true. The Assyrian Empire encompassed a region that included part of what is now Iraq, as well as parts of what is now Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Israel. (Compare a map of the Assyrian Empire to this map of the Middle East.) Assyria itself was located in what is now northern Iraq. Israel, the northern of the two Jewish nations, was a subject nation of Assyria. Israel's King Hoshea tried unsuccessfully to revolt, and Assyria's King Sargon II deported some 27,000 Israelites to the Tigris-Euphrates plain, thus putting an end to the Kingdom of Israel. (The southern kingdom, Judah, was a subject of both Assyria and Egypt, and apparently did not suffer the same fate.) SIDE NOTE: There were somewhere between 11 and 13 tribes of Israel, depending on which Biblical account one reads. The traditional number is twelve. The 12 tribes did not actually exist as separate tribes any time after King David. But the deported citizens of the Kingdom of Israel are often called "The Lost Tribes." (sources: The Oxford Companion to the Bible; Don't Know Much About the Bible; and 2 Kings 17)
   
10. Amos cried out in Iraq! -- False. Amos prophesied in Israel during the reign of King Jeroboam II about the coming downfall of the house of Israel. I suppose one could say he cried out about Iraq rather than in Iraq. See the Book of Amos.
    
11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem. -- Almost true. Babylon was the seat of the Babylonian Empire, the territory of which included what is now Iraq. When the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah (the Kingdom of Israel had ceased to exist during the Assyrian Empire -- see answer #9 above), the soldiers sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. (source: The Oxford Companion to the Bible)
    
12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq! -- True. Daniel was one of the exiled Jews in Babylon. See the Book of Daniel.
    
13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq. (Jesus had been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace.) --True, with a technicality. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not exactly children; although their age isn't given, from the context we can gather they were perhaps in their mid- to late teens, possibly even in their early 20s. (Daniel 1-3) And the fourth person in the furnace (with "the appearance of a god" according to Daniel 3:25) has variously been seen as Jesus (as this author believes) or an angel (as Nebuchadnezzar states in Daniel 3:28).
    
14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon, saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq. -- True. See Daniel 5.
    
15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq. -- True, although the author has gotten his timetable muddled. This statement should have been placed after #11.
    
16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq. -- True. Ezekiel was prophesying both before the Jews were taken as captives to Babylon as well as afterward during the exile itself. See the Book of Ezekiel.
    
17. The Wise Men were from Iraq. -- False. According to the footnotes on Matthew 2 in The Oxford Annotated Bible, the Magi were a learned class in ancient Persia. Persia is now known as Iran.
    
18. Peter preached in Iraq. -- False. None of the apostles went east. Neither did Paul. All preaching and proselytizing was done within the confines of the Roman Empire. Look at a map of the missionary journeys in any study Bible.
    
19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq! -- I can't find the phrase "Empire of Man" anywhere in the Revelation of John. Babylon is mentioned several times, usually in conjunction with the phrase "The Great Prostitute". Babylon in this context refers to Rome, not the Babylon of Biblical times. (Sources: Old faithful, also known as The Oxford Companion to the Bible; and The Disciple Study Manual, 2nd Edition by Richard & Julia Wilke) I could go on and on about the misinterpretation of Revelation by various and sundry (mostly fundamentalist) denominations, but that's neither here nor there, and you don't really want to get me started...
    
20. The nation mentioned in the Bible the most times after Israel is Iraq. -- This might be true, but I have better things to do than count how many times "Iraq" under various names is mentioned in the Bible.
    
21. The word "Mesopotamia" means "between two rivers". -- True. (source: Encyclopedia Brittanica online)
    
22. The name "Iraq" means "deep roots". -- False. According to Wikipedia, there are several suggestions for the origin of the name of Iraq; one dates back to the Sumerian city of Uruk (or Erech). Another suggestion is that Iraq comes from the Aramaic language, meaning "the land along the banks of the rivers." Some suggest that the word was adapted from the Arabic for "well-grounded country". Encyclopedia Brittanica seems to support the second suggestion, although their article states the word is Arabic rather than Aramaic.
    
23. Koran 9:11, or the Eagle (the U.S.) has landed on Iraq. -- The 9th book of the Koran is called "Al-Tawba", usually translated as "Repentance" or "Dispensation". The 11th verse of that book reads: But (even so), if they repent, establish regular prayers, and practise regular charity,- they are your brethren in Faith: (thus) do We explain the Signs in detail, for those who understand. Snopes covers this here.
    
    By the way, it's worth noting that, regardless of the rhetoric issued from the White House over the last four years, the 9/11 Commission itself found no evidence whatsoever linking Saddam Hussein or his government to the terrorist attacks that took place in the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

Oh, and the something good will happen to you at 11:11? That's crap. Hope this helps, and feel free to share. Love you.
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Okay, faithful readers, if I've made any errors of fact, please let me know. If my sister is going to rely on me to do the debunking, I don't want to propagate any further errors. Opinions, however, are yours to keep.