I only want to get to the truth here. I DO CARE. Shouldn't everyone? I mean, if Jesus is who He claimed to be, isn't that important?
I am well aware of the stories of Gilgamesh. The Sumerians called Noah Zuisudra, the Babylonians Utnaphishtim. These accounts show signs of elaborations indicating a corruption of the original account.
They have the rain lasting only seven days, and subsiding in one. Both of these are grossly inadequte to do the job the texts claim they did. Also, the pagan accounts end up with the hero being granted immortality. The bible moves on to speak of Noah getting drunk and cursing his grandson. Which one is embellished and which one tells the truth warts and all? I think Genesis is the obvious choice.
As far as the part about going beyond 800 BC you find Yaweh in consort with Astheroth, I think you are not going back far enough. Abraham, the first Jew, was about 10 centuries before that. What you refer to is a LATER CORRUPTION of the true faith Abraham passed down to his posterity. The Bible even records that the people tried to mix Yaweh worship with the worship of other gods, so your point is actually a confirmation of the historical accuracy of the bibical account. The way you put it implied Yaweh started as head of a pantheon and slowley became the sole deity. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Hammaraubi claimed credit himself fo rhis code. THre may be a picture of him going up the mountain on the steele, but in the writing of the steele itself he takes credit. Very different from the Torah, where Moses is quoting God.
The Sumerians predated the OT by 1000 years so I think it unlikely that they corrupted the Noah story. Perhaps it was the other way around.
My friend, if you have a mind that accepts the Flood story as literal truth we have little to talk about.