Malachi151

I was reading these articles about origins of the Bible:

http://www.bibleorigins.net/UrukNake...ngHarvest.html

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdenDate...raqHrouda.html

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdensTre...ledgeLife.html

My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion.

Reading about the Sumerian origin myths, I had read the myths myself previously, but not any background or commentary on them, something struck me.

Could not these myths be describing a REAL period in time, when one of the first civilizations came to be, when human slaves were led by a sophisticated ruler who basically created the first civilization and started agriculture?

Could the Sumerian myth be the description of the origins of civilization?

I think that this is indeed possible!

The Sumerian myth describes clothed gods who create naked humans to do their work for them. The gods intentionally keep the people ignorant and their whole purpose in life was to work for the gods.

The Sumerian story of "creation" really appears to be this:

The story of an early slave based civilization, where naked slaves served elite rulers who tried to keep them ignorant, and then eventually these slaves integrated into the civilization.

Genesis is, of course, based on this story, and also retains elements such as God walking the Garden of Eden, which of course makes sense if "God" was a man.

Tammuz

This is an interesting theory, but I find an obstacle: Were slaves used before the birth of civilization? The theory demands that they were.

The Evil One

Presumably these primordial elite clothes-wearing rulers also spent a lot of time wrestling crocodiles in the Euphrates to impress their naked slaves - how else are we to explain the origin of the Tiamat myth?

Honestly, Malachi, what is so unbelievable about the idea that sometimes, people make stuff up?

Malachi151

No doubt they were, but I wouldn't try to take the mythology too strictly in that sense. It could easily be that the details are lost in the mythology, its not as though in real like clothed people would have gone out and just rounded these people up, this probably formed over time, and the mythology was recorded after this civilization had been in place for a while, with no real knowledge of its exact origin.

Malachi151

Everything is not to be taken literally, this is why its called mythologizing. Experience shows, however, that myths, especially these early ones, tend to have origins in reality. Later myths get more and more fictional because they themselves are based on myths. The nonsense grows as time goes on, but much of early mythology has been seen to have a basis in reality, such as for example the basis of Greek mythology in fossils. Flood mythology also, is probably based on the fact that fossilized seashells and fish were seen on mountain tops, which is actually very common in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

spin

One of the strange things that one finds about Semitic culture religions is that the king tends to have priestly relations with the gods, ie they tended to have special relations with gods rather than be gods.


spin

Malachi151

Judaism is a relatively recent religion, compared to Egyptian and Sumerian religion. By this point the mythology had completely transcended its roots and taken on a different meaning to those who believed in it.

That's my point, religion started out as worshiping human rulers, but then this evolved into worshiping some imaginary ruler.

Roger Pearse

Eusebius of Caesarea thought the same. In the Praeparatio Evangelica, IIRC, he makes this point.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

WishboneDawn

I'm not buying that completely. Flood mythologies pop up in the myths of many cultures...They're not all finding seashells on mountaintops. I thinks it's a lot more reasonable that water has similar meanings for people of different cultures like chaos, destruction, rebirth. Meanings that come from common experiences of floods, drownings, whatever. When some of us go on about the truth (as opposed to fact) in myths, that's more what we're reffering to. How they can point to common experiences or beliefs that a culture is trying to express.

I think probably you're partly right and certain things in Genesis reflect the realities of the people who told those stories. The tribalism, the power of names and of markings, the structure of the families and such.

As for, "My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion," I think...Maybe in part with some cultures. I think also is could have come about to express 'spiritual' feelings that most of us, believers or not, often have, to bind communities, to question and explain the unknown...Lots of other reasons in the mix.

Anyhow, I have to say I like your threads lately. Lots of neat ideas to explore and discuss.

Malachi151

You might be surprised. Adrienne Mayor has done a lot of work on various mythologies and she has written about the Native American flood mythologies, which both she, AND the Native Americans, say are based on the fossils and natural effects that their ancestors observed.

There is a lot of documentation of ancient people talking about the fact that they found sea shells in the mountains, and the Egyptians actually collected fossils of fish from mountains and had them in their temples.

The Greek materialists around the 6th century BCE discussed the fact that finding sea shells and "impressions of fish in the rocks" in the mountains must mean that the sea had risen to that level at some time in the past.

It was widely believed in the Mediterranean that the world had been flooded, or that the world was covered in sea, at some point in the past because of this, it was believed by everyone, both the religious and the materialists.

I don't discount that other things could have added to this and that other elements were a part of crafting the "mythology", i.e. the "spiritual" aspects of the story, cleansing, etc., but I think that these were explanations for observed phenomenon.

We see sea shells and fish in the mountains, why?

Well, that was from when God got angry and cleaned the world of its previous evil people... etc.