lulay

HI....I would be interested to know how members here understand this Hebrew creation myth.
Personally this story with its symbols of a garden, tree, serpent in atree etc fascinated me as a kid, and still has that magnetism for me. I have thus explored about it.....but before i tell you what i have learned from various researches around it i'd be curious to hear your views about this old story?

Bold

Eating the fruit could be taken to refer to humanity evolving into conscious moral agents. There is of course then no 'choice' to eat the fruit - it just happened. And it was not wrong to eat the fruit - no acts committed without knowledge of good and evil can be considered right or wrong.

I like to think of the contrast between the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of eternal life, as being about consequentialism. Suppose a different humanity had eaten instead from the tree of eternal life - time would have no meaning to such a humanity (this would possibly be quite a dull and death-like state). In the constrasting state, humans have a sense of future and past, and by looking at consequences in the future we see what makes an act right or wrong.

Amoral animals can live in the moment, and humans in states of religious ecstacy also have a sense of eternity, and of freedom from responsibility for their actions.

Amlodhi

Hi lulay,

I also have been intrigued with this and other religious stories and myths as part of a general interest in the origins and evolution of religious thought and symbolism. It is my current opinion that the Genesis account is a combination of both the syncretism and the misunderstanding of known folklore. As various facets of this folklore were accumulated (though misunderstood), it was gradually incorporated into the theological paradigms prevalent within the Hebrew culture.

There are for instance, several parallel concepts found in the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian writings (and whether one thinks that the Hebrews co-opted these accounts, or, that both have their origins in still older accounts, is ultimately irrelevant to this issue).

Ninti, also known as Ninmah and Mami (among other appellations), is noted for her activities in the creation of man. This parallel to the "Eve" of Genesis is rendered unmistakable by the fact that "ti" is also the Sumerian word for "rib". Thus, not only is Ninmah (Mami) the "mother of all living", she is also, as Ninti, the "lady of the rib", or (from the context), the goddess born to alleviate the pain of the rib.

Also, the ancient accounts of both Adapa (or, Adamu) and Gilgamesh concern "man's squandered opportunity for gaining immortality". *

Of Adapa we are told: Wide understanding he (the god Ea) had perfected for him to comprehend the designs of the earth. To Adapa, Ea had given wisdom; eternal life he had not given him.

Later, when Adapa is called before Anu (the king) in heaven, Ea informs him that he will be offered the bread and water of death and commands him not to eat or drink of it. Then, in heaven, the bread and water that is offered to Adapa is instead called the bread and water of life; but Adapa refuses to eat or drink of it. At which Anu laughs and asks Adapa why he did not eat and drink of the bread and water of life, saying further: "Now thou shalt not have eternal life". To which Adapa replies, "Ea, my master, commanded me: "Thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not drink". *

Gilgamesh is informed of a life rejuvenating plant by Utnapishtim (the Babylonian "Noah"). He succeeds in finding this plant but before he takes the opportunity to eat it, it is stolen away from him by a serpent.

Like much of ancient mythology, the purpose of the Genesis account was to explain various observations; where did man come from, why does man die, why does man seem to possess knowledge (both good and evil) while the lower animals do not, and etc. Considering that the answers to these questions were an actual unknown, the Hebrews were simply following common practice in taking the sum of known folklore, and conflating this into their version of Genesis. Their version being, again, the result of a gradual process of syncretizing later accumulations of folklore into the theological paradigms that existed within the Hebrew culture at the given time.


However, another interesting facet of this is the question of how this later adapted lore arose in the first place. In this, I have come to agree with Aristotle:

IOW, the gods were originally stars (& planets). Scattered throughout the ancient lore are a great many allusions and symbolic phrases that only make sense in connection with the workings of the heavenly sphere. Many of these allusions are repeated over and over in different tales and in different guises. But, while the framework may vary, the important identification points remain.

Thus, in the words of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend:

Among these many allusions and symbols are included such concepts as, the earth being created/destroyed, serpents, bulls (of heaven, as in Gilgamesh), and the symbology of various trees, pins and poles causing the undoing of mankind, or becoming unhinged, or being pulled out from the center or navel of the earth.

And just as the Hebrews restructured the context of ancient (and mostly misunderstood) lore by formatting it into a package more familiar to their culture, so have the original tales themselves been repackaged:


* Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, James B. Pritchard, ed.; Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

** Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Lambda (1074,b)

*** Hamlet's Mill, Giorgio de Santillana & Hertha von Dechend, David R. Godine, pub.; Jaffrey, New Hampshire.



Amlodhi

Amaleq13

Welcome to IIDB, in general, and BC&H specifically!

You can check some older threads on the subject here and here.

lulay

Hey All....some interesting replies....ok, here's my thoughts on this myth

The '2" Trees in the Garden really refer to one tree (chekout J.Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross)
The Fruit of this Tree is hallucinogenic, the Serpent represents the Goddess, as well as all other poetic metaphorical- associations to do with the eternal renewing of life, through death, and so on

The BONES are that the writeres are deliberately demonizing the symbols they have appropriated.....Whereas in pre-patriarchal mythology, Tree, Goddess, and her Lover, and Serpent, and Garden, etc had been benevolent, these masculine elect subvert these age old symbols and make them evil

so, you could call it an early example of the drug war on hallucinogenic inspired ecstatic orgiastic ritual

'lesss you be like gods"? "have your eyes opened"?

th Tree is the interelating symbol for the underworld earth and upper world. the patriarchs ABSTRACT the 'lower' from the 'upper' as respectively 'bad' and 'good'

Now their male "God" is transcendent, and one cannot now 'become the god, orf Nature--be possessed by the god/Have Direct experience. this is called 'original sin"--it is disobeying the authority, ie., "God", ie., the male elect who wrote the plagarized version of the Goddess Gardem myth, where all were welcome to partake of the Fruit, and the Serpent was a powerful benign gaurdian of the Tree

we are STILL now forbidden this freedom

judge

Hey Amlodhi
:wave:
Just ordered this book. Can you explain the title?
Will be back to discuss it at some stage, but first have to wait for it to be shipped to the antipodes (downunder that is)

Amlodhi

Hi judge,

Just as young Arthur's extraction of Excalibur is a reformatting of tales describing the uprooting of world trees, poles, or pillars; Shakespeare's Hamlet is a further reformatting of an ancient and oft told tale. Hamlet is no other than the Icelandic Amlodhi; also known as Amleth (note the anagram), Amlethus or Amlaghe.

In brief, the story always revolves around a protagonist whose destiny is to avenge the murder of his father by a usurping king (often an uncle) and restore the rightful kingship. Other salient points most often included are: that the youth must either be hidden away or, he must feign a (cryptic sort) of dementia for his protection until he reaches adulthood, some form of enigmatic "fire sticks", and often, his own tragic demise.

Among many other recensions, this tale is also told in the Egyptian's Horus, hinted at in the Hebrew's Moses, and incorporated into the legends of Alexander.

* Hamlet's Mill, ibid., from the introduction.

** Skaldskaparmal, Snorri Sturlson, quoting Snaebjorn, Gollanz trans.


We'd better leave it here with this very brief synopsis so as not to totally derail lulay's thread. It is (in a round-about way) relevant to the Genesis myth, but probably still better suited to a later thread after you have read the book.

I have little doubt that you will find this book fascinating. However, if it should happen that you don't, and since I recommended it to you, I will gladly purchase your copy + S&H, as my old copy is beginning to fall into pieces and I will soon be looking for a new one.


Always good to hear from you, judge, and I look forward to a future discussion with you on this subject.

Amlodhi