C_Mucius_Scaevola

Not Adam and Eve, just Adam (Eve being made from a rib of Adam's), but this raises the question: why dust at all? Supposedly Yahweh (or El, or whatever name he was using at the time) had just created the universe ex nihilo, and had filled the Earth with all kinds of creatures, all without using one tiny scrap of pre-existing material. So why did he need to use dust to make Adam, instead of just speaking him into existence?

Steve Weiss

You could be right, but man was supposed to be created in the deity's image from dust, and Eve from a rib. When do we call a spade a spade, and when do we think that god is pulling our leg? There were equally bizarre ideas about science until the last 100-150 years, and there is a belief in an after-life in a heaven. Also, poetic license? Don't think so.

Steve Weiss

Eve may have been made from a rib, but she also turned to dust at death, did she not? Or does she become a pile of ribs? You might also Google Lilith who was also made from dust, just like Adam. She didn't work out, so god gave it a second go with Eve so that Adam wouldn't lose his mind. You see Lilith was a superbitch.

Steve Weiss

By the way, if Adam were made from dust, his rib must also have been made from dust, and so the extra rib that he theoretically gave to Eve is composed of dust. It just looked like a rib.

C_Mucius_Scaevola

Yes, I know the Lilith story, and I understand that Eve was made of dust-rib, and unto rib-dust she must return, but that still doesn't tell me why an omnipotent being could speak into being the whole vastness of everything out of nothing, but six days later needed some dust to make a tiny, tiny human creature. It just doesnt make sense, even in a nonsensical book like Genesis.

Keith&Co.

Unless we consider God to have been programming the universe...

Adam's code worked. Lilith's code was corrupted. God just cut-and-pasted key algorythm's from Adam to make Woman.

Steve Weiss

Of course it doesn't make sense. None of it does. It's fiction. Low grade entertainment for Iron Age/Bronze Age primitives with the art of self-promotion. Get this. The all-powerful, infinite one gets pooped after six days of creating and has to take a day off!! Now that must be the start of unions and the forty hour work week. Why god chose this rock to populate with his creatures from all of the possible choices in the universe is also unexplained. And furthermore this deity dude looks like us or we like him. So is this deity of both sexes? Does he have a dick, a pussy or both? How people can take this nonsense seriously is light-years beyond me.

outhouse

Your questions tell me your not grasping the material. Or I'm not grasping at what you really want out of this thread.

There were 4, possibly 5 deities in Israelites infancy. Not many compared to most.

They were viewed as a family of deities El the father, Asherah his wife/consort, Yahweh and Baal were sons.

The two primary deities were El and Yawheh, until all El's attributes were given to Yahweh including his wife Asherah [roughly 800 BC]


It never started out monotheistic.

The scripture didn't start out monotheistic



The best advise I can give is to understand Judaism, is to state it started multicultural, and remained wide and diverse until Judaism rebuilt itself after the fall of the temple.

just because Monotheism "started" around 622 BC doesn't mean it took instant hold, despite what was redacted into the OT.


The scripture can be confusing because its a known compilation and redaction from multiple cultures, from multiple time periods.


Does allegory and metaphor elude you?


Dust to dust.

Steve Weiss

Dust is a metaphor for what? How can you be sure that your interpretation of the writings of the OT is the correct one? Which dust was allegorical, the original human dust or the end of life dust? If the know-it-all deity had some grasp of science shouldn't he have told us what human beings are really made of and how they developed from lower forms of animals? What good is the OT in any case?

So, who was it that allegedly gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and did Judaism only became monotheistic after the fall of the Temple in the first century AD? No wonder the Christians got confused and came up with the Trinity.

outhouse

We come from the Earth by their belief, this was also a theme present in Mesopotamia, as Adamu was created from the Earth.

Jews did not place their dead in a ossuary at this time. They were buried.

You know, back in the earth :constern01:

Is it that difficult for you?


I'm not saying my translation is right. I'm just saying your not only overthinking this, but seem very confused about the scripture.


What is this?

Don't over analyze it, has a literal interpretation ever been correct? You know better then this.


Your assuming to much.

Its sort of off the deep end here bud.

Deity's don't exist, and they don't talk to people explaining biology that was only learned 2000 years later.

Deity's are created in myth and mirror the primitive people who created it.


Its one of the best epic books ever written, that you will have to deal with.


It is a epic that has beauty, poems, songs, mythology, stories, legends, fiction, allegory, metaphor and parables and more.

There was a good youtube clip I viewed once. A young girl was ripping pages out of the book, saying, dad, dad, look at all these errors where the book is factually wrong. The dad looks in her eyes and states, honey. "You don't fix the book, it fixes you".


And despite the people who would pervert it using a literal interpretation starting wars and crusades for their own purpose, it has helped countless lives and gave them a light at the end of the tunnel. For the poor and meek and oppressed it is a light, and often all they have. It is a guide for ignorant who are forced to eat dirt to quiet their bellies.

I stated in the beginning its biggest problem is those who do not interpret it correctly. Don't be one of those.


No one gave Moses anything. Moses doesn't exist. He was a literary creation.

There was never ten commandments. These laws mirror Egyptian and Mesopotamian laws that were in existence before the Israelite culture formed from displaced Semetic people that migrated from each culture.



No

After 622 BC king Josiah instituted monotheism to Yahweh but it took hundreds of years to take.

Some state polytheism lasted up until 200 BCE ish in Judaism despite the redaction of collections of literature.


That's what happens when you create another deity, but want to stay monotheistic.

Mythology and reality clash.