Doctor X

Amlodhi:

Perhaps. I do not know how much creators of the various myths knew about or cared about astronomy. For example, the "bull" in Exodus appears as an attack on Aaron. It may just be a late addition by the possibly Mosaic derived writer to slap the Aaronid priesthood.

Nevertheless, I do believe myth involves a process of taking old things and creating new things--reinterpreting as one goes along depending on needs.

--J.D.

Weltall

And what exactly does that mean? And how is pointing out what I did being 'PC'? It's not like Genesis is subtle about it or anything...

Boro Nut

You make a number of seemingly very good points, but I'm afraid you have forgotten the one fundamental very important overriding thing that makes a nonsense of your whole argument. Don't feel stupid though. I've forgotten it as well.

Boro Nut

Dylan

This is also talked about in Daniel Quinn's book ishmael http://www.ishmael.org

Boro Nut

It's a bit like it, except for the tiny detail that it's nothing like it at all. If god gave us a choice between eternal grovelling in heaven and being grounded in your room till we were 18, not many people would be frightened into choosing heaven would they? Also, your room would probably be too small in comparison to hell. We would probably need your brother's room as well.

Boro Nut

I may be overreacting. Maybe there's something you are not telling us about the state of your room.

fr8trainman

Kingdomovehearts wrote: "and my last question is - why was ALL sin kept in a fruit?"

I suspect taste, flavor and texture had something to do with it.

Sinlessness is also flavourless and rather pasty, one could gather.

Which brings up a whole new set of questions...if sin tastes like fruit, is eating fruit a sin? Did god eat fruit, what was god's favourite fruit, ad infinitum....

~~Fr8trainman

Kingdomovehearts

It's an analogy.

Doctor X

Hell is "aquiring" my room by Eminent Domain . . . something about needing "another Circle" or something. . . .

--J.D.

Dean Anderson

And once we have aquired it (and you in it), we will pipe in Country and Western muzak and put The Princess Bride to play on a continuous loop for your enjoyment...

capnkirk

During the Exile, the Jews set about purifying their religion; they attempted to return their laws and cultic practices to their Mosaic originals. This new-found concern with cultic purity and the Mosaic laws combined with the subsequent reestablishment of Judah as a theological state produced a different society. In the Persian period, Hebrew society was almost solely concerned with religious matters; foreign religions were not tolerated as they had been before. Non-Jews were persecuted, and foreign religions expelled. During the Persian period and later, Judah was the state where Yahweh and only Yahweh was worshipped.

The Jews had learned many things from the Persians and actively included Persian elements in their religion. While the reformers were busy trying to purify the Hebrew religion, the Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, crept into it among the common people. Why this happened is anyone's guess, but Zoroastrianism did offer a world view that both explained and mollified tragedies such as the Exile. It seems that the Hebrews adopted some of this world view in the face of the profound disasters they had weathered.

Zoroastrianism, which had been founded in the seventh century BCE by a Persian prophet name Zarathustra (Zoroaster is his Greek name), was a dualistic, eschatological, and apocalyptic religion. The universe is divided into two distinct and independent spheres. One, which is light and good, is ruled by a deity who is the principle of light and good; the other, dark and evil, is ruled by a deity who is the principle of dark and evil. The whole of human and cosmic history is an epic struggle between these two independent deities; at the end of time, a final battle between these two deities and all those allied on one side or the other, would permanently decide the outcome of this struggle. The good deity, Ahura-Mazda, would win this final, apocalyptic battle, and all the gods and humans on the side of good would enjoy eternal bliss.

Absolutely none of these elements were present in Hebrew religion before the Exile. The world was governed solely by Yahweh; evil in the world was solely the product of human actions—there is no principle of evil among the Hebrews before the Exile. The afterlife is simply a House of Dust called Sheol in which the soul lasts for only a brief time. There is no talk or conception of an end of time or history, or of a world beyond this one. After the Exile, however, popular religion among the Judeans and the Jews of the Diaspora include several innovations:

Dualism: After the Exile, the Hebrews adopt a concept of a more or less dualistic universe, in which all good and right comes from Yahweh, while all evil arises from a powerful principle of evil.

Eschatology and Apocalypticism: Popular Jewish religion begins to form an elaborate theology of the end of time, in which a deliverer would defeat once and for all the forces of evil and unrighteousness.

Messianism: Concurrent with the new eschatology, there is much talk of a deliverer who is called messiah, or anointed one. In Hebrew culture, only the head priest and the king were anointed, so this messiah often combined the functions of both religious and military leader.

Otherworldliness: Popular Judaism adopts an elaborate afterlife. Since justice does not seem to occur in this world, it is only logical that it will occur in another world. The afterlife becomes the place where good is rewarded and evil eternally punished.

Since it can be unambiguously demonstrated that none of the foregoing innovations existed in Judaism prior to the Babylonian Exile, the presence of a 'principle of evil' in the story of Adam and Eve means that the story either did not exist prior to that time, or was completely recomposed by the Hebrew scribes during/after the Exile. There is even evidence that it was written to combat the assimilation of Jews into the cult of Ishtar in Babylon. See WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN by Merlin Stone, Dorset Press, 1976 for a detailed study.