Bingo the Clown-O

My 'mystery source' is the Baal Epic. El was the husband of Asherah and the original god of Israel. The motif of dividing up humanity into nations - among 70 recipients, is what is barrowed. The number of the nations in Genesis 10 adds up to seventy.

I’m sure the author of Genesis 10 had a lot on his mind; but in the end he knew he had to cough up exactly 70 recipients and 70 nations.

Bingo the Clown-O

Close enough.

Sorry but I can’t find the damned George McGovern voodoo doll. I think I let the dog chew on it – she must have hid it somewhere.

Would you settle for one slightly-used, Andy Griffith voodoo doll?

outhouse

probably a lot was lost in compilations, and then many of he later redactions after the switch to monotheism

Bingo the Clown-O

Sure. Either lost – or just tossed.

The specific names of some of the grandsons probably have some significance - they probably come from other folklore. But at least a few names are certainly just bullshit names used to ‘up’ the head count.

sotto voce

This number represented and therefore represents completeness, so the following Babel allegory depicts all of humanity. The desire to be equal to deity, represented by the building of a tower that would have its 'head in the heavens', is repetition of the reason for expulsion from Eden, and not dissimilar from the reason for the flood that followed, rebellion that was signified by abuse of fellow humans. The attempt to achieve this equality resulted in dispersal, not unlike expulsion from Eden.

The Eden allegory represents personal, psychological disturbance of the conscience that separates all humanity from deity. The global flood, though seemingly historic, represents the future disaster that is to meet all human rebels; not those in the ark, that may represent the atonement of the messiah. The dispersal from Babel represents the consequence of pride, separation of person from person, with antipathy between them, pride being the root cause. This separation can be overcome through the descendants of Abraham, who will include the messiah, whose example will be one of humility.

outhouse

ya I agree whith all that

I think much was lost in oral tradition

and of course, we are talking about a book compiled from multiple cultures within judaism


basically its cross cultural mythology and I would expect them to toss info as they developped their own identity

Bingo the Clown-O

Gosh, I guess no one can pull the wool over your eyes. :frown:




Get a clue: Not "knowingly lying". Just being creative.

- Like that Eagles song where the sing, “It's a girl my Lord in a flat-bed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me.”

Guess what? There was no girl in a flat-bed Ford.

We can be certain.

We can be certain that there was no “girl in a flat-bed Ford” because we know that Jackson Browne wrote most of the lyrics except for the girl-in-the-flat-bed-Ford line.

Glenn Frey was just making shit up. He pulled “girl in a flat-bed Ford” out of his ass. He even said so.

And even if we didn’t have Jackson Browne or Glenn Frey around to tell us who wrote what – we could still tell that it was written by a different writer because it stands out like a sore thumb when taken into context with the surrounding lyrics.

Now if there ever was some girl in a flat bed Ford in Winslow, Arizona, then it is purely a coincidence.



Now that you understand how this shit works please adjust your world-view accordingly.

Bingo the Clown-O

This clown believes (deep in his heart / he just ‘knows’ it) that the Babel story is a combination of two earlier stories that have been combined together. In one story, the ‘project’ was building a city to keep everyone together in one place; in the other the ‘project’ was building a tower in order to ascend to heaven and bring fame to themselves.

Lookie:

The City Recension (Gen. 11:1, 4a, b, 6a, b, 7, 8, 9)
And it happened the whole world had one language and one vocabulary. And they said, “Come, let us build a city, lest we be scattered over the face of the earth.” And Yahweh said, “See, they are one people and they have all one language. Come, we will go down and confuse their language there, so that no one understands the language of his neighbor!” And so Yahweh scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they left off building the city. For this reason its name is called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of the whole world, and from there Yahweh scattered them over the whole earth.

The Tower Recension (Gen. 11:2, 4c, b, 3a, b, 5, 6a, c)
And as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to each other: “Come, let us make a name for ourselves and build a tower with its summit touching the heavens. Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly!” And so they used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then Yahweh came down to look at the tower that the sons of men had built. And Yahweh said: “This is only the beginning of what they will do. Henceforth nothing will be impossible for them in what they propose to do.” And so Yahweh sent a wind against the tower and threw it to the ground. That is why the land is called Shinar because it was there the tower was overthrown.

See?

The stories actually make much more sense this way.

Don’t they?

Bingo the Clown-O

Exodus 1:5 is another piece of the puzzle.

All the people who were directly descended from Jacob numbered seventy.

That idea obviously developed after the Baal Epic. And assuming a polytheism>to> monotheism trajectory - after Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82.

But how does it fit in with Genesis 10?

Does it pre-date it or post-date it?

Or maybe that idea was held concurrently by a different author with a different mindset.

steve_bnk

'...I'm becoming increasingly aware of the extent that Skeptics believe that the writers of the bible were knowingly lying. Makes me skeptical of the skeptics...'

Well, skeptical of the sketics is a good start, take nOTHING at face value, even ancient texts of dubious orighins and authorship.


I am so sketical I do not believe the Sun will come upo until it actually does. :Cheeky: