lao tzu

Wait a second here. I thought sacrificial animals had to be clean. Am I wrong?

(Oh, and thanks much for your effort over the weekend.)

As ever, Jesse

judge

Maybe. Presently I just don't see how you understand the original author/s saw this.
I can see why you arrive at some of your conclusions but, to me, you seem to pull this one from nowhere.
Do you have earlier evidence of how people saw the rreelvant passages in genesis or related ones?

judge

OK. Can you explain how you know what the original meaning was for those who wrote the story.
Maybe they were just as crazy as later rabbis?

Dean Anderson

They do - and that is why the J source has him taking seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. Then sacrificing the extra clean ones.

The P source, which keeps maintaining that only Aaronid priests are allowed to do sacrifices, simply has him taking one pair of each animal and not sacrificing any.

Dean Anderson

The main reasons for that conclusion are that:

a) There is nothing in the text to say that they were immortal.

b) Verse 3:22 seems pretty explicit that Yahweh wants the couple out of Eden before they have chance to eat the fruit of life and therefore live forever - thus implying that in their current state they will not live forever. The language is pretty clear, and to read this as some kind of "to stop them from continuing to eat from the tree of life and continuing to be immortal" statement is a big stretch.

c) 3:17 and 3:19 both seem to imply that the state of the couple is transient mortality (and there is no mention of this being a 'new' state).

d) The older Sumerian/Babylonian myth that this is loosely based on (or at the very least derives themes from) also has a mortal in the gods' garden and also features a god who lies to him telling him not to eat the food because it is poisonous - because in reality the food would make him wise and immortal, and the god does not want that.

Magdlyn

Well, I'm not saying anyone was crazy, per se. Just human. Just influenced by their times.

In order to get a feeling for what the Gan Eden story meant, for example, I take into account the rest of the stories in the Bible that refer to the supernatural. Was YHWH all powerful as later theology states? No, he was a tribal war god, a fire god. He could not help his people conquer one group, b/c that group had iron chariots. He had to call for Adam in the Gan, b/c he didnt know where he was.

YHWH was one of a pantheon. As evidenced by the First Commandment: "put no other gods before me." He was in competition with Asherah, as evidenced in the Books of Kings.

Just a careful and thorough study of the OT is the first step. I used the Oxford Annotated Bible, which provides copious notes of a historical and linguistic nature.

Then, study how other gods in the regions were worshiped. Know that the "Bible" was compiled at a late date and redacted and edited heavily (but not completely) by Josiah's priests and others to make it seem as though Jerusalem centered worship was always the norm.

Know that other competing regional gods, ie: the god of Melchizedek; El Shaddai (not god almighty, but literally the breasted goddess); El; the personal god of the prophets; the consort of "Wisdom" (a female); were absorbed by the proponents of YHWH, the god of armies (hosts means armies! there's that war god again), the god of the volcano and the burning bush, a fire god, with his be-weaponed "mighty outstretched arm."

Understand what the trauma of the Babylonian conquest and exile of the Judaean nobility did to the religion of the Hebrews. It forced the priests of the bloody and archaic temple sacrifice to bow to the teachers/redactors/interpretors of the Torah (law) and the quirks of the prophets. It caused their religion to change again from the influence of Babylonian and Persian religions. At the time of the Return, the radical YHWHism of the returnees forced a horrific ethnic cleansing upon Palestine, as evidenced in Ezra, and was revolted against in the protest literature of Ruth, and was mocked in Esther.

Etc.

In other words, I did my homework. For hours a day, for close to a decade.

judge

Thanks for that Dean. Do you have a reference for this text?

I dont' often agree with Augustine, myself, but for me, he still seems to come up with the best answer for this text.

That being that the people in the "garden" were neither mortal (definitely going to die) nor immortal (unable to die), but capable of both.

This distinction is subtle, but it seems , to me, that the author intended to convey something by this. I am open to the idea that this myth might have some message in this subtlty (though what I'm not sure)

Many christians ,today, miss this subtlty, and merely insist Adam was immortal, however I'm not sure one can state this is the historic christian view (or jewish) when an very influential theologian such as Augustine went to the trouble to stae that Adam was not immortal and not mortal either.

Anyway , just my thoughts

judge

So, was there any particular evidence you found that gave you reason to think the later rabbi's misunderstood the meaning in the early portion of genesis WRT to the state of Adam?

Just curious, as I have often wondered about this stuff.

Magdlyn

Thanks for asking. I can't speak for the "later rabbis" as a whole. Rabbis are notorious for disagreeing heartily about meanings of the Tanakh, just as Xtians do.

I also can't speak for any specific rabbi on the "state of Adam." IMO, the evidence points to a naive creation myth like any other culture's naive pre-scientific creation myth, with the First People having this or that supernatural characteristic.

My interest lies in the meaning of the snake in the garden. Who was (s)he and what was (s)he doing there? IMO, she was the voice of the goddess' wisdom, a competitor of YHWH. The Tanakh is one long treatise on the evils of goddess worship.

See the Sumerian tree symbolism, complete with fertilizing cherubim. Do research on snake symbolism, in Exodus, in the NT, in Crete, India and Egypt.

I'm not invested in just how immortal the first man and woman were thought to be. I don't think it's clear. I don't think it's important. I am fond of the subversive gnostic retelling of the story which makes the snake the enlightening hero and YHWH the bumbling villian.

Here it is:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html

lao tzu

I'd like to blame the inconsistencies themselves for confusing me. But no, I managed to get confused all by myself.

J: 7 clean 1 unclean
P: 1 all

Oh well, back to lurking. Thanks again for all your work.

As ever, Jesse