I saw the post of the bible being read from the Christian perspective so wanted to give a reading with a different perspective. The Vidoes in this series get better as they go on but all the info and commentary is pretty interesting.
I like this video series since they use humor and common sense while reading the bible. There is a lot of crazy things that go on that most Christians do not know about or are glossed over or distorted by their church leaders. I think there is 141 videos in the series they read the bible cover to cover, old and new Testaments.
Interesting that someone changes the filament to vault to describe the separation of ground water from sky water. Why the name change? I was always told the words in the bible could not be altered as the are the words of God. Anyone have insight to that?
Since i finally decided to learn how to post after who knows how many years lurking here I hope to post a new one of these each day. It will be a continuous reading of the bible.
Lol not me, I'm still stuck on why a global flood that covered the earth to a depth greater than the highest mountains a mere 10,000(?) years ago left no geologic evidence.
And no evidence of the Exodus either ... surely the Egyptians would have written about it. Not to mention that many people would have left evidence in the desert.
Lol not me, I'm still stuck on why a global flood that covered the earth to a depth greater than the highest mountains a mere 10,000(?) years ago left no geologic evidence.
Where did that flood water drain away to? It couldn't evaporate because the atmosphere was obviously saturated and the earth is a closed hydrologic system.
Lol not me, I'm still stuck on why a global flood that covered the earth to a depth greater than the highest mountains a mere 10,000(?) years ago left no geologic evidence.
One of the best arguments I've heard defending those sorts of things is that the Bible is not meant to be taken literally-- its all symbolic. (Most people won't accrpt that explanation).
Apparently God can't just make water, so not sure if he could just disappear it either. Evidence God can't create water out of thin air?
"2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.Jesus’ motherwas there,2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Woman, why do you involve me?”Jesus replied.“My hourhas not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing,each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them,“Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so,9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” John 2:1-10
Notice how Jesus had to have the servants go out and fill the jars with water? Apparently he can turn water to wine but he can't simply magically fill the jars with wine creating liquid out of thin air. And the water Moses brings forth from the rock, well he had to strike a wellspring head with his staff, it didn't just magically fill all their water jars and water skins. It must be like how Jesus supposedly healed the sick, raised the dead, cured the blind, but there's no record of him miraculously regrowing a limb for someone. I guess he needs something to work with.
So in regards to the flood, besides being an extremely inefficient way to wipe out humans and supposedly wiped out millions of animals species that couldn't fit on the ark, the water volume problem plagues the flood myth worse than locusts of Egypt. Where did it all come from to cover the highest mountains? And where did it go? How would that amount of water evaporate or drain to somewhere (where?) in just under a year? The claim is that from day 40 when the rain stopped, it was another 330 days before the earth was dry. That seems awfully fast to me.
Any input on the Adam and Eve effort to populate the earth is a nod to God endorsed incest....Happens again later after the Great Flood but we will get to that. Think the gene pool has to be bigger to ensure successful proliferation of the species.
Think the gene pool has to be bigger to ensure successful proliferation of the species.
Oh, it absolutely does. The Native American population is estimated to have started with just 250 people ... I think around 80 breeding pairs is considered the minimum for a healthy population. But don't forget, the fallen angels came down and raped Adam and Eve's descendents, so that added diversity to the gene pool. Maybe not the right kind of diversity, since their offspring were so terrible that God sent the flood to kill them all.
Whether or not you think the bible is from god, or a work of man, there is a reason that Genisis is written in two parts. From the Jewish perspective, the first part is not meant to be read as literal. They are parables. The second part is where the real meat and potatoes takes place.
There are those who think the bible is a collection of allegories and those who think it's all literal. Theists can't even agree on the veracity of the bible.
One thing that most everyone agrees on is that most everyone does not agree on how to interpret the Bible.
The Jewish perspective, as noted by Perrie, is probably one or the more cohesive religions with regard to interpretation. Muslims have their various sects and denominations therein so even under the strict rules of Islam the splintering seems to be impossible to stop. Christian interpretation, however, has long since spun out of control with its many sects and a breathtaking variety of denominations. Biblical consensus strikes me as an oxymoron.
I am aware of that, but what I am trying to focus in on, is a lot of the confusion that arises, is because the original text, call it the Old Testament or the Torah, is very misunderstood by most Christians. For debate sake, I will not address if I feel this is a book of man or god, but rather how to read it.
I found it interesting that most Christians take the story of Adam and, Eve as if it is part of the first chapter, when it isn't but, in the first chapter it clearly speaks of the creation MEN and, WOMEN in one of the verses.
You make a great point. In the beginning, god does make men and women.. not Adam and Eve. That is exactly why the story of Adam and Eve is treated as a parable. A lesson in human behavior. Also, clearly sets up a few precedents:
God is the boss.
Don't screw around with the boss' rules
If you don't follow his rules, really bad things happen to you
Women will lead you astray, therefore, men don't listen to them
There is evil in our presence
A narrative for why women get punished worse with painful childbirth. Of course, that makes no sense since many animals have painful childbirth and they didn't break god's rules.. but details, details...
A narrative for why women get punished worse with painful childbirth. Of course, that makes no sense since many animals have painful childbirth and they didn't break god's rules.. but details, details...
I think that right there is a good reason not to believe in a God. I was thinking about this as I was watching a big cat give birth on Face Book. She was obviously in pain and I thought to myself....why do animals suffer with childbirth pain? They didn't thumb their noses at God
Muslims have their various sects and denominations therein so even under the strict rules of Islam the splintering seems to be impossible to stop
I'm not sure if this is true of all Muslims-- there may be some small sects that think differently. But from everything I've read, to be a Muslim you have to believe that the Koran is the literal word of God. Not one word has been changed. Its a key element of that faith.
Any input on the Adam and Eve effort to populate the earth is a nod to God endorsed incest...
Just wanted to point out that not only would their kids have had to be incestuous for the tale to be true, it says God took Adams rib to make Eve, so she's effectively, DNA-wise, a female clone of Adam that he has to impregnate to create the first children... Adam would have been the first Asexual reproducing human. So if the tale of Adam and Eve was based on some ancient flatworm ancestor self-reproducing then maybe Genesis is on to something...
This is also interesting to me, the correlation to this story told my Moses after the supposed Israelite Exodus. Now Moses could read and write and had been taught the ancient histories of the world as Egyptians believed them since he was raised as a prince of Egypt if the story is to be believed. He would have learned the following tale for sure...
"In the beginning there was nothing (Nun). A mound of earth rose from Nun and upon it Atum created himself . He spat Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture) from his mouth. Atum's two offspring became separated from him and lost in the dark nothingness, so Atum sent his "Eye" to look for them (a precursor to the "Eye of Ra", an epithet given to many deities at different times). When they were found, he named Shu as "life" and Tefnut as "order" and entwined them together.
Atum became tired and wanted a place to rest, so he kissed his daugther Tefnut, and created the first mound (Iunu) to rise from the waters of Nun. Shu and Tefnut gave birth to the earth (Geb) and the sky (Nut) who in turn give birth to Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys and Horus the elder. In later versions of the myth, Atum produces Shu and Tefnut by masturbation and splits up Geb and Nut because he is jealous of their constant copulation."
" Many Pharaohs used the title "Son of Atum" long after the power base moved from Iunu. Atum's close relationship to the king is seen in many cultic rituals, and in the coronation rites. A papyrus dating to the Late period shows that the god was of central importance to the New Year's festival in which the king's role was reconfirmed. From New Kingdom onwards, he often made an appearance inscribing royal names on the leaves of the sacred ished tree, and in some Lower Egyptian inscriptions Atum is shown crowning the Pharaoh (for example the shrine of Ramesses II in Pithom)."
Also of note, Atums son Set murders his brother Osiris. Where have I heard a tale like that before?
"Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother Osiris ."
The Egyptian myths are awfully close to the same stories in the Bible. Moses was a plagiarizer?
He was raised as an Egyptian, taught to read and write by Egyptian tutors, schooled heavily in Egyptian mythology and their own origin stories that put the Egyptian people at the center of the story and claiming decadency from Atum. Many Pharaohs used the title "Son of Atum" to make this distinction and claim a proud lineage back to creation itself.
Then Moses writes a tale that does almost the exact same thing for his new family once he finds out he's not Egyptian but an Israelite.
If you read Genesis 5 you see the lineage Moses creates to tie the Israelites back to Adam and to creation itself. Genesis 5 gives us Adam to Noah then Genesis 9, 10 and 11 list the lineage from Noah to Abram (Abraham) who all the Israelites in Egypt considered their forefather.
"When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth." Genesis 5:3
Atum had a son named Set. Coincidence? I think not.
After reading both histories several times, it is my opinion that the story Moses writes while in the wilderness was intended to keep a large group of people together and keep them from splintering into nomadic families. I think Moses believed he needed to unite them under a single identity and so he took what he knew of Egyptian mythology and crafted a new narrative that replaced the Egyptians in the story with the Israelites and converted many of the names into Hebrew spellings or pronunciations.
This new origin story Moses came up with held the Israelites together as a nation capable of seizing land and resources, which is what they eventually did after being told their God had given them this new land flowing with milk and honey which made it okay for them to march in and capture cities turning any inhabitants they didn't kill into slaves, interestingly something they had supposedly just escaped from themselves just 40 years prior.
It all makes sense and there's nothing mystical or divine about it
Exactly, it was basically a political decision, one that had been made by just about every other nation state at the time, each one having their own origin stories linking them to an ancient past, giving them a unifying identity and purpose based on some divine authorization for their rule. Moses needed to keep what may have been somewhere between 300,000 and 1 million Israelites, if the stories are to be believed, together in order to build a nation. The entire story, from Adam to Abraham, was written down hundreds if not thousands of years after the supposed incidents by an ex-Egyptian Prince who claimed divine inspiration. I just believe that "divine inspiration" came from Egyptian mythology as Moses had been taught, not something that was coming to him new while in the wilderness.
"In the beginning there was nothing (Nun)." "Atum" "created the first mound (Iunu) to rise from the waters of Nun."
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
The Egyptians had a long history of lineage they claimed going back to their supposed progenitor and consider themselves "Sons of Atum".
Moses write a long history and lineage claiming the Israelite people go back to their supposed progenitor Adam and considered themselves "Sons of Adam". The name Eve meant in Hebrew "living being" while in Egyptian the name Shu meant "life" or "living".
Set murders his brother out of jealousy and is then known as the God of violence, chaos, desert storms and disorder.
Cain murders his brother out of jealous and is then known as cursed by God for his violence.
I'm not saying Genesis was a direct rip off of Egyptian mythology, I'm just saying it's my opinion that Egyptian mythology heavily influenced Moses writing.
And a few others. The idea of a virgin birth plus a dying and rising savior is an ancient schtick.
The Greek god of wine, Dionysus or Bacchus, also called Iacchus, has been depicted as having been born of a virgin mother on December 25th; performing miracles such as changing water into wine; appearing surrounded by or one of 12 figures; bearing epithets such as "Father" and "Savior"; dying; resurrecting after three days; and ascending into heaven.
.
Tammuz was Nimrod reborn - alias, his son. His wife and mother was Rhea (Semiramis). Egyptian and Babylonian antiquities recognize his mother as Semiramis, and his birthday is celebrated on 25th December. Semiramis was depicted as a virgin Madonna holding the "Christ" child.
Tammuz predates the Jesus myth by more than 1500-2000 years......
The Egyptian myths are awfully close to the same stories in the Bible. Moses was a plagiarizer?
Its possible I suppose.
However, some times two different people or groups develop the same thing at the same time without plagiarizing them-- that is to say, develop the same concept without knowing of the other groups's work. Actually that occasionally happens with scientific inventions-- two or more scientists invent/discover the same thing-- at pretty much the same time. Without knowing of the others work. (Usually only one scientist or group is given credit-- for a variety of reasons-- but sometimes others have done the same thing at about the same time). Some people refer to this as "an idea who time has come".
(Sometimes also referred to as the "Tipping Point Theory" "the Theory of Multiple Discovery",and "The Hundredth Monkey (this last one has been disproven)., "Morphogenetic Fields", etc. IIRC, Also relevant is the story of what happened when Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. Rupert Sheldrake is a scientist who studied this phenomenon.
Tammuz predates the Jesus myth by more than 1500-2000 years...
Interesting side point, guess what symbol represented Tammuz? That's right, a large lower case "T" that was indistinguishable from today's Church crosses.
However, some times two different people or groups develop the same thing at the same time without plagiarizing them-- that is to say, develop the same concept without knowing of the other groups's work.
While that is true, in this case Moses would have certainly known the "other work" in question being raised as a Prince of Egypt. Also, the Egyptian creation myths predate the writing of Genesis by at least 1500 years. So they didn't develop at the same time, and the later author was very familiar with the former written mythology.
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS of the past three centuries have challenged the traditional world views of the major religions of mankind. The dialogue is best known through the interaction between Christian thought and science, as in the conflict between Galileo and the Papacy in the seventeenth century, and between Darwinism and nineteenth-century religious beliefs in the biblical account of creation. But modern science poses profound questions for Judaism as well.
Basic to the discussion of Judaism and scientific cosmology is the fact that in the Jewish religion “the deed is the essential thing.” Hence, the greatest intellectual efforts of the Jewish tradition have been spent on understanding and clarifying the Torah to extract from it rules of behavior, both “duties of the body” and “duties of the heart.” As a consequence, Judaism is more an orthopraxis, or religion emphasizing correct behavior, both inner and outer, than an orthodoxy, or religion emphasizing correct beliefs. Doctrines and beliefs are indeed integral to Judaism, e.g., belief in a strict monotheism, or belief in the divinely revealed origin of the Torah, but their role in Jewish religious thought, although central, is limited.
As a consequence, Judaism permits considerable freedom in the realm of ideas. Thus, for example, allowing for what Genesis tells us, Judaism is open to many interpretations and differences of opinion on just what enesis means. Indeed, it is probably true to say that there is no one correct Jewish answer to such questions as the “how” of Creation.
Certainly some opinions are incompatible with Judaism, and majority and minority views exist within the traditional sources, e.g., the Mishna, the Gemara, the medieval and modern commentaries and codes, but no systematic attempt has been made over the centuries to define an orthodox cosmology to which every Jew must subscribe, beyond the affirmation that the world was brought into being “somehow” by God.
Another fact to be borne in mind is that Judaism is not a fundamentalist religion,- Jewish religious tradition does not propose to be carrying out the word of od as revealed in the Bible, without human interpretation. The basic assumption of rabbinic Judaism is that while the Torah is the literal revelation of God to Moses at Sinai, and eternally valid for all generations, it requires interpretation (Deut. 17:11). It is made explicit by the Sages of the Talmud that the Torah provides broad and general regulations, while the process of extracting the full significance of these prescriptions, with all relevant details and corollaries, is left to human reason guided by tradition.
For example, the Torah speaks of marriage, but does not specify what constitutes marriage; or again, it forbids “work” on the Sabbath, but fails to specify what constitutes work. Is lighting a lamp work? Is cooking work? If Israel were to have legitimate marriages and refrain from desecration of the Sabbath, it had to “interpret” the implications of these Divine Commands. Thus within agreed limits, and using agreed procedures, mankind is free, and even encouraged from necessity, to search out the meaning of Torah.
Through the historic desire of countless generations of the Jewish people to be guided by the Torah, this process of interpretation was constantly called into play to renew continually the significance of od's revelation in the midst of new or changing circumstances. This process of explication and exegesis is known in Judaism as the Oral Torah (Torah she be-al Pe) and is the legitimate, as well as necessary, companion of the Written Torah (Torah she- bichtav).
The interpretation of the Written Torah is a complex matter of the most fundamental religious significance. Hence, rules of biblical interpretation, as well as more general theological-hermeneutical principles, needed to be agreed upon by the Sages, for without common rules of procedure there could be no agreed interpretations of Scripture, and thus no valid substantive conclusions. As a consequence, in this fundamental sense Judaism is a “method” as well as a set of teachings and laws.
The significance of this theory of the necessity of biblical interpretation for the encounter of scientific claims and Judaism is that it legitimates interpretative moves that might lessen any tension existing between Scripture and science by, for example, reading certain passages of Scripture allegorically or metaphorically. Thus, Maimonides, the greatest of medieval Jewish thinkers, felt free to write regarding the understanding of the secrets of creation (Maaseh Bereshit) that they have “been treated (in Genesis) in metaphors, in order that the uneducated may comprehend it according to the measure of their faculties and the feebleness of their comprehension,- while the educated take it in a different [i.e., allegorical or nonliteral] sense”. Maimonides' remarks provide the appropriate introduction to Judaic discussion of the specifics of the new cosmology in relation to Jewish thought.
Source: God and the Astronomers 2nd, Edition, Robert Jastrow, 1992. Pp. 125-128.
Judaism refers here to rabbinic or orthodox Judaism, representing the mainstream of historic Jewish religious belief and practice.
Torah, best translated as “teaching,” i.e., Divine teaching or instruction, rather than “Law”, is used in several senses. The most precise refers to the Five Books of Moses. The more extended includes the whole Hebrew Bible.
Hi Perrie! Sorry for those few areas where the letter "G" or "g" dropped out. For example, "God" and "Genesis" above. I took "corrective" actions of most of the symbols and spacing errors which translated over (during copy & paste process) into the comment. I can see I missed just a few. The true sense of the comment is intact, nevertheless.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I like this video series since they use humor and common sense while reading the bible. There is a lot of crazy things that go on that most Christians do not know about or are glossed over or distorted by their church leaders. I think there is 141 videos in the series they read the bible cover to cover, old and new Testaments.
Interesting that someone changes the filament to vault to describe the separation of ground water from sky water. Why the name change? I was always told the words in the bible could not be altered as the are the words of God. Anyone have insight to that?
Since i finally decided to learn how to post after who knows how many years lurking here I hope to post a new one of these each day. It will be a continuous reading of the bible.
Lol not me, I'm still stuck on why a global flood that covered the earth to a depth greater than the highest mountains a mere 10,000(?) years ago left no geologic evidence.
And no evidence of the Exodus either ... surely the Egyptians would have written about it. Not to mention that many people would have left evidence in the desert.
Where did that flood water drain away to? It couldn't evaporate because the atmosphere was obviously saturated and the earth is a closed hydrologic system.
LOL, don't you know epistte? Gawd took all away with him to use in Heaven.
"Pearly Gates" brand bottled water............. I feel like an absolute moron for not thinking of that.
LMFAO, yep, that's the one.
Maybe Noah, his family and the animals were really, really thirsty when they got off the boat?
Anyone have insight to that?
Lol not me, I'm still stuck on why a global flood that covered the earth to a depth greater than the highest mountains a mere 10,000(?) years ago left no geologic evidence.
One of the best arguments I've heard defending those sorts of things is that the Bible is not meant to be taken literally-- its all symbolic. (Most people won't accrpt that explanation).
Apparently God can't just make water, so not sure if he could just disappear it either. Evidence God can't create water out of thin air?
"2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” John 2:1-10
Notice how Jesus had to have the servants go out and fill the jars with water? Apparently he can turn water to wine but he can't simply magically fill the jars with wine creating liquid out of thin air. And the water Moses brings forth from the rock, well he had to strike a wellspring head with his staff, it didn't just magically fill all their water jars and water skins. It must be like how Jesus supposedly healed the sick, raised the dead, cured the blind, but there's no record of him miraculously regrowing a limb for someone. I guess he needs something to work with.
So in regards to the flood, besides being an extremely inefficient way to wipe out humans and supposedly wiped out millions of animals species that couldn't fit on the ark, the water volume problem plagues the flood myth worse than locusts of Egypt. Where did it all come from to cover the highest mountains? And where did it go? How would that amount of water evaporate or drain to somewhere (where?) in just under a year? The claim is that from day 40 when the rain stopped, it was another 330 days before the earth was dry. That seems awfully fast to me.
LOL, I still say Gawd took it all to heaven, so he could float his yacht in his new lake.
Found the clog?
Any input on the Adam and Eve effort to populate the earth is a nod to God endorsed incest....Happens again later after the Great Flood but we will get to that. Think the gene pool has to be bigger to ensure successful proliferation of the species.
Oh, it absolutely does. The Native American population is estimated to have started with just 250 people ... I think around 80 breeding pairs is considered the minimum for a healthy population. But don't forget, the fallen angels came down and raped Adam and Eve's descendents, so that added diversity to the gene pool. Maybe not the right kind of diversity, since their offspring were so terrible that God sent the flood to kill them all.
That might also include Noah and his family after the supposed Great Flood that wiped out whole populations.
So you have to think a little about this.
Whether or not you think the bible is from god, or a work of man, there is a reason that Genisis is written in two parts. From the Jewish perspective, the first part is not meant to be read as literal. They are parables. The second part is where the real meat and potatoes takes place.
There are those who think the bible is a collection of allegories and those who think it's all literal. Theists can't even agree on the veracity of the bible.
One thing that most everyone agrees on is that most everyone does not agree on how to interpret the Bible.
The Jewish perspective, as noted by Perrie, is probably one or the more cohesive religions with regard to interpretation. Muslims have their various sects and denominations therein so even under the strict rules of Islam the splintering seems to be impossible to stop. Christian interpretation, however, has long since spun out of control with its many sects and a breathtaking variety of denominations. Biblical consensus strikes me as an oxymoron.
Gordy,
I am aware of that, but what I am trying to focus in on, is a lot of the confusion that arises, is because the original text, call it the Old Testament or the Torah, is very misunderstood by most Christians. For debate sake, I will not address if I feel this is a book of man or god, but rather how to read it.
I found it interesting that most Christians take the story of Adam and, Eve as if it is part of the first chapter, when it isn't but, in the first chapter it clearly speaks of the creation MEN and, WOMEN in one of the verses.
Galen,
You make a great point. In the beginning, god does make men and women.. not Adam and Eve. That is exactly why the story of Adam and Eve is treated as a parable. A lesson in human behavior. Also, clearly sets up a few precedents:
I think that right there is a good reason not to believe in a God. I was thinking about this as I was watching a big cat give birth on Face Book. She was obviously in pain and I thought to myself....why do animals suffer with childbirth pain? They didn't thumb their noses at God
Muslims have their various sects and denominations therein so even under the strict rules of Islam the splintering seems to be impossible to stop
I'm not sure if this is true of all Muslims-- there may be some small sects that think differently. But from everything I've read, to be a Muslim you have to believe that the Koran is the literal word of God. Not one word has been changed. Its a key element of that faith.
I do not follow. Are you saying you do not think Islam consists of sects and denominations within sects with distinct interpretations?
Just wanted to point out that not only would their kids have had to be incestuous for the tale to be true, it says God took Adams rib to make Eve, so she's effectively, DNA-wise, a female clone of Adam that he has to impregnate to create the first children... Adam would have been the first Asexual reproducing human. So if the tale of Adam and Eve was based on some ancient flatworm ancestor self-reproducing then maybe Genesis is on to something...
This is also interesting to me, the correlation to this story told my Moses after the supposed Israelite Exodus. Now Moses could read and write and had been taught the ancient histories of the world as Egyptians believed them since he was raised as a prince of Egypt if the story is to be believed. He would have learned the following tale for sure...
"In the beginning there was nothing (Nun). A mound of earth rose from Nun and upon it Atum created himself . He spat Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture) from his mouth. Atum's two offspring became separated from him and lost in the dark nothingness, so Atum sent his "Eye" to look for them (a precursor to the "Eye of Ra", an epithet given to many deities at different times). When they were found, he named Shu as "life" and Tefnut as "order" and entwined them together.
Atum became tired and wanted a place to rest, so he kissed his daugther Tefnut, and created the first mound (Iunu) to rise from the waters of Nun. Shu and Tefnut gave birth to the earth (Geb) and the sky (Nut) who in turn give birth to Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys and Horus the elder. In later versions of the myth, Atum produces Shu and Tefnut by masturbation and splits up Geb and Nut because he is jealous of their constant copulation."
" Many Pharaohs used the title "Son of Atum" long after the power base moved from Iunu. Atum's close relationship to the king is seen in many cultic rituals, and in the coronation rites. A papyrus dating to the Late period shows that the god was of central importance to the New Year's festival in which the king's role was reconfirmed. From New Kingdom onwards, he often made an appearance inscribing royal names on the leaves of the sacred ished tree, and in some Lower Egyptian inscriptions Atum is shown crowning the Pharaoh (for example the shrine of Ramesses II in Pithom)."
Also of note, Atums son Set murders his brother Osiris. Where have I heard a tale like that before?
"Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother Osiris ."
Eve: fem. proper name, Biblical first woman, Late Latin, from Hebrew (Semitic) Hawwah , literally "a living being," from base hawa "he lived".
So Atum's first creation from himself was "Shu" in ancient Egyptian mythology...
And "Life" or "living being" Eve was created from Adam... coincidence?
I just had an epiphany.
Moses supposedly wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament, correct?
The Egyptian myths are awfully close to the same stories in the Bible. Moses was a plagiarizer?
Virtually everything about Christianity was plagiarized from earlier myths.
He was raised as an Egyptian, taught to read and write by Egyptian tutors, schooled heavily in Egyptian mythology and their own origin stories that put the Egyptian people at the center of the story and claiming decadency from Atum. Many Pharaohs used the title "Son of Atum" to make this distinction and claim a proud lineage back to creation itself.
Then Moses writes a tale that does almost the exact same thing for his new family once he finds out he's not Egyptian but an Israelite.
If you read Genesis 5 you see the lineage Moses creates to tie the Israelites back to Adam and to creation itself. Genesis 5 gives us Adam to Noah then Genesis 9, 10 and 11 list the lineage from Noah to Abram (Abraham) who all the Israelites in Egypt considered their forefather.
"When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth." Genesis 5:3
Atum had a son named Set. Coincidence? I think not.
After reading both histories several times, it is my opinion that the story Moses writes while in the wilderness was intended to keep a large group of people together and keep them from splintering into nomadic families. I think Moses believed he needed to unite them under a single identity and so he took what he knew of Egyptian mythology and crafted a new narrative that replaced the Egyptians in the story with the Israelites and converted many of the names into Hebrew spellings or pronunciations.
This new origin story Moses came up with held the Israelites together as a nation capable of seizing land and resources, which is what they eventually did after being told their God had given them this new land flowing with milk and honey which made it okay for them to march in and capture cities turning any inhabitants they didn't kill into slaves, interestingly something they had supposedly just escaped from themselves just 40 years prior.
It all makes sense and there's nothing mystical or divine about it
In what way?
DP explains it way better than me
Exactly, it was basically a political decision, one that had been made by just about every other nation state at the time, each one having their own origin stories linking them to an ancient past, giving them a unifying identity and purpose based on some divine authorization for their rule. Moses needed to keep what may have been somewhere between 300,000 and 1 million Israelites, if the stories are to be believed, together in order to build a nation. The entire story, from Adam to Abraham, was written down hundreds if not thousands of years after the supposed incidents by an ex-Egyptian Prince who claimed divine inspiration. I just believe that "divine inspiration" came from Egyptian mythology as Moses had been taught, not something that was coming to him new while in the wilderness.
Adam and Eve = Atum and Shu
Cain and Able = Set and Osiris
"In the beginning there was nothing (Nun)." "Atum" "created the first mound (Iunu) to rise from the waters of Nun."
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
The Egyptians had a long history of lineage they claimed going back to their supposed progenitor and consider themselves "Sons of Atum".
Moses write a long history and lineage claiming the Israelite people go back to their supposed progenitor Adam and considered themselves "Sons of Adam". The name Eve meant in Hebrew "living being" while in Egyptian the name Shu meant "life" or "living".
Set murders his brother out of jealousy and is then known as the God of violence, chaos, desert storms and disorder.
Cain murders his brother out of jealous and is then known as cursed by God for his violence.
I'm not saying Genesis was a direct rip off of Egyptian mythology, I'm just saying it's my opinion that Egyptian mythology heavily influenced Moses writing.
Don't forget the Jesus story was borrowed from the Egyptian myth of Horus.
And a few others. The idea of a virgin birth plus a dying and rising savior is an ancient schtick.
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Tammuz predates the Jesus myth by more than 1500-2000 years......
The Egyptian myths are awfully close to the same stories in the Bible. Moses was a plagiarizer?
Its possible I suppose.
However, some times two different people or groups develop the same thing at the same time without plagiarizing them-- that is to say, develop the same concept without knowing of the other groups's work. Actually that occasionally happens with scientific inventions-- two or more scientists invent/discover the same thing-- at pretty much the same time. Without knowing of the others work. (Usually only one scientist or group is given credit-- for a variety of reasons-- but sometimes others have done the same thing at about the same time). Some people refer to this as "an idea who time has come".
(Sometimes also referred to as the "Tipping Point Theory" "the Theory of Multiple Discovery",and "The Hundredth Monkey (this last one has been disproven)., "Morphogenetic Fields", etc. IIRC, Also relevant is the story of what happened when Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. Rupert Sheldrake is a scientist who studied this phenomenon.
Interesting side point, guess what symbol represented Tammuz? That's right, a large lower case "T" that was indistinguishable from today's Church crosses.
While that is true, in this case Moses would have certainly known the "other work" in question being raised as a Prince of Egypt. Also, the Egyptian creation myths predate the writing of Genesis by at least 1500 years. So they didn't develop at the same time, and the later author was very familiar with the former written mythology.
If they teach the Bible in school and kids go home and watch this which will smart kids think is better? And they will find this and more like it
PROFESSOR STEVEN T. KATZ
Department of Religion, Cornell University
Judaism, God and the Astronomers
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS of the past three centuries have challenged the traditional world views of the major religions of mankind. The dialogue is best known through the interaction between Christian thought and science, as in the conflict between Galileo and the Papacy in the seventeenth century, and between Darwinism and nineteenth-century religious beliefs in the biblical account of creation. But modern science poses profound questions for Judaism as well.
Basic to the discussion of Judaism and scientific cosmology is the fact that in the Jewish religion “the deed is the essential thing.” Hence, the greatest intellectual efforts of the Jewish tradition have been spent on understanding and clarifying the Torah to extract from it rules of behavior, both “duties of the body” and “duties of the heart.” As a consequence, Judaism is more an orthopraxis, or religion emphasizing correct behavior, both inner and outer, than an orthodoxy, or religion emphasizing correct beliefs. Doctrines and beliefs are indeed integral to Judaism, e.g., belief in a strict monotheism, or belief in the divinely revealed origin of the Torah, but their role in Jewish religious thought, although central, is limited.
As a consequence, Judaism permits considerable freedom in the realm of ideas. Thus, for example, allowing for what Genesis tells us, Judaism is open to many interpretations and differences of opinion on just what enesis means. Indeed, it is probably true to say that there is no one correct Jewish answer to such questions as the “how” of Creation.
Certainly some opinions are incompatible with Judaism, and majority and minority views exist within the traditional sources, e.g., the Mishna, the Gemara, the medieval and modern commentaries and codes, but no systematic attempt has been made over the centuries to define an orthodox cosmology to which every Jew must subscribe, beyond the affirmation that the world was brought into being “somehow” by God.
Another fact to be borne in mind is that Judaism is not a fundamentalist religion,- Jewish religious tradition does not propose to be carrying out the word of od as revealed in the Bible, without human interpretation. The basic assumption of rabbinic Judaism is that while the Torah is the literal revelation of God to Moses at Sinai, and eternally valid for all generations, it requires interpretation (Deut. 17:11). It is made explicit by the Sages of the Talmud that the Torah provides broad and general regulations, while the process of extracting the full significance of these prescriptions, with all relevant details and corollaries, is left to human reason guided by tradition.
For example, the Torah speaks of marriage, but does not specify what constitutes marriage; or again, it forbids “work” on the Sabbath, but fails to specify what constitutes work. Is lighting a lamp work? Is cooking work? If Israel were to have legitimate marriages and refrain from desecration of the Sabbath, it had to “interpret” the implications of these Divine Commands. Thus within agreed limits, and using agreed procedures, mankind is free, and even encouraged from necessity, to search out the meaning of Torah.
Through the historic desire of countless generations of the Jewish people to be guided by the Torah, this process of interpretation was constantly called into play to renew continually the significance of od's revelation in the midst of new or changing circumstances. This process of explication and exegesis is known in Judaism as the Oral Torah (Torah she be-al Pe) and is the legitimate, as well as necessary, companion of the Written Torah (Torah she- bichtav).
The interpretation of the Written Torah is a complex matter of the most fundamental religious significance. Hence, rules of biblical interpretation, as well as more general theological-hermeneutical principles, needed to be agreed upon by the Sages, for without common rules of procedure there could be no agreed interpretations of Scripture, and thus no valid substantive conclusions. As a consequence, in this fundamental sense Judaism is a “method” as well as a set of teachings and laws.
The significance of this theory of the necessity of biblical interpretation for the encounter of scientific claims and Judaism is that it legitimates interpretative moves that might lessen any tension existing between Scripture and science by, for example, reading certain passages of Scripture allegorically or metaphorically. Thus, Maimonides, the greatest of medieval Jewish thinkers, felt free to write regarding the understanding of the secrets of creation (Maaseh Bereshit) that they have “been treated (in Genesis) in metaphors, in order that the uneducated may comprehend it according to the measure of their faculties and the feebleness of their comprehension,- while the educated take it in a different [i.e., allegorical or nonliteral] sense”. Maimonides' remarks provide the appropriate introduction to Judaic discussion of the specifics of the new cosmology in relation to Jewish thought.
Source: God and the Astronomers 2nd, Edition, Robert Jastrow, 1992. Pp. 125-128.
Very interesting read. I will have to think about it before commenting.
Hi Perrie! Sorry for those few areas where the letter "G" or "g" dropped out. For example, "God" and "Genesis" above. I took "corrective" actions of most of the symbols and spacing errors which translated over (during copy & paste process) into the comment. I can see I missed just a few. The true sense of the comment is intact, nevertheless.
Here is a link to part 2
Very interesting ! I'll be coming back to see/read more.