Adam and Eve as a Myth

[idav]

One of the give aways that Adam and Eve is myth was the use and symbolism of the human and serpent, especially the point the point the animals are punished and alterations happen that nature gives them.

In many mythologies people have explained the differences between animals with a story of how we came to be the way we are and why some animals fly and why some swim, why death is here and why it seems as though nature punishes us.

These were all classical ways of writing myth that was repeated by many cultures even spanning across oceans. They were all attempts to explain origin and what we know today to be evolution. Very clever and symbolic stories but not really factual but they are expressions of the reality humans have found themselves in with their attempt at explaining origins.

 

[greentwiga]

You assume an awful lot.

First, note that much of the Bible consists of the conflict between various "gods" and the God of the Israelites. Noah, tower of Babel, and the Nephilim shows the conflict with the Gods of Sumer. Moses and the ten plagues was considered a major defeat of the Egyptian Gods by the Egyptians. Elijah confronted the priests of Baal on Mt Carmel. It would be consistent that the story of Adam and Eve was a conflict with another religious belief.

Now, note that God always opposed anything that smacked of Demon possession. Inviting a (false) God to inhabit you was considered the same thing. Whether consorting with witches, consulting the stars, or the New Testaments references to demon possession, the Bible opposes it.

Finally, though the Bible deals with peoples false beliefs and discusses them, it doesn't say that they are true, but that there may be some underlying truth, such as the demons behind a false religion.

In the time before written history, there were religions that we know very little about. One we call the Mother Goddess religion. We only have a few remnant teachings that made into written history. One version is very interesting. This is the Oracle at Delphi. Ignoring the later gloss of Apollo, we can learn more about the Mother Goddess. This was a shrine on a mountain, in a grove of trees, at a spring. It was the Priestesses (no males) that talked with the "god." The priestesses were called Pythea because they talked to the Python, the serpent. The original purpose of the oracle was fertility, both of humans and land. Only later did it also include requests about success, such as business or war.

In the story of Adam and Eve, they are on a mountain, in a grove of trees, at a spring. The woman talks to the serpent, and the man listens. God says it is very wrong. We learn some about the purpose in the curses. Eve was cursed in childbirth and Adam was cursed in field fertility. Therefore, the story can be absolutely true, that Adam and Eve experimented with the false religion and were cursed for it. Neither the Python nor the god, Baal, have to be real for the story about the people going after the false God to be real. The underlying truth, that of Satan, that serpent of old, (Rev 20:2) can be true without the Python, Ashterah, or astrology being true.

 

[outhouse]

You assume an awful lot.

I believe you do as well.



idav makes great points

 

[Awoon]

The serpent is the "whisperer" that everyone has an ongoing conversation with within themselves.

 

[Draknghar]

Idav, I truly doubt that the writer(s) of Adam and Eve were attempting to teach of evolution, but then, my primary reason is my belief that there was no higher power to guide them, so you might consider my opinion to be merely subjective.

Anyhow, I did have a discussion on the story with my best friend, who is a devout Christian, and have come to the conclusion that it is most probably purely metaphorical. She told me of the fruit of eternal life, and although I must admit that I am a little uneducated in the matter, it seems that this might possibly refer to human fertility (living on through children). But then, I am yet to study it in-depth.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In the story of Adam and Eve, they are on a mountain, in a grove of trees, at a spring. ... Neither the Python nor the god, Baal, have to be real ...

Good grief!

 

[Cassiopia]

They were all attempts to explain origin and what we know today to be evolution.

I agree that the story of Adam and Eve is a myth which uses a lot of symbolism. However I don't see that it has any connection with the fact of evolution. I think the story of Adam and Eve is more an explanation of the relationship between humanity and God from a particular perspective.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

We feel more comfortable embracing the text as deeply insightful allegory rather than primitive lore, even though there is no basis for doing so. It's a manifestion of denial more than naivete -- almost as if we can't handle the truth.

Myth is typically infused with sybolism that morphs over time and allows the tail to serve as a meaningful narrative as culture and circumstance evolve. But I see no reason to doubt that the underlying story was taken very literally by those who propagated it.

 

[outhouse]

Myth is typically infused with sybolism that morphs over time and allows the tail to serve as a meaningful narrative as culture and circumstance evolve

and that is exactly what we have with genesis


it is a compilation of early legends that were collected and merged, redacted, compiled, and redacted again and again with the ever changing cultiral needs of its people.


to claim it isnt mythology would be to ignore the previous religions mythologies that influenced the early collections in jewish hands.

 

[McBell]

You assume an awful lot.

 

[fantome profane]

We feel more comfortable embracing the text as deeply insightful allegory rather than primitive lore, even though there is no basis for doing so. It's a manifestion of denial more than naivete -- almost as if we can't handle the truth.

Myth is typically infused with sybolism that morphs over time and allows the tail to serve as a meaningful narrative as culture and circumstance evolve. But I see no reason to doubt that the underlying story was taken very literally by those who propagated it.

But for how long? And was it unquestioned?

It seems to me that by the time it was written down it may have already been viewed by many as allegorical. Otherwise I think a greater effort would have been made to explain or rationalize the inconsistencies and contradictions that exist when the text is taken literally.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

But for how long? And was it unquestioned?

Both are, in my opinion, nonsensical questions.

 

[outhouse]

But for how long? And was it unquestioned?

It seems to me that by the time it was written down it may have already been viewed by many as allegorical. Otherwise I think a greater effort would have been made to explain or rationalize the inconsistencies and contradictions that exist when the text is taken literally.

I think just like now

you had different levels of belief and interpretation based on geographic location

 

[`mud]

Does anyone really know when the story of Adam and Eve was written.
And then.....when was Genesis written.....by who ?
~
Just curious...mind you !
~
`mud

 

[johnhanks]

Does anyone really know when the story of Adam and Eve was written.
And then.....when was Genesis written.....by who ?
~
Just curious...mind you !
~
`mud

I strongly recommend 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Friedman.

 

[`mud]

hey John,
I was trying to be facetious.....
I really think that no-one really knows.
I doubt that Freidman does.
If you've read it.....fill us in.
~
`mud

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I strongly recommend 'Who Wrote the Bible?' by Richard Friedman.

I strongly suggest that you not limit yourself to Friedman's 25 year old popularization - one which, by the way, seems to presume the historicity of a great deal of the Torah.

 

[idav]

Idav, I truly doubt that the writer(s) of Adam and Eve were attempting to teach of evolution, but then, my primary reason is my belief that there was no higher power to guide them, so you might consider my opinion to be merely subjective.

I agree that the story of Adam and Eve is a myth which uses a lot of symbolism. However I don't see that it has any connection with the fact of evolution. I think the story of Adam and Eve is more an explanation of the relationship between humanity and God from a particular perspective.

Many creation myths do the same type of thing with nature and animals. They find ways of getting them created then the animals and humans will go through various changes to explain what we see today. Now we use evolution to explain origins. Mythology were attempts at explaining origins and attempts at explaining other things like why we die, why snakes have no legs, or going further into the book, why people have different languages.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Mythology were attempts at explaining ... why snakes have no legs, ...

Except when they do ...

But a riddle remains: why do these two snake species have hind limbs? If legs were the norm for snake ancestors, it would make sense to see the species' advanced anatomy as only superficially similar to more modern snakes. On the other hand, the stubby limbs on the fossil snakes might represent an evolutionary reversal, where snakes with advanced skull design regain hindlimbs that were lost or perhaps greatly reduced in their ancestors. Rieppel and his colleagues counted the number of evolutionary steps involved in each possible scenario, and concluded that the redevelopment of limbs was a more likely story.

"We know of at least 62 lizard and snake lineages that have undergone some degree of limb reduction," Rieppel notes. "Since our fossil record of snakes is very poor, we can't exclude the possibility that limbs in snakes were lost not just once in the beginning, but several times throughout their history."

Rieppel said that it is difficult to tell how the legs themselves might have been used, since they are too small in relation to the animal's whole body to have any locomotor function. Modern pythons have a rudimentary hindlimb, usually little more than a "claw" of cartilage tipped with bone that they use during mating and occasional fighting, and it is possible that Haasiophis' leg served a similar purpose.

- [source]

 

[idav]

Except when they do ...

​

They end up observing something factual and explaining it somehow. They must have seen the serpent as special somehow. They found humans to be special and explained the change somehow with god intervening. This is a common aspect in creation myths.

I like the Pangu creation myth explanation for human intelligence.

Nüwa the Goddess then used the mud of the water bed to form the shape of humans. These humans were very smart since they were individually crafted. Nüwa then became bored of individually making every human so she started putting a rope in the water bed and letting the drops of mud that fell from it become new humans. These small drops became new humans, not as smart as the first.
Pangu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia