Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe it was God who told us about Adam & Eve so that means it is not a myth and God knows everything but only talks about what is important to the people He is speaking to.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Adam and Eve Origins
- Thread starter dgirl1986
- Start date
I believe it was God who told us about Adam & Eve so that means it is not a myth and God knows everything but only talks about what is important to the people He is speaking to.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe they are products of the Norse & Greek gods and the only connection to Sumer is when they traveled south to live in that land.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe I have not rejected the theory of evolution but have simply pointed out that it isn't a proven theory. If I stand accused by the uninformed that my information isn't valid, the shoe can fit on the other foot and I can accuse the accuser of committing the crime of assumption.
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
The theory of evolution has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent
What you can accuse people of doesn't matter. What matters is what you can support with evidence.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
There were ape-forms in Europe, such as Oreopithecus ( Oreopithecus - Wikipedia ), but the preponderance of evidence indicates that humans largely evolved in Africa.
outlawState
Deism is dead
Although there is a contradiction in the scholarship respecting Ask and Embla in the Völuspá, in the Poetic Edda (13th century) , one authority plausibly says that Adam and Eve were borrowed from Christianity and an inspiration for the Norse myths of Ask and Embla, rather than vice versa.
Henry Adams Bellows in the introduction to the Völuspá:
This final passage, in particular, has caused wide differences of opinion as to the date and character of the poem. That the poet was heathen and not Christian seems almost beyond dispute; there is an intensity and vividness in almost every stanza which no archaizing Christian could possibly have achieved. On the other hand, the evidences of Christian influence are sufficiently striking to outweigh the arguments of Finnur Jonsson, Müllenhoff and others who maintain that the Voluspo is purely a product of heathendom. The roving Norsemen of the tenth century, very few of whom had as yet accepted Christianity, were nevertheless in close contact with Celtic races which had already been converted, and in many ways the Celtic influence was strongly felt. It seems likely, then, that the Voluspo was the work of a poet living chiefly in Iceland, though possibly in the "Western Isles," in the middle of the tenth century, a vigorous believer in the old gods, and yet with an imagination active enough to be touched by the vague tales of a different religion emanating from his neighbor Celts.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe I have yet to see it. For all I know you are just making a claim.
I read a little. (I don't have all day to read it all) I got as far as seeing that claims were made that they had evidence. also there are disclaimers about elements of evolution that were not considered adequate namely, natural selection. So you have to recognize that the theory of evolution is in effect multiple theories considered to be working together. Natural selection is one of those theories.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that sounds reasonable and then wonder why it is also found in Greek mythology.
I find it rather unlikely that it would come from a Christian source since an idea that gods could be invovled is contrary to what they would want to believe.
outlawState
Deism is dead
I think the resemblance of Ask and Embla to Adam and Eve is so close as to suggest a copy, but the story of Adam and Eve is undoubtedly far more ancient as Moses was circa 1500BC.
As for the Greek Garden of Hesperides and the Golden Apples, the garden was allegedly situated in the Atlas Mountains in West Africa or in Portugal, and Adam and Eve became Zeus and Hera.
Well, in some myths, that is.
"The ancient mythological record is not unanimous as to the location of the wedding of Zeus and Hera; “several places in Greece claimed the honour of having been the scene of the marriage, such as Euboea (Steph. Byz. s. v. Karustos), Samos (Lactant. de Fals. Relig. i. 17), Cnossus in Crete (Diod. v. 72), and Mount Thornax, in the south of Argolis. (Schol. ad Theocrit. xv. 64; Paus. ii. 17. § 4, 36. § 2.)” (from William Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology”)." See here
However in the account of the children of Zeus and Hera that there are parallels with Cain and Abel and Seth, but ultimately huge divergence.
"The Greeks deified Kain as Hephaistos, god of the forge. They deified his younger brother, Seth, as Ares, the troublesome god of conflict and war. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Kain is the evil one whose way is to be shunned. In the Greek religious system, Ares, the Seth of Genesis, is the traitor and the one who causes ruin and woe."
"While the scriptural viewpoint defines Seth/Ares as the God-believing, or spiritual son, Greek religion defines him as hated by, and antagonistic to, the ruling gods who are part of the serpent’s system. Likewise, while Zeus-religion looks on Hephaistos/Kain as the true and devoted son, the scriptural viewpoint defines him as part of the wicked one’s system. Jews and Christians dislike and shun the line of Kain, but they can’t get rid of him or his line without altering their spiritual standpoint and history itself. Kain is part of the Scriptures, and he is there to stay. Zeus-religion has the same kind of situation. It hates the line of Ares, but it cannot eliminate the line from its history because the basic achievement of Zeus-religion, its grand celebration even, is the triumph of the way of Kain over the way of Seth. Ares is part of Greek sacred literature and art, and he is there to stay."
The Greeks lionize Cain, whilst the bible lionizes Seth. Obviously the Greeks chose the wrong champion, the way of error. May be there is a point to this. It's new to me."While the scriptural viewpoint defines Seth/Ares as the God-believing, or spiritual son, Greek religion defines him as hated by, and antagonistic to, the ruling gods who are part of the serpent’s system. Likewise, while Zeus-religion looks on Hephaistos/Kain as the true and devoted son, the scriptural viewpoint defines him as part of the wicked one’s system. Jews and Christians dislike and shun the line of Kain, but they can’t get rid of him or his line without altering their spiritual standpoint and history itself. Kain is part of the Scriptures, and he is there to stay. Zeus-religion has the same kind of situation. It hates the line of Ares, but it cannot eliminate the line from its history because the basic achievement of Zeus-religion, its grand celebration even, is the triumph of the way of Kain over the way of Seth. Ares is part of Greek sacred literature and art, and he is there to stay."
What can one say? I think the pagan stories only make any sense when one knows the biblical story. I should think that they share a common source, but I'd doubt the Greek one was earlier than the biblical one. Moses was circa 1500BC and Greek mythology was much later circa 1000-700BC.
Muffled
Jesus in me
The concept that they come from trees somewhat fits into my thinking that they were cloned because in a sense the DNA is like a tree and how could the language describe DNA not having a word for it. Supposedly Caucasian DNA dates back to 10,000 BC so it would not be a stretch to say the gods were around (provided they had eternal life as they claimed) in 5,000 BC.
I don't believe the question is whether a myth is any more valid because it is ancient or more recent. The question is whether the people could have been around at that time and the stories told over the generations until finally written down.
outlawState
Deism is dead
Having done some more research on this, it is clear that Greek myth came direct from Babylon with a few name changes for the gods. The Greek gods were never inherently gods, as God is, as they had to eat the Ambrosia to stay immortal. So the gods are probably more akin to the Elohim of the Hebrew bible - the gods originally began as exalted humans of the Genesis era.
Babylon derived from Sumer and Sumer was of the lineage of Cain, which explains why Greek religion exalts the lineage of Cain. Eternal life of the gods is denoted by the extreme longetivity of the ancient persons (priests) in Genesis.
I really know nothing of Norse religion. The vikings were barbarians, could hardly read and write. I should think that what is written down by the poets in the medieval era was not that ancient or a lot of it concocted on the fly.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
If horses had gods, their gods would look like horses.........
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that is a stretch since Cain left the area and went east:
Gen 4:16 ¶ And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
outlawState
Deism is dead
What I mean is that the Greeks adopted the religion of the Cainites, the religion of Babylon.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that is news to me. The Greeks had that god who wanted human sacrifice?
BTW I don't believe Cainites had the religion of Babylon or even Canaanites.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe anyone can affirm his own outlook and call it proof but it has never been proven to me.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe then you should show proof. What about Ashtoreth? Wikipedia says she is only worshiped in Canaan and Phoenicia.
ChanaR
Member
Artists depict Adam and Eve as white because every idiot culture is ethnocentric.
The truth is that the first humans were Africans. We are all immigrants from Africa (except the Africans who still live there and never immigrated).
Some time around 200,000 years ago, the physically modern human had finally evolved, according to the fossil record. Were they morally sentient? I don't know. But I would not classify the first real "Adam" type human being to have existed until there was enough moral sentience to cause a conflict of conscience, IOW the fall. By conflict of conscience I mean a conflict between his animal instincts (sinful nature) and his empathy or sense of justice (we see rudimentary forms of these things in other primates).
It is this "fall," this development of conscience, which causes the great gulf between humanity and the rest of nature, because unlike elk or cats or chimps, we question our instincts. The "fall" put us into a state of disharmony which has plagued us. You might say we lost paradise.
ChanaR
Member
The Greeks had a completely different religion than the Canaanites. The Babylonian religion was also separate. For one thing, the Greeks thought human sacrifice was barbaric (they raked the Phoenicians over the coals for their lack of humanity). The rituals and holy days were of course quite different. The only thing you can sat is that because the Phoenicians were the direct descendants of the Canaanites, you can argue that their religion was also a direct descendant of the Canaanite religion.
It seems at times that the religions may be the same, because pantheons usually have nature gods in common (god of rain, sun god, god of the sea) and certain themes in common (god of business, god of love, god of war). This is not to say that they couldn't have gotten ideas from one another for one obscure god or another. But the basic gods of a pantheon are always the same.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Errr . . . .not so fast.
"According to the generally accepted story of human evolution, the human lineage split from that of apes some 7 million years ago in Africa. Hominins (early humans) are believed to have stayed put in Africa until about 2 million years ago, when they migrated first to Asia and then to Europe.
Now, a team of scientists from the University of Tubingen in Germany and the University of Toronto in Canada are seeking to revise that story. In two complementary studies published in the journal PLOS One, they argue that the earliest human ancestor emerged in Europe, not Africa, around 7.2 million years ago, or 200,000 years earlier than was previously thought.
The researchers base their bold hypothesis largely on the analysis of two fossils: a mandible (lower jaw) found in Greece in 1944 and an upper premolar tooth found in Bulgaria in 2009. The fossils belonged to an ape-like creature known as Graecopithecus freybergi (“El Graeco,” for short), which roamed the Mediterranean region between 7.18 and 7.25 million years ago.
Though the fossilized jawbone from Greece has been around a while, most scientists had dismissed it as a source of good information due to its poor condition. “It’s not the best specimen in the world,” David Begun of the University of Toronto, who co-authored the new research, told HISTORY. “It has a lot of damage to the surface of the jawbone itself and a lot of damage to the teeth, so they’re really hard to see, they’re difficult to measure, and it’s hard to say what they look like.” But when Begun’s colleague, Madelaine Böhme, had the idea of using computer tomography, or CT-scanning, to look inside the mandible, things got more interesting.
“We saw that the roots of the teeth embedded in the mandible were perfectly preserved…and they gave us a lot of new information that we never had about this specimen,” Begun said. “The canine root is quite short and slender, and indicates that the canine was small. That’s really important, because in apes—and male apes in particular—the canine is quite large.” This holds true for most male primates, Begun explained, but not all. “This root shows that the canine was already reduced, which is a characteristic that you only see in humans and our fossil relatives.”
In addition, analysis of the two fossils showed that some of the roots of the bicuspid teeth of Graecopithecus—what we call the premolars—had simplified, or fused to form fewer roots. “That is again something that you only see in humans and our fossil relatives. It is extremely rare to find it in living apes, and you don’t see it in any fossil apes from the same time period,” Begun noted.
If Graecopithecus is in fact a hominin, it would slightly predate the earliest known human ancestor found in Africa, Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Discovered at a site in Chad, Sahelanthropus is believed to be between 6 and 7 million years old. Begun emphasized that the new hypothesis doesn’t affect the later story of modern humans and their emergence from Africa. “That story is completely intact,” he told HISTORY. “This is about what happened millions and millions of years before that, when the human lineage in its entirety arose.”
source
Now, a team of scientists from the University of Tubingen in Germany and the University of Toronto in Canada are seeking to revise that story. In two complementary studies published in the journal PLOS One, they argue that the earliest human ancestor emerged in Europe, not Africa, around 7.2 million years ago, or 200,000 years earlier than was previously thought.
The researchers base their bold hypothesis largely on the analysis of two fossils: a mandible (lower jaw) found in Greece in 1944 and an upper premolar tooth found in Bulgaria in 2009. The fossils belonged to an ape-like creature known as Graecopithecus freybergi (“El Graeco,” for short), which roamed the Mediterranean region between 7.18 and 7.25 million years ago.
Though the fossilized jawbone from Greece has been around a while, most scientists had dismissed it as a source of good information due to its poor condition. “It’s not the best specimen in the world,” David Begun of the University of Toronto, who co-authored the new research, told HISTORY. “It has a lot of damage to the surface of the jawbone itself and a lot of damage to the teeth, so they’re really hard to see, they’re difficult to measure, and it’s hard to say what they look like.” But when Begun’s colleague, Madelaine Böhme, had the idea of using computer tomography, or CT-scanning, to look inside the mandible, things got more interesting.
“We saw that the roots of the teeth embedded in the mandible were perfectly preserved…and they gave us a lot of new information that we never had about this specimen,” Begun said. “The canine root is quite short and slender, and indicates that the canine was small. That’s really important, because in apes—and male apes in particular—the canine is quite large.” This holds true for most male primates, Begun explained, but not all. “This root shows that the canine was already reduced, which is a characteristic that you only see in humans and our fossil relatives.”
In addition, analysis of the two fossils showed that some of the roots of the bicuspid teeth of Graecopithecus—what we call the premolars—had simplified, or fused to form fewer roots. “That is again something that you only see in humans and our fossil relatives. It is extremely rare to find it in living apes, and you don’t see it in any fossil apes from the same time period,” Begun noted.
If Graecopithecus is in fact a hominin, it would slightly predate the earliest known human ancestor found in Africa, Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Discovered at a site in Chad, Sahelanthropus is believed to be between 6 and 7 million years old. Begun emphasized that the new hypothesis doesn’t affect the later story of modern humans and their emergence from Africa. “That story is completely intact,” he told HISTORY. “This is about what happened millions and millions of years before that, when the human lineage in its entirety arose.”
source
.