Genesis and the Mahabharata

[Native]

I undertook an intensive study of the Book of Genesis recently and got as far as most of the way through the story of Jacob and Esau. I began to notice in this story the many parallels with certain plot elements of the Mahabharata. I am planning to do a deep dive into the latter (I know a major undertaking but I also know I will do it) in order to become better informed at making a concise comparison between the two. As it is I suspect that the story of the patriarchs in Genesis probably has as a source the Mahabharata or a common, possibly oral, story framework of some kind. I suspect that Homer and composers of works in Greek mythology may have had access to something similar. There seems to be some kind of framework or "Ur" story that serves as a basis for the great epic narratives that I have encountered. This is more than just a coincidence or archetypal commonality I think.

We all live on the same Earth; in the same Solar System; in the same Milky Way galaxy and in the same local part of the observable Universe. These common cosmological conditions contains and provides the collective archetypes from which we all origin. This is our direct communication with the creation such.

These common cosmological conditions contains and provides the collective archetypes from which we all origin. This is our direct communication with the creation such and this is IMO why cultures all over the world describes these cosmological conditions very similar in their myths, sometimes with similar symbols and sometimes with different symbols but STILL describing the same force, object or deity.

 

[whirlingmerc]

I undertook an intensive study of the Book of Genesis recently and got as far as most of the way through the story of Jacob and Esau. I began to notice in this story the many parallels with certain plot elements of the Mahabharata. I am planning to do a deep dive into the latter (I know a major undertaking but I also know I will do it) in order to become better informed at making a concise comparison between the two. As it is I suspect that the story of the patriarchs in Genesis probably has as a source the Mahabharata or a common, possibly oral, story framework of some kind. I suspect that Homer and composers of works in Greek mythology may have had access to something similar. There seems to be some kind of framework or "Ur" story that serves as a basis for the great epic narratives that I have encountered. This is more than just a coincidence or archetypal commonality I think.

Has anyone heard of such a claim and if so please provide any sources you may have so I can look into them. If not then perhaps I will have a new contribution to make to the study of comparative epic literature!

Thanks!

The flood account is common over many cultures of the world

a good summary here
Flood Legends From Around the World

In the Inca tradition God told the llamas about the coming flood
In India it was a man named Manu
In Australia the flood was followed by an ice age in one account

 

[sealchan]

I see there is a flood myth in the Greek tradition as well. Aapparantly it is in the Majabharata as well. It is possible that Bhismas vow parallels Abrams covenant. I believe both receive a name change.

 

[Native]

The flood account is common over many cultures of the world
a good summary here
Flood Legends From Around the World

Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story.

The Noah Ark and all the other genuin Flood Myths is a mythical description of "a celestial river", a myth which is misinterpreted by scholars for centuries. The key to understand this myth is IMO to read of the myths of the Milky Way.

In several cultures, the contours of the white Milky Way were described as "a river running in the Sky" and several cultures have their geographic rivers named as a remembrance of this heavenly river.

The mythical Milky Way can be observed running in the Sky all around and OVER the Earth, but this was interpreted by ancient authors and later scholars as a geographic river/flood which one have run ON the Earth.

As the Milky Way "river" can be observed in all cultures all over the world, it is easy to understand how this imagery have caused the same telling in many cultures.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story.

The Noah Ark and all the other genuin Flood Myths is a mythical description of "a celestial river", a myth which is misinterpreted by scholars for centuries. The key to understand this myth is IMO to read of the myths of the Milky Way.

In several cultures, the contours of the white Milky Way were described as "a river running in the Sky" and several cultures have their geographic rivers named as a remembrance of this heavenly river.

The mythical Milky Way can be observed running in the Sky all around and OVER the Earth, but this was interpreted by ancient authors and later scholars as a geographic river/flood which one have run ON the Earth.

As the Milky Way "river" can be observed in all cultures all over the world, it is easy to understand how this imagery have caused the same telling in many cultures.

Not sure how you could say no flood has been uncovered even in the mountaintops and for more than one reason

1) there are sea fossils on high mountaintops
2) there are unlikely mixtures of land and sea fossils in many places
3) high mountains can be better explained by rapid plate tectonic movements which could occur in a worldwide flood event The Indian island ramming into Asia and raising the himalayas are better explained that way than gradualism
4) there is fossilization of animals with soft tissue that quickly decay best explained with rapid burial
5) there are fossil footprints of dinosaur tracks in and out of water on isoclines of the rocket as if walking parallel to rising waters to try and evade it
6) petrified trees lack root balls as it uprooted, becoming eventually upright floaters and singing vertically (as was the pattern with Mount St Helens ) and best explained with a flood
7) plants and animal remains cutting across layers of sediments often interpreted as long ages of sediment layers suggest that the layers were laid down rapidly... also as was the case in Mt St Helens

On the other hand, the local flood explanation makes little sense. Why build a boat? why not migrate?

The Doxological Coda to Psalms

 

[Native]

Not sure how you could say no flood has been uncovered even in the mountaintops and for more than one reason

1) there are sea fossils on high mountaintops
2) there are unlikely mixtures of land and sea fossils in many places
3) high mountains can be better explained by rapid plate tectonic movements which could occur in a worldwide flood event The Indian island ramming into Asia and raising the himalayas are better explained that way than gradualism
4) there is fossilization of animals with soft tissue that quickly decay best explained with rapid burial
5) there are fossil footprints of dinosaur tracks in and out of water on isoclines of the rocket as if walking parallel to rising waters to try and evade it
6) petrified trees lack root balls as it uprooted, becoming eventually upright floaters and singing vertically (as was the pattern with Mount St Helens ) and best explained with a flood
7) plants and animal remains cutting across layers of sediments often interpreted as long ages of sediment layers suggest that the layers were laid down rapidly... also as was the case in Mt St Helens

On the other hand, the local flood explanation makes little sense. Why build a boat? why not migrate?

The Doxological Coda to Psalms

Note This: I began my post with this:
"Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story".

On the other hand, the local flood explanation makes little sense. Why build a boat? why not migrate?

This was just my point: The entire Flood Myth just deals with the Milky Way (River/Flood) Mythology. This all happens on the night Sky as a mythical description of the Milky Way figure which can be observed all around the Earth UP in the Sky and not ON the Earth.

 

[sealchan]

Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story.

The Noah Ark and all the other genuin Flood Myths is a mythical description of "a celestial river", a myth which is misinterpreted by scholars for centuries. The key to understand this myth is IMO to read of the myths of the Milky Way.

In several cultures, the contours of the white Milky Way were described as "a river running in the Sky" and several cultures have their geographic rivers named as a remembrance of this heavenly river.

The mythical Milky Way can be observed running in the Sky all around and OVER the Earth, but this was interpreted by ancient authors and later scholars as a geographic river/flood which one have run ON the Earth.

As the Milky Way "river" can be observed in all cultures all over the world, it is easy to understand how this imagery have caused the same telling in many cultures.

Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story.

The Noah Ark and all the other genuin Flood Myths is a mythical description of "a celestial river", a myth which is misinterpreted by scholars for centuries. The key to understand this myth is IMO to read of the myths of the Milky Way.

In several cultures, the contours of the white Milky Way were described as "a river running in the Sky" and several cultures have their geographic rivers named as a remembrance of this heavenly river.

The mythical Milky Way can be observed running in the Sky all around and OVER the Earth, but this was interpreted by ancient authors and later scholars as a geographic river/flood which one have run ON the Earth.

As the Milky Way "river" can be observed in all cultures all over the world, it is easy to understand how this imagery have caused the same telling in many cultures.

So are you saying that the objective reality behind the flood myths is the projection into the visible night sky of a heavenly river?

If so how is this not a creative, subjective act of knowing?

 

[Native]

So are you saying that the objective reality behind the flood myths is the projection into the visible night sky of a heavenly river?

If so how is this not a creative, subjective act of knowing?

Yes I´m saying just that

2. sentence: No, not in my opinion. This is in fact an empirical and collective knowledge based on cultural astronomical myths from all over the world.

 

[sealchan]

Yes I´m saying just that

2. sentence: No, not in my opinion. This is in fact an empirical and collective knowledge based on cultural astronomical myths from all over the world.

Hmmm...I suspect that we are only by slight degrees not aligned in our respective views. Or maybe not.

The objectivity you speak of lies in the fact of cross cultural mythic motifs correct? How do you compare such themes with science based truths?

The Milky Way isn't a river because it is a gravitational well in which millions of stars are falling as in a whirlpool. It might have been a blob, etc...so in the context of the universe, this is a subjective, idiosyncratic view of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way IS a river in the context of a vast body of human story where it becomes a common "higher" symbol of the human literal experience of rivers as life giving resources.

 

[Native]

Hmmm...I suspect that we are only by slight degrees not aligned in our respective views. Or maybe not.

The objectivity you speak of lies in the fact of cross cultural mythic motifs correct? How do you compare such themes with science based truths?

The Milky Way isn't a river because it is a gravitational well in which millions of stars are falling as in a whirlpool. It might have been a blob, etc...so in the context of the universe, this is a subjective, idiosyncratic view of the Milky Way.

Don´t mix ancient physical observations of the Milky Way contours with the modern term of gravity. Our ancestors described the Milky Way in their symbolism of geographical rivers. This has nothing to do with "gravity" at all.

 

[Native]

The Milky Way IS a river in the context of a vast body of human story where it becomes a common "higher" symbol of the human literal experience of rivers as life giving resources.

Sort of, yes. Which is the reason the ancient cultures also imagined and resembled the Milky Way contours as a Mother Goddess, as for instants with the Egyptian goddess, Hathor.

 

[sealchan]

Sort of, yes. Which is the reason the ancient cultures also imagined and resembled the Milky Way contours as a Mother Goddess, as for instants with the Egyptian goddess, Hathor.

In thinking about what the Genesis creation myth must have derived from I suspect that the waters above (night sky goddess) and the waters below (earth goddess or underworld consort) indicate two spheres of ancient cosmology associated with the goddess. Only any sense of the feminine has been removed from Genesis. But the (rib?) bones are still there.

Perhaps this is a problem for any monotheism wanting to depart from the general polytheistic background...it requires the creative subsummation of a variety of roles under the one God. But also the role of the gods during prehuman times may have been gradually transforming into the actions of semi-divine humans or even mere mortals. The whole transition in epic ancestry from shorter and shorter lives from the ancient past speaks to this gradual fall from divinity of the present day audience.

Certainly this degradation of moral and divine quality is a universal motif across the Biblical, Indian and Greek epics.

 

[Native]

In thinking about what the Genesis creation myth must have derived from I suspect that the waters above (night sky goddess) and the waters below (earth goddess or underworld consort) indicate two spheres of ancient cosmology associated with the goddess. Only any sense of the feminine has been removed from Genesis. But the (rib?) bones are still there.

Some scholars think there was a biblical connection to ancient Mesopotamia, but I´m not sure. There could be a migrational influence but basically all cultures can have their own creation story and no migrational exchanges at all. This story "grow up" from people noticing the cosmos around them and via spiritual visions of cosmos.
Yes, the Abrahamic religions just have binned everything female which is sad both as the devaluation of women and because the the Goddess is needed in order to explain the creation as such. Once JHVH had a female consort, named Ashera and after she was banned and binned, all was left to cases of blind believes and unbelievable dogmas. And the moral state in modern life isn´t something to brag about either.

But also the role of the gods during prehuman times may have been gradually transforming into the actions of semi-divine humans or even mere mortals.

I think this is natural if having prime deities of both genders which "splits up" and creates all other kind of life and forms.

The whole transition in epic ancestry from shorter and shorter lives from the ancient past speaks to this gradual fall from divinity of the present day audience.

I wouldn´t take this as an automatic process but rather as a question whether humans are able to live accordingly to the natural and social laws as such. And of course, this goes up and down up and down . . .

 

[whirlingmerc]

5780326, member: 32289"]Note This: I began my post with this:
"Of course there have been factual cultural floods happening all over the world but IMO no floods which has covered the entire Earth and even the mountain tops as told with the Noah Ark story".

This was just my point: The entire Flood Myth just deals with the Milky Way (River/Flood) Mythology. This all happens on the night Sky as a mythical description of the Milky Way figure which can be observed all around the Earth UP in the Sky and not ON the Earth.[/QUOTE]



I think there is evidence of a worldwide flood.. Some layers of the geological column are expansive in extent, consistent with a world wide flood. Additionally even the layers of geological rock found in the grand canyon have roughly the same level of c14 suggesting they were laid down at once. We do in fact see vast structures of stone that are twisted suggestions played down soft in a flood event and twisted with high vulcanism

 

[Native]

I think there is evidence of a worldwide flood.. Some layers of the geological column are expansive in extent, consistent with a world wide flood. Additionally even the layers of geological rock found in the grand canyon have roughly the same level of c14 suggesting they were laid down at once. We do in fact see vast structures of stone that are twisted suggestions played down soft in a flood event and twisted with high vulcanism

I´m not a geologist, but to me these images looks very much as specific movements in the Earth crust as a result of tectonic plate activities.

Maybe you should have another look at my comment here #24Native, Yesterday at 1:45 AM

 

[whirlingmerc]

I´m a geologist, but to me these images looks very much as specific movements in the Earth crust as a result of tectonic plate activities.

Maybe you should have another look at my comment here #24Native, Yesterday at 1:45 AM

They would need to be specific movements while the rocks were soft

 

[Native]

They would need to be specific movements while the rocks were soft

I know that rocks can become "soft" by aging, but not that soft that a flood could make those patterns as shown on your images.
Besides this, the most soft rock surfaces of course is when tectonic plates moves around in and over the molten area in the Earth.
I don´t think your explanations holds water, apropos FLOODINGS