The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

[rgprice]

Thank you for your honesty.

John T is done with this thread.

I'm not quite sure what you're going on about, but the info on The Testament of Amram is helpful. Thanks.

[ABuddhist]

Thank you for your honesty.

John T is done with this thread.

I'm not quite sure what you're going on about, but the info on The Testament of Amram is helpful. Thanks.

I think that John T is so disgusted that you would accept Gmirkin's claims as true that he is refusing to help you any more.

[schillingklaus]

Amran's Testament is not a reference to the serpent of Genesis 3 by any stretch. Likewise, Belial can be understood as a natural enemies of the Jews, such as Antiochos Epiphanes. It is by no means a synonym for Satan.

[Ulan]

The flood story is a good example for the point that the original stories must have put the blame mostly on the Gods. In the Mesopotamian version, it's the god Enki who teaches the chief god Enlil, who ordered the flood, a lesson. You can still find that idea in the Bible story, if you look closely, as it's God himself who afterwards declares the whole shenanigans as pointless and vows, like Enlil, never to repeat such a folly.

The Eden story also still has a similar idea at its core: It's God who expresses fear that Adam may eat from the other forbidden tree next and become like God himself. This makes the kick out of Eden rather look like an act of self-preservation for God, who doesn't like competition.

[neilgodfrey]

The Eden story also still has a similar idea at its core: It's God who expresses fear that Adam may eat from the other forbidden tree next and become like God himself. This makes the kick out of Eden rather look like an act of self-preservation for God, who doesn't like competition.

An interesting point raised by Gmirkin is the question of who was supposed to eat the fruit of the tree of life (and tree of knowledge of good and evil) if they were forbidden to the humans. The only other figure in the garden was Yahweh. Like the second order or later generation of Greek gods, immortality was granted through the eating divine food.

[StephenGoranson]

If one casts a net wider than Greek texts, some other ancient cultures associated immortality with eating tree-fruit pomegranates. Others thought peaches. So not necessarily Greek.

[schillingklaus]

Yahweh was not the only other figure as there were the Elohim with him, who assisted already with creation.

[lsayre]

Yahweh may not have had any part in initiating the creation outlined in Genesis. In Psalm 82 El declares (assigns) Yahweh to be the God over the people of Israel (after sentencing others among the Sons of God who seem to previously have held assignments such as this to death). That seems to imply that El (The white bearded Ancient of Days) is the boss, and likely the creator. And Yahweh to be merely another (or one of potentially many) among the Sons of God.

It may be that Yahweh appeared as Jesus, but it is never made explicit. It may also be that after El's purging of a number of other Sons, Yahweh was uniquely the only remaining Son. ???

[rgprice]

If one casts a net wider than Greek texts, some other ancient cultures associated immortality with eating tree-fruit pomegranates. Others thought peaches. So not necessarily Greek.

Yes, precisely. The problem I have with Gmirkin's most recent work is that it looks too narrowly at Genesis and Plato's works, while largely glossing over the tremendous amount of syncretism among the cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East, dating back to the 3rd or 4th millennium BCE. How many features in Timaeus are also shared by other myths and theogonies? I haven't done a study, but it seems like a whole lot. Many of these ideas were not at all unique to Plato and had been around since the time of the Sumerians.

[Bernard Muller]

4) Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier have made much of the role of the "Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah" in their reconstructions of Christian origins.

See http://historical-jesus.info/100.html Another look at the 'Ascension of Isaiah', the "gospel" of Dr. Carrier in OHJ

Cordially, Bernard