[ View Thread ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

Comparative Mythology

Posted By: Charles Pope
Date: Wednesday, 30 October 2002, at 6:20 p.m.

In Response To: Re: The Grand Challenge (John M. Riada)

After the Babylonian Exile, there was a considerable amount of soul searching. The fallen scions of Zion were able to compare notes with their distant cousins in Mesopotamia. In the case of Jehoichin, this must have become a frequent topic of dinner conversation with the Babylonian king Evil-Merodoch! It can now be said that these deported Jews were not a petty dynasty in Palestine, but pharaohs of Egypt. I would like to have been the proverbial fly on the wall in that Babylonian dining hall. At the time of Abraham, Mesopotamia and Egypt were under a common king, namely Abraham's grandfather. After the fall of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, it would be 430 years before these regions would be "reunited" by Nebuchadnezzar.

Even when the "world" had been united in more distant times, the various temples must have kept their own records, and with considerable variation between such widely separated regions. It seems that the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis, was an attempt to synthesize the traditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. It might have incorporated material preserved in India.

http://www.viewzone.com/noah.story.html

Obviously there would have been limits to what they could have achieved, and Genesis is still very much Egypto-centric. Yet, it very much simplifies the mess we find when looking at other individual records, such as the Sumerian king-list and similar ones in Egypt that contain so much redundancy and haphazard ordering, especially in the first four dynasties.

When considering the significance of the Garden of Eden, it is interesting that the "tree" is mentioned in conjunction with the "serpent." Here's another essay from the Viewzone web site that might shed some light on that subject.

http://www.viewzone.com/snakex.html

Why has mankind been made to feel guilty for seeking knowledge? I have wondered whether the world as it is today was truly the result of planned parenthood, or a by-product of "rebellion" on the part of the gods who overstepped the bounds of their charter. But in cosmic terms, is there really any such thing as a "mistake?" Probably not. Aren't all rules meant to be broken?

Messages In This Thread

[ View Thread ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

© Charles N. Pope, US Library of Congress. All rights reserved.