What Exactly Happened in the Garden of Eden

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by kjw47

God was, he recorded the events in Genesis.

Do you have a reading comprehension problem?

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by MPHJ7

I found this article titled "What Happened in the Garden?" (November 29, 2021) posted to a blog called 'Ancient Insights'. The blog is run by an ex-Atheist and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy named Benjamin John. There are some things on the blog I agree with and some I don't agree with, but nonetheless I found this particular article interesting. I decided to post it here since the Genesis story of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Tree of Knowledge are all often discussed on this forum.

Because it's a long post, I will just take snippets of the most pertinent points to read here. The full article goes into more detail - you can feel free to read it yourself if you want to see the nitty-gritty of Benjamin's argument.

POINT 1 - "Knowledge of good and evil" means authority.

If there’s any doubt about this, king Solomon puts it to rest. In 1 Kings 3:9, Solomon asks God for the ability to “discern between good and evil” in order that he might properly “govern” God’s people. This once again shows that having the knowledge of “good and evil” refers specifically to being able to make royal decisions; and this is why the word “discern” (לְהָבִ֖ין) is only used twice in Genesis, both of which are descriptions of Joseph in the context of his enthronement (Gen. 41:33, 39).

The applicable British phrase here is "It's a fair cop."

He is correct but for all the wrong reasons not to mention he lied to you.

First, serious bible students do not use the King Joke Vision. Not only is the Textus Receptus used for the King Joke Vision fraught with more than 830 known errors, the translators lie and make things up.

For example, you read a psalm in the King Joke Vision which has a line stating, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let might right hand forget her cunning."

The translators of the King Joke Vision lied and make up the phrase "her cunning."

Serious students use Codex Leningradis or Codex Aleppo when studying the Hebrew texts and note the phrase "her cunning" is absent. It reads "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let might right hand forget."

Even so, the passage was still incorrectly translated by Jews, and to add insult to injury, it was an Atheist who got the translation right. He was a French archaeologist on a team with German and Israeli archaeologists digging in Ugarit who found the tablet with the proper words.

Yes, that's right. The Hebrews did not write that Psalm. The Ugarits did. The Hebrews plagiarized it.

So, for 2,000+ years Jews and x-tians incorrectly translated that Psalm which is proof no god exists or that none of the translators are working through or inspired by any god-thing, because, well, no god exists.

"If I forget you, Jerusalem, let might right hand whither."

That is the correct translation.

If you want another example of how the translators of the King Joke Vision lie there's a story of Jesus casting out demons from a man, the demons jump into the brains of a herd of pigs, and the pigs drown themselves in the Sea of Galilee.

Mark says that even took place in/near the town of Gerasa.

Matthew says the event took place in/near the town of Gadara.

The King Joke Vision translators then lie and claim both tales by Mark and Matthew took place in/near the town of Gerge.

They lie because any person with half a brain would ask how is it a god cannot remember where he was when he performed a "miracle?"

To keep people from asking that question, the translators of the King Joke Vision hide the truth from people by lying and claiming it happened at a different place.

Second, the actual phrase in question at Genesis 41:33 is "discreet and wise."

That is a literary device known as a heniadys that Sumerians and Akkadians extensively employed since their language is an agglutinate language.

Other examples of a heniadys are "good and mad" and "soft and breezy" and "nice and hot" and, of course, "the Earth was without form and void."

The claim the phrase only occurs twice in Genesis is false because the phrase occurs 137 times.

It occurs 137 times in both Codex Leningradis and Codex Aleppo.

Third, let us examine the phrase in closer detail.

The actual Hebrew is "...let Pharaoh look for a discreet and wise man, and set him over the land of the Mitzrayim."

The phrase "discreet and wise man" is rendered in Hebrew as bene hakam and appears 137 times.

It is also a Sumerian/Akkadian loan-word.

Oooops....

If we go to I Kings 3:9 "Give your servant therefore an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this your great people?"

The phrase "discern between good and evil" is rendered as bene bayin tob ra.

Checking Genesis 41:39 we find "Because God has shown you all of this, there is none so discreet and wise as you."

Again, "discreet and wise" is rendered as bene hakam.

Finally, your new-found Hero is very obviously a Madonna Christian.

With the few exceptions of certain genealogies, everything Genesis up to the introduction of Joseph is of Sumerian origin and not Hebrew origin.

The Hebrews plagiarized most of it from the Ugarits and the rest was on the tablets Abram/Abraham the priest-in-training worshiping the god Ninurta brought from the city of Ur.

For various reasons, the Hebrew editors redacted or altered the texts over 1,500 years, some times for political and social reasons, but most of the time out of sheer ignorance and stupidity resulting in a lack of understanding.

For example: Genesis 10:25 Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg because in his days the earth was divided...

In the original Sumerian text, there were two half-brothers, Enki and Enlil, feuding over who controlled Earth. Their father An (Anu in Akkadian and elsewhere in Mesopotamia and On in Egypt) came down from the heavens and they cast lots. An got the heavens, Enlil got Asia Minor and the area to India, and Enki got Africa.

That's how Earth was divided.

That is not the whole story, but just like the Hebrew editors of old, I deem that you don't need to know the whole story or that it isn't really relevant to you and because I deemed you don't need to know, you don't need to know, so I'm not telling you the whole story.

By 900 BCE the Sumerians had been dead and gone for 1,000 years and the Akkadians for 700 years and because the Hebrews were wrapped up in the Ugarit pantheon, they wouldn't have a clue who An or Enki or Enlil were, nor had they ever met a living Sumerian or Akkadian, so they left out a good chunk of the story.

I mention that because that's one of the many fallacies your new-found Hero perpetrated on you.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by MPHJ7

I found this article titled "What Happened in the Garden?" (November 29, 2021) posted to a blog called 'Ancient Insights'. The blog is run by an ex-Atheist and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy named Benjamin John. There are some things on the blog I agree with and some I don't agree with, but nonetheless I found this particular article interesting. I decided to post it here since the Genesis story of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Tree of Knowledge are all often discussed on this forum.

Because it's a long post, I will just take snippets of the most pertinent points to read here. The full article goes into more detail - you can feel free to read it yourself if you want to see the nitty-gritty of Benjamin's argument.

POINT 2 - God was going to let Adam & Eve eat from the tree; their sin was being impatient.

Once we have a proper understanding of “the knowledge of good and evil,” namely that it refers to royal authority, we can begin to answer the question posed by Kristi: “why would God forbid His creation from having knowledge in the first place?” Well, first we must ask the question: was God’s prohibition on eating the fruit of the forbidden tree permanent? I don’t think so.

[...]
However, if God desired man to have the knowledge of good and evil, why the commandment against taking it? Recall the story of Joseph, someone who lawfully possessed this knowledge. What did he have that Adam and Eve didn’t? It’s quite simple, he had clothes. Whereas Joseph was fully clothed in a royal robe, Adam and Eve were naked (Gen. 2:25). Nakedness is a sign of immaturity, and clothing is a sign of maturity; man is born naked, but he’s buried fully clothed. Thus, man was initially forbidden from the knowledge of good and evil because he wasn’t ready for it yet, he needed to wait patiently and mature.

POINT 3 - Adam was smart enough to know eating the fruit was wrong already.

This point often goes missed, however in Genesis 2:7-8, we see that the Garden was planted after Adam was created. The implication seems to be that God planted the Garden in front of Adam’s very eyes, as if He were teaching His son how to do the same. Not only this, but Adam was tasked with “naming” all of the Lord’s creatures. Throughout Scripture, names are incredibly important; they signify the role that a given creature will play in God’s plan of history (as in the case of Abraham, cf. Gen. 17). Thus, in order to properly name the animals, Adam had to understand them, and indeed he does. Seeing that all of the animals came in sexual pairs, Adam discerned that he must as well, which is why Eve was created only after Adam had learned wisdom from the animals (all of this is confirmed in the book of Job).
Your new-found Hero is just plain wrong here.

I'll take these two together.

First, there was no sin.

Second, it had nothing to do with humans being "impatient."

Finally, your new-found Hero loves his fallacies.

Notice how he cherry-picks his creation event. He takes the second telling instead of the first telling, because he cannot make his baseless claims using the first telling of the creation.

Let's revisit the first telling of creation.

Genesis 1:20 God said, “Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 1:21 God created the great sea creatures and every living and moving thing with which the water swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. God saw that it was good. 1:22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 1:23 There was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.
1:24 God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” It was so. 1:25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the cattle according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep along the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good.
1:26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”
1:27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.
1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”

I just destroyed your new-found Hero's fantasy.

Let us recall that Terah was the chief priest for the god Ninurta in Ur. Let us also recall that the priesthood was an hereditary position, thus Abram/Abraham was a priest-in-training. Let us also recall that Terah took his son Abram/Abraham and daughter Serai/Sarah who was Abram/Abraham's half-sister wife to Haran. Let us also be aware that Haran was the principle city for the god Teshub and in the Hurrian language Teshub = Ninurta. Gosh, I wonder why Terah went to Haran.

Abram/Abraham and his half-sister wife Serai/Sarah eventually leave Haran and travel through Ugarit into Canaan where they settled.

The Hebrews always lived in Canaan. They never lived in Egypt and there was no Exodus.

The tribal territories of Manasseh and Ephraim (the true heir of Israel) were right on the border with Ugarit and the other tribal territories were dispersed south of Manasseh and Ephraim.

Abram/Abraham spoke Sumerian-Akkadian but as you might guess, within a few generations his descendants were speaking the Ugaritic dialect of Canaanite.

Then a few centuries later, Ugarit was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed, carted off as slaves or fled and the city fell into ruin and was eventually swallowed up by dust and sediments to become a giant mound.

Such was common for cities and towns at that time. For unknown reasons, the Sumerians fled Sumer and never returned and their cities were swallowed up by dust and sediment to become mounds, something Alexander the Great even noted in 333 BCE when he conquered that area, and then later when Arabic tribes moved in to settle, they call them "tells" which is simply a word that means mound or hillock in Arabic and then archeologists found out if they dug into the tells they would discover ancient cities.

Jericho was a trading post circa 9,500 BCE (the frescoes of crabs painted on the walls coincide with the Age of Cancer the Crab) and abandoned and rebuilt repeatedly over the next 10,000 years. At the time the Exodus that never happened allegedly occurred, Jericho was not occupied by anyone. It was abandoned and archeology tells the tale.

Because Ugarit was abandoned, over the next several centuries the Ugaritic dialect of Canaanite spoken by the Hebrews evolved into what is called Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH) and is nothing more than the Urgaritic dialect of Canaanite without the case endings (the nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental, locative, vocative et al.)

You need to know that because in the tablets Abram/Abraham brought with him, the text as originally written for Genesis 1:26 read Then Enki, Ningishiddza and Ninhursag said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

It was Enki, his son Ningishiddza, and his half-sister Ninhursag who created humans.

By about 1400 BCE, no living Hebrew would have known who the Sumerians or Akkadians were and it doesn't matter because by that time they were wrapped up in the Ugaritic pantheon.

It would have been one of the E editors who changed the text to read:

Genesis 1:26 Then Yam, Kothar and Anat said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

The Hebrews, like everyone else, were polytheists who evolved, like everyone else into henotheists -- the elevation of one god in a pantheon above the others and in this instance it was Yahweh -- and then later, the Hebrews said, "Hey! We need to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else and have a national god!" and it Yahweh.

For the record, Islam is the only true monotheistic religion. There was only Allah and no other gods ever.

At that point, one of the E editors would have changed the text to read:

Genesis 1:26 Then the gods said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

The word elohim is plural. That's what the -im suffix designates, like melachim -- messengers (not the idiotic angles fantasy of x-tians) -- and ne'vim -- prophets, and so on.

The fact that modern Jews speaking modern Hebrew which has little to do with Classical Biblical Hebrew now interpret as god in the singular is not relevant (although it does prove religion and religious ideology evolves.)

The reason you need to know all that is because in the original Sumerian story that the Hebrews plagiarized vis-a-vis the Ugarits, it was Enki who created humans and Enki loved humans more than life itself.

In that original story, Enki and Enlil argue.

About what?

Enki wants humans to learn how to rule.

Enki won the argument and so Enlil conceded and "lowered kingship from the heavens to Eridu."

Thus began the rule of the first of 10 ante-Diluvial kings.

I would also point out that the Hebrews did not write the Book of Job.

The Sumerians wrote it 7,000 years ago and the Book of Job that you read in your bible has more Sumerian-Akkadian loan-words than any other Hebrew text.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by MPHJ7

I found this article titled "What Happened in the Garden?" (November 29, 2021) posted to a blog called 'Ancient Insights'. The blog is run by an ex-Atheist and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy named Benjamin John. There are some things on the blog I agree with and some I don't agree with, but nonetheless I found this particular article interesting. I decided to post it here since the Genesis story of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Tree of Knowledge are all often discussed on this forum.

Because it's a long post, I will just take snippets of the most pertinent points to read here. The full article goes into more detail - you can feel free to read it yourself if you want to see the nitty-gritty of Benjamin's argument.

POINT 4 - The devil did lie to Adam & Eve.

Adam, had meditated on the word of the Lord. She states that God’s commandment was, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the Garden, neither shall you touch it.” Sorry, but where did God say not to touch the fruit? No where, He only said not to eat it (Gen. 2:17). However, Eve isn’t wrong. In the book of Leviticus (which is full of allusions to Genesis 3, see here), we see that the food you’re forbidden from eating, you’re also forbidden from touching (Lev. 11:8). What this means is that the woman, like her husband (probably even with his help), was beginning to grow in wisdom by meditating on the law of the Lord.

Hence, it’s at this point that the Serpent (who is, without doubt, Satan) truly begins his attack on the woman by lying to her; and this lie was twofold. First, the Serpent states that Adam and Eve wouldn’t die if they ate from the tree; contra Kristi, this is false because, as stated before, they indeed had to die through animal sacrifice (see here for more). Second, the Serpent implies that God didn’t want man to have the knowledge of good and evil, or to be like Him. This is ludicrous! As I explained at length above, the entire reason why God created man was in order for him to possess this knowledge! Man was literally made in “the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26-27); this would be a pretty poor design if the Lord had no intentions on making us like Him! Indeed, as Seraphim Hamilton demonstrates, the entire narrative of Scripture revolves around mankind’s exaltation to the heavenly court to reign with God. Thus, the greatest lie Satan ever told was that God wanted anything other than our greatest possible end.




On this issue at least, I agree with Benjamin. Honestly I think the story of the Garden of Eden might be one of the most misunderstood stories in all of Western culture - both by people who believe it to be true as well as those who don't. Which is unfortunate.

What a coincidence! Your new-found Hero lied, too!

There is no devil. Never was.

Remember I mentioned earlier the story about how Earth was divided in the days of Peleg?

Let's revisit that.

I going to pretend to be a Hebrew editor.

I deem that you don't need to know how Enlil divided his territory because I deem you don't need to know.

I am going to tell you how Enki divided his territory: Africa.

He divided it in this way: Northern Africa went to Marduk; Ningishiddza got Western Africa; Dumuzi got Eastern Africa; Gibil got Central Africa; and Nergal got Southern Africa.

Let's talk about Ningishiddza and Western Africa, specially the Niger-Congo River Basin.

When British explorers and missionaries entered that region in the 1890s, they found a lot of peculiar things. There were 100s and 100s of small villages. None had governments. They all effectively operated as anarcho-syndicate communes although the men would take turns acting as a sort of "mayor" for two weeks at a time (New Moon to Full Moon and Full Moon to New Moon.)

When the villagers needed help with "divine things" they would consult an oracle.

The British explorers and missionaries were appalled.

The dozens of tribes in the region had oracles in dozens and dozens of caves in the hillsides along the Niger and Congo Rivers.

In those caves was an oracle, a serpent, and a priestess who cared for the serpent and performed whatever divination sought using the oracle.

The British explorers and missionaries destroyed the oracles, killed the serpents, and murdered (often raping first) the priestess, and then they used dynamite to blow the caves shut. I'll leave it to you to read about how the British missionaries got their jollies doing that.

Get it?

Serpents in a cave with an oracle and a priestess? Ningishiddza, like his father Enki, was a serpent god. What I described was seen only in Western Africa and nowhere else on the continent. In fact, the symbol for Enki and Ningishiddza was two serpents intertwined on a cross.

You've seen that many a time. It's called a caduceus and it is the symbol for the medical profession. That symbol is at least 10,000 years old and when you're reading the Journal of the Ancient Near East or any other professional journal and they're discussing tablets, cylinder seals, frescoes, bas reliefs, drawings, carvings, etc and you see that symbol it is discussing Enki or Ningishiddza or both.

Two serpent gods created humans and in the whole of the Mesopotamian region, no matter if the civilization calls them Enki and Ningishiddza or Ptah and Thoth (in Egypt) or Yam or Kothar (in Ugarit) there is not one single shred of evidence that either of them ever caused any harm or suffering to any human or group of humans. Not one.

But that should come as no surprise.

Something the Hebrew editors deemed irrelevant and omitted was that in the original creation story when Enki, Ningishiddza, and Ninhursag created humans, Enlil was very, very angry. He wanted them to destroy the humans, but Enki refused.

Then, again, in the original Sumerian story the Hebrews plagiarized, Enki and Enlil are arguing about giving humans the right to rule.

Enki wins and Enlil "lowers kingship from the heavens to Eridu" starting the rule of the 10 antediluvian kings.

Which brings us to Nergal.

Nergal's domain was "down under."

When the Greeks came across that Sumerian text, they did not know how to translate "down under."

To them, Earth was flat, but all older civilizations knew Earth was a spheroid and orbited the Sun. I'm talking about the early Greeks, not the later Greeks of Aristotle's period (300s BCE).

"Down under" means under the equator, like Australia is the land "down under" but the stupid Greeks believing in flat Earth with no equator could only envision "down under" as underneath the Earth.

Thus, Hell was born. Prior to that time, there was no Hell, and no, shoal is not Hell. After transcribing dozens and dozens of texts stating that this or that king of Sumer made ships from "down under" moor at his ports, the term "underworld" is no longer acceptable. It's now to be translated as "netherworld" primarily because x-tian die-hards clinging to a fantasy can't let go.

Anyway, Nergal has an observatory in his domain "down under" and he sees something that frightens him, so he calls for Enki and Ningishiddza. Once they have a look, they send for Marduk who confirms their findings.

When they tell Enlil, he calls for a council of the gods (the pantheon of 12) and swore them to secrecy because Enlil took great delight in the belief that this calamity was wipe out the humans he hated.

Enki goes to his temple at a time when he knows his favorite guy Ziusurda will be there and Enki hides himself and "talks to the wall." Ziusurda hears only a voice and isn't quite sure who it is, but the voice says "Wall, a great calamity is coming! Take the plans on the table and use them to build a submersible vessel. Seek out this skilled navigator who can pilot your ship!"

Ziusurda does. The gods are in a safe place when this calamity occurs and are horrified.

When Enlil and the gods return to Sumer, Enlil is traveling around the ruins and smells the smoke of a fire. He realizes Enki -- the serpent god -- tricked him, but he ain't mad. He is glad humans survived and he regrets his decision not to tell them. He tells Ziusurda, "See that rainbow in the sky? That's my promise to you I won't let this happen again."

The story so far....

Two serpent gods create humans; one serpent god becomes the champion of humans convinces Enlil to lower kingship from the heavens; and the serpent god saves humans from destruction.

That is totally incongruous with the whole devil/Satan thing.

Like I said, the Hebrew editors left out a lot of stuff and changed things around for lots of reasons, none of which has to do with truth.

This highlights another reason why the King Joke Vision is a faulty text that should be banned.

In Codex Leningradis and Codex Aleppo, the word s-t-n is a noun but it is not a proper noun. It is not the name of a person. It simply means "the accuser."

Any text that translates s-t-n as Satan is just plain wrong.

More to the point, if you've been keeping up on all things Ancient Near East, you'd know "the accuser" was most likely the Sumerian god Enzu (rendered in Akkadian as Zuen.)

Did I mention Enzu was executed?

Enzu hated Enlil and Enki and did a lot of bad things which is why Enlil, Ninurta, Addad, Marduk, and Nergal hunted him down and killed him.

Speaking of Ninurta and Nergal, Marduk believed that this calamity that befell Earth somehow affected its orbit or axial rotation and so based on the pre-diluvial star charts, it was his time to rule. The others said, too bad, you'll just have to wait except Marduk didn't wanna wait.

His son Nabu had his armies in Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain, and to keep Nabu from using those armies, Ninurta and Nergal destroyed them.

The P editor (P for Priestly although it should probably be P for Perverted) changed the original story written by the Akkadians into a morality play about homosexuals.

The P editor is the one who gave us the 2nd creation story and we know that was written during the Babylonian captivity, which is all the more reason to reject your new-found Hero's approach in cherry-picking the 2nd creation story over the 1st creation story.

[kjw47]

Originally Posted by MPHJ7

I found this article titled "What Happened in the Garden?" (November 29, 2021) posted to a blog called 'Ancient Insights'. The blog is run by an ex-Atheist and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy named Benjamin John. There are some things on the blog I agree with and some I don't agree with, but nonetheless I found this particular article interesting. I decided to post it here since the Genesis story of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Tree of Knowledge are all often discussed on this forum.

Because it's a long post, I will just take snippets of the most pertinent points to read here. The full article goes into more detail - you can feel free to read it yourself if you want to see the nitty-gritty of Benjamin's argument.

POINT 1 - "Knowledge of good and evil" means authority.


POINT 2 - God was going to let Adam & Eve eat from the tree; their sin was being impatient.


POINT 3 - Adam was smart enough to know eating the fruit was wrong already.


POINT 4 - The devil did lie to Adam & Eve.


On this issue at least, I agree with Benjamin. Honestly I think the story of the Garden of Eden might be one of the most misunderstood stories in all of Western culture - both by people who believe it to be true as well as those who don't. Which is unfortunate.

It was a direct challenge in front of all creation to Gods universal sovereignty. God created mortals to know only good, he handed to them on a silver platter-life everlasting, not aging like now, never sick, never without with an abundance of beauty and variety in everything God created. He asked them not to do 1 single thing, that way they weren't just robots but had free will to choose out of love and respect for their creator to listen to his advice on the matter. Eve proved weak and kicked God in the teeth and listened to one who did 0 for them, he lied to her. And she ate of the tree, Adam wasnt deceived he stood by Eves side and ate later. So once and for all time God is letting it be proved who is correct--God, that mortals should know only good and listen to his advice to find the best path to lasting happiness, or the devil and mortals know both good and bad and then can decide for themselves the best path to lasting happiness. God never would let them eat of that tree. Look at this sick system of things because of it.

There is no best path to lasting happiness knowing both good and bad, so YES 100% God is correct, he always is. Its almost done. Gods kingdom is coming.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by Mircea

What a coincidence! Your new-found Hero lied, too!

There is no devil. Never was.

Remember I mentioned earlier the story about how Earth was divided in the days of Peleg?

Let's revisit that.

I going to pretend to be a Hebrew editor.

I deem that you don't need to know how Enlil divided his territory because I deem you don't need to know.

I am going to tell you how Enki divided his territory: Africa.

He divided it in this way: Northern Africa went to Marduk; Ningishiddza got Western Africa; Dumuzi got Eastern Africa; Gibil got Central Africa; and Nergal got Southern Africa.

Let's talk about Ningishiddza and Western Africa, specially the Niger-Congo River Basin.

When British explorers and missionaries entered that region in the 1890s, they found a lot of peculiar things. There were 100s and 100s of small villages. None had governments. They all effectively operated as anarcho-syndicate communes although the men would take turns acting as a sort of "mayor" for two weeks at a time (New Moon to Full Moon and Full Moon to New Moon.)

When the villagers needed help with "divine things" they would consult an oracle.

The British explorers and missionaries were appalled.

The dozens of tribes in the region had oracles in dozens and dozens of caves in the hillsides along the Niger and Congo Rivers.

In those caves was an oracle, a serpent, and a priestess who cared for the serpent and performed whatever divination sought using the oracle.

The British explorers and missionaries destroyed the oracles, killed the serpents, and murdered (often raping first) the priestess, and then they used dynamite to blow the caves shut. I'll leave it to you to read about how the British missionaries got their jollies doing that.

Get it?

Serpents in a cave with an oracle and a priestess? Ningishiddza, like his father Enki, was a serpent god. What I described was seen only in Western Africa and nowhere else on the continent. In fact, the symbol for Enki and Ningishiddza was two serpents intertwined on a cross.

You've seen that many a time. It's called a caduceus and it is the symbol for the medical profession. That symbol is at least 10,000 years old and when you're reading the Journal of the Ancient Near East or any other professional journal and they're discussing tablets, cylinder seals, frescoes, bas reliefs, drawings, carvings, etc and you see that symbol it is discussing Enki or Ningishiddza or both.

Two serpent gods created humans and in the whole of the Mesopotamian region, no matter if the civilization calls them Enki and Ningishiddza or Ptah and Thoth (in Egypt) or Yam or Kothar (in Ugarit) there is not one single shred of evidence that either of them ever caused any harm or suffering to any human or group of humans. Not one.

But that should come as no surprise.

Something the Hebrew editors deemed irrelevant and omitted was that in the original creation story when Enki, Ningishiddza, and Ninhursag created humans, Enlil was very, very angry. He wanted them to destroy the humans, but Enki refused.

Then, again, in the original Sumerian story the Hebrews plagiarized, Enki and Enlil are arguing about giving humans the right to rule.

Enki wins and Enlil "lowers kingship from the heavens to Eridu" starting the rule of the 10 antediluvian kings.

Which brings us to Nergal.

Nergal's domain was "down under."

When the Greeks came across that Sumerian text, they did not know how to translate "down under."

To them, Earth was flat, but all older civilizations knew Earth was a spheroid and orbited the Sun. I'm talking about the early Greeks, not the later Greeks of Aristotle's period (300s BCE).

"Down under" means under the equator, like Australia is the land "down under" but the stupid Greeks believing in flat Earth with no equator could only envision "down under" as underneath the Earth.

Thus, Hell was born. Prior to that time, there was no Hell, and no, shoal is not Hell. After transcribing dozens and dozens of texts stating that this or that king of Sumer made ships from "down under" moor at his ports, the term "underworld" is no longer acceptable. It's now to be translated as "netherworld" primarily because x-tian die-hards clinging to a fantasy can't let go.

Anyway, Nergal has an observatory in his domain "down under" and he sees something that frightens him, so he calls for Enki and Ningishiddza. Once they have a look, they send for Marduk who confirms their findings.

When they tell Enlil, he calls for a council of the gods (the pantheon of 12) and swore them to secrecy because Enlil took great delight in the belief that this calamity was wipe out the humans he hated.

Enki goes to his temple at a time when he knows his favorite guy Ziusurda will be there and Enki hides himself and "talks to the wall." Ziusurda hears only a voice and isn't quite sure who it is, but the voice says "Wall, a great calamity is coming! Take the plans on the table and use them to build a submersible vessel. Seek out this skilled navigator who can pilot your ship!"

Ziusurda does. The gods are in a safe place when this calamity occurs and are horrified.

When Enlil and the gods return to Sumer, Enlil is traveling around the ruins and smells the smoke of a fire. He realizes Enki -- the serpent god -- tricked him, but he ain't mad. He is glad humans survived and he regrets his decision not to tell them. He tells Ziusurda, "See that rainbow in the sky? That's my promise to you I won't let this happen again."

The story so far....

Two serpent gods create humans; one serpent god becomes the champion of humans convinces Enlil to lower kingship from the heavens; and the serpent god saves humans from destruction.

That is totally incongruous with the whole devil/Satan thing.

Like I said, the Hebrew editors left out a lot of stuff and changed things around for lots of reasons, none of which has to do with truth.

This highlights another reason why the King Joke Vision is a faulty text that should be banned.

In Codex Leningradis and Codex Aleppo, the word s-t-n is a noun but it is not a proper noun. It is not the name of a person. It simply means "the accuser."

Any text that translates s-t-n as Satan is just plain wrong.

More to the point, if you've been keeping up on all things Ancient Near East, you'd know "the accuser" was most likely the Sumerian god Enzu (rendered in Akkadian as Zuen.)

Did I mention Enzu was executed?

Enzu hated Enlil and Enki and did a lot of bad things which is why Enlil, Ninurta, Addad, Marduk, and Nergal hunted him down and killed him.

Speaking of Ninurta and Nergal, Marduk believed that this calamity that befell Earth somehow affected its orbit or axial rotation and so based on the pre-diluvial star charts, it was his time to rule. The others said, too bad, you'll just have to wait except Marduk didn't wanna wait.

His son Nabu had his armies in Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain, and to keep Nabu from using those armies, Ninurta and Nergal destroyed them.

The P editor (P for Priestly although it should probably be P for Perverted) changed the original story written by the Akkadians into a morality play about homosexuals.

The P editor is the one who gave us the 2nd creation story and we know that was written during the Babylonian captivity, which is all the more reason to reject your new-found Hero's approach in cherry-picking the 2nd creation story over the 1st creation story.

It is good to acquaint the forum with the Sumerian origins of the Creation myths. Unfortunately, while many know of such claims, they dismiss them without trying to see their relevance. It is also unwise to take the Sumerian stories literally!

The simple truth is that God (IMO, the Cosmic consciousness responsible for our Reality and existence) had a seemingly impossible conundrum. We were to become independently conscious like God (in His image and likeness). But we were to be newly created (born) within an animal body without His maturity or knowledge. This presented a unique problem. How to avoid "robots."

How to get independent, newly born embryo consciousnesses without any knowledge to realize what is needed to mature to eternal life. They were embedded in animal bodies, so they had to learn to deny what their indiscriminate animal nature wanted if it was harmful. This is why our embryo consciousnesses needed to learn the distinction between Good and Evil!

How do you do that with essentially "blank minds"? They must EXPERIENCE for themselves the negative consequences of bad choices thereby imprinting the distinction permanently. That was the beginning of wisdom. Unfortunately, it was attributed to fear of disobeying God not just making bad choices, which has been perpetuated as very permanent imprinting.

We see this same phenomenon when our own small children attribute their early lessons as disobedience to us as parents and not to the bad choices they make. I find it bemusing that our species did not mature enough to realize that obvious mistaken interpretation of our species' first lesson (and all subsequent lessons)!

[Matthew 4:4]

Adam and Eve ate us out of house and home !