The mystery of Job.

I understand that you may possibly be writing in other topic or forum at this time. Hopefully I can be of some minor help with your question #3. Specifically about Satan and the sons of God; According to ancient Jewish beliefs, Satan, which means something like "accuser" in the text of Job was a particular son of God assigned to do God's dirty-work. Satan's job was to go all over the earth and test mankind's faith in God. Therefor Satan in the beginnig was not an enemy of God. He was one of God's inner court of angles.

All very good questions, and I may only have possible satisfactory answers for some of them. It may be helpful to pick up a book at the library or bookstore(if it is available) titled "The Origin of Satan" by Elane Pagels. Also, if you can, get a copy of the New Revised Standard Version of the New Oxford Annotated Bible and refer to the notes about Satan on pages' 420,526,1223. In these passeges and in the notes one may see the relationship between Satan and God. Apparently sons of God in this context are angels that belong to God's court. As someone has said in another topic(I don't remember where), Satan is God's Prosecuting-Attorney. I have heard of a theory which states that the angels of God in the Old Test. used to be separate gods belonging to the old Babylonian religion; or was it Canaanite, or Egyptian?? Perhaps more research is in order, or maybe someone else in this forum can fill us in. Now if we assume that YHWH(or is it Elohim?) was syncretized from the gods of Egypt, then indeed "God" may have had a wife. The same may also be said if God was a syncretistic production from the Canaanite and Babylonian gods and goddesses. More study will probably bring clarity to this problem. You may be correct in asserting that the "Christian" Satan was based on the Zoroastrian Ahriman. I would be interested to see your research on this. Why does God need to test people's faith? Hmmm...It may have something to do with free-will. Maybe God really is limited and can't do it himself.(herself?)

Well, if it's true that the word Shaddai is more accurately translated "many-breasted", then that brings to my mind the Greek goddess of fertility Kybele-Artemis! It is well established that Greek culture influenced Israel thru works like The Book of Jubilees, Enoch, etc., and of course the Jews came in contact with the Greeks thru the Diaspora in the centuries around Jesus time. The name "Shaddai" may reflect that some Jews worshipped fertility goddesses against their prophets' wishes. I will attempt to find evidence, If I can, that Kybele-Artemis was one of these.[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-29-2003]

I'd be interested to know first of all where your source(s) for the "many-breasted" translation is from. I'll need to study that. Having read my NRSV and notes (Genesis 17:1), ElShad. is defined as "God Almighty", & the notes say, "This account from the priestly tradition is a parallel version of the Abrahamic covenant given in the early tradition(Gen.15:17-21); God Almighty meaning "God, the One of the Mountains", was a common name current in the pre-Mosaic period(Exod.6:2,3), perhaps brought from Mesopotamia into Palestine". Exod.6:2,3 seem to equate ElShad. with YHWH, but this could be the author syncretizing ElShad. into YHWH. So many ?'s, so little time! But of course much of this assumes that my NRSV's publishers were'nt biased. Anyway, if God Almighty really means,"God,the One of the Mountains", then that may explain where the ancient Jews get their admiration for mountains! But of course your translation of ElShad may also be correct, and there may be a real connection between him & Artemis. I'll keep you informed. In the mean time if anyone else has some info, please share it. Maybe Artemis is one of the Elohim. Could all these gods including Job's Satan have been combined, so to speak, into YHWH?

Thanks Raha. That appears to be another angle we can explore. If you can remember your source, then all the better! Along with Artemis, Enki, Satan, etc., I should be able to scour the local library for books & materials on how they may be related. I'll let you and other interested persons know of any progress on my part, and perhaps you may wish to contribute more if you find anything.

No, Wait; Maybe Artemis(with the many breasts) was not an original Greek invention. Maybe this fertility-mother-goddess came into the greek pantheon from the middle-eastern area called the "Fertile-Cresent". According to Cyrus Gordon and other archaeolgists, this is the area where some hunter-gatherers in prehistory began agriculture for the first time. The furthest western section of the Fert-Cres. was located in eastern Turkey around the prehistoric town of Catal-Huyuk that James Mallarrt(archeaologist) discovered and partially excavated. Artemis was originally worshipped as a goddess by the inhabitants of Catal-Huyuk(Atlas of Early Man, Jacqetta Hawkes, p.204). Get back to you soon!

Welcome to the forum Amlodhi. I have a Penguin Publisher's copy and commentary on the Gilgamesh Epic at home, and it's flood story IS very similar to the story in Genesis. The excerpt you provided on Adapa, Ea, & Enki, reminds me of the Adam & Eve story in Genesis. We will have some fasinating info from myself, you, Raha, & Drbill that we may study. Perhaps we can find more connections between some of these seperate gods and discuss our findings.

Incredible!That was my theory also; "God, The One of the mountains", or ElShad. has a femanine aspect of being nurturing, and the many or large breasts may signify mountains!

About those Sermons, etc.; I'll have to read carefully thru them to see the "many breasted" translation of ElShad. I am in the process of looking at other materials to try to establish more connections, but from what you have written, the sermons', bible study, etc., the connections appear quite reasonable! In the mean time, the "burning-bush" WAS a kind of STD; You see, Moses just could'nt get over the sight of all those big, beautiful, nurturing mountains(breasts), so he lead his people to the biggest one(Sinai) that just happened to be exploding(with milk&honey& of course the Ten C's). Then Moses went to the "top" and had communion with God(dess)! Then Arron&the priests also had communion with the "burning bush". No one else was allowed to commune with the God(dess) on pain of of a horrible STD related death, but they did anyway! Moses was probably afraid he would offend our modern sensibilities if he wrote the truth of the matter.[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 09-30-2003]

An Egyptian Sun god-Aton Ra may have been the basis for Jewish monotheism. Can we connect the time of the Jews living in Egypt with the time of Aton's worship by the Egyptians? Another interesting connection is the name "Moses" as someone else has already mentioned. "Moses" may be the same as the Egyptian "mese" in the well known name Ramese or Ramses. I don't know at the moment what "mese" means, but Ra, pronounced ray, means SUN. Perhaps you have more info about this.

I'm working on the pronuciation and meaning of "Moses" now. I'll soon post more than one source to get a more objective clue to Moses name.OK, here's one from the American Heretage Dictionary,pg. 906: "Moses(mozis)long o, short i,.(LLat.-Moses like it's normally pronounced,

​

[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 10-01-2003]

​

[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 10-01-2003]

According to my source given in response to your post # 40, Moses, or Moshe, is defined as "child". I was taught, as you said, that Moses means to draw out, or "draw". It is obvious that I will need to find more sources on the name "Moses". What do you think of the "child" definition? There is a particular Bible dictionary that I stupidly didn't get the name of! It is much more extensive in it's treatment of Moses and his name. I will provide the reference soon, but here's a quote: "Thus the child was raised by his own mother and the returned to Pharaoh's daughter who adopted him and named him Moses(Hebrew; Mosheh) which the Bible explains as meaning "Because I drew[from the root masha, 'to draw'] him out of the water".(Exod.2.10). (But the name may actually be an Egyptian one meaning "is born"; cf. the last component of Egyptian names like Thutmose, Ahmose, etc.) I'll have to keep digging! Here we are; that particular Bible dictionary is the Harper-Collis Bible Dictionary, Revised Ed.,Paul J. Acklemeier,General Editor. See pg. 704.[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 10-01-2003][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 10-02-2003]

This is a little late, but I just found it& wanted to share it with you. In your post# 18 you say that Baal might mean Almighty.Perhaps. According to a book entitled Vanished Civilizations,Readers Digest Ed.;see the chapter on Ugarit, Baal was worshipped as "Hadad" by the pre-Israel Canaanites. The Can's Baal was a thunder-god, and the son of El in their pantheon. A remnant of the Can,s were pushed into a corner by the Assyrians and Israelites. That "corner" is the archeaological discovery of Ugarit, the capital of Phoenicia. The leftover Can's adapted by learning seafaring ways and became known as the Phoenecians. That's where we got our alphabet![This message has been edited by Prozacman, 10-02-2003]

I am not familiar with the Hebrew language, but your idea sounds interesting. Perhaps someone else like Amhlodi can discuss this with you better than I, but thx for the comments.
PM