Writers of Scripture carried along by the Spirit?

OK, then that's a rather abstruse topic beyond my knowledge or interest and I'll bow out. I did say there could be that kind of influence in the writing style, but I don't see the importance of it as long as you aren't saying the message itself was influenced by any of it. I really don't understand yet what you are doing, Mr. Ex. When I said the OP seems to be about the relation between God's inspiration and the personalities and culture of the writers, I nevertheless didn't understand at all what sort of relation you were thinking of, and I'm afraid I still don't. If it's about the language itself I have no problem. To me that's only of academic interest. I don't understand what you have in mind. I had trouble following your OP and now I'm more confused about what your aim is. Sorry. But I'll check in and read from time to time. Maybe it will become clearer.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-06-2006 10:33 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-06-2006 10:35 AM

Thank you Faith. For further clarification, see the excellent link provided by AdminPhat on the concept of the zeitgeist. It too is strongly related to some thoughts I'm trying to introduce in this thread.As a brief refresher, so far the etymological points that I've introduced for discussion are: I'll continue with another portion of the article I started with before... In short, the following points should be noted... This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-06-2006 07:35 PM

Well said Legend. The Biblical concepts found in the Greco-Roman cultures were just one of many points I will cover in more detail later. Points like these are directly related to my counterpoints which I'll be bringing up when addressing other posters' claims that people are 'reading more' into the Genesis account. It will specifically address the supposed 'plain text' readings put forth by some.This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-06-2006 09:46 PM

well i would say they just do not want to get the beings attention in general, for good or ill, like in irish mythology they called the seelie and unseelie courts the "goodly ones" as to not get eather of the courts attentionbasicly all of the things you talk about are universal for every religion
in christianity in the middle ages they never called satan or the
devil by name, in england they called him nick, so they wouldn't call
his attention

Yes. I know. And perhaps the ancient Israelites called him the "serpent" for the exact same reason.PS: I haven't even gotten into the etymology of serpentine thinking in religions prior to the emergence of Judaism by the way...This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-06-2006 09:47 PM

i doubt it, though they did have a close idea, after the exile, but it was more of a demon who ate babies or sucked the life out of men, ever read about lilith?
{abe:they did have reble angels, and such, most of the demons were from other religion influences though} Heres one for ya to think about, in older religions such as Ugaritics, people are finding a new link between yahweh and a Ugaritic god by the name of Yaw, he was a sea and storm god but was also linked to lothan, the chaos serpent.This message has been edited by ReverendDG, 04-06-2006 10:03 PM

I think these are excellent points Rainman2. They actually present a perfect place to link into a portion of thought being presented in this thread for consideration... While I think this link oversimplifies many things, it does present a basic concept of a supposed primitive monotheism dispersed throughout humanity's ancient past.This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-07-2006 10:08 AM

But why do you doubt it though?Here, let me post your other thoughts after the reference to Lilith... Notice how I bolded 'other religion influences'?Actually, instead of asking why you doubt it, let me simply rephrase this in a different light: Actually, in looking to address this question further, maybe I'm wrong, but I think this leads very well into the very next portion of the article I was quoting earlier... Here's a few additioanl key points to note: Noting the development of languages as commonly presented by most etymologists, I have to again ask: __________________Extra Note: Already got that one researched (there's a few little variants of this actually). I've been doing a lot of research over the last week or so, gathering up information about worldwide religious serpents/dragons symbolism/concepts that preceded the emergence of Judaism.But thanks for the reference. If you have any more thoughts, please feel welcome to share them. This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-07-2006 02:07 AM

I supose i just doubt the fact that they would call it "the serpent" to not name it, name what though?
i think i missed puting that in there, what serpent would we be speaking of? satan?
the jews didn't really roll evil into one being like the christians didso maybe you can explain that part, serpents didn't represent evil, but the unknown chaos, or the oceans (i guess the hebrews didn't like to swim?) neolithic maybe?, sorry late post

That's the question I'm getting at though...why did the most ancient Israelites use a story of a "serpent" in a garden to begin with? In other words, where did they get this idea in the first place?People seem to be fond of pointing out the developments in Judaism during the time of the exile for example. However, they seem to gloss over any developments that may have existed prior to their emergence in history.It seems to me that any 'plain text' reading of the Genesis account would be incomplete without a thorough examination of what other cultures which came prior to the emergence of Judaism believed when it came to concepts similar to angels or serpents for example. Among many other things, we are talking about the serpent in Genesis, aren't we? At least, that was the primary topic of the initial thread from which this thread sprung up from.This thread that I've started is a preliminary examination of the cultures which came prior to the emergence of ancient Judaism. And, in doing so, I'm examining common themes found in religions all around the Indo-European region which came before Judaism. While the thread is put forth to suggest common inverse dialectic themes found world-wide in the ancient past, it's ultimate intent, however, in the end, is to come back to the question of the serpent in the garden as recorded within the Genesis account.Does that make things clearer? Here, let me continue with that article that I was quoting previously. Perhaps it might bring this thread into sharper focus... As a quick recap, I'll sum up an important key point here...10) There is abundant evidence in the vocabulary of many languages that words have been borrowed by those who encountered names for new ideas or objects in the languages of other peoples with whom they came into contact. In addition to this, such borrowings might be between languages totally unrelated. Maybe. Maybe not.Regardless of any conclusions at this point, the ancient Israelites did appear to have a tradition which invoked a talking serpent which in some way triggered the first two parents recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures to be banished shamefully from God's presence.In addition to this, the serpent does appear to be at bitter emnity with the descendents of these two parents-- both men and women I might add.This thread has been put forth to examine where the ancient Israelites came up with this idea. In other words, when one looks at the ancient religions which came before the emergence of Judaism, one quickly notices an extremly broad spectrum of concepts directly related to serpentine mythologies-- many of which predated Judaism by hundreds of years at least. Hmmm...I disagree.Based on religions that came before Judaism, and noting the context within which Judaism uniquely presents the serpent within the Genesis account, I think one would be hard pressed to prove that the ancient Israelites didn't feel that serpents in some way represented evil. They're definitely not presented in a good light.But I'll be coming to this part soon.This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-07-2006 11:13 AM

maybe they did change it at one point but most if not all semitic religions in the middle east represented chaos with the serpent, just like the norse it also represented the chaos of the sea and most of the time it resided in the sea, the hebrews also used the sea to represent chaos, god created the world from the chaos of the seabut the useage of evil in most of the OT and other writtings are evil, but not moral evil, just the evil of storms and floods, that is also chaos
to the jewish people chaos a lot of the time equals evili do think the use of the talking snake was a newer idea as a foil for god, but serpents in general were feared by many people, prehaps from seeing someone step in a nest and die from a bite, or some story about how snakes would come and kill children in the night?as for what religions thought before, well judaism was a religion before demons and angels came into it, it wasn't until the exile that they started believing in them really.
i have been reading that the hebrews worshipped many gods along side yanweh, they may have lowered the gods below yanweh, replacing EL as high god, then later changed them into angels after the exile

And, as you note below, chaos = evil. I've heard this before...arach? Yes. But I think there's a bit more to it than that. So...essentially, you're saying that they 'made stuff up' to explain natural occurances?That's outside the scope of this discussion Rev.Remember my clarification in Message 9:'respond only if you believe the authors of the Scriptures believed their own writings were given to them by God' You're apparently not reading the article on etymology that I quoted extensively in this thread. Demons, angels and serpents among many other things were represented in religious thinking well before Judaism even arrived onto the world stage in ancient human history.Let me put this in perspective.Here you say this: So, in regards to the Israelite's God, it basically sounds as if you're more than willing to assume that the earliest Israelites were some kind of amalgamation of relgious thought, borrowing concepts here and there as the ideas appealed to them.But then you say this: *emphasis mine.So, in regards to the serpent, it basically sounds as if you're assuming that the earliest Israelites were some kind of self-contained unit entirely devoid of any other cultural influences-- and that this serpentine concept was unique to the point that it was nearly invented by them?If so, the problem with this, first of all, is that there is nothing new about this idea. In fact, in many ancient religious ideas prior to the emergence of Judaism the concept of the serpent representing some sort of spiritual significance, both good and bad, is extremely well documented.Second of all, as another problem with this, many of these prior religions did ascribe both good and evil moral qualities to their serpentine concepts. In fact, examining the Israelites earliest writings and comparing them to the remarkably similar symbols found in cultures that came before them, one can easilly note that these similarities, within an ancient Israeli context, did carry over many ideas which were originally employed within the sense of one's moral character in the older religions.Thirdly, as yet another problem with this, the ancient religions that most likely influenced the earliest thoughts of the Israelites did not have any kind of agreement that you're presenting when you say, "most if not all semitic religions in the middle east represented chaos with the serpent.." This is perhaps the most inaccurate statement of all the ideas you've presented so far because even the 'semitic religions' which existed with or came before Judaism employed the symbol of the serpent to represent fertility, healing, immortality, secret knowledge, death, evil, and goodness among many other concepts.
_____________________Special Note: I'll note that this is nothing new to me. I've been aware of many of these things since around 1992 when I first started to investigate the claims of many world religions and eventually was led by the Spirit to be Christian. This thread is kind of a refresher for me because I had essentially examined many of these same ideas before I became a Christian-- not after.I guess I'll be blunt here. The catch-all phrase that consistently seems to pop up in regards to the serpent is that the Isrealites were mostly influenced during their period of exile. However, in regards to the concepts of serpents in cultures that came before the emergence of the Israelites, people seem to be strangely silent-- silent almost to the point that it seems as if they haven't even seriously considered these possibilities.I am currently gathering and formating quite a collection of religious thoughts concerning serpents prior to the advent of the earliest forms of Judaism. When I start to present these ideas, I seriously hope people are going to offer more than "the snake was just a snake" -- because, Lord willing, I'm pretty much getting ready to blow that theory out of the water.

i'm sorry i think you miss understood me, and you are kind of going overboard a bit, pull the reins backi guess i assumed that you knew that when i said it, that i was speaking of the snake as a mortal being and not a god/immortal power, maybe i didn't make it clear.
the snake as a non-godlike being doesn't really appear in many religions as a foe to a god, unless you can name one?
norse,african,indian,celt,south american, all are eather heros or gods and you are taking what i said out of context, look, when i said what did i meant chaos in those religions are represented by a huge serpent, if you want to say not only do they use it for chaos they used it for other things fine.
but if you are going to call what i said inaccurate, then i will call bullshit, since they did as far as i've read, please show a religion in the region who didn't use the serpent to represent chaos, just don't sit there and tell me i'm wrong
all of the religions around that area had basicly the same system until zoranderism developed, and the greeks started to effect beliefs they were affected, but it has little to do with the serpent, it has to do with dualism and the belief that theres a being of goodness and a being of evil having a war for our souls, before the exile they wouldn't believe this since they would only believe in yanweh as thier god, if you notice, there is some effect in the OT but very little at the begining and a little in job, but during and after the exile, they believed much in demons and such, till the yanweh cult stamped it out again
there is lots in the talmud, since they had beliefs up to the first century ce, lilith is talked of in therei think you are getting to fixated on serpents, and i do not dispute the serpents importance in other religions.
the egytians represented set with a serpent, which maybe were part of the whole satan=serpent thing came from, just basic hate for pagan religion

My apologies Rev. It's just that it seems as thought people like to make claims without backing them up. I'm challenging these claims and not really seeing much offered to counter it. But that's the problem: the serpent in Genesis is seen as either an extension of God's will, or else somewhat in resistance to his will-- depending on how you view them. The point of this discussion is to try to attempt where the ancient Israelites got their idea of a talking snake from in the first place.In a general sense, however, I'm examining the similarities found in the Genesis text with other cultures which came before them.So, for example, as Linda Casselman points out, the Adam and Eve story seems to be strongly borrowed from ancient Sumerian and Babylonian myths. As she points out in her article, the goddess Ninhursag creates a beautiful lush garden called Edinu full of wonderful fruit-bearing trees as her refuge.One might take special note that that name of Ninhursag’s garden is Edinu, which sounds remarkably similar to Eden.Curiously, coming back to the garden, we read that one day she must leave her garden to visit An-- and she worries that the wild animals might destroy her garden. In response to this, she asks Enki to guard her garden while she is away. Enki eventually becomes famished and eats everything in Ninhursag’s garden -- effectively destroying it -- and then leaves.When Ninhursag returns, however, she is furious and curses Enki with death so that eight parts of his body become diseased. Enki apparently cannot use his powers to cure himself and the other gods cannot help him either, so Enki must confess. Finally Ninhursag forgives him and she creates eight goddesses of healing to heal and restore Enki.In this myth, as in the Adam and Eve account, we find the sacred trees bearing forbidden fruit and the punishment for eating that fruit - the same punishment, death. Though God does not kill Adam and Eve outright, he apparently takes away their chance for immortality. So, in a sense God did curse Adam and Eve with death through their mortality.In the Sumerian/Babylonian myth, however, Ninhursag changes her mind and heals Enki while in the Scriptural account God follows through with his banishment of Adam and Eve. Curiously, one of Enki’s diseased body parts was his rib-- and the goddess created to heal his rib was called Ninti, which means the Lady of the Rib. But, Ti means Life, so Ninti also means the Lady of Life.As Linda Casselman points out, here we have a likely connection with the Adam and Eve story. God made Eve from Adam’s rib-- and in Hebrew, Eve translates as Hawwah and Hawwah means Life.If this is accurate, could it be then that one whole element of the Adam and Eve story was just a linguistic borrowing through the passage and translation of the old Sumerian and Babylonian myth about Enki and Ninhursag into the Israelite version of the Adam and Eve creation account in the Hebrew Scriptures?It seems to be a very credible possibility to me. Maybe I'm missing your point here. However, I think you're missing my point too. My thoughts concerning the serpent in the garden are more concerned with what the ancient Israelites perceived when they used this serpent as symbolic of God's revelation.Many seem to conjecture that the usage of the serpent in the Genesis account is simply a literary device used by them to explain why the most ancient Israelites hated snakes. Suggestions put forth by yourself, if I recall correctly, included the idea that serpents in general were feared by many people, perhaps from seeing someone step in a nest and die from a bite, or some story about how snakes would come and kill children in the night.But I think this totally misses the reason why the ancient Israelites employed this symbolism. The earliest chapters of the Genesis is a religions/spiritual work-- not a "how to" manual of how to survive in the wilderness.In other words, I think the Genesis account was refering to the pagan practice of ophiomancy, essentially a dark parody of the pagan practice of divination based on the color and movements of serpents. I will note that all the religions that came before the emergence of the Israelites, and many of those cultures that they interacted with, did have some form of ophiomancy incorporated within their rituals.If this is accurate, then one has to critically examine the spiritual significance of the serpent as found within these other cultures. If the most ancient Israelites started their religious beliefs primarilly as a separation from the pagan gods around them -- eventually coming to the practice of only ascribing divinity to the "One True God" -- and if the cultures around them tended to view the serpent as divine and even holy or good, then it would make perfect sense that the most ancient Israelites would be loathe to describe the serpent as anything more than a disgusting, deceiving snake that leads their ancestors into shame and separation from God.Furthermore, if the serpent in the Genesis account is symbolic of the pagan religions that the most ancient Israelites were separating themselves from, then one would also have to examine what the serpent represented in these ancient religions which came before or existed during the Israelites emergence into world history.As far as references to pagan concepts of the serpent are concerned, this is coming very soon. I want to make sure I've got my bases checked. However, if you want to examine just one pagan concept in the meantime, do a search for Canaanite fertility religions and read very carefully how they imagined the serpent in their religious thinking. There's a lot more than references to chaos going on there.Finally, there's this: Fixated on serpents? You do realize that this thread is in response to a previous thread called "The Serpent of Genesis is not the Dragon of Revelations", correct?This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-08-2006 10:55 PM

Hmm, well i guess since examples are needed, rather than my expection that you knew enough mythology (you said you have read all about the other religions) but i can provide you with evidence as requested, it will not be right now as yet. the reasoning why people say its a device, is because its not seen as a common device in other religions, judaism seems to have sort of come to a head in the sense that it brought many ideas and combined them all, to reflect thier god - many historians have pointed out that, yenwah took on many of the roles of the pagan gods over the centuries, even female ones. Even one of the names of god is taken from non-hebrew sources, such as EL.
as to the serpent, it is not a common motif to have a talking snake that defies god (if that is how you view it) or contridict the gods. the only time that seems to have anything like it is in the form of heroes and the snake is not a hero storyas for youe eden parallel i think you are confusing it a bit, the story is about a great garden,but eniki is not forbidden to not eat anything (unless you could post some of the lines from the story)the fact that he does do so, is purely a reflection of the fact that people felt the need to have the gods act out very human things, to have a better connection to them.
the sumarians do have a adam and eve storie, the hebrews copied it (if you want a refrence i can find it) but guess what, no snake
more than likely they also incorpirated the rib, to reflect human oneness?
so, you are close but, i think its a combonation of two stories rather than one my point was that the snake was used in a way, that i've never found in any of the myths of other peoples.
I think you may find very few people that would agree with this, only because genesis isn't really a spiritual story but a how-things-work story, its like the creation of the world in norse mythology or greek mythology - its a story that is all it is, to the hebrews that was all it need be its not a religious spiritual work, its an explation story, and i was putting forth why they might use the snake in there - hatred of snakes, and fear of themas for your other questions, you need to read more about the early israelites, they worshiped other gods along side yanweh, they even speak of him having a wife for a long time, the OT is very much effected by yanweh cultists who wanted it all to be only one god and that god was yanweh.
Thats why they incorpirated many of the things of other gods as i said, so people wouldn't drift away to other gods are you not comprehending what i said twice now? i said it was common for the semitic religions to represent chaos with the serpent, there i said it a third and final time, i am done with this part, if you miss understand me go read about tiamat, but i'm done repeating myself.
if they used the serpent to represent other things too thats fine but i did not say they ONLY use the serpent to represent chaos and nothing else, if thats how you read it, then i think i'm done here is there an echo? so what does the OP have to do with serpents?