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Author Topic:   Not Influenced by Surrounding Nations
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 9 of 83 (501099)
03-04-2009 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Peg
03-02-2009 6:11 AM


GREEK Hesiod, who wrote his Theogony in the eighth century B.C.E. explains how the gods and the world began. He starts off with Gaea, or Gaia (Earth), gave birth to Uranus (Heaven).
But that isn't where the Theogony "starts off." What the text says is
Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all (4) the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether (5) and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.
(from http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm)
Chaos is first, right? Doesn't that sound a bit like this?
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Now that's not to say that Hesiod influenced the authors of Genesis - but, as your text notes, the Greek story may be related to the Sumerian. The Hebrew story most certainly is.
And it's odd that your source fibs about what Hesiod wrote, don't you think?

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 13 of 83 (501249)
03-05-2009 11:35 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by caffeine
03-05-2009 10:00 AM


It's entirely possible the early laws were not 'don't worship fictional gods', but 'don't worship other gods like that Ba'al chap - I'm your god.'
Not just possible, but that's pretty explicit in much of the OT. Elijah's god whups up on one of those other gods in the beef-and-priest incinerating contest in I Kings 18, and there are plenty of other examples.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 27 of 83 (501869)
03-08-2009 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Peg
03-08-2009 7:02 AM


Re: Influences
There is evidence that Adam himself wrote an account of the events of his life...
I laughed out loud, Peg.
You know damn well there's no evidence for any such silliness.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Peg, posted 03-08-2009 7:02 AM Peg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Peg, posted 03-08-2009 9:46 PM Coragyps has replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 30 of 83 (501981)
03-09-2009 6:38 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Peg
03-08-2009 9:46 PM


Re: Influences
And the strongest probability, the one you left out, is that the folks that wrote this stuff down were collecting and selecting the stories they'd heard from their elders. And making things of their own up to fill gaps.
Please remember that Moses, if he existed and wrote the Pentateuch, wrote about his own death and some events after it. Surely that is no more difficult than writing about Eve.

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Peg, posted 03-08-2009 9:46 PM Peg has not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 49 of 83 (502535)
03-12-2009 7:51 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by caffeine
03-11-2009 8:30 PM


Re: Influences
Nitpick upon nitpick:
...hiding something in the word 'occultation'; which is how astronomers say 'eclipse' when they want to pretend they're talking about something clever that laymen don't understand.
Occultations are solid objects getting in between your eye and the source of light - like the moon covering the sun or a star. Eclipses are one object casting its shadow on another object remote from your eye - lunar eclipses, whether of our moon or Jupiter's.
[/OT nitpick]

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