The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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rgprice
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The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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In The Great Angel, Margaret Barker essentially puts forward the proposition that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is derived from earlier creation myths about Sophia of Wisdom, in which the event that unfold on earth in Genesis were cast in the heavens among the gods. I found this quite intriguing. However she doesn't have a lot to point to, other than Gnostic texts. But she explains how the Gnostic accounts of Creation relate to the story of Adam and Eve as well as 1 Enoch, and proposes that the Gnostic texts reflect pre-Deuteronomistic versions of the story.

Barker's book was written prior to the work of Gmirkin and others who now propose that the Torah was written in the 3rd century BCE and that Genesis is based on the work of the Babylonian priest Berossus. I'm not sure how this impacts the propositions of Barker.

So, what information is there on the potential origin/background of the Creation and temptation story in Genesis?
Giuseppe
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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The temptation story in the Gospel of Matthew is possibly evidence of a Gnostic (=anti-YHWH) polemic:

Jesus is tempted by Satan, but this Satan knows and quotes the Law of YHWH as if he was... ...YHWH himself.

Hence possibly "Matthew" is polemizing against anti-demiurgists. He needs to have Satan behaving as YHWH to persuade the anti-demiurgists by using partially their same language.
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Jagd
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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Giuseppe wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:38 am Satan behaving as YHWH
In earliest Christianity, the most prominent figure of Satan/the Devil is this Demiurgic figure, pointed to as YHWH. Do you think the proto-Orthodox attempted to counter this by making the good/unknowable god of Christianity into YHWH? It appears the earliest form of the Father god in Christianity is not a YHWH law-giving folk-deity, but a sheer goodness or pure light, a first principle, akin to the One of Plotinus (something I noticed recently: in the Gospel of Thomas, Christ is called The Living One, which may be a way of saying "The One in the Flesh")
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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Jagd wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:05 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:38 am Satan behaving as YHWH
In earliest Christianity, the most prominent figure of Satan/the Devil is this Demiurgic figure, pointed to as YHWH. Do you think the proto-Orthodox attempted to counter this by making the good/unknowable god of Christianity into YHWH? It appears the earliest form of the Father god in Christianity is not a YHWH law-giving folk-deity, but a sheer goodness or pure light, a first principle, akin to the One of Plotinus (something I noticed recently: in the Gospel of Thomas, Christ is called The Living One, which may be a way of saying "The One in the Flesh")
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Jagd
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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Peter Kirby wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:16 pm
Jagd wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:05 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:38 am Satan behaving as YHWH
In earliest Christianity, the most prominent figure of Satan/the Devil is this Demiurgic figure, pointed to as YHWH. Do you think the proto-Orthodox attempted to counter this by making the good/unknowable god of Christianity into YHWH? It appears the earliest form of the Father god in Christianity is not a YHWH law-giving folk-deity, but a sheer goodness or pure light, a first principle, akin to the One of Plotinus (something I noticed recently: in the Gospel of Thomas, Christ is called The Living One, which may be a way of saying "The One in the Flesh")
Welcome to the forum!
Thanks!
Giuseppe
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

Post by Giuseppe »

Jagd wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:05 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:38 am Satan behaving as YHWH
In earliest Christianity, the most prominent figure of Satan/the Devil is this Demiurgic figure, pointed to as YHWH. Do you think the proto-Orthodox attempted to counter this by making the good/unknowable god of Christianity into YHWH? It appears the earliest form of the Father god in Christianity is not a YHWH law-giving folk-deity, but a sheer goodness or pure light, a first principle, akin to the One of Plotinus (something I noticed recently: in the Gospel of Thomas, Christ is called The Living One, which may be a way of saying "The One in the Flesh")
I don't know who comes before who, but basically I am 100% persuaded that this "Son of Father" (the "Father" as by you described) was parodied caustically by our Gospels (less proto-John, where it didn't occur), as "Bar-Abbas".

See what Couchoud/Stahl say about Barabbas.
rgprice
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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Back to the topic... What is known about potential sources for the story of Adam/Eve, Cain/Able? Are there parallels in Egyptian lore, Babylonian, Canaanite?
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Re: The origin of the Adam/Eve story in Genesis

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rgprice wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 2:33 am Back to the topic... What is known about potential sources for the story of Adam/Eve, Cain/Able? Are there parallels in Egyptian lore, Babylonian, Canaanite?
Short answer? Primarily Egyptian mythology for Adam and Eve while Sumerian for Cain and Abel.
Now on to the details.
The 4 rivers of Eden refer to this: It appears to be the cosmological river of Oceanus, encircling the world in ancient Greek beliefs and depicted in the Babylonian world map. The natural equivalent of the circular Oceanus River is the Milky Way which ancient Greeks named the ‘milky circle’. For the astronomical images in the Biblical Eden narrative, we should recollect the Sumerian constellation of A.EDIN which was located in the place of the modern constellations of Virgo and Coma Berenice. It is the center of the Milky Way circle! Two trees of Eden (Genesis 2:17, 3:22) correspond with two ‘branches’ of the Milky Way.
Therefore, Eden might be a cosmological concept, linked with another cosmological concept of the World River, from which other rivers are flowing. In the Greek sacral geography, all rivers of the world flow from the Oceanus river,1 the rivers are his children,2 and the Oceanus is the river, associated with Elysium.
'Eden' should really be read as 'edin'.

Adam and Eve: - Adam (Atum changed to Adamah/Geb - the earth)
Eve (Nut - the heavens)
(Heva - Hurrian goddess)
Adam has to till the earth as a curse and he is made from the ground. Eve functions as the Queen of Heaven. Historically, the Queen of Heaven ended up following the cult of Osiris (the tree of knowledge of good and evil).
Just as Genesis 1 has similar words found in Jeremiah 4, the actions in Genesis 2 reflect the Queen of Heaven spoken of in Jeremiah 7 and 44.
The rib (Adam's rib) is a Sumerian reference.

Genesis 3:14,15 - This is 100% Egyptian
The serpent eating dust is found in Egyptian mythology. The crushing of the serpent's head is Re crushing the head of Apep.
The bruising of the heel is Set bruising Horus' heel.
Meaning - The Solar Disc (Tropic of Cancer) would continue to be followed by the Atum priests but the Horus Solar Disc system would be replaced (meaning of the name Seth) by the Set Solar Disc system. We will also see the Sut system. This is fulfilled in Genesis 5 where Seth is a combination of Eve's seed and the serpent's seed. Sut had a following of 7 giants of the stellar cycle. In Genesis 5, 7 men lived over 900 years. The stellar number 25,000 plus is divided by the Osirian lunar number 28 to get those 900 plus years. Enoch is taken up to heaven in the Solar year 2774 BC. There are also MANY Solar Year numbers (360 - 60 years * 60 months) within the ages of the 10 men of Genesis 5. Noah's death is placed precisely the year when the Seth worshiping Hyksos occupied Hermopolis (city of 8).
For more information on the Genesis 5 numbers, I highly recommend Carol A Hill's book on the subject.

Cain and Abel - Cain (the Bad Tabiri Smiths of the Sumerian King's List)
Abel (Dumuzi the Shepherd)
In this narrative we have Cain (smith and tiller of the ground) and Abel (shepherd).
In 'Inanna's Descent into the Underworld', there is the shepherd Dumuzid (like Abel) reigning in the city of the Bad-tibira (fortress of the Smiths (like Cain which means smith)). There's also the 'tiller of the ground' Enkimdu who was rejected and replaced by a shepherd just as Cain whose sacrifice was rejected in preference to the shepherd's (Abel's). It was the Queen of Heaven that chose the Shepherd over the 'tiller of the ground'. As a polemic, Yahweh chose the Shepherd's sacrifice over the 'tiller of the ground. Genesis 4:7 there is "crouching (rabisu) at your door". The rabisu is "a demon at the door" - a Mesopotamian figure that prevents one from having offspring. Abel (like Dumuzid) is a victim of a demon. The Queen of Heaven send the galla demons. But as a polemic, Cain is used as a tool of the demon.
According to the Sumerian King List, Bad-tibira was the second city to "exercise kingship" in Sumer before the flood, following Eridu. These kings were said to be En-men-lu-ana, En-men-gal-ana and Dumuzid the Shepherd (just as Abel is the 3rd man mentioned in the Book of Genesis).
In the Sumerian poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer, Dumuzid competes against the farmer Enkimdu for Inanna's hand in marriage. In Inanna's Descent into the Underworld, Dumuzid fails to mourn Inanna's death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement.
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