Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou came up in a recent thread (an interview clip as I recall). Here is her take on the Eden story from The Bible's Buried Secrets documentary.

I don't expect people to watch this for the sake of conversation; just sharing in case there is interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1scTuY4mHg

Meh. Even though some parts of the Bible such as Proverbs undoubtedly draw on Egyptian beliefs I much prefer Panbabylonism for the origins of the Genesis myth.

(April 21, 2013 at 1:49 pm)Tonus Wrote: Is that a jackalope holding a scimitar on the left side of the image? Because that would've been a trillion bajillion times cooler than a fucking talking snake.

Not a jackalope but some god or other. I forget which one. If it is a goddess with her heel on the "serpent" then it is even closer to the Eden story.

(April 21, 2013 at 1:49 pm)Tonus Wrote: Is that a jackalope holding a scimitar on the left side of the image? Because that would've been a trillion bajillion times cooler than a fucking talking snake.

It’s Ra as a cat slaying the great serpent Apep. In Egyptian mythology Apep was the lord of the underworld. Pretty much the Devil himself. The battle between Ra and Apep was a constant never ending event.

(April 21, 2013 at 1:49 pm)cato123 Wrote: Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou came up in a recent thread (an interview clip as I recall). Here is her take on the Eden story from The Bible's Buried Secrets documentary.

I don't expect people to watch this for the sake of conversation; just sharing in case there is interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1scTuY4mHg

Yeah mate ....saw this. VERY interesting!

Why is the fruit of knowledge always portrayed as an Apple? Seems like they should be band from the diet.

I am still waiting for my talking snake!

Apple? Maybe that is the English version mate.

(April 22, 2013 at 3:39 am)Dragonetti Wrote: Why is the fruit of knowledge always portrayed as an Apple? Seems like they should be band from the diet.

I am still waiting for my talking snake!

The apple is a western European thing but likely not universal. In the eastern Med region it is a pomegranate, aka fertility, aka sex. One might look for apple as aphrodisiac when it was chosen as the anonymous fruit.

To think that the Jews came up with religion is foolish. Almost every group of people around the world had a creation story. And many "new" religions used pieces of the "old" religion that they replaced. "eat this apple and know everything about god". And they don't see that exact same thing as offering a "literal bible" as the word of god. And we are the evil ones that reject the apple.

(April 22, 2013 at 3:39 am)Dragonetti Wrote: Why is the fruit of knowledge always portrayed as an Apple?

May have just been a pun or misunderstanding on/off the word malum (don't have accent scirpt) than means both "evil" and "apple" - the apple meaning a greek loanword and loose homonym.

The notion that it may have been a pomegranate (or any other specific fruit at all) is as shaky as the notion that it was an apple. Mostly because it was neither -and we have no idea as to what sort of garden or fruit the authors would have referenced (and allowing for pizazz - they could have shaken it up however they liked to please the audience). We might point to what is native in the region...but what region is this story actually from anyway?

(I personally enjoy the comparisons and theories about the garden of eden and the hanging gardens - both mind you, to be found nowhere in evidence, we just have cuneiform and reliefs. If there were such a garden, and it was as widely known as it is described- then the narrator would almost certainly be invoking it's image in telling the tale...and it definitely would have been a forbidden garden, a place where one cannot return.)