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The Adam & Eve Myth - Origins
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I'm seeking information on whether or not the biblical Adam & Eve story was derived from earlier myths, such a Babylonian or Sumerian creation stories. Please include citations and or links. Thank you.
"The world is my country; all of humanity are my brethren; and to do good deeds is my religion." (Thomas Paine)
Pretty sure the original Zeitgeist movie had examples of this as well as the many ancient examples of the birth of "Jesus".
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear. (May 27, 2019 at 8:27 pm)ignoramus Wrote: Pretty sure the original Zeitgeist movie had examples of this as well as the many ancient examples of the birth of "Jesus". Unfortunately, the Zeitgeist movie was panned by professional scholars as containing far too many errors about the Bible to be reliable. I'm looking for peer-reviewed essays and books by qualified historians. Right now I'm having a discussion with a Christian fundie/creationist who claims that the Adam & Eve story contains no parallels with other mid-east religious myths which predate the Book of Genesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(film_series)
"The world is my country; all of humanity are my brethren; and to do good deeds is my religion." (Thomas Paine)
Yeah, doesn't something look suspicious when Babylonians were the ones who determined 7 days week and then, suddenly, this all powerful Jewish God follows Babylonian pattern of 7 day week and even rests on Saturday?
Just wondering... what piqued your curiosity about this, Gwaithmir?
(May 27, 2019 at 11:46 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Just wondering... what piqued your curiosity about this, Gwaithmir? I'm presently engaged in a discussion with a fundie/creationist who denies that the Adam & Eve story could be plagiarized or adapted from a pagan creation myth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLnTPCDe...0260863950
"The world is my country; all of humanity are my brethren; and to do good deeds is my religion." (Thomas Paine)
You could drop a metric fuckton of information on this asswipes head, and they would still blindly swim in that Egyptian river
(May 28, 2019 at 2:52 am)Gwaithmir Wrote:(May 27, 2019 at 11:46 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Just wondering... what piqued your curiosity about this, Gwaithmir? Have you tried saying: "Hey man, I think the story with the talking snake and the magical fruit that gives you knowledge is completely made up".....? jk... I actually enjoy debating fundies. It can be lots of fun. But their case is so weak. Scientific examination of practically anything (the stars, rocks, fossils, DNA) refutes them. I don't know what good demonstrating that the Adam and Eve story originated in Babylon will do. But have fun trying. One thing I like to point out to fundies is that a literal interpretation prevents them from getting the allegory... the myth value of the story. When you read the story like a myth, there is an abundance of symbolism and meaning in it. There is commentary on man's moral responsibility once he learns to distinguish good from evil. (All that shit about original sin, and everyone needing Christ's redemption for Adam and Eve's mistake was tacked on later. Without all that stuff it's actually a decent myth story... on par with the Greeks.) But a fundamentalist who thinks it's a flawless recounting of historical events misses all that. What a shame.
Creation myth in the Bible was taken over from the popular beliefs in other religions of that time like Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like creating humanity through some sort of sculpting process: you have Zeus creating humans like that; Mesopotamian myths make some similar claims that the gods created man from a mixture of clay and the blood of a slain deity; Egyptians myths claim the god Khnum made humanity on a potter’s wheel.
The Tree Of Life is a well known mythic element of the World Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_tree Garden was a known as a sacred place for Egyptians where it was a symbol of life after death often depicted in tomb paintings of the 18th and 19th Dynasties with palms and sycamore trees. The idea of a heavenly garden as the abode of the dead and of the gods occurs also in Sumerian and Babylonian myth. Dilmun, the Sumerian Paradise, was probably the origin of the Garden of Eden. The story of the fall is found among other peoples too. The Prometheus-Pandora myth of the Greeks is built about the same elements. Or in Mesopotamian mythology there is story of Adapa who made humanity mortal because he didn't eat the food. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Adapa 
I seem to recall something in the Vedas about a pair of birds on a tree branch. One of the birds ate forbidden fruit and brought pain and death into the world. No link, sorry.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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