Here you will find out why the God of the Bible is an interesting historical exception

[Ummon]

I plan to post here a series of "arguments" pertaining:

1) why western values originate with the Jewish tradition as well if not more than the Greek one: that includes democracy, human rights, the importance of science.
2) why the God of the Bible is fully compatible with the God of the New Testament, and His severity is infact a necessary trait and not some form of monstrosity.
3) why the God of the Old Testament is unique as a religious concept, aside from the parallels with other myths.

Stay tuned.

[Gromovnik]

Why?

[basics]

" Why?"

Pannonius,

If only because it makes for good debate and certainly give God His say in what is a rather one-sided forum.

[Arch-hereticK]

How is it one sided when the majority of users are christian?

[basics]

" How is it one sided when the majority of users are christian?"

Arch-hereticK,

Because I haven't found that in the postings.

[Arch-hereticK]

" How is it one sided when the majority of users are christian?"

Arch-hereticK,

Because I haven't found that in the postings.

Maybe it's because they have nothing to say.

[Tankbuster]

I look forward to the dissertation.

[Nietzsche]

*Waits greedily*

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

1) why western values originate with the Jewish tradition as well if not more than the Greek one: that includes democracy, human rights, the importance of science.

From the Jewish tradition? That we are the chosen people and the rest of the world is condemned to hell and oh, we can take their cities, kill everything in it but save the women so they can serve to our soldiers as whores?

Also, by democracy, do you mean the Divine Right of Kings or the Papacy? Do "human rights" include slavery, colonialism, the inquisition, the Crusades, the glorious works of the Conquistadors, etc?

By the importance of science, do you mean the importance of psuedo-science that most Creationists spew out? I mean, only psuedo-science would have man and dinosaur co-exist in a world that is only 6,000 years old.

2) why the God of the Bible is fully compatible with the God of the New Testament, and His severity is infact a necessary trait and not some form of monstrosity.

So the God of the Old Testament (who is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction): jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully is the same as the God that will kill his own son (or himself cuz he is also the son but that's another problem) so that rapists, mass-murderers and child molesters have to only believe in the gods for 5 minutes in comparison to a 60 year old life full of vice and still be "saved"?

3) why the God of the Old Testament is unique as a religious concept, aside from the parallels with other myths.

Yeah... he is unique in his cruelty, I'll give you that.

I'm glad you used the word 'myth' because that's all he is.

Sadly, the gods of the NT are not a unique religious concept. You can find parallels from the stories of Vishnu, Mithras, Ra and countless other pagan deities.

There is no God as we claim to know him. Perhaps there is none, I'm 99% sure.

[My Favorite Martian]

From the Jewish tradition?

I think, he means an accentuation of values related to the "individuum", e.g. "freedom" and "solidariy".

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

I think, he means an accentuation of values like "individuum", "solidarity", "freedom" etc.

Then he's more wrong than he thinks. If anything, the Abrahamic religions are totally opposed to individualism, solidarity (unless of course it's solidarity with their gods) and freedom. I don't even have to prove this point because it is so self-evident.

[My Favorite Martian]

They are not necessarily opposit as they include strategies to balance tensions for people under more and more complicated living conditions but they do this not without creating conflicts in relation to themselves and their enviroment. That people can read and sometimes even write or explore their inner experience with the help of texts (e.g. prayers) in a rather private enviroment is one of the products of activities in such contextes.

[Ummon]

Let's start with point 1).

In all ancient creation myths the gods creat human beings to toil, to labour, and to obey. In the Enuma Elish (VI, 1-8)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm (an incomplete version)

When Marduk heard the word of the gods,
His heart prompted him and he devised a cunning plan.
He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spake
That which he had conceived in his heart he imparted unto him:
"My blood will I take and bone will I fashion
I will make man, that man may
I will create man who shall inhabit the earth,
That the service of the gods may be established, and that their shrines may be built.

Humans are servants.

Marduk creates humanity from clay and the blood of the rogue deity Kingu (an ally of the defeated Tiamat), who is killed on purpose. (VI, 31-34).

In the Atrahasis Ea creates humanity because the gods are tired to provide to their own sustenance. Humanity is a race of unskilled workers made on purpose for the gods. Again this is done with clay and the blood of a killed god.

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Atrahasi.htm

Belit-ili the womb-goddess is present,
Let the womb-goddess create offspring,
And let man bear the load of the gods!

In "Enki and Ninmah" and other tales, the story is the same.

Outside of the Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian context, Egyptians show a limited interest in describing the birth of humanity: to them it is the final stage of the "evolution" of things. Similar is the attitude of the Chinese.

In many other contexts, it is an issue of spontaneous generation: humanity so-to-say "is born" from the earth.

http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths.html

Many creation myths begin with the theme of birth. This may be because birth represent new life and the beginning of life on earth may have been imagined as being similar to the beginning of a child's life. This is closely related to the idea of a mother and father existing in the creation of the world. The mother and father are not always the figures which create life on earth. Sometimes the creation doesn't occur until generations after the first god came into being.

Sometimes, like in greek myth, creation happens, but it is given as a fact, and humans are just like animals: http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_16.html (a synthesis)

Soon the Earth lacked only two things: man and animals. Zeus summoned his sons Prometheus (fore-thought) and Epimetheus (after-thought). He told them to go to Earth and create men and animals and give them each a gift.

Prometheus set to work forming men in the image of the gods and Epimetheus worked on the animals. As Epimetheus worked he gave each animal he created one of the gifts. After Epimetheus had completed his work Prometheus finally finished making men. However when he went to see what gift to give man Epimetheus shamefacedly informed him that he had foolishly used all the gifts.

Similar patterns (service, generation, mere happening of events) can be found in america: http://www.crystalinks.com/nativeamcreation.html

These two sat together and thought, and whatever they thought came into being. They thought earth, and there it was. They thought mountains, and so there were. They thought trees, and sky, and animals etc, and each came into being. But none of these things could praise them, so they formed more advanced beings of clay. But these beings fell apart when they got wet, so they made beings out of wood, but they proved unsatisfactory and caused trouble on the earth. The gods sent a great flood to wipe out these beings, so that they could start over. With the help of Mountain Lion, Coyote, Parrot, and Crow they fashioned four new beings. These four beings performed well and are the ancestors of the Quich.

Long, long ago, a great island floated in a giant ocean. This island hung from four thick ropes from the sky, which was solid rock. There were no peoples and it was always dark. The animals could not see so they got the sun and put it in a path that took it across the island from east to west each day. The animals and plants were told by the Great Spirit to stay awake for seven days and seven nights but most could not and slept. Those plants that did stay awake, such as the pine and cedar and those few others were rewarded by being allowed to remain green all year. All the others were made to lose their leaves each winter. Those animals that did stay awake, such as the owl and the mountain lion and those few others were rewarded with the ability to go about in the dark. Then the people appeared.

When humans are invested with authority, they are meant to be "in charge" of animals (a service), like here:

Long, long ago, the Creator, the Great Chief Above, made the world. Then he made the animals and the birds and gave them their names -- Coyote, Grizzly Bear, Deer, Fox, Eagle, the four Wolf Brothers, Magpie, Bluejay, Hummingbird, and all the others. When he had finished his work, the Creator called the animal people to him. "I am going to leave you," he said. "But I will come back. When I come again, I will make human beings. They will be in charge of you." The Great Chief returned to his home in the sky, and the animal people scattered to all parts of the world.

After twelve moons, the animal people gathered to meet the Creator as he had directed. Some of them had complaints. Bluejay, Meadowlark, and Coyote did not like their names. Each of them asked to be some other creature. "No," said the Creator. "I have given you your names. There is no change. My word is law.

"Because you have tried to change my law, I will not make the human being this time. Because you have disobeyed me, you have soiled what I brought with me. I planned to change it into a human being. Instead, I will put it in water to be washed for many moons and many snows, until it is clean again."

Then he took something from his right side and put it in the river. It swam, and the Creator named it Beaver. "Now I will give you another law," said the Great Chief Above.

"The one of you who keeps strong and good will take Beaver from the water some day and make it into a human being. I will tell you now what to do. Divide Beaver into twelve parts. Take each part to a different place and breathe into it your own breath. Wake it up. It will be a human being with your breath. Give it half of your power and tell it what to do. Today I am giving my power to one of you. He will have it as long as he is good." When the Creator had finished speaking, all the creatures started for their homes -- all except Coyote. The Great Chief had a special word for Coyote.

"You are to be head of all the creatures, Coyote. You are a power just like me now, and I will help you do your work. Soon the creatures and all the other things I have made will become bad. They will fight and will eat each other. It is your duty to keep them as peaceful as you can. "When you have finished your work, we will meet again, in this land toward the east. If you have been good, if you tell the truth and obey me, you can make the human being from Beaver. If you have done wrong, someone else will make him." Then the Creator went away.

It happened as the Creator had foretold. Everywhere the things he had created did wrong. The mountains swallowed the creatures. The winds blew them away. Coyote stopped the mountains, stopped the winds, and rescued the creatures. One winter, after North Wind had killed many people, Coyote made a law for him: "Hereafter you can kill only those who make fun of you."

Everywhere Coyote went, he made the world better for the animal people and better for the human beings yet to be created. When he had finished his work, he knew that it was time to meet the Creator again. Coyote thought that he had been good, that he would be the one to make the first human being. But he was mistaken. He thought that he had as much power as the Creator. So he tried, a second time, to change the laws of the Great Chief Above.

"Some other creature will make the human being," the Creator told Coyote. "I shall take you out into the ocean and give you a place to stay for all time." So Coyote walked far out across the water to an island. There the Creator stood waiting for him, beside the house he had made. Inside the house on the west side stood a black suit of clothes. On the other side hung a white suit. "Coyote, you are to wear this black suit for six months," said the Creator. "Then the weather will be cold and dreary. Take off the black suit and wear the white suit. Then there will be summer, and everything will grow. I will give you my power not to grow old. You will live here forever and forever."

Coyote stayed there, out in the ocean, and the four Wolf brothers took his place as the head of all the animal people. Youngest Wolf Brother was strong and good and clever. Oldest Wolf Brother was worthless. So the Creator gave Youngest Brother the power to take Beaver from the water. One morning Oldest Wolf Brother said to Youngest Brother, "I want you to kill Beaver. I want his tooth for a knife."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Second and Third Brothers. "Beaver is too strong for Youngest Brother." But Youngest Wolf said to his brothers, "Make four spears. For Oldest Brother, make a spear with four forks. For me, make a spear with one fork. Make a two-forked spear and a three-forked spear for yourselves. I will try my best to get Beaver, so that we can kill him."

All the animal persons had seen Beaver and his home. They knew where he lived. They knew what a big creature he was. His family of young beavers lived with him. The animal persons were afraid that Youngest Wolf Brother would fail to capture Beaver and would fail to make the human being. Second and Third Wolf Brothers also were afraid. "I fear we will lose Youngest Brother," they said to each other. But they made the four spears he had asked for.

At dusk, the Wolf brothers tore down the dam at the beavers' home, and all the little beavers ran out. About midnight, the larger beavers ran out. They were so many, and they made so much noise, that they sounded like thunder. Then Big Beaver ran out, the one the Creator had put into the water to become clean.

"Let's quit!" said Oldest Wolf Brother, for he was afraid. "Let's not try to kill him."

"No!" said Youngest Brother. "I will not stop."

Oldest Wolf Brother fell down. Third Brother fell down. Second Brother fell down. Lightning flashed. The beavers still sounded like thunder. Youngest Brother took the four-forked spear and tried to strike Big Beaver with it. It broke. He used the three-forked spear. It broke. He used the two-forked spear. It broke. Then he took his own one-forked spear. It did not break. It pierced the skin of Big Beaver and stayed there. Out of the lake, down the creek, and down Big River, Beaver swam, dragging Youngest Brother after it.

Youngest Wolf called to his brothers, "You stay here. If I do not return with Beaver in three days, you will know that I am dead." Three days later, all the animal persons gathered on a level place at the foot of the mountain. Soon they saw Youngest Brother coming. He had killed Beaver and was carrying it. "You remember that the Creator told us to cut it into twelve pieces," said Youngest Brother to the animal people. But he could divide it into only eleven pieces.

Then he gave directions. "Fox, you are a good runner. Hummingbird and Horsefly, you can fly fast. Take this piece of Beaver flesh over to that place and wake it up. Give it your breath." Youngest Brother gave other pieces to other animal people and told them where to go. They took the liver to Clearwater River, and it became the Nez Perce Indians. They took the heart across the mountains, and it became the Methow Indians. Other parts became the Spokane people, the Lake people, the Flathead people. Each of the eleven pieces became a different tribe.

"There have to be twelve tribes," said Youngest Brother. "Maybe the Creator thinks that we should use the blood for the last one. Take the blood across the Shining Mountains and wake it up over there. It will become the Blackfeet. They will always look for blood."

When an animal person woke the piece of Beaver flesh and breathed into it, he told the new human being what to do and what to eat. "Here are roots," and the animal people pointed to camas and kouse and to bitterroot, "You will dig them, cook them, and save them to eat in the winter.

"Here are the berries that will ripen in the summer. You will eat them and you will dry them for use in winter." The animal people pointed to chokecherry trees, to serviceberry bushes, and to huckleberry bushes.

"There are salmon in all the rivers. You will cook them and eat them when they come up the streams. And you will dry them to eat in the winter."

When all the tribes had been created, the animal people said to them "Some of you new people should go up Lake Chelan. Go up to the middle of the lake and look at the cliff beside the water. There you will see pictures on the rock. From the pictures you will learn how to make the things you will need."

The Creator had painted the pictures there, with red paint. From the beginning until long after the white people came, the Indians went to Lake Chelan and looked at the paintings. They saw pictures of bows and arrows and of salmon traps. From the paintings of the Creator they knew how to make the things they needed for getting their food.

This a small simplified sample, and the discussion would require a much larger one, but differently from all these, the Bible creation goes as such.

God intentionally creates man (this can be sometimes found in myths as well), and He states that such creation is a "good thing", tob in hebrew. Creation of mankind is thus an intrinsically moral/aesthetic/good act sanctioned by the only authority.

God creates and makes fruitful a garden in Eden to give His creation a living.

God insufflates the dead clay with its own nephesh (Ge 2:7b), or breath of life. In Ge 6:3, it is said he infuses his own ruah (spirit) in humankind as well.

Although these attributes are shared by animals in several biblical passages, the fact that both are "special" is clearly inferred by the fact that Adam feels alone without another human being, when God makes animals to accompany him. His nephesh and ruah are different from those of animals.

Besides, humans are made almost in the image and likeness of God: b(e)sal(e)menu and ki-d(e)mutenu, the two prefixes meaning "almost".

Man is made not to toil, but to submit and to dominate (kabash, radah) all creatures.

This entails that humanity has personal titles of majesty, akin to those only sovereigns had in ancient civilization. In this connatured dignity, equality between humans, is implied (although they are all submitted to God).

In Adam's naming of animals, there is also, implied, the right to know what he rules: it is a form of possession of the identity of an item which also includes knowledge.

In these roots, we can see asserted in nuce, the dignity of man, his right to freedom and equality, and his right to discover the secrets of the universe.

This last ability is in an additional particular relationship with humanity's sin, stemming from eating the fruits of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", from which the necessity to labour and suffer results. This being one of the most esoterical passages of the Bible, it will be treated in a separate post.

[My Favorite Martian]

You're right. We do not live in a vaccuum. To give an example: avodah* means work and it means cultic service, or with a modern term community service. Languages allow us to describe our worlds of experience. We gain possiblities to position us in relation to worlds (of experiences) with the help of words and the more differenciated the situations are, we face the more we are asked to reuse and modify the (worlds of) the words.

*a word form the bible

[Ummon]

I think that is a very good contribution, and I am meaning this very seriously.

[My Favorite Martian]

Thank you, Ummon.

[Ummon]

Welcome to the second installment: Original Sin.

Original Sin is the choice to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the Bible. Is Original Sin only a Christian doctrine? I consider it easily arguable that this isn't the case at all.

First a brief digression on why Adam's choice is the cause of humanity's fall from grace: many atheists/materialists/critics object that they haven't sinned, it was someone else, so they shouldn't pay for it. Besides, in an evolutionary perspective, Adam is not even their ancestor, given that humanity has evolved from many couples of anthropoids (there was no first man).

I have in the past mentioned the concept of creation in the Kabbalah, as the consideration that Genesis deals with the creation of the prototype, or archetype, or platonic idea of man. Adam as such is not just a men of flesh and bone, but the (unknown) metaphysical root of every man.

Additionally, in the Bible, ancestors and patriarchs of an ethnic group are often used to describe in a prototypal or mythical way the properties, faults and behaviours of their people. With the name of generations or tol(e)dot, the Bible describes the stories of the ethnic groups existing in primitive humanity. This is what happens with Cain exemplifying the corruption of the Cainites (Ge 4,14), Ismael conducting the nomad life of Ismaelites (Ge 16,12), Lot is guilty of incest just like the Moabites (Ge 19,37 and following), the irruence of Simeon and Levi against Sichemites causes the disappearance of their tribes (Ge 39; 49, 5-7), etc.

Thus Adam is an exemplary figure of the motives why humanity is corrupt: the original sin.

In the OT, several traces of this concept exist: http://bible.cc/genesis/6-5.htm

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. (Ge 6,5)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...51&version=NIV

5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

http://niv.scripturetext.com/job/14.htm

1“Man born of woman
is of few days and full of trouble.

2He springs up like a flower and withers away;
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

3Do you fix your eye on such a one?
Will you bring him before you for judgment?

4Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!(Job 14, 1-4)

What is this sin?

It is, according to most, pride. According to others, it possesses a sexual connotation too. We will see how the two are not incompatible (although the latter only as a collateral implication) and infact, in a way reinforce each other.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, ha-da'at tob wa'ra', implies the knowledge of opposites: good and evil are infact incompatible extremes. Knowing opposites implies omniscience, or in other words, an attribute of God. But on the other hand, humans are not the equals of God, they are created (see above) almost in His image and likeness.

The verb to know or yada implies a "technical, practical knowledge", it is always meant to bring action with it (doing, asah). Therefore, the knowledge we are speaking of, differently from greek γνωσις (gnosis) which is theoretical, is a matter of application.

But only God can have complete practical knowledge, which is, omnipotence.

Thus humanity seeks something which, besides being forbidden, transcends its nature. Humanity seeks to be equal to God. This in other terms is the most terrible ‘ύβρις (hubris), besides being impossible.

Later instead of admitting their violation, Adam accuses Eve, and Eve the serpent who tempted her. They try to justify their pride in front of God, besides having tried to lie to him just before that. That is a consequence of the fact that though incomplete, now they possess the ability to imagine the consequences (good, bad) of actions.

Knowledge, in this sense, is the way the Ego, commonly considered a deceitful non-entity in other religious and philosophical mindsets (see Buddhism, Jainism) tries to manipulate reality to get egoistic advantages. This leads us to the other aspect, that yada as a verb, has in the Bible another acception, that to mean metaphorically, "have sexual intercourse with".

Some commentators have seen in the shame for nudity, and in this semantic field, a nuance of sexual prohibition in God forbidding the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam and Eve. Although interesting, this outlook is considered scarcely supported.

But I wish to attract attention to another aspect relating with this. Sexual attraction has been compared in literature and popular culture, to chemistry. Chemistry is the science studying reactions whereby different compounds mix, interact and are altered in a (meta)stable way.

Chemistry is the modern derivate of Alchemy, an esoterical tradition whose origins date back to ancient Middle East. In alchemical texts, knowledge is described often as acquired from spirits, in exchange for (or by denying a desired) sexual intercourse. For example: http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/maryprof.htm

Other known metaphors including the "Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" http://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Chris.../dp/0933999356

Thus we have come full circle. Because the knowledge (practical knowledge) acquired, is a knowledge of transformation, hence birth, growth, getting old, dieing. A knowledge requiring time. And the renounce to the immortality given by the Tree of life, an immortality fruit of a gift by God (as humans were mortal even before the original sin).

It is, finally, a knowledge implying that an imperfect intellect can gain partial information about the absolute, and act influencing reality based on this partial information: knowledge which doesn't allow an exact prediction of the consequences of actions. Thus causing evil (events different from the best possible ones) to result from pride.

[Bovril]

I very much enjoyed reading this. I would like to add, since mythology was brought up very prominently by the OP, that many early creation myths see the 'fall' of man as the result of the intervention of a (semi-)divine being having pity of a doomed or degraded race (cf. Enki or Prometheus) whilst the Hebrew creation myth speaks to the role of the independence of man in his own fall, which is, of course, a far more existentially resonant myth for our modern consciousness.

[Monarchist]

Sigh... such vindictiveness.

[Akrotatos]

Ummon these are nice and interesting mini-articles but they don't answer the points you made in your first post.