Ezekiel 28 ???

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

The story of Genesis does indeed pre-date Ezekiel.

If you look at a modern Bible, you would get the impression that Genesis was pretty important, and that impression would come almost exclusively from Genesis itself. If the was no Book of Genesis, there would be no real reason to miss it because it is practically a separate mythology from the rest of the Old Testament.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by lonewolf19792000

 

The story of Genesis does indeed pre-date Ezekiel.

If you look at a modern Bible, you would get the impression that Genesis was pretty important, and that impression would come almost exclusively from Genesis itself. If the was no Book of Genesis, there would be no real reason to miss it because it is practically a separate mythology from the rest of the Old Testament.

edit on 26-11-2011 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

Oh yes no doubt. The whole reason behind Genesis and creation was for God to make man. He made the universe and everything in it and the earth and everything in it just to make mankind. The Adama he created to be his companion and he walked with him in the cool of the day (probably morning).

After reading all the material i have about the different ancient religions and gods from the Sumerian to the Babylonian, Egyptian and the Greek and whatnot i came to the conclusion that most of the religions of today were loosely based on Genesis. We all decended from Noah and his 3 sons. It's commonly thought that europeans and their american decendants came from Japheth, while the hebrews, arabs, egyptians, medianites etc. came from Shem's line.

Many people say the word anti-semitic about jews and middle easterners when they say something hateul or prejudice and that word is derived from them being Semites, or Shemites as the letter S in the hebew language has a "sh" sound.

Lastly i am guessing that Ham's decendants landed in africa perhaps, as Ham saw his fathers nakedness when Noah got drunk and was cursed or he and his decendants to be servants (if i remember correctly, might be a big if).

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

The whole reason behind Genesis and creation was for God to make man.

Genesis is a set of writings.
Genesis was created to make a standardized mythology and one was created to be distinctly Canaanite in origin to be different from the mythologies of neighboring countries, and to have their own personal myth without any of those nasty foreign gods in it. It really has nothing to do with actual history but ends up making Abraham look important and to establish some sort of claim on the land.

i came to the conclusion that most of the religions of today were loosely based on Genesis.

Any sort of coherent thought that you can articulate behind that conclusion?

lonewolf

I think we'd be hard-pressed to locate the first version of this story. I understand you have your beliefs about its origin. I think the Hebrew story was written by a human being, and that it comments upon Babylonian and Sumerian antecedents that were ancient in Ezekiel's time.

In any case, there is no shortage of distinct stories about people in gardens in the region, from many cultures. Given the desert climate, it beggars belief that a garden wouldn't be a perennially popular setting for myths, or a real-life item of conspicuous consumption by the well-to-do.


Joe

Your OP quotes an English translation of Ezekiel 28 in which the initial letter of Eden is capitalized. I have already told you where to look.

I mentioned the matter in my first post, referring to what you had by then already posted (obviously, since yours was the OP). Emphasis is added here:

The Hebrew word eden is simply a generic "pleaure place," or plausibly enough for desert dwellers, a garden. Capitalizing the E in the translation you use for Ezekiel 28: 13 is a translator's choice, not necessarily the prophet's intention.

I didn't say you "said Ezekiel didn't 'capitalize' the E." (You meant "did?") You have a nasty habit of putting words in people's mouths. What troubles me more is that you then say "Like you stated in your post below." You then quote me twice, and in netiher quote do I say that you said Ezekiel did or didn't capitalize the E. Nor anywhere else, either.

You did, however, offer an English translation of Ezekiel, and have discussed its English word Eden as if it translated a proper noun, and not a common noun, from the original text (an example appears in the next quote block below). You have produced no evidence on that point. I questionned that; I don't claim to know the original intention of the author.

The matter is peripheral to the points I have advocated, but does bear on the thread topic. Whether Ezekiel said "an eden" or "The Eden" is all the same to anything I believe. It would be a problem for Francesca's case if he said "an eden."

In the second of your quotes, I said "No" to a statement which you presented as if it were an accomplished fact, when the matter was and is disputed.

Hmm. But Ezekiel is mentioning a character in Eden, and then drawing a parallel back to the King of Tyre.

Supposedly, my objecting to this elevation of your personal opinion to the status of established fact violates some Croftly notion of netiquette, which you describe as follows,

You see, if you had just brought the idea in as a hypothetical, that would have been fine and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

You didn't abide by your own rule, so what's your beef with me?

This is a discussion board, where people discuss one another's opinions, sometimes tersely. If you're complaining that somebody contradicted what you wrote, take it up with a moderator.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000
Here is something to think about and maybe Eight Bits knows more about this than I do, but a lot of years ago when I was looking into trying to study the Talmud, I thought it quite odd that there was not any for Genesis, finding it quite inexplicable. Now I can see why, which is that there was long ago an oral tradition which was very strong and was by principle more massive than the written tradition. The Talmud was based, when it eventually was written, on that old and substantial oral tradition. There was none, would be my guess now, for Genesis because of how it was so much newer than the core part of the Torah starting from Exodus.

I'm quite sure some of you aren't making the connection between the fiery stones that Adam walked on are the same stones John the Baptist said could raise up children to Abraham. John taught, that a baptism of fire and spirit would come after him. He is from a line of Priests who were definately in the know on these types of spiritual matters.

Furthermore, the Old Testament High Priest wore an ephod over his robe that bore the precious stones. In eden these stones bore a light, that shown and covered Adam's nakedness. The light disappeared from Adam when he ate of the forbidden fruit. Iniquity was found in him because he did not listen to God, and now we all die in Adam and are made alive in the Messiah. We are a royal priesthood - not a royal serpenthood.

Ask yourselves this. Are the High Priests who don the stones mimicking what Lucifer and/or Satan had in eden or are they mimicking Adam??

Or what did Christ rectify? Adam's fall or the cunning serpent?

I would recommend going to Jewish sources or hebrew texts.

jmdewey60

Talmud is not my forte. I am aware of this venerable compilation book, which can be gotten for free in a variety of formats.

www.archive.org...

Genesis chapter III runs from pages 130-161 (physical pages 168-199 for devices that work that way).

About the arrangement of the book, from an ad for the book when it was new.

Genesis: with a Talmudical Commentary. By P. I. Hershon. With an Introductory Essay by Canon Spence, M.A. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 560 pp., 10s.

"The texts of Genesis scattered throughout the twelve volumes of the Talmud have been carefully searched out and arranged in the order in which we find them in our Bibles. To each individual text is added the immediate context as found in the Talmud. After many of the texts and the direct Talmudical comments upon them, so-called Synoptical Notes are introduced. These refer to the principal subjects suggested in the text just commented upon, and any curious and interesting remark on these subjects contained in the Mishna and Gemara is appended. Careful references to the particular treatise, page and column are in all cases given."—Introductory Essay.

So, it does seem that commentary on everything in Genesis is fragmentary and sparse, but that Talmudic commentary on this story does exist. I am unsure that helps us with dating.

reply to post by eight bits

So, it does seem that commentary on everything in Genesis is fragmentary and sparse, but that Talmudic commentary on this story does exist. I am unsure that helps us with dating.

You would have to look into all those quotations and try to figure out when they were added to the Talmud.
Like I was saying, it seemed inexplicable to me years ago why there was not a section of the Talmud devoted to Genesis, where now I can easily see why. It does seem to a person reading the Bible that Genesis must be very old but it could be just the way it was written, to give the reader that impression, while if there was a book that was in fact very old, the writer would not consciously make an effort to make it seem old.
I used to, up until right now maybe, think that there was this old book and the priests and/or scribes just went through it and changed the names from an older name for God and inserted YHWH. Now I think Genesis 1 was the older and does reflect the older understanding of God, and the transition comes in chapter 2, when it makes mention of this YHWH person who makes Adam.

eight bits

Originally posted by eight bits
Your OP quotes an English translation of Ezekiel 28 in which the initial letter of Eden is capitalized. I have already told you where to look.

Yes, it’s capitalized because the majority of scholars opinions believe it be talking about the original Garden of Eden story. But there is no mention in my OP, of the idea that you brought forward later.

Originally posted by eight bits
The Hebrew word eden is simply a generic "pleaure place," or plausibly enough for desert dwellers, a garden. Capitalizing the E in the translation you use for Ezekiel 28: 13 is a translator's choice, not necessarily the prophet's intention.

Yes I’m aware that you brought the idea up, but in your later reply you used the same idea to tell me I was wrong. I then tried to tell you that you were going against popular opinion, and that you needed to have some evidence to show this…

Originally posted by eight bits
You did, however, offer an English translation of Ezekiel, and have discussed its English word Eden as if it translated a proper noun, and not a common noun, from the original text (an example appears in the next quote block below). You have produced no evidence on that point. I questionned that; I don't claim to know the original intention of the author.

No, you didn’t question; you proclaimed that it was wrong without any evidence to show why or how. Your statement is there, for everyone to see…

And just like I said in my previous post, if you’d only questioned, rather than proclaimed without evidence, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Originally posted by eight bits
In the second of your quotes, I said "No" to a statement which you presented as if it were an accomplished fact, when the matter was and is disputed.

But the matter is not in dispute at all; it’s only in dispute by you. I even tried to tell that you are going against popular opinion regarding the verse. The majority of scholars say this verse is talking about the original Garden of Eden story. So you are not just disagreeing with me, but all those other scholars as well.

Originally posted by eight bits
Supposedly, my objecting to this elevation of your personal opinion to the status of established fact violates some Croftly notion of netiquette, which you describe as follows,

But this isn’t just about my personal opinion. I’m just agreeing with the scholars, because I believe they make a good overall case. So your idea/objection goes against popular opinion, including mine.

Originally posted by eight bits
This is a discussion board, where people discuss one another's opinions, sometimes tersely. If you're complaining that somebody contradicted what you wrote, take it up with a moderator.

No one is claiming that you contradicted what I wrote. You disagreed with what I wrote, without providing any evidence for it. It’s that simple.

Originally posted by eight bits
You didn't abide by your own rule, so what's your beef with me?

I don’t have any beef with you. That rule/statement your referring to, was me going with popular scholarly opinion, but your reply was going against that. And when I asked you to bring in some evidence for it, you then flipped turned the argument around, to be about me, not showing you any evidence, for your idea. You then continued in the same rhetoric, even after I had already told you, in my previous post, that I couldn’t find any evidence for it.


- JC

jmdewey

If I could state an affirmative theory of the case, Genesis 1-11 seems to me like a miscellaneous collection of stories, not necesarily sacred in their origin. Their compilation and editing would be late, just as the idea of having a canon at all is late.

I think those pre-Abrahamic stories were in folk circulation for a long time, all of them. I don't think there would be all that much early commentary on them because maybe they weren't thought of as "theological" before they were incorporated into "holy" writ.

The stories in the pre-Abrahamic chapters can be seen as "how we differ from our neighbors." For example, our God just speaks everything into existence, he doesn't fight with other gods like the neighbors'. Our God moves over the surface of the waters, he doesn't kill a sea monster like Tiamat. Everybody's got a flood story, we've got a covenant story. Those metal-working city folk may be clever, but they descend from a fratricidal vagrant.

These stories differentiate a Hebrew people from the larger Semitic culture, by retelling Semitic stories with a Hebrew spin. The Hebrew Bible is, in the first instance, the national epic, not a theology textbook. These early-Genesis stories are the prologue to the main story, the emergence of Israel and its dicey fortunes through the ages.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that no adult thought there was "a real Garden of Eden" before the Christian Era, where the story served to help explain something in the new religion. It has no such role in the Hebrew religion, so far as I know. On the contrary, the story has the "look and feel" of a folk tale, with more to say about anthropology than about theology, and saying it with the same unforced density of symbolism you find in other folk tales worldwide.

I am also unsure how scrupulously the received Talmud reflects the actual oral tradition it allegedly records. The Second Century of the Common Era was a busy time for the development of Judaism, and some of what happened was plausibly a reaction to the rise of Christianity, just as some of it reacted to the perennial battles with the Gnostics.

Both of these Gentile movements were peculiarly fascinated with those pre-Patriarchal sections. Makes me wonder whether some indiscreet comments might not have found their way into the written record, if you see what I mean, or maybe became detached from their verse-of-origin.


Joe

That's fine. I asked whether you had more evidence on the proper-noun question than was in the TV show. The answer keeps coming up NO, although you earn full marks for the variety of ways you've said it.

And, as I keep saying, it's the same to me either way. Whether Ezekiel alluded to an eden or The Eden, he didn't tell the story of Genesis 2 and 3, and he didn't retell it, either. At most, he mentioned it, along with other things. That hardly excludes that Ezekiel knew that his listeners would know what story he was mentioning, and so, that the story was already circulating.

Conversely, if some writer with time on his hands in Babylon decided to compose a brand new story about a naked couple learning the importance of a good diet, he hardly needed Ezekiel to tell him that a garden would be a swell place to set the story.

And that's Francesca's problem. The idea of a garden is too widespread and too accessible to tie together two literary gardens, and conclude that there is only one garden being discussed both times. Neat if it were true, of course, and maybe it is so, but the evidence for it is slight, and the alternative explanations are obvious for what little evidence there is.

-

reply to post by eight bits

Both of these Gentile movements were peculiarly fascinated with those pre-Patriarchal sections.

I would take that as an indication that these were Jewish movements which were disowned by the official Jewish majority party.

Here is something for anyone interested in the siege of Tyre.

On yesterday's episode of the Paracast radio show, there was an author who had written a book on the history of UFO's, telling the story of how a UFO helped the Greeks by blowing up part of one of the city's walls.

You can download the mp3 from the web site.

eight bits

Originally posted by eight bits
That's fine…

Well ,you say it’s fine, but forget about the topic we are discussing here, I’m not happy with your interpersonal conduct with me during this discussion. IMO, It’s absolutely disgusting….

Here’s the general flow of our conversation below, please read it very carefully, and try to understand it from my perspective.

Originally posted by Joecroft
Hmm. But Ezekiel is mentioning a character in Eden, and then drawing a parallel back to the King of Tyre

Originally posted by eight bits
No, Ezekiel is mentioning a character in an eden, a pleasure garden, the one in Tyre. The translator capitalizes the E. That doesn't mean Ezekiel did.

Your statement above claims that not only was my statement wrong but that the majority of scholars are also wrong. Which is pretty arrogant, considering you were not aware of any evidence, to back up that idea.

I then asked a fairly logical question…

Originally posted by Joecroft
How do you know that Ezekiel didn’t originally capitalize the E?

You then admitted that you didn’t know! i.e. that you had had no evidence for the previous dismissing statement!

Originally posted by eight bits
I didn't say I did know. You haven't shown that Ezekiel capitalized it, all you've offered is translations.

And it’s then flipped turned around onto to me to prove your point. Which is again completely arrogant.


Continuing on…

Originally posted by eight bits
I didn't claim Ezekiel didn't "capitalize" the E. If you aren't interetsed in researching whether he did or not, then why should I be?

I’m then told, that you didn’t make the claim. The problem being that you were quite happy to let the previous dismissing statement stand, without addressing it in any way, and to have me go look for your evidence! Complete arrogance.

You then assumed that I wasn’t interested in finding any evidence for your idea, which is a really bad thing to say, considering the material I have looked at on the subject.

Continuing on…

Originally posted by eight bits
Asking you for evidence cannot be taken as a denial that you might produce some evidence. As it happens, you're not interested in doing that.

Again you continue with the same rhetoric, flip turning this around to be about me, not showing you any evidence, for your idea. Even after I had just told you, in my previous post, that I couldn’t find any evidence for it. Again, a completely arrogant and accusative stance.

And….

Originally posted by eight bits
It's not "my idea" that the E is capitalized in translations of Ezekiel 28. It's there in the 4th line of your OP. So, we don't need to traipse through the whole thread to see how I discussed what you brought up by quoting it.

You then tried deflect the situation, by suggesting that the idea was there all along in my OP, when clearly there was no mention in my OP that Ezekiel, might have not capitalized the E in Eden. A very deceptive tactic to use. Not sure what else to say….

Originally posted by eight bits
I didn't say you "said Ezekiel didn't 'capitalize' the E." (You meant "did?") You have a nasty habit of putting words in people's mouths.

You then had the audacity to tell me I was putting words in your mouth, regarding the idea hat Ezekiel might not have capitalized the E, when all I did was point out, that the idea was not mentioned in my OP, when you had suggested between the lines, that it was.

It’s pretty clear from all of the above, that it is YOU who is the one, who has the nasty habits, not me.

Summing up….

Originally posted by eight bits
No, Ezekiel is mentioning a character in an eden, a pleasure garden, the one in Tyre. The translator capitalizes the E. That doesn't mean Ezekiel did.

You still haven’t addressed the dismissive statement above. You need to either, (a) retract the statement (b) bring forward some evidence to back it up, (c) Admit that you made it without any foreknowledge of any evidence existing, and that that in itself was a bad thing to do, or (d) At least acknowledge that you could have worded it much better than you did.


You need to seriously check yourself here. And unless you do one of the four things above, I don’t think I will be replying to any more of your posts on ATS. And who can blame me, considering your overall conduct throughout this entire discussion.


- JC

Sounds like a plan, Joe.

jmdewey60

I would take that as an indication that these were Jewish movements which were disowned by the official Jewish majority party.

It's funny, a lot of people (including me) would say that typical Gnostics were aggressively opposed to Judaism, but the Jacobs and Blau article in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia disagrees,

www.jewishencyclopedia.com...

and since then, I understand, others have come around to some version of positive Jewish influence on the development of Gnosticism. Kaballah resembles Gnosticism, at least in some ways, so the idea is not completely implausible.

But, as you say, Gnosticism would not sit well with most observant Jews.

I ordered a new book (actually, used, but new to me) yesterday from Amazon:
"Forms of Old Testament Literature: Genesis, with an Introduction to Narrative Literature (Forms of the Old Testament Literature)"

I got one earlier this week in the same book series but on Daniel, so I figured this one would be good also, and maybe I will learn some new insights into where the Eden Story comes from

reply to post by jmdewey60

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I ordered a new book (actually, used, but new to me) yesterday from Amazon:
"Forms of Old Testament Literature: Genesis, with an Introduction to Narrative Literature (Forms of the Old Testament Literature)"

That book “Forms of Old Testament Literature: Genesis”, looks like good value for money i.e. 336 pages. Cant help but noticed though, that it was published in 1984! A lot of archeological evidence has been uncovered since it was written. Still, looks like a good book, as far as introductions go.


- JC

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I ordered a new book (actually, used, but new to me) yesterday from Amazon:
"Forms of Old Testament Literature: Genesis, with an Introduction to Narrative Literature (Forms of the Old Testament Literature)"

I got one earlier this week in the same book series but on Daniel, so I figured this one would be good also, and maybe I will learn some new insights into where the Eden Story comes from

Why do you believe so strongly in God the creator of everything than deny his capability to preserve his word in a book? Really you must believe and have faith in the whole bible both old and new or it’s as if you have no faith at all.

reply to post by Joecroft

You need to build a base for study on the subject matter and it is good to read this sort of stuff as long as it is quality research, even if it may seem a little dated. Then you can find bits later that you can put into context and appreciate the significance of it. What you will find is that significant progress will be in specialized segments and it takes time before it impacts the larger study.
Just like I suggest people start with von Rad, even though his main work was decades ago now, everyone uses it as their starting point to compare to.

reply to post by sacgamer25
I saw a similar comment by you earlier today on another thread and felt like commenting on it but was a little busy doing some translating of the Septuagint. The point being, I am trying to prioritize things a bit so I end up spending more time doing actual work than commenting on other people's wrong assumptions.
You have a mystical approach to religion or whatever, where you have a book of magic to find the secrets of God or whatever. This is how you end up with things like Kabala where the significance is in the words, where words have power. I take a slighlty different approach where books are a tool that the spirit will make use of. I was watching a movie last night that was annoying to watch in certain ways but you have to kind of deal with it and watch anyway to get the point of the movie, but it is Richard Gere playing a professor of religious studies who goes off into flights of fancy in class on Kabbalistic theories of God. You get the idea from the movie that it is something like a form of self hypnoses and ends up criticizes the whole endeavor as being completely self centered and actually destructive to human relationships.
The New Testament approach is slightly different to where you don't have this fantastic connection between words and the spirit. An example would be the Logos, which I made a comment on last night where it doesn't have Jesus calling himself "the word". I said it was more about "the name" where Jesus exemplifies the character of God through his work. I could relate this concept to another thread I commented on last night with this thing about the name of Jesus. After watching this movie (Bee Season, for anyone wanting to know what the movie's title is) I'm thinking that Jesus was named, Jesus, so people would not use the name for magic because the sounds of the pronunciation of the word does not lend itself very well to going into different mind states. Instead, we should use the name to contemplate the works of Jesus, rather than going into a trance by playing with harmonics from chanting the name. I suspect that the promoters of the anti-christ pronunciation are Kabbalists who want to get people hypnotized to accept their sorcery.

reply to post by jmdewey60


All the words in the bible are true, and it matters little if any what translation you use. God preserves his message. The problem is man does not have the wisdom to interpret the bible. Interpretation is a gift that can only be given by the Holy Spirit. But you must have complete faith that every word is true and the message has been preserved by God.

If you can have complete faith and you are truly ready to give up yourself and do only the will of the father. I believe you can pray for God’s will to be done and ask for the wisdom to understand and it will be given to you.

The lack of understanding is what leads to many denominations and much conflict. I have yet to find one denomination that holds to the standards in the bible. Many actually make statements as to why they don’t do this or that as instructed in the bible. If a person does not follow every instruction in the bible it is as if they had no faith at all.