Adam sinned, not Eve. Why did Yahweh punish an innocent Eve?

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Where else could they have come from?

Well, I sought to answer this.

[Miss Hepburn]

Where else could these writings of made up stories, especially from the Old Testament,
Greece, Sumeria---that could maybe hold symbols and metaphors come from?
I'd say, around campfires from dreams, superstitions, fears, tall tales and the imaginations of 'ancient' people.
The same minds that saw an archer in the sky or 2 crabs up there....
or thought a comet was a firey chariot...or thunder and
volcanoes came from an angry God that could be appeased with virgins killed.

Would someone on this thread say, the Garden story, Cain and Abel were ''divinely inspired"?

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Where else could these writings of made up stories, especially from the Old Testament,
Greece, Sumeria---that could maybe hold symbols and metaphors come from?
I'd say, around campfires from dreams, superstitions, fears, tall tales and the imaginations of 'ancient' people.
The same minds that saw an archer in the sky or 2 crabs up there....

They all came from us, arose from us, evolved out of us. "All things are led by mind, created by mind".

Reality is the "revelation".

(By which I mean, picking out particular stories - or anything else - as being an intended "revelation" of a transcendent Being, having a particular meaning, which we are to "believe"........is for me a complete non-starter)

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Speaking as a Buddhist, I'm not over interested in "origins' nor in who should be blamed or punished for the state we find ourselves in.

I'm interested in origins because I'm not interested in Chinese Whispers, which is why I've gone into Sumerian history and not the Bible. As far as I'm concerned Yahweh didn't punish innocent Eve, what's being discussed here is an allegory for obedience to God and fear-mongering.

[Altair]

It can mean so many different things, Greenslade. The eating of the forbidden fruit, the nakedness, the serpent, the paradisical state.

One common occultic interpretation is where the consumption of the fruit was a necessary step to ''learn'' or ''experience'' the truth. If that is true, and if paradise was the best place to be, then it makes no sense to willingly cast yourself down, just to try and go back again (eventually). Perhaps through reincarnation. It's not hard to connect Eastern belief with an occultic interpretation of Genesis.

The standard Christian interpretation is that the serpent is the devil and he wants to drag humans down, out of jealousy and spite, and he wants to drag as many humans down with him, partaking in fruit eating to gain secret knowledge. Sounds a bit fantastical and cynical.

Both interpretations don't make a lot of sense to me.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

I'm interested in origins because I'm not interested in Chinese Whispers, which is why I've gone into Sumerian history and not the Bible. As far as I'm concerned Yahweh didn't punish innocent Eve, what's being discussed here is an allegory for obedience to God and fear-mongering.

I think we are on much the same page. By non-interest, I simply mean how such stories originated. I have interest in the stories themselves.

I would just say that Joseph Campbell is a good guide. He deals in the "stories/myths" right across the world, not just Sumerian.

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Where else could these writings of made up stories, especially from the Old Testament,
Greece, Sumeria---that could maybe hold symbols and metaphors come from?

"One for sorrow,
Two for joy
Three for girl
Four for a boy."

So while that may sound like a simple nonsensical nursery rhyme there's actually a lot more to it. In the days when that rhyme was current, people were far closer to their environments as we are today. I still say "Good morning Mrs Magpie" when I see a solitary one. Magpies mate for Life, so a single magpie is sorrow in that it either hasn't found a mate, or it's lost one. Run through the rhyme and you can count to ten.

And really, Spirituality today isn't too far from what it was back in those days, and God often fulfils the same roles as the pantheons of gods used to have. And as for astrology the starsigns are how many thousands of years old? For some even today, natural disasters are God's punishment.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

By non-interest, I simply mean how such stories originated. I have interest in the stories themselves.

This is an important difference which leads to different questions: the how and where and the what.

Not sure if either questions can ever be answered.

Originally Posted by Altair

It can mean so many different things, Greenslade. The eating of the forbidden fruit, the nakedness, the serpent, the paradisical state.

Granted, but just what is IT? That's what I'm interested in. So we can all participate in this thread and come out with words of wisdom, but what are we really talking about?

The Tree of Knowledge is what Thor hung himself from and it's a common Pagan symbol. The apple represents knowledge, as in the gaining of - it's thought that the slicing of the apple in half was a likeness for the cross-section of the brain. Adam and Eve not knowing they were naked is allegorical of not being self-conscious/aware - and they were after they'd eaten of the Tree of Knowledge because they went and hid. God didn't want them to become self-conscious/aware, he wanted his creations to be dumbed-down. So when they disobeyed him and became self-conscious/aware he threw them out of the garden.

Well, guess what. Change the names but tell the same story and the Sumerian version becomes the Christian version, the difference now is that you have a fear-based mechanism to keep the locals in line. The Sumerian version was about keeping the hominid slaves ignorant so that they could do all the hard work, such as work in the African gold mines - there they were known as Adammu or 'first man' - or work in the Garden of Eden - which was an actual Sumerian location.

Perhaps one of the reasons the interpretations don't make sense is that what they're being based on doesn't make sense.

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

I think we are on much the same page. By non-interest, I simply mean how such stories originated. I have interest in the stories themselves.

Likewise.

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

I would just say that Joseph Campbell is a good guide. He deals in the "stories/myths" right across the world, not just Sumerian.

Never heard of Joseph Campbell but I'm a huge fan of Graham Hancock who wrote Fingerprints of the Gods and the sequel Magicians of the Gods. Sounds like they two of them are covering much the same ground.