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CSwriter1
13th April 2005, 06:55 AM
I wish bible studies began with a study of the stories from Sumer, which the Hebrews translated. These stories then became our bible stories of creation and the flood.

I perfer the Greek form of the story of creation. Instead of Adam and Eve, there is the first man and Pandora. A god had given the first man fire, and Zeus feared with the technology of fire, man would discover all other technologies and rival the gods. To slow man's progress, Zeus gave the first man a woman and a wedding gift. The gift was a container holding all the miseries that plague us.

The Greek version is more logical than the biblical version, and a God tempting mankind with a tree of knowledge and then punishing Adam and Eve for not resisting the temptation of having knowledge. Then following this with the need of a human sacrifice to save mankind from the curse of death, resulting from Adam and Eve gaining the knowledge of good and evil.
A knowledge the church seems determined to spread so we can be good. Huh? is this logical?

In the Sumerian story, it was a river that angered a Goddess, by eating her plants. The Goddess cursed the river to die, but a fox talked the Goddess into letting the river live. Another Goddess, lady of the rib, helped heal the river (in the Hebrew translation becomes Eve, lady of the rib, because in the translation the Hebrews had to make the story conform to a story with only one God). When the river was healed, it asked for helpers, so the Goddess made a man and woman from mud, to help the river stay in its banks. This goes on into the story of the flood, but enough for now. Human means moist soil.

CSwriter1
13th April 2005, 08:58 PM
May I suggest, the original story of Sumer, was an account of actual environment event. Geologist tell us that this region experienced a very long draught, enough to dry up rivers, and it experienced flooding.

Eden means something like valley and Adam is something like a cultivated valley. Does anyone have a clearer memory of the meaning of these words?

I like the thought that humans were created to help a river stay in its banks. How about you? CS