quote csteele,<<The racial nature..of the original narrative..meant the process...had to be one of revolution..rather than evolution.>>good point..born in conflict...

israel means wars with god
drop the rightiousness...delusions...ie the belief is..they ALONE can go to heaven...just like many delusional beliefs that..exclude others

drop the judgment day delusion...jesus rebutted that..on the third day

<<Might the story of God..through the Hebrew..then Christian bible..be viewed with a Buddhist eye?>>>yes...read of the king in the bible...that'thought'..he was a beast of the field..
he really was...just as in the bagdaveta..the..'gods'..turned into tree's

its a good way of preserving life..yet restricting that injurous...like..one well claiming..to be..all the water...god is revealed in his creation...sustaining ALL living to life

<<..His withdrawing and leaving the load to his son..(at least in the Christian version)..signals a movement away.>>>if you listen to the sons words..he taught..we can know our inner life...one to one..you shall call him..[emmanuel]..gOd-with-in...us all

<<Perhaps....and decided..he needed to liberate himself of the pain of human existence,a pain he obviously feels differently but strongly.>>>..think of the paRRABLE OF THE FO0T PRINTS...

IS IT SO HARD TO BELIEVE..GOD LIVES WITHIN..YOUR LIVING BEATING HEART...YOUR AUTOMATIC NATURE...LOGIC=logos...serving even the LEAST to live

<<instead..has left his prophets..?..to attempt to enlighten us about the causes of suffering..>>greed<<..and show a way forward alone.>>>...all-onr...at-one-meant..

to each nation..he has sent his collective messengers

<<Should we be allowed..to hope for Nirvana..for the God of the Hebrew bible?>>>..each will recieve according as we earn/gave[more will be given]....our fathers house..has many rooms/realms...each can realise into their own sun..[their own ...in the beginning...sharing your gift of life]...be bounty full

<<I probably would.>>that we love loves us..even if slowly killing us
there is no death...eternal means just that...

we simply have forgotten..we are eternal spirits having a bodilly expereience...lol..a life senntance..into this living form...according to as we earned last time arround....lol..Oo0ooo...

Dear csteele,

A little wine is spilled at each mention of a plague.

Judaism also has the concept of God withdrawing. From page 170 of "The Bible" by Karen Armstrong:

In Luria's new myth, God began the creative process by going voluntarily into exile. How could the world exist if God was everywhere? Luria's answer was the myth of zimzum ('withdrawal'): the infinite En Sof (‘without end’) had, as it were, to evacuate a region within itself to make room for the cosmos. This cosmology was punctuated by accidents, primal explosions and false starts, quite different from the orderly, peaceful creation described in the Pentateuch. But to the Sephardim, Luria's myth seemed a more accurate appraisal of their unpredictable, fragmented world. At an early stage in the creative process En Sof had tried to fill the vacuum it had created by zimzum with divine light, but the 'vessels' or 'pipes' designed to channel it had broken. So sparks of the primal light fell into the abyss that was not-God. Some of these returned to the divine world, but others remained trapped in the Godless realm dominated by the evil potential of Din, (Din represented the evil potential in the divine) which En Sof had - as it were - attempted to purge from itself. After this accident, everything was in the wrong place. Adam could have rectified the situation on the first Sabbath, but he sinned and henceforth the divine sparks remained trapped in matter. The Shekhinah, (the divine presence on earth, a female personality) now in permanent exile, wandered through the world, yearning to be reunited with the rest of the sefiroth (the ten emanations of God). Yet there was hope. Jews were not outcasts, but essential to the redemption of the world. Their careful observance of the commandments and the special rituals evolved in Safed could effect the 'restoration' (tikkun) of the Shekhinah to the Godhead, the Jews to the Promised Land, and the world to its rightful state.

"The Bible" is about the history of the interpretation of the Bible from different viewpoints of different religions.

oug wrote: israel means wars with god
drop the rightiousness...delusions...ie the belief is..they ALONE can go to heaven...just like many delusional beliefs that..exclude others

oug has confused Judaism with Christianity. Jesus said that only through him can one enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That kind of Christian bigotry is absent in Judaism. The Jewish belief is that a person is considered righteous if that person behaves righteously regardless of what religious belief he or she has. It is Christianity that excludes those who don’t accept their belief.

Israel means wars with god, but there’s nothing bad about that. The name was bestowed on the Patriarch Jacob after his nocturnal struggle near the brook of Jabbok with an angel sent by God.

Genesis 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Dear oug,

I think you spend too much time looking at Jew-hating websites.

Dear davidf,

I can see I’m going to have to get Karen’s book.

My latest reading has included Gilgamesh, I have been intrigued by what parts of the flood story were adapted for Genesis.

One of the major differences naturally is the plurality of gods in Gilgamesh though we can see the echoes in the title Elohim and some of the language used in the early chapters of Genesis.

It was Enlil, warrior counsellor of the gods who called for the deluge because “the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed like a wild bull” so he said to the council “The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel.”

However Ea, another of the gods, warned the narrator Utnapishtim in a dream to “tear down you house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul alive” then to “take up into the boat the seed of all living creatures.”

This is where it gets interesting. Utnapishtim asks what he was to tell the people and Ea replies “Tell them this: I have learnt that Enlil is wrathful against me, I dare no longer walk in his land nor live in his city … But on you he will rain down abundance, rare fish and sly wild-fowl, a rich harvest tide. In the evening the rider of the storm will bring you wheat in torrents.”.

Now this falsehood seemed pretty harsh, especially since I was sure Noah had informed his fellow humans about the coming calamity but they had laughed at him, ignoring his warnings. However it appears this was an impression picked up from other sources and in fact there is no record that Noah warned anyone.

Utnapishtim was worked quickly although he had the help of craftsmen whom, along with his kin, were saved on the ark. It was finished in seven days, had seven stories and was roughly twice the volume of the Genesis craft.

“One whole day the tempest raged gathering fury as it went,”

Cont..

Cont..

“it poured over the people like the tides of battle; a man could not see his brother nor the people be seen from heaven. Even the Gods were terrified at the flood, they fled to the highest heaven, the firmament of Anu; they crouched against the walls, cowering like curs.

Omitted from Genesis was the “sweet voiced Queen of Heaven” Ishtar who cried “Alas the days of old have turned to dust because I commanded evil; why did I command this evil in the council of all the gods? I commanded wars to destroy the people, but are they not my people, for I brought them forth? Now like the spawn of fish they float in the ocean.”

Dawn of the seventh day Utnapishtim opens the hatch to calm and the light falls on his face “Then I bowed low, I sat down and I wept, the tears streamed down my face, for on every side was the waste of water.”

He releases a dove, then a sparrow, and finally a raven before land is found. Then pours a “libation” on the ground an offers a sacrifice with seven by seven cauldrons the smell of which attracts the gods “like flies” but Enlil was not welcomed for “without reflection he brought the flood”. But he turns up anyway and when he spies the ark says “Has any of these mortals escaped? Not one was to have survive the destruction”.

Ea answers “how could you so senselessly bring down the flood?”

“Lay upon the sinner his sin,
Lay upon the transgressor his transgression,
Punish him a little when he breaks loose,
Do not drive him too hard or he perishes”.

I am a little in awe of the Genesis writer with his/her ability to fashion an account in keeping with the culture and times, patriarchal and monotheistic as they may have been, from Gilgamesh. Most of the elements are retained but given a subtler treatment. I feel the vividness of the deluge in Gilgamesh is stronger but the covenant made in the aftermath in Genesis is a beautiful touch.

Dear csteele,

Samuel Noah Kramer of the University of Pennsylvania translated a number of Sumerian cuneiform tablets. I have two of his books, “History Begins at Sumer” and “The Sumerians”. The contents of “History Begins at Sumer”:

Education: The First Schools
Schooldays: The First Case of "Apple-Polishing"
Father and Son: The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency
International Affairs: The First "War of Nerves"
Government: The First Bicameral Congress
Civil War in Sumer: The First Historian
Social Reform: The First Case of Tax Reduction
Law Codes: The First "Moses"
Justice: The First Legal Precedent
Medicine: The First Pharmacopoeia
Agriculture: The First "Farmer's Almanac"
Horticulture: The First Experiment in Shade-Tree Gardening
Philosophy: Man's First Cosmogony and Cosmology
Ethics: The First Moral Ideals
Suffering and Submission: The First "Job"
Wisdom: The First Proverbs and Sayings
"Aesopica": The First Animal Fables
Logomachy: The First Literary Debates
Paradise: The First Biblical Parallels
A Flood: The First "Noah"
Hades: The First Tale of Resurrection
Slaying of the Dragon: The First "St. George"
Tales of Gilgamesh: The First Case of Literary Borrowing
Epic Literature: Man's First Heroic Age
To the Royal Bridegroom: The First Love Song
Book Lists: The First Library Catalogue
World Peace and Harmony: Man's First Golden Age

If some older writing is found the firsts will no longer be firsts.

Religions are syncretic. There’s nothing wrong with that, but then they claim to have a truth denied to others and often denigrate and even persecute the source of their traditions.

I agree Genesis is a magnificent narrative. In your account of Gilgamesh’s flood you mention Ishtar. Ishtar was omitted from Genesis but appears in the Book of Esther. The Book of Esther is unusual in that no word for God appears, and the story has no historical verification outside of the Bible. It may celebrate the displacement of old Babylonian Gods by new ones. Vashti, the king’s deposed queen and Haman, the wicked adviser, who ends up on the gallows are the names of older Babylonian gods. Esther (Ishtar) and her uncle Mordecai (Marduk) triumphed.

Ishtar and Marduk displaced Vashti and Haman.