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heaven denied
In the previous articles I have discussed, that when Christianity was introduced to Europe, a lot of the Judaic teachings had gone lost in translation. I explained why we use Hebrew in Western Esotericism and the integration and adaptation of Babylonian/Sumerian Folk-lore into the early Jewish teachings, especially so in the Book of Genesis.
When conducting a comparative study of all Myth and World Religions, you will find that all deities of ‘creation’ were male and female. If you are curious about the speculation of this understanding, then please don’t hesitate to read the previous articles.
The first part of the Battle of the Sexes, explains the most likely translation of the male/female name of the God name Elohim.
There is also still a dispute between scholars concerning the translation of the ‘rib’ that had been taken from Adam. The correct translation considered is ‘side’ which again suggests that man and woman have been created simultaneously and that man isn’t superior over woman.
But what of Eve’s deceitfulness? Maybe that could be a reason why, women were seen as inferior to men?
First let’s have a look at the ‘Serpent’. Serpent has been translated out of the Hebrew word ‘Nachash’ (Gen 3:1) which means correctly translated ‘the shining one’. This doesn’t sound much like a ‘snake with legs’. The snake also appears in other biblical stories but again it is free translation to Hebrew words often associated with burning, shining or fiery.
The serpent in the Adam and Eve story comes across more like an Angelic being (shining one).
In the Sumerian/Babylonian myths, there are many deities that are associated with the shape of a snake. The Symbolism for the snake based on the ‘gifts’ of these Gods and Goddesses varies from Guardian of the Gate to heaven, Lord of the ‘Good Tree’, Lord of the Underworld, God-(dess) of medicine and nature.
Prior to what is now known as Judaism, the religions of these tribes were in many ways very similar to the older Sumerian/Babylonian scriptures. The similarity of the symbolism is very significant in the Judaic and the mixture of the Mesopotamian creation Myths.
What they all agree upon is the ‘Fall of man’ from heaven but how we got there in the first place is a different story.
The Judaic religion has ‘one supreme God’, its servants however are the ‘angelic beings’ or ‘the order of angels’.
This is not so different to the older religions. There was after all, the ALL-father of the Gods in the Babylonian/Sumerian myths, called 'Anu' which we’ll learn about in the creation story of "Adapa and the South Wind."
Adapa is the mortal son of the God of Wisdom ‘Ea’
Quote: ‘Anu, the father of the gods, is furious that a man would have the knowledge and power of a god and demands that Adapa comes up to heaven in order to explain himself. Ea instructs Adapa on how to act. He tells him to wear his hair unkempt and to wear mourning clothes. He also warns him not to eat or drink anything offered by the gods because it will be the food and drink of death. When the gods Tammuz (Dumuzi) and Gizzida (Ningishzidda), the guardians of the gate of heaven, question him on why he is in mourning he tells them it is because they (Tammuz and Gizzida) are no longer on the earth and mankind misses them. This of course makes the two gods favourably disposed to Adapa and they let him pass. Anu then demands of Adapa why he cursed the south wind.
After he explains to Anu, Tammuz and Gizzida enter and say "kind words" to Anu. Anu's heart "becomes calm and he becomes silent".
Unquote
Adapa is often compared as a Babylonian ‘Adam’. In this myth this Babylonian ‘Adam’ rejected the gift of ‘Immortality’ which was offered by the all-father of Gods ‘Anu’. In the Hebrew version Adam was given mortality as punishment.
To gain mortality or immortality was achieved by eating ‘food’. The symbolism of eating ‘heavenly’ food gives the human immortality and eating ‘earthly’ food gives the human mortality. In the Garden of Eden was another tree, The Tree of Life, eating the fruit of this tree would have made Adam and Eve immortal. Before they could they were 'trown out'
Adam and Eve were punished for not taking note of Yahweh’s warning, Adapa was punished for taking note of his father’s warning.
In both stories the number four is significant. Representing the four directions of the ‘winds’.
In the Hebrew story we have Yahweh (Air/East) hence that prayer in some Abrahamic Religions is committed to the East, the Serpent (Earth/West), Adam (Fire/South) and Eve (Water/North).
In the Babylonian story we have Anu (Air/East), Gizzida (Earth/West), Tamuz (Water/North) and Adapa (Fire/South).
A significant opposite is that in the Mesopotamian version human was already on Earth but rises to heaven and gets thrown out.
In the Jewish version a special type of human had been made to reside in heaven (Eden) and gets thrown out.
Either way in both human gets thrown out, in both the supreme ‘father’ isn’t pleased with the human having gained ‘knowledge of good and evil’.
In Genesis we can assume that Yahweh is speaking to other ‘heavenly’ beings for in making a decision to deny Adam immortality he says "Behold, the man has become ‘Like one of Us’, knowing good and evil..." (Ge 3:22).
It is very similar to Anu's speech to Ningishzida and Dumuzi regarding Adapa, as shown below in Pritchard's and Sandar's translations, Anu speaking to Dumuzi (Tammuz) and Gizida (Ningishzidda) who have brought Adapa before him:
Quote: ‘Why did Ea to a worthless human of the heaven and earth the plan disclose, rendering him distinguished and making a name for himself ? As for ‘Us, what shall We do about him ? Bread of life Fetch for him and he shall eat it. When the bread of life They brought him, he did not eat; when the water of life They brought him, he did not drink...Come now Adapa ! Why didst thou neither eat or drink ? Thou shalt not have eternal life ! Ah, perverse mankind !" Adapa replies: "Ea, my master, Commanded me: "Thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not drink." Unquote.
You can see, how similar the stories are and how in certain aspects they are the dead opposite of each other. Why? I can hear you ask.
The result are the same apart from the deception of Eve in the Hebrew Version.
First of all, the Garden of Eden wasn’t on Earth and Adam and Eve certainly were not the first human beings. They were the first human beings in ‘paradise’ (Eden). We can find confirmation of this is Genesis 4.3:
The children of Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Cain was banished for killing Abel, Cain fears that God's punishment of his banishment is "too great to bear" and that he "must avoid God's presence and become a restless wanderer on earth... “Anyone who meets me may kill me” This strongly suggests life of other men outside of and prior to or during Cain's lineage.
So, does this mean that Eve was contacted by another God or Goddess? A Deity that served Earth in the shape of a Snake or Serpent? In many folk-lore is a creature of Earth, as it is closest to Earth, slithering on its Belly.
To give another insight, let’s look at the Hindu perspective.
Siva the lord of the universe bestowed a high priest of the Titans (Lords of the Underworld) a charm to revive the dead. This leads to the Titans and the Gods working together to create this liquor of immortality. Mount Mandara was selected as a churning stick, Vasuki the king of serpents, consented to become the churning rope with which to twirl it. Visnu in the form of a tortoise, dove into the Milky Ocean to support with his back the base of the mountain. The Gods laid hold of one end of the serpent, after it had been wrapped round the mountain, the titans the other.
In this excerpt you can see the snake making a connection between the ‘underworld and the world of the Gods’.
Back to Eve, her defence... was she deceitful?
In the creation stories of Genesis, we have established that the God name changed from Elohim to Yahweh. We have contemplated much about this before in the previous articles but, how did Yahweh take over from Elohim? Are they one and the same or are they indeed similar but different? A lot in the book of Genesis is left to speculation but with the knowledge of the ancient myths we do come much further to understanding the truth behind its meaning.
Therefore we could speculate that the Serpent could be an aspect of the Elohim which is a counter part of Yahweh giving advice to Eve?
We certainly have here a polarity aspect. There is as much need of the ‘Underworld’ as there is for the world of ‘God’ which is commonly known as ‘heaven’ to maintain ‘stability’ and have form.
Everything in the Book of Genesis has been kept into equilibrium. After a ‘Negative, we get a Positive which is followed again with Negative. The four directions North, East, South and West and the four Elements are evenly balanced as female/male or negative/positive.
United Force has come from the ‘negative’ veils of existence which created the emanating force of the first Positive World, this split into the male/female forces into the second Negative World. The creation of the ‘planets’ belongs to the third stage of creation and this ‘universe is seen again as positive (masculine) from there it comes to the fourth, the material World ‘Mother Earth’ which again is ‘Negative’ (female).
Adam and Eve were created in a World which for interaction with ‘God must have been between the second and the third world. The Garden of Eden is like a Portal where you can either go from ‘creation’ to ‘formation’ into complete ‘materialisation’ or ‘eat all the food of Eden’ and stay within the realm of the World ‘in between’ which combined represents our ‘universe’ (Planets and Zodiac), many a spiritualist will be more familiar with the name ‘the Astral Plane’ (third World) and the ‘Mental Plane’ (second world).
The dual nature of the Astral plane is represented by the Moon as the lower astral and higher astral. The lower astral is seen as a realm closely associated with the ‘underworld’ and the higher astral is closely associated with the world of God(s). Recognise the 'illusionary' image of the moon?
The snake an ‘archetypal being’ gave Eve, the option to ‘open her eyes’. That same snake that we find in mythology encircling the world or becoming the world’s axes. Underworld meets the world of Gods in the formative, astral world. Wisdom can be found in the second world.
The Garden of Eden must have given access to Adam and Eve to move between the two and is most likely in the Qabalah represented as the 11th invisible sphere (Sephirah) known as Da’ath (Knowledge).
The serpent was able in the story of Genesis to move between these worlds but was condemned by an 'all-father'? Symbolically he was reduced to move along his ‘belly’.
We could visualise this as a Chinese dragon whose legs have been removed and is more like a ‘sea-serpent’. The snake and dragon play very similar roles in cultural myths.
The snake without his ‘legs’ symbolically has been reduced to remain within the realms below the ‘higher astral’, the snake chose in the Adam and Eve story for human to have ‘wisdom’. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if that was a bad thing or not.
You may want to ‘meditate’ on the why did the Jewish people adapt the Mesopotamian creation myths. Those that are familiar with the Old Testament will find the most likely answer in the later books which is very much a ‘recording’ of the battles fought between the Jewish tribes either amongst themselves and between those of none Jewish decent. Stories of ‘Genocide’ in order to conquer land.
I’ll leave you to contemplate this but do take in mind the older creation story of Adapa, who was a human ‘visiting’ heaven who already had the gift of wisdom through his godly father Ea. The serpent deity in this story was understanding and flattered for being missed on Earth...
Which one is the most likely one? Has the Genesis creation story been changed to differentiate between the different peoples residing in the African Continent and done so to justify their conquest for land?
Have we been Kicked out or Kicked back?
One thing is for sure... Eden, Heaven? Acces denied!
This article will continue in the battle of the sexes with ‘The coming into ‘sexual maturity / awareness’.
Golden Flower
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