Most ancient version of Adam and Eve story discovered

Palinurus

The Living Force
From: _http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/4561/Wetenschap/article/detail/3655676/2014/05/15/Nederlanders-ontdekken-oudste-Adam-en-Eva-verhaal.dhtml

microsoft translator said:
Dutch Discover oldest Adam and Eve-story

By: Jan Kas
May 15, 2014, 15: 38

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Apple is missing in 'myth of Adam' from 13th century BC

The fall on a painting by Lucas Cranach the elder (1533) © Kos


Two Dutch theologians claim to have discovered the oldest story about the first humans, Adam and Eve, on clay tablets from Syria. The find sheds a new light on the creation story of the Bible, according to the Protestant theological University in Kampen and Groningen. An important difference between the two versions is the role of the snake, which in the Bible offers Eve an apple, but on the clay tablets bites Adam and robs him of his immortality.

Old testamentical scolar Marjo Korpel of the Protestant theological University and emeritus professor Johannes de Moor are sure to have discovered the 'myth of Adam' on so-called Ugaritic clay tablets, dating back to the 13th century BC. Korpel and De Moor will present their world premier tomorrow in Kampen.

Bible researchers have always assumed that there must have existed a 'myth of Adam' on which passages in the Bible about Adam and Eve are based. And now for the first time there also are tangible traces.

Vineyard of the great gods

In the Ugaritic myth of the great gods the biblical paradise is 'the vineyard'. Adam and his wife are among the gods who have access to the tree of life. An evil deity, Horon, wants to usurp the place of Creator God El, the highest god in the Canaanite gods world. El punishes him for this by throwing him off the mountain of the gods. In revenge Horon transforms himself into a giant snake who poisons the tree of life, which makes that all life on Earth is threatened.

The gods fear to lose their immortality and therefore give to someone from their midst, Adam, the power over the whole earth, with the intention of defeating Horon. Adam fails miserably, the snake buries his fangs in his flesh and Adam becomes a mortal being. The sun goddess offers humanity a consolation prize, though: via reproduction will man as a species yet remain eternal. To achieve this, she provides Adam with a 'benign female consort'.
 
Sounds like a comet destruction-followed by regeneration story to me.
 
Yes, I would like to think so too.

What struck me the most is the fact that this 'original version' seems to be much more in line with concurrent myths from neighboring peoples, like the Greeks for instance.

To me, this one really appears much more plausible and 'logical' than the rather twisted Bible tale, which in my eyes never made much sense at all.
 
As I have just started to read Flavius Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews I found out that he retells the story with some twists of his own, probably with regards to his intended audience/readership (Book I, Chap. 1, §§ 2-4; Loeb 1, 32-51). Makes and provides for an interesting comparison:

On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also formed man. 33 Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made. And that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we Celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.

34 2. Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says thus: That God took dust from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit and a soul. This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together; for of that kind is virgin and true earth. 35 God also presented the living creatures, when he had made them, according to their kinds, both male and female, to Adam, who gave them those names by which they are still called. But when he saw that Adam had no female companion, no society, for there was no such created, and that he wondered at the other animals which were male and female, he laid him asleep, and took away one of his ribs, and out of it formed the woman; 36 whereupon Adam knew her when she was brought to him, and acknowledged that she was made out of himself. Now a woman is called in the Hebrew tongue Issa; but the name of this woman was Eve, which signifies the mother of all living.

37 3. Moses says further, that God planted a paradise in the east, flourishing with all sorts of trees; and that among them was the tree of life, and another of knowledge, whereby was to be known what was good and evil; 38 and that when he brought Adam and his wife into this garden, he commanded them to take care of the plants. Now the garden was watered by one river, which ran round about the whole earth, and was parted into four parts. And Phison, which denotes a multitude, running into India, makes its exit into the sea, and is by the Greeks called Ganges. 39 Euphrates also, as well as Tigris, goes down into the Red Sea. Now the name Euphrates, or Phrath, denotes either a dispersion, or a flower: by Tigris, or Diglath, is signified what is swift, with narrowness; and Geon runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises from the east, which the Greeks call Nile.

40 4. God therefore commanded that Adam and his wife should eat of all the rest of the plants, but to abstain from the tree of knowledge; and foretold to them, that if they touched it, it would prove their destruction. 41 But while all the living creatures had one language, at that time the serpent, which then lived together with Adam and his wife, shewed an envious disposition, at his supposal of their living happily, and in obedience to the commands of God; 42 and imagining, that when they disobeyed them, they would fall into calamities, he persuaded the woman, out of a malicious intention, to taste of the tree of knowledge, telling them, that in that tree was the knowledge of good and evil; which knowledge, when they should obtain, they would lead a happy life; nay, a life not inferior to that of a god: 43 by which means he overcame the woman, and persuaded her to despise the command of God. Now when she had tasted of that tree, and was pleased with its fruit, she persuaded Adam to make use of it also. 44 Upon this they perceived that they were become naked to one another; and being ashamed thus to appear abroad, they invented somewhat to cover them; for the tree sharpened their understanding; and they covered themselves with fig-leaves; and tying these before them, out of modesty, they thought they were happier than they were before, as they had discovered what they were in want of. 45 But when God came into the garden, Adam, who was wont before to come and converse with him, being conscious of his wicked behavior, went out of the way. This behavior surprised God; and he asked what was the cause of this his procedure; and why he, that before delighted in that conversation, did now fly from it, and avoid it. 46 When he made no reply, as conscious to himself that he had transgressed the command of God, God said, “I had before determined about you both, how you might lead a happy life, without any affliction, and care, and vexation of soul; and that all things which might contribute to your enjoyment and pleasure should grow up by my providence, of their own accord, without your own labor and painstaking; which state of labor and painstaking would soon bring on old age, and death would not be at any remote distance: 47 but now thou hast abused this my good-will, and hast disobeyed my commands; for thy silence is not the sign of thy virtue, but of thy evil conscience.” 48 However, Adam excused his sin, and entreated God not to be angry at him, and laid the blame of what was done upon his wife; and said that he was deceived by her, and thence became an offender; while she again accused the serpent. 49 But God allotted him punishment, because he weakly submitted to the counsel of his wife; and said the ground should not henceforth yield its fruits of its own accord, but that when it should be harassed by their labor, it should bring forth some of its fruits, and refuse to bring forth others. He also made Eve liable to the inconveniency of breeding, and the sharp pains of bringing forth children; and this because she persuaded Adam with the same arguments wherewith the serpent had persuaded her, and had thereby brought him into a calamitous condition. 50 He also deprived the serpent of speech, out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards Adam. Besides this, he inserted poison under his tongue, and made him an enemy to men; and suggested to them, that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mischievous designs towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him, that way. And when he had deprived him of the use of his feet, he made him to go rolling all along, and dragging himself upon the ground. 51 And when God had appointed these penalties for them, he removed Adam and Eve out of the garden into another place.
(bold,mine)

The bolded parts are further on in his narrative used to explain why God gave preference to the offerings of Abel (milk and meat) over those of Cain (products of agriculture); but that's another story altogether of course.
 
This is the book Korpel and De Moor have written about it (in English): Adam, Eve, and the Devil - A New Beginning

_http://www.sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=271
 
Palinurus said:
Yes, I would like to think so too.

What struck me the most is the fact that this 'original version' seems to be much more in line with concurrent myths from neighboring peoples, like the Greeks for instance.

To me, this one really appears much more plausible and 'logical' than the rather twisted Bible tale, which in my eyes never made much sense at all.

Perhaps because the Christians took all the sense out of it to screw the Jews out of their translation of their myth of Eden being where man was elevated and not where he fell.

_http://www.mrrena.com/misc/judaism2.php

Christianity has been using the myth of Adam and Eve to deny women equality forever. Christian morality sucks.

Regards
DL
 
So he was married first and then remarried with Eve?

It sounds to me like, a race that already had males and females, and then produced a lower type of race because of this event with Horon vs Adam.
 
When I read it while thinking of the characters and their behaviors as metaphors for energy interactions, I don't really see much difference, let alone what the author calls an important difference, in the versions mentioned. In all, there seems to be, or have been, an initial forming or creating, an arising of archetypes or proto-beings, antagonism (which I often think of as synonymous with anti-gnostisism), "bite" followed in time by "loss" of something to man.

As the narrative is linear and, for this forum, linearity is subjective, my bet is that the story will be most useful for making nexi with current knowledge and theory on cataclysms as a description of energy movements and transformations rather than any literal historical event that one can 'believe' in. But this is just 2 cents worth of opinion, since I read it as a dialectic overlay on something much harder to convey in ordinary language.

Interesting though, and I can hardly wait to see what's the payoff for this new find.
 
the hebraic tongue restored

Fabre d'Olivet

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23303096M/The_Hebraic_tongue_restored

Translates the Sepher of Moses with a corrected hebrew grammar.
 
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