Frannie,
The history of the caduceus symbol is way older than the copper serpent story in Numbers 21 -- see the link in my previous post.
The snake in Genesis
by Hellrider 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Leolaia
I think the key to the story lies in another linguistic fact, that "Eve" is actually a word meaning "serpent" and that it appears as an epithet for the goddess Asherah in Phoenician texts (as Chawat), and Asherah was iconographically and epigraphically associated with snakes (as the "Serpent Lady"). In later Punic culture, Tannit (< tannin "dragon") was the name for Asherah and her caduceus symbol was derived from an original representation of Tannit as a tree with a serpent. Asherah was the creator goddess and a goddess of healing, life, and wisdom, and there are many other features in the story connected with her: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2:9), she is referred to as "the mother of all those who live" (3:20) which is a title applied to Asherah in Canaanite texts, and she says that she has "created a man" in 4:1. There are also two intriguing Canaanite myths that are embedded in healing spells that strikingly evoke the Eden story. The first one concerns the ophidian god of the underworld Horon (who was probably worshipped in early Israel, cf. Beth-Horon in Joshua 16:5, 1 Kings 9:17, 1 Chronicles 7:24, 1 Maccabees 3:24), who went to an Edenic garden by the Tigris to find the appropriate plants to cure a mare goddess that had been bitten by a snake; this includes the tree of death. Another healing spell in Canaanite texts mentions Horon and Asherah working together to expel demons, and the process of curing is construed as clothing the patient ("May the god clothe you, may the god put a garment on you") and Asherah as engaging in a creative act ("Restored by the breath of Asherah the Great Lady, [from clay] may you be molded," cf. the description of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7).
The present form of the story concerns the first human couple and their expulsion from the divine abode, but there are two plausible mythological backgrounds of the story, both concerning Asherah. One, pointed out by Margalit, notes that snakes and serpentine deities were associated in Canaanite and Israelite culture with both fertility and death. The serpent in Genesis 3 thus acts in way to ensure both fertility and mortality, providing for himself and his fellow chthonics a nearly endless food supply. Another, which I personally prefer, is that Genesis 3 is a veiled polemic against the Asherah cult in Jerusalem and depicts the reform of Josiah (his cleansing of the Temple). First, it is clear from biblical evidence that the Temple was viewed as the abode of Yahweh and parallel to his abode of Eden. Like many temples of the period, it was populated with either real trees or representations of trees (such as the rows of menorah lampstands), but usually had a central representation of the tree of life (compare the imagery of Psalm 92:12-14). Asherah was worshipped not only here but also in various places in the land before the Deuteronomistic reforms, through either poles (cf. the pole and bronze serpent that was involved in healing the Israelites from snake bites in Numbers 21:9, and the destruction of this serpent and the sacred poles in the reform of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:4) or sacred trees. Mark Smith points out that tho Asherah as a goddess has long disappeared, the practice of consulting sacred trees for healing still exists in Palestine and Syria. Interestingly, as one article states, "the consumption of fruit taken from sacred trees is strictly forbidden and people who dare to pick it are severely punished". Instead, a person is to benefit from the tree's healing effects by placing one's garments on the tree or tying rags on its branches. Since the tree is a representation of Asherah, this has the effect of "clothing Asherah" (compare Ezekiel 16:16: "You have taken embroidered clothes and placed them on images"). Similarly, 2 Kings 23:7 mentions that before Josiah's reform, there was a house of cult prostitutes in the Temple who "wove clothes for Asherah" (cf. the nakedness of Eve and the weaving of clothes for her and Adam in Genesis 3:7, 21). Finally, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden is analoguous to the expulsion of Asherah from the Temple: "From the Temple of Yahweh he removed the sacred pole right out of Jerusalem to the wadi Kidron, and in the wadi Kidron he burnt it, reducing it to ashes" (2 Kings 23:4-6). This pole had been placed in the Temple by Manasseh: "He placed the carved image of the Asherah which he had made in the Temple" (21:7). There are thus several interesting points of contact between the Eden story and the Jerusalem cult of Asherah. The story may parody the cult by suggesting that this goddess that people have been worshipping was actually the first woman who was deceived by the snake she has been associated with, whose clothing is due to shame, who brought death not life to humankind, and who was expelled from God's presence.
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daystar
leolaia
Simply fascinating...
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Frannie Banannie
I know that. I was asking if Hellrider did.
ooooops, Daystar.....(sighs)...and I was so proud of myself for remembering some of the teachings of the Gov. Potty
The history of the caduceus symbol is way older than the copper serpent story in Numbers 21 -- see the link in my previous post.
Narkissos, I've tried to read Leolaia's informative posts before....they always make me go
cause they usually contain more info than my brain can manage at one time. Ya hafta "K.I.S.S." me, Narkissos. -
daystar
frannie
I'll agree that I have found Leolaia's sholarly posts rather difficult to read. I don't find it's because I can't grasp them, but more because the paragraph formatting she most often uses, simply block paragraphs, are rather... and please forgive me for saying this Leolaia... boring.
Chopping up the information a bit, bullets, indented quotes, etc. would make them much easier to read, IMHO.
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Hellrider
I know that. I was asking if Hellrider did.
Nope, I didn`t. I don`t know much about this issue at all. I`m reading thru the link Narkissos provided with Leolaias essay now, I`ll be done sometime near christmas...you`re very thorough and detailed...and long, Leo... ...(just kidding, it`s great stuff)
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Hellrider
Just one thing: What`s the connection between Hinnom and Gehenna? Hinnom is the valley at the base of mount Zion, right? And here is the entrance to Sheol. I also know that as the ideas of ressurection and soul survival entered judaism (after the exile, I think), the jewish scholars began to speculate in how long the wicked souls would be punished in Hinnom (I think the conclusion was that it would be no more than a year - but that then the souls would be destroyed afterwards, something like that). But in the NT, Jesus speaks about the Gehenna. Is Hinnom and Gehenna the same? Then this would mean that the garden of Eden also would be located near this area, not to far from Jerusalem, right? Or...I seem to remember that we learned something completely different about the location of the Garden, at KH. Can`t remember where it was, though. (edited to add: Geography was never my strong subject...zzzz )
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Leolaia
I think the key to the story lies in another linguistic fact, that "Eve" is actually a word meaning "serpent" and that it appears as an epithet for the goddess Asherah in Phoenician texts (as Chawat), and Asherah was iconographically and epigraphically associated with snakes (as the "Serpent Lady"). SECTION I: Asherah and Snakes In later Punic culture, Tannit (< tannin "dragon") was the name for Asherah and her caduceus symbol was derived from an original representation of Tannit as a tree with a serpent. Asherah was the creator goddess and a goddess of healing, life, and wisdom, and there are many other features in the story connected with her: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2:9), she is referred to as "the mother of all those who live" (3:20) which is a title applied to Asherah in Canaanite texts, and she says that she has "created a man" in 4:1. There are also two intriguing Canaanite myths that are embedded in healing spells that strikingly evoke the Eden story. The first one concerns the ophidian god of the underworld Horon (who was probably worshipped in early Israel, cf. Beth-Horon in Joshua 16:5, 1 Kings 9:17, 1 Chronicles 7:24, 1 Maccabees 3:24), who went to an Edenic garden by the Tigris to find the appropriate plants to cure a mare goddess that had been bitten by a snake; this includes the tree of death. Another healing spell in Canaanite texts mentions Horon and Asherah working together to expel demons, and the process of curing is construed as clothing the patient ("May the god clothe you, may the god put a garment on you") and Asherah as engaging in a creative act ("Restored by the breath of Asherah the Great Lady, [from clay] may you be molded," cf. the description of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7). SECTION II: Mythological Background of The Eden Story: Some Ideas
The present form of the story concerns the first human couple and their expulsion from the divine abode, but there are two plausible mythological backgrounds of the story, both concerning Asherah. One, pointed out by Margalit, notes that snakes and serpentine deities were associated in Canaanite and Israelite culture with both fertility and death. The serpent in Genesis 3 thus acts in way to ensure both fertility and mortality, providing for himself and his fellow chthonics a nearly endless food supply. Another, which I personally prefer, is that Genesis 3 is a veiled polemic against the Asherah cult in Jerusalem and depicts the reform of Josiah (his cleansing of the Temple). First, it is clear from biblical evidence that the Temple was viewed as the abode of Yahweh and parallel to his abode of Eden. Like many temples of the period, it was populated with either real trees or representations of trees (such as the rows of menorah lampstands), but usually had a central representation of the tree of life (compare the imagery of Psalm 92:12-14). Asherah was worshipped not only here but also in various places in the land before the Deuteronomistic reforms, through either poles (cf. the pole and bronze serpent that was involved in healing the Israelites from snake bites in Numbers 21:9, and the destruction of this serpent and the sacred poles in the reform of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:4) or sacred trees. Mark Smith points out that tho Asherah as a goddess has long disappeared, the practice of consulting sacred trees for healing still exists in Palestine and Syria. Interestingly, as one article states, "the consumption of fruit taken from sacred trees is strictly forbidden and people who dare to pick it are severely punished". Instead, a person is to benefit from the tree's healing effects by placing one's garments on the tree or tying rags on its branches. Since the tree is a representation of Asherah, this has the effect of "clothing Asherah" (compare Ezekiel 16:16: "You have taken embroidered clothes and placed them on images"). Similarly, 2 Kings 23:7 mentions that before Josiah's reform, there was a house of cult prostitutes in the Temple who "wove clothes for Asherah" (cf. the nakedness of Eve and the weaving of clothes for her and Adam in Genesis 3:7, 21). Finally, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden is analoguous to the expulsion of Asherah from the Temple: "From the Temple of Yahweh he removed the sacred pole right out of Jerusalem to the wadi Kidron, and in the wadi Kidron he burnt it, reducing it to ashes" (2 Kings 23:4-6). This pole had been placed in the Temple by Manasseh: "He placed the carved image of the Asherah which he had made in the Temple" (21:7). Section III: Summary There are thus several interesting points of contact between the Eden story and the Jerusalem cult of Asherah. The story may parody the cult by suggesting that this goddess that people have been worshipping was actually the first woman who was deceived by the snake she has been associated with, whose clothing is due to shame, who brought death not life to humankind, and who was expelled from God's presence.
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Leolaia
Hellrider...On the valley of Hinnom and its cosmological representation of Sheol, see my post on this subject:
cause they usually contain more info than my brain can manage at one time. Ya hafta "K.I.S.S." me, Narkissos.