Jezeus, no wonder people think Americans are insufferable bastards.
#notallamericans
Serpent in the Garden of Eden is not Satan
by anointed1 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Kaltas1
In the middle ages some viewed the serpent in Eden as being Lilith, a demon who was believed first by the Babylonians. She is actually much more ancient than the character called Satan.
She is still carved into a church in france in the above picture.
Many bible stories were believed many different ways through the ages by many different people. The modern consensus just seems certain to many because it just happens to be popular and fueled by many strong feelings.
Ancient scripture beliefs varied wildly before the modern era. Its amazing how few Christians seem to recognize this.
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Witness 007
We dont see Satan till the book of JOB. This book is written in Poetic form and is more of a shakespearian tale.
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Rainbow_Troll
I can't see how any of these stories were ever meant to be taken as anything more than allegories. "Fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil"; how could that not be an allegory?
If you gave fundies a copy of Aesop's Fables, a few generations later you would have people who believed that lower animals could speak and reason. They would believe all the stories, while totally failing to grasp the morals behind them.
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Crazyguy
In the older Sumerian stories where this story originally may have come from the god we know as jehovah may actually be Enlil and the character Satan may be his half brother Enki or the serpent god Zu.
In the epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh finds a tree of life or plant of life at the bottom of a lake after retrieving it the snake god Zu eats it and get eternal life and Gilgamesh is left to go home and die. In another story Adamu has a chance to get eternal life if he eats the food the sky god Enlil gives to him but he is first told by the god who created him Enki not to eat because it's a trick. Some believe that the story is a bit about the God Enki not wanting to let humans have the same knowledge and immorality as he does.
Its hard to to tell who the actual players are in the Bible story. Clearly Adam is Adamu both are the first man created, but is Satan Enki and Enlil is Jehovah or is it Enki that's not wanting Adam to eat of the fruit of knowledge and the serpent is the snake god Zu telling mankind that it's ok to eat of the fruit.
Clearly the story like most of the Bible stories has changed a bit from the original stories and because of this it's unclear.
One thing is clear though and that is the Bible writers were clearly woman haters because woman are almost always bad in some way or another and are to be treated like property, you see this with Eve in this story. The Sumerians and Babylonians were not this way but some of the Greeks were. So this maybe a clue about who the actual early bible writers were, but it is clear this story was a retelling of older Sumerian stories.
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OnTheWayOut
Wait wait wait wait.
From what I read here, you say that the Garden of Eden, Eve, the story about the snake- all that is true?
....but the snake wasn't Satan?.....or are the whole story and the characters in it also fictions as allegories?
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Sin is a religious term. Sin was created by religion to make people feel guilty, then they can contribute to religion monetarily or otherwise to appease their guilt.
People do wrong/bad things for self interest or other strange reasons. But it's only sin when religion gets involved.
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scratchme1010
...the whole point because Satan himself does not exist...
Yep. And there's no talking snake.
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Crazyguy
Unless you want to believe the Sumerian stories are true, there's no Satan.
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DATA-DOG
JWs deny the fallen nature of man??? LOL!!!! Are you serious??!?!? Did you not read last week's WT dogma about how disgusting we are as humans, how we do not deserve kindness( or even life ) from God??
DD