Posts by Leolaia

35

Lack of response

by donkey in

jw
friends

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it would seem obvious that a low number of responders to a thread is indicative that the thread is of little or no interest to the other posters on the board.

.

Leolaia

i seem to be a thread killer myself, tho usually my posts are thoroughly researched and time consuming.

Leolaia

40

The "Critical Times" Con-Game - Dec. 15 Watchtower

by metatron in

"all this testifies that we are living in 'critical times'" - 2 tim.

3: 1-5 (dec. 15, 2003 wt pg.

they never get tired of repeating this deception, do they?.

I'm with you on Rev. having no notion of modern ecology. However I just want to point out the difference between kosmos "world" which refers most often to the world of men, human society, and nations collectively ("system of things" according to the WT) and ges "earth" which most commonly refers to the literal earth, land, etc. It is ges that occurs in Rev. 11:18. The participle diaphtheirontas may mean "destroying" or the less severe "corrupting"; the root phther- means "to defile" (1 Cor. 3:16 "If any man defiles the temple of God, God will defile him"; 1 Tim. 6:5 "constant friction between men of depraved mind"). The interpretation of "defiling" the physical land is thus what is meant. Of course, ecological pollution is not the only way the land may be defiled. A nation's collective sin and wickedness may "defile the land." And it is in this sense that the interpretation of Rev. 11:18 becomes clear, because this verse is none other than an allusion to Lev. 18:28. Here is the passage from vs. 15-28:

15 " 'Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's wife; do not have relations with her.
16 " 'Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor your brother.
17 " 'Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
18 " 'Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.
19 " 'Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.
20 " 'Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.
21 " 'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD .
22 " 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
23 " 'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.
24 " 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

And indeed, in the Septuagint, ges occurs in the Greek in this context. Also note the context of Rev. 11:18. The whole verse is: "The nations were seething with rage and now the time has come for your anger, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for all who worship you, small or great, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth." The italicized words are actually an allusion from Ps. 2:1, 5: "Why this uproar among the nations? Why this impotent muttering of pagans, kings on the earth rising in revolt, princes plotting against Yahweh and his Anointed....Then angrily he addresses them, in a rage he strikes them with panic." Rev. 11:18 is thus about judging the wicked rebelling against God, not about ecological pollution. What is more, compare Rev. 11:18 with 19:5:

Rev. 11:18
"The nations were seething with rage and now the time has come for your anger, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for all who worship you, small or great, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth."
Rev. 19:1-5
"I seemed to hear a huge crowd in heaven, singing, 'Alleluia! Victory and glory and power to our God! He judges fairly, he punishes justly, and he has condemned the famous prostitute who corrupted the earth with her fornication; he has avenged his servants that she killed.' ...Then a voice came from the throne and said, 'Praise our God, you servants of his and all who, great or small, revere him."

The connection is transparent, and the same words are used to refer to Babylon the Great's fornication: ephtheiren ten gen "defiled the earth". The description of Babylon the Great's sin as "fornication" seems to be inspired by Lev. 18, which explicitly describes FORNICATION as "defiling the land." Most scholars interpret Babylon as referring to Rome (made clear in ch. 17 which in the details perfectly fits Rome), and Rome's sin was twofold: persecution of Christians (the killing of the servants) and pagan idolatry (prostitution symbolizes idolatry in Ezekiel 16 and 23 and Hosea 1:2; cf. Rev. 14:4 where those "who have kept their virginity and not been defiled" are those who "follow the Lamb wherever he goes"). Rome is thus guilty of a double crime, idolatry (17:4) and murder (17:6), exactly the same as Jerusalem (Ezekiel 16:36-38 and 23:37-45), and Rome's fall would mimic that of Jerusalem's. What Revelation is hoping for is divine punishment on Rome for its sins, and not any first-century "ecological pollution".

So I hope I have shown that the WTS' interpretation of Rev. 11:18 as referring to ecological pollution is not supported by the facts.

Leolaia

40

The "Critical Times" Con-Game - Dec. 15 Watchtower

by metatron in

"all this testifies that we are living in 'critical times'" - 2 tim.

3: 1-5 (dec. 15, 2003 wt pg.

they never get tired of repeating this deception, do they?.

Leolaia

Wow...thanks for the update. Very interesting that they have rejected their earlier claims, with nary a mention of how they misled thousands of people with seemingly scientific claims about increasing earthquakes. Leolaia

40

The "Critical Times" Con-Game - Dec. 15 Watchtower

by metatron in

"all this testifies that we are living in 'critical times'" - 2 tim.

3: 1-5 (dec. 15, 2003 wt pg.

they never get tired of repeating this deception, do they?.

Leolaia

I always wondered about the earthquake portion of these prophecies. Have earthquakes increased in the last thousand years, are there any records?

You need to read COJ's SIGNS OF THE LAST DAYS -- WHEN? because he totally debunks the whole WTS's case on earthquakes.

Leolaia

13

Were Daniel and Jeremiah contemporaries?

by shotgun in

i've recently read who wrote the gospels, it mentioned on a side note from the gospels that daniel was probably written around 200 bce not during nebuchadnezzars reign.. in daniel chapter 9 he mentions reading the phophetic words of jeremiah about the 70 years of servitude.

jeremiah lived in a different land (judah) while daniel was in babylon.

how would daniel have been able to get jeremiahs scrolls seeing they had just been written and also the position daniel was in as chief of nebuchadnezzars magic practising priests would not have bode well for real jewish worshippers to think about making any saturday morning placements with him.. the book i read states that jeremiah, daniel and most of the other books seperate from the talmud were not canonized until around 200 bce.. any thoughts on this or have you done or read anything on this subject.

Leolaia

So, how is it that a senior prophet like Ezekiel would make reference to Daniel, comparing him to the giants of Hebrew legend ? Noah and Job? If anything, Daniel would be merely a child at this time. He could not possibly have achieved that kind of status and reputation for wisdom. In fact, he may not even have been born yet.
Clearly, the character of Daniel had already achieved legendary status, long before the events of his supposed lifetime. In all likelihood, a second century B.C. writer attributed his work to the name ?Daniel? to increase its stature.

This is because Ezekiel was not referring to the "Daniel" of the Book of Daniel. It is not even spelled the same; Ezekiel consistently spells it Dan-'el (Ez. 14:14, 19; 28:3), not Dani-'el. There are other indications that Daniel is not meant, other than the chronological problem you mentioned. Aside from the three being righteous men, what do they have in common to be mentioned together in the same breath as "these three men"? Well, vs. 16 mentions them in connection with saving "sons and daughters". Noah saved his sons and daughters through his faith and integrity, and Job as well tried to save his "sons and daughters" (Jb. 1:18) and in the end through his integrity was rewarded with "sons and daughters". But Daniel is the odd one out since nothing in the Book of Daniel talks about him having children, much less trying to save his children's lives. The reference of "Danel" in Ez. 28:3 is even more incongruous with the prophet Daniel. Here Yahweh says to the king of Tyre: "Though you are a man and not a god, you consider yourself the equal of God. You are wiser now than Danel; there is no sage as wise as you." It would be absolutely incredible for Ittobaal II, king of Tyre, to know anything about some obscure exile in Babylon, and Ezekiel presents Danel as a wise sage from of old, and nothing in the Book of Daniel makes Daniel out to be such a lengendary wise sage. Obviously Ezekiel's Danel is not the prophet Daniel.

So what's going on here? Who was Danel? Danel was a mythical king in the Canaanite Aqhat legend, a man of Hernomi, with a splendorous palace, and whose wisdom as judge was as legendary as Solomon's. In the Ugaritic Aqhat tale, Danel "judges the case of the widow, and helps the fatherless to his right." This perfectly explains Ez. 28:3 -- the story of Danel was certainly known to the king of Tyre, who shared the same Canaanite/Phoenician folklore as the Israelites. The story of Danel with respect to his children was also very reminiscent to that of Job. Danel and his wife had no son for a long time, which made them sad, and Danel decided in desperation to storm heaven with supplication and sacrifice in the temple until Baal was moved to mercy. According to the story, "He has no son like his brethren, nor a root like his kin." In response, El promised to grant Danel a son and the king returned home rejoicing, and lavishly fed the guardian goddesses of the newborn. Danel's son Aqhat was born, and all was good. The craftsman-god bequeathed a special gift to Aqhat, a bow made in his heavenly workshop, and Aqhat was thankful for being so blessed. However the bow brought only trouble to the boy. It aroused the envy of the war goddess Anat who resolved to obtain the bow at any price. She offered precious ore to buy it but Aqhat refused. She offered Aqhat immortality, but he still refused. He would not part with his weapon, the grant of a god to his father. Offended by such pride by a mortal, Anat threatened to humble him on his "path of pride and presumption" and made a protest to El and the other gods, threatening to redden El's beard with blood. Anat unleashed her henchmen like eagles and when they reached the city of Abilim, they fatally struck the lad and Aqhat was dead, "his soul went out like a wind, his spirit like smoke." Bereaved of his only son, rent with grief and rage, Danel cursed the land by drought for seven years: "Let there be no dew, nor rain! No surging of the two deeps, nor the goodness of Baal's voice." He next curses the cities around his slain son and says: "If the murderer of Aqhat be in your midst, may Baal strike you with blindness, from now and forevermore." It turns out that the assassin was there in the company of Danel's daughter who realizes suddenly who he really is, and she smites him who smote her brother. Once the remains of Aqhat are buried, Anat feels remorse and weeps for him and sets about bringing him back to life, perhaps also calmed by El by giving her her own bow, and in the end Danel is comforted when his son Aqhat is returned to him.

If we then go back to Ez. 14:16, we immediately see a striking resemblance to the above legend: "they would not be able to save either son or daughter; they alone would be saved, and the country would become a desert." Indeed, had Anat not been moved to pity by Danel's love and Aqhat not been saved, Danel's curse would have indeed turned the country into a desert. Ezekiel's prophecy in ch. 14 predicted total catastrophe for Jerusalem and Judea from the Babylonians, threatening the youth with wholesale slaughter. What Ezekiel was saying was this: Were Noah now in the land, he could save no one but himself, Danel could not redeem Aqhat, nor would Job's piety help his children. As it turned out, Ezekiel's prophecy did not come true and he had to correct himself in vs. 22, a postscript candidly conceding that his threat did not come to pass.

The tale of Danel and Aqhat was not only mentioned in Ezekiel. There are echoes of it in 1 Enoch, written around 100 BC. 1 Enoch 6:7 and 69:2 names Dan'el as one of the fallen angels. In 1 Enoch 13:9 the defiled angels gather in a place between Lebanon and Senir called Abilene, which is reminiscent of the city of Abilim where Aqhat was slain. It is here that the angels were "weeping with their eyes covered". This seems to be a memory of Danel's weeping for Aqhat in Abilim. This geographical area in Phoenicia and Syria was also the same locale the Danel legend is set in. Moreover, the fallen angels conspire on Mt. Hermon, or rather Hermonium, which recalls the apellation of Danel as "the man of Hernomi (hrnmy)". According to 1 Enoch 6:5-6: "They all swore together and bound one another by the curse. And they were altogether two hundred and they descended into Ardos which is the summit of Hermon. And they called the mount Armon, for they swore and bound one another by a curse." This is a play on Hebrew herem "curse" and Hermon. But even more interesting is what this curse was: it is preserved in a fragment of 1 Enoch in the Book of Noah which declares that "cold shall not depart for ever, nor snow nor hoar-frost, and dew shall not descend on it except it descend on it for a curse." This is strikingly similar to Danel's curse on the land. It is also interesting that in 1 Enoch 8:1-3, the fallen angel Azazel "taught men to take swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and make them known to them the metals and the art of working them." This appears to be another motif from the Danel legend, of the metal-working god giving Aqhat a divine bow.

Another distant memory of the Danel legend also appears in the Book of Jubilees (second cent. BC), which makes Danel the father-in-law of Enoch: "Enoch was the first among men that are born on earth who learnt writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote down the signs of heaven according to the order of their months in a book, that men might know the seasons of the years according to the order of their separate months....And in the twelfth jubilee, in the seventh week thereof, he took to himself a wife, and her name was Edna, the daughter of Danel, the daughter of his father's brother, and in the sixth year in this week she bare him a son and he called his name Methuselah. And he was moreover with the angels of God these six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the rule of the sun, and he wrote down everything." (Jubilees 4:17-21) This tradition is certainly related to that in 1 Enoch, where Edna is mentioned as Enoch's wife (1 Enoch 85:3). In the Aqhat legend, Danel's daughter is named Peget, and she is repeatedly lauded as "knowing the course of the stars". This is quite similar to Enoch's knowledge of "the signs of heaven" and "the rule of the sun", and it is possible that Peget's initiation into the mysteries of heaven is the key that explains why Danel appear so frequently in the Enoch legend. As for Danel being a fallen angel, the Book of Jubilees also provides a clue. According to Jubilees 4:15, the angels, named the Watchers, came to earth not because of sin but were sent by God "to instruct the children of men to do judgment and uprightness." This tradition is independent of the motive given in 1 Enoch (e.g. sexual attraction with the daughters of men), and Danel, being the supreme judge and whose name means "God's judge," fits the role of the fallen angels in Jubilees exceptionally well. But there is an even more intriguing reason, suggested by the Danel Epic itself. In the ancient Canaanite text, the hero is repeatedly called "Danel the Rapha-man", and in Ugaritic and biblical lore, the Rephaim were the dead aboriginal inhabitants of the land, of unusually tall stature....giants, in other words (cf. Deut. 2:11, 20; 3:11-14, re the giant Og, the last of the Rephaim). If Danel was still remembered as a giant in postexilic times, his connection with the giants born of the fallen angels, and as an angel himself, would be quite natural in the postexilic interpretation of Gen. 5-6, which viewed gigantism as the unnatural result of angel incarnation and angel interbreeding with humans.

So even very late in Jewish tradition, distant echoes of the pre-Israelite Danel legend remained in contemporary literature.

Leolaia

13

Were Daniel and Jeremiah contemporaries?

by shotgun in

i've recently read who wrote the gospels, it mentioned on a side note from the gospels that daniel was probably written around 200 bce not during nebuchadnezzars reign.. in daniel chapter 9 he mentions reading the phophetic words of jeremiah about the 70 years of servitude.

jeremiah lived in a different land (judah) while daniel was in babylon.

how would daniel have been able to get jeremiahs scrolls seeing they had just been written and also the position daniel was in as chief of nebuchadnezzars magic practising priests would not have bode well for real jewish worshippers to think about making any saturday morning placements with him.. the book i read states that jeremiah, daniel and most of the other books seperate from the talmud were not canonized until around 200 bce.. any thoughts on this or have you done or read anything on this subject.

Leolaia

I have my copy of SR Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. Here are some main reasons why Daniel dates to the period of Antiochus Epiphanes, 168-167 BC and not the Neo-Babylonian period:

1. The position of the book in the Jewish canon, not among the Prophets but in the miscellaneous collection of late writings called the Hagiographa, and among the latest of these, in proximity to Esther. The division known as the Prophets was formed prior to the Hagiographa and had the Book of Daniel existed at that time, it would have been ranked as a work of a prophet and included among the former.

2. Jesus ben Sirach, writting c. 200 BC, in his enumeration of Israelite-Jewish worthies (ch. 44-50), mentions Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets, but is silent as to Daniel.

3. The "Chaldeans" are synonymous in Dan. 1:4, 2:2, etc. with the caste of wise men. This sense is unknown in Assyrian-Babylonian usage but is characteristic of the Persian and Hellenistic periods.

4. Belshazzar is represented as the "king" of Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzer is spoken throughout ch. 5 as his "father". In point of fact, Nabunidus was the last king of the Babylon; he was a usuper, not related to Nebuchadnezzer and his son was Belshazzar. The mistake Daniel makes is characteristic of a later period when the facts have been forgotten and not of someone personally acquainted with these individuals.

5. Darius, son of Ahasuerus (Xerxes), a "Mede," after the death of Belshazzar is made "king over the realm of the Chaldeans" (5:31; 6:1; 9:1; 11:1), who in 6:1 organizes the empire into 120 satrapies and becomes sole ruler of the Babylonian empire (6:25), while in reality, Darius Hystaspis, who organized the Persian empire in satrapies, was the father, not the son, of Xerxes, and he reconquered Babylon in 521 and again in 515 BC, not in 535 BC as Daniel would have it. Again, this is a confusion arising from the passage of time and is hardly what someone witnessing the Fall of Babylon would claim.

6.In 9:2 it is stated that Daniel "understood by the books [bsprym]" the number of years according to Jeremiah that Jerusalem should lie waste. The expression sued implies that the prophesies of Jeremiah formed part of the collection of sacred books which most likely had not formed by 536 BC.

7. The number of Persian words in the book, especially in the Aramaic part, is remarkable. That such words should be found in books written after the Persian empire was organized and when Persian influences prevailed, is not more than would be expected and should not at any rate have been used by Daniel under Babylonian supremacy.

8. Not only does Daniel contain Persian words, but it contains at least three Greek words: kitharos = kitharis (3:5, 7, 10, 15), psanterin = psalterion (3:5, 7, 10, 15), and sumponyah = symphonia (3:5, 15). The use of these three words fixes the date of the historical portions of Daniel after the time of Alexander the Great.

9. The Aramaic of Daniel is a Western Aramaic dialect of the type spoken in Palestine, known from inscriptions dating to 3rd cent. BC to the 2nd cent. AD and also of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan.

10. The Hebrew of Daniel resembles that of the age subsequent to Nehemiah, containing many words otherwise known from Rabbinical Hebrew (sp. the Mishnah), or common only to the Mishnah and Ezra-Chronicles-Nehemiah-Esther.

11. The theology of the Book of Daniel points to a later age than that of the exile. The doctrines of the Messiah ("the Son of Man"), of angels, of the resurrection, and of a judgment on the world, are taught with greater distinctiveness and in a more developed form than elsewhere in the OT, with features approximating to those met with in the earlier parts of the Book of Enoch, c. 100 BC.

12. The interest of the book manifestly culminates in the relations subsisting between the Jews and Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus is the subject of 8:9-14, 23-25. The survey of Syrian and Egyptian history of the Seleucids in ch. 11 leads up to a detailed description of Antiochus' reign in v. 21-45 and then the persecution which the Jews experienced at his hands. It is incredible for a 6th century prophet living in the Neo-Babylonian period should display no interest in the welfare, or prospects of his contemporaries, that his hopes and Messianic visions should not attach themselves to the imminent return of the exiles to the land of their fathers but to a deliverance in the distant, remote future. It is also remarkable that these prophecies of the remote future in Daniel are so minute in detail with regard to Antiochus' reign, down to the period of his persecution where actual events are decribed with surprising distinctness (unlike prophecies of the remote future in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah), yet suddenly at this point the distinctness ceases and the prophecy shifts into an ideal representation of the Messianic future. Daniel's perspective, then, is of someone writing in the midst of the persecution itself, and views the Messianic Age as following closely on the heels of the Antiochean persecution -- a fulfillment that does not in fact come to pass. This fact fixes the date of the book to c. 168-167 BC.

Leolaia

26

Master & Commander - Movie/Film

by BluesBrother in

i do not generally post in this section, or go to the cinema very much, but this film opened here this week .

it was utterly brilliant!.

dont go if you are prone to sea sickness, it is the most realistic experience of being on a sailing ship .. held me transfixed ...... superb historical drama.

Leolaia

I just saw it last night! It was a genuine, honest movie. Please go see it. Leolaia

29

Did you have a relationship with your friend Jehovah?

by Nosferatu in

jw
friends

i remember watching that young people ask video "how can i make real friends".

they were saying that jehovah can be your best friend, and you have to view him as a real person.. even when i was a jw, i could never buy into this crap.

how can you develope a relationship if there's only communication one way?

Leolaia

Jehovah is supposed to have long conversations with you and do miracles for you and stuff. I'm so jealous of Abraham. Not only does the Bible call him Jehovah's "Friend," but he even got into debates with God about killing people and stuff. You know, kinda like Jules and Vincent Vega! -- Leolaia

14

How old is Humanity?

by JH in

jw
friends

is humanity only 6000 years old like the witnesses say?

here is an interesting link to drawings found in a cave in france.

these drawings are older than 6000 years.

Leolaia

Adam was a johnny-come-lately. Eden was really the city park of Catal Huyuk (c. 5000-4000 BC) and Cain's wife was the daughter of one of the local slum lords. -- Leolaia

10

Adam & Eve , just plain DUMB?

by coolshark in

if they were perfect, why did they "eat" of the tree of good and bad and why not from the tree of life?

could it be that satan was jealous of eve when she was with adam?

i mean, before eve came onto the scene , surely satan spent some"quality" time with adam showing him the ropes, etc.

Leolaia

Here's an older post of mine from last year which is somewhat relevant:

Well, the serpent did present an untruth in the form of a question when he asked Ishah: "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden?' " when in fact God did not. The presupposition is false, though the statement is not technically a lie since it is phrased as a question.
Also Ishah (the woman) tinkers with the wording of the commandment. She adds a prohibition of touching to it, she reduces the severity of the punishment by deleting the part about dying "that very day," and represents God's generosity as mere permission. Her rewording ironically gets God off the hook, since in her version what God predicted did come to pass (being banished from the Tree of Life, she did die, but just not immediately).
To the modern reader familiar with statements like "God is love" and "the devil is the father of the lie" God would seem to be incapable of lying. But the inherent division between good and evil in the nature of God and Satan is characteristic of later Judaism and Christianity, not of primitive pre-exilic Israelite religion. The Yahwist story of the Fall, like other primeveal legends in Genesis, is very much in the same spirit of other contemporary Near Eastern stories about the gods, where invariably they are presented as jealous, arbitrary, and intent on withholding man from divinity. This is the overarching theme in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero's search for immortality is stymied by divine interventions. The myth about Etana similarly details the gods' prevention of the hero from flying to the vault to heaven.
The seeming dishonesty of God in the story may be a thread of latent paganism in the story. In fact, the entire story smacks of Near Eastern mythology: the talking serpent, the winged figures guarding a sacred tree in Babylonian art, a garden of the gods, the plural "us" which God uses, the name Havvah "Eve" which is West Semitic for "serpent," and the title "Mother of all living" for Eve (cf. Aruru, the female creator of Adapa, the first man; KIB vi.1 Aruru zi-ir a-mi-lu-ti it-ti-shu ib-ta-nu "Aruru, together with him [Marduk], created (the) seed of mankind," vs. Gn. 4:2, "I have created a man with (the co-operation) of Yahweh"). In the original Canaanite/Phoenician version of the myth, God likely issued the commandment as a jealous ruse to withhold divinity from man instead of as a good-natured safeguard on the life of Adam. The serpent's motives were to disrupt the natural order and create conflict between man and the gods.
One precursor of the tale may be the Babylonian legend of "Adapa and the South-wind," which incidentally was recorded in the 15th-century B.C. Tel el-Armana tablets and so the story was already well-known in Palestine prior to the emergence of Israel. Adapa, the son of the god Ea, was endowed by him with the fullness of divine wisdom, but denied the gift of immortality. Note that this is the reverse of Adam's status, who was given the fullness of immortality but denied divine wisdom. While plying the trade of a fisherman on the Persian Gulf, the south-wind overwhelms his bark, and in revenge Adapa breaks the wings of the south-wind. For this offence he is summoned by Anu to appear to appease the anger of Anu. Then the gods, disconcerted by finding a mortal in possession of their secrets, resolve to make the best of it, and admit him fully into their society by conferring on him immortality. The offer him the fruit of the tree of life so he may eat, and the water of life that he may drink. But Ea, who did not want Adapa to become a god like himself, deceived Adapa by telling him that what was being offered was really food and water of death, and strictly cautioned him to refrain from eating and drinking. He did refuse, and so missed immortal life. Anu asked him, "Why, Adapa, why have you not eaten nor drunk so you may live?" And Adapa replied, "Ea, my lord, commanded me, 'You must not eat nor drink, for I will die.' "
Note how the commandment against eating is in fact a lie and is a self-serving ruse to deny divinity to man. The withholding of divinity is in fact a repeated theme in the primeveal stories of Genesis. In Gn. 6, the semi-divine Nephilim demigods introduced an element of disorder into the Creation which had to be eliminated by the Flood. In Gn. 11, the construction of a tower "with its top reaching heaven" threatened the domain of God and Yahweh saw that
"this was but the beginning of their enterprise and now nothing will be impossible to them which they purpose to do," and the confusion of speech again prevents man from attaining equality with God.
Within the context of pre-exilic Judaism, such stories were divested of their cruder polytheistic elements in order to make them impressive lessons on the folly of human pride and the supremacy of Yahweh in the affairs of men.
Leolaia

Leolaia