Aneirin
Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
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Last night whilst talking with my alpha course friend, he at last understanding I am not attacking his belief by the way I phrase questions, my way is just me, provacative perhaps, but I get the answers I need from my way of seeking answers for further thought. We got to talking about his alpha course and how he was unimpressed when his instructor said he was to go to hell for not accepting the accepted understanding of the garden of Eden thing. His understanding being the whole story was from an ancient time to explain creation to non scientific minds seeking to grasp the basic concept of where they might have come from, a question the people then must surely have asked as we do now. My input on the conversation was to do with the symbology in action within the story and with that us in our modern times, what do we understand, is it the literal meaning or are we missing something in our largely symbology free world of the written word.
So, symbology, me I have always been interested in it, perhaps from a time when I used to see the graffiti on walls featuring the anarchy sign, N merged into F sign and the swastika, all from I suppose latter part of the 1970's around about the time of the punk movement and those that fed on it. I understood from that time the swastika was not what the idiots thought was offensive, offensive to jews perhaps because of a dickhead who perverted the device but not so much others as it has it's roots in Eastern belief systems and is not a symbol of evil. What I do understand about many of the ancient symbols used today, is many that use them don't really understand their meaning and there I wonder would they use them if they knew the truth.
Symbology in the bible, the Garden of Eden, featuring two notable symbols and perhaps one not so notable I know from the ancient past, one being the snake/serpent and the other being the apple on an apple tree, a tree, the three obviously linked by the serpent thing being in the tree, what is being said here beyond the story, are we to take it as it is, or is there a deeper meaning. ( Note, I have heard the fruit to be described as an apple, and also as just fruit, type unknown, but I take what I was taught, an apple)
Ok, from my own literature, Hall' Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art, a precis of each as I understand it pertains to the regions concerned, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece, the civilisations flanking the area where the garden of Eden was believed to be located, at the head of the Persian Gulf ;
Mesopotamia, meaning between the rivers, in greek, the rivers being the Euphrates and the Tigris both flowing into the Persian gulf where scholars have identified as a possible site for the Garden of Eden pre ice age melt. The area concerned in modern times is called Iraq, but in ancient times also included what is now called Syria and southern Turkey, an area approximately 700 miles long, the ancient cradle of civilisation and a name mentioned in scripture. ( also there has been found evidence of another river that met with the Euphrates and the Tigris and exited into the persian gulf, that possibly being the three rivers terminating into a waterfall above the garden of eden).
Ok, the snake/serpent ;
In Mesopotamia it has been discovered by archaelogical evidence that the so far most ancient snake veneration cult dated to between 4000bc and 3500bc, found in what was the city of Ur, ( once a coastal settlement, but now 16 miles inland) and considered to be Ur Kasdim , the birth place of Abram mentioned in Genesis and in the Torah.
The snake was depicted as a snake headed human female, sometimes suckling an infant like the Egyptian Renenutet, these were in the form of what is believed to be votive figures. Cylinder seals of the later fourth millenium depict a pair of snakes entwinded, apparently to denote copulation in a stylised manner. The image seems to signify that these essentially terrestrial creatures were a divine source of Earth's fertility. The motif recurs continually in Mesopotamian art and spreads far beyond, aquiring fresh meanings on the way. India and Indonesia, the snake features in both Hindu and Buddhist art. In the west the snake was attributed to Asclepius, god of healing and, later, a symbol of western medicine. By the end of the third millenium the snake had already been identified in Mesopotamia as a male god of healing called Ningizzida and was especially venerated by Gudea the ruler of Lagash (Telloh) who reigned in the 21st century before christ and was famous as a patron of the arts and as a temple builder. Sculptures of his reign depict snakes entwined or flanking the sacred tree, another indication of their power to infuse nature with their vitality.
In Egyptian art the snake has several aspects, it had a part in creating the world, a creation myth from Hermopolis, other texts describe a return to chaos from an underworld monster, the snake god, Apophis. Snake Goddeses are typically cobras and the most important was Wadjet, the ruling goddess of lower Egypt and protector of pharoahs. She is sometimes depicted wound into a coil, or has a human head with an uraeus, or may take the form of a scorpion. Renenutet also a cobra goddess was a mother goddess and may be depicted suckling a child, usually depicted as a woman with a snake's head. There is also mention of a snake devouring it's tail, the ouroboros which was later revived in the renaissence as a symbol of time, eternity and the universe.
In the Minoan/Mycenean period onwards snakes also feature, the Greeks regarded them as the spirits of the dead, the sloughing of the skin being evidence for rebirth and immortality, the snake was attributed to the goddesses Athena/Minerva, the corn goddess Demeter/Ceres, and Hecate, Queen of the dead. The snake had a role in the rites of Dionysus/Bacchus who was originally a god of fertility and even the gorgon Medusa had a head of snakes which has links with the four elements of earth.
Snake and tree together are male and female respectively and formely symbolised the Earth's fertility. The image was first associated with the Near Eastern fertility goddess Ishtar and included the figures of two acolytes flanking the tree, perhaps a former model for the Christian scene of temptation first seen in a Roman catacomb painting.
So in precis, snakes in ancient design of the region represent creativity, which is basically sex, the furtherment of the species, so what was the Christian God's problem with the creature, what was he saying when mankind described a snake as temptation, temptation to find attraction and there act on it, or is God's reported message designed to eschew human instinct and our design that of creation?
The Apple;
In Christian art was the fruit of the tree of knowledge plucked by Eve according to a twelth century A.D. text, hence a symbol of the fall: held by the infant Christ it alludes to the doctrine of redemption. In Greek myth the apple of discord was thrown into the banquet of the gods and later awarded by Paris to Aphrodite/Venus whose attribute it is. The golden apple of the Hersperides symbolise immortality and are an attribute of Hercules. In China, wild apple blossom denotes female beauty. The apple also features is Geoffrey De Monmouth's 1136 ad pseudohistorical account of Historia Regum Britanniae, the legend of Avalon, the Isle of Apples from the brythonic celtic word for apple, afal, the resting place of Arthur after the Battle of Camlan. Also a later belief that an apple should not but cut across its core because of the design revealed by the seed pods within the apple and even the apple finding it's way into fairy tale as a bearer of poison in sleeping beauty, obviously with thoughts on the temptation thing there and the possible reason for the formation of fairy tales, to teach morals and other messages thought important.
The tree;
Worshipped by many ancient peoples as the abode of a god, or indeed as the god himself, also a symbol of the universe and a source of fertility, knowledge and eternal life. There were many tree cults in the Nile valley of Egypt: tree spirits, usually female were especially identified with Nut, the sky goddess and Hathor. The sacred grove was a typical feature of early tree worship among the ancient Greeks, which later evolved into trees taking human form, oak became Zeus, laurell became Apollo, olive became Athene and myrtle became Aphrodite. The image of a tree flanked by devotees, human or animal was a Mesopotamian fertility symbol that migrated westwards with several changes of meaning. When the Earth was believed to be flat, the word axis was known to the ancient Babylonians as the cosmic tree holding up the flat Earth.The tree also occurs in Hindu myth and was even taken by the Buddhists as the source of enlightenment. The tree of Life in the Garden of Eden whose fruit bestowed immortality is thought to be related to the Hindu cosmic tree of the Rig Veda, but where the biblical origin is from is uncertain, but it bears a striking resemblance to the Assyrian sacred tree flanked by two human figures or from the tree in the garden of Hesperides that was guarded by a snake. The tree and the Christian cross are connected, with the belief that the cross was made from the tree of knowledge, i.e. the same tree as was the tree of interest in the Garden of Eden, so dying on a cross made from the tree of knowledge Christ was redeeming the notion of original sin.
So, in conclusion, the scriptures, any scriptures of any belief as they are recorded are absolutely laced with symbology, thus indicating we just cannot take the literal meaning as it is written, as what is written obviously alludes to something different, only an understanding of symbology in the ancient world may reveal some insight, if it is modern scholars have interpreted that ancient symbology correctly from it's first design and use.
This is where my Alpha course pal doesn't get it, for the knowledge of symbology makes me think deeper, seeking the real intent seperate from the obvious, and with my knowledge that the image of Genesis bears a striking similarity to older within region belief systems, I cannot help but think either Genesis is a fabrication of other beliefs or itself yet another incarnation of the regional pagan belief that has evolved into what we know today.
I said to my pal in question, that I thought perhaps I should look into this alpha course in the hope someone more clued, a theologian perhaps might be able to answer my questions, my pal reckoned it be a good idea, as the course is open to anyone of any faith, or at least boasts that. But a very dear and highly clued up friend who was also involved has a very different experience on the course, a person I perhaps know better and trust more highly, as I know the depth of logic this person uses, where my other pal, a scientist has been trained as far as his belief is concerned, not to challenge the status quo. Which to me is wrong, as what is the use in belief if one is not free to question, as questions lead to answers and there better understanding.
So, in all that I have written I invite others to comment, share their understanding, but my main question, is of all that we know from the past, could it be what we know now, is completely different from what was intended, as we in our age of the written word and with some, literal understanding are missing the intricacies or even alternative message depicted by the use of symbology in surviving texts from an ancient time ?
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Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha
Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone
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Symbology in religion ? - 
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