Poor Aisha

[SnakeLord]

In no particular order

So, in essence, what you are saying in your post is that the gods of Sumeria were really the gods of the OT,too?

Absolutely. Modern day christianity will attempt to show the multiple speech:

Gen 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, our likeness"
Gen 11:7 "Come, let us go down and confuse their language.."
Gen 3:22 "And the lord god said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil."

as being their illusionary "trinity", when it is more evidential to see it has come from earlier cultures who believed in a multitude of gods. We can clearly see ancient sumerian/babylonian usage even in modern day hebrew. For example look at the hebrew months:

Nisan - from Nisanu, Tisrei - from Tashritu, Tammuz from Damuzi, (a sumerian god). Tammuz is even mentioned in the bible, ("crying for tammuz"). etc.

As for the nephilim, (the fallen ones/ those who fell from above), they are directly linked to the anunnaki, (those who from heaven to earth came).

There are also strong references to babylonian astronomical beliefs/ideas present within the early ot. People do, and will, dispute these things but evidence is overwhelming.

The amusing thing is how many times i hear the religious individuals state everyone must read and understand the bible in order to debate it's validity, i know of very few, if any, that have ever bothered studying sumerian/babylonian history. How can anyone so easily dispute something without viewing the evidence? Jenyar told me: it's of no importance just believe in jesus, (pretty much those words), and i find this distasteful at best.

When i was a young dood i positively hated history. I considered it as worthless and pointless as geography As i got older i realised that which has been left behind for us to find is so amazing and important. It's weird, for although i hated history, i always loved archaeology/digging up lost treasure/finding fossils etc. Back in my early teens i found the skeletal remains of a roman horse. I still have the bones, and can't think of much else that is quite so fascinating. god aside, and purely for knowledge, everyone with an interest in truth, (concerning biblical stuff), should deem it absolutely paramount to read old sumerian texts. Having said all this i cannot comprehend why someone would tell me it's of no importance, even though what it offers is the original version of that which is accepted on pure faith. In the very first few pages of the bible it spells out sumeria when it places the garden of eden.... According to the bible all life started there, and as such anything there would surely be worth looking at? Some people obviously think differently to me.

Was Ur, Sumeria the same place as Ur of the Chaldees? Just curious--no ulterior motive--just wondering.

Yes. If Abraham moved would he have taken any sumerian beliefs with him? Would his father have? If you believe in a god would you tell your children about it? One must question exactly what abraham would have 'handed down'. For instance the biblical account of abraham finding a ram caught in a thicket. Was it actually related to an event in abrahams life or an older sumerian story handed down?

This was found in Ur. It is currently at the philadelphia university museum.

Secondly, did this Sumerian Abraham, who most likely was an Arab, ever become a Hebrew, and is this spelled out anywhere in the Bible?

Well in the bible abraham is told to leave his country and people and go to the land god would show him. I guess god turned him hebrew.

Thirdly, Sarah, formerly Sarai, means 'princess.' Is it likely that she was an Egyptian princess? Then Abraham would be an Egyptian prince, wouldn't he? Sarah was the concubine of the Pharoah, but the Pharoah was not Abraham. He gave Sarah to the Pharoah with his blessings, I've read

Well i've read a lot of stuff claiming hagar was an egyptian princess, but i'm unaware of sarah being regarded as one.

As for abraham giving his blessings... i find the whole story diabolical- despicable even. Abraham blatantly lied that his wife was actually his sister so god threatens the pharoah, instead of having a pop at abraham for lying. Abimelech explains to god, and god does a sudden u-turn, looking more "caught with his pants down" than any human ever could be. When i first read the whole thing i actually laughed a bit, and imaged god stuttering like some panicking lunatic when abimelech sets him straight.

I'd really like to read more about the serpent that guarded the 'fruit.'

Well the serpent is ever present throughout pretty much every ancient culture known to mankind. Even in the modern day the original depictions of the serpent are used. Example: The picture relating to DNA- This is based on Egyptian pictures etc. There are Sumerian artifacts depicting a serpent guarding the tree with it's two fruits, (life/enlightenment). I will scan and upload the serpent/tree pictures asap.

{addon} I did find this which is of some interest:

So why the need to flip this story completely upside down and condemn him as the evil one? In the Bible the word translated as "serpent" is "nahash" (NHSH) which literally means to decipher, or to find out. All throughout ancient times the serpent was known as the bringer of knowledge (hence the euphemism "be ye wise as serpents") and were the precipitators of enlightenment. It is this precise thing that compels us to look further into the possibility that the good-guy is the one that is condemned throughout religious writings, for teaching freedom and knowledge.

 

[Tiassa]

Citations on Abraham

Secondly, did this Sumerian Abraham, who most likely was an Arab, ever become a Hebrew, and is this spelled out anywhere in the Bible?

From Karen Armstrong's A History of God:

(Abraham), who left Ur and eventually settled in Canaan some time between the twentieth and nineteenth centuries BCE. We have no contemporary of Abraham, but scholars think that he may have been one of the wandering chieftains who had led their people from Mesopotamia toward the Mediterranean at the end of the third millennium BCE. These wanderers, some of whom are called Abiru, Apiru or Habiru in Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources, spoke West Semitic languages, of which Hebrew is one ....

.... Unlike his pagan neighbors (Biblical author) J does not dismiss mundane history as profane, feeble, and insubstantial ocmpared with the sacred, primordial time of the gods. He hurries through the events of prehistory until he comes to the end of the mythical period, which includes such stories as the Flood and the Tower of Babel, and arrives at the start of the history of the people of Israel. This begins abruptly in Chapter 12 when the man Abram, who will later be renamed Abraham ("Father of a Multitude"), is commanded by Yahweh to leave his family in Haran, in what is now eastern Turkey, and migrate to Canaan near the Mediterranean Sea .... Now Yahweh tells Abraham that he has a special destiny: he will become the father of a mighty nation that will one day be more numerous than the stars in the sky .... J's account of the call of Abraham sets the tone for the future history of this God. In the ancient Middle East, the divine mana was experienced in ritual and myth. Marduk, Baal, and Anat were not expected to involve themselves in the ordinary, profane lives of their worshippers: their actions had been performed in sacred time. The God of Israel, however, made his power effective in current events in the real world. He was experienced as an imperative in the here and now. His first revelation of himself consists of a command: Abraham is to leave his people and travel t the land of Canaan.

But who is Yahweh? Did Abraham worship the same God as Moses, or did he know him by a different name? This would be a matter of prime importance to us today, but the Bible seems curiously vague on the subject and gives conflicting answers to this question. J says that men had worshipped Yahweh ever since the time of Adam's grandson, but in the sixth century, P seems to suggest that the Israelites had never heard of Yahweh until he appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush. P makes Yahweh explain that he really was the same God as the God of Abraham, as though this were a rather controversial notion: he tells Moses that Abraham had called him "El Shaddai" and did not know the divine name Yahweh ..... (11 - 14)

Or perhaps a more compressed version from Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan:

According to the foundation story recounted in Genesis 12, Israel first received its identity through election, when "the Lord" suddenly revealed himself to Abraham, ordering him to leave his home country, his family, and his ancestral gods, and promising him, in exchange for exclusive loyalty, a new national heritage, with a new identity. (35)

Apologies around for the long quotes, except that I couldn't find online sources to refer you to.

No, it's not the most helpful, but it's something to start on.

- Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York: Knopf, 1994
- Pagels, Elaine. The Origin of Satan. New York: Vintage, 1996.

:m:,
Tiassa

 

[Tiassa]

Sharia stoning overturned

Nigeria stoning verdict quashed (BBC)

An Islamic court of appeal in northern Nigeria has overturned the conviction of a man sentenced to death by stoning for the rape of a nine-year-old girl.

Salimu Mohammed Baranda won his appeal by pleading insanity and has been ordered by the court to an asylum for psychiatric evaluation.

The punishment of stoning to death has been introduced into the law in Nigeria's majority Muslim northern states over the past three years but as yet no sentence has been carried out.

Salimu Mohammed has never denied he carried out the rape.

In fact he pleaded guilty at his trial last year and initially refused to appeal the sentence.

But family members intervened and persuaded him to change his mind . . . .

. . . . The federal government says it is determined to make sure no-one is actually put to death by stoning but President Olusegun Obasanjo says he is powerless under the constitution to directly intervene in such cases and that the Islamic criminal code now in place in the northern states is independent of federal law.

As much as I dislike reviving this topic, the news story is relevant.

:m:,
Tiassa

 

[Hemlock]

So why is it deemed right that men should only take one woman to be their wife?

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Hemlock
So why is it deemed right that men should only take one woman to be their wife?

Because we have an arabic saying that says:

"He that tries to lift a sheep and end up farting under the pressure, should never try to lift a camel."

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Originally posted by Hemlock
So why is it deemed right that men should only take one woman to be their wife?
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M*W: Well, Hemlock, it's like this.... How many men do you know who have done well by ONE woman, much less two or more? It's just not genetically possible. Their DNA is not programmed to forsake all others, I don't care how faithful their big headed intentions are. The little head does most of their thinking for them. XY chromosomes are programmed to spread DNA around, and that is how they ensure their "survival of the fittest." XX chromosomes are more picky about the DNA they choose. XX chromosomes are programmed to spread their DNA through one other set of XY chromosomes to ensure survival of their fittest through a more purely bred lineage. XY chromosomes want to find as many variants of XX chromosomes as they can. XX chromosomes just want to find one set of XY chromosomes for their genetic duration. These are the same XY chromosomes that are responsible for the urge to BBQ and build shelves (see my earlier post about this phenomena).

 

[Flores]

A joke that I heard recently that pertains to Hemlock question and asserts MW responce.

A man and his wife were attending an agriculture convention. They were watching a tributary on the best bull.

The wife pointed to her husband and told him, why can't you be like these bulls, look that one had sex 350 times last year, and that one had sex 500 times last year, and even that weak one had sex 229 last year alone.

The husband then turned to his wife and said...Ask any of those bulls if it was the "Same cow".

 

[BigBlueHead]

M*W - I sincerely hope that was a joke, 'cause that was the biggest load of crap I've read in a while.

Therefore...

HAH HAH HAH! Good one Meddy!

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Originally posted by BigBlueHead
M*W - I sincerely hope that was a joke, 'cause that was the biggest load of crap I've read in a while.

Therefore...

HAH HAH HAH! Good one Meddy!

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M*W: What's that they say about "bullshitting a bullshitter?" Thanks, Heady!