The first step in fixing the book is to translate it properly. The opening sentence is still not translated correctly in any existing reproduction that I know of. There is no definite article before the word ‘beginning’ in Gen1:1. It is not about the beginning, just a beginning. And ‘elohim’ does not mean ‘god’ but ‘mighty ones, strong ones, fat ones, pregnant ones’, in plural form. I like ‘evolutionary survivors’ for ‘elohim’. ‘The heavens’ and ‘the earth’ are ‘the sky (night and day)’ and ‘the field’ respectively, poetic metaphor for ‘everything you can see’; note the omission of ocean. The seven days are a poetic construct which supplies a hierarchy of symbolic sources for the remainder of the myth. Important to note in this section which character does the creating.
‘Yahweh’ = ‘to be, to exist, I am’ is a completely different character from ‘elohim’, but at particular points they merge. The word ‘yahweh’ was not coined by the writer of this text as it pre-existed it (see: Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament under the appropriate head word). Consider that it is ‘elohim’ who tells Abraham to kill his son but ‘yahweh’ who tells him not to. The implication is that the plural ‘elohim’ is ‘the voices of the past’ or ‘ways of the fathers’ or ‘primal memories’ or ‘voices in my head’, but the singular ‘yahweh’ is the ‘voice of myself in the here and now’ or the ‘voice of reason’, or, if you like, ‘self cognisance’. This character interacts with three other characters in a dance around a pole within an ‘enclosure of delight’. Adam = ‘red, red clay, mankind’, masculine, and Eve = ‘breath, life’, feminine, from a root with the same meaning as the root of ‘yahweh’. ‘Talking serpent’ is actually ‘nachash’ = ‘polished copper’, or ‘self reflective device’, or, metaphorically, ‘self reflection’. ‘Talking serpent’ quotes ‘elohim’, not ‘yahweh’. Eve and ‘yahweh’ are related linguistically, Adam and polished copper are related in colour. Female and male, both fully exposed, meet self reflection and self cognisance - together.
The pole is in the middle of the enclosure and is the literary representation of not only the knowledge of good and evil but of life also. The pole is a symbol for the erect phallus; as the pole of life, one of the necessary implements to create babies, and as the pole of knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge that some babies grow up to be good and others evil. This notion is followed through in the twin brothers, Cain and Abel. Implication of the text is that the two ideas of life and knowing good and evil are inseparable, and it all depends on how you see life as to what it looks like. This notion of duality of perception is carried forward into the ‘ark of the covenant’ or ‘box of dead things’. This box contained symbols of the verbal elements of the myth, i.e. food, tree and law, or manna, Aaron’s rod and the tables of the law. Consider that from one view could be seen the statement ‘Thou shall not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil...’, and from another view ‘ ..good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable to make one wise’.
It is important to note carefully who says what to whom in the discourses while keeping in mind the metaphorical value of the devices and characters. This myth is the foundation of the rest of the law and prophets, right up to Apocalypse, which is solved against this allegorical framework.
The phallus becomes a focal point in terms of circumcision, which is no more than a symbolic reference to the ‘uncovering of the heart of Adam’. The common love heart symbol is the underside view of an exposed, or circumcised, glans. The heart and glans share a physical characteristic in that they pulse in a common rhythm, which would have been blatantly obvious to even the most primal observer.
By myth I do not mean ‘lie’ but a constructed literary device designed to transfer information. The original myth was probably used as a sex education tool for adolescents.
For all Semitic word meanings I use the following:
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Edited by. G. Botterweck, H. Ringren, H. Fabry. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979
Gesenius, H. W. F. Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Translated by S. P. Tregelles. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
For Greek word meanings I use Perseus/Tufts online (can't post URLs yet).
I use Interlinear Scripture Analyzer v1.2.0 for the texts. This program contains BHS and the Westcott-Hort text with Nestle-Aland 26th and 27th edition variants
Anyway, there’s a start;-)
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