The Emerald Tablets of Thoth

Heh, yes, that book seems familiar :p

I knew that, I just wondered if there was any evidence that this was specifically targetted, or if the whole evil serpent motif might have been generated for some other reason.

And I knew later church policy promoted that, I'm looking more at the initial creation era(s) of the Judaic myths (which Christianity later co-opted).

If I recall, wasn't there a serpent and garden story in the Epic of Gilgamesh? What was the role of the serpent in that one? NM, googled an answer to my own question. Looking up a couple summaries, there are parallels, but the serpent took a plant that Gilgamesh stole that granted eternal youth, which makes the snake there more of a tool fo the god's will than an evil force. Least, as far as I can tell from quick readings.
 
Hellbound said:
Heh, yes, that book seems familiar :p

I knew that, I just wondered if there was any evidence that this was specifically targetted, or if the whole evil serpent motif might have been generated for some other reason.

And I knew later church policy promoted that, I'm looking more at the initial creation era(s) of the Judaic myths (which Christianity later co-opted).

If I recall, wasn't there a serpent and garden story in the Epic of Gilgamesh? What was the role of the serpent in that one? NM, googled an answer to my own question. Looking up a couple summaries, there are parallels, but the serpent took a plant that Gilgamesh stole that granted eternal youth, which makes the snake there more of a tool fo the god's will than an evil force. Least, as far as I can tell from quick readings.
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No that was a snake, not a serpent, in mesopotamian linguistics the difference between a snake and a serpent is quite marked
basically a snake is a dumb animal, whereas a serpent is intelligent
the difference between the two words
Musgal (serpent) http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/epsd/e3844.html
Mus (snake) http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/epsd/e3832.html
is the word Gal, which in this context means "great" http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/epsd/e1562.html
so snakes can be tools of the Gods while serpents follow their own ends, which of course, if in opposition to the will of the Gods makes them evil
:p

youre probably thinking of the Myth of the Huluppu Tree
http://www.piney.com/BabHulTree.html

Great serpents became intertwined with dragons around 2000bce, that because of a meeting of different cultures which had different archetypal monsters, Africa and India injected Great snakes (because they actually have large snakes to base a mythology on) and Mesopotamia took that injection and added it to their own archetypal monsters, namely dragons, which up til that point showed no reptilian ancestry at all, being instead massive aquatic monsters from the dawn of time, more akin to fish than anything else with supernatural powers that made the Gods look like newbies
 
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Hellbound said:
Interesting :)

I'll have to digest this before I have any more comments or questions (I'm at work right now so can't spend too much time goofing off on the Internet). I can see I have more study to do, though...thanks for the info!
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Well if youre interested in Dragons, the ones to study would be the archetypes, after religion gets hold of anything the symbolism destroys any original meaning.

for archetypes see
China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_King
which spread dragon mythology to the rest of Asia

Mesopotamia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat
Which spread dragon mythology to western religions

Mesoamerica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipactli
Which is the original Amerind dragon

if you look closely at the pictoral respresentations you'll notice something they all have in common
;)
But I'm not telling why that is
 
I'm not really interested in dragons, specifically, but I do have an interest in the origins of religion and myth and how they inter-twine. I'm no expert, and it's more of an on-again-off-again hobby than a serious study, but I pick up bits and pieces where I can :)

As to what they all have in common, well, I can see a few things, but not sure which one you'd be referring to.

Almost all are of the "snake-ish" body type rather than the more lizardish "western" dragon.

They all face the left.

They all have a front claw in the air.

Am I anywhere close? :)
 
Hellbound said:
Almost all are of the "snake-ish" body type rather than the more lizardish "western" dragon.
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This part, which in itself doesn't seem remarkable, but when you get into the textual accounts of dragons, they aren't described as anything even remotely like that. So what does that image derive from and why is it repeated in cultures out of contact with each other seperated by continents and thousands of years

Really, if you knew more, you'd realise that dragon mythology is the original mythology underpinning all religion
In most ancient cultures dragons served as a representation of the most powerful force that existed, So to prove himself worthy a God has to defeat one. This is exactly the same now as it was then, only God can defeat the great red serpent/dragon, that is after all the only reason we actually need him.

If you could take the dragon out of the religion, the religion would collapse an empty shell,
:p
 
Anyone else think that "The Emerald Tablets of Thoth" sounds like it would be a fun D&D module?
 
dropzone said:
A good book on the possible mundane origins of dragons and griffins and suchlike is The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times by Adrienne Mayor. She proposes that the descriptions of griffins as having four legs and a beak that travelers in Central Asia claimed to have encountered came from fossils of protoceratopsians that litter the Gobi Desert.
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Heres me answering that the last time it was bought up
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5385380&postcount=24
if you can't be bothered to click, to summarise:-

Griffins were around a bit earlier (more than a thousand years) than the Greek period. As Adriennes hypothesis neccesitates their creation from gold trade during the Greek period with Scythia its not very credible in a world where the Greek and Scythian cultures didn't exist yet,
unless
Time travelling Griffins from beyond the walls of nature
movie at 7
:p
 
Marduk, that is indeed very interesting read as always.

But while we're picking your brain, I got another one for you.

I always wonderd this part, since the snake in the garden of eden wasn't really a snake - what was it?

Let me be more clear, in the story god punishes the snake by telling him he will forever crawl, so naturally he didn't crawl before so he had legs or wings or something.

I naturally assumed this was some form of other known deity at the time the bible was mocking but wasn't exactly sure which one it was. I pondered about some form of dragon but after your response I'm not so sure about that anymore.

Any thoughts?
 
GrandMasterFox said:
Marduk, that is indeed very interesting read as always.

But while we're picking your brain, I got another one for you.

I always wonderd this part, since the snake in the garden of eden wasn't really a snake - what was it?

Let me be more clear, in the story god punishes the snake by telling him he will forever crawl, so naturally he didn't crawl before so he had legs or wings or something.

I naturally assumed this was some form of other known deity at the time the bible was mocking but wasn't exactly sure which one it was. I pondered about some form of dragon but after your response I'm not so sure about that anymore.

Any thoughts?
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a couple
1. The snake wasn't Satan as Satan hadn't been invented when Genesis was written
2. the snake is a symbol of immortality, it fits in with the Garden of Eden which being paradise also symbolises immortality, then you have the "immortal" god and the immortal humans in it who don't know sickness or death at that point.

So I guess its not about slagging off another cultures symbols as much as it is saying if you have to put your faith in an immortal symbol, then place it in the one God rather than the short term garden or the snake who will lie to you.

The best known snake deity of the time was Ningishzida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningishzida
But I don't see any connection, his sacred animal was the griffin (Basmu) but he was associated with snakes because he was a god of healing

ref the arms/legs, remember that this is a redacted story told long after the events were supposed to take place, so the story can explain why snakes have no arms and legs without worrying about what they had before then. Its not a scientific treatise after all.
 
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Marduk said:
a couple
1. The snake wasn't Satan as Satan hadn't been invented when Genesis was written
2. the snake is a symbol of immortality, it fits in with the Garden of Eden which being paradise also symbolises immortality, then you have the "immortal" god and the immortal humans in it who don't know sickness or death at that point.

So I guess its not about slagging off another cultures symbols as much as it is saying if you have to put your faith in an immortal symbol, then place it in the one God rather than the short term garden or the snake who will lie to you.

The best known snake deity of the time was Ningishzida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningishzida
But I don't see any connection, his sacred animal was the griffin (Basmu) but he was associated with snakes because he was a god of healing
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What's interesting to me, is that the idea of the talking snake in the garden stands alone and isn't specifically named as "Satan" until Revelations. In Revelations, the Satan - dragon - serpent in the garden connection is made, but not up until that point.

Also, what's interesting, is that the average person thinks of the devil/Satan and assumed he's responsible for evil or creating evil, when Satan is actually attributed with various attributes/names such as "the adversary" or "the accuser" the "father of lies", etc.

So in this sense, the idea of Satan/dragon being an accusatory, tempting foe is singular. There are no other dragons, except for satan, in canonical Judaeo-Xtian scripture. He is the ONLY dragon that exists/existed. There are other types of supernatural beings that are mentioned, of course, but only one dragon/serpent.

This is, of course, unless we account the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon ... in which the dragon isn't identified with Satan specifically, IIRC. And of course, the tale of Bel and the Dragon is mirrored by the ancient Babylonian tale of the challenge between Tiamat and .... hmm ..... the other name escapes me ......;) .... but anyway, Tiamat lost in a manner similar to the Dragon in Bel and the Dragon.

Did I get something historically wrong? I'm curious .... it's always been interesting to me that there are various "forms" of supernatural creatures in J/C lore, but specifically there is only one dragon in particular ...
 
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trentwray said:
hmm ..... the other name escapes me ......;)
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Merodach
:p

trentwray said:
So in this sense, the idea of Satan/dragon being an accusatory, tempting foe is singular. There are no other dragons, except for satan, in canonical Judaeo-Xtian scripture. He is the ONLY dragon that exists/existed. There are other types of supernatural beings that are mentioned, of course, but only one dragon/serpent.
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Well the snake isn't Satan and never was, but there were other dragons

Genesis chapter 1 said:
21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
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close but no cigar
:D
 
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Marduk said:
Well the snake isn't Satan and never was, but there were other dragons


close but no cigar
:D
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I thought the OT Leviathan was supposedly something different from the dragon / serpent later mentioned in the NT? Is that the only other candidate for dragons in the Judao-Xtian canon o' scripture?

And why do you think it takes so long for the "classical dragon" concept to come into the scriptures, waiting until Revelations to show it's face? I'd be curious as to the historical tracing on that one ...
 
trentwray said:
I thought the OT Leviathan was supposedly something different from the dragon / serpent later mentioned in the NT? Is that the only other candidate for dragons in the Judao-Xtian canon o' scripture?
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Leviathan was just a retelling of the Greek ketos myth, the Hebrew word used to describe "monsters" in genesis 1:21 was tanniyn
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8577&t=KJV
it means
1) dragon, serpent, sea monster

a) dragon or dinosaur

b) sea or river monster

c) serpent, venomous snake
Click to expand...


trentwray said:
And why do you think it takes so long for the "classical dragon" concept to come into the scriptures, waiting until Revelations to show it's face? I'd be curious as to the historical tracing on that one ...
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theres a few mentions of dragons in the Old Testament
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003922...ie=UTF-8&q=dragon&hq=inurl:/p/pt/&sa=+Search+

But you probably already know the facts that would allow you to answer this, you just havent put it together
The most powerful civilisation at the time were using the dragon as a symbol for their military power between 400BCE and 400CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon#Roman_dragons
So I guess the Heebs didn't want to give them the wrong idea
That'd be a bit like the mormons stealing the hells angels colours and wearing them wouldn't it,
i.e. doomed to failure
:D
 
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