Might the God of Genesis be based on a real ruler?

[Malachi151]

I was reading these articles about origins of the Bible:

http://www.bibleorigins.net/UrukNakedMenOfferingHarvest.html

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdenDatePalmGardenIraqHrouda.html

http://www.bibleorigins.net/EdensTreeofKnowledgeLife.html

My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion.

Reading about the Sumerian origin myths, I had read the myths myself previously, but not any background or commentary on them, something struck me.

Could not these myths be describing a REAL period in time, when one of the first civilizations came to be, when human slaves were led by a sophisticated ruler who basically created the first civilization and started agriculture?

Could the Sumerian myth be the description of the origins of civilization?

I think that this is indeed possible!

The Sumerian myth describes clothed gods who create naked humans to do their work for them. The gods intentionally keep the people ignorant and their whole purpose in life was to work for the gods.

The Sumerian story of "creation" really appears to be this:

The story of an early slave based civilization, where naked slaves served elite rulers who tried to keep them ignorant, and then eventually these slaves integrated into the civilization.

Genesis is, of course, based on this story, and also retains elements such as God walking the Garden of Eden, which of course makes sense if "God" was a man.

[Tammuz]

This is an interesting theory, but I find an obstacle: Were slaves used before the birth of civilization? The theory demands that they were.

[The Evil One]

Presumably these primordial elite clothes-wearing rulers also spent a lot of time wrestling crocodiles in the Euphrates to impress their naked slaves - how else are we to explain the origin of the Tiamat myth?

Honestly, Malachi, what is so unbelievable about the idea that sometimes, people make stuff up?

[Malachi151]

This is an interesting theory, but I find an obstacle: Were slaves used before the birth of civilization? The theory demands that they were.

No doubt they were, but I wouldn't try to take the mythology too strictly in that sense. It could easily be that the details are lost in the mythology, its not as though in real like clothed people would have gone out and just rounded these people up, this probably formed over time, and the mythology was recorded after this civilization had been in place for a while, with no real knowledge of its exact origin.

[Malachi151]

Presumably these primordial elite clothes-wearing rulers also spent a lot of time wrestling crocodiles in the Euphrates to impress their naked slaves - how else are we to explain the origin of the Tiamat myth?

Honestly, Malachi, what is so unbelievable about the idea that sometimes, people make stuff up?

Everything is not to be taken literally, this is why its called mythologizing. Experience shows, however, that myths, especially these early ones, tend to have origins in reality. Later myths get more and more fictional because they themselves are based on myths. The nonsense grows as time goes on, but much of early mythology has been seen to have a basis in reality, such as for example the basis of Greek mythology in fossils. Flood mythology also, is probably based on the fact that fossilized seashells and fish were seen on mountain tops, which is actually very common in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

[spin]

One of the strange things that one finds about Semitic culture religions is that the king tends to have priestly relations with the gods, ie they tended to have special relations with gods rather than be gods.


spin

[Malachi151]

One of the strange things that one finds about Semitic culture religions is that the king tends to have priestly relations with the gods, ie they tended to have special relations with gods rather than be gods.


spin

Judaism is a relatively recent religion, compared to Egyptian and Sumerian religion. By this point the mythology had completely transcended its roots and taken on a different meaning to those who believed in it.

That's my point, religion started out as worshiping human rulers, but then this evolved into worshiping some imaginary ruler.

[Roger Pearse]

My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion.


Eusebius of Caesarea thought the same. In the Praeparatio Evangelica, IIRC, he makes this point.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[WishboneDawn]

Flood mythology also, is probably based on the fact that fossilized seashells and fish were seen on mountain tops, which is actually very common in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

I'm not buying that completely. Flood mythologies pop up in the myths of many cultures...They're not all finding seashells on mountaintops. I thinks it's a lot more reasonable that water has similar meanings for people of different cultures like chaos, destruction, rebirth. Meanings that come from common experiences of floods, drownings, whatever. When some of us go on about the truth (as opposed to fact) in myths, that's more what we're reffering to. How they can point to common experiences or beliefs that a culture is trying to express.

I think probably you're partly right and certain things in Genesis reflect the realities of the people who told those stories. The tribalism, the power of names and of markings, the structure of the families and such.

As for, "My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion," I think...Maybe in part with some cultures. I think also is could have come about to express 'spiritual' feelings that most of us, believers or not, often have, to bind communities, to question and explain the unknown...Lots of other reasons in the mix.

Anyhow, I have to say I like your threads lately. Lots of neat ideas to explore and discuss. :)

[Malachi151]

I'm not buying that completely. Flood mythologies pop up in the myths of many cultures...They're not all finding seashells on mountaintops.

You might be surprised. Adrienne Mayor has done a lot of work on various mythologies and she has written about the Native American flood mythologies, which both she, AND the Native Americans, say are based on the fossils and natural effects that their ancestors observed.

There is a lot of documentation of ancient people talking about the fact that they found sea shells in the mountains, and the Egyptians actually collected fossils of fish from mountains and had them in their temples.

The Greek materialists around the 6th century BCE discussed the fact that finding sea shells and "impressions of fish in the rocks" in the mountains must mean that the sea had risen to that level at some time in the past.

It was widely believed in the Mediterranean that the world had been flooded, or that the world was covered in sea, at some point in the past because of this, it was believed by everyone, both the religious and the materialists.

I don't discount that other things could have added to this and that other elements were a part of crafting the "mythology", i.e. the "spiritual" aspects of the story, cleansing, etc., but I think that these were explanations for observed phenomenon.

We see sea shells and fish in the mountains, why?

Well, that was from when God got angry and cleaned the world of its previous evil people... etc.

[WishboneDawn]

Well, that was from when God got angry and cleaned the world of its previous evil people... etc.

I can see that. I can also see a myth built to explain ideas about human behaviour and people picking a devastating phenonmenon they were familiar with to illustrate it. But if it were a matter of picking a nice natural disaster to illustrate a point you'd expect some storms and forest fires too, mightn't you? I wonder how often floods come up compared to the other things?

And thanks for mentioning Adrienne Mayor. I hadn't heard of her before but her work looks really interesting.

[The Evil One]

Malachi, in your responses to me and spin, you've made your idea completely unfalsifiable. Any evidence which suggests gods-from-kings is evidence of the ultimate origin of religion. Any evidence which doesn't suggest gods-from-kings, you interpret as evidence of how completely religion has transcended those ultimate origins. At the moment, I can't see what possible observation would be incompatible with your theory.

[Tammuz]

You might be surprised. Adrienne Mayor has done a lot of work on various mythologies and she has written about the Native American flood mythologies, which both she, AND the Native Americans, say are based on the fossils and natural effects that their ancestors observed.

There is a lot of documentation of ancient people talking about the fact that they found sea shells in the mountains, and the Egyptians actually collected fossils of fish from mountains and had them in their temples.

The Greek materialists around the 6th century BCE discussed the fact that finding sea shells and "impressions of fish in the rocks" in the mountains must mean that the sea had risen to that level at some time in the past.

It was widely believed in the Mediterranean that the world had been flooded, or that the world was covered in sea, at some point in the past because of this, it was believed by everyone, both the religious and the materialists.

I don't discount that other things could have added to this and that other elements were a part of crafting the "mythology", i.e. the "spiritual" aspects of the story, cleansing, etc., but I think that these were explanations for observed phenomenon.

We see sea shells and fish in the mountains, why?

Well, that was from when God got angry and cleaned the world of its previous evil people... etc.

Interesting! Another theoriy I've heard of is that after the Ice Age, when the ice melted, there were many local floods, and the memories of these floods were thus passed on among the different peoples.

I would also speculate that perhaps there was some kind of local flood that happened to our ancestors back in Africa about 100 000 years ago, and that this flood killed many humans (I've read somewhere that many Homo sapiens died about 100 000 years ago, but I don't know why, or if anyone knows why). Perhaps this memory was passed on as our ancestors moved out of Africa, and the memory took various shapes in the various cultures that appeared.

[WishboneDawn]

Interesting! Another theoriy I've heard of is that after the Ice Age, when the ice melted, there were many local floods, and the memories of these floods were thus passed on among the different peoples.

I would also speculate that perhaps there was some kind of local flood that happened to our ancestors back in Africa about 100 000 years ago, and that this flood killed many humans (I've read somewhere that many Homo sapiens died about 100 000 years ago, but I don't know why, or if anyone knows why). Perhaps this memory was passed on as our ancestors moved out of Africa, and the memory took various shapes in the various cultures that appeared.

I don't even have to think there'd have to be some big event to cause the flood myths. Most humans live close to water. Flooding is a risk involved with that. It's probably been a terror for humans for most of our time on earth.

[Malachi151]

Malachi, in your responses to me and spin, you've made your idea completely unfalsifiable. Any evidence which suggests gods-from-kings is evidence of the ultimate origin of religion. Any evidence which doesn't suggest gods-from-kings, you interpret as evidence of how completely religion has transcended those ultimate origins. At the moment, I can't see what possible observation would be incompatible with your theory.

Sorry, but thats the way that it is. Interpreting myths will always be this way, we can never go back to "prove" that a myth is based on X or Y, that's the nature of myths, all we can do is try to come up with possible explanations.

We aren't ever going to find something from 9,000 years ago that says "I am Bob, and I am making up a story about the ruler Einki and calling him a god, etc., etc."

It doesn't work that way.

To go back to the work of Adrienne Mayor, she hasn't proven and damned thing, but she has shown correlations and possibilities, and her work has, within the past 5 years since it has come out, been widely accepted by scholars.

Can she "prove" that the Titans and the Krakon in Greek mythology are based on ancient fossil finds? Can she prove that griffins are based on ancient observance of beaked dinosaur fossils?

No, but she shows the correlations and shows that that is both possible and would explain various elements of the mythologies.

Its the same here.

Can I or anyone else ever "prove" that the gods described in the Sumerian creation story were really human rulers at some time? No, this will never be possible, however we can determine if that is possible and makes sense.

We have several major problems with interpreting myths.

1) The myth as we receive it today is no doubt different from its origin, and we will probably never know the original version of any ancient myth.

2) Myths are called myths and not history for a reason, because they contain impossible and unreasonable elements.

For all we know the Sumerian version of this myth could have been around for 1,000 years before it was recorded by them.

There will always be cobwebs in myths that you have to sweep away. Sometimes nothing is left when you sweep the cobwebs away, sometimes something is.

My view is that the older myths, of myths of privative cultures, are more likely to be based on reality than more recent myths, because more recent myths, such as the Jesus myth, are themselves based on other myths.

And besides, I'm just asking the question here, what about this prospect that the gods in the Sumerian myth (which the Genesis myth is based on) are really human rulers?

[The Evil One]

My view is that the older myths, of myths of privative cultures, are more likely to be based on reality than more recent myths, because more recent myths, such as the Jesus myth, are themselves based on other myths.
But why couldn't the older myths have been based on still older myths? You are begging the question by assuming that there were no yet-older myths around at the time when the oldest myths we know of today took shape. I don't see any reason to make that assumption.

You're right about the lack of evidence for the original form of myths - that should be a reason for you not to propose sweeping, universal hypotheses about their origin...

[Malachi151]

But why couldn't the older myths have been based on still older myths? You are begging the question by assuming that there were no yet-older myths around at the time when the oldest myths we know of today took shape. I don't see any reason to make that assumption.

Of course that is always possible.

The Sumerian creation story can easily be understood as an account of a population of early privative slaves being ruled by a group of people. It has many elements that make this message pretty clear, the fact that the purpose of the humans is to do the work of the gods, the fact that the gods were themselves like the humans at one time, the fact that the gods had clothes and lived on earth while the people were naked. The fact that they talk about a "garden of eden", i.e. the introduction of agriculture, a bounty compared to what early people were familiar with, the fact that they talk about the gods keep knowledge from the people.

It has all the makings of an account about a privative civilization where the rulers were hailed as gods.

What's more, this is in line with Egyptian religions as well, which states that the early gods were earthly rulers.

This, furthermore, is also in line with potential interpretations of Greek religion, Norse religion, Japanese religion, and other religions.

FURTHERMORE, this provides a harmonious explanation for the evolution of god belief, i.e. that god belief evolved out of leader worship, which not only make sense, but also explains many aspects of religion, such as the ties between church and state, the ties between religion and nationalism, the ties between religion and leadership, etc.

Now, Judaism is a third or fourth generation religion at best. Its a religion based on a religion based on a religion, etc. So, Judaism is very removed from the original development of religion in the Mesopotamia. Judaism is pretty clearly based on Sumerian and Babylonian religion, but its thousands of years younger, after these concepts had evolved quite a bit, yet they still preserve enough that you can see the underlying structure peeking through.

[lpetrich]

But why be so literal-minded here?

Why can't a flood myth simply be some completely imaginary event that got passed down the generations simply because it was a dramatic story?

Consider the shared plotline of Ziusudra's Flood, Atrahasis's Flood, Ut-Napishtim's Flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Noah's Flood in the Bible, and Xisuthrus's Flood in Berossus's history.

[Pavlov's Dog]

I'm not buying that completely.

Me neither. I would expect flood myths come up because floods really happen all the time. A lot of civilizations pop up around rivers (for obvious reasons) and rivers flood, some quite regularly.

[spin]

Judaism is a relatively recent religion, compared to Egyptian and Sumerian religion. By this point the mythology had completely transcended its roots and taken on a different meaning to those who believed in it.
I said Semitic religions, which includes Assyria and Babylon amongst others.


spin

[fredhsu]

....
My theory has long been that organized religion and "god belief" is evolved from the worship of human leaders/kings. There is much evidence of this in Egyptian religion.
...
Could the Sumerian myth be the description of the origins of civilization?


You are not the first person to come up with this connection. I think you will really appreciate Neal Stephenson's fiction: "Snow Crash". I hesitated before adding the following link, as it does contain plot spoiler: wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash).

** plot spoiler to follow as well **

In this geek novel, Neal connects mythology of ancient Sumeria to the Tower of Babel. The ruler Enki is portrayed as a hacker of the human mind; he created mind virus programs in the form of magical words to program the people (slaves) to do various types of works.

The sumerian history serves as a background to chain together events taking place in a futuristic earth where the main character, Hiro Protagonist, a hacker and virtual metaverse swordsman discovers his true inner potentials as a programmer. Hiro eventually destroys the powerful Pentecostal churches backed by billionaire L. Bob Rife who is bent on world domination by spreading mind viruses in the form of "speaking in tongues".

[Doug Shaver]

all we can do is try to come up with possible explanations.
An explanation that cannot be falsified cannot explain anything. In science, an unfalsifiable theory doesn't get to be called a theory. Like ID, it gets to be called pseudo-science.

[Malachi151]

Me neither. I would expect flood myths come up because floods really happen all the time. A lot of civilizations pop up around rivers (for obvious reasons) and rivers flood, some quite regularly.

Except for the fact that I've never read anyone saying that they thought the world was covered by water because they saw other floods, but I have read ancient accounts of people saying that the world was covered by water or mud due to the fact that they found sea shells and fish in the mountains. In addition, in the Middle Ages the Christians claimed that their finding of sea shells and fish impressions in the mountains was evidence of the flood described in Genesis, or course not making the connection that maybe the story is Genesis was produced from the same observations....

[Malachi151]

An explanation that cannot be falsified cannot explain anything. In science, an unfalsifiable theory doesn't get to be called a theory. Like ID, it gets to be called pseudo-science.

Well, but this is just a problem inherent in the interpretation of ancient myths, as I already said.

We can't prove anything about any of these myths, other than the literal text of their recording.

Now, your position can either be that all speculation and interpretation of ancient myths is useless, in which case they basically have no use for informing us about the past and the development of religion.

If that's your view, then that's fine, state your view and move on. Just say, "we can't know anything about these myths, so stop talking about them, all discussion of ancient myth s is 100% useless so stop doing it."

Fine, move along.

The claim that the Sumerian creation myth is rooted in the worship of ancient human rulers as gods is equally unprovable as the claim that it isn't.

No case about this myth can be proven either way.

If your view is that this myth isn't based on the rule of ancient human leaders who became viewed as gods and mythologized, then that view is equally "pseudo-science", since you can't "prove" that either.

[Doug Shaver]

No case about this myth can be proven either way.
You seem to be using "proven" the way a fundamentalist uses it when he says the Bible cannot be proven wrong or contradictory about anything. That kind of proof can only be had in mathematics. Real science does not deal in that kind of certainty.

If your view is that this myth isn't based on the rule of ancient human leaders who became viewed as gods and mythologized, then that view is equally "pseudo-science", since you can't "prove" that either.
My view is that the Bible God is a product of nothing but human imagination. That view could be falsified by hard evidence for an alternative origin, and I can specific quite particularly the kind of evidence that would do that. Until I see such evidence, it is reasonable and scientific for me to believe that my view is correct. I do not need to prove it beyond all possible doubt in order for it be a reasonable belief.

[WishboneDawn]

Well, but this is just the fun inherent in the interpretation of ancient myths, as I already said.

Fixed your post for you. :p :grin:

[Malachi151]

My view is that the Bible God is a product of nothing but human imagination. That view could be falsified by hard evidence for an alternative origin, and I can specific quite particularly the kind of evidence that would do that. Until I see such evidence, it is reasonable and scientific for me to believe that my view is correct. I do not need to prove it beyond all possible doubt in order for it be a reasonable belief.

Absolute nonsense. You have absolutely no evidence at all to support your view, you are just pulling it out of your ass.

The "argument for atheism" doesn't apply here. We aren't talking about proving that something doesn't exist here.

We have a creation story of the Hebrews, it came from somewhere. What is the best explanation for its origin and development?

Your claim is just pulled out your ass based on nothing at all. It is the absolute worst possible and unprovable claim, based on no evidence and not even any investigation.

It is widely agreed upon by anthropologists and scholars of mythology that the Hebrew pantheon and creation story is based on the Sumerian and Babylonian religions. There are hundreds of parallels, and the Hebrew religion developed from a population of people who lived among these other civilizations, so its a much more reasonable view than saying it was pulled out of nowhere.

There is always a difficulty in "proving" links between any religions and cultural ideas. This isn't chemistry or physics. There is no way to solidly "prove" any of this stuff, the vast majority of what cultural anthropologists and mythologists do is unprovable, is all based on correlations and interpretations and speculation, and showing that "things are possible".

Did Buddhism influence the development of Christianity?

We will never be able to "prove" that it did, but we can determine if it was possible, and how likely it would be.

So, for example, we know that the texts of Buddhism were translated into Greek around the 2rd century BCE, we know that Buddhism was known in Egypt and Syrian by the 1st century BCE, and we know that there are similarities between elements of Buddhism and Christianity.

That's pretty much all we can say and all we will ever be able to say. Can we prove an influence based on this? No. But have we proven that an influence is possible? Yes. We can then look at specific textual correlations between Christian texts and Buddhists texts to look for direct influences, and when we do that we don't see good evidence for direct influences, so direct influence seems unlikely, but that doesn't rule out indirect influence.

That's how this field of study goes, its not math, its not physics, and we don't do lab experiments to verify if "religion X was influenced by religion Y".

Now, the scholars agree, and I concur for the same reasons, that the Hebrew religion evolved from the Mesopotamian religions that preceded it. If you want to understand the reasons for this, then fine, go figure out it, do some reading yourself, learn something, in fact you can start with the links I provided in the OP.

My starting positions is that the Hebrew religion evolved from the Sumerian and Babylonian religions, which pretty much every scholar on this subject aside from Christian fundamentalists agrees on.

Given that the Babylonian religion is itself based on Sumerian religion, and the Sumerian religion gives us the oldest recorded creation story and description of gods in the region, or indeed in the world, where did this creation story come from and who are these gods?

The description and depiction of the "gods" by the Sumerians is really the same as human rulers. The Sumerian gods lived on earth, wore clothes, and had human concerns. They "created humans" so that they could do their work for them. The humans that they created were naked and they worked in the "garden of Edin" and gave the fruits of their labor to the "gods". The gods are depicted as people in fancy clothing sitting on thrones which the "naked humans" walk up to and give offerings of the food that they gather. The objective of life for humans, according to the Sumerian myth is to work for the gods.

Now, it seems pretty reasonable to me, that this creation story and the Sumerian religion could be based on very early civilization where human rulers were worshiped as gods, or it could also be a later mythologizing of an early civilization where the rulers were not worshiped as "gods" at the time, but were later mythologized as "gods" by later generations.

In either case, the "gods" described in the Sumerian myth, then, would be human rulers.

I find nothing unreasonable about this proposition, especially since the rulers of Mesopotamia and Egypt were long hailed as gods and sons of gods.

The "Hebrew myth" really is that the worship of a remote and "heavenly" god preceded the worship of human leaders as gods, but the EVIDENCE does not support this view. In the earliest civilizations that we find, human leaders were worshiped as gods, this really seems to be the starting point, not the other way around.

Not only does the evidence indicate that god worship started with the worship of human rulers, but this provides a much better explanation for how god belief evolved and it explain that characteristics of god belief, as well as the historic links between church and state.

So, the view that god belief evolved from the worship of human leaders does have many points of support, and it makes sense.

Now, if it is the case that Sumerian religion evolved from the worship of human leaders, and the Hebrew religion evolved from the Sumerian religion, then ultimately the God of the Hebrews is based on the Sumerian gods, who, were ultimately, rulers of an early slave civilization.

I find that this makes perfect sense, and the possibility for this being the case is certainly supported by the evidence. In other words there is nothing in the evidence that we have that rules this out.

Furthermore, based on my study of ancient and privative cultures, I, as well as others, find that ancient and primitive people didn't tend to simply "make stuff up". I think that this has a lot to do with simply not being very imaginative and having a relatively small set of ideas to work with.

When you look at "creativity" and "story writing" today, people have very highly developed imaginations and we have a huge host of stories and experiences to draw on, and we indeed encourage people to make an effort to "be creative".

This wasn't the case 7,000 years ago, and it wasn't the case in primitive cultures 200 years ago. primitive mythology tends to relate much more directly to the real world than does more modern mythology.

Primitive myths are "less fantastic" and more modern myths are "more fantastic". The myths have grown over time, as all myths tend to do.

Now, Sumerian religion as we have it was recorded about 6,000 years ago.

Hebrew religion as we have it was recorded about 2,700 years ago.

The Christian religion was recorded about 1,900 years ago.

Even assuming that Hebrew religion is older than its recording, it still probably only developed some 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, being newer than Sumerian religion by a greater amount of time than Christianity has even existed. So, the Hebrew religion is still a relatively "modern" religion compared to many other Mesopotamian religions.

The Hebrew religion has undergone a lot of evolution and abstraction from its presumed Sumerian roots, hence the Hebrew development of the idea of some "transcendent heavenly god", as opposed to the earthly rulers of the Sumerians.

What I find to be "pseudo-science" is taking the modern concept of "God" and transposing it back on 6,000 year old civilizations, which is really what the religionists do, they are the ones that claim that their view of God is the original, but in fact there is no evidence for this, and we shouldn't be so foolish as to take their view of god and assume that this was the view of god held by earlier people, i.e. the view of some transcendent heavenly god.