The Genesis Factor. Gnosis Archive | Library | Bookstore | Index | Web Lectures | Ecclesia Gnostica | Gnostic Society by Stephan A. Hoeller The following article was published in Quest, September 1997. It is presented here with permission of the author. SOME YEARS AGO, Elaine H. Pagels, the noted religious historian, had the importance of the Book of Genesis brought to her attention in a most unusual manner. She was in Khartoum, in the African Sudan, holding a discussion with the then foreign minister of that country, who had written a book on the myths of his people. Shortly after this conversation, Pagels was reading a Time magazine in which several letters to the editor took issue with a particular article on changing social mores in America. Pagels realized that, like creation stories of other cultures, the Genesis story addresses profound and basic questions.
Recent events on the intellectual scene have served to affirm these insights. A Different View of Adam and Eve The Serpent of Wisdom. Serpent seed. For the Christian concept of the "seed of the serpent" see Seed of the Woman A sculpture of Adam, Eve and the Serpent at Notre Dame de Paris. In the sculpture, the serpent is depicted as half human. The doctrine that Eve mated with the serpent, or with Satan, to produce Cain also appears in early Gnostic writings such as the Gospel of Philip (c. 350); however, this teaching was explicitly rejected[citation needed] as heresy by Irenaeus (c. 180) and later mainstream Christian theologians. A similar doctrine appeared in Jewish midrashic texts in the 9th century and in the Kabalah.
History[edit] "Two beings [Adam and Nachash] had intercourse with Eve, and she conceived from both and bore two children. In The Scofield Study Bible Scofield says, "The serpent, in his Edenic form, is not to be thought of as a writhing reptile. The doctrine[edit] The main variations are on the aftereffects of the act. The Two Trees. Christian Identity movement[edit] William Branham's teachings[edit]
Sacred history. The term sacred history is sometimes used in theology for the parts of the Torah narrative on the boundary of historicity, especially the Moses and Exodus stories which can be argued to have a remote historical nucleus without any positive evidence to the effect.[1] In a wider sense, the term is used for all of the historical books of the Bible, i.e. Books of Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah and Books of Chronicles, spanning the period of the 10th to 5th centuries BC, and by extension also of the later books such as Maccabees and the books of the New Testament. The term in this sense is used by Thomas Ellwood in Sacred history, or, the historical part of the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, published 1709.
In yet another sense, the term may refer to ecclesiastical history. See also[edit] References[edit] Jump up ^ Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, states. World tree. From Northern Antiquities, an English translation of the Prose Edda from 1847. Painted by Oluf Olufsen Bagge. World tree. Russian ornament. 19th century. Norse mythology[edit] In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the world tree. Siberian culture[edit] The world tree is also represented in the mythologies and folklore of Northern Asia and Siberia. The symbol of the world tree is also common in Tengriism, an ancient religion of Mongols and Turkic peoples. The world tree is visible in the designs of the Crown of Silla, Silla being one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Mesoamerican culture and Indigenous cultures of the Americas[edit] Among pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, the concept of "world trees" is a prevalent motif in Mesoamerican mythical cosmologies and iconography.
A common theme in most indigenous cultures of the Americas is a concept of directionality (the horizontal and vertical planes), with the vertical dimension often being represented by a world tree. Other cultures[edit] Genesis creation narrative. The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. It is made up of two parts, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.
In the first part, Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 2:3, Elohim, the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the world in six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh day. God creates by spoken command ("Let there be... "), suggesting a comparison with a king, who has only to speak for things to happen,[2] and names the elements of the cosmos as he creates them, in keeping with the common ancient concept that things did not really exist until they had been named. Composition[edit] Sources[edit] Although tradition attributes Genesis to Moses, some biblical scholars believe that it, together with the following four books (making up what Jews call the Torah and biblical scholars call the Pentateuch) is "a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.
" Structure[edit] Mesopotamian influence[edit] Παράδεισος. Ancient Greek[edit] Etymology[edit] From Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 (paiṛidaēza, “walled enclusure, encompassing”), from 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌 (paiṛi, “around”) and 𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 (daēza, “wall”). Pronunciation[edit] (5th BC Attic): IPA: /paráde͜esos/(1st BC Egyptian): IPA: /parádiːsos/(4th AD Koine): IPA: /paráðisos/(10th AD Byzantine): IPA: /paráðisos/(15th AD Constantinopolitan): IPA: /paɾáðisos/ Noun[edit] παράδεισος • (paradeisos) (genitive παραδείσου) m, second declension The garden owned by Persian nobilitygarden(biblical) Garden of EdenAfterlife location of the blessed: paradise Inflection[edit] Descendants[edit] Greek: παράδεισος (parádeisos)Hebrew: פרדסLatin: paradīsusEnglish: paradise References[edit] Greek[edit] Etymology[edit] From Ancient Greek παράδεισος (parádeisos) Pronunciation[edit] IPA(key): [paˈraðisɔs] Noun[edit] παράδεισος • (parádeisos) m (plural παράδεισοι) paradise Inflection[edit]
Hebrew language. Northwest Semitic language Hebrew (Hebrew alphabet: עִבְרִית, ʿĪvrīt, pronounced [ivˈʁit] ( listen) or [ʕivˈrit] ( listen); Samaritan script: ࠏࠁࠓࠉࠕ; Paleo-Hebrew script: 𐤏𐤁𐤓𐤉𐤕) is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. It was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a spoken language by their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans, before dying out between 200–400 CE. However, it was largely preserved as a liturgical language, featuring prominently in Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism.
Etymology[edit] One of the earliest references to the language's name as "Ivrit" is found in the prologue to the Book of Ben Sira,[note 4][clarification needed] from the 2nd century BCE.[23] The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people;[24] its later historiography, in the Book of Kings, refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit "Judahite (language)".[25] Notes: Mathers table. Mathers Table from the 1912 edition of The Kabbalah Unveiled. The Mathers table of Hebrew and "Chaldee" letters is a tabular display of the pronunciation, appearance, numerical values, transliteration, names, and symbolism of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet appearing in The Kabbalah Unveiled, S.L.
MacGregor Mathers' late 19th century English translation of The Kabbalah Denudata, itself a Latin translation by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth of the Zohar, a primary Kabbalistic text. This table has been used as a primary reference for a basic understanding of the Hebrew alphabet as it applies to the Kabbalah, generally outside of traditional Jewish mysticism, by many modern Hermeticists and students of the occult, including members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and other magical fraternities deriving from it. It has been reproduced and adapted in many books published from the early 20th century to the present.
See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit] Φωσφόρος. Ancient Greek[edit] Alternative forms[edit] Etymology[edit] From φῶς (phōs, “light”) + -φόρος (-phoros, “bearing”), from φέρω (pherō, “I bring”). Pronunciation[edit] (5th BC Attic): IPA: /pʰɔ͜ɔspʰóros/(1st BC Egyptian): IPA: /pʰoːspʰóros/(4th AD Koine): IPA: /ɸosɸóros/(10th AD Byzantine): IPA: /fospóros/(15th AD Constantinopolitan): IPA: /fospóɾos/ Adjective[edit] φωσφόρος • (phōsphoros) m, φωσφόρος f, φωσφόρον n; second declension That which brings light, light bearingtorch bearing (often as an epithet of a god or priestess) Inflection[edit] References[edit] Greek[edit] Alternative forms[edit] φώσφορος Etymology[edit] From Ancient Greek φωσφόρος (phōsphoros) Noun[edit] φωσφόρος • (fosfóros) m (chemistry) phosphorus, the chemical element (symbol P) Declension[edit] See also[edit]