Eden

Originally posted by edgewaters Originally posted by Arthur-Robin There are no definate synchronisms between the bible and Mesopotamia at least not ones that fit with the orthodox chronology. Ur was not definately Ur city in Sumer. Gee, you better tell Woolley that he may well have been the victim of one of the most improbable coincidences in the entire history of mankind, considering he located the remains of Ur by using Biblical sources.

That's truly luck, man!

Originally posted by Arthur-Robin There is no way that Wooley located Ur according to biblical sources (which you don't give) because bible only says Ur and "Chaldees". So what there were MANY Ur place names in Mesopotamia.

MANY? I think not. AFAIK, there's only one recorded Ur and you're still grasping at straws if you think the Ur, in the Chaldean Basin, discovered by Woolley by using reference with the places and peoples mentioned, is not Ur of the "Chaldees". Even if there was another Ur, it is unlikely to have belonged to a second group also called the Chaldeans!

Ilu is Akkadian, Anu is the Sumerian with l/n interchange. El in Phoenician is described like Noah in bible.

Err ... no. The word "El" is of definite Mesopotamian origin, either Akkadian or Sumerian. El is clearly described as the supreme deity, not a mortal boatbuilder.

Sure there are many similarities but there are also many differences. It still doesn't proove which is the pure and which is the corrupt.

"True"? "Corrupt"? Lol!

We're talking about archaeological and linguistic origins, not supernatural fantasies and mythological say-so. You're much too literal.

So you can't just say Sumerian is older than [Moses], because you have to compare/contrast the 2 whole schemes of history.

It's a simple matter of timeline. Written Sumerian myths predate the existance of the Hebrews, let alone a written language there or any of their mythologies. It's like saying I can't say whether Rome or the United States came first - about the same difference in years is involved.

The assembly of "gods" were angels.

 

If you want to interpret it that way, but the word used is "gods" not "angels". The archaeological evidence clearly supports an evolution of earlier religions into monotheism, not a magically appearing monotheism that just pops into existance at the beginning of time.

edgewaters:
Sorry but there is equal amount of evidence that religion devolved from "mono" to poly (Langdon, Don Richardson) rather than evolved from poly to mono (Daniken, Cook, Sayce)
Sumerian only predates Hebrew according to orthodox synchronism/chronology which is definately wrong. You still are separating 2 points (Sumerian and Heber/Abram/Moses) from 2 whole lines of history so you can then say one point in one is older than one point in another. Oral is no less correct than written. Sumerians and Hebrews are not linguistically related and ?not racially related?, so they are parallel (or from common.)
To label mine as "fantasy/speculation/"myth"" and yours as "archaeology/linguistic" is deceptive because much of the current orthodox worldview is THEORY. You are too un-literal.
According to my knowledge El is not Sumer-Akkadian but Ilu/Tilla. Even so Sumerian Anu comes before Akkadian Ilu. So where did Sumerian come from? (the l/n possibly interchange.)  Anyway even if they did adopt the word for god/high from Mesopotamia it does not proove that the essence of the bible tradition itself is corrupt.
It is true that Sharrukin has shown there is a difficulty explaining the (ha-)Kasdim part of the name of Ur but all the names of Abram's ancestors were in middle/north none recorded around Ur city (incl Kesed). Not many Ur names? how about:

Ur( ha)-Kasdim/Ur "of the Chaldees" (anachron?):    Urartu/Urashtu/Ararat/Alarodian/u-ru-at-ri/u-rat-ri  (north, late, foreign/Assyrian not Urartian - Van &/or "nw Iran"); Sanliurfa/Urfa/Orchoe (late, Syriac/Turk - Osrohene/Edessa/Admum/Adme close/near Haran); Ur/Hur/Uru/Urummu (not anachronism, city-state/hinter-land/kgdom/supreme, south, earliest, moon, no tracs of Abram recs- Camarina/Tell el-Muqayyar, near Ubaid, Chaldea, prior to the middle of the 1st millennium BC east of Euprates shifted to west); Ki-Uri/Uri-ki (land, north/south, Sumerian - Akkadia); Urmia (Urartian records); Urudtuv (Euphrates); Urud/Urdhu (Akkad/Sippar); Ur/Rome (Babylon); Hurrians (Mitanni/Hanigalbat/Marya/Harran); Urdu/Eridu ("Carchemish"); Ur-kesh (early, 3rd millennium, city - Subartu &/or primarily/mainly Hurrian speaking); Urshu (city - Hurria); Ura (city, Hittite/Ugaritic, not (known) Semites - Gilindere, Cilicia); Europe; Euros; Uruk/Erech (earliest, south, earlier than Ur) ; Urdu/Eridu; Urem (Ad); Uri ("Armenia"); Uru ("Subartu"); Uru (Hawaiki/Polynesian homeland); Uruki/Hurki (Udan/Ashim/Babbar/Sin/Nanna/Aku); orei (mtn); urban/uru/urdu (city/encampment); Ouranos/var (heaven/over/cover, planet); Ursa (Arctic); Ural; Ura (several places in Asia Minor); Urani/Uranes (west/Amenti/Pet); Ura (nne of Haran); Ashur; Urd (Eddaic); Curu (north, Indian); Urus (Peru); Hurru (town, Mitanni, Habur); Hul; Horites, Ura (kgdm Ugarit), Ura (port, Hittite, not Semit - near Amasya northern central Turkey), Ura (Assyrian, eighth-century B.C. - Turkish foothills, northwest of Diyarbekir), Grt Uri and Small Uri (Nuziite, 1400bc - in vicinity Nuzi), Ura and Uru (Eblaite, 3rd mill bc - amoung scores of places within immediate neighhood Ebla), Ure (village, Alalakh text, 1600bc - western edge fert cresc), Ure (Alalakh tabs, 1450bc, place), Ura (village, 1450bc, Alalakh tabs), Ura'u (19th-century B.C., Tell Shemshara, eastern edge of the Fertile Crescent - associated with Khaburatum (connected with Habur), west of Tigris).

Maju:
Noah in Sumerian is not Dumuzi but Ziusudra/Utnapishtim. El (and Ra) is described drunk like Noah.

Ur( ha)-Kasdim/Ur "of the Chaldees" (anachron?):    Urartu/Urashtu/Ararat/Alarodian/u-ru-at-ri/u-rat-ri  (north, late, foreign/Assyrian not Urartian - Van &/or "nw Iran"); Sanliurfa/Urfa/Orchoe (late, Syriac/Turk - Osrohene/Edessa/Admum/Adme close/near Haran); Ur/Hur/Uru/Urummu (not anachronism, city-state/hinter-land/kgdom/supreme, south, earliest, moon, no tracs of Abram recs- Camarina/Tell el-Muqayyar, near Ubaid, Chaldea, prior to the middle of the 1st millennium BC east of Euprates shifted to west); Ki-Uri/Uri-ki (land, north/south, Sumerian - Akkadia); Urmia (Urartian records); Urudtuv (Euphrates); Urud/Urdhu (Akkad/Sippar); Ur/Rome (Babylon); Hurrians (Mitanni/Hanigalbat/Marya/Harran); Urdu/Eridu ("Carchemish"); Ur-kesh (early, 3rd millennium, city - Subartu &/or primarily/mainly Hurrian speaking); Urshu (city - Hurria); Ura (city, Hittite/Ugaritic, not (known) Semites - Gilindere, Cilicia); Europe; Euros; Uruk/Erech (earliest, south, earlier than Ur) ; Urdu/Eridu; Urem (Ad); Uri ("Armenia"); Uru ("Subartu"); Uru (Hawaiki/Polynesian homeland); Uruki/Hurki (Udan/Ashim/Babbar/Sin/Nanna/Aku); orei (mtn); urban/uru/urdu (city/encampment); Ouranos/var (heaven/over/cover, planet); Ursa (Arctic); Ural; Ura (several places in Asia Minor); Urani/Uranes (west/Amenti/Pet); Ura (nne of Haran); Ashur; Urd (Eddaic); Curu (north, Indian); Urus (Peru); Hurru (town, Mitanni, Habur); Hul; Horites, Ura (kgdm Ugarit), Ura (port, Hittite, not Semit - near Amasya northern central Turkey), Ura (Assyrian, eighth-century B.C. - Turkish foothills, northwest of Diyarbekir), Grt Uri and Small Uri (Nuziite, 1400bc - in vicinity Nuzi), Ura and Uru (Eblaite, 3rd mill bc - amoung scores of places within immediate neighhood Ebla), Ure (village, Alalakh text, 1600bc - western edge fert cresc), Ure (Alalakh tabs, 1450bc, place), Ura (village, 1450bc, Alalakh tabs), Ura'u (19th-century B.C., Tell Shemshara, eastern edge of the Fertile Crescent - associated with Khaburatum (connected with Habur), west of Tigris).

A-R

I warned you about lumping together unrelated names clearly without regard to time and space at Simaqian.  Now you are probably going to get a mouthful from Maju and edgewaters on this.  'Nuff said.

Originally posted by Sharrukin A-R I warned you about lumping together unrelated names clearly without regard to time and space at Simaqian.  Now you are probably going to get a mouthful from Maju and edgewaters on this.  'Nuff said.

Personally I tend to ignore such dense and incoherent "things". Now and then I can't resist more and I produce a limite reply, but truly things like the above and what Cuauhtemoc produces in the topic of Creationism are the sort of debates I'm not attracted to: you know that you won't persuade the abstruse poster and that he/she won't persuade anyone either. So why to bother?

Sharrukin:
For Pete's sake all I was doing was replying to edgewaters claiming that there are not "many Ur place names in near/middle east".

The Turk:
El has a no of forms El, Eloah, Elim, Elohim, etc. Allah or "Al-Ilah" is supposedly El but there are other possible derivations like Alala, Alalus, etc. Fact is there is also El-eb and Eliyon. It does not just mean god but high. (El is not Enlil as edgewaters claims.)

Why the heck is it that almost all I have ever had since I connected to net in Dec/Jan is constant negativity. If you[s] all think the current orthodox picture is complete then why aren't all the world's problems fixed? You all just pull down and don't build up, you all just argue the orthodox picture what credit is that? Many of my (possible) "discoveries" were made by not being bound by the orthodox picture (eg every one assumed Americas was the opposite continent so Atlantis had to be in between; eg everyone asccepted deity names could not be etymologically related.)

Maju:
why can't you see that the same can be said by the other side against the orthodox (evolutionary) theory. If you want to call me names like dense and incoherent then get lost, if I am wrong then I want to find out in a helpful way not in a hateful/antagonistic way.

edgewaters:
why do you keep repeating that "Sumerian is older than biblical" I already said you have to oppose the 2 or 3 whole lineages: Eolithic to (Iron) vs Adam to (Herodian) not just 2 points in them.

Even if the Hebrews were related to the Marsh Arabs you can't say Hebrews come  from  Sumerians , they have 2 separate lineages. Then you defeat your own arguement by saying Sumerian was a loose grouping of unrelated peoples ie PARALLEL LINEAGES. In fact Adamu in Sumer-Akkadian is the dark people and Sarku (Shutu?) the light. You just side steped the question where did your "Sumerian El" come from?

The (place) names Abram, Terah, Eber, Shem, Arphaxad, Nahor, Haran, etc were not in Sumeria but in middle/north.

Sure I might be wrong, perhaps Moses did use names etc from Egyptian etc, but to accept that needs an explanation of how the ideas are still true if not the dressing which second part you are not interested in considering because you think it suits your pruposes that disproove dressing supposedly also disprooves the ideas. Its a little bit like saying the God of the bible is not true because the word God comes from Godan/Wodan. Its even possible that the biblical borrowed from a corrupt and corrected it.

Even the Sumerian could be "biblically" true, except that there would have to be evidence of that now. In fact Dilmun can't be Eden because the Sumerians had the name edin for other places.

Some claim Ur city was not called Ur but Hur/Uru/Urummu. Even so if you accept that biblical Ur is true then why not Eden? I can't trust your word without seeing the extra-biblical verses you claim pin point Ur. Rabbinic say Ur was Uruk not Ur city. Josephus doesn't pin-point the city. Those un-canonical sources may be un-canonical for a very good reason they might be less right (tho I agree in synthesising oral and bible.) The bible doesnt pin-point the city and actually contradicts it tho some can make the evidence also fit Ur city.

I too went thru a phase were I believed the bible was corrupt borrowings from pagan (as encouraged by LA Waddel), but it simply did not hold together/was not convincing in the end.

I told you already there is equal amount of evidence that religion devolved from "mono" to poly. The bible is a rare case were we have a whole "mythology" from Creation to end.

"just because salt and sulphur aren't related doesn't disproove that solar and sulpur are."

Personally I tend to ignore such dense and incoherent "things". Now and then I can't resist more and I produce a limite reply, but truly things like the above and what Cuauhtemoc produces in the topic of Creationism are the sort of debates I'm not attracted to: you know that you won't persuade the abstruse poster and that he/she won't persuade anyone either. So why to bother?

Yes, you won't persuade the abstruse poster, however, someone may take him seriously, so I take it upon myself to "clarify" or "correct" the situation if I comprehend what he is trying to say. 

Sharrukin: For Pete's sake all I was doing was replying to edgewaters claiming that there are not "many Ur place names in near/middle east".

He was claiming that there were not many "ur" place-names in Mesopotamia.  India, Europe, classical Syria, Anatolia, Urartu, the Pacific, and heaven aren't "in Mesopotamia".   Come to think about it, the planet Uranus was'nt there either.  If you want to make your point more coherent, you should edit your list.

Edited by Sharrukin

Originally posted by Arthur-Robin Sharrukin: For Pete's sake all I was doing was replying to edgewaters claiming that there are not "many Ur place names in near/middle east".

You're very much twisting our conversation and misquoting me, even as a paraphrase. In connection to the name "Ur" the middle east was never mentioned, only Mesopotamia. That was very clear.

Many of my (possible) "discoveries" were made by not being bound by the orthodox picture (eg every one assumed Americas was the opposite continent so Atlantis had to be in between; eg everyone asccepted deity names could not be etymologically related.)

I am sure your methodology is quite as sound as, say, Von Daniken's.

Its a little bit like saying the God of the bible is not true because the word God comes from Godan/Wodan. Its even possible that the biblical borrowed from a corrupt and corrected it.

Lol, corrected it. See you're starting with a presumption: you want a certain thing to be true. This is a poor way of actually getting at the truth, because pre-judging anything is going to simply cloud the facts.

As far as "Godan" as an origin for "God", if this is typical of what your earlier understanding of Judaism's pantheistic roots are it's no wonder you abandoned them. This isn't the kind of thing that leads scholars to realize those roots. The word "God" is fairly recent. The ancient Hebrews didn't use, it doesn't appear in original Biblical texts. God in ancient times was Elohim or Yahweh, even to the Romans the word was Deus, not "God". God may very well come from "Godan" but that's just a linguistic lineage, and has nothing to do with actual religious evolution.

Pantheistic roots of the Bible are more clearly supported by things like the Ugaritic texts, the plurality in the Pentateuch, earlier incarnations of the same deity in other cultures, the nature of pre-Hebraic Canaanite religion and its connections with Mesopotamian beliefs, etc etc etc.

I too went thru a phase were I believed the bible was corrupt borrowings from pagan (as encouraged by LA Waddel), but it simply did not hold together/was not convincing in the end.

No wonder, Waddell is in the same category as Von Daniken with bizarre theories about the ancient Britons being Phoenicians and God knows what else. Though your specific outlooks have changed, the quality of the methodology behind them doesn't seem to have altered much though. Try something like Israel Finkelstein (controversial, but still fairly sound academically), or one of the many, many lesser known scholars in the field such as Ted Lewis (far less controversial).

Edited by edgewaters

Originally posted by Arthur-Robin All religions/mythologies d/evolved from one common original.

Certainly not. Australian aboriginal beliefs simply don't have anything whatsoever in common with, say, ancient Greek religion and mythology. They just don't. The same is true with lots of religions all over the world.

There are certainly similarities between religions in different places; it doesn't imply any connection at all. Everyone also developed the spear, because similar ideas occurred to people in similar environments. The same is very true with religion - which is why the religions of tribal groups often have some of the same concepts (eg, nature and animal spirits) and religions of urbanized groups often have some of the same concepts (eg building large permanent monuments like temples, ziggurats, cathedrals etc).

Other things occurred to people all over the world in widely separate locations, and they have no common origin. Like, say, the stone axe. Everybody made them a little different, but they were all basically the same idea: a heavy rock with a sharp edge bound with animal guts to a stick. There's simply no reason to think aliens or gods or ancient wizards or whatever needed to show people how to do this, even though they all came up with the same idea. Nor is it at all likely there was some original, pure, "uncorrupted" design for the stone hand axe - all the evidence says they were developed independantly in different locations. Many other things happened this way. That's not to say there wasn't diffusion, especially in Eurasia, but not everything is the result of diffusion.

There are 2 lineages biblical and pagan/pantheist, you can believe that the biblical came from the pagan if you want but you can't proove it.

There are probably thousands of lineages, as many as there were tribes of people in the earliest days of our species.

This is what myths are really about the dualistic and dialectic interplay thru out Time/World (history and prophecy) between the 2 lineages.

Really? What's stories about the medusa got to do with simplistic Manichean nonsense like that? It would be nice if everything in the world could be reduced to a binary question, but it can't.

Religions certainly do change (or "corrupt" as you put it) over time. The kinds of ideas you're promoting are certainly nothing like those held by early Christians, for instance - Manichean views were held as heresy and antithetical to core Christian concepts, primarily because Satan was not viewed as an "anti-God", but a creation of God and a much lesser being. Dualism would require him to be a god in his own right.

There is a very complex interplay between religions where ideas are traded and absorbed between them. Rome (and the wider Hellenic world) was a key nexus where all kinds of things came together, and came out much different - Christianity included. Else you certainly wouldn't have a pine tree hung with baubles at Christmas and painted eggs at Easter, to name an obvious example.

No offense but its supposedly a free world, I have the right to post my own thoughts/feelings. Why do you need to protect people/orthodox picture, let them decide for themselves.

Why are you suddenly asserting your rights? Nowhere in this exchange has anyone implied they should be violated. This amounts to an unfair accusation - either that or you just don't want any of your Atlantean lineage stuff subjected to any kind of critical analysis.

Edited by edgewaters

Originally posted by Arthur-Robin Facts are that flood is proven, Tower of Babel is prooven, red sea crossing is prooven, David is prooven, giants are prooven, dinosaurs contemp with humans prooven, etc.

Please reveal your sources for the above statement.