Or was the commandment not to eat certain fruit from certain tree given by telepathy?
Has any thought been given to which language god spoke to Adam and Eve?
- Thread starter Michael 345
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
How did Adam and Eve communicate with each other?
Well that would have come after god spoke to them I am guessing
Yes I know it's a fantasy but how has religion concocted a answer?
They all spoke Sumerian. In the story from which the Hebrew creation is derived, the Sumerian pantheon made all the animals and then men and women. Since the Black-Headed People were created expressly to serve those gods, of course they understood the same language.
I guess each religion proceeds on the assumption that the protagonists of its mythology communicate in the language in which the books was written; in this case, they would have to be multilingual, since the characters in Genesis (of which the garden story is only a small part) wander all over Mesopotamia, talking fluently with all sorts of other people.
Yes, and that's still in Genesis.
11: 5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
The gods (notice plural) are still worried about mankind becoming too clever and powerful, and maybe coming after their thrones. This was the same reason, remember, that a few chapters before, mankind was expelled from the walled compound, where the gods kept their two magic trees.
11: 5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
The gods (notice plural) are still worried about mankind becoming too clever and powerful, and maybe coming after their thrones. This was the same reason, remember, that a few chapters before, mankind was expelled from the walled compound, where the gods kept their two magic trees.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
It seems to me this is a non-issue.Well that would have come after god spoke to them I am guessing
Yes I know it's a fantasy but how has religion concocted a answer?
If one accepts, for the sake of the question, the scenario that there was a first man and a first woman, and that they had language, then that is the language used, obviously. It is not necessary to give it a name, especially since it might not be recognisable to people living later.
But since in any case the view of mainstream Christianity is that the story is allegorical, the question of the language they spoke is irrelevant, as it has no bearing on the message of the allegory.
But the story of Babel is all about language as a tool of co-operation among humans and thus inimical to gods.
Christians may be able to pretend each "allegory" is unattached to all the others and can be interpreted in a different context for a different purpose --
that doesn't mean the rest of us have to!
Christians may be able to pretend each "allegory" is unattached to all the others and can be interpreted in a different context for a different purpose --
that doesn't mean the rest of us have to!
Thanks makes sense. Only asked because question was installed from another forum I dabble in
The story is meaningless to modern North Americans, except as it's presented to them by their various spiritual leaders, because it's not their mythology: it's inherited sixth-hand from quite alien peoples. That's why the Bible not only can be, but must be chopped into manageable chunks and fed to the congregations piecemeal, with a generous side of theological commentary.
Every society has a body of literature that includes myths, heroic tales, folklore, moral guidance and tradition that forms the basis of their culture; that contains their common belief in a group origin and describes their world-view.
The Mayflower, George Washington's cherry tree, Babe the blue ox, Johnny Appleseed, Suzannah with the banjo, the Alamo and Mount Rushmore have more relevance to Americans and need no middlemen to explain them.
PS If you dabble much in biblical questions, I can recommend that ^^ site I quoted, for a convenient reference source.
Every society has a body of literature that includes myths, heroic tales, folklore, moral guidance and tradition that forms the basis of their culture; that contains their common belief in a group origin and describes their world-view.
The Mayflower, George Washington's cherry tree, Babe the blue ox, Johnny Appleseed, Suzannah with the banjo, the Alamo and Mount Rushmore have more relevance to Americans and need no middlemen to explain them.
PS If you dabble much in biblical questions, I can recommend that ^^ site I quoted, for a convenient reference source.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
No mainstream denomination treats the Genesis story of creation as literal and they have not done for centuries.Until it is not
Define "mainstream".
I live in Texas, the buckle of the Bible belt. Southern Baptist is one of the "mainstream" religions around here. It's hard to get any consensus as to what they believe. Ask 4 Baptists and you'll get 5 opinions.
How could you! He also spoke Sumerian. Remember, this is a version of a story that had already been retold for two hundred or more generations before the Hebrews ever heard it. If you listen to folk-tales from native story-tellers anywhere in the world, in the oldest ones, other species very often converse and interact with humans on equal terms. They were not robbed of their souls until permanent agricultural settlement was the human norm.I almost forgot the snake
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Hoho, yes, I lived in Houston for a couple of years.
I meant the denominations with a structure, a recognisable body of doctrine and professional clergy: Catholics, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians. Once you get to Baptists you are getting into the realms of the people who just wake up one day, decide to become pastors, and found their own churches, with little or no training. So it's not surprising they have primitive notions about how to interpret the Old Testament.
Nevertheless, the Baptist Christianity is a mainstream religion in the US.
So is fundamentalist Christianity of the Methodist, Catholic, and Presbyterian categories.
The vast majority of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians regard the Biblical text as clear, and believe that the average person may understand the basic meaning and teachings of the Bible. Such Christians often refer to the teachings of the Bible rather than to the process of interpretation itself.
It's a pretty big list.
It's a pretty big list.