Thales and Anaximander are da men!!!
THREE EVIDENCES:
1) WATER
2) THE SUN
3) THE APEIRON
It occurs to me how little "Egyptian mythology" had to do with mainly, (Genesis 1, 2, parts of 3, 4, 5 and 6)... they are concepts which only Hellenistic Jews (Greeks) would be familiar with:
The Jews integrated within Greek culture around 300 BC around the time of the oldest known Biblical manuscript. Much modern Biblical literature is actually derived from Greek concepts. Enlightened Greek thought becomes apparent in the opening of Genesis:
One of the first evolutionary theories was proposed by Thales of Miletus (640–546 BC) in the province of Ionia on the coast near Greece followed by Anaximander (550 B.C.) who speculated that life evolved from the water; lower forms of life, in a very primitive precursor to evolutionary theory.
(LIFE EVOLVED FROM WATER)
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." (Genesis 1:20)
Also, the sun... "IF" Genesis were based on ancient Egyptian mythology... a God deity would not 'create' the sun as a material, naturalistic, heavenly "great light"... the sun itself would have been a "god" to the Egyptians. However, the author of Genesis describes the deity (an independent entity) creating a material heavenly source of light and not as a god.
How Ancient Egyptian Religion Affected Farming --> "To the ancient Egyptians, religion was inseparable from everyday existence. They were a nation of farmers, who depended on the fertility of the land and its creatures for their livelihood. In trying to understand how the powers of nature could bring life and destroy it, the Egyptians personified these forces, worshipped them as gods and created myths about them. To retain the favor of the gods, they believed they should farm in accordance with god-given rules, offer sacrifice and continually give thanks." <--
To the ancient Egyptians, "religion" and "science," were the same thing. Inseparable. However, by 600-300 B.C., Greek philosophy makes the first attempt at rational, naturalistic explanations for how things came into being, "Natural Law," began to spread... the opening of Genesis was written in that same vein.
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Besides the fact that the word "Genesis" itself is a Greek word,
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Thales and Anaximander are the men credited for giving rise to the early "Presocratics" precursor of "Evolution" or "Modern Science" (the Old Testament's "mythical account") bear strong similarities to their beliefs:
Evolution and Paleontology in the Ancient World
"...For Anaximander, the world had arisen from an undifferentiated, indeterminate substance, the apeiron. The Earth, which had coalesced out of the apeiron, had been covered in water at one stage, with plants and animals arising from mud. Humans were not present at the earliest stages; they arose from fish. This poem was quite influential on later thinkers, including Aristotle.
Had Anaximander looked at fossils? Did he study comparative fish and human anatomy? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what evidence Anaximander used to support his ideas. His theory bears some resemblance to evolutionary theory, but also seems to have been derived from various Greek myths, such as the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in which peoples or tribes are born from the Earth or from stones. His concept of the apeiron seems similar to the Tao of Chinese philosophy and religion, and to the "formless and void" Earth of the Hebrew creation account and other creation myths. However, even though Anaximander's ideas drew on the religious and mythical ideas of his time, he was still one of the first to attempt an explanation of the origin and evolution of the cosmos based on natural laws."
[Sadly, what the site fails to mention is that the oldest known biblical manuscripts date no earlier than around 300 B.C., therefore, Anaximander (610-545 B.C.) could not have based any of his concepts on Biblical Hebrew. However it can be deduced, the Hebrew Genesis account was borrowed from mainstream Greek philosophy.]
Religion and Science were all the same, inseparable to the Egyptians, but by the time of 300 BC Greek influence over the Hellenistic Jews, philosophy was beginning to evolve, transform...branching and diversifying separately into "Religion" and "Science" thanks to Thales and Anaximander who lived about three centuries BEFORE the Jewish scribes jotted down any known manuscripts that remain today. As Norman Geisler argues, "no original autographa exist" before that 300 B.C. date. To presume there were any earlier manuscripts, is merely a speculative shot in the dark. Nonetheless, the author of Genesis was blatantly copying concepts invented by Thales and Anaximander, and not the other way around.
Therefore, with that understanding in mind it is quite amazing to realize that the supposed "battle between Science and Religion" --both evolved from the same original source: Greek Philosophy.
That very topic is the discussion, located at this link on the Battle between Science and Religion.
Evolution is described between the verses, and Biblical translators had a heck of a time trying to coherently translate what the author's meaning was. This is EVOLUTION (the precursor), in ancient Greek thought.
Genesis contains a blatant wholesale borrowing of Greek concepts -- the Creationists, who are completely and thoroughly ignorant of the scientific processes involved in Agriculture can't read their own Bible, and understand what the author is describing, when writing, "Before its kind," and "After its kind," -- but ancient farmers would have known this process as Agriculture 101 :
"...The Greeks had, it is true, no term exactly equivalent to "evolution"; but when Thales asserts that all things originated from water..."
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, iep.utm.edu
The Ancient Greeks did not have a word, "Evolution". But allude to it, in their language.
Genesis 2:5
(Some translations emphasize the absence of cultivated plants i.e., broccoli, cauliflower ------ while other translations emphasize their precursor, the wild ancestor, mustard plant which man used ARTIFICIAL SELECTION to cultivate . . . man created these vegetables, God did not create them. The author of Genesis confirms this:(1) CULTIVATED "PLANTS OF FIELD" DO NOT EXIST :
English Standard Version
"...no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up .... there was no man to work the ground..."New American Standard Bible
"...no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted .... there was no man to cultivate the ground."(2) ONLY WILD PLANTS (THEIR ANCESTORS) DO EXIST
King James Bible
"...And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ....there was not a man to till the ground."Jubilee Bible 2000
"...and every plant of the field before it was in the earth and all the grass of the field before it grew... neither was there a man to till the ground."
The Hellenistic Jewish author, is struggling to do his best to describe the process of "artificial selection" -- how wild plants ("before its kind") became "plants of the field" ("after its kind").
Creationists are out of touch with the Farming Culture that is responsible for the opening chapters of Genesis.
"Before its kind."
"After its kind."
Some time ago, I engaged a so-called "Theistic Evolutionist" holding a PhD, who didn't apparently have an original thought of his own and blanket copying other theistic evolutionists, eager to chunk "Genesis" into the wastebasket of "mythological rubbish" WITHOUT investing a smidgen of scholarly study, to actually understand the perspective of the author of Genesis or the Agricultural society in which the author lived. Like a blind obsession -- a machine of sort, "must destroy Genesis"... but that's not understanding.
The argument they made was that ancient people would not have directly observed changes in livestock or crops.
Oh WRONG! yes they would...
The author of Genesis was far more educated about "Artificial Selection" (cultivation of crops and livestock than the clowns graduating from Universities with PhD's in Theology), creationists and theistic evolutionists are out of touch with this book they call the Bible.
"...If a farm pig escapes and joins a group of wild pigs, the newcomer won't take years to start shedding habits acquired over millennia of domestication. According to Pennsylvania Game Commission veterinarian Dr. Walt Cottrell, pigs "take only 30 DAYS to become literally wild." Appearance alone isn't a reliable way to identify a wild or feral hog -- some grow thick fur and look boarlike, others still look like farm pigs -- but males grow razor-sharp tusks from upper and lower canines. Unlike the typically placid pink porkers on the farm, wild pigs can be aggressive and dangerous."
(Source)
At least Billy Graham was humble enough to confess they lack the ability to properly interpret the scriptures sometimes. Others are too arrogant for having the open-minded search for understanding, and too lazy for the study involved with it! Yes, too LAZY...
Good men died to bring "Christians" that Bible that sits in every hotel room, and library shelf and on the pews of church sanctuaries... Bibles are mass manufactured in China and sent to the U.S. by the boatload and Christians rarely crack open the book and read it.
Billy Graham on Evolution: “I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the scriptures. I think that we have MISINTERPRETED the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things they WEREN'T MEANT TO SAY, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. … whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.”
- Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, 1997. p. 72-74
Who Wrote the Books of Moses?
M.S. wrote: "This is fascinating. It is amazing to me that I was just thinking about some of these things, timeline wise, and here you have done a lot of research and answered questions I hadn't yet asked!"
This truly makes me believe in thought connection (not necessarily psychic ability, but the connection between all humanity)
What a wonderful quote from Billy Graham. I have always liked him. He seems to be a truly deep thinking man, not just spouting Christian propaganda, or mass thinking like that phD you mentioned....
Thank you, I enjoyed reading this, and all your extras.
Thanks... I love the opening chapters to the book of Genesis, because they're so much more than they seem on the surface. That period (600-300 BC) in history was a turning point, the precursor to what would become "modern science" --and sadly, the contribution of Greek thought has been avoided, missed or glossed over for centuries by theologians.
Edward T. Babinski has written numerous articles on the topic "Who wrote the books of Moses?" It's quite obvious what he's written about much of the books, written in the "Third Person" perspective like below:
Israelites and Canaanites. How Different Were They?
"...In short, the Pentateuch reads like a story "about" Moses, written in the third person, and from the point of view of later editors (as demonstrated by many little phrases scattered throughout the Pentateuch) rather than being a story written entirely by Moses. In fact, whomever wrote the Pentateuch, they did not make any great effort to disguise the fact that Moses "wrote" only select portions, not the whole books, just sections mentions within them."
Who wrote the books of Moses?
All of us know Moses didn't write this:
Deuteronomy 34:1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
4: And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.
5: So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
6: And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
7: And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
There are still tribes today who pass down "oral records" (this was shown in the movie "Roots" when Alex Haley traveled to the River people who were his ancestors) the record of their ancestors was recited orally). Ancient people would have used this method,
James Earl Jones as Alex Haley discovers his Roots (2/24/1979)
According to Alex Haley, the story was passed down through his family in English that Kunta Kinte was searching a tree to make a drum when he was abducted centuries earlier. The "Record" was also kept alive orally by these "ancient" people. (Video clip use for educational purposes.)
ORAL TRADITIONS?
Who wrote the first 5 books in the Bible?
"...The books themselves claim to have been written by Moses, and there are portions of Genesis that Moses was a compiler of early documents or as some believe wrote down the memorized oral tradition (Gen.1-10)."
Or, "oral traditions" which were passed down and finally added into books "written about Moses" and attributed to Moses... which is not saying a man named Moses never lived, there just aren't any such records, and I tried very hard to find manuscripts dating to the 1000+ BC era. There just aren't any, although the Egyptians created manuscripts (now located in Museums) which date to the 2000 BC era, and they are preserved just fine. So why didn't the Hebrews keep written records.
Ed's articles show how the language was a Canaanite language, so anything earlier than 1000+ BC wouldn't likely have been in "Hebrew" anyway.
Funny. Language "evolves" so quickly, just give any Christian a 400 year old copy of the 1611 King James Bible and ask them to read it!
OLDEST KNOWN HEBREW SCROLLS (600-300 BC), which sets the known manuscripts within the era of the Greek Hellenistic Jews.
Dead Sea Scrolls
"...Biblical text older than the Dead Sea Scrolls has been discovered only in two silver scroll-shaped amulets containing portions of the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers, excavated in Jerusalem at Ketef Hinnom and dated c. 600 BCE. A burnt piece of Leviticus dating from the 6th century CE analyzed in 2015 was found to be the fourth-oldest piece of the Torah known to exist.
Most of the texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic (in different regional dialects, including Nabataean), and a few in Greek.[6] If discoveries from the Judean desert are included, Latin (from Masada) and Arabic (from Khirbet al-Mird) can be added.[7] Most texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus and one on copper."CT scan of charred scroll yields oldest Biblical remnant after Dead Sea Scrolls
High-tech deciphering of parchment found in ancient Ein Gedi synagogue, excavated 45 years ago, yields text from Book of Leviticus
"The document, found during the excavation of the synagogue in Ein Gedi 45 years ago, was burned 1,500 years ago while stored inside the ark in the ancient house of worship. Since then, however, the text has been unreadable.""...The Isaiah Scroll, found relatively intact, is 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found."
Dead Sea scrolls: world's oldest copy of the Ten Commandments to go on display in Israel
2,000-year-old scroll will remain at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for two weeks
That's what is exciting about the article written by the "Secular Jew" on the history of Judea.
The Greeks not only conquered Judea geographically, but were actively working to "Hellenize" the Jewish people in thought as well as other aspects in their culture, and yes "intellectual" Greek thought as well --especially their religious culture, which would include the opening chapters in the "book" of Genesis.
This explains how Thales and Anaximander's naturalist "philosophical" explanation for the origins of life got tied with "God" in that book.
It's clear the author of Genesis does not perceive the sun to be a god (like the Egyptians' mythology) but instead, attributes the material "great light" to be an act of creation by an independent deity that created it.
It was a defining moment in history... the Egyptians had no separation between their gods and science (even their scientists were deified as gods, i.e. Imhotep, the great mathematician). In contrast, the Greeks introduced naturalistic philosophy (precursor to modern science) - the Hellenistic Jews were willing to accept natural phenomena but attempt to explain it, as an "act of a God" -- a compromise with Greek philosophy :
The Jewish Culture under Greek Hellenism
Geographic and Cultural Factors
...the return of the Jews to their native homeland after the Babylonian captivity, circa sixth century B.C.,
... In 332 B.C. the Greeks conquered Judea, and while being conquered was nothing new to the Jews (having faced this before by Assyria, Babylon, and Media-Persia), this conquest presented a unique challenge.
...This victory presented the small nation with a challenge that it had not faced under its previous conquers, the Persians. Under Persian control the Jews were actually encouraged to rebuild their religious and indigenous institutions and traditions. All the Persians wanted was political loyalty, and taxes. Whatever humiliations and problems the occupation presented, religious freedom generally remained secure.
Under the Greeks things were different. Never suffering from a lack of hubris, the Greeks weren’t satisfied with a mere military conquest. Believing in a kind of “manifest destiny” to spread their culture, institutions, ideas, and way of life to “barbarians” (anyone not Greek), they worked very hard, and quite successfully, to do just that. Now, having conquered more “barbarians,” this time in Judea, the Greeks were determined to continue their process of Hellenization, even in the land that God promised the descendants of Abraham many centuries earlier (Genesis 12:7).Hellenized Jews
"...It was working, too. Though scholars debate how far Hellenization went, it took a certain hold. Within a century after the conquest of Alexander, Greek cities (each known as a polis), which became centers for promulgating Greek ideas and culture, were founded in various parts of Judea.
The problem was exacerbated by corruption in the priesthood, which served as the de facto political leadership in Jerusalem at that time. Two corrupt priests, Jason and then Menelaus, both passionate Hellenizers, helped make Jerusalem look more and more like a Greek polis than the capital of God’s covenant people and the chosen site of the sacred Temple. During their rule the first gymnasium—a Greek center for both intellectual and physical education—was built in Jerusalem. According to 2 Maccabees 4 (the book of Maccabees being a key source for this period), Jason did away with Jewish law and introduced Greek customs into the city: “With great enthusiasm he built a stadium near the Temple hill and led our finest young men to adopt the Greek custom of participating in athletic events.” Internecine fighting between the followers of Jason (who weren’t seen as Hellenistic enough) and those of Menelaus led to the violent intervention of the Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in 169-168 B.C."
Preserving "Moses" through Oral Tradition
The same is known about Jesus -- Christian theologians and scholars embrace the fact, stories about Jesus circulated far and wide for 30 years after his death before "witness accounts" were written down. So why is it so difficult for people to accept an "oral tradition" regarding Moses? Were the Gospels any less attributable to the authorship of Jesus, because they were derived from oral tradition?
Some want to believe "Moses wrote the first five books," just like some want to believe, "God wrote the Bible," while others want to believe "Jesus read the King James Version of the Bible".
On Oral Tradition and the reliability of the formation of the Pentateuch
By: Jay Antonic
"...The question is, "How did the story get into the book of Genesis?".
Much of human history that we know of was transferred orally*
/EXCERPT
Importance of the Oral Tradition
Before the gospels were composed, Jesus' first followers sustained his memory by sharing stories of his life, death and teachings.
"...It's rather clear from the way that the stories develop in the gospels that the Christians who are writing the gospels a generation after the death of Jesus are doing so from a stock of oral memory, that is, stories that had been passed down to probably by followers. But if we think about the death of Jesus and remember a group of people who would have still been attached to him and to his memory after his death, it must have been a rather stark and traumatic period of time."
/EXCERPT
Oral Traditions
"The Elders would serve as mnemonic pegs to each other. They will be speaking individually uninterrupted in a circle one after another. When each Elder spoke they were conscious that other Elders would serve as ‘peer reviewer’ [and so] they did not delve into subject matter that would be questionable. They did joke with each other and they told stories, some true and some a bit exaggerated but in the end the result was a collective memory. This is the part which is exciting because when each Elder arrived they brought with them a piece of the knowledge puzzle. They had to reach back to the teachings of their parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents. These teachings were shared in the circle and these constituted a reconnaissance of collective memory and knowledge. In the end the Elders left with a knowledge that was built by the collectivity."
Stephen J. Augustine,
Hereditary Chief and Keptin of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council 1
"...Throughout history, Aboriginal societies in North America have relied on the oral transmission of stories, histories, lessons and other knowledge to maintain a historical record and sustain their cultures and identities. According to scholars Renée Hulan and Renate Eigenbrod, oral traditions are “the means by which knowledge is reproduced, preserved and conveyed from generation to generation. Oral traditions form the foundation of Aboriginal societies, connecting speaker and listener in communal experience and uniting past and present in memory."2 Western discourse has come to prioritize the written word as the dominant form of record keeping and until recently, Westerners have generally considered oral societies to be peoples without history. This could not be further from the truth. Oral societies record and document their histories in complex and sophisticated ways, including performative practices such as dancing and drumming. Although most oral societies, Aboriginal or otherwise, have now adopted the written word as a tool for documentation, expression and communication, many still depend on oral traditions and greatly value the oral transmission of knowledge as an intrinsic aspect of their cultures and societies."
/EXCERPT
On the reliability of "Oral Tradition"
Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology
Jan Vansina, Transaction Publishers, 1972 - Africa
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