Archaeologica.org

Nice summation of the Enki-Enlil story. I think that the whole question of literalism comes from writing things down. Once the stories are written out you end locking in whatever the words say and locking out everything else. When you add to that the competitiveness between civilizations that leads ...

That's cool. I just wonder if that doesn't more likely mean that a lot of people in ancient cultures hated snakes.

There is actually something kind of comical going on here. Ken Humphries doesn't say that Valentinius was involved in a power play or that he sneered at anybody. That was only Min's characterization of Humphries statement. The only reason Humphries brings it up is to show that Christianity is a resu...

The big question I have is are these unrelated cults that shared the serpent as a symbol or was there some commonality in the way the worshiped the serpent

Maybe it would be helpful if you defined what the serpent cult is.

Kind of goes back to an earlier discussion about whether someone who believes in a religion is really capable of analyzing it.

The funny part, when you think about it, is that the various kingdoms (Israel, Judah, Judea and the modern State of Israel) were only independent for a combined 150 years at the most and that's counting 60 years for the modern state. so much for the whole covenant business. :D You know, if they act...

Even the Serpent Cult is the product of seeding though, possibly by the Egyptians or its origins could be Vedic. there is a lot of reason to believe that the early Sumerian beliefs were influenced by earlier Vedic beliefs. Absolutely agree. The Sumerian tablets are older than the official date for ...

It seems to me Ken Humphries is looking at only the issue what happened. There is no point in trying to assign motivations that you can't really know.

The Hebrews had their own mythology but they were wiped out by the Babylonians. The Persians re-settled the area and called it 'the return'. In fact the population jumps during that period. These same Persians also controlled Egypt and Greece. Add to that the fact that from Darius I on the Persians...

Personally I think that the Ptolomies were stirring a lot of this up as well. I'm sure they weren't innocent. Supporting different factions to seek a political advantage still goes on today. No reason to think it was any different back then and we have the repeated dynastic squabbles of the later H...

Ironic that you are using the most Gnostic of the Gospels to argue against the Gnosticism of Jesus. I think the power play analogy is right but i don't think the Gnostics were players, just victims. The whole thing was about central authority and control. If you were going to use the Christian brand...

And, when the Greeks tried to do the same thing a couple of centuries later they provoked a rebellion by the followers of the "old" religion.....which was merely not as "old" as they thought it was. I think the difference was that the Persians brought the religion into a country...

But because the Serpent Cult is much older than any religion, I would need to be persuaded of your view. Zoroastrianism, for instance, has at the heart of its creation story the two serpents fighting over the mundane egg. This same idea is also found in Egyptian mythology, and also we have the cada...

It only seems that way because the same religious ideas were sown through the region by the Achemeanids. And, when the Greeks tried to do the same thing a couple of centuries later they provoked a rebellion by the followers of the "old" religion.....which was merely not as "old"...