Original Sin and pagan gods

b sharp · 07 Aug 2006, 11:49 · from 2006-August.txt.gz

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From: bsharporflat at hotmail.com (b sharp)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:49:15 -0400
Subject: (urth) Original Sin and pagan gods
Message-ID: <BAY103-F34F2D633F6B676D266E514D7570 at phx.gbl>

Regarding Dan'l's response (copied below), I'll have to express chagrin that 
Lilith wasn't mentioned which makes me think he didn't read my "E&G- the 
need for Ushas" post which was inspired by an earlier prompt from him (and 
duly noted ;-) ).  I think some of the objections he makes were addressed 
there. Nonetheless...

Dan'l, you seem to agree with the main point of this thread, that the pagan 
gods, the competitors to Judeo-Christianity, were incestuous.  Whether this 
is important to Urth and especially Severian remains to be seen, but I think 
it is.  I have one or two essay-like posts left in me on this topic, then 
I'm done.  So this next part is just hair-splitting, for fun.

Regarding your alternate interpretations of Genesis I can only note that the 
ones I used are certainly not my own.  Seeing the talking serpent as 
representing the Devil, the flood as God's cleansing of evil from earth, and 
Adam and Eve as the parents of all humanity are all fairly standard 
interpretations I think.  I find plenty of references, anyway.  Your view of 
the fig leaf as a surrogate protective fur coat for a "naked ape" is pretty 
radical and anthropological (was that from Desmond Morris? or Carl Sagan, 
Dragons of Eden?). I think the interpretation of the fig leaf representing 
sexual shame is more mainstream.  Other opinions on this, anyone?

But to me the main point isn't about finding true word of God or the 
majority Christian or secular scholarly opinion of the Bible but rather Gene 
Wolfe's interpretation.  In the past, when I read Dr. Talos' play I loved it 
but I didn't have much of a clue as to what it meant.  Now, almost every 
line makes sense interpreted within the Genesis/Pagan god/Christianity 
framework I'm trying to build.  If there is an another way to interpret it, 
I am definitely interested and I hope it will be posted.   But in 9 years of 
posts in here and in all the other potential sources out there I haven't 
seen anything notable.  Maybe Peter Wright's Attending Daedalus has 
something about E&G but after reading excerpts from that book I haven't 
worked up the nerve to buy it yet :)).

I think Wright addresses BotNS from a socialist perspective, with a strong 
implied criticism of imperialism and colonialism.  I am comfortable with 
this interpretation within my own framework, as I think BotNS might be 
implying that such evils of humanity are derived from the same source as all 
evil, that being interaction with fallen angels/demons/pagan gods.  In the 
text, the corrupt Autarch of Eschatology and Genesis and the multi-world 
monarchy of Typhon are examples of social evil in contrast to more personal 
sins.

-bsharp

Dan'ls Post:

>b writes:

>The flood was meant to purify humanity from contamination

... ummm, not in any Bible I've ever read. God means to wipe out
all life on Earth, then gives Noah & family a reprieve. Though
Noah "walked with God" and all that, he is not "pure" -- first,
because he's descended from Adam and thus subject to the
taint of original sin (though that is not really a concept in the
OT); second, because he's a drunkard. So reducing the human
race to Noah isn't "purifying" by any means.

>while Jesus brought a different way of purifying sin.  The
>contamination of humanity with nephilim and Original Sin
>were both products of people interacting with fallen angels
>or demons/devils.

The idea that the serpent was "the devil," or even a devil,
is decidedly a bit of latter-day retconning: in Genesis, he's
just, well, a serpent. As for the nephilim ... nobody really
has a clue what they were supposed to be.

>What was Original Sin?  Eating of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of
>Knowledge was a disobedience of God's rule but what knowledge
>was gained?

It isn't "the tree of knowledge," it's the "tree of the knowledge of
good and evil," which answers the question. What that means is
a whole nother question. Charles Williams (the third of the fantasists
who hung about with CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien in "the Inklings")
suggested that we should consider it "the knowledge of good _as_
evil" -- the idea that all that was created was good, and sin allows
us to see it as not-good. I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's
interesting.

>Adam and Eve's first act after eating the fruit was not to invent calculus
>or philosophy but to cover themselves with fig leaves.  So the forbidden
>knowledge they gained was a sexual awareness of each other.

Uhhh... no. Adam covers himself with fig leaves because "I saw that
I was naked, and I was afraid." The first "knowledge" gained from
knowing good and evil is the knowledge of how vulnerable we naked
apes are.

This kind of obviates the entire question of sex being forbidden, but
let's look at this detail...

>The anthropologist's "Universal Taboo" is incest.  From a SF (and
>perhaps Wolfe's) perspective, using Adam's rib to create Eve would
>be a form of cloning.

Ummmm.... not so much. It's pretty clear that more than simple
growth would be involved. You're thinking of miracles as scientific
processes; what Wolfe does (viz the cathedral and the balloon)
is to think of scientific processes as miracles.

>So Adam and Eve were really the closest of siblings, identical
>twins.  Even if that weren't true, Adam and Eve's children were full
>siblings and their intercourse was all incestuous.

No. While Genesis doesn't say where they came from, it's clear
that there are other people in the world: Cain leaves home after
killing Abel, and finds a wife _somewhere_ out there.

On the other hand, your point about the incestuous nature of the
pantheons of the surrounding peoples is right to the mark. In
particular, in Egypt -- which to the early Israelites was clearly
Hell on Earth -- the incestuous relations between the gods mirrored
(or was mirrored in) the incestuous marriages of the Pharaohs.
The throne descended through the female line; to keep it, the
Pharaohs would marry mothers, sisters, and daughters. This was
justified by Osiris' marriage to Isis; but which came first? The
primary cult of the Old Kingdom was the cult of Ra; the rise
of the cult of Osiris (and Isis, Horus, and Anubis) came later.

>So, yeah, that point is very well made.

--
>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant

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