101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

8 101 Myths of the Bible
Adam and Eve and their children Cain and Abel, deals primarily with issues of moral
concern. In it, we have commandments by God about proper behavior, tales of sin,
murder, and punishment, and something known as the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil. The second Creation story introduces some of the central moral principles of
Western Civilization, such as original sin, moral accountability for one’s actions, being
our brother’s keeper, and the role of marriage.
In addition, the two versions present different images of the deity. The P source
portrays an all-powerful disembodied spirit who can summon forth elements of the
universe with a word, wink, or snap of the fingers. The deity in J has corporal form,
likes to putter around in the garden, bake animal crackers, sculpt little figurines, go for
strolls, and oversee the help as they take care of the house, like a dilettante managing
the country estate.
Theologians concerned with moral teachings and the need for biblical consistency
simply ignore the differences and treat the two stories as part of the same cycle, the earlier
story presenting the cosmic picture and the later one presenting the human dimension.
Scholars, on the other hand, willing to acknowledge contradictions simply accept
that the two stories have different origins and that subsequent editors attempted to
integrate the two separate accounts into a single narrative. Overlooked is that both
sources originate from separate Egyptian traditions.
The P Creation story flows from images in the Theban Creation myth. It unfolds
with the same sequence of events in the same order. The description of the primeval
world before the act of Creation corresponds precisely with the characteristics of the
Ogdoad, the first form of Amen in the Theban myth. The story proceeds with the
spoken word of Ptah and the first light of Atum. A mountain emerges out of the
primeval flood, heaven and earth are separated, the waters of the Nile are gathered
together and vegetation appears.
The process concludes on the sixth day with the creation of an entity labeled in
Genesis 5 as“the Adam,” created in the image of god. On the seventh day, God rested.
But, as we review the text, we see that the redactors made some“cut and paste” errors
in transcribing the P text and that“the Adam” was actually created on the seventh day
and God rested on the eighth day, assuming he rested at all.