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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mark silvers who wrote (25288)	5/3/1999 4:56:00 PM
From: Sam Ferguson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

Mark we disagree. We are not a piece of God separated. God cannot be separated into parts, however it may be semantics will not let me explain to your satisfaction. Just keep searching yourself for answers. When you are ready the Master will appear.

To: mark silvers who wrote (25288)	5/4/1999 7:27:00 AM
From: Sam Ferguson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

Mark thought you might be interested in Judaism so here is excerpt from book on Judaism: Judaism Sources and development Myth and legend in the Old Testament The vast repertoire of Jewish myths and legends begins with the Old Testament. Their overall purpose in Scripture is to illustrate the ways of God with man, as exemplified both in historical events and in personal experience. The stories themselves are often derived from current popular lore and possess abundant parallels in other cultures, both ancient and modern. In each case, however, they are given a peculiar and distinctive twist. Myths Old Testament myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. They are concerned with the creation of the world and of man, the origin of the continuing human condition, the primeval Deluge, the distribution of peoples, and the variation of languages. The basic stories are derived from the popular lore of the ancient Middle East and can be paralleled in the extant literature of the peoples of the area. The Mesopotamians, for instance, also knew of an earthly paradise such as Eden, and the figure of the cherubim--properly griffins rather than nightgowned angels--was known to the Canaanites. In the Bible, however, this mythical garden of the gods becomes the scene of man's fall and the background of a story designed to account for the natural limitations of human life. Similarly, the Babylonians, too, told of the formation of man from clay, but in the scriptural version his function is to bear rule over all other creatures, whereas in the pagan tale it is to serve as an earthly menial of the gods. Again, the story of the Deluge, including the elements of the ark and the dispatch of the raven and dove, appears already in the Babylonian myths of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. There, however, the hero is eventually made immortal, whereas in the Bible this detail is omitted because to the Israelite mind no child of woman could receive that status. Lastly, while the story of the Tower of Babel was told originally to account for the stepped temples (ziggurats) of Babylonia, to the Hebrew writer its purpose is simply to inculcate the moral lesson that man should not build beyond his assigned station. (See Syrian and Palestinian religion, original sin, flood myth.) Scattered through the Prophets and Holy Writings (the two latter portions of the Hebrew Bible) are allusions to other ancient myths--e.g., to that of a primordial combat between Yahweh and a monster variously named Leviathan (Wriggly), Rahab (Braggart), or simply Sir Sea or Dragon. The Babylonians told likewise of a fight between their god Marduk and the monster Tiamat; the Hittites told of a battle between the weather god and the dragon Illuyankas; while from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), in north Syria, has come a Canaanite poem relating the discomfiture of Sir Sea by the deity Baal and the rout of an opponent named Leviathan. (Originally, this myth probably referred to the annual subjugation of the floods.) (See Ketuvim.) Ancient myths are utilized also in the form of passing allusions or poetic "conceits," much as modern Westerners may speak of Cupid or the Muses. Thus, there are references in the prophetic books to a celestial upstart hurled to Earth on account of his brashness and to the imprisonment of certain rebellious constellations. The prophets used such myths paradigmatically to illustrate the hand of God in contemporary events or to reinforce their forecasts. Thus, to Isaiah the primeval dragon becomes the symbol of that continuous force of chaos and evil that will again have to be vanquished before the Kingdom of God can be established on Earth. Similarly, for Ezekiel the celestial upstart serves as the prototype of the prince of Tyre, destined for an imminent fall; and Habakkuk sees in the impending rout of certain invaders a repetition on the stage of history of Yahweh's mythical sortie against the monster of the sea.