How Can You Live Forever


There is an ancient story about a man with whom gods were pleased. The gods warned him they were displeased the rest of human kind punishment was coming. It was coming in the form of a flood which would wipe out all humanity except this man and his family. The gods, of course, needed someone to breed more humans so they decided all would not be murdered except this fine fellow and his family. They would be spared to repopulate the earth. 

The man was instructed to build an enormous boat, an acre in size and with seven levels. He was to bring on board his wife and specimens of all living creatures. 

The flood came as predicted. When the rains stopped the man sent out birds to find dry land. Sure enough, he was able to walk out of the boat along with every other species of life and repopulate the world. As a reward, the gods rewarded the man with immunity from death.

The man's name was not Noah, but Ut-napishtim. The story about him was preserved in stone engravings and in bits of papyrus. The stone carving is dated about 1,000 years before the first writing of the Old Testament. It leads a skeptic like myself to conclude the Bible was not written by God but made up of legends and myths passed down from previous times.

The story of Ut-napishtim is included in the ancient tale of Gilamesh. Gilamesh goes searching for Ut-napishtim hoping that he, too, could be rewarded with life everlasting. Ut-napishtim told Gilamesh about the flood but also that he could attain immortality by eating a secret bit of cactus vegetation. Gilamesth finds some of it and instead of eating it immediately retires to a beautiful spot where there is a pool, like a garden, and everything anyone could ever want. But a nefarious and cunning snake smells the magic food, grabs it and it is gone forever. 

I understand versions of this story are in several religious traditions. My conclusion is the Bible was not written by God for Jews and later Christians. Parts of it were from campfire stories like this one handed down from thousands of years before. The Noah and Adam/Eve stories are good ones. They were not written by a god. 

Comments

  1. Jon LindgrenJune 3, 2020 at 9:21 AM

    Note to Helper--thanks, I ordered the book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ardy BJune 3, 2020 at 3:27 PM

    Jon wrote; “The man [Ut-napishtim] was instructed to build an enormous boat ... He was to bring on board his wife and specimens of all living creatures ... As a reward, the gods rewarded [Ut-napishtim] with immunity from death.”

    Maybe there’s another way to immunity from death, heteropaternal superfecundation.(1) In Hellenistic mythology the twin brothers Castor and Pollux were born to Lida. Castor was sired by Lida’s husband and was mortal. Pollux was sired by the god Zeus and was immortal. They were twin half-siblings.

    Now for some offbeat conflation. There has been scuttlebutt for some time that Jesus had a twin brother named Juda. Some writers have mustered detailed textual evidence and fashioned closely reasoned arguments to support this conclusion. One writer mentioning this topic is someone cited here a few times, none other than Bart Ehrman. “The name Thomas, in fact, is an Aramaic equivalent of the Greek word Didymus, which means “twin.” Thomas was allegedly Jesus’ identical twin, otherwise known as Jude (Mark 6:3), or Didymus Judas Thomas.”(2)

    Now of course for my conjecture Jesus the immortal Son of God sired by the Holy Spirit and His twin brother Jude, presumably not immortal by nature, sired by a mortal man could not be “identical twins”. For this tale we need two ova in the same cycle. Mary must have had a tainted interlude post annunciation. By law with Joseph.

    Paralleling the Hellenistic myth of Lida we have twin half-siblings, mortal Didymus Judas Thomas and the immortal Jesus Christ or “How You Can Live Forever II”. Now scripture says Jesus was not immune from death. His death is paramount to the Christian faith. Yet arising from the dead after three days and ascending into the clouds from earth some forty days later is close enough for this infidel. No offense intended.

    (1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfecundation
    (2) https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-twin-brother-thomas/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. little helperJune 4, 2020 at 7:05 AM

      "apocryphal"; says it all. Got the book. read it years ago. Also, the child Jesus killed a couple of his friend, and brought others back to life. The birds, the birds. (even though his time had not yet come) Did you mention Jesus was a Norwegian? The source of Loki. And the wine was actually aquavit first discovered by licking the under side of a leather cover of a wine vat in the morning after a cool night. Dat happens up nort. In da sout, not so much.

      Delete
    2. little helperJune 4, 2020 at 7:08 AM

      Ya, I got all dem der books then. Takes up about a foot, (size 11) on da shelv.

      Delete

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