Genesis2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Rashi explains the dust came from the four corners of the Earth so that wherever he may die the Earth would accept him. Alternately from the Earth from where the future Temple would be built. That man was made of both earthly and heavenly matter. Animals have an inferior soul. Mans has understanding and speech.
Rambam - Guide for the Perplexed Chapter L : “It is one of the fundamental principles of the Law that the Universe has been created ex nihilo, and that of the human race, one individual being,
Adam, was created. As the time which elapsed from Adam to Moses was not more than about two thousand five hundred years,....” {ETA In Rambm's Beit Habechirah - Chapter 2 Paragraph 2 - Adam, the first man, offered a sacrifice there [the location of King David's alter] and was created at that very spot, as our Sages said: "Man was created from the place where he [would find] atonement." }
Per modern science there was no original Adam, mankind arose much more than 2,500 years prior to Moses, and Man was not created from earth/clay. There was no breath or soul from a supernatural being required for human life to come about - more on this later.
Not only is Genesis most likely a false myth it has numerous pagan parallels.
Here are just a sampling from the book Myth Legend and Custom In The Old Testament by Theodor H. Gaster 1969
Beginning Page 9 “This fancy [referring to Man formed from Clay/Earth] is, however, by no means confined to scripture. The Mesopotamians too conceived man to have been fashioned in such a manner.” The goddess Aruru is said to have pinched him out of clay. The mother-goddess Mama/Mami formed seven primeval males and 7 primeval females out of clay. [There is that magic number 7 again.]
Egyptian Mythology - the potter god Knum molds man on the wheel.
Greeks - Prometheus molds the first man out of clay and water.
Similar types of stories are found among the aborigine Australian Blacks, the New Zealand Maoris, the Indian classic Satapatha Brahmana, and on and on.
Beginning on Page 19 “The rude clay, we are told, was animated by the breath of God. This Idea too is by no means exclusive to the Bible.”
Here are a sampling of examples from the book.
Hindu myth has creator god Prajapati bring life to man in the same way thus imparting to him mental and spiritual faculties.
Yorubas of West Africa have the supreme god Olorun give life to an insensate clod in a similar manner.
Similar stories are found among some native American tribes, some Eskimos etc: etc:
------------------------------------------------
Is the Genesis false myth consistent with the hypothesis that the Torah is true ? That the Torah is from God ? In other words, does this verse increase our confidence that the Torah is true ? That it is from God ? I would say no and no. Not just that. I would argue it is evidence against both those hypotheses.
Now onto the argument Proof of God from Origin of Life. (Related to this argument see Proof of God from Origin of Life, Proof of God from Free Will, Justice, Consciousness, BLANK )
It is obvious that say a rock is different in so many ways from a living moving human being or animal or perhaps even plants . There must be a thing that differentiates inanimate things from the animate and give living things the ability move etc: and that thing must be spiritual since we can not detect or see that thing as we would regular physical things. The thing may be called a spirit or soul - something that animates the inanimate. Moreover, death can be explained by that spirit or soul leaving the Human/Animal/Plant. (The above is similar to Animism a widely held ancient belief.) To the argument we may add humans have consciousness, self awareness, feelings, memory etc: and a spirit or soul can account for such things.
It is a short leap to add god giving the soul or spirit or breath.
It could be ancient man came up with similar reasons for the existence of souls or spirits and may be the basis for the commonality of the ghost/soul/spirit/supernatural breath mythology.
{Wikipedia Life - Life is a process, not a substance. Life is a self-sustained chemical system.}
A rock is not living because it’s type of atoms and arrangement of atoms is not in a configuration to provide the appropriate chemical reactions as in life.
There is no evidence for souls or spirits or supernatural breaths. There is nothing in physics, biology or chemistry that allows for the introduction of spirits/souls/supernatural breaths into any of the equations or any of the theory.
Near Death experiences, memories, feelings can all be accounted for by modern science thru materialistic biological effects. There is no need for ghost, spirits and souls to explain any of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment