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Find out if Caesar crossed the Rubicon or threw a dollar across it.
This is the forum where world history, in general, can be discussed. Since the WH201, like the other fora in the World History department, is not limited to participation along lines of theology, all may post here.
Please keep the Campus Decorum in mind when posting here--while 'belief' restrictions are not in place, common decency is.
The Tweb rules are in force . . . we're watching you.
Forum Rules: Here
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Noah: Is this a good movie? Is it good ancient history?
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Originally posted by Teallaura View PostUm, wait - God didn't clothe Adam and Eve until after they had eaten from the Tree - how can 'clothing of light' refer to pre-Fall?
http://ocp.tyndale.ca/3-greek-apocalypse-of-baruch#4-4
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Um, wait - God didn't clothe Adam and Eve until after they had eaten from the Tree - how can 'clothing of light' refer to pre-Fall?
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Originally posted by robrecht View PostOK, I've finally gotten around to looking up some of the references that I was looking for. With respect to the supposedly gnostic Kabbalah theme of Adam and Eve being luminescent spirits. This is a much older motif that is found in Jewish/Christian inter-testamental literature. The earliest occurrence I've been able to track down is actually a midrashic interpretation supposedly based on an aurally indistinguishable textual variant on Gen 3,21 attributed in the Great Midrash on Genesis to a 1st century Torah scroll owned by the great scribe, Rabbi Meir. He says that that a single (silent) letter of the text was different, instead of a silent ayin (ע), the scroll he speaks of had a silent aleph (א). Thus:
ויעש יהוה אלהים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות עור וילבשם
ויעש יהוה אלהים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות אור וילבשם
Though the text would sound exactly the same (in some dialects, including modern Hebrew), the change in letter changes the meaning of 'skin' to 'light':
And the Lord God made for Adam and his woman tunics of skin [light] and he clothed them.
This was later understood to be their original clothing of glory prior to their disobedience, and hence we find intertestamental texts such as 3 Baruch 4,16 (cf also Ephraim the Syrian) speaking of Adam being condemned on account of the tree incident and being stripped (literally 'made naked') of the glory of God (τῆς δόξης θεοῦ ἐγυμνώθη)
http://ocp.tyndale.ca/3-greek-apocalypse-of-baruch#4-4
This, like much of the celestial Adamic imagery, has messianic implications, ie, the Messiah as the second Adam. It is said in the Pesikta de Rav Kahana that ‘The robes with which God will clothe the Messiah will shine from one end of the world to the other and the Jews will use its light and remark on his majestic clothing.’ Hints of this is already seen both in Q 17,24 (as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day) and in the synoptic Transfiguration narratives. And the ‘garment of immortality’ (ἔνδυμα τῆς ἀθανασίας), Hist Rech 12,3) that was originally Adam’s prior to the Fall, will once again be ours at the resurrection according to Paul (ἐνδύσασθαι ἀθανασίαν, 1 Cor 15,53-54).
http://ocp.tyndale.ca/history-of-the-rechabites#12-12
We see this garment of glory in all the Aramaic Targumim (free midrashic translations from the Hebrew) of Gen 3,21, but in Aramaic the word ‘glory’ does not imply light. Thus it is in this linguistic tradition that we find the other midrashic interpretation of this verse that features more prominently in the movie Noah....
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Originally posted by RBerman View PostThat's why I prefer to stick with the Bible, which does not say that death had not fully entered the world until Cain killed Abel. For all we know, many people had already died by that time, to say nothing of animals.
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Originally posted by robrecht View PostOne could easily say that death had not fully entered the world until Cain killed Abel. But one shouldn't be too literal with midrash; it sometimes defies logic to teach another point.
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Originally posted by RBerman View PostHow had death not yet entered the world? The order in Genesis 3 is this: They ate the fruit, and then God cursed the man, the woman, the serpent, and the ground. And then God made them garments of skin. So the killing would have been after death entered the world. Between Mattson, Godawa, and Chattaway, I find the former two more persuasive.
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Originally posted by OingoBoingo View PostChattaway replies to Mattson's reply to Handel here. I really think that Mattson's grasping at straws on the whole Gnostic issue, and a number of reviewers (including Christians like Chattaway) are attempting to set the record straight. You're right that a shed snakeskin doesn't seem like very effective garment, but as Chattaway points out by way of Dr. Avivah Zornberg:
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Here's an excellent review of the movie Noah by Jack Collins, an young expert on the history of interpretation of the Watchers from the Book of Enoch in Jewish and early Christian traditions:
http://www.worthlessmysteries.com/20...d-midrash.html
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Originally posted by Teallaura View PostWhen you get around to it, post the citations, please. I'm not familiar enough with it to look things up without a lot of time and effort I don't have time for right now, but I would like to read up.
ויעש יהוה אלהים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות עור וילבשם
ויעש יהוה אלהים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות אור וילבשם
Though the text would sound exactly the same (in some dialects, including modern Hebrew), the change in letter changes the meaning of 'skin' to 'light':
And the Lord God made for Adam and his woman tunics of skin [light] and he clothed them.
This was later understood to be their original clothing of glory prior to their disobedience, and hence we find intertestamental texts such as 3 Baruch 4,16 (cf also Ephraim the Syrian) speaking of Adam being condemned on account of the tree incident and being stripped (literally 'made naked') of the glory of God (τῆς δόξης θεοῦ ἐγυμνώθη)
http://ocp.tyndale.ca/3-greek-apocalypse-of-baruch#4-4
This, like much of the celestial Adamic imagery, has messianic implications, ie, the Messiah as the second Adam. It is said in the Pesikta de Rav Kahana that ‘The robes with which God will clothe the Messiah will shine from one end of the world to the other and the Jews will use its light and remark on his majestic clothing.’ Hints of this is already seen both in Q 17,24 (as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day) and in the synoptic Transfiguration narratives. And the ‘garment of immortality’ (ἔνδυμα τῆς ἀθανασίας), Hist Rech 12,3) that was originally Adam’s prior to the Fall, will once again be ours at the resurrection according to Paul (ἐνδύσασθαι ἀθανασίαν, 1 Cor 15,53-54).
http://ocp.tyndale.ca/history-of-the-rechabites#12-12
We see this garment of glory in all the Aramaic Targumim (free midrashic translations from the Hebrew) of Gen 3,21, but in Aramaic the word ‘glory’ does not imply light. Thus it is in this linguistic tradition that we find the other midrashic interpretation of this verse that features more prominently in the movie Noah. Specifically in the Targum Pseudo Jonathan, we see the infamous serpent skin:
ועבד ייי אלקים לאדם ולאיתתיה לבושׁין דיקר מן משׁך חויא דאשׁלח מיניה על משׁך בישׁריהון חלף טופריהון דאישׁתלחו ואלבישׁינון
And the Lord God made (miraculously?) for Adam and for his wife for clothing of majesty from the skin of the serpent, which he had pulled from him, upon the skin of their flesh, instead of that (garment of) their childhood which he had taken, and he clothed them.
Thus God killed no beasts to make their clothes, but rather used the snake’s skin, which as a punishment, God had made to be shed every seven years (Tg Gen 3,14). Thus there is no reason to think that this midrashic element reflects any allusion to Ophite Gnosticism. Just good old fashioned Aramaic midrash.
http://targum.info/pj/pjgen1-6.htmLast edited by robrecht; 05-04-2014, 02:46 PM.
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Originally posted by RBerman View PostA shed snakeskin doesn't seem like a very effective garment to me, and thus not a great elaboration on the text of Genesis 3:21. What do you think?
God made the snake. The snake was good, at first. But then, the Tempter arose through it. In our version, we have the snake shed that skin, and the shed skin is the shell of original goodness that the snake left behind when it became the Tempter. It’s a symbol of the Eden that we left behind. It’s a garment to clothe you spiritually.
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Originally posted by robrecht View PostYes, that's a good interpretation of the snake skin. I didn't realize that it too had been glowing initially and did not glow for Tubal-Cain, but is encouraging that a few of us independently did not necessarily assume this to be symbolism of evil.
Originally posted by Ari HandelWhen Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, it says God gave them a garment of skin—sort of a parting gift from God to mankind as we leave Eden and go out into the world. So we wondered what that was—and as we looked at commentaries about it, one of the common ones was that it was the skin of the snake. We wondered why that would be, and it occurred to us that God made the snake. The snake was good, at first. But then, the Tempter arose through it. In our version, we have the snake shed that skin, and the shed skin is the shell of original goodness that the snake left behind when it became the Tempter. It’s a symbol of the Eden that we left behind. It’s a garment to clothe you spiritually.Originally posted by Genesis 3:21And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Mattson responded to Handel's comments here.
As for the observation that the environmentalist theme doesn't fit easily with Gnostic ideas about the physical world being evil: I agree. That's the trouble with meshing ancient worldview material with modern worldview material. In the Relevant Magazine article I linked above, it sounds like Handel (and possibly Aronofsky) were appropriating the "glowing Adam" idea just as a way of saying that there's good inside everyone, battling to get out. That's a point of contact with Gnosticism's "spirit=good," but it doesn't mean that Handel and Aronofsky are full-blown second century Gnostics transported into the 21st Century. It means that artists appropriate whatever symbols they find at hand, for purposes of their own. They're subverting Gnosticism while simultaneously subverting the Old Testament Scriptures that Gnosticism itself subverted in a different manner.
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