Glycon was considered to also be a snake god in satirical form as mentioned by the satirist Lucian, and was said to be the incarnation of Asklepios in the mysteries of Alexander of Abonutichus, a pagan philosopher of the 2nd century.
In Orphic mythology, the serpent was sometimes linked with the primordial egg from which all things emerged and is shown entwined around the egg. Epiphanius in The Panarion discusses the doctrines of the Epicureans who believed that the universe was formed by chance rather than providence:
Originally the entire universe was like an egg and the spirit was then coiled snakewise round the egg, and bound nature tightly like a wreath or girdle. (3) At one time it wanted to squeeze the entire matter, or nature, of all things more forcibly, and so divided all that existed into the two hemispheres and then, as the result of this, the atoms were separated. (4) For the light, finer parts of all nature—light, aether and the finest parts of the spirit—floated up on top. But the parts which were heaviest and like dregs have sunk downwards. This means earth—that is, anything dry—and the moist substance of the waters. (5) The whole moves of itself and by its own momentum with the revolution of the pole and stars, as though all things were still being driven by the snake like spirit. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
That the world goes in circles and time repeats itself is also brought forward by the circular symbol of the serpent eating its own tail, known as the Ouroboros, the primal being who said,
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Rev. 22:13).
Rivera reminds us that the serpent is also seen in the Syriac Hymn of the Pearl as it depicts the soul’s descent into the world, forgetting his mission but eventually roused by the call on high to remind him of his original nature and duty, his glorious rising again into the Kingdom of the Father.
It was that passion of egotism, the deep longing to have everything for oneself that made Eve testing her Creator. She had a craving to become as wise as He is. The yearning came also over the 1° Adam by listening to his wife. The female partner was much stronger than the male and could convince him that it would not heart. Their aching to possess as much wisdom and power as God made them to disobey their Maker.
In several man made stories we do find such evil thoughts of jealousy coming into the picture and destroying a relationship. Often such thoughts creep into our mind as a serpent and as such it is pictured.
Epiphanius of Salamis (church father, ca. 310–20 – 403), fresco at Gracanica monastery, near Lipljan in Kosovo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Typical to Jewish and Christian tradition, another negative portrayal of serpent imagery was used by the Church Father Epiphanius in his closing comments in the Panarion to high-light the “evil nature” of Simon Magus as being like a snake, asp and a viper. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
We also find acquisitiveness coming into life of many, bringing wrong actions and evil thoughts. The embodiment of greed brings also pictures of extra terrestial figures of angels (fallen angels) or devils. When we look at the Targum Psuedo-Jonathan we do find the Serpent with the fallen angel Samael, the “Blind One” who was a originally a great prince in heaven, descended to earth and rode upon the serpent to deceive Eve and seduce her. The fruit of his seduction, as the same text claims (like the Gospel of Philip) was Cain, being the son of the Devil.
And the woman saw Sammael, the angel of death, and she was afraid, and she knew that the tree was good for food.
Rivera tells about Rabbi Isaac who in The Treatise of the Left Emanation, also compared Samael and Lilith as husband and wife, much like Adam and Eve — an inverted, “Satanic” power, a concept which is featured later in the Zohar and Jewish myth concerning evil. Samael acts as an evil doppelganger of the first man that came into being with the first human transgression:
The first prince and accuser, the commander of Jealousy and Enmity…he is called ‘evil’ not because of his nature but because he desires to unite and intimately mingle with an emanation not of his nature… it is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one, similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one, reflecting what is above. This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces. The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael. Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
He continues:
As this passage suggests, Jewish mysticism contains a dialectic notion of “evil”; all things emanate from God, so Samael is one of God’s “severe agents,” yet he grows beyond the attenuated form God intended because he feeds upon the evils of the world. The Zohar builds upon the image of Samael found in Rabbi Isaac’s text as the demon king and consort of Lilith; together they are the evil counterparts of Adam and Eve. Samael is the tempting angel from who “copulates” with Lilith as the male and female principles of the “left side emanation”, united and achieve their full potential by spawning demons. Samael is in effect the evil left-side counterpart of Tiferet in the Sefirotic system of the Tree of Life. In the Apocryphon of John, Samael also happens to be one of the alternative names for Ialdabaoth, the Satanic creator god. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
Also the mind, the thinking or the being of a person got out of a seed but was also like a serpent.
The Ophites connected the eternal principle, Nous, “mind”, with Naas, the Greek word for serpent—stating that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was actually Nous in serpent form. Accordingly, the Demiurge tried to prevent Adam and Eve from acquiring knowledge, and it was the serpent who persuade them to disobey the Demiurge and taste of the fruit. This was the origin of gnosis. Because the serpent frustrated Jehovah’s designs, the serpent was cursed (Gen. 3:14). The Naasenes also agreed with the sentiments expressed in the Gospel of Philip, in that the separation of sexes marked the beginning of death and evil when they claimed that sex was “…man’s fatal effort to become one without recognizing that the only real unity was spiritual.” {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
In Church-history we find peculiar ideas about the relationship with the seed, the serpent, man and Jesus.
According to the Church Fathers, the Ophites had a peculiar ritual meal involving a snake. The Ophites made a distinction between Christ the Savior, and Jesus, the man. Christ equated the serpent with the Son of Man (John 3:14), whereas Jesus equated serpents with scorpions, and spoke of the serpent as the “enemy” (Luke 10:19). For this reason some Ophite sects vilified Jesus. Origen in Contra Celsum records that the Ophites cursed Jesus, and wanted converts to do the same. St. Paul’s reference to those who curse Jesus (1 Cor. 12:3) may point to these snake-worshipers. The Ophites also happened to believe that Adam and Eve were originally beings of light, according to Irenaeus in Against Heresies, I, 30.9:
Adam and Eve previously had light, and clear, and as it were spiritual bodies, such as they were at their creation; but when they came to this world, these changed into bodies more opaque, and gross, and sluggish. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
No surprise Rivera wants to make the link also to some titles which we can find in Christianity, like “Lord of Hosts” as a reference to יהוה YHWH Jehovah/Yehowah/Yahuwah/Yahweh. which can be found in some translations at 1Samuel 1:3,11; 4:4; 15:2; 17:45; 2 Samuel 6:2,18; 7:8,26-27 and James 5:4 for example.
2Sa 7:26-27 NET so you may gain lasting fame,43 as people say,44 ‘The LORD of hosts is God over Israel!’ The dynasty45 of your servant David will be established before you, (27) for you, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have told46 your servant, ‘I will build you a dynastic house.’47 That is why your servant has had the courage48 to pray this prayer to you.
2Sa 7:26-27 MKJV And let Your name be magnified forever, saying, The Jehovah of Hosts is the God over Israel. And let the house of Your servant David be established before You. (27) For You, O Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, have revealed to Your servant, saying, I will build you a house. Therefore Your servant has found in his heart to pray this prayer to You.
Several Christians do want to believe it than relies to Jesus but it is all about יהוה The ElohimHashemJehovah to Whom belongs the victory.
Clarke wants us even to believe:
“It having pleased God that, between the time of a Messiah being promised and the time of his coming, there should be delivered by the prophets a variety of marks by which the Messiah was to be known, and distinguished from every other man; it was impossible for any one to prove himself the Messiah, whose character did not answer to these marks; and of course it was necessary that all these criteria, thus Divinely foretold, should be fulfilled in the character of Jesus Christ.
But in those passages of the Lord of Hosts is not spoken about the Messiah but about the bringer of the messiah, Jehovah God.
Clarke agrees that God declares himself the Father of the Son.
God declares himself the Father of the Son here meant; (see also Heb_1:5); and promises that, even amidst the sufferings of this Son, (as they would be for the sins of others, not for his own), his mercy should still attend him: nor should his favor be ever removed from this king, as it had been from Saul. And thus (as it follows) thine house (O David) and thy kingdom shall, in Messiah, be established for ever before Me: (before God): thy throne shall be established for ever. Thus the angel, delivering his message to the virgin mother, Luk_1:32, Luk_1:33, speaks as if he was quoting from this very prophecy: The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob For Ever: and of his kingdom there shall be no end. In 2Sa_7:16, לפניך lephaneycha, is rendered as לפני lephanai, on the authority of three Hebrew MSS., with the Greek and Syriac versions; and, indeed, nothing could be established for ever in the presence of David, but in the presence of God only.
It shall be the Divine Creator Who makes everything and Who is the Father of everything and Host for all things and beings, who shall provide in His House the seed of peace and the seed for a new paradise, the Kingdom of God with the Garden of God once again here on earth. And for that Garden Jehovah God shall provide a gardener from the seed of Adam bringing the seed of Abraham, continuing the line with bringing seed to King David by which the offspring shall be the seed long awaited which shall bring the offering like the seed which formed the bush and got burning, the world shall have to see a burning light and bright morning star. to that seed Jehovah shall be a Host and He shall take him to sit at his right hand to become a mediatorbetween God and man.
Rev 7:9-12 MKJV After these things I looked, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palms in their hands. (10) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God sitting on the throne, and to the Lamb. (11) And all the angels stood around the throne, and the elders, and the four living creatures, and they fell before the throne on their faces and worshiped God, (12) saying, Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.
Act 7:55-56 MKJV But being full of the Holy Spirit, looking up intently into Heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. (56) And he said, Behold, I see Heaven opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.
Heb 10:12-17 MKJV But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right of God, (13) from then on expecting until His enemies are made His footstool. (14) For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. (15) The Holy Spirit also is a witness to us; for after He had said before, (16) “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” (17) also He adds, “their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.”
1Ti 2:5-6 MKJV For God is one, and there is one Mediator of God and of men, the Man Christ Jesus, (6) who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Rivera writes:
Interestingly, the Alexandrian Gnostic teacher, Basilides called the demiurge “the Seven” which could have been a reference to the seventh planet, Saturn, which rules the rest. The Hebrew name of the planet Saturn is Shabbathai, clearly transcribed in the form “Sabbataios” in Gnostic verbal play on the term “Lord of Hosts” as a reference to YHWH. Tacitus in Histories 5,4 associates the Jewish God with Saturn. Saturn is naturally also honored on the same day by the Pagans that the Jews did with Jehovah on Sabbath. Since the Jews worshiped on Saturday, the Graeco-Roman world in which Basilides lived in tended to identify Jehovah with Saturn. Saturn is the Graeco-Roman sky-god so consumed with fear of being overthrown that he devours all his children, missing only Jupiter (Zeus), who does later overthrow him. In Rome the overthrow of the old year by the new, the hunched-up old man by the babe, was celebrated in the Saturnalia. Similarly, for Gnostics, the Christ child replaced the tribal god Jehovah. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
Today we still find the majority of Christian believers not willing to accept Jesus to be a man of flesh and blood who had really enough reasons to be afraid of death. They still make Jesus into a god, because they think no human being would ever be able to keep to God His commandments. They forget that they make a very cruel Creator of this Most High God, having Him made immature imperfect beings to which He demands the impossible. For those Binarian and TrinitarianChristians the human beings where deficient from the beginning, not able to keep to God’s Wishes.
Michelangelo Bounarotti – The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve – detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We do not believe in such a cruel God, who than after the Fall would have waited so long before to intervene and Who keeps us still waiting so many years before He stops us to let us suffer. For us it is more acceptable that God created a perfect universe in which He gave the human beings a free will. They were perfect and could have stayed faultless.
To stay without fault people had to make the right choices. Eve got tempted by her own greed, her willing to be even more like God. She had the breath of God blown in her nostrils and as such got the ‘soul‘, the ‘being’ ‘life’ in her. Those refusing that life itself was the essence given by God Himself wanted as in the different creation myths see their other gods providing that life, and as such used the figure Jesus as that bringer of life and bringer of love and eros.
As Irenaeus relates in his Against Heresies, Ialdabaoth is the eldest of seven rulers born of Lower Wisdom (See the Secret Book of John for this story). Ialdabaoth is depicted as a grotesque mutant—a lion-headed serpent which fits with Plato’s distinction of the “rational soul” part from the lion and the many headed beast portions of the soul in the Republic along with the Orphic Phanes or Eros. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.
Gospel, 3rd Sunday in Lent, Year B (jessicahof.wordpress.com)
Origen comments that our souls are the Temples of Christ, and he has especial solicitude for them, and here is driving from us impure thoughts and things which drag us down. Augustine sees the same symbolism. The Church, the Temple of Christ, has within in those who buy and sell holy things, and they need to be driven out too.
All the Fathers see the reference to Jesus being the Temple and being raised on the third day. It is the Father who raised Him up after He was obedient, unto death, even death upon the Cross. Augustine and St Cyril both comment on his caution in entrusting himself fully to those not yet born again of the Spirit.
The Blame Game Again (supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com)
The societal sins are merely those made individually by unique persons choosing the wrong way over and over and over and over. The sins of a culture or civilization are not some types of sins which just happen, but sins done repeatedly by those persons in that culture or civilization.
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There would be no weak men without Adam, and the long line of couch potatoes, sports idolizing , game obsessed men who have given up all responsibility for their families and eschew commitment. Individuals sin and make movements.Just because the men are nameless, does not mean it is not yet another “movement” of weakness changing the culture one decision at a time.
To blame a “movement” is to push blame onto nothing….some amorphous event in history. Of course, men and women decide to choose good or evil, thus creating the course of their own lives, that of their families and even nations.
A Life Bearing Fruit (therealdaniel.com)
The greatest commandment that so many reject is to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, and the second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. When self becomes god as Satan is all too familiar with then a separation from the Creator of all things good is inevitable.
Cleo and her asp. (barrywax.wordpress.com)
According to Plutarch (quoted by Ussher), Cleopatra tested various deadly poisons on condemned persons and concluded that the bite of the asp (from aspis – Egyptian cobra, not European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain. The asp is perhaps most famous for its alleged role in Cleopatra’s suicide
God had given an instruction to safeguard them. God knew what could happen but they did not listen out of their own choice. When He fretted that Adam had become “like one of us“, God was not talking to some other gods or other beings but speaking in the Royal We, like any higher person still uses the Pluralis Majestatis today. (Genesis 3:22) The author of the Testimony of Truth wants us also to look negatively at the Maker and says:
But what sort is this God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, and, secondly, he said “Adam, where are you?” God does not have foreknowledge? Would he not know from the beginning? And afterwards, he said, “Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever.” Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious grudger! And what kind of God is this? For great is the blindness of those who read, and they did not know him. And he said, “I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three (and) four generations.” And he said, “I will make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind to become blind, that they might not know nor comprehend the things that are said.” But these things he has said to those who believe in him and serve him! {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
It is the same as parents who noticed their children having done something wrong. They know where they are, and when they are hiding they mostly also know exactly the place where they are hiding, though still ask them to say where they are, trying to give them a chance to come out themselves and to show themselves in the condition they are.
Yale Papyrus Fragment from the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library Codex III, containing The Dialogue of the Savior (Yale Beinecke Library). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Alexander Rivera of The Aeon Eye dedicated to research and ideas regarding scholarship in theology, various ancient texts spanning different cultures of all ages, comparative mythology, philosophical exegesis, apocrypha, patristics, the Nag Hammadi Library and the Bible, believes the author of the Testimony of Truth designating the serpent as a positive figure, telling the story from the view of the serpent.
Concerning the text also distinguishing Christ as the “Son” or messenger he talks about the “unknown Father” which is distinct from the “LordGod” of Genesis or the Lawgiver which was equated by many Gnostic groups such as the Sethians, Naasenes and the Valentinians with the Demiurge or the “Craftsman” who fashioned the cosmos from a chaotic pre-existent “prima materia”.
The Marcionites held a similar position, but lacked the speculative and imaginative cosmologies that were a staple in later Gnostic mythology, but held both the creator god as a lesser god and the Good, Supreme God as distinct, but co-eternal beings in a constant state of antagonism (we see this idea carried into the later doctrines of the Manichaeans and the Cathars). The Demiurge did not derive from the Supreme God by emanation or by a fall of another aeon. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Marcion, much like his Gnostic predecessors denied that the God of goodness could have created the cosmos of corruption and entropy. Therefore, in his place, the creator god was assigned as author of the physical universe, while treated as an inferior being, not good, but only just. He is also the author of evil (as Isaiah 45:7 boldly asserts), as he is as much a lover of war (Exodus 15:3), erratic blood-lust in his constant demand for animal and human sacrifice, rejoicing in death (Deuteronomy 28:63), condoning slavery including sexual (Exodus 21:1-11), commanding the Israelites to rape, pillage and destroy at a moment’s whim (1 Chronicles 21, Deuteronomy 3, Joshua 6) all the while contradicting his own commandment of “Thou shalt not kill”. At his express command, the world is turned into a place of pain and “thorns” (Genesis 3:18)
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The saying by the prophetIsaiah that the Elohim would be a God of evil is indicating that the Most HighMaker Who has no peer, no God but Him, allows evil to come over people, even making His People arm them for battle. It is true that the Bible says even though man does not recognize Him, He does this so people will recognize from east to west that there is no God but Him. Already early at the Creation God made it clear that out of the void it was Him Speaking and making it to happen. From the very start of the universe the living creatures had to know that it was Him Who made them. All had to understand that it is Him The One Who forms light and creates darkness. It was Him Who created out of chaosorder and brought about peace and created calamity. Waters had to flow, air had to flow, but now that man had interfered with creation and disturbed the peace and tranquillity they themselves brought great misfortune over themselves, not out of God’s Will but out of their will. It where they who wanted to rule the world and have everything to say, so God allowed them to arrange the things like they want to do it. But up until now they still not have given any proof to be capable to order the world decently.
True, God by giving everything in the hands of incompetent human beings made that affliction became master of mankind. Though He allows all those things to happen in the hope that at one point those people will come to recognise that He alone is the Divine Supreme Maker Who deserves all worship and honour. God is patient enough to find enough people who are willing to recognise that the ElohimHashem Jehovah is the Most High Lord over the Lord of lords, Who accomplishes all these things.
People shall also have to notice that certain things that happen may look at one moment good but at an other may look bad, like the changing skies with clouds sending down showers of deliverance. Also figuratively people shall get to see that the earth shall have to absorb the ‘showers’ from God so salvation may grow, and deliverance may sprout up along with it. This all in the knowledge that it is the Divine Supreme Being Who creates it.
Isa 45:5-8 MKJV I am Jehovah, and there is none else, no God besides Me; I clothed you, though you have not known Me; (6) that they may know from the rising of the sun, and to the sunset, that there is none besides Me. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; (7) forming the light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil. I Jehovah do all these things. (8) Drop down from above, O heavens, and let the clouds pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, and let salvation bear fruit; and let righteousness spring up together. I Jehovah have created it.
Lots of Christians accuse Muslims to have a cruel God (Allah), because they hear stories of what that God says and do not seem to know that they have the same God saying naturally the same things. But those hard words God speaks in the Old Testament, which many Christians do not know, are part of God reacting on the bad things the people did.
That God allows it all to happen is that otherwise an intervening God would again being able to become the accused as being a dictator, only allowing that to happen what and how He wants it, not giving any liberty to man. That was the charge in the Garden of Eden. God was wrongly accused as wanting all right to govern Himself. Man forgot that they were given freedom to name and manage their own world.
Those who want to believe the world that God only executes the law without mercy or compassion when it is convenient for Him are the one the Bible is calling satan or adversary. The opponents of God, the antagonists and objectors are the ones who are mentioned many-fold in the Bible. The ones who want the world to believe that God would be a person of king-like jealousy and pride, with great appetite for praise and sacrifices are the ones who gave breath to the enemy and what motivated many early Christians to interpret “the Lord God” as either an ignorant but just creator or at worst, a malicious and belligerent demon called “Ialdaboath”. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Many assume wrongly that Jesus is talking about his heavenly Father being the father of evil and the one owning this world, but The Elohim has given the world in the hands of man, God’s adversary. It is not about God when there is said
He was a murder from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. {John 8:44 / Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Jesus is giving reference to the “father of lies” who is not his heavenly Father, but the master of evil, God’s adversary (the ‘devil‘), who can be any human person who doubts the existence and the right of power of God.
Alexander Rivera points out:
it was Yahweh who said that they would die if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, whereas the snake said that they wouldn’t—and of course, as we know, they didn’t. All that they Serpent said is that they would become as gods, which Yahweh confirms when he says, “Look, they have become as gods. Now we must remove them from the garden, lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever.” The night preceding his crucifixion, the Johannine Jesus says in John 12:31-33:
Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince (archon) of this world will be cast out.
The prince or “archon” is a direct reference to the Demiurge, the “god of this aion” as Paul calls him 2 Corinthians 4:4. Before, the creator God said to both Adam and Eve “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” On the other hand, the Serpent said pointedly: “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
The author of Genesis let us know that Adam and Eve where cast out of the Garden of Eden and would have to face death, because God told them so and that all their offspring would have to face the problems and will have to die as well. This penalty form one to the other generation is a thorn in the eye of many Christians as well, but otherwise God would intervene again and could be accused of favouritism, giving partiality to His own people.
The eyes of both of them were opened, making them aware of what they had and what they now had to loose. Eve in her heart had hoped to get more wisdom. She did not want to believe that they would die. How could the one Who made them, losing them again? Reason why we do not follow the Gnostic writings is that they continue to follow the path of Eve and the adversaries of God who want us to believe that it was the Serpent who was right and the creator God Who was the one who had lied.
He said that Adam and Eve would die if he ate the fruit, but neither died. Instead, the Serpent was telling the truth. As a matter of fact, the creator himself ended up agreeing that the Serpent was right! The creator Lord God had proved himself to be a chronic liar as well as plagiarizer. To the Gnostics, the entire stratum of material creation was a failed and botched attempt to imitate an unknowable world of light. Likewise, the “Good Book” or “Word of God”, which being the Bible itself is based principally on pre-Biblical Babylonian and Egyptian texts. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Rivera looks also at the claim of St. Augustine of Hippo in Adversus Haeresis, 46, 147-153, that the Manichaeans had also taught that “Jesus the Splendor” or the “Third Messenger” was the Serpent that illuminated the minds of both Adam and Eve of their predicament and their divine origins.
Before the arrival of the Serpent in the Garden, man was in a state of ignorance and was blinded to his true position—as automatons in blind servitude to their creators. This is confirmed by an unnamed Manichean text in which the 8th century historian, Theodor Bar Konai quotes:
Jesus the Splendour approached sinless Adam and awoke him from the sleep of death, that he might be delivered of innumerable demons… Then Adam examined himself and realized, who he was. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 1)}
Man has always played with the idea of being master of creation becoming superior to its Creator. In the races of worldly people, human artefacts have become objects of fear for their creators – for example statues and images and everything that is made by human hands as representing a god. In Christendom we still find many Christians who have that urge to bow down in front of graven images, though the Maker has clearly demanded not to do so. Several Christians made them crosses, statues of Jesus, Mary and several saints where they bow for and where they burn candles for or in certain countries even provide food and clothing. Though this is all abomination in the eyes of God.
Trees, fruit and seeds have always played an important role in many cultures and were often used symbolically as well.
Rivera writes:
As we can see, the Tree was an important universal symbol for not only the Gnostics, Simonians, Valentinians, etc, but to groups like the Jewish-Kabbalists, alchemists and many occult groups throughout the ages. The Tree is highly associative with the idea of the descent and crucifixion (and eventual ascent and resurrection) of spirit into and from matter as seen in Sophia-Achamoth’s fall from the celestial world and into the prima materia which parallels the Genesis account of the fall of Eve, the “mother of the living”. In Plato’s Timaeus, do we find the account of the Fall of Atlantis, (as strange as it might sound) which could be read as symbolic of the Divine tragedy and catastrophe so predominant in Gnostic cosmology and theology. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)}
We too look at the seed of Adam which brought forth the seed of Abraham, giving us the servant David, giving seed to next generations bringing into the world a new light, a seed without intervention of a man.
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Please do find the very interesting articles by Rivera:
For Gnostic Christians, the story of salvation is the story of human beings learning of their true position in the world and of their taking the necessary steps to escape the bondage of the evil Creator God. The Gnostic goal was the return of their Spiritual Light, which the Creator God had trapped within their bodies, to the Father Of Light.
Many Gnostics believed that the Savior was sent by the Father Of Light to help us in this quest. Others, like Marcion, believed that the Savior was sent by another deity entirely, an “Alien God” completely uninvolved in the creation of our particular cosmos, but who, knowing of our condition, took pity on us and sent the Savior to deliver us.
What If God Were NOT Good? (hammeringshield.wordpress.com)
The beliefs we today associate with Christianity and the Bible became the orthodox set of beliefs, the form of Christianity in which God is good. But there was another form of Christianity, that of the Gnostics. Unlike the Orthodox Christians, many Gnostic Christians believed God to be a malevolent being. Both types of Christians believed in the Savior, but they had different versions of his mission. And whereas Orthodox Christians believed in salvation via faith in the divinity of the Savior, the Gnostics believed that salvation is to be obtained via knowledge (“gnosis“) of our true condition, hence their name.
Deceptive Practices (culturalatheist.wordpress.com)
The first lies recorded (although we know he was already telling them in heaven) are the the lies about God’s character. He lied to Adam and Eve about God’s love and care for them. The lies were relational.What if Satan’s deceptive practices begin with or are grounded in lies about others? It would be in his best interests if we think the worst about others – their beliefs, their practices, their intentions and character. I also suspect that we reveal our acceptance of the lies and our culpability in spreading them when we say, “All (insert person or group) are (insert belief, practice, intention).”
Can a Gnostic army fix the world? (vaticproject.blogspot.com)
God gave us dominion over the animals to care for them, and that is in Genesis. And Christ reinforced those sentiments, so I don’t know where he got that, unless he has not read the Bible, which is possible. In fact, it was Christ who brought a new coverant stopping the slaughter of animals by the Jews and instead offered himself as the redeeming sacrifice. So, I am not sure where he got that, but be it as it may, just focus on the recommendations which I think are reasonable, actually. How do you protect society from those that murder at will for no earthy good reason, especially little children and babies.
Humble beginnings: a rib and an apple (annabelfrage.wordpress.com)
As a little aside, when God in Genesis 1 creates Adam, the name denominates mankind rather than a specific dude. In Genesis 2, however, God moulds Adam the man from the earth and breathes life into him. It is this Adam who is gifted with Eve, lest he become too lonely playing with himself.
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The tree, however, was always on their minds, a little teaser that now and then had them taking a couple of steps in its direction before remembering it was out of bounds. Eve would pick an apple from another tree and bite into it, eyes stuck on the perfect, Christmas-red apples that hung from the Tree of Knowledge. She bet those apples tasted sweeter, were crunchier and jucier. Adam would pick an apple and eat it while watching Eve, considering just what he would do to her after their meal. men are, at times, rather singleminded…
Great Day (theotherjc.com) God is…my Father. That’s a revelation that doesn’t come easily to everyone but one we need to get. We can be disappointed by our own Father but without realising it not notice that God has filled our lives with many Fathers. Thanks to Rachael for sharing her journey in this in such an honest way.
Jesus the Phoenician – Karim El Koussa on GW Radio (gnosticwarrior.com)
“Yāwshu (Jesus) is the son of the Canaano-Phoenician Most High God Ēl-Alyon, being the Son of the Virgin Lady Maryām by the Divine Will of the Lord, who blessed this conception of a child that would be named Immanuel. He would live among us as “God Ēl with us,” a Nazarene, sacredly chosen to consecrate himself for keeping the word of God in his heart, mind, and spirit, healing the human race from its many errors and sins. He is the Galilean Meshiha (Messiah) who would anoint the people—who believed in him, his mother, and Father, and who believed in the Great Message he came to deliver, Love and Peace—with sacred water, the purest form of what is considered as the origin of life here on earth. He is the Khristós (Christ) who came and had himself crucified on the altar of life so that we may be clean and have life abundantly. He is the Good Shepherd.”
― Excerpt from Jesus the Phoenician
Fear & Loathing In… God? (cwoznicki.com)
How can God loath his chosen people? How does that even make sense? In one of John Webster’s sermons on this very Psalm he addresses how this can be. Honestly its one of the best explanations of God’s wrath and hatred and anger that I have ever read…
Trust (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
Trusting in riches instead of our Father means you can’t attain to a relationship with God, you have replaced God with riches, thus you can’t attain, only fall.
Scripture of the Day, 3/13 (sowegalive.com)
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
Today we still find the majority of Christian believers not willing to accept Jesus to be a man of flesh and blood who had really enough reasons to be afraid of death. They still make Jesus into a god, because they think no human being would ever be able to keep to God His commandments. They forget that they make a very cruel Creator of this Most High God, having Him made immature imperfect beings to which He demands the impossible. For those Binarian and Trinitarian Christians the human beings where deficient from the beginning, not able to keep to God’s Wishes.
Messiah For All 