the snake & the apple , (Hesiod)

[salishan]

the snake & the apple


Genesis 2 of the Bible
does not specify which reptilian or amphibian genus the "serpent" of this folktale is
nor the particular genus of the "forbidden fruit"

but by the time Renaissance painters are depicting the tale
what is depicted is a "snake" & an "apple"

how did these artists decide on "snake" & "apple" ?
when did these representations become the accepted iconographic convention (in Europe) ?

(think a majority of scholars would agree with Bananabrain , that
the J-author intends her or his reader to picture a fig as the "fruit")

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came across this passage in Hesiod's Theogony (lines 333-336)
& can't help wondering if some medieval Scholastic , reading these lines
(consciously or unconsciously) initiated the convention ? ?

And Ceto , joined in love to Phorkys , bore
Her youngest child, a frightful snake which guards
The golden apples , in that secret place
Of the dark earth , at its great boundary-line.

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i'd also be curious to know what this place
"that secret place of the dark earth" , refers to ? ?
(short of having to read James Fraser's unabridged Golden Bough to find out)

anyone have a clue ?

 

[seattlegal]

the snake & the apple


Genesis 2 of the Bible
does not specify which reptilian or amphibian genus the "serpent" of this folktale is
nor the particular genus of the "forbidden fruit"

but by the time Renaissance painters are depicting the tale
what is depicted is a "snake" & an "apple"

how did these artists decide on "snake" & "apple" ?
when did these representations become the accepted iconographic convention (in Europe) ?

(think a majority of scholars would agree with Bananabrain , that
the J-author intends her or his reader to picture a fig as the "fruit")

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

came across this passage in Hesiod's Theogony (lines 333-336)
& can't help wondering if some medieval Scholastic , reading these lines
(consciously or unconsciously) initiated the convention ? ?



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

i'd also be curious to know what this place
"that secret place of the dark earth" , refers to ? ?
(short of having to read James Fraser's unabridged Golden Bough to find out)

anyone have a clue ?

Hera's garden, located in the furthest western edge of gaia, guarded by Ladon, also where Atlas held up the celestial spheres.

 

[seattlegal]

You might also want to start reading around verse 744 of The Theogony of Hesiod
for more detail regarding this area where heaven, earth, and the underworld; day and night; sleep and death; order and chaos all meet.
In contrast to all the gloom in this area, apples are symbolic of love to the Greeks. Interesting.

 

[salishan]

Seattlegal
exquisite creature

thanks
i recognize the reference now

remember
the stealing of the "golden apples"
from some Italian "Sword & Sandal" flic from the 1960s
(directed by Mario Bava or someone)

dismal place (Hesiod describes)
murky & awful , loathed by the very gods

kind of like the Oregon coast , this time of year
wind driving the rain sideways , Wednesday
bitter cold , smelling briny
salt biting into the skin
also on the "western edge" of the continent
but apples don't grow well , here
have to go east , across the mountains
(suppose Seattle has been just as gloomy , of late)

yet i love this "edge of the continent" , regardless
love the hard cold reality of it
(no satyrs in the forest , no nereides in the surf)
imagination is good , in art galleries

in the natural-world , what i like is reality's
starkness

(that's where i , anyway
find Gyd)

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wish Hesiod was a better writer
too much like an over energetic painter , who keeps losing his focus
(slapdash , too much red & too much black)

no restraint (in the Theogony at least)
nothing (here) approaching the consistent , stately
vaguely elegiac tone of Homer

 

[Etu Malku]

how did these artists decide on "snake" & "apple" ?

I am certain that the snake was brought into the picture because it has always been the symbol of Wisdom, represented older religions such as Egypt (Uraeus) and India, the Grecian Typhon (Egyptian Apep) etc.

 

[seattlegal]

apples are symbolic of love to the Greeks. Interesting.

I am certain that the snake was brought into the picture because it has always been the symbol of Wisdom, represented older religions such as Egypt (Uraeus) and India, the Grecian Typhon (Egyptian Apep) etc.

Love and Wisdom are often pictured together in many religions, such as the "fields" of Wisdom and Compassion in Zen and "Ray #2" of the Theosophists.

I like how CS Lewis put it:

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
~ CS Lewis​

 

[Nick the Pilot]

I see the story of Adam and Eve as having a strong sexual meaning in a negative way. It is a story about snakes chasing fruit, so it is easy to imagine the sexual symbology.

 

[Etu Malku]

The Original Sin is Man's guilt of being carnivorous and lycanthropic.

We are all descended from males of the carnivorous lycanthropic variety, a mutation evolved under the pressure of hunger caused by the climatic change at the end of the pluvial period, which induced indiscriminate, even cannibalistic predatory aggression, culminating in the rape and sometimes even in the devouring of the females of the original peaceful fruit-eating bon sauvage remaining in the primeval virgin forests.

It was the 'clothes of skin' and the 'aprons of fig-leaves', that produced the nakedness of man, and not the other way round, the urge to cover man's nudity that led to the invention of clothing. It is obvious that neither man nor woman could be 'ashamed' (Gen. ii. 25) or 'afraid because they were naked' (Gen. iii. 10 f.) before they had donned their animal's pelt or hunters' 'apron of leaves', and got so accustomed to wearing it that the uncovering of their defenseless bodies gave them a feeling of cold, fear and the humiliating impression of being again reduced to the primitive fruit-gatherer's state of a helpless 'unarmed animal' exposed to the assault of the better-equipped enemy.

The uncovered body could not have been considered 'indecorous' or 'im-moral'. The very feeling of sin, the consciousness of having done something 'im-moral', contrary to the mores, customs or habits of the herd, could not be experienced before a part of the herd had wrenched itself free from the inherited behaviour-pattern and radically changed its way of life from that of a frugivorous to that of a carnivorous or omnivorous animal.

- from a lecture delivered at a meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine by ROBERT EISLER - First published in 1951 by Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London, B.C.4
Printed in Great Britain by Butler and Tanner Limited Frome and London

 

[ilmawaqa]

The TREE OF KNOWLEDGE is a ladder of jacob , a way of wilderness to land of promise. Once you eat , you become like gods , angels , sons of G D . You shall not surely die .

 

[donnann]

The TREE OF KNOWLEDGE is a ladder of jacob , a way of wilderness to land of promise. Once you eat , you become like gods , angels , sons of G D . You shall not surely die .

Once you eat the golden apple which is the knowledge of sex , why its so sacred and the fact that each has only one opposite and that every aspect of that relationship is sexual which is why it should only be with that one. This knowledge leads to infinite life. These were the secret teaching the revelation spoken of in the bible. mary magdalene prophecies .

 

[donnann]

Once you eat the golden apple which is the knowledge of sex , why its so sacred and the fact that each has only one opposite and that every aspect of that relationship is sexual which is why it should only be with that one. This knowledge leads to infinite life. These were the secret teaching the revelation spoken of in the bible. mary magdalene prophecies .

There is a platinum apple and that one is the one that you can never die again once eaten. Its the unbreakable unchangable union with ones opposite. Its the manna from the tree of the creator itself and that tree wasnt in the garden of eden but was brought down from heaven.

 

[donnann]

The TREE OF KNOWLEDGE is a ladder of jacob , a way of wilderness to land of promise. Once you eat , you become like gods , angels , sons of G D . You shall not surely die .

Prophecy fulfillment is one who came from heaven(platinum) into the union of sperm and egg and was sealed at conception. This is highest stuff. The eutruscan mummy scroll is about this.

 

[donnann]

the snake & the apple


Genesis 2 of the Bible
does not specify which reptilian or amphibian genus the "serpent" of this folktale is
nor the particular genus of the "forbidden fruit"

but by the time Renaissance painters are depicting the tale
what is depicted is a "snake" & an "apple"

how did these artists decide on "snake" & "apple" ?
when did these representations become the accepted iconographic convention (in Europe) ?

(think a majority of scholars would agree with Bananabrain , that
the J-author intends her or his reader to picture a fig as the "fruit")

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

came across this passage in Hesiod's Theogony (lines 333-336)
& can't help wondering if some medieval Scholastic , reading these lines
(consciously or unconsciously) initiated the convention ? ?



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

i'd also be curious to know what this place
"that secret place of the dark earth" , refers to ? ?
(short of having to read James Fraser's unabridged Golden Bough to find out)

anyone have a clue ?

It was a cobra

 

[donnann]

It was a cobra

The fruit was an apple. It has to do with sex.

 

[donnann]

It was a cobra

The platinum cobra is holy and the platinum apple is infinite life. Its not bad. The red apple was an unripe fruit they ate. The golden apple was a ripe one. The platinum apple is manna. That tree wasnt in the garden of eden but is manna sent from heaven. Its like a new tree appearing that god planted.

 

[donnann]

The platinum cobra is holy and the platinum apple is infinite life. Its not bad. The red apple was an unripe fruit they ate. The golden apple was a ripe one. The platinum apple is manna. That tree wasnt in the garden of eden but is manna sent from heaven. Its like a new tree appearing that god planted.

Its replacing the tree that fell and died.

 

[donnann]

Its replacing the tree that fell and died.

Its not litith , its not eve.....its the third wife. This is the one who is the actual one that is your other half and always has been but is also different from you as well. This is the only bride. Originally the two lilith and the male looked like exact mirror images of each other. They fell. Then marriages of differents occurred. However the true bride is a combination of these two things not either or.

 

[donnann]

Its not litith , its not eve.....its the third wife. This is the one who is the actual one that is your other half and always has been but is also different from you as well. This is the only bride. Originally the two lilith and the male looked like exact mirror images of each other. They fell. Then marriages of differents occurred. However the true bride is a combination of these two things not either or.

So its original then different then the combination of then the union of it thats all three that is the 4th union. So its the oneness of the black light. The white light. The same body and the different body all as one bride. Thats IT. Platinum.

 

[juantoo3]

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Genesis 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

Genesis 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

At no point in scripture does it say anything about an apple tree in the Garden of Eden. That is a long standing folktale that has been layered on the scriptural text for so long it is now considered "gospel," but in point of fact it does not state what specific fruit was on the tree of knowledge or on the tree of life. Interesting the association with the Pagan "apple," and I agree there is a very blatant sexual element to Genesis and the Serpent story that is typically glossed over.

 

[juantoo3]

I would add further, that the "fruit" of "the knowledge of good and evil" seems to me to point directly to reason...that is to say, it was at this time (the agricultural revolution, development of beer, and the effect of grain on the brain) "opened the eyes" of the mind in humanity to reasoning. Previously, I suspect, reasoning within the human family was on a different level. With the mind expansion of the agricultural revolution, humanity took a quantum leap into the future.

There is no way to "prove" it, but the "punctuated equilibrium" on human development at that time suggests the possibility of an outside influence...what in the Abrahamic faiths is referred to as "G-d."