Sensei laughed merrily together with our group. Whereas Eugene couldn’t help adding one of his funny comments.
“Who wrote it in fact? All-round talents and self-degenerators!”
“Not self-degenerators but gifted people, you, village boy!” Stas corrected him with a laugh.
“Well, but I say so, those who degenerated that is generated himself,” Eugene explained to his friend.
Stas hopelessly waved with hand towards him under the overall laugh of the guys.
“What can I explain to him? He has only two eyes and furthermore behind his nose.”
In reply Volodya commented their funny dialogue, “You are like in that proverb, ‘The blind swapped from the deaf a mirror for a guitar’.”
Burst of laughter rolled on the sea coast. When the guys calmed down, Victor asked Sensei, “I wonder what is concretely transformed in the Bible?” and he begged with sincerity, “Sensei, tell us at least a few examples for my blind eyes to see the light finally.”
“Aha! And for my slowcoach please, too,” Stas added with humour.
“You are always welcome,” answered Sensei with readiness and explained, “For example, if you take the most elementary what you can easily find yourselves. In the Bible (in ‘Genesis’) the description of the original state of the world as of the water chaos was taken at certain time from the Akkadian legend about the goddess of original element, embodiment of the world chaos, Tiamat. And Akkadians borrowed these legends from Sumerians. The legend about the paradise Eden as a blissful place on the earth is the transformation of the ancient Sumerian legend about the island of Dilmun, or as it was later called by Akkadians, Telmun. Dilmun is a blissful island, the original country, ‘pure’, ‘light’, ‘virgin’, without diseases nor death. One of the ancient Sumerian myths was connected with it, the myth about god Enki and mother goddess Ninhursag. By the way, Jewish ‘interpreters’ reshaped in their own way namely this most ancient legend distorting its sense caused by inaccurate translation into the Bible story about Adam, forbidden fruit, expulsion from the paradise, creation of the woman from the rib of the man. Though it was all described in Sumerian legend completely different and it was based on the primacy of the female nature, but noway of the male one… Ziusudra was settled on the Dilmun island after the Flood, his name is literally translated from Sumerian as ‘the one who found life of long days’. In Akkadian this man was called as ‘Ut-napishti’ and that already meant ‘the one who found breathing’.”
“Everything is clear, in the Jewish version it’s Noah,” Victor remarked with a smile.
“Right you are,” Sensei nodded, “Moreover this time his name is understood as ‘appeasing’.”
Kostya inquired with interest, “Which legend about the Flood did ancient Sumerians have?”
“I’ll tell you now… Jewish priests copied this legend from Babylon myths, they just changed the names of their heroes and introduced some alterations. And the legend itself was as follows. According to Sumerian legend Ziusudra was a son of the famous wiseman and pious ruler of his city. From Enki, the god protector of people, he received a news about the forthcoming Flood which was prepared by gods to be sent for people. According to Enki’s advice this man built a big ship called a ‘boat saving life’, survived the Flood which lasted seven days and seven nights. And then as a ‘saviour of human semen’ he got a ‘life like gods’ and ‘eternal breathing’ settling down with his spouse on Dilmun, the island of blissful… Later this legend formed a basis of the Babylon legend about the Flood, just the main characters were called in different way. That is Ziusudra was named as Atrahasis (‘exceedingly wise’) and as Gilgamesh (‘forefather-hero’).
“In general one should note that except Sumer the legend about the Flood as well as the one about the world tree, myths about twins were disseminated around the world, for example in such ancient centres of civilization as India, China, Egypt. And every nation gave its own names to the main characters of these legends. If you take for example the world tree, Sumerians called it as huluppu, ancient Babylonians called it the tree of truth and the tree of life. Ancient Egyptians named it as the tree of cognition, the beautiful sycamore with fruits of life, they believed that the one who sat on it became a god. The dead one in the form of bird was invited to land on that tree. There he was opened a great secret and namely he cognized his divine essence and his origin from the Supreme God. And in general in was believed in Ancient Egypt that death brings a man back to that divine country where he was expelled from for the time of his earthly lives.
I don’t even mention the creation of legends about Abel and Cain, Jacob and Esav, connected with myths about twins, in particular with Sumerian legend about matchmaking of the farmer Enkimdu and the shepherd Dumuzi to Inanna, with Egyptian legends about brothers-gods Osiris and Set where envious Set by the way with the help of seventy two accomplices-plotters kills kind Osiris.
Well, in general and so on and so forth. And it concerns not only legends but also many rituals, customs, signs which the nomadic tribes of ancient Jews took from more developed nations. Let’s take for example the very Ancient Egypt. Fertility was considered there as a gift of Osiris and was highly valued in the society. Egyptians strived to have big families because children mortality was quite high that time. Male circumcision was practiced in Egypt since times immemorial, however not as a baby but at a young age when the boys were from six to twelve years old. And it was stipulated only by hygienic considerations because these people lived in the region with a quite hot climate. But not more. Beside this, pig was considered by ancient Egyptians as an impure animal and it was ascribed to the kingdom of Set. That’s why they didn’t eat pork. One can make a long list of these ‘adoptions’.
“Well, I didn’t know that,” Victor uttered with curiosity.
Having listened to Sensei Ruslan asked somewhat with pretensions, “Why nobody knows about that?!”
In reply Sensei said quite calmly, “Why ‘nobody knows’? Many people know, especially the experts who study these issues. Just some of them keep silence out of politeness, the others do it because they belong to the interested circles.” The seniour guys grinned. “So as they say, those who want, will find out the truth. Information is available, you just need to have a wish…”
“I wonder when did ancient Jews manage to adopt so much from different peoples?” Stas uttered with a slight note of irony.
“I told you already that they were nomads and cattle-breeders,” Sensei repeated. “First Jewish priests forced their people to go and to conquer other lands, then their people became on these lands a captive for stronger nations. Even during the peaceful times they needed to find and to choose better places for settlement. How long did they live in the very Ancient Egypt? And some of them even became related with local people. Let’s take for example from those whom you know Abraham, so to say, ‘one of the first patriarchies of the Old Testament’, ‘the forefather of the Jewish people’…”
“The patriarchy-forefather? Does it mean that he was one of the first from the clan of Jewish priests?!” Stas gave a guess.
“I’m glad that you start to understand the essence,” Sensei remarked.
Nikolai Andreevich grinned and uttered, “Once I faced a quite interesting question. I was looking one country in the encyclopedia on states and suddenly an information about Israel stroke my eyes. Briefly saying, the historical article about this country and its lands begins from the fact that ‘around the year 2000 b.c. Abraham, the forefather of the Jewish people, came to Palestine from Mesopotamia’. And not a single word about Palestine. Just a small mark with a figure on the map of Israel, ’Palestinian territories’. And that’s all! I was surprised that there was no even a slight mention about those who inhabited in Palestine before that. And as far as I know, there was one of the ancient states on that lands.”
“What did you want,” Sensei shrugged his shoulders, “History for masses is unfortunately stuffed in most of its ‘facts’ in the kitchen of the world politics and is dished with decorations,