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White Gods, by Anna Della Subin
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/11/29/white-gods/
Snippet:
Every time he stepped off the ship’s rowboat and onto the soft sand, exploring places later known as Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas, Columbus seemed to walk on the clouds. On December 13, he wrote that a chieftain had informed a crowd of two thousand fearful, trembling kinsmen that “the Christians were from heaven.” The people put their hands on their heads, in “a sign of great reverence,” and made offerings of yams and fish. Approached by an envoy of hundreds of islanders several days later, Columbus again recorded their belief in his celestial status, although he noted that the chief and his advisers “were very sorry that they could not understand me, nor I them. However,” he continued, “I knew that they said that, if I wanted anything, the whole island was at my disposal.” Conquest followed apotheosis: every island he found, filled with people allegedly mistaking him for divine, the mariner took possession of for Spain. He would read an indecipherable declaration, then pause for a refusal that could not occur. “No opposition was offered to me,” Columbus wrote.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/11/29/white-gods/
Snippet:
Every time he stepped off the ship’s rowboat and onto the soft sand, exploring places later known as Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas, Columbus seemed to walk on the clouds. On December 13, he wrote that a chieftain had informed a crowd of two thousand fearful, trembling kinsmen that “the Christians were from heaven.” The people put their hands on their heads, in “a sign of great reverence,” and made offerings of yams and fish. Approached by an envoy of hundreds of islanders several days later, Columbus again recorded their belief in his celestial status, although he noted that the chief and his advisers “were very sorry that they could not understand me, nor I them. However,” he continued, “I knew that they said that, if I wanted anything, the whole island was at my disposal.” Conquest followed apotheosis: every island he found, filled with people allegedly mistaking him for divine, the mariner took possession of for Spain. He would read an indecipherable declaration, then pause for a refusal that could not occur. “No opposition was offered to me,” Columbus wrote.
Okay. Columbus we have known for a while. This is very interesting but no surprise. Just makes me cringe more at the mention of his name.
BUT. The first paragraph in the article dropped my jaw and made me want to know more about this Coptic and Adam and what it says. WTF? Is this credible? Why is this the first I am hearing of it? Well, other than the fact I don't get around much in the Coptic circles.
BUT. The first paragraph in the article dropped my jaw and made me want to know more about this Coptic and Adam and what it says. WTF? Is this credible? Why is this the first I am hearing of it? Well, other than the fact I don't get around much in the Coptic circles.
http://gnosis.org/naghamm/adam.html
It's a Gnostic text written in Coptic. I'd be curious to know whether Greek-sounding words in the translation, like "aeons", were calqued from Greek in the Urtext.
Tyson
It's a Gnostic text written in Coptic. I'd be curious to know whether Greek-sounding words in the translation, like "aeons", were calqued from Greek in the Urtext.
Tyson
It’s a trip. If you remember any of the original Mormon theology, it’s a wild trip.
We have The Apocalypse of Adam from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945.
Here’s a bit of scholarly stuff:
Although most of this “apocalypse” relates a vision that Adam received from three heavenly visitors, the genre of its frame narrative can be viewed as a final testament: Adam, nearing death at the ripe old age of 930 years, communicates to Seth the revelation he received as a much younger man regarding the future history of Seth’s race. He tells Seth about the persecutions his race will suffer at the hands of the malicious world-ruler (including a flood and conflagration, both based on the stories in Genesis), as well as their relationship with the other human races that shall descend from Noah’s three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Adam’s Apocalypse has often been read as yet another product of the typical Gnostic attitude of world-hatred and alienation. According to Guy Stroumsa, the Sethians in this story are “in a word, strangers to the demiurge and to his powers; they belong to the holy angels in the aeons ... This alienation from the world and its rules, a major theme in Gnostic symbolic language, has been thoroughly analyzed by Jonas and Puech. The Gnostics kept themselves apart.
Yet Stroumsa’s evaluation only captures a very narrow part of the way that the Apocalypse of Adam portrays the Sethians’ experience in the world. They are certainly no friends of the hostile creator-god Sakla; they are portrayed as a holy people protected by angels, and even come to inhabit their own share of land in the post-diluvian era. But that alone hardly constitutes an experience of “alienation” from the world or an attempt to be “kept apart.” Rather, as we shall see, Sethian readers of this book would likely have been encouraged to see themselves as a special people sent into the world to illuminate, protect, and save other races from the forces of evil.
In the brief history of the Sethian people foreseen in the Apocalypse of Adam, the inhabitants of the world are descendants of Adam and Eve’s two sons, Seth and Cain (Abel is not mentioned, probably because he had no descendants to speak of). Although Cain is not explicitly mentioned by name, he likely appeared—or was at least alluded to—in a section of the manuscript, now damaged, which describes how Sakla sired a son with Eve. While Adam says that Seth’s race will preserve “the life of knowledge” which came from him and Eve, the rest of the human race, presumably the descendents of Cain, will lead lives of sin and ignorance. Adam warns Seth that his race will be persecuted by Sakla since “they were strangers to him”: first by the flood, then by a great conflagration (adapting the story of God’s rain of fire on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19). In the persecution by flood, Sakla attempts to destroy all humanity, perhaps implying that Cain and his descendents had not yet started to worship him at that time. In order to ensure that all of humanity serves him, Sakla preserves for himself a small contingent of people on the ark—namely Noah and his family—to whom he grants rule of the world, “like kings,” provided that they worship only him.
—Lance Jenott—
—“Emissaries of Truth and Justice: The Seed of Seth as Agents of Divine Providence”—
—from volume of studies called, Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World—
We have The Apocalypse of Adam from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945.
Here’s a bit of scholarly stuff:
Although most of this “apocalypse” relates a vision that Adam received from three heavenly visitors, the genre of its frame narrative can be viewed as a final testament: Adam, nearing death at the ripe old age of 930 years, communicates to Seth the revelation he received as a much younger man regarding the future history of Seth’s race. He tells Seth about the persecutions his race will suffer at the hands of the malicious world-ruler (including a flood and conflagration, both based on the stories in Genesis), as well as their relationship with the other human races that shall descend from Noah’s three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Adam’s Apocalypse has often been read as yet another product of the typical Gnostic attitude of world-hatred and alienation. According to Guy Stroumsa, the Sethians in this story are “in a word, strangers to the demiurge and to his powers; they belong to the holy angels in the aeons ... This alienation from the world and its rules, a major theme in Gnostic symbolic language, has been thoroughly analyzed by Jonas and Puech. The Gnostics kept themselves apart.
Yet Stroumsa’s evaluation only captures a very narrow part of the way that the Apocalypse of Adam portrays the Sethians’ experience in the world. They are certainly no friends of the hostile creator-god Sakla; they are portrayed as a holy people protected by angels, and even come to inhabit their own share of land in the post-diluvian era. But that alone hardly constitutes an experience of “alienation” from the world or an attempt to be “kept apart.” Rather, as we shall see, Sethian readers of this book would likely have been encouraged to see themselves as a special people sent into the world to illuminate, protect, and save other races from the forces of evil.
In the brief history of the Sethian people foreseen in the Apocalypse of Adam, the inhabitants of the world are descendants of Adam and Eve’s two sons, Seth and Cain (Abel is not mentioned, probably because he had no descendants to speak of). Although Cain is not explicitly mentioned by name, he likely appeared—or was at least alluded to—in a section of the manuscript, now damaged, which describes how Sakla sired a son with Eve. While Adam says that Seth’s race will preserve “the life of knowledge” which came from him and Eve, the rest of the human race, presumably the descendents of Cain, will lead lives of sin and ignorance. Adam warns Seth that his race will be persecuted by Sakla since “they were strangers to him”: first by the flood, then by a great conflagration (adapting the story of God’s rain of fire on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19). In the persecution by flood, Sakla attempts to destroy all humanity, perhaps implying that Cain and his descendents had not yet started to worship him at that time. In order to ensure that all of humanity serves him, Sakla preserves for himself a small contingent of people on the ark—namely Noah and his family—to whom he grants rule of the world, “like kings,” provided that they worship only him.
—Lance Jenott—
—“Emissaries of Truth and Justice: The Seed of Seth as Agents of Divine Providence”—
—from volume of studies called, Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World—
Thanks.
This is all so much more imaginative than what the Mormon dumbed down version, of, well--everything as going. Finally something worth streaming, haha.
And this:
" . . .Sethian readers of this book would likely have been encouraged to see themselves as a special people sent into the world to illuminate, protect, and save other races from the forces of evil."
That to me is the core of Mormonism and indeed all of Christianity and most religions. Seems that at the center of all religion is the belief that the adherents are the most special of all; the chosen. The Mormons even supplanted the Jews to achieve this (in their own minds).
Interesting how religions started and then changed with culture as time went on. Everyone now just talks about the afterlife as heaven and being with your family. Nobody has any grand views of the eternities since Hinckley pulled the plug on Godhood.
Got to read the rest of your link.
This is all so much more imaginative than what the Mormon dumbed down version, of, well--everything as going. Finally something worth streaming, haha.
And this:
" . . .Sethian readers of this book would likely have been encouraged to see themselves as a special people sent into the world to illuminate, protect, and save other races from the forces of evil."
That to me is the core of Mormonism and indeed all of Christianity and most religions. Seems that at the center of all religion is the belief that the adherents are the most special of all; the chosen. The Mormons even supplanted the Jews to achieve this (in their own minds).
Interesting how religions started and then changed with culture as time went on. Everyone now just talks about the afterlife as heaven and being with your family. Nobody has any grand views of the eternities since Hinckley pulled the plug on Godhood.
Got to read the rest of your link.
Doesn't this bolster the Mormon belief that a bearded white Jesus visited the Americas?
That perhaps Joseph's stories are based on previous white God theories. Nobody knows whether this white God was Jesus or a different being, but historically he seems to have existed.
It was dumb luck that this doctrine resonated with Indigenous peoples who have these legends. I would give credit to Joseph as a storyteller for running with the "Jesus comes to America" trope, but I suspect destroying whole cities was more of a Joseph thing.
That perhaps Joseph's stories are based on previous white God theories. Nobody knows whether this white God was Jesus or a different being, but historically he seems to have existed.
It was dumb luck that this doctrine resonated with Indigenous peoples who have these legends. I would give credit to Joseph as a storyteller for running with the "Jesus comes to America" trope, but I suspect destroying whole cities was more of a Joseph thing.
the apocalypse of adam is satanic pseudo heretical fan-fiction Opie ~
much like the book of mormon ~
why is it that exmos are deriding the deeply held and ancient beleafs of indigenous peoples in this thred ? ~
good thing the vikings did not get there first ~
er ~ wait ~
much like the book of mormon ~
why is it that exmos are deriding the deeply held and ancient beleafs of indigenous peoples in this thred ? ~
good thing the vikings did not get there first ~
er ~ wait ~
I really seem to learn more and more, but it truly sometimes seems almost everybody is crazy.
Maybe the problem is that too many might think this is normal.
Maybe the problem is that too many might think this is normal.
All the world is a stage. Enjoy the freak show.
If there are more whacko's than sane, then, yes. Whacko is the new normal.
How can you even be sure today which one you are? Uh-oh.
How can you even be sure today which one you are? Uh-oh.
What gives you the loft vantage point to judge cultures? Have you lived in many different ones?
I'm counter culture because I dislike certain aspects of it.
"Maybe the problem is that too many might think this is normal."
You are a social creature. If you think everyone around you is crazy it might be time to take a look inward a bit more.
I'm counter culture because I dislike certain aspects of it.
"Maybe the problem is that too many might think this is normal."
You are a social creature. If you think everyone around you is crazy it might be time to take a look inward a bit more.
To return to the theme of this unusual thread, could it not just be a question of Columbus thinking they were treating him as a ghawd, whereas in fact, they might have been saying: "You look like you've had a long journey, eat some of this. It'll do you good and buck you up!" - or anything else, for that matter... I mean, what did Columbus know of Caribbean languages?
Mormons might claim "Hey, Jesus is back". I think my version's more probable and certainly more fun ;-)
Mormons might claim "Hey, Jesus is back". I think my version's more probable and certainly more fun ;-)
If Columbus had met with these people it would have been quite a different reception.
"The Chetkos say that, many seasons ago, their ancestors came in canoes from the far north, and landed at the river’s mouth. They found two tribes in possession, one a warlike race, resembling themselves; these they soon conquered and exterminated. The other was a diminutive people, of an exceedingly mild disposition, and white. These called themselves, or were called by the new-comers, “Wogies.” They were skillful in the manufacture of baskets, robes, and canoes, and had many methods of taking game and fish which were unknown to the invaders. Refusing to fight, the Wogies were made slaves of, and kept at work to provide food and shelter and articles of use for the more warlike race, who waxed very fat and lazy. One night, however, after a grand feast, the Wogies packed up and fled, and were never more seen. When the first white men appeared, the Chetkos supposed that they were the Wogies returned. They soon found out their mistake however, but retained among themselves the appellation for the white men, who are known as Wogies by all the coast tribes in the vicinity.
(cited in Powers 1877, 69)"
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10040342/1/Wengrow_Graeber_American%20Anthropologist_Rough.pdf
"The Chetkos say that, many seasons ago, their ancestors came in canoes from the far north, and landed at the river’s mouth. They found two tribes in possession, one a warlike race, resembling themselves; these they soon conquered and exterminated. The other was a diminutive people, of an exceedingly mild disposition, and white. These called themselves, or were called by the new-comers, “Wogies.” They were skillful in the manufacture of baskets, robes, and canoes, and had many methods of taking game and fish which were unknown to the invaders. Refusing to fight, the Wogies were made slaves of, and kept at work to provide food and shelter and articles of use for the more warlike race, who waxed very fat and lazy. One night, however, after a grand feast, the Wogies packed up and fled, and were never more seen. When the first white men appeared, the Chetkos supposed that they were the Wogies returned. They soon found out their mistake however, but retained among themselves the appellation for the white men, who are known as Wogies by all the coast tribes in the vicinity.
(cited in Powers 1877, 69)"
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10040342/1/Wengrow_Graeber_American%20Anthropologist_Rough.pdf
I think your version is probably more accurate.
Makes me laugh since as I got older and my hearing started to go and I got sick of saying "what" all the time and I pretended I understood. Got me in some big trouble sometimes. Not as big a trouble of Columbus victims though.
I remember as a kid we were told that the Lamanites were always expecting the "White God" to appear which we, of course, smugly knew was Jesus. Of course he never came and now every one is still waiting. And waiting.
Makes me laugh since as I got older and my hearing started to go and I got sick of saying "what" all the time and I pretended I understood. Got me in some big trouble sometimes. Not as big a trouble of Columbus victims though.
I remember as a kid we were told that the Lamanites were always expecting the "White God" to appear which we, of course, smugly knew was Jesus. Of course he never came and now every one is still waiting. And waiting.
The New World is a world with a white god waiting in the wings. At least with Santa we know when he returns.