To all:

Today I have been studying the Legend of Ra and Isis, which recounts the famous myth in which Isis secures the secret name of Neb-er-tcher (Ra) and thus gains significant power over him. While studying this myth, I was reminded quite a bit of the myth of Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I see distinct differences between the two, of course. In the Hebraic myth, for instance, the serpent acts as instigator but the woman-goddess is the actor. In the Egyptian myth, on the other hand, the woman-goddess is the instigator, fashioning the serpent to attack the primal god. Both myths, however, share commonalities. They both involve a woman-goddess, a serpent, and the primal god. They both also ultimately reveal the same outcome: A woman-goddess acquires essential divine knowledge despite the efforts of the primal god to secure that knowledge from her, and both myths clearly advance women as the sex best capable of securing and using divine knowledge (even if they get condemned for it).

Because the Eve myth has Mesopotamian origins, and because the ancient Egyptians had significant contact with Mesopotamian cultures, I wondered if these two myths were cognate in any fashion. Which brings me to my question: Does anyone know of any scholar or other writer who has offered a comparative analysis of the Isis and Eve serpent myths?

Thanks,

Lune

Same source as the previous one but another chapter: LINK

You may not find serious scientists relating Isis to Eve,
but that issue is very popular within the mystic scene.

Hi, Joerg,

Thanks for supplying the link to additional material. I have all day today to study, so I will go through the material. You also wrote:


Actually, I'm not much into the mystic scene at all. I'm more interested in these issues from a philological and anthropological standpoint. Myths, legends, and folktales travel easily from one culture to another, and there's a vibrant field of scholarly study that looks at the borrowings of these texts among cultures. I suppose that the most famous is Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, which traces the relations of folk tales across cultures, but the field includes much more than just this seminal work.

At this point I have no idea if the Eve and Isis myths really have any relations one to the other. Because they *do* share common motifs, and because they *did* emerge from two ancient cultures (Mesopotamian and Egyptian) that had significant contact with each other, I just wondered if the two myths might have either shared common origins or might have influenced each other in their development. That's why I'm trying to track down any scholarly treatment of cultural diffusion, if such diffusion actually occurred.

Regards,

Lune

To all:

For anyone else interested in the possibility of borrowing or influenced development among Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths (in this case the Eve and Isis myths), I came across an interesting article in (of all places) the Journal of the American Medical Association. This article discusses the serpent-motif as it has been manifested in various cultures. The article's not very long, so I quote it in full below. By extension, this article suggests that the similarities between the Isis and Eve myths probably emerge as a result of the shared motif of the serpent, rather than from any direct borrowing between the cultures who created the two myths.

Lune


***begin article***

Serpents, Staffs, and the Emblems of Medicine

Nathan W. Williams
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

JAMA. 1999;281:475.

For much of recorded history, serpents and serpent-staffs have been associated with the healing arts. One modern emblem of medicine, for example, is the single-serpented staff of Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing. Although such serpentine symbolism is quite prevalent, many consider the connection between serpents and medicine obscure. One interpretation is that just as the serpent represents the forces of life and death as a messenger between the earth's surface and the netherworld, the physician stands as an intermediary in the struggle between healing and destruction.

Worshipped and feared in countless cultures, the serpent is a central figure in various accounts of the creation. The ancient Mesopotamians portrayed their goddess Ishtar, the source of all life, as a snake. In Oriental, Hebrew, and Greek cultures, the serpent was sometimes known as "the mother of all." Some Hebrew scholars even believe the name Eve to be derived from the word for serpent. Similarly, the ancient Chinese depicted our first parents with human upper bodies and entwined serpentine lower bodies. To these ancient cultures, the serpent was a source of endless meditation on the mystery of life and creation.

Not only did the serpent have the power to create life: it also had the power to preserve life. The snake's unique ability to shed its old skin represents a triumph of self-renewal over aging. This metaphor is conveyed in a legend shared by several cultures, which states that God intended to tell humans to cast off their old skins as they aged and to become young again, but the message was instead delivered to the serpent. According to the Sumerian account, a serpent shed its skin after swallowing the "herb of new life" it had stolen from Gilgamesh. Similarly, blood from the right side of a serpentine monster, the Gorgon, gave Aesculapius the power of resurrection, while blood from her left side was poison.

With its seeming power over death, the serpent became a symbol of deliverance. Moses raised a bronze serpent on a staff upon which the afflicted might look and be healed (Numbers 21:6-9). The blind Roman emperor Theodosius regained his sight when a serpent placed a stone on his eyes. Aesculapius assumed the form of a serpent to deliver a city from plague, and those who suffered were healed when licked by snakes in his temples. Further, Kannon, the Japanese goddess of mercy who was believed to deliver people from their difficulties, is often depicted with a snake.

When twined around a staff, the serpent stands as a clearer symbol of the healing art. Staffs represent sacred trees. In Near Eastern cultures, these trees were viewed as a type of the cosmic axis connecting this world with the underworld and the heavens. The image of Trees of Life, central to ancient creation accounts, permeates modern culture. Spires and steeples are cultural remnants of this archetype. Mystical powers as well as practical applications were attributed to such staffs. Aesculapius' knotty staff, for example, assisted the god in his wanderings to serve humankind. It also served as a walking staff for a priest or a crutch for the ailing. In its support for those in search of healing, the Aesculapian staff differs from other derivatives of sacred trees, including the mace, wand, and scepter, that command subservience.

Strangely, in contrast to its beneficent associations, the snake has also represented destruction and death. Several ancient accounts portray the serpent as the enemy of life. The serpent's dual nature represented the struggle between life and death as well as the potential for resurrection and immortality. As a creature that could travel between the surface and the subterranean worlds with an uncanny undulating motion, the serpent assumed the role as messenger between this world and the underworld.

As symbols of life and death, serpents and their associated staffs represent both the aspirations and dangers of medical practice. When pursued with wisdom and beneficence, medicine is often able to heal the ailing. However, the dark forces of chaos and sickness may still triumph. Our modern serpentine symbols, vestiges of ancient thought and culture, inform us that this struggle continues.

***end article***

Found at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/281/5/475

I read that chapter and like it. Thanks for sharing that helpful link.

thanks for sharing an article lune, it help a lot with me and especially to my sister
about her project in ancient time. at least i have new about it and i can share it with our younger sister
because she loves story about ancient time.

Much more accepted links are those between the Osiris, Isis, Horus family (it must be stressed that families of deities were the norm in Ancient Egypt and not unique to these three), to the Christian trinity and, more directly that between the Roman Catholic emphasis on the Madonna and the cult of Isis.

This latter appears to have been promoted by the early church as a response to the popularity of Isis, as a mother goddess, within the Roman Empire, with the Christian trinity providing a familliiar link between existing cults and the new religion, that would have eased the conversion process considerably.

Nor should we overlook that, even within the Old Testament, thereare distinct differences between the God depicted in Genesis and the one portrayed following the sojourn in Egypt, as described in Exodus and the immediate run up to this latter (historically debatable) event.

The early God is very much in the Mesopotamian mould, being demanding, somewhat cruel and with humanity having been created as little more than a slave to the almighty being. (One needs to remember that throughout most of the history of the various Mesopotamian civilisations, their idea of the afterlife was that the Gods would decite whether you got one or not, almost on a whim and that, if you did, you were destined to live in the dark and eat muck.)

After the early Hebrews encountered Egyptian theology, they adopted the Egyptian ideas of benevolent deities and that our fate in the next world was determined by our actions in this life (even the Gods had to obey certain rules, codes of behavior and laws). They also adopted the Egyptian notion of the netherworld being a paradise (though dropping the depictions of it as being basically another Egypt that had al of life's incinveniences smoothed out).