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Quest for King Arthur - Original

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Valerie
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« Reply #30 on: November 09, 2008, 11:20:27 pm »

Was Guinevere really an adulteress?

Explorations in Arthurian History

This tradition is to be found entirely in the Legends. The story of Arthur's queen, whom Geoffrey of Monmouth calls Ganhumara, goes back a long way. The Triads refer to Arthur's three queens, all named Gwenhwyfar, the Welsh spelling.

Welsh tradition also has the story of Gwenhwyfar's abduction by Melwas. Two versions of the end of this episode exist: The first has Arthur riding to her rescue and killing Melwas; the second has Gildas, a 6th-century monk who wrote in Arthur's time and who mentioned Badon Hill but did not mention Arthur, as the mediator in the dispute.

The legends, of course, would change this rescuer to Lancelot and would incorporate this story into the Love Triangle aspect of the relationship between Arthur's best knight and his queen. But Lancelot is entirely the creation of Chretien de Troyes and is as such no part of historical investigation.

As for Mordred, whom Geoffrey calls Modred and whom scholars think was also called Medraut, the tale of his seizing the throne with the help of the queen is to be found in Geoffrey. Later writers would hold Guinevere blameless in this, but Geoffrey says she broke her marriage vows to Arthur and settled in as Modred's queen.

When Arthur returned to fight his nephew, Guinevere fled to a nunnery (Geoffrey doesn't say which) and lived out her days there in penitance.

Explorations in Arthurian Legends
We can point to one man to give us the Lancelot-Guinevere adultery story: Chretien de Troyes.

He it was who invented Lancelot and added him to Arthur's court as a Knight of the Round Table. He it was who said the queen so loved Arthur's First Knight that she gave herself to him willingly. He it was who said the two were so ashamed and yet not shameful.

Other writers would build on this theme. Sir Thomas Malory put forward the idea that Arthur's continuing to turn a blind eye (or not knowing at all) would serve as a measure of mistrust of his authority by his knights; they also would doubt his ability to rule if he couldn't see or admit such an obvious thing. Malory would add the story of how Arthur found his queen guilty of treason and sentenced her to death by being burned at the stake and how Lancelot rescued her and carried her off. Arthur and Lancelot fought, of course, and Malory follows Geoffrey in placing Guinevere in a nunnery.

Tennyson finds the adultery to be the cause of all that is wrong with Arthur's court. Because of his sin, Lancelot cannot behold the full glory of the Holy Grail. Because of the sin's being known, Balin and Pelleas go mad.

Modern writers would treat the adultery as a matter of course and even suggest that it was inevitable becaue Guinevere didn't really love Arthur.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4186/Arthur/htmlpages/kingarthurfaq2.html
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Valerie
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« Reply #31 on: November 09, 2008, 11:20:49 pm »

Was Gawain a great knight or a royal pain?

Explorations in Arthurian History

Gawain appears early on in the legends of Arthur. He is sometimes portrayed as having his strength linked to the Sun, a link to Gwalchmei, the solar deity of Celtic mythology. Indeed, a Welsh tradition of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain equates Gawain and Gwalchmei.

In the early stories and the later historical works he is a giant figure, bound to Arthur by blood, being the son of Lot and Morgause and, therefore, Arthur's nephew. He does great deeds and is a symbol of knightly prowess.

Geoffrey tells us that he was in command of a division in Arthur's victory over the Roman Emperor Lucius at the Battle of Saussy and that Gawain attacked Lucius himself. Gawain was killed as he came back to shore to fight Modred.

Later stories have Gawain a strong supporter of Arthur.


Explorations in Arthurian Legends
The story of the Arthurian Legends begins with Chretien de Troyes, who portrays Gawain first as a mighty knight and then as second to Lancelot as a Knight of the Round Table. Indeed, in Chretien's first Arthurian romance, Erec, Erec is said to be the second in importance behind Gawain and ahead of Lancelot.

But as Chretien wrote his stories and found he liked Lancelot and Perceval more, Gawain took a back seat. Indeed, in Chretien's unfinished Perceval story, we find Gawain questing for the Holy Grail as well; even though the story is unfinished, the reader can well conclude that Gawain will not achieve the Grail Quest.

Gawain is perhaps most famous for the story of his adventures at the hands of the Green Knight. In this story, Gawain is made to be a virtuous and loyal knight whose one failing is to reveal the existence of a magical talisman. He bravely accepts the Green Knight's twin challenges: to strike a mighty blow at Camelot and to take a mighty blow at the Green Chapel. Gawain is not afraid. His adventure completed, he returns to Camelot a hero.

Later writers, especially Malory and Tennyson, stuck to the unflattering treatment. He is said to be a source of irritation to the king and a proud, stubborn, old knight.

Modern writers, such as Marion Zimmer Bradley, portray Gawain as a proud head of a clan: He is the oldest of the brothers Orkney at Camelot and, as such, is responsible for their actions.

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« Reply #32 on: November 09, 2008, 11:21:18 pm »

Who was the Lady of the Lake?
Explorations in Arthurian History


The Lady of the Lake doesn't really appear in historical investigations. She is thought to have been based on lake fairies in Welsh stories.

Geoffrey of Monmouth says the leader of the maidens of Avalon was Morgan Le Fay. Later legend traditions say that the Lady of the Lake was the leader in Avalon.


Explorations in Arthurian Legends

The Lady of the Lake in popular conception is the high priestess of an older religion and the woman who gave Arthur Excalibur and then took it back when Bedivere threw it back into the lake. She is also said to have intervened when Morgan Le Fay gave Excalibur to Accolon, who tried to kill the king with it.

Many traditions, chief among them Marion Zimmer Bradley, say the Lady was responsible for educating Lancelot. Bradley also presents the Lady, whom she names Viviane, as the high priestess of a very old religion, centered in Avalon.

She is known by many names, including Vivien and Nimue; she is also said to be

the one who locked Merlin away with his own spell.

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« Reply #33 on: November 09, 2008, 11:21:51 pm »

Was Merlin an old magician or a young fortune-teller?

Explorations in Arthurian History

Merlin as we know him began in the fertile mind of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose History of the Kings of Britain and Vita Merlini tell us of Merlin's rise to power through the power or prophecy and his continuation of that power through functioning as facilitator of wishes and granter of desires as advisor to Ambrosius, Uther, and Arthur.

Geoffrey's Merlin is thought to be based on the Welsh Myrddin, a wise man who went mad after the battle of Arfderydd and retired to the Celidon Forest.

Merlin is said to have been born in Carmarthen, which means "Myrddin Town." He is said to have been the child of a human mother and an incubus, or demon. As such, he had no father in the traditional sense. This condition came in useful when Vortigern was having trouble building a tower on Dinas Emrys. His seers told him to sacrifice a boy who had no father; Merlin was produced but instead told his own prophecies (Geoffrey's Vita Merlini). He correctly predicted that the tower was built on an underground pool and that underneath the pool were two dragons fighting: one red and one white. This was to symbolize the Red Dragon of the Pendragon (Uther and Arthur) and the White Dragon of the Saxons; Merlin's Prophecies said that the Red Dragon would drive out the White Dragon.


Explorations in Arthurian Legends
Robert de Boron, who gave us so many of the Arthurian concepts--the Sword in the Stone, the Holy Grail, the Round Table--also gave us the magical conception of Merlin.

Robert repeats Geoffrey's story of Merlin's origin and makes it work for his story of magic infused into the creation of the Round Table and the Holy Grail story. Before Merlin is 3 years old, he tells the story of Joseph of Arimathea and his bringing the Grail to Britain. He saves his mother from certain death and grows up as an oddity--a prophet with a religious air.

He foresees the need for a Round Table and for Arthur. Robert says Merlin casts a spell on Igraine to make her believe Uther is Gorlois. The baby Arthur is given to Merlin for safe keeping, and the King Arthur is proclaimed when the boy Arthur pulls the sword from an anvil set on top of a stone.


Merlin continues as court magician, assisting Arthur behind and in front of the scenes. He even helps Perceval fulfill the Grail Quest. In Robert, it is Perceval who sits in the Siege Perilous.

In Malory and others, Merlin is the center of the magical aspects of the court at Camelot, fighting off challenges from Morgan Le Fay and other witches.


He also falls under the spell of Nimue or Vivien of the Lady of the Lake, depending on which version you read. The story of how Merlin is locked away depends on the magical aspects of his character: He tells her the words to the spell to make someone invisible to all but one person; and she takes advantage of it. Whether Merlin foresaw this is an open question. Tennyson portrays the magician as a tired old man who almost seems to want to be locked away. (This, of course, is a reflection of the failure of Arthur to uphold the standards in his life and his court--a large theme in the Idylls of the King.)



Later writers built on the foundation of Geoffrey and Robert and made Merlin both a prophet and a magician. In The Once and Future King, he is even a funny old man who lives backwards (explaining how he can see into the future). In Marion Zimmer Bradley, he is a priest of the old religion and prophet for the new days ahead. In Mary Stewart, he is both prophet and magician.

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« Reply #34 on: November 09, 2008, 11:22:23 pm »

Did the Round Table really seat 1,600 men?

Explorations in Arthurian History


The introduction of the Round Table can be traced to the French monk Robert Wace, who wrote Roman de Brut, a poem based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain.

Wace says that Arthur's sat inside a round table while Arthur sat on a dais, above the Round Table. The idea here was that the knights were all equal but Arthur was still the king.

A few years later, an Englishman named Layamon tried his hand at the story, calling his work Brut. (The idea of Brut comes from Brutus the Trojan, whom Geoffrey says founded the first kingdom in Britain.)

Layamon identifies Arthur's court as being at London, and places the king at the center of all the action. In Brut, the Round Table is the result of a chance meeting between Arthur and a Cornish carpenter, who offers to make for the king a table that could seat 1,600 men and be folded up and taken anywhere.

Now, the number 1,600 is fanciful. Wace doesn't tell us how many knights sat inside the circle the table formed. All subsequent Arthurian stories can be classified as legends, not histories. So we are left with 1,600.

Explorations in Arthurian Legends
Robert de Boron starts the ball rolling with the Round Table, too, telling us how Merlin ordered Uther Pendragon to construct the table based on his vision of the Last Supper Table and Joseph of Arimathea's Grail Table. Merlin instructed Uther to have the table accommodate 50 chairs; he also said to leave one chair blank, for the knight who would fulfill the Grail Quest. The Vulgate Cycle says the Round Table sat 250 knights.

The legend writers followed the lead of the history writer Wace in advancing the idea that the table was round to promote equality in the ranks. The Vulgate Cycle introduces the idea of the Siege Perilous, continuing the empty-chair theory but adding to it the caveat that anyone not anointed would perish after sitting there. Galahad, of course, was the only one able to sit there; it was he who fulfilled the Grail Quest.




Robert says 50 knights sat at the table; the Vulgate authors say 250. Each of these numbers suggests a progressively larger table but nothing so big as that suggested by Layamon, a history writer. In Brut, we are told that the table could seat 1,600 and be folded up and taken anywhere. Such a fanciful story is not heard of in Arthurian histories. Indeed, some scholars think that almost all of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain is made up. Yet, Layamon and Wace before set out to tell the story of Arthur as a history. Arthurian writers beginning with Chretien de Troyes and continuing with Robert de Boron, the Vulgate Cycle writers, and continuing on through Malory, Tennyson, and the modern compliment, add their versions of the legends.

Did the Round Table really seat 1,600 men? Depends on whom you read and whom you believe.

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« Reply #35 on: November 09, 2008, 11:22:49 pm »

Was Morgan Le Fay really a witch?

Explorations in Arthurian History


Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that Morgan Le Fay was the leader of the nine maidens of Avalon, who took Arthur away in a barge after the Battle of Camlann. The idea is that Morgan is a healer, who will heal Arthur's mortal wound. William of Malmesbury, writing just before Geoffrey, had offered the tantalizing idea that Arthur's tomb had not yet been found, giving the slight hint that he was coming back. Geoffrey's portrayal of Morgan (in the Vita Merlini) would seem to suggest this as well. Geoffrey also says that Morgan could fly and change shape.


She is largely portrayed as existing for a long time, the concerns of mortals not having much effect on her existence.

Explorations in Arthurian Legends
Chretien de Troyes continues the idea of Morgan Le Fay as healer, an idea introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini. Chretien also tells us that Morgan is Arthur's sister, her mother being Igraine and her father being Gorlois.

The Vulgate Cycle finds Morgan still on good terms with Arthur but angry at Guinevere for breaking a romance with one of her lovers. She tries alternately to seduce Lancelot and to expose his affair with the queen, presumably both through magical means. In the Prose Tristan, she has delivered to Arthur's court a magic drinking horn from which no unfaithful lady can drink without spilling.

The tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ends with the revelation that the entire episode was a creation of Morgan, who was trying to test the continued worthiness of Arthur and his knights.

After the Vulgate Cycle, writers such as Malory said Morgan became angry with Arthur after he kills one of her lovers. Through magic and mortal means, she tries to arrange his downfall, most famously when she arranges for Accolon to have Excalibur and try to kill Arthur with it.

Malory, especially, portrays Morgan as mortal, having to use magic to make herself appear young, and scheming through magical means to embarrass and harm Arthur and his court.

Marion Zimmer Bradley says Morgan (called Morgaine) was not only Arthur's sister but also his consort at a Beltane ritual, at which Mordred was conceived.

In Bradley as well as in almost every Arthurian story, Morgan Le Fay is portrayed as having magic; many sources say she learned this magic from Merlin.


Was she a witch? That word usually has an evil connotation. Earlier sources portray her as a healer; given the evil connotation of the word witch, we must conclude that she was not one in the earlier sources. However, in the later stories in which she was portrayed as scheming to get rid of Arthur and his companions and using magic to those ends, we must conclude that she was indeed a witch.

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« Reply #36 on: November 09, 2008, 11:23:15 pm »

Was the Sword really in the Stone?

Explorations in Arthurian History


The idea of Arthur's drawing the Sword from the Stone and becoming king of Britain is not to be found in the historical texts.

And yet, one possible explanation is this:

The Latin word for stone is saxo; the English word for the Germanic invaders who took over the country is Saxon. It is quite possible that the story of Arthur had him killing a great Saxon leader and taking his sword as a symbol of prowess and renewed vigor and victory. It is also quite possible that in copying (which is what they did in those days), a scribe might have forgotten to add a letter, namely the last, to the word Saxon. Hence, "Arthur pulled the sword from the Saxon" may have become "Arthur pulled the sword from the stone."

Another possibility is this:

In Roman times, the empire conquered the Sarmatians, people who lived on the steppes of Russia. Many of the defeated Sarmatian warriors were sent to protect Roman forts in Britain. Part of the Sarmatians' religious beliefs centered on the image of a sword thrust into a platform of stone.
The commander of the Sarmatian troops in Britain was named Artorius, the Latin form of Arthur.
The idea of Arthur's drawing the sword from the stone could have had its origins in the religious beliefs of the Sarmatians, some of whom would have been left behind when the Romans suddenly left in 410.

Also, one of the Sarmatian folktales tells of a great hero named Batradz who owned a magical sword. When Batradz was mortally wounded in battle, he asked his friends to throw his sword into the water as a votive offering. His friends refused several times but told him they had done it; he knew, however, that they had not. When they finally did, the water into which they threw the sword turned red as blood. Batradz could die in peace.

This tale is remarkably similar to Vulgate version of Griflet throwing Excalibur into the waiting arms of the Lady of the Lake, including the two refusals and the final acquiescence.

Explorations in Arthurian Legends
We turn again to Robert de Boron for the story of the Sword in the Stone.

Yet, Robert says the sword was in an anvil on top of a stone. The introduction of this device took place in Robert's Merlin. The sword symbolizes justice, and the stone represents Christianity. By pulling the sword from the stone, Arthur is agreeing to pursue justice in the name of Christianity.


Later writers would omit this connection as well as the anvil and portray the Sword in the Stone as a test arranged by Merlin to prove that Arthur was the true king. Mary Stewart's telling of this is especially memorable.

We also see the sword-stone motif in the Vulgate version of the Galahad story, as the perfect knight sits on the Siege Perilous and pulls a sword from a stone.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4186/Arthur/htmlpages/kingarthurfaq11.html
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« Reply #37 on: November 09, 2008, 11:23:38 pm »

rockessence

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   posted 11-29-2005 07:19 PM                       
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Valerie,

Still another possibility....swords were cast in stone molds. When you consider how stories were changed over the centuries, and the first written account of this in the British Isles was so relatively recent.

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« Reply #38 on: January 04, 2009, 01:41:21 am »

 
Dawn Moline

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   posted 11-29-2005 09:01 PM                       
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Nice work, Valerie, and I, for one, believe that Arthur existed. It doesn't matter whether he wore plate armour or not.

Heard an interesting theory, that the Shroud of Turin is actually not Jesus, but Arthur. Like Jesus, his lfe must have been a thing of some special magnificence, else we wouldn't still be talking of him today.

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« Reply #39 on: January 04, 2009, 01:41:31 am »

Europa

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quote:
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In Roman times, the empire conquered the Sarmatians, people who lived on the steppes of Russia. Many of the defeated Sarmatian warriors were sent to protect Roman forts in Britain. Part of the Sarmatians' religious beliefs centered on the image of a sword thrust into a platform of stone.
The commander of the Sarmatian troops in Britain was named Artorius, the Latin form of Arthur.
The idea of Arthur's drawing the sword from the stone could have had its origins in the religious beliefs of the Sarmatians, some of whom would have been left behind when the Romans suddenly left in 410.
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The latest version of Arthur has him as a Sarmatian captain leading the Picts against the Saxons after the Roman Empire withdraws from Britain. Very entertaining.
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Neart inár lámha, fírinne ar ár dteanga, glaine inár gcroí
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« Reply #40 on: January 04, 2009, 01:41:45 am »

 
Jason

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   posted 11-30-2005 11:31 PM                       
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The best version of Arthur is a movie called "Excalibur." It is not historically accurate (Dark Age Knights did not wear plate armor), but it is prety cool just the same.
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« Reply #41 on: January 04, 2009, 01:41:55 am »

Jason

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   posted 11-30-2005 11:33 PM                       
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Actually, scratch that, Monty Python and the Holy Grail was better. Rockessence, did you ever see that?
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« Reply #42 on: January 04, 2009, 01:42:10 am »

rockessence

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Yeah Jason,

Ages ago....I love Terry Gilliam's work. Can't remember much about it now.

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All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17

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« Reply #43 on: January 04, 2009, 01:42:29 am »

rockessence

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More on the Plantagenets:

"Edward de Vere was, at that time, Lord Chancellor of England - as had been many generations of his forebears, including Albrey, the 12th-century Prince of Anjou and Guisnes, whose titular name, Albe-Righ, meant Elf King. What the Syndicate knew full well, despite their loyalty to Elizabeth, was that the House of Tudor had no prior right to the English throne, having simply taken it, by might of the sword, from the preceding House of Plantagenet.

That apart, the Plantagenets themselves were a junior branch of the House of Anjou, whose senior branch was the House of Vere. Indeed, in 1861, the noted royal historian Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay described the Veres as "the longest and most illustrious line of nobles that England has ever seen". Their ancestry was jointly Pictish and Merovingian, descending from the ancient Grail House of Scythia. Here was a true kingly line of the Elven Race, and it was for this reason that Oberon (a variant of Aubrey/Albrey, the historical Elf King) became Shakespeare's King of the Fairies. Such was the translatory nature of all Rosicrucian symbology, whether portrayed in stories, artwork, watermarks or the Tarot."

This is from a lecture "In the Realm of the Ring Lords" presented by Sir Laurence Gardner, Kt St Gm., KCD, KT St A. at the 1999 NEXUS Conference held in Sydney, 22-23rd May.

This entire lecture is well worth the read:

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/ringlords1.html

--------------------
"Illigitimi non carborundum!"
All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17

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« Reply #44 on: January 04, 2009, 01:43:03 am »

 
Trevor Proffitt

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   posted 12-02-2005 12:34 AM                       
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Hi Rockessence, you mentioned Laurence Gardner. His "Genesis of the Grail Kings" ties in neatly with all this.

Apologies for the length of this, but I thought that Val and some of the others might like reading it:

Genesis of the Grail Kings

Genesis of the Grail Kings relates to the dawn of monarchy, and to the emergent bloodline which gave rise to the Messianic succession. In biblical terms, we shall concentrate on Old Testament times, particularly on the early stories from the books of Genesis and Exodus.


The Bible explains that the Bloodline story began with Adam and Eve, from whose third son, Seth, evolved a line which progressed through Methuselah and Noah, eventually to Abraham, who became the great patriarch of the Hebrew nation. It then relates that Abraham brought his family westwards out of Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) to the land of Canaan (Palestine), from where some of his descendants moved into Egypt. After a few generations, they moved back into Canaan where, in time, the eventual David of Bethlehem became king of the newly defined kingdom of Israel.


If viewed as it is presented in the scriptures, this is a fascinating saga - but there is nothing anywhere to indicate why the ancestral line of David was in any way special. In fact, quite the reverse is the case. His ancestors are portrayed as a succession of wandering territory seekers, who are seen to be of no particular relevance. Their biblical history bears no comparison to, say, the contemporary pharaohs of ancient Egypt. We are told, however, that their significance comes from the fact that they were God's chosen people.


This designated status leaves us wondering because, according to the scriptures, their God led them through nothing but a succession of famines, wars and general hardship - and on the face of it, these early patriarchs do not appear to have been too bright. We are faced, therefore, with a couple of possibilities: Either David was not of the Abrahamic succession, and was simply grafted onto the list by later writers. Or, maybe we have been presented with a very corrupted version of the family's early history.


The problem with such distant history is that the earliest Hebrew scriptures were compiled between the 6th and 1st centuries BC. They are not likely, therefore, to be that authentic in relating accuracies from thousands of years before. Indeed, this is plainly the case because their express purpose was to convey an account which upheld the principles of the Jewish faith - a faith that did not emerge until well into the ancestral story.


Given that the scriptural books were commenced while the Israelites were held captive in Mesopotamian Babylon from 586 BC, it is apparent that Babylon was where the original records were then held. In fact, from the time of Adam, through some nineteen said generations down to Abraham, the whole of Old Testament patriarchal history was Mesopotamian. More specifically, the history was from southern Mesopotamia, where the ancient Sumerians did indeed refer to the grasslands of the Euphrates delta as the Eden.


It is also apparent that certain books were, for some reason, not selected for inclusion in the canonical Old Testament - the books of Enoch and Jubilees, for example. A further book (to which attention is specifically drawn in the books of Joshua and Samuel) is the book of Jasher. But despite its apparent importance to the Hebrew writers, it was excluded from final selection. Similarly, the book of Numbers draws our attention to the book of The Wars of Jehovah, and in the book of Isaiah we are directed towards the book of The Lord.


What were these books? Where are these books? They are all mentioned in the Bible, which means that they all pre-date the Old Testament - so why did the editors dismiss them when the selection was made? In pursuing an answer to this question, a fact which becomes increasingly clear is that, in English-language Bibles, the definition Lord is used in a general context - but in earlier texts a positive distinction is drawn between Jehovah and the Lord.


It has often been wondered why the biblical God of the Hebrews led them through trials and tribulations, floods and disaster when, from time to time, he appears to have performed with a quite contrary and merciful personality. The answer is that, although now seemingly embraced as the One God by the Jewish and Christian faiths, there was originally a distinct difference between the figures of Jehovah and the Lord. They were, in fact, quite separate deities. The god referred to as Jehovah was traditionally a storm god - a god of wrath and vengeance - whereas the god referred to as the Lord, was a god of fertility and wisdom.


The name given to the Lord in the early writings was Adon - the prevailing Semitic word for Lord. As for the apparent personal name of Jehovah, this was not used in the early days, and the Vulgate Bible explains that the God of Abraham was called El Shaddai, which relates to a Great One of the Mountain.


The identity of Jehovah (Yahweh) came from the an original Hebrew stem (YHWH) which, according to Exodus, meant 'I am that I am'. This was said to be a statement made by God, to Moses, on Mount Sinai hundreds of years after the time of Abraham. Jehovah was, therefore, not a name at all, and early texts refer simply to El Shaddai, with his opposing counterpart being the Adon. To the Canaanites, these gods were respectively called El Elyon and Baal.


In modern Bibles, the definitions God and Lord are used and intermixed throughout, as if they were one and the same character - but originally they were not. One was a vengeful god (a people suppressor); the other was a social god (a people supporter), and they each had wives, sons and daughters.


The old writings tell us that, throughout the patriarchal era, the Israelites endeavoured to support Adon the Lord - but at every turn El Shaddai (the storm god Jehovah) retaliated with floods, tempests, famines and destruction. Even at the very last (around 600 BC), the Bible explains that Jerusalem was overthrown at Jehovah's bidding. Tens of thousands of Israelites were taken into Babylonian captivity simply because one of their previous kings had erected altars in veneration of Baal the Adon.


It was during the course of this captivity that the Israelites finally succumbed to the Jehovah god of wrath. They developed a new religion out of sheer fear of his retribution - and this was only 500 years before the time of Jesus. Subsequently, the Christians took Jehovah on board as well, calling him simply God, while the hitherto social concepts of the Adon were totally discarded. The two religions were henceforth both faiths of fear.


This leaves us knowing that, within an overall pantheon of gods and goddesses (many of whom are actually named in the Bible), there were two predominant and opposing deities. In different cultures the pair have been called: El Elyon and Baal, El Shaddai and Adon, Ahriman and Mazda, Jehovah and Lord, God and Father - but these styles are all titular; they are not personal names. So who precisely were they?


To find the answer we have to look no further than where these gods were operative, and old Canaanite texts (discovered in Syria in the 1920s) tell us that their courts were in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in Mesopotamia. We can trace the related Sumerian records back to about 3700 BC, and they relate that the gods in question were brothers. In Sumer, the storm-god (who eventually became known as Jehovah) was called Enlil or Ilu-kur-gal (meaning Ruler of the Mountain), and his brother (who became Adon the Lord) was called Enki, which means 'archetype'.


The texts inform us that it was Enlil who brought the Flood; it was Enlil who destroyed Ur and Babylon, and it was Enlil who constantly opposed the education and enlightenment of humankind. Indeed, Syrian texts tell us that it was Enlil who obliterated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Dead Sea - not because they were dens of wickedness, but because they were great centres of wisdom and learning.


It was the Lord Enki, on the other hand, who (despite the wrath of his brother) granted the Sumerians access to the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. It was Enki who set up the escape strategy during the Flood, and it was Enki who passed over the time-honoured Tables of Destiny - the tablets of scientific law which became the bedrock of the early mystery schools in Egypt.


The kings of the early succession (who reigned in Sumer and Egypt before becoming kings in Israel) were anointed upon installation with the fat of the sacred crocodile. This noble beast was referred to as the Mûs-hûs or Messeh (from which derived the Hebrew verb 'to anoint') - and the Kings of this dynastic succession were referred to as Messiahs (meaning Anointed Ones).


The first king of the Messianic succession was the biblical Cain, head of the Sumerian House of Kish. On recognizing this, one can immediately see an early anomaly in the traditional Genesis story, for the historical line to David and Jesus was not from Adam and Eve's son Seth at all. It descended from Eve's son Cain.


Conventional teaching generally cites Cain as being the first son of Adam and Eve - but he was not; even the book of Genesis tells us that he was not. In fact, it confirms how Eve told Adam that Cain's father was the Lord - who was of course Enki the archetype. Even outside the Bible, the writings of the Hebrew Talmud and Midrash make it quite plain that, although Cain was Eve's eldest son, he was not the son of Adam.


The Old Testament book of Genesis (in its translated form) tells us that Cain was 'a tiller of the ground' - but this is not what the original text relates. What it states is that Cain had 'dominion over the earth', which is a rather different matter when considering his kingly status.


The Bible translators appear to have had a constant problem with the word 'earth' - often translating it to ground, clay or dust, instead of recognizing it as relating to the Earth. Even in the case of Adam and Eve, the translators made glaring errors. The Bible says, 'Male and female created he them, and he called their name Adam'. Older writings use the more complete word Adâma, which means 'of the Earth'. However, this did not mean they were made of dirt; it means (as the Anchor Hebrew Bible explains in precise terms) that they were Earthlings.


Around 6,000 years ago, Adam and Eve (known then as Atâbba and Kâva - and jointly called the Adâma) were purpose-bred for kingship by Enki and his sister-wife Nîn-khursag. This took place at a 'creation chamber' which the Sumerian annals refer to as the House of Shi-im-tî (meaning 'breath‹wind‹life' ).


Adam and Eve were certainly not the first people on Earth, but they were the first of the genetically contrived kingly succession. The records tell that Nîn-khursag was called the Lady of the Embryo or the Lady of Life, and she was the surrogate mother for Atâbba and Kâva, who were created from human ova fertilized by the Lord Enki.
 
 
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Neart inár lámha, fírinne ar ár dteanga, glaine inár gcroí
"Strength in our arms, truth on our tongue, clarity in our heart"
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