.... Then there was the story of that previous civilization on the Earth, from which our modern culture sprang, which was destroyed, engulfed, in a great aqueous catastrophe. This previous civilization, called, "Atlantis," was named after Atlas, he was said to be their first king, and the flood which engulfed the place, is still known as the "Atlantic" Ocean. We learn the story of Atlantis from the Greek Plato, who explains why these ancient People were drowned away back then. He says that at first, their race was pure, but they earned their destruction because they had a racial fall, and had degenerated through mortal admixture. And that was that for Plato’s Atlantean civilization. So it was much like the Bible’s antediluvian civilization, where Adam’s daughters, bred with the giants, and this caused racial impurities, (His Spirit could not "strive with men indefinitely,") precursing the intolerable state which lead to Yahweh’s flood.
Atlas was cursed, just as Adam, to expect a certain "son" who could be described as nothing less than "messianic." Here's Ovid on the subject; "There dwelt huge Atlas, vaster than the race of man: son of Iapetus, his lordly sway extended over those extreme domains, ... Aglint with gold bright leaves adorn the trees,—boughs golden-wrought bear apples of pure gold. ... But Atlas, mindful of an oracle since by Themis, the Parnassian, told, recalled these words, “O Atlas! mark the day a son of Jupiter shall come to spoil; for when thy trees been stripped of golden fruit, the glory shall be his.” Fearful of this, Atlas had built solid walls around his orchard, and secured a dragon, huge, that kept perpetual guard, and thence expelled all strangers from his land." (Ovid, "Metmorhoses" Book 4. 8. 631-661 ff.). A "son of god" (Herakles) did come and in order to pluck from the tree he had to destroy the serpent.
The wife of Atlas "Hesperus" was named after the sun setting, the "Evening," or as we know it better by its common clipped form the "Eve" (The origin for this English term in defining the sun setting is lost to dim antiquity and I personally do not think that it is a mere coincidence.). Actually, according to Diodorus, the land was named after his wife, not the daughters; "Now Hesperos (Evening) begat a daughter named Hesperis (Evening), who he gave in marriage to his brother (Atlas) and after whom the land was given the name Hesperitis; and Atlas begat by her seven daughters, who were named after their father Atlantides, and after their mother Hesperides." (Diodorus Siculus, "Library of History" 4. 26. 2). Why were the daughters of Hesperus often the ones who were blamed for picking the fruit? I'm not sure, but perhaps it was a way to show the generational consequences for the act of committing the Original Sin. The term "Hesperides" may have carried an original meaning that was equivalent to the term "Daughters of Eve" indicating womankind in general.
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For complete article, go to:http://genesisflood-amaic.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/re-our-post-prophet-elijah-as-greek.html
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Submitted on 2014/03/05 at 5:36 am
John R. Salverda, how do square calling Atlas Adam and then go on to refer to “Iapetus, the father of Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, … recognizable as Japheth [the son of Noah!]“?
John Replies
Dear Michael,
I'm sorry but I have no explanation that can make this obvious inconsistency conform to the rest of the story. There are many places where the Greek myths coincide with the Scriptures, but there are even more differences between them. You may just as well ask; How could Atlas be Adam if he had a brother (Prometheus) who created mankind out of clay, and another brother (Epimetheus) who was married to the first woman? Or; Why is Atlas never referred to as the first man? Occasionally the differences can tell us more than the similarities do (the Greeks still thought that men and women were created separately, first a man and then a woman, and it was she who introduced evil into the world). It is evident that the Greek myths do not accurately recount the Scriptural narrative. I think that it is fair to say that some degree of accuracy was lost to the Greeks in trying to fit all of the varied, mainly Eastern, stories into its one big system of mythology (they seem to require that everyone be related in one way or another).
Now, as to why I consider Iapetus to be recognizable as Japheth (The similarity between the names is noteworthy, but it's not just the likeness between the names). Noah preached the God of Heaven; thus, Noah being deified, it was as this God. The Greeks called him "Ouranos," and Iapetus was one of his sons. Scripturally, Japheth is portrayed as the progenitor of the Caucasian races. While Iapetus was the father of, the first, and arguably, the most famous, “Caucasian” who ever lived! Prometheus. It is difficult indeed, to picture Prometheus as the creator of all mankind but, perhaps it was true, that he was (merely) the "procreator," of a certain, "race," of mankind, the Caucasians, who, once again, can be traced back to his father, the Greek Iapetus. Why are White folks named after the well known mountain of Prometheus, Mount Caucasia?
Furthermore, there was a group of People who were known to the Greeks as the, "Leucosyri," or the "White Syrians," they lived in the land, that the Persians called "Cappadocia." Once again, White People are associated with, this time the Persian form of the name, Japheth. (The Hebrews say, "Japheth," the Latins say, "Gepetto," and the Persians, "Cappado") Given the Biblical list in the family of nations at Gen. 10, and compare this with the location of these nations in the Assyrian inscriptions, one wonders why Cappadocia isn’t immediately recognized as being named after Japheth. Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, Ashkenaz, and Togarmah, (if Togarmah truly is Armenia,) are all contiguous with Cappadocia. The Greek form, Iapetus, is most like the Hebrew in pronunciation, and as the father of Caucasians these two at least must be identified.
Now Michael, I will offer a theory, purely speculative on my part, as to why these particular stories, with highly suspicious, apparently Scriptural motifs (the Adamic Atlas, the Messianic Prometheus, and the Eve-like Pandora) have been appended onto the family of Iapetus. Perhaps the Greeks saw their Iapetus in much the same way that the Hebrews saw Japheth, as some kind of geographical, or ethnic/linguistic, classification (ie. Armenian, Caucasian, or Indo-European). And they simply saw these specific myths as related, as all coming from the same place or group, and therefore categorized (as we do when we say "Japhetic") by making them to be "sons" of Iapetus. As to why these, usually thought to be Semitic, Hebrew stories, should be classified as "Japhetic" by the Greeks, I hesitate to speculate. Perhaps it is because Noah and his family were associated with Ararat (Armenia), or because Joppa (a main point of departure for Greek immigration and the main seaport for Jerusalem) was supposed to be founded by and named after Japheth, or just a general association between Japhetics and Semites (as in Genesis 9:27), I'm really not prepared to say.
Anyway, thanks for the question and interest in my work. -John R. Salverda
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