Re: Rams and ressurrection, a PIE myth???

----- Original Message -----
From: Joao S. Lopes
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 12:24 AM
Subject: Res: [tied] Rams and ressurrection, a PIE myth???


The tale of Abraham and Isaac seems to fit in the same pattern. And there's
a lamb on it, too... It's possible that the common elements were older than
IE... But I'm finding some interesting coincidences.

JS Lopes
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Personally, I would doubt this pattern could be very old.
It's necessarily a neolithic idea.

As long as people were hunters, humans were humans and animals were animals.
When breeding began, some animals became "part of the human family".
With that cruel situation that you take care of animals that you will kill
and eat.
There's a powerful emotional contradiction in breeding,
you kill and eat the beings you have "mothered" for months.
The tale of Abraham basically speaks about that contradiction.
Is it my son or an animal ?
You need God himself to tell you, there's no guilt in killing an animal you
have "brought up".
But the guilt of inconscious cannibalism is still there.
For example the guilt can trigger two words : to breed and to bring up...

The theme of a substitution of a son with a lamb makes sense only in a
society of animal-breeders.
It cannot be older than that.

And the Old Testament is full of "breeding" images : shepherd, etc.

If you are looking for something really old,
you have to discard all the themes that have a relationship with neolithic.

A.

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