Gerald Schroeder [Proof of God in Five Minutes | Gerald Schroeder] (search his name if the link doesn’t work) does a great job of demonstrating how the Genesis account jibes with what our generally accepted theories about physical reality propose. If you’re interested in this topic, you really do yourself a disservice by ignoring his books.
I’m a Christian, but I see the Garden of Eden story as an allegory. I mean, how can you not? Ethereal garden, walks with God, talking snakes, magical fruit trees, people formed from dust or ribs...the whole thing screams mythos at us, trying to get us to take it figuratively.
I personally believe it alludes to a previous existence in another dimension that all of us experienced, and we rebelled, as in the story, against our Creator. This life is our rebirth, where we acquire the knowledge of good and evil that we sought in the Garden and are reconciled with our Creator.
Genesis authorship is attributed to Moses. Moses was raised to be a leader. As a leader, he should have been instructed in management. The story of creation in Genesis is an early example of the management process.
“Let there be light” – Heavens and earth were created but there was no light. “Planning and decision making” requires to “see” what you have to deal with first.
“Let there be a separation of water from sky and earth...” – This is a transition from planning and decision making to organizing. Genesis 1:6-25 relates how creation was organized.
“Leading” – Genesis 1:26-28 – The purpose mankind was created – "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
God gave this command to male and female equally. There was no chain of command established between women and men.
Not only mankinds’ first commandment was to manage creation, but God gave mankind the resources to manage it.
“Controlling” – Monitoring and evaluating activities – Genesis 1:29-31 and Genesis 2:1-3.
JONTTODD, another source (Telegraph and Argus, Bradford, West Yorkshire) writes: “Charcoal and bone sealed within a foundation trench in the north range of Chedworth Villa provided radiocarbon dates that show the wall could not have been built until after AD 424, with the mosaic later than this date.”
After the Big Bang and Creation of the Heavens and the Earth the Angels took notice of Earth and started visiting. Over the ages they watched us grow and became curious. Interacting, helping with technology and having children with the humans creating the giants. When God told Lucifer to stop corrupting the Earth the War in Heaven began. Angels were cast out and Lucifer became Satan. The beginning of Genesis tells us the earth was flooded(direct translation is complete flood) then God recreated(direct translation) the Earth and recreated man in His own image until Adam's partial flood(direct translation).
All religions, monotheist and non-monotheist, tell about the same story. They focus on the creation of the Human Being and its relation with the creator(s). The overlook the main subject: how the Universe came into reality, and if a living creature appeared on the surface of a planet probably others have appeared on other planets. So, these creature would come to believe like we, Earth creatures, to a or many creator(s). Do you think the Universe is a god (s) creation. If he created us, and them, did he, or it, makes us a living universe because as you may know we are flesh, muscles, bones on and within which live bacteria, microbs, virus. Is/are our creator(s) god(s) of our solar system or our milky way?
To believe the theoretical system of master-servant existence or science-physics used to depend on books. Computers, though relatively infantile will eventually replace human beliefs in either as the capacity to deliver a broadly expanded understanding of the universe grows with computers evolving. Look how we all have changed to view our universe with space exploration to follow how myths influenced the future by inspiring the desire to explore. We all want to see more of what is the stuff of our universe to explain our origins.
The whole myth of Genesis is actually borrowed literally from the Hindu and the Mesopotamian literature as an allegory of the appearance of the life on earth. The mythographers of that myth used deities to explain to the vulgar how they imagined that the life appeared. Paradoxically, in almost all ancient mythologies in the beginning there were the Chaos (void) and the water! After that the main deity or deities fabricated everything in the universe, but what important in this myth is, is how the man was created. In the ancient literature, as Dr. Inman points out, in the ancient languages, the term for “garden” is used as a metaphor for woman. See “Ancient Faiths,” i. 52; ii. 553. Asherah, El’s and Yahweh’s wife was often named as tree, grove, locus etc in Vulgate. The tree had a phallic meaning together with its fruits that metaphorically meant the “sperms” of the procreation. That is why we read in the paleo-Hebrew literature (see Louis Ginzberg’s “The Legends of the Jews”) that Eve gave also to all animals in Paradise to eat the fruit of the three of knowledge, except “phoenix” that refused, insinuating that through the sperm life propagated on earth.
Hence, we have the male concept or tree of life and knowledge of Eden -that they were united in one single huge tree as we read in the ancient Jewish literature insinuating that life was propagated all over the world through the sperm and knowledge through the genes- as a phallus and the female concept, the garden representing the yoni and the fruits of the tree, the sperms of the procreation. According to the Hindu literature, “Meru” is the equivalent Jewish Garden of Eden in which Siva or Mahadeva the creator of the nature has his abode and near him is Bhavani or Parvati, his sister and wife, the goddess of Yoni the queen of the mountain Meru (the Garden). Is it a coincidence that in other ancient mythologies the main deity bore his sister or wife from his own body like Zeus with Athena and Hera and Lady Wisdom with Yahweh?
In the paleo-Hebrew literature we read that the tree of knowledge was immense and the same we read for the equivalent Hindu tree of knowledge “Jambu” which after passing through “the circle of the moon,” it divides it into four streams, flowing towards the four cardinal points. The same we read in the Jewish literature about the four rivers.
The equivalent Hindu Mahadeva’s sister and wife, is the “androgynous” in the Mosaic myth, originally Adam and Lilith, and after Adam & Eve who is sister because she is from Adam’s own flesh, but also a wife, just like in the Hindu myth and not only (see Isis-Hathor and Osiris)!
Some authors argue that Adam derives from the Babylonian goddess Adamu which means “soil”, “earth” and it has actually the same meaning in the Semitic vocabulary.
The allegory of the Fall or the expulsion of man and the fallen angels in Jewish literature, as well as in other mythologies like the myth of fire of Prometheus, are both based of the same rebellion of an "angel" (Lucifer the messenger of light or knowledge) just like in the religion of the Brahmans, where Moisasure, the Hindu Lucifer, becomes envious of the Creator's resplendent light, and leading a legion of rebellious spirits against Brahma, declares war against him, like Zeus and his eleven gods and goddesses against Kronos. The Fall of man on earth, was a Hindu allegory of the soul which firstly was divine living on the 7th sky together with Brahma (we read of the same belief in the Jewish literature that among the “chambers” of the firmament, there was one with souls guarded by Metatron the lesser Yahweh) and its fall represents its embodiment in a carnal body on earth which metaphorically signifies its “death”! Soul, became despiritualized and was given a fleshly body, - represented by the expulsion from Eden- in Genesis' myth in that significant allegoric verse, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them"! The “coats of skin” signifies the human body! Hindus invented the notion of the soul to explain its perpetual incarnations in a human body until its enlightenment and purification. The same dogma we read not only in the Egyptian “The book of the dead” where the soul tries to pass the seven guarded gates of the underworld by using spells enclosed in the coffins in order to reach the boat of Amun-Ra to the eternity, but also in Plato’s Republic in the chapter “The dream of Err” in which the soul reaches the purgatory and drinks from the “river of forgetfulness” in order to “forget” its past deeds and to be incarnated in another body until its purification. Drinking from this river, the soul “forgets” its past incarnations but doesn’t get rid of its past sins, which the supposed new human body tries to atone!
It seems a little ridiculous that the Earth was created before the Sun, and that light and the distinction between night and day were created before the Sun, and that there should have been any evenings or mornings before the existence of the Sun; also.that vegetation was created before the Sun.
CREATION (A LOOONG TIME AGO): “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
REBELLION/WAR BY ANGELS (7,000+ YEARS AGO): “And the earth BECAME void and waste” (from 1st worldwide flood).
RENEWAL FOR MANKIND (7,000 YEARS AGO): “And the spirit hovered upon the waters. Then God said: “Let there be light...”
So the chronological dilemma is to determine which previous event a particular creation myth is speaking about.
The truth of the Torah always triumps over the traditions and theories of men! And knowing the truth puts our existence in context and perspective – as well as how we should be living our lives in this world.
The indigenous people from Western South America living there about 2000 years ago would not have been Caucasians with blond hair. I would therefore suspect the reference to ‘golden haired people’ to have been an attempt at seeing the past as a ‘golden age’ – a common misconception.
Interesting speculations. Also, looking at the world views of the past we see that they were based on the ‘technologies’ of the times. So we need to not let today’s technology inform our concept of reality.
The concept of a grat creator, whether having positive or negative atributes, is never-the-less dfiinitive and therefore a part of the creation – a logical fallacy. This has been brought on by the attmept of the intellect to grasp the Transcendent – a task which it can not accomplish.
The Hawaiian creation stories are interesting as they describe their arrival in Hawaii from the Yellow Sea before the sea levels rose (6,000 years ago). Then they were swept away by a tsunami to Alaska where they stayed for many generations but returned to Hawaii about 2,200 years ago. When they sailed south they discovered a distant land – Tahiti and found golden haired people from Peru already living there. All these stories are in chants which used to be remembered word for word, but luckily were recorded by early ethnographers, but have been ignored or misinterpreted.
‘Human’ life on our planet may be far older than we know. Certainly there have been cataclysms, advanced cultures, etc. right through the ages. Is our history older than we think? What would have happened had planet tilted on its axis in some ancient age? Would there be ocean where now land exists and vice versa? Certainly, it would have wiped out civilization and sent us right back to animal existance. What if ‘we’ left this planet a very long time ago, only to return in a later timeframe to create a hybrid being, using ourselves and the bipedal ‘animals’ we found on the new Earth. Was the Creator that most people worship today a technologically advanced Being or Beings who shortcircuited our DNA in order to control us, especially considering our former (and current) history. Looking at our urge to ‘escape’ into space, have we done this before? To me, the Divine is a vibrational energy which can take any form. Our creation appears to have been a mixture of the Darwinian and the Unknown, though many sources, including the Biblical accounts, would have us as hybrid beings.
when there is commonality to creation myths...it lends to some hidden truths. I love Graham Hancock’s book “Fingerprints of the Gods” for this. he really breaks down commonality between different mythologlies pointing to some distant culture or memory of the past.
The great founders of the major religions understood that Reality is Transcendent. But what is transcendent is not material and therefore can not be described in concrete terms. The only was that speech could be informative was by the use of metaphor and allegory. Unfortunately, being imprisoned within relativity, few could understand that and therefore understood the metaphors and allegories as concrete fact. That is the sad story of religion.
To illustrate, Adam was expelled from the Garden of Edan for eating the fruits from the Tree of Knowledge. Since when did knowledge grow on trees? And hasn’t knowledge been of great improtance to us?
My favourite creation story is the one found in the bible because it is written so simbly so that even a little child can understand whilst being consistent with the most complex scientific principles. For this reasons I believe that it is not just a story but an account hence it is true and so it gives purpose and meaning to life and helps makes sense of what is going in the world and see beauty in it despite the darkness and turmoil that their sometimes exists in it.
Thanks for the interesting reminder of a terrific narrative I first met studying Middle English many years ago. You say that this poem was written ‘using internal rhyming, known also as alliteration.’ May I respectfully suggest, however, that alliteration is not the same as rhyme. Alliteration is the recurrence of the same sound at the start of adjacent words, used for effect, and very common is Anglo Saxon and Middle English poetry: Therefore within thy court I crave a Christmas jest, [alliteration of k sound] If any in this hall himself so hardy hold, [h] So valiant of his hand, of blood and brain so bold, [b]
And so on. Whereas rhyme, internal or end-rhyme, is the repetition of the same sound in adjacent whole words:
Here I renounce my claim, the axe shall be his own – [A own] And I will stand his stroke, here, on this floor of stone, [A stone] That I in turn a blow may deal, that boon alone [A alone] I pray, [B pray] Yet respite shall he have, [C have] A twelvemonth, and a day. [B day] Now quickly I thee crave – [C crave] Who now hath aught to say?” [B say]
Your history of the MS is a fascinating reminder of the importance of libraries, and I enjoyed the illustrations. Thanks!
I've heard a similar idea before; but it was concerning Mid-Wives vs the rising male profession of doctors/physicians. The ‘Early Modern’ period is around the 17th c. There must be court records of Alewifes & Mid-wives being accused of being witches by male Brewers & Doctors respectively; besides the too often mentioned American Salem trails.
Here you can navigate quickly through all comments made in any article sorted by date/time.
Gerald Schroeder [Proof of God in Five Minutes | Gerald Schroeder] (search his name if the link doesn’t work) does a great job of demonstrating how the Genesis account jibes with what our generally accepted theories about physical reality propose. If you’re interested in this topic, you really do yourself a disservice by ignoring his books.
I’m a Christian, but I see the Garden of Eden story as an allegory. I mean, how can you not? Ethereal garden, walks with God, talking snakes, magical fruit trees, people formed from dust or ribs...the whole thing screams mythos at us, trying to get us to take it figuratively.
I personally believe it alludes to a previous existence in another dimension that all of us experienced, and we rebelled, as in the story, against our Creator. This life is our rebirth, where we acquire the knowledge of good and evil that we sought in the Garden and are reconciled with our Creator.
Genesis authorship is attributed to Moses. Moses was raised to be a leader. As a leader, he should have been instructed in management. The story of creation in Genesis is an early example of the management process.
“Let there be light” – Heavens and earth were created but there was no light. “Planning and decision making” requires to “see” what you have to deal with first.
“Let there be a separation of water from sky and earth...” – This is a transition from planning and decision making to organizing. Genesis 1:6-25 relates how creation was organized.
“Leading” – Genesis 1:26-28 – The purpose mankind was created – "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
God gave this command to male and female equally. There was no chain of command established between women and men.
Not only mankinds’ first commandment was to manage creation, but God gave mankind the resources to manage it.
“Controlling” – Monitoring and evaluating activities – Genesis 1:29-31 and Genesis 2:1-3.
JONTTODD, another source (Telegraph and Argus, Bradford, West Yorkshire) writes: “Charcoal and bone sealed within a foundation trench in the north range of Chedworth Villa provided radiocarbon dates that show the wall could not have been built until after AD 424, with the mosaic later than this date.”
After the Big Bang and Creation of the Heavens and the Earth the Angels took notice of Earth and started visiting. Over the ages they watched us grow and became curious. Interacting, helping with technology and having children with the humans creating the giants. When God told Lucifer to stop corrupting the Earth the War in Heaven began. Angels were cast out and Lucifer became Satan. The beginning of Genesis tells us the earth was flooded(direct translation is complete flood) then God recreated(direct translation) the Earth and recreated man in His own image until Adam's partial flood(direct translation).
All religions, monotheist and non-monotheist, tell about the same story. They focus on the creation of the Human Being and its relation with the creator(s). The overlook the main subject: how the Universe came into reality, and if a living creature appeared on the surface of a planet probably others have appeared on other planets. So, these creature would come to believe like we, Earth creatures, to a or many creator(s). Do you think the Universe is a god (s) creation. If he created us, and them, did he, or it, makes us a living universe because as you may know we are flesh, muscles, bones on and within which live bacteria, microbs, virus. Is/are our creator(s) god(s) of our solar system or our milky way?
I don’t belive in Creations Stories, I think the men is a product of chance, and they was the one that worked.
For me the Creations Stories are all to keep humanity attached in a church.
To believe the theoretical system of master-servant existence or science-physics used to depend on books. Computers, though relatively infantile will eventually replace human beliefs in either as the capacity to deliver a broadly expanded understanding of the universe grows with computers evolving. Look how we all have changed to view our universe with space exploration to follow how myths influenced the future by inspiring the desire to explore. We all want to see more of what is the stuff of our universe to explain our origins.
The whole myth of Genesis is actually borrowed literally from the Hindu and the Mesopotamian literature as an allegory of the appearance of the life on earth. The mythographers of that myth used deities to explain to the vulgar how they imagined that the life appeared. Paradoxically, in almost all ancient mythologies in the beginning there were the Chaos (void) and the water! After that the main deity or deities fabricated everything in the universe, but what important in this myth is, is how the man was created. In the ancient literature, as Dr. Inman points out, in the ancient languages, the term for “garden” is used as a metaphor for woman. See “Ancient Faiths,” i. 52; ii. 553. Asherah, El’s and Yahweh’s wife was often named as tree, grove, locus etc in Vulgate. The tree had a phallic meaning together with its fruits that metaphorically meant the “sperms” of the procreation. That is why we read in the paleo-Hebrew literature (see Louis Ginzberg’s “The Legends of the Jews”) that Eve gave also to all animals in Paradise to eat the fruit of the three of knowledge, except “phoenix” that refused, insinuating that through the sperm life propagated on earth.
Hence, we have the male concept or tree of life and knowledge of Eden -that they were united in one single huge tree as we read in the ancient Jewish literature insinuating that life was propagated all over the world through the sperm and knowledge through the genes- as a phallus and the female concept, the garden representing the yoni and the fruits of the tree, the sperms of the procreation. According to the Hindu literature, “Meru” is the equivalent Jewish Garden of Eden in which Siva or Mahadeva the creator of the nature has his abode and near him is Bhavani or Parvati, his sister and wife, the goddess of Yoni the queen of the mountain Meru (the Garden). Is it a coincidence that in other ancient mythologies the main deity bore his sister or wife from his own body like Zeus with Athena and Hera and Lady Wisdom with Yahweh?
In the paleo-Hebrew literature we read that the tree of knowledge was immense and the same we read for the equivalent Hindu tree of knowledge “Jambu” which after passing through “the circle of the moon,” it divides it into four streams, flowing towards the four cardinal points. The same we read in the Jewish literature about the four rivers.
The equivalent Hindu Mahadeva’s sister and wife, is the “androgynous” in the Mosaic myth, originally Adam and Lilith, and after Adam & Eve who is sister because she is from Adam’s own flesh, but also a wife, just like in the Hindu myth and not only (see Isis-Hathor and Osiris)!
Some authors argue that Adam derives from the Babylonian goddess Adamu which means “soil”, “earth” and it has actually the same meaning in the Semitic vocabulary.
The allegory of the Fall or the expulsion of man and the fallen angels in Jewish literature, as well as in other mythologies like the myth of fire of Prometheus, are both based of the same rebellion of an "angel" (Lucifer the messenger of light or knowledge) just like in the religion of the Brahmans, where Moisasure, the Hindu Lucifer, becomes envious of the Creator's resplendent light, and leading a legion of rebellious spirits against Brahma, declares war against him, like Zeus and his eleven gods and goddesses against Kronos. The Fall of man on earth, was a Hindu allegory of the soul which firstly was divine living on the 7th sky together with Brahma (we read of the same belief in the Jewish literature that among the “chambers” of the firmament, there was one with souls guarded by Metatron the lesser Yahweh) and its fall represents its embodiment in a carnal body on earth which metaphorically signifies its “death”! Soul, became despiritualized and was given a fleshly body, - represented by the expulsion from Eden- in Genesis' myth in that significant allegoric verse, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them"! The “coats of skin” signifies the human body! Hindus invented the notion of the soul to explain its perpetual incarnations in a human body until its enlightenment and purification. The same dogma we read not only in the Egyptian “The book of the dead” where the soul tries to pass the seven guarded gates of the underworld by using spells enclosed in the coffins in order to reach the boat of Amun-Ra to the eternity, but also in Plato’s Republic in the chapter “The dream of Err” in which the soul reaches the purgatory and drinks from the “river of forgetfulness” in order to “forget” its past deeds and to be incarnated in another body until its purification. Drinking from this river, the soul “forgets” its past incarnations but doesn’t get rid of its past sins, which the supposed new human body tries to atone!
It seems a little ridiculous that the Earth was created before the Sun, and that light and the distinction between night and day were created before the Sun, and that there should have been any evenings or mornings before the existence of the Sun; also.that vegetation was created before the Sun.
CREATION (A LOOONG TIME AGO):
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
REBELLION/WAR BY ANGELS (7,000+ YEARS AGO):
“And the earth BECAME void and waste” (from 1st worldwide flood).
RENEWAL FOR MANKIND (7,000 YEARS AGO):
“And the spirit hovered upon the waters. Then God said: “Let there be light...”
So the chronological dilemma is to determine which previous event a particular creation myth is speaking about.
The truth of the Torah always triumps over the traditions and theories of men! And knowing the truth puts our existence in context and perspective – as well as how we should be living our lives in this world.
The indigenous people from Western South America living there about 2000 years ago would not have been Caucasians with blond hair. I would therefore suspect the reference to ‘golden haired people’ to have been an attempt at seeing the past as a ‘golden age’ – a common misconception.
Interesting speculations. Also, looking at the world views of the past we see that they were based on the ‘technologies’ of the times. So we need to not let today’s technology inform our concept of reality.
The concept of a grat creator, whether having positive or negative atributes, is never-the-less dfiinitive and therefore a part of the creation – a logical fallacy. This has been brought on by the attmept of the intellect to grasp the Transcendent – a task which it can not accomplish.
The Hawaiian creation stories are interesting as they describe their arrival in Hawaii from the Yellow Sea before the sea levels rose (6,000 years ago). Then they were swept away by a tsunami to Alaska where they stayed for many generations but returned to Hawaii about 2,200 years ago. When they sailed south they discovered a distant land – Tahiti and found golden haired people from Peru already living there. All these stories are in chants which used to be remembered word for word, but luckily were recorded by early ethnographers, but have been ignored or misinterpreted.
‘Human’ life on our planet may be far older than we know. Certainly there have been cataclysms, advanced cultures, etc. right through the ages. Is our history older than we think? What would have happened had planet tilted on its axis in some ancient age? Would there be ocean where now land exists and vice versa? Certainly, it would have wiped out civilization and sent us right back to animal existance. What if ‘we’ left this planet a very long time ago, only to return in a later timeframe to create a hybrid being, using ourselves and the bipedal ‘animals’ we found on the new Earth. Was the Creator that most people worship today a technologically advanced Being or Beings who shortcircuited our DNA in order to control us, especially considering our former (and current) history. Looking at our urge to ‘escape’ into space, have we done this before? To me, the Divine is a vibrational energy which can take any form. Our creation appears to have been a mixture of the Darwinian and the Unknown, though many sources, including the Biblical accounts, would have us as hybrid beings.
when there is commonality to creation myths...it lends to some hidden truths. I love Graham Hancock’s book “Fingerprints of the Gods” for this. he really breaks down commonality between different mythologlies pointing to some distant culture or memory of the past.
The great founders of the major religions understood that Reality is Transcendent. But what is transcendent is not material and therefore can not be described in concrete terms. The only was that speech could be informative was by the use of metaphor and allegory. Unfortunately, being imprisoned within relativity, few could understand that and therefore understood the metaphors and allegories as concrete fact. That is the sad story of religion.
To illustrate, Adam was expelled from the Garden of Edan for eating the fruits from the Tree of Knowledge. Since when did knowledge grow on trees? And hasn’t knowledge been of great improtance to us?
My favourite creation story is the one found in the bible because it is written so simbly so that even a little child can understand whilst being consistent with the most complex scientific principles. For this reasons I believe that it is not just a story but an account hence it is true and so it gives purpose and meaning to life and helps makes sense of what is going in the world and see beauty in it despite the darkness and turmoil that their sometimes exists in it.
Favorite creation story and why: The Big Bang, because it is not as bad as the other stories.
Any truth to it: The Hubble Doppler Red shift implies an expanding universe that ought to have an origin.
I think the universe always was and always will be, forever and ever without end.
Thanks for the interesting reminder of a terrific narrative I first met studying Middle English many years ago. You say that this poem was written ‘using internal rhyming, known also as alliteration.’ May I respectfully suggest, however, that alliteration is not the same as rhyme. Alliteration is the recurrence of the same sound at the start of adjacent words, used for effect, and very common is Anglo Saxon and Middle English poetry:
Therefore within thy court I crave a Christmas jest, [alliteration of k sound]
If any in this hall himself so hardy hold, [h]
So valiant of his hand, of blood and brain so bold, [b]
And so on. Whereas rhyme, internal or end-rhyme, is the repetition of the same sound in adjacent whole words:
Here I renounce my claim, the axe shall be his own – [A own]
And I will stand his stroke, here, on this floor of stone, [A stone]
That I in turn a blow may deal, that boon alone [A alone]
I pray, [B pray]
Yet respite shall he have, [C have]
A twelvemonth, and a day. [B day]
Now quickly I thee crave – [C crave]
Who now hath aught to say?” [B say]
Your history of the MS is a fascinating reminder of the importance of libraries, and I enjoyed the illustrations. Thanks!
I've heard a similar idea before; but it was concerning Mid-Wives vs the rising male profession of doctors/physicians. The ‘Early Modern’ period is around the 17th c. There must be court records of Alewifes & Mid-wives being accused of being witches by male Brewers & Doctors respectively; besides the too often mentioned American Salem trails.
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