Joining the End to the Beginning (2/5)

0 Comments | February 28, 2009 at 7:53 am by mahud
Filed under Cosmic-Lunar Cycles, Ambrosial Boon, Cosmogonic Myth, Jewish Mythology, Judaism, Biblical Mythology

In Chinese mythology it is the character of the maimed and limping Yu who plays the role of cosmic walker in nine steps within a nine fold cosmos, incorporating Daoist philosophy of an ever changing universe through the cyclic processes of yin giving perpetually birth to yang giving birth to yin (and so on), in a lunar-cosmic universe of light and shade….

And so, what I saw in the end-time myth of Thor’s death traversing the cosmic serpent in nine steps, completing the process of cosmic re-cycling, is spelled out definitely (in space as well as time) in the myth and Daoist ritual magic associated with Yu the great.

Cernunnos’ Path: Walking the Cosmic Beast

Having already compared both Thor and Yu the Great, classifying them both as Cosmic Walkers. I’d like to re-approach the perpetual conflict between Serpent and Seed of Genesis and compare the mythology as found in later Rabbinic tradition, revealing that the serpent shall ultimately be crushed upon the arrival of the Messiah, further identified with the ’seed’ of Genesis 3:15.

In the footsteps of the Messiah

For a connection between the foot or heel of the (Messianic) seed prophesied to be wounded by the serpent and the theme of the Cosmic Walker we must first look at a late Rabbinic tradition, known as The Heels of the Messiah, the age of moral decline (corresponding with other cyclic cosmologies) precceding the ultimate entrance of the Messiah into the realm of space and time initiating the re-creation of a purified cosmos.

Both the Talmudic Sanhedrin 97b and the Mishnah Sotah 9:15. (although the latter is thought to be a later addition to m. Sotah), give a description of the pre-Messianic period, known as Ikvesa DeMeshicha: The Footsteps (lit. ‘Heels’) of the Messiah.
According to m. Sotah 9:15 (attributed to Rabbi Eliezer the Great), “In the footsteps of the Messiah, presumption (chutzpah) will increase and honour will decrease. The vine will continue to produce fruit, but the wine will be expensive.

The government will become heretical, without reproach. The place of assembly will become adulterous. Galilee will be destroyed and Galban will be desolate. The people on the frontier will wander from place to place without pity. The wisdom of the scribes will deteriorate. Those that reject sin will be hated. Truth will be nowhere to be found. The young will disgrace their elders, who will, in turn, give them respect. ‘The Son will dishonour his father and the daughter will rise up against her. A man’s enemies will belong to his own household’ (Micah 7:6).”

The term is also used in a saying attributed to Rabbi Levi, which is then justified by quoting Psalm 89 as its origin: “R. Levi said: ‘When you see generation after generation revile God, look for the feet of the King Messiah.’ By what verse did he justify his comment? By the Verse, ‘When your enemies revile you, O Lord, when they have reviled you — [then are] the footsteps of your Messiah (anointed)’ (Ps. 89:51/52).”

The Cosmic Double-Death: The Cyclic Re-Creation through the ‘Dying God.’ (Mahud. 1st Draft)

While Rabbi Levi attributes the origin of the Messiah’s symbolic footsteps to the final verses of Psalm 89, elsewhere we find a direct connection with Genesis 3:15 (“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. It will strike your head and you will strike its heel,”), identifying the heel wound of the Messiah with the primordial beginning and the wounding of the serpent with the end of the cosmic round.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your son and her son. He will remember what you did to him in the beginning, and you shall be observing him in the end.

tg. Onkelos

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between the seed of your offspring and the seed of her offspring. And it shall be that when the offspring of the woman observe the precepts of the Torah, they will aim to strike you on the head; but when they abandon the precepts of the Torah, you will aim to bite them in the heel. However, for them there will be a remedy, but for you there will be no remedy. And they will make peace with the heel in the days of the messiah.

tg. Pseudo-Jonathan

Thor’s, Yu’s and now the Messiah’s footsteps are all related to the idea of cyclic re-creation and, as in the case of both Christian and Judaic tradition, an everlasting end to the world destroying principle/s of chaos.

According to A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (p.113) and Sigve K. Tonstad (Saving God’s Reputation: p.63-64), in the final Book of the New Testament (the apocalyptic book of Revelation), the mythic image of a woman whose offspring shall have a serpentine nemesis is elaborated in Chapter 12. According to Tonstad, “there is no doubt that the author of Revelation takes the Genesis statement [Mine: As an Example, the author compares Gen 3:16 to Rev. 12.2] as his point of departure and describes its fulfilment. Revelation continues the story begun in Genesis with the aim of weaving a seamless cloth,” culminating in the Christian conception of a sacred marriage between God and His bride, the Church, when the opposites, to some degree at least, are transcended. Man and Woman are reunited with God in a renewed paradisical cosmic manifestation, joining the beginning and the end through a cyclic metamorphosis.