Friday, December 27, 2013

A Phatom Parallel

Oddly enough, the first artifact in the British Museum catalog, The Bible in the British Museum has no real connection to the Bible. It depicts a scene with
a seated male figure, identified by his horned headress as a deity, facing a female worshipper. Both figures are fully clothed.
Its appearance in the catalog is because other have identified the scene as depicting a Babylonian version of the fall since there is a snake behind the female and a date palm between the two figures.
The date-palm between them and the snake may have had fertility significance and there is no reason to connect the scene with the Adam and Eve story. (T. C. Mitchell, The Bible in the British Museum [London: British Museum Press, 2004], 24)
You can see the seal here.