The style of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is very different than the remainder of the book. For instance, Genesis 3 is not meant to be historical prose like chapter 12 and following. Projecting my 21st century world view on an ancient text describing deep mysteries about creation and the fall of man is pure arrogance. For instance, the author of Genesis 3 doesn't expect the reader to think the serpent was merely a biological snake. This is a condensed poem that conveys truth in a much deeper way.

I'm not making any judgements either way. Just saying that Enoch is no more fantastic than parts of Genesis. Also, Genesis references Enoch.

Have you read Enoch 1? Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him. He is seventh from Adam and the first man to break the pattern of death.

> Have you read Enoch 1?

Yes, among many other religious texts (whole Orthodox Biblical canon + a bunch of pseudoepigraphical works, most of the Buddhist canon, Taoist and Hindu works, some ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, Quran, etc...). Got way too sidetracked in University. It's interesting though.

> Also, Genesis does not merely reference Enoch, it introduces him

Of course he was a character mentioned in Genesis but references to things from the book of Enoch (Nephilim/Giants/half-god humans) are more interesting.

Great. I have a hard to finding anyone whose has actually read these texts. I think we could have an interesting conversation, but HN threads are a bit constraining.

The talking snake most likely refers to a very-knowledgeable snake-people Nagi and their king Dagon. They supposedly lived 12 thousand years ago and had skills and knowledge deemed magical by laymen. India is probably the only nation old enough to have records of that period. "Be wise like a serpent" means "be wise like nagi".

The oldest myths about the origin of death feature, particularly, a sacred tree, and a snake. The snake symbolized immortality, which they got to keep (shedding their skin) but humans lost.

Genesis authors had to retain all the old myth imagery in order to be taken seriously as an origin story, but stripped off the meaning to lay their own on top.

Noah and the dove are also from much older origin myths about where the Earth came from.

Cain and Abel, and also Esau and Isaac, recycle origin twin myths. One twin kills his brother and makes the world out of his body parts, and becomes the first priest.

So Genesis is largely a big mishmosh of origin-myth imagery with a narrative overlaid.

The imagery shows up in Vedic hymns, too, tracing to the same original source, with of course a different narrative overlaid.