amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
So this may seem like a dumb query, but this occurs to me lately after reading a book of norse mythology, and then thinking about several odd ways in which the bible actually mentions gold. What emerges to me, is that ancient cultures didn't see the stuff as being valuable at all like we would see it as valuable. I'm not sure how obvious it is, but it seems as though they saw it as being spiritually valuable first sans any tangible physical market value, though its great physical value is how its value was translated down to us
So in genesis, we get an odd verse near the beginning about various material goods, (featuring gold, bdellium, onyx stone) which is actually very weird to mention in the antediluvian paleolithic context of Genesis. None of these things would have had any market value in the stone age
Now it occurs to me from norse myth, that the norse may have actually had no actual economic motivation to seek gold, yet preserved an extremely high theological importance for it, where for example it is oddly used for taxidermy on a divine otter creature, or is produced as meal by giantesses. And this 'category of non-economic value' mirrors how it was perceived in various parts of the bible as well, where gold goes into 'god's treasury,' or occasionally makes for exotic metaphors. So thus, ancient Israelites must not have entirely seen it as mere mundane material even as their history progressed toward a more economic role for gold.
As people became more secular, they of course preserve a sense of value in many material things that really ancient people also did. But in knowing that the value of some of these things might have been nascently associated only with mere spiritual value, does that put any sense in your mind that the modern economic value of these things is somewhat arbitrary. Now I understand that gold has some value in modern electronics, but is that discovery of tangible value commensurate with the value it received from the predilections of the ancient spirituality-based mind. And if it is, that is quite odd
So in genesis, we get an odd verse near the beginning about various material goods, (featuring gold, bdellium, onyx stone) which is actually very weird to mention in the antediluvian paleolithic context of Genesis. None of these things would have had any market value in the stone age
Now it occurs to me from norse myth, that the norse may have actually had no actual economic motivation to seek gold, yet preserved an extremely high theological importance for it, where for example it is oddly used for taxidermy on a divine otter creature, or is produced as meal by giantesses. And this 'category of non-economic value' mirrors how it was perceived in various parts of the bible as well, where gold goes into 'god's treasury,' or occasionally makes for exotic metaphors. So thus, ancient Israelites must not have entirely seen it as mere mundane material even as their history progressed toward a more economic role for gold.
As people became more secular, they of course preserve a sense of value in many material things that really ancient people also did. But in knowing that the value of some of these things might have been nascently associated only with mere spiritual value, does that put any sense in your mind that the modern economic value of these things is somewhat arbitrary. Now I understand that gold has some value in modern electronics, but is that discovery of tangible value commensurate with the value it received from the predilections of the ancient spirituality-based mind. And if it is, that is quite odd
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