First King On Earth

 



John R. Salverda Writes:

.... isn't it funny how we never seem to associate Atlas with Atlantis (even though he was said to have been its first king, and the place was named for him). The two stories, as separate accounts, don't seem to ring a bell with people. Atlantis was just an ancient idealized civilization that had a series of ten kings before it was washed away in a massive aqueous cataclysm; it is seldom compared with the Scriptural pre-flood civilization. While Atlas was just an ancient gardener who, in Greek myths, had a wife after whom the garden was named; there was a special tree with "golden" fruits; people who weren't supposed to pick from the tree did so; there was an expulsion and a serpent was placed to guard the way to the tree. Also, in a story that is apparently unrelated to the garden story, Atlas rebelled against god (Zeus) and was punished by becoming the mountain that keeps Heaven away from the Earth. However, taken together the two accounts do seem to weave a very much more familiar story.

 

  Once we recognize Atlas as Adam, we can use this same recognition when we look at the whole series of myths, having to do with the characters who are related to him, in the mythic genealogies. The mythic motifs of Prometheus, the brother of Atlas, are full of possible references to the writings of Moses, Exodus (the wandering Io) as well as Genesis (the creation of man from clay). Epimetheus, another brother of Atlas, was the husband of the world's first woman, Pandora who introduced evil into the world by disobeying an order she was given. And Iapetus, the father of Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, is recognizable as Japheth.

 

  Furthermore, just because we may see Atlas and Atlantis as Adam and the antediluvian world, doesn't necessarily relegate our theory about its location to the Atlantic Ocean only. The western emplacement of Atlantis seems to be a more recent convention. The father and brother of Atlas, Iapetus and Prometheus for instance, are associated more with Cappadocia and the Caucasus respectively. And Atlas, as Mount Sinai would certainly tend to preclude his supposed Western Africa location.

 

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