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Comment by sundarurfriend | Hacker News Reader

This reminded me of a theory came up with as a teenager, that the Vaanaraas of Ramayana (a group to which the famous "monkey god" Hanuman belongs) may actually be an early hominid that had ape-like features, that lived in parallel with humans in different territory. They were intelligent enough to help the human princes in their quest, which got them a place in their story - a story which went on to become an oral tradition, and got embellished with time to become the Ramayana. If, as proposed here, stories can be orally passed down for tens of thousands of years, that makes it slightly more likely that this outlandish theory actually has some merit to it.

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This might not be quite as outlandish as it sounds, because we now have plenty of evidence that early humans were living alongside and interacting with other archaic homo species.

I have a pet (similarly highly speculative) theory that the Nephilim[1] of the Bible might be a earlier oral history of Neanderthals. But I'll just leave it at that, speculation.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim

Huh, I have that same pet theory.

And same.

I believe there's also a theory that the neanderthals were smarter than our ancestors of the time. That would also fit the story. I can imagine the homo sapiens of the time interacting with the far stronger and smarter neanderthals and describing them as 'sons of god'. I wonder if that's also where the old Greek myths of Hercules (etc) came from.

“Sons of god” is a translation of the Hebrew by non-Jews and is just plain incorrect. It gets passed around as legit probably because it enforces the idea that Christ is a son of God.

But If you ask Jews, who wrote that section of the Bible, benei elokim translates as something like “those who are free”:

“Who or what exactly are the benei elokim? Who are the nephilim? How are they related to each other? And what does it all mean?

One thing benei elokim does not mean is “sons of G‑d.” In fact, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai would “curse” anyone who translated the term benei elokim as the “sons of G‑d.”1 The word elokim in Scripture, while generally referring to G‑d, is in essence merely an expression of authority.2 Similarly, the term benei does not necessarily mean “sons,” but is often just a title. Benei chorin, for example, means those who are free—not “sons of freedom.”

https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/1987422/jewis...

That was an interesting read. Thanks. I'm not sure how the linked article expresses more than an alternate translation, though. It says that benei doesn't "necessarily" translate to sons, which doesn't rule out the translation but merely suggests an alternative. The word elokim also refers generally to God, as it says, but can be translated differently. It's an interesting alternative, but the claim that the translation "sons of god" is specifically wrong only seems to be based on the declaration of a single earlier source.

> It gets passed around as legit probably because it enforces the idea that Christ is a son of God.

I've never heard of that before. Not sure where you would have, or how it even does reenforce that idea.

> how it even does reenforce that idea.

It reinforces “Christ as the son of God” because, if the phrase is translated as “sons of God”, that sets a precedent in the Old Testament that God has sons. The Jews do not believe God has sons. Christians do. So it is in the best interest of Christian translators to translate that phrase as “sons of God”.

> but the claim that the translation "sons of god" is specifically wrong only seems to be based on the declaration of a single earlier source.

No, I only provided one source (Chabad), but there are many others, including all Jewish translations of the Old Testament (Torah) from the original Hebrew to English. You’ll never see it translated as “sons of God” in a book translated by Jews.

Now I am confused, maybe because I am not religious.

But I have always been under the impression that the christians claim jesus is the only son of their god?

Wouldn't other sons conflict with this and not reinforce it?

Well, actually it is a bit more complicated than just God having a (or more than one) son:

„The Christian doctrine of the Trinity […] holds that God is one God, but three coeternal and consubstantial persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct, yet are one ‚substance, essence or nature‘. In this context, a ‚nature‘ is what one is, whereas a ‚person‘ is who one is“, from [0] where you can also read a lot more about it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

> You’ll never see it translated as “sons of God” in a book translated by Jews.

Do the 70 Jewish authors of the Septuagint not count? In the LXX, it clearly reads "οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ", "the sons of God". The LXX precedes Christianity by quite some time.

That's completely missing the point of Christianity: Christ does not require a precedent; he's considered God's "only begotten son", which sounds like an explicit denial that there has been a precedent like him. Considering some mysterious people mentioned in a single line in Genesis as being of similar stature as Christ also goes against the idea of Christ as part of the Trinity.

Also, Christianity considers all people to be children of God (though apparently not "begotten"). On top of that, almost every Christian interpretation of the Bible seems to skip over that mention of the nephilim like it's not there. There's far more reason for Christianity to argue against translating this as "sons of God" than for it.

> You’ll never see it translated as “sons of God” in a book translated by Jews.

I just checked a few Jewish translations of Genesis 6:4.

Jewish translations that use "sons of God":

* The Septuagint 3rd century BCE

* JPS Tanakh 1917

* The Living Torah, Aryeh Kaplan 1981

* Richard Elliott Friedman 2001

* Robert Alter 2004

Translations that translate it otherwise:

* A. J. Rosenberg (Judaica Press) 1969

* Everett Fox 1983

* JPS Tanakh 1985

* Stone Edition of the Tanach 1996

* Chaim Miller 2011

The Jews who wrote Genesis aren't the Jews who wrote the Midrash. The culture from which the myths concerning the Nephilim and Benei Elokim arose had no problems with God having sons, e.g. Mot, Yam. The Jews of Elephantine are documented as having a temple to Anat, daughter of El (God) by his wife Asherah, in the 5th century BCE.

The opposition to reading any of the Hebrew scriptures as referring to "Sons of god" likely arose as a reaction in Rabbinic Judaism to Christianity, both of which (along with Karaite Judaism) arose out of Second Temple Judaism.

AFAICT, the Greek pantheon (Hercules etc) is commonly assumed to belong to a religious belief system that in large part aligns with the spread of the Indo-European language, probably (maybe) originating with the Yamnaya culture on the Pontic steppe north of the Black sea according to what is called the Kurgan hypothesis [0][1].

The culture and language seems to have spread across large parts of the Indo-European landmass starting maybe 6000 years ago, eventually displacing many older European and Indian cultures respectively among others. It is assumed to be the reason that such disparate pantheons as the Roman, Greek, Norse and Hindu have many common characteristics. One reason for the relative swift and wide spread of the culture is currently speculated to be that the Yamnaya were the first to domesticate the horse and use them to pull wagons (chariots).[2]

While it could be possible that the original pantheon referred to Neanderthals a more rational interpretation seems to me to be that the pantheon is a deified memory of some prominent people in a small group that roamed the plains of present Ukraine many thousands of years ago, a group that came to conquer other groups because of their advanced horsemanship, establishing traditions that in turn achieved a life of their own as traditions and beliefs commonly do. But hey, it is little more than speculation at this point.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamnaya_culture

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_mythology

[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509185446.h...

Only a quite small number of the Greek pantheon have Indo-European forebears and were brought to Greece with the expansion of the Indo-European languages from the Pontic Steppes. Most of the Greek deities derive from the non-Indo-European autochthonous culture of Greece, or from interaction with the Greeks’ neighbors in Anatolian. Your own linked article emphasizes this:

"Despite the popularity of Greek mythology in western culture, Greek mythology is generally seen as having little importance in comparative mythology due to the heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, which overwhelms what little Indo-European material can be extracted from it."

Well, 'similar' and 'dissimilar' are elastic concepts, and as the pantheons mentioned are certainly not 'the same' there is much room for interpretation, where different schools tend to stress the difference more than the similarity or vice versa. But there are sufficient common characteristics to trace a lineage in all of them, albeit certainly intermixed with other influences.

In the specific case of the Greek mythology, these deities have distinct Indo-European parallels: Zeus (Dyēus, Sky Father), Eos (H₂éusōs, Dawn goddess), Helios (Seh₂ul, Sun god), Castor and Pollux ( Divine Horse Twins), and more, enough to at least put central tenets of Greek pantheon largely within the realm of the Indo-European tradition.

The cited quote in isolation gives an incorrect impression in this context.

Addendum: I came across this article which discusses differing views on these things (Hēraklēs in particular) in more detail. Might be of interest: https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/comments-on-comp...

Similar pet theory, but that other hominids are remembered as dwarves, elves, and trolls.

I also have a theory that the Titans were the gods of Neanderthals.

Titans are similar to the Indo-European pantheon of gods which have been around for 5000 years. The Neanderthals haven’t been around for 45,000 years. I strongly doubt that’s the origin for the titans.

The replacement aspect of it most probably comes from the Yamnaya that killed almost ALL the men in northern and Central Europe and replaced them.

Trolls, in Scandinavian folklore, also fit the profile of neanderthals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll

How so?

The speech portions of the brain were smaller in Neanderthals, which would have made them appear dimwitted to humans, which is how trolls are often depicted in folklore.

They are known to have lived in smaller social groups than humans, and trolls are depicted as living in small groups as well.

Neanderthals were larger than humans, and trolls are similarly depicted as large.

You are just picking the characteristics which confirm your hypothesis.

Trolls in Scandinavian folklore can be very different depending on local traditions. They can be small people living underground, human size, or giants living in the the mountains. They can be solitary or living in human-like societies.

Literal quote from the Wikipedia article you link: "Trolls may be described as small, human-like beings or as tall as men depending on the region of origin of the story."

It was quite common to depict them as a) human like, b) dimwitted, c) living in caves, d) living in small social groups, e) larger and stronger than humans.

You're right that there were other characteristics that were associated with them in some folklore that was not consistent with the Neanderthal hypothesis.

So you just ignore the facts which contradict your hypothesis? This is how people come to believe in wacky conspiracy theories.

How about:

f) often depicted as smoking pipe, g) living in hills, h) or underneath the earth, i) being rich, j) asking trick questions, k) hating church bells, m) replacing human children with their own, n) wearing read hats, etc.

There are several peculiar characteristics that match that of Neanderthals. There is an appreciable probability that it is not a coincidence, when Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals did in fact interact in Europe for thousands of years.

I was raised Christian and I recall this theory being used in a Christian young adult “historical fiction” novel that I once read

Some people think the same about the Basajaun [1], a big, hairy hominid from the Basque mythology. The myth says he taught humans to use (some) tools (or humans stole tools from him). Keep in mind the Basque language is so old and rare [2] it's not connected to any Indo-European language.

Of course many also think the same of Yeti, Bigfoot, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basajaun

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Basque_language

Also, as far as I remember Basque people have an unusually high proportion of Neanderthal genome.

> may actually be an early hominid that had ape-like features, that lived in parallel with humans in different territory.

Perhaps, but it's impossible to prove one way or another. More plausibly, they observed that primates possess a type of intelligence of a kind similar to humans, and therefore were readily adaptable to that role in the story.

What we do know is that fantastical characters with human level sentience in the Ramayana exist primarily to engage the audience and to drive forward the epic's central themes of good vs evil. Fantastical creatures are a pattern of this sort of storytelling across the world. Modern storytellers have used the same technique to great effect, like the various species of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth or George Lucas's Galaxy Far Far Away.

In this way, there is a striking contrast between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata, despite emerging from the same cultural milieu as the Ramayana, is a complex human sociological drama without clear lines of good and evil. It makes little use of fantastical species, as their presence would detract from the story's fundamentally human themes. The only non human characters of consequence are gods, but even they are far from perfect and instead exhibit the same flaws as the humans.

Interesting but I doubt it. Vaanaras do not appear prominently in any of epics/puranas following Ramayana. Only Hanuman is present in Mahabharata and he is clearly living a solitary life when he meets Bheem.

By no means expert, so happy to be proven wrong.

That's an interesting point (no idea why you've been downvoted for it). I have a few theories why that might be:

1. Groups like these were more likely to survive if they were isolated and not occupying territory that the (presumably) more sophisticated Homo Sapiens coveted, so maybe they just didn't get interacted with otherwise. Rama had a Vanavasa (forest-living) and a generally weird out-of-pattern life for the time, so had a slightly higher chance of encountering them.

2. If people in later stories did come in contact with them, they were probably trying to expand their territories or otherwise conquer the land. In that case, the stories are going to mythologize them as savage Asuraas, to give further justification to the conquests.

3. We only have a few stories, of unknown time origin, remaining out of hundreds of thousands of stories told by different groups in different places over the millenia. So even if a significant portion of the stories featured Vaanaraas, it's plausible they might all have been lost before they could reach us.

4. In particular, given that such groups were declining in numbers over time, and the fact that more recent stories are more likely to survive, it makes sense that stories featuring them are more likely to have been forgotten and lost to time.

There is also Jambavan who appears in both Ramayana and Mahabharata. Jambavan’s army fought alongside the Vanara army in Ramayana.

Even though he is depicted as part of the monkey army, he was really known to be a bear. A bear like giant creature.

He appears again in Mahabharata as the possessor of the Syamantaka Gem that was stolen and was in his possession. They live in a cave and hidden from the rest of the people. He is defeated by Krishna and he accepts defeat. He also offer Krishna his daughter Jambavati’s hand in marriage.

In the Puranas ..after the Ramayana war, all the monkeys and bears who lost their lives were brought back to life and they returned to their abode. Mahabharata is to have happened in a different yuga.

Hanuman keeps appearing in all puranas because he is Chiranjeevi..one without death. And hence more of an archetype than a character in every yuga.

The Vedas do not mention monkey people (vanaras), but the Mahabharata and the Ramayana do. The Vedas were composed 800-1000 years before these two epics. So the invention of the vanaras probably happened later, perhaps due to influence from indigenous religious ideas or perhaps a new set of myths. Interestingly, the Ramayana only gives vanaras monkey-like features but doesn't identify them as such, so there is some ambiguity about how they are to be represented.

In "Eaters of the Dead", Michael Chrichton's fictionally-historicized retelling of Beowulf, it's speculated the monsters are a relic Neandertal tribe. It's a minor point in the novel, but it stuck with me (and has become much more scientifically plausible since the 1970s when he was writing), so I always think of Beowulf as being about Neandertals.

I don't think this theory is outlandish, just speculative. That said, given that language itself tends to be hopelessly distorted at such a time-scale there are some significant obstacles to oral histories not getting completely distorted to the point where no original content remains.

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