God, Adam, Eve and Myth

[Atlas]

It is my contention that humanity accesses a multitude of emotional states, several of which are lofty enough to have been lumped under the rubric 'God'. These feelings are preconscious or unconscious and not in any way products of rational thought. They can be as elevating as ecstatic joy and transport, or as fortunate as yearning love, or as quiet as the peace that surpasses all understanding, or any of several others. They are accessed by trivial communications; hearing the rhythms of poetry and song, the smile on an infant's face, the scent and warmth of a walk through a flowered field on a summer's day, or the tender touch of a cherished human friend.

No matter how deep a dark age we fall into we will always have certain emotional states that lift us higher than our mundane existence predicts. So unworldly are they that from them we postulate and ponder a wonderful existence, beyond our own, filled with light and goodness. The sea, the sun, the stars in the night sky, all play their fanciful role in this magical existence beyond our dull, drab, earthbound existence. Such, for me, is the genesis of God and soul in man.

Succinctly, God is a feeling. Objectifying the feeling distances it from us and that is not the goal of the individual in this. Subjectivists may have been content with God as feeling but Objectivists rationally abstracted God back 1 reality from the human experience to become the source of that experience and eventually the source of all experience and reality.

Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought abstracts another reality too. To preserve the sanctity and goodness of the source of this light there has to be a separate source of all of our darkness, the reality of evil and sin. A single fable describes how this prince of darkness deceived man and introduced sin, suffering, and death to an otherwise idyllic and always wonderful creation. That is the Adam and Eve myth of Genesis.

Without the talking serpent story man might be considered "perfect" in his own right in this strange violent existence. But with the story, he is a sinful fallen creature in need of redemption. It is in this story and nowhere else that humanity finds the need for a Savior for we have fallen and cannot get up. Cannot get up by ourselves anyway. 'Jesus' as well as 'The coming in Glory to Judge' myths descend from this fable as necessary elements in the story of man. They exist for no other purpose but to fulfill the required implications of Adam and Eve and the Garden.

This bond has been broken except for the fundamentalist adherents of the literal interpretation of the Bible. For those who do not adhere to the literal truth of Adam and Eve, Jesus still comes to die for our sins but without regard for where sin originated. It is assumed that all the spiritual characters of Genesis exist even if Adam and Eve do not and that God and the Devil and Sin have always existed pretty much as Genesis describes them, even if the story is not 100 percent factual.

I think the myth has been made powerful beyond it's original intent. Talking serpents alone makes the tale a fable. I have heard some strange interpretations of aspects of this tale. Feel free to comment on this prologue but I'd like to ask you to comment on the tale itself. What about it strikes you, societally, mythologically, spiritually? What or who are the characters, really? Is it more than a well designed children's story that has been woven into the fabric of Genesis and Judeo-Christendom? What did it mean to you when you were first told it and how has that changed? Are we 'sinful' anyway? Is that a silly or dangerous question?

I am fascinated by the hypnotic effect this myth has had on our culture and would truly like to hear your take on it.

[Gestahl]

Things that strike me as funny/amusing:

1) Adam immediately blames it on the woman. Nothing has changed in 5000 (give or take if you believe it) years.

2) People were still supid, knowing they shouldn't do something, and doing it any way, becase we only truly learn from personal experience.

3) People were intially not ashamed of their naked body, nor should we be by the words of Genesis. It is only our "sin" that makes us ashamed. I think this is poignant considering modern Christianity's take on the naked body these days.

4) God deliberately lies, or at least distorts the truth, and it passes right under the nose of most Christians (Adam and Eve did *not* die in the literal sense, though they were allowed to physically die.

5) Somehow, mans sins got transferred to animals and they got kicked out, and started dying too. I call extreme foul on God here, as having no free will (per most Christians statements on the soul re. animals) absolves them of all guilt. What did they ever do?

6) What language did Adam name the animal in... Hebrew? The one language before the Tower of Babel? Which begs the question if no one could understand each other, how was Genesis passed down with any accuracy?

7) What is everyone's opinion on whether other's existed at the time outside the garden? If so, is the Adam story a story of the creation of God's people, or rather of all humanity? It seems to me implicit that there were others created elsewhere.

8) God seems like a nice guy at this point, then goes to being a vengeful, wrathful God, then back to a nice, happy God in the NT.

9) Why was God so pissed about anyway? He wants people to have free will, right? Knowledge of good and evil is essential to free will in order to do good (identical to God's will). So it seems God created us with free will, with no morality other than His mandates, which failed because Adam and Eve would not even recognize it *was* wrong. Then He seems pissed when they do it, thus exercising their free will to make their free will useful!

A note on that last point. I personally think that the this tree represents allegorically trying to use the physical world to accomplish something (knowledge) rather than a spiritual sense (just let God tell you). This is dangerous, leading to the close-minded ignorance (I have heard more than one Christian tell me that science and "book smarts" are not wisdom, and just a fake tree of knowledge that will be my downfall, and God will curse me for it. Be very afraid).

Oh, and Atlas, I don't think that the concept of Satan, or at least something diametrically opposed to the Ultimate Good is a reaction from having Ultimate Good, but rather a personification of all the "negative" emotional states we have: just as God is an abstraction of euphoria, so is Satan an abstraction of anguish.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Oh, and Atlas, I don't think that the concept of Satan, or at least something diametrically opposed to the Ultimate Good is a reaction from having Ultimate Good, but rather a personification of all the "negative" emotional states we have: just as God is an abstraction of euphoria, so is Satan an abstraction of anguish. Point taken. Well expressed Gestahl. Excellent post. I especially like your thoughts about the tree itself... allegorically trying to use the physical world to accomplish something (knowledge) rather than a spiritual sense (just let God tell you). I hadn't heard that "wisdom" before. Great stuff! I can't help but admire the power of myth and the human imagination that is able to infer such "pearls".

[tdn]

Eden, to me, seems like a maximum security prison with 24-hour surveillance, a pest problem, and a warden that tempts his prisoners with insight yet punishes them when they seek it out.

Defying the warden, taking the insight, and getting kicked out of prison was the best thing Eve ever did. She shouldn't have eaten the apple, she should have made a damn pie!

As to the rest of the OP, yes, that little flame of "more than me" that we all have is awesome. I love that thing. But I don't believe for an instant that Jebus is the only way to that flame. Easterners have been experiencing for millenia before they ever heard of Christ. I sometimes experience it when I'm writing music or doing something else creative. When I'm lucky.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by tdn
...she should have made a damn pie! I like that, MMMMmmm, Pie!:)

Eastern philosophy was a revelation to me. A culture that never experienced original sin and never needed a Savior. The idea hit me like a ton of bricks. My whole Christian world view was endangered by it and soon crumbled as I realized all of it's underpinnings stem from this crazy little tale.

[Gestahl]

Originally posted by tdn

As to the rest of the OP, yes, that little flame of "more than me" that we all have is awesome. I love that thing. But I don't believe for an instant that Jebus is the only way to that flame. Easterners have been experiencing for millenia before they ever heard of Christ. I sometimes experience it when I'm writing music or doing something else creative. When I'm lucky.

Absolutely. That is the primary reason I think we do things: every once in a while you hit that "God" euphoria moment when all the world makes sense... etc. Sex (a base reason in itself of much human endeavor), music, majestic architecture, church, science, and even your job can give you that feeling from time to time. That is what makes things worth doing.

I think that is why many drug users report "I met God!" when they have an especially "good trip:" they are just putting that absolute euphoria in the only way available to our language (from both personal observation and observation of others). The interesting thing is that users from other cultures report the same, although they do not meet God, they experience Nirvana, see Buddha nature, what have you. In a sense, they may be right ;-).

[Gestahl]

Originally posted by Atlas
Point taken. Well expressed Gestahl. Excellent post. I especially like your thoughts about the tree itself... allegorically trying to use the physical world to accomplish something (knowledge) rather than a spiritual sense (just let God tell you). I hadn't heard that "wisdom" before. Great stuff! I can't help but admire the power of myth and the human imagination that is able to infer such "pearls".

Have you by any chance read a lot of Joseph Campbell? Comparative mythology coupled with psychology makes for some very interesting reading, even if Campbell is a pretentious, pompous Jungian.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Have you by any chance read a lot of Joseph Campbell? Comparative mythology coupled with psychology makes for some very interesting reading, even if Campbell is a pretentious, pompous Jungian. My ex was a big fan of his. She told me about him and made me watch the Bill Moyers 6 hours PBS series. I thought Moyers was getting in the way. I could've listened to a lot more of his comparative myth and it's impact on our mind. Before listening to him I thought of myth as fiction or lies. I credit Campbell with giving me an appreciation for the role of myth in the story of man.

[Ladewig]

2) People were still supid, knowing they shouldn't do something, and doing it any way, becase we only truly learn from personal experience.

I take issue with the word "stupid." They've just been created, they have no personal experience, and they have no way of understanding that a commandment from God is something that must be followed. Even God's threat, "you will die," is beyond the comprehension of a being that has never witnessed death in any form whatsoever.

I see it as if an adult puts a three-year-old child alone in a room and says you may play with any object in this room except the matches on the floor, then the adult later surprised to find the room on fire, then it is the adult and not the child that is stupid. Can Adam and Eve's comprehension really be beyond that of a three-year-old?



5) Somehow, man's sins got transferred to animals and they got kicked out, and started dying too. I call extreme foul on God here, as having no free will (per most Christians statements on the soul re. animals) absolves them of all guilt. What did they ever do?

Yes, and it was harshier on the herbavores than on the carnavores. Furthermore, now that death is introduced to the animal kingdom, God lets it be known almost immediately, that one of the few ways to please Him is to kill animals and burn their flesh as part of a sacrifice.

[Gestahl]

Originally posted by Ladewig
2) People were still supid, knowing they shouldn't do something, and doing it any way, becase we only truly learn from personal experience.

I take issue with the word "stupid." They've just been created, they have no personal experience, and they have no way of understanding that a commandment from God is something that must be followed. Even God's threat, "you will die," is beyond the comprehension of a being that has never witnessed death in any form whatsoever.


Ack! I even say that later in my post! Point taken.

However, I almost universally use "stupid" to mean: "refusing to listen to a voice of more information and experience". This can refer to yourself, as when you say "I was so stupid," you knew better than to do that, but you did anyway to your own detriment.

[triadboy]

Originally posted by Atlas
A single fable describes how this prince of darkness deceived man and introduced sin, suffering, and death to an otherwise idyllic and always wonderful creation. That is the Adam and Eve myth of Genesis.

It isn't that simple. The A&E story speaks of a serpent. This story (laid down in writing ~800 BC) - predates the time when there was a Satan. Basically, before the Babylonian exile - there was only Yahweh. There was no Satan. When something bad happened - it was Yahweh who caused it. (In a couple of places in the OT, "...an evil spirit came over the Lord"). Under Babylonian influence (which was under Zoroastrian influence), the idea of a god of good and a god of evil began to be followed. This solved the horrible idea that God could do bad things. The serpent wasn't associated with Satan for hundreds of years.

There are Sumarian flavors to this story also. (i.e. The Tree of Life and the serpent)

This myth (written by J) shows the God that J knew. A very human god. A god afraid of his creations. We have no idea about the god J was referring to. He is lost.

The serpent (who apparently had legs) spoke the truth when he told A&E they would not die if they ate the fruit. Very strange.

Another myth that facinates me is Cain and Abel. A truly ancient story (probably passed to J orally) about the battles of nomads and farmers. And how the farmers eventually won.

J is the key myth-writer in the OT. She wrote Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gemmorah - The Book Of J describes HER as a writer equal to Shakespeare.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by triadboy
It isn't that simple. The A&E story speaks of a serpent. This story (laid down in writing ~800 BC) - predates the time when there was a Satan. Basically, before the Babylonian exile - there was only Yahweh. There was no Satan. Triadboy,

Thanks. Something new I didn't know. I learned in college from a Jewish prof in a History of Death class that the earliest Jews had a religion of the living and no real afterlife. That evolved. References to "The Bosom of Abraham" appeared as the place to where the dead migrated. The evolution continued.

I never thought about the first notion of an anti-god force. As I reread the creation story it doesn't mention the creation of Hell or the underworld. The serpent is decribed as the craftiest of animals.

I had thought He created the Angels and that failed because they rebelled and were cast down. So He tried creating Man but still got it wrong, - because of the pesky angel disguised as a serpent. Kind of a bumbler for a perfect being.

I had imagined that for being cast down the serpent/devil decieved man. But it's not there in the text. Another hypnotic/delusional aspect of the story on me.

Your reference to J was also new to me. Not much on the Web. I found this: The Hidden Book in the Bible by Richard E. Friedman. Is that where you came by that interesting tidbit?

[triadboy]

I forget where I read that. I read books about religion constantly. It is my favorite subject.

Tidbit: The same person who wrote about a talking snake also wrote about a talking ass.

I googled The Book of J - but didn't find it either. I'll check it out when I get home.

Here's the progression as I know it:

Oral
~800 BC - J (Jahwist) writes HER stories (this book claims J might have been a woman in the court of Roheboam [right after Soloman])

Later - E (Elohimist) stories are present. These stories may have migrated into Judah after the fall of Israel to the Assyrians. They have a pro-north edge to them.

D (Deuteronomist) stories are present also

P (Priestly) writes and collects stories around the time of the Babylonian exile. P wrote the "In the beginning...", Leviticus, anything that is anal.

R (Redactor) assembles, rewrites, story-crunches, deletes, etc. I've read the Redactor may have been Ezra.

[Skeptical Greg]

The most flagrant paradox of the A&E story, that literalists ignore, is that how could A & E, having no knowledge of good and evil ( right and wrong ) be committing a sin when they listened to the serpent and ate the fruit? ( that gave them the knowledge of good and evil )

[pgwenthold]

Originally posted by Gestahl
4) God deliberately lies, or at least distorts the truth, and it passes right under the nose of most Christians (Adam and Eve did *not* die in the literal sense, though they were allowed to physically die.



More to the point, I think, is that if you look at what happened, Satan really didn't do anything all that wrong. The only thing you can really pin on him is that he knowingly convinced A&E to disobey God's order. OTOH, all he really did was to tell them the truth, that they would not die and that they would become like gods themselves. And sure enough, they didn't die and they knew the difference between good and evil, just like God. Of course, they got booted out of the Garden before they could eat of the Tree of Life, which would have made them immortal, too. In fact, God kicked them out to prevent them from eating from the Tree of Life.

Yeah, Satan got them to disobey. But he did it by telling them the truth.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Frank Zappa on Eden

So, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, if you go for all these fairy tales, that "evil" woman convinced the man to eat the apple, but the apple came from the Tree of Knowledge. And the punishment that was then handed down, the woman gets to bleed and the guy's got to go to work, is the result of a man desiring, because his woman suggested that it would be a good idea, that he get all the knowledge that was supposedly the property and domain of God. So, that right away sets up Christianity as an anti-intellectual religion. You never want to be that smart. If you're a woman, it's going to be running down your leg, and if you're a guy, you're going to be in the salt mines for the rest of your life. So, just be a dumb f*ck and you'll all go to heaven. That's the subtext of Christianity.
-- Frank Zappa

[Atlas]

Thanks bewareofdogmas,

One can always count on Zappa for that pithy but peculiarly expressed opinion. Even in his vexation he does bring me a smile.

[Atlas]

One interpretation that I've heard is that Adam and Eve are children new to the world and still with an innocence of youth.

The loss of innocence is at the center of the story. Although it's expressed in terms of the knowledge of good and evil it is more likely simply carnal knowledge. The serpent/snake/penis rises before woman who seduces the man into sampling the forbidden fruit they share.

The parent is who they hide from, but they are found and in shame, and all realize that they are forever changed and no longer exist in the Garden of innocence. There is no way back to innocent virginity either.

It's really a simple coming of age story like other fairy tales. That's how it should be understood not as the story of the very first human beings.

Is that similar to the underlying meaning you've understood it to be or are there other interpretations?

[lifegazer]

Adam = self-awareness. (a reasoning/judging awareness)
Eve = emotion.(emotion was founded upon the ribs of judgement)

The tree of knowledge = an awareness of things. To eat thereof is to become aware of the world.

Eve (emotion) was given to things, and Adam (reasoning awareness) became lost within those things.

Hence, Adam and Eve (reasoning and emotive awareness), were cast-out into the world of things, losing the garden of Eden (the awareness of being in God).

[Atlas]

Pretty good, lifegazer. I've never heard of that one. It sure fits your philosophy.

Is it original with you or does it come from the books that inspired you?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Atlas
Pretty good, lifegazer. I've never heard of that one. It sure fits your philosophy.

Is it original with you or does it come from the books that inspired you?
Well I am aware - though no expert of - the symbolism used in the bible. Adam is the male (reasoning/judging) part of consciousness, whereas Eve of course is the female - feeling - part of consciousness. Concsciousness as a whole resides within the garden of Eden = Christ/God consciousness. So, when eve was tempted to know of things, reason was plunged headlong in there with her, and both were lost to christ-consciousness.
For a season, anyway.

The whole bible is like this. You really should check-out biblical symbology. Those who read the bible literally, are utter fruitcakes. Revelations, for example, is not a story of the world's Tolkien-like demise, but the return of Adam & Eve, so to speak, to Christ/God consciousness. It's another completely mystical narrative of God's wavering/diverse consciousness.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Adam = self-awareness. (a reasoning/judging awareness)
Eve = emotion.(emotion was founded upon the ribs of judgement)

The tree of knowledge = an awareness of things. To eat thereof is to become aware of the world.

Eve (emotion) was given to things, and Adam (reasoning awareness) became lost within those things.

Hence, Adam and Eve (reasoning and emotive awareness), were cast-out into the world of things, losing the garden of Eden (the awareness of being in God).
You have an interesting examination of some of the symbols in Genesis.

In my opinion, Adam and Eve do not represent the symbols self-awareness and emotion. A complex occurrence of parallel and contrast occurs with the account of man’s creation. Man is not only made in the image of God, paralleling him, but woman, made from the man’s rib, contrasts with man. This suggests that the world is logically organized around binary opposites, or basic opposing forces (the most obvious binary pair is the relationship between Good and Evil).

Its possible the Tree of Life is a symbol, but it does not appear to be written in a way that immediately stands out to me as "symbol" (if God has destroyed the Tree of Life shortly after banishing Adam and Eve, I think the symbolic value would be obvious). The purpose of Genesis follows like this:
The author is trying to account for the way that certain unfavorable elements of everyday human life came into being. The etiological concerns are clear enough in these chapters. The writers and the redactors have collected stories that explain how evil and separate nations entered the world, why women must live in a society characterized by male standards, why we as humans must work to survive, and why our daily labor is always so hard.

[Riddick]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Things that strike me as funny/amusing:
Oh, and Atlas, I don't think that the concept of Satan, or at least something diametrically opposed to the Ultimate Good is a reaction from having Ultimate Good, but rather a personification of all the "negative" emotional states we have: just as God is an abstraction of euphoria, so is Satan an abstraction of anguish.
gawd, so this is why at the peak of sexual excitement we're prone to say "OH GOD!"

* Riddick slaps self on side of head, i never knew that.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The whole bible is like this. You really should check-out biblical symbology. Those who read the bible literally, are utter fruitcakes. Revelations, for example, is not a story of the world's Tolkien-like demise, but the return of Adam & Eve, so to speak, to Christ/God consciousness. It's another completely mystical narrative of God's wavering/diverse consciousness.
Some people believe Revelation speaks of the future, but a good understanding of the background of this story makes the purpose of it clear (and after reading it, it makes you wonder how in the hell it found its way into our modern bibles).

Revelation was written around 81 AD, this was time of extreme stress for Christians. The author of Revelation understood the coming persecution of the early Christians in parts of Asia Minor (they would be violented forced to worship the emperor or Rome, which was something the Christians must resist), Revelation is an attempt to persuade the small churches to turn away from imperial cult worship and toward the true God, who was in charge of history and who will triumph in the end. The story's symbolism holds that the Great Whore of Babylon (which is the Roman Empire) will eventually fall, and the One True God would remain supreme. Revelation was written to persuade Christians to stake their lives on their decision to remain ever-faithful to God.

Revelation is a dramatically different in style from the rest of the Bible, its context utterly disconnected with the intent of the bible, its significance was only intended for the time period which it was written (its amazing, the number of Apocalyptic writing during that time enough that "Apocalypse" could very well be considered its own genre). The Rapture Folk dont seem to miss that fact...

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Things that strike me as funny/amusing:
Lets add to the list...

10) Satan appears to Eve in the form of a serpeant. Naturally, God curses all serpeants to the ground for Satan's mischief.

(You posess one serpeant, and suddenly the entire species losses is limbs... what a stickler God is...)

[Phil]

Originally posted by lifegazer
. . . The whole bible is like this. You really should check-out biblical symbology. Those who read the bible literally, are utter fruitcakes. Revelations, for example, is not a story of the world's Tolkien-like demise, but the return of Adam & Eve, so to speak, to Christ/God consciousness. It's another completely mystical narrative of God's wavering/diverse consciousness. Yes, I agree. Those who read the Bible literally are utter fruitcakes. But then what should we say about those who, once they recognize the literal meaning of the Bible is nonsense, invent symbolism vaguely connected to its original dogma?

It's like the dancing chicken pop singer who, after having the bubble gum of his or her act pointed out repeatedly, all of sudden tries to play jazz piano, because it somehow seems more adult. The only problem is, it's the same old talentless goober, and it doesn't improve his or her credibility a single mote.

I don't know, in a way it seems kind of sad to me, considering there are better books on which to hang your dogmatic beliefs, even symbolically, if that's your bent. I mean why not consider another piece of fiction, or else let go the silly notion entirely, and have some fun before you die?

[Riddick]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Adam = self-awareness. (a reasoning/judging awareness)
Eve = emotion.(emotion was founded upon the ribs of judgement)

The tree of knowledge = an awareness of things. To eat thereof is to become aware of the world.

Eve (emotion) was given to things, and Adam (reasoning awareness) became lost within those things.

Hence, Adam and Eve (reasoning and emotive awareness), were cast-out into the world of things, losing the garden of Eden (the awareness of being in God).
You're saying Eve was not self-aware? Well, I don't know how you intend to pull that thought off.

btw, saying "Eve = emotion" took some real balls brother. I'm suprised the women haven't ripped you up one side and down the other for that. I've known some women who are more like Great White Sharks.

The Tree of Knowledge was not an awareness of things. This is what Satan was selling them on, however. Satan said "You will be as God, discerning good from evil. Seeing the future."

The Tree of Knowledge was a test. It was a test as to whether they would follow God's instruction. They already had awareness.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Riddick
The Tree of Knowledge was a test. It was a test as to whether they would follow God's instruction. They already had awareness. Riddick,

I was hoping you'd stop by. When I was young and asked our priest about Adam & Eve he noticed our skepticism and told us something.

"You don't have to believe in Adam and Eve, you just have to believe that at some point God put a soul into his creation and that was then Man." It seemed to quiet my doubt. I didn't have to accept that a real Adam and a real Eve existed. He never explained the origin of sin though. I didn't even miss it. It took years before I put it together.

You believe that the Bible has to be taken literally, don't you? Because otherwise there is no explanation for what is called "sin" and if not for Adam no Jesus would be required. That's what I believe the fundamentalist position boils down to and if I'm wrong I'd like to be corrected.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Riddick
You're saying Eve was not self-aware?
Riddick, you have missed the point of Lifegazer's post entirely.

Lifegazer sees the story of Genesis and its literary details as symbols. You do understand what symbolism is dont you?

Well, I don't know how you intend to pull that thought off.

btw, saying "Eve = emotion" took some real balls brother. I'm suprised the women haven't ripped you up one side and down the other for that. I've known some women who are more like Great White Sharks.
*sigh* Ripping someone down is an expression of emotion, this emotion tends to be called "rage".

By the way, Lifegazer is not saying all women are "emotion", he's saying the character of Eve from the story of Genesis is representive of human emotion. Being a symbol, she did not exist, nothing from Genesis occurred, the details of the story are supposed to communicate concepts not history.

The Tree of Knowledge was not an awareness of things. This is what Satan was selling them on, however. Satan said "You will be as God, discerning good from evil. Seeing the future."

The Tree of Knowledge was a test. It was a test as to whether they would follow God's instruction. They already had awareness.
So much for omniscience if he did not know the outcome of this test...

And if God does in fact have omniscience, this "test" of his makes him an evil god.

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Originally posted by Riddick
The Tree of Knowledge was a test. It was a test as to whether they would follow God's instruction. They already had awareness. But since they didn't have awareness of right or wrong, why should they have obeyed instructions? How can they be held responsible for a choice when they lacked the knowledge and judgment necessary for that choice to be meaningful? If they had randomly chosen not to eat the fruit, how would that be better than randomly choosing to eat it?

[Igopogo]

Originally posted by Atlas
One interpretation that I've heard is that Adam and Eve are children new to the world and still with an innocence of youth.

The loss of innocence is at the center of the story. Although it's expressed in terms of the knowledge of good and evil it is more likely simply carnal knowledge. The serpent/snake/penis rises before woman who seduces the man into sampling the forbidden fruit they share.


This is sort of similar to one interpretation I recall hearing long ago in Sunday school (I had a pretty cool Sunday school teacher with some theology schooling). That was years ago, so my memory may not be doing his explanation any justice:

The myth may have started out as a straightforward sexual analogy with man originally being represented by the tree of knowledge and woman by the tree of life. (Repeated oral retellings may then have led to an evolved version of the story to its written form). The serpent offering the woman fruit was a representation of the sexual act. IIRC, the Bible doesn’t mention what kind of fruit is offered by the serpent, so the fact that it’s usually understood an apple or plum that’s offered is supposedly a clue that early theologians had a sexual connotation to their interpretation of the story.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Riddick, you have missed the point of Lifegazer's post entirely.

Lifegazer sees the story of Genesis and its literary details as symbols. You do understand what symbolism is dont you?

Thanks for coming to my defense.
My version of events sought to show that the whole drama was about consciousness. Of course, our consciousness has a
rational-judging side and an emotional side. As I said, in the story, God created emotion upon the rib of judgement. The story has nothing to do with creating the whole female body out of a rib bone of the male body. To believe that literally is absurd.
Hence, such consciousness, without knowledge, existed within Eden, which is merely symbolic of Christ-consciousness - aware of having being in God.

The interesting part is that Eve (our emotional side) should be the one that drags us into the world. Why would Eve be blamed?
Simply because Eve is emotion and emotion includes desire of course. Sooner or later, the desire to quench our curiousity of things would plunge us into the world of things. Afterall, God consciousness is creative. When God desires something, then it will come to pass. We are in the world because we desired to be in the world.

I'm convinced that the story of Adam & Eve is a narrative of why God was destined to live in the World.

[bjornart]

Someone is a bit too fond of the phrase "of course", me thinks.

[Jon_in_london]

You can blame it on Adam
You can blame it on Eve
You can blame it on the apple
but that I cant believe!

There would never have been a woman
or an apple or a man, and there wouldnt have been
a serpent if it wasnt in God's plan!

Its God they should be crucifying instead of you and me
I said to the carpenter a-hanging in the tree.

[Skeptical Greg]

O.K. I sense that this thread has about had it, so it is time for
my favorite Adam and Eve joke..


God says to Adam

" Say Adam.. How would you like to have a companion? This will be a
gorgeous creature that will cater to your every need, and bring you
unimaginable pleasure... "

Adam answers

" Well, it sounds great... What is it going to cost me? "


God replys

" You are going to have to give up an arm and a leg.. "


Adam again..


" What can I get for a rib ? "... :D

[Gestahl]

Originally posted by Atlas
My ex was a big fan of his. She told me about him and made me watch the Bill Moyers 6 hours PBS series. I thought Moyers was getting in the way. I could've listened to a lot more of his comparative myth and it's impact on our mind. Before listening to him I thought of myth as fiction or lies. I credit Campbell with giving me an appreciation for the role of myth in the story of man.

Well put. I think Campbell just takes it too far sometimes in his conclusions from it. And you are right... Moyer is just a sychophantic little yes-man in that series. Its also really a shame that he had to pick Star Wars and George Lucas as recent topics, becuase it is really a poor myth story, and George Lucas just loves to pile on the BS.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Well put. I think Campbell just takes it too far sometimes in his conclusions from it. And you are right... Moyer is just a sychophantic little yes-man in that series. Its also really a shame that he had to pick Star Wars and George Lucas as recent topics, becuase it is really a poor myth story, and George Lucas just loves to pile on the BS. Agreed on all points. :)

Campbell talked about how myths emerge in a culture and then chose Star Wars. The only thing that did was broaden my view. I had really thought of myths being strictly religious and I wondered a little about what American myths would look like. I didn't know how to recognize them within my own experience.

I ran across a website awhile back that dealt with myths of all ages. It addressed American myths not quite corresponding to Greek myth but some parallels were apparent. Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty were kind of Uranus and Gaia. Superman was like Zeus.

I know I'm presenting it wrong but it was interesting to peek into the realm of myth within my own culture... or at least view it as if these symbols hit the mind in the same way that old myths did in their respective cultures... the ideals and lessons they impart - just by their images.

[triadboy]

Originally posted by Gestahl
Well put. I think Campbell just takes it too far sometimes in his conclusions from it. And you are right... Moyer is just a sychophantic little yes-man in that series. Its also really a shame that he had to pick Star Wars and George Lucas as recent topics, becuase it is really a poor myth story, and George Lucas just loves to pile on the BS.

I disagree. (I'm a BIG Campbell fan.) He was an expert of World Mythology - he could relate an Eskimo myth with an Indian myth or an xian myth with a Shinto myth. I thought he was marvelous.

To bring up Star Wars is to bring up a story familiar to everyone - HOWEVER - the basics of this story is the core of human mythology - the story of a man whose people are in trouble - he leaves this plane of existance and gain a power/device that is used to save his people when he gets back home. This simple story is a universal dream.

[Correa Neto]

All creation myths are embedded in several layers of symbolism and moral tales, subject to many different readings. The Genesis (and its variants) is not different. On the present thread, so far, the lights have been on Eve, but according to the Talmud, the first woman was Lilith, that was created, as Adam, from clay. But when Adam decided to have sex with her, she wanted to be on top, saying that she was built from the same materials as he, she was equal to him, therefore he could not dominate her. God (our "everloving" and "mercyfull" father...) sent her to hell to live with the demons and made a more tame version, from Adam´s rib.

That´s clearly a moral tale (OK for the prevailing moral of those times and on many parts of our modern and advanced world). The meaning is women are inferior to men, they own their very existence to men. Also, women should not be on top. Now, a funny note is that if one uses an evolutionary approach, then women are more evolved than men, since they were created (evolved) from them.

[Dancing David]

Go Lilith it's your birthday, although I did read some stuff saying that Lilith arises in judaic myth about 1500, she is very much derived from the Ca,aanite Astoreth,Istar,Astarte,Innana thing. She is very babylonian too, with birds wings and I think owls feet.

The problem with he bible is that it is an edited oral tradidtion where the pharisee's won out over the other factions.

There are two creations, which gets left out, sort of. YHVH destroyed the first creation when he extended justice without compassion and the world was consumed in fire, he screws up again and drowns the place somewhat later.

ADM is a putz, outcast by the other Ca'ananites, Lilith was the high preistess, he looks for a deity who will help him. Then YVHV creates EV, although in some traditions they are created together in one form, and god strikes them apart with an axe.

The tree of knowledge is the tree wof life which the hebrai stole from the egyptians.
When god casts ADM and EV from the garden they are spirits which is why they cloth themselves in the 'skins of animals'.

The saducees shared more of the ca'anite traditions than the pharisees.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Go Lilith it's your birthday, although I did read some stuff saying that Lilith arises in judaic myth about 1500, she is very much derived from the Ca,aanite Astoreth,Istar,Astarte,Innana thing. She is very babylonian too, with birds wings and I think owls feet.

The problem with he bible is that it is an edited oral tradidtion where the pharisee's won out over the other factions.

There are two creations, which gets left out, sort of. YHVH destroyed the first creation when he extended justice without compassion and the world was consumed in fire, he screws up again and drowns the place somewhat later.

ADM is a putz, outcast by the other Ca'ananites, Lilith was the high preistess, he looks for a deity who will help him. Then YVHV creates EV, although in some traditions they are created together in one form, and god strikes them apart with an axe.

The tree of knowledge is the tree wof life which the hebrai stole from the egyptians.
When god casts ADM and EV from the garden they are spirits which is why they cloth themselves in the 'skins of animals'.

The saducees shared more of the ca'anite traditions than the pharisees.

For some reason I don't see this going over real big in a Baptist Sunday school class....


( I liked it , though )

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Riddick

The Tree of Knowledge was a test. It was a test as to whether they would follow God's instruction. They already had awareness.

Crappy test, since they were never given the knowledge of good and evil.