adam, eve, the apple, and self conciousness

[andyandy]

now....i'm not much of a theologist (lol) so go easy on me if this is a well established idea....

does the apple in the garden of eden represent consciousness - and therefore is the garden of eden story is effectivley a critique of conciousness.....?

In the beginning you have adam and eve living in bliss...until they develop self-conciousness (by eating the apple)....they then realise they are naked - and feel shame....

as a result of their new state of conciousness they can no longer live in bliss, and for the rest of mankind's life he must live with pain and suffering....

i suppose there are pretty fundamental scientific debates as to what self-conciousness actually is - and what effect it has upon the individual, but it seems to me that, say an ameboa merely exists without any notion of self - and as a result would not experience the same emotional pain as say a human...and as such would enjoy a more "blissful" existence.....

Now...what i would find remarkable about the adam and eve story, is that it would provide such a critique over 3000years ago....although i suppose Buddha and others were also looking at notions of self and suffering around this kind of time.....

[FireGarden]

Pain in childbirth -- larger head, intelligence/self-awareness.

That said,
dumber animals still seem to find childbirth somewhat painful!

From a male perspective,
You're happy living at home until you're tempted away by a woman. Then you've got to work hard! :)

Now...what i would find remarkable about the adam and eve story, is that it would provide such a critique over 3000years ago....
Human intelligence hasn't changed much since then. I don't find it at all surprising that people could tell stories that had philosphical, non-literal meaning.

What I find remarkable is that some people can't see Adam/Eve as anything other than a literal story.

[Bikewer]

The failure of early humans to follow divine orders is a pretty common mythological theme. I'm currently reading a big encyclopedia of mythology, and this scenario appears numbers of times, including cultures pre-dating the Hebrew...
As I recall from my limited reading of the bible, it's never described as an apple; only "the fruit of the tree of knowledge". Apparently, the crime is attempting to equal God in terms of knowledge. This too is common in mythology, and generally the gods have been rather annoyed at such attempts. Look at the poor schmuck who got chained to a rock with an eagle to eat his liver....

[FireGarden]

Look at the poor schmuck who got chained to a rock with an eagle to eat his liver....

Wasn't Prometheus a Titan, one the race of beings that created the Gods in Greek mythology?

The ancient Greek religion strikes me as more reasonable in that the Titans get their ass kicked by the Gods they made. Man learns to live without Gods. And soon we will be outclassed by robots.

Progress.

I've never understood a Creator that deliberately creates something inferior to himself. It would be like parents that want their children to fail.

[cyborg]

As I recall from my limited reading of the bible, it's never described as an apple; only "the fruit of the tree of knowledge".

As far as I can tell the reason for the apple association is that the word apple is actually the Old English term for fruit, rather than the specific fruit it has become associated with.

[slingblade]

You mean like "corn" means any grain, not just maize? I never knew that about "apple." Thanks!

[cyborg]

Etymology is fascinating. I find it is hard to truly understand the usage of words until you know their history.

[andyandy]

Etymology is fascinating.

yeah....translations always lose some kind of context....

as an example, its pretty common to wish someone "good luck" in English - whether they are going to play an important football game, take an exam etc.....now in japanese the closest approximation for this would be gambatte kudasai....which means "please try hard." This completely changes the emphasis - from one which implies that everyone needs luck to be successful, to one which implies that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough.....

Etymology really tells you a lot about how societies think.....im sure there's a lot of translations in the bible which have changed the original context or meaning....

:) :) :)

[cyborg]

You mean like "corn" means any grain, not just maize? I never knew that about "apple." Thanks!

I thought I should add that I've heard lots of different explanations for why apple. Notably a set from my school days in an assembly lead by one of the RE teachers, who cut his suit as part of the assembly and later lost his faith in a class I truly wish I had seen. Apparantly he said, "yeah, it pretty much doesn't make any sense."

This seems the most likely to me given the history of the English language and the history of translating the Bible into English.

[chriswl]

does the apple in the garden of eden represent consciousness - and therefore is the garden of eden story is effectivley a critique of conciousness....
Of course. Mesopotamian goat herders were well known for their sophisticated analyses of consciousness :)

Are you suggesting that the people who wrote down the story invented it as a way of making some point about consciousness and were aware they were writing fiction? I find that hard to believe. Surely they were writing down a piece of tribal mythology who's origins were lost in the depths of time and which they believed to be literally true.

[FireGarden]

Are you suggesting that the people who wrote down the story invented it as a way of making some point about consciousness and were aware they were writing fiction? I find that hard to believe.

Unless it really is history, then somebody had to make up the story. Why is it hard to believe that they had intelligent reasons for writing it the way they did?

There are at least two versions of the genesis story collected in the OT. That's consistent with it being an anthology of stories which meant something other than literal truth to the editor.

At least at some point.

[andyandy]

Of course. Mesopotamian goat herders were well known for their sophisticated analyses of consciousness :)

Are you suggesting that the people who wrote down the story invented it as a way of making some point about consciousness and were aware they were writing fiction? I find that hard to believe. Surely they were writing down a piece of tribal mythology who's origins were lost in the depths of time and which they believed to be literally true.

lol.....well like i mentioned Gautama Buddha was around about 500BC - and he was pretty sophisticated in his analysis of consciousness....:) It's pretty hard to ascertain when the bible was written - probably around 1000BC for the OT....and this was almost certainly influenced by older creation stories like the Sumerian's.....and the sumerians were pretty clever themselves...:)

I think its possible that it was written as an anology for the "creation of man" - in the sense that man only truly becomes "man" with conciousness. I would be interested to know if anthroplogists believe that early homo-erectus (or earlier types who's names i cant remember) had a developed consciousness.....

i admit that it quite possible that people were recounting a myth they believed to be literally true - but its fascinating that this myth might actually depict the moment that "man was created" - ie. became aware....and so could have its grounding in the evolution of the species....

[David Swidler]

now....i'm not much of a theologist (lol) so go easy on me if this is a well established idea....

does the apple in the garden of eden represent consciousness - and therefore is the garden of eden story is effectivley a critique of conciousness.....?

In the beginning you have adam and eve living in bliss...until they develop self-conciousness (by eating the apple)....they then realise they are naked - and feel shame....

as a result of their new state of conciousness they can no longer live in bliss, and for the rest of mankind's life he must live with pain and suffering....

i suppose there are pretty fundamental scientific debates as to what self-conciousness actually is - and what effect it has upon the individual, but it seems to me that, say an ameboa merely exists without any notion of self - and as a result would not experience the same emotional pain as say a human...and as such would enjoy a more "blissful" existence.....

Now...what i would find remarkable about the adam and eve story, is that it would provide such a critique over 3000years ago....although i suppose Buddha and others were also looking at notions of self and suffering around this kind of time.....


Your approach is not far from some mainstream OT scholarship, according to which Adam's decision to eat the fruit represents every person's pursuit of independence: the only way to assert that independence is to depart from God's instructions.

It's a process that every person goes through, through childhood and into adulthood.

In that sense, the Eden narrative is allegory, not history; it's unlikely the original audience saw it as factual - especially since it evokes contemporary mythologies from neighboring cultures in Mesopotamia. It's quite likely the writer(s) consciously framed the ideas in familiar cultural terms for ease in digestion.

[Smart_Cookie]

The Adam and Eve story is interesting because of the part where they ate of the fruit, and were then aware that they were naked, then decided to cover up with fig leaves.

Because there had to have been a literal time when some homo sapiens decided to cover his or her private bits. Maybe because it was cold outside. Maybe for extra protection from thorns or whatever. And others followed suit.

Then one day generations later, some kid probably wondered well, why do we have to wear clothes. I don't see any other creatures wearing these stupid coverings. Something sets us apart.

And possibly, there arose consciousness. In part.

[chriswl]

Unless it really is history, then somebody had to make up the story. Why is it hard to believe that they had intelligent reasons for writing it the way they did?
I don't understand, you mean "isn't history" don't you? If it's history then it's true and there really was an apple - no symbolism and no need to make anything up.

There are at least two versions of the genesis story collected in the OT. That's consistent with it being an anthology of stories which meant something other than literal truth to the editor.
That's the kind of heretical reasoning that would probably have got you stoned to death at the time. I think you're being hopelessly anachronistic here. Genesis "obviously" cannot be literally true for most of us, with our modern, naturalistic view of the world. But there is no good reason why it couldn't have seemed true for Mesopotamians 3000 years ago. Even today there are fundamentalists who manage to believe in the literal truth of the bible, contradictions and all. Go back only a few hundred years and practically everyone was a fundamentalist.

We don't have to assume that people in the past were stupid. Just that they didn't have the benefit of the knowledge that modern science gives us about the world.

[Piggy]

That's the kind of heretical reasoning that would probably have got you stoned to death at the time. I think you're being hopelessly anachronistic here. Genesis "obviously" cannot be literally true for most of us, with our modern, naturalistic view of the world. But there is no good reason why it couldn't have seemed true for Mesopotamians 3000 years ago. Even today there are fundamentalists who manage to believe in the literal truth of the bible, contradictions and all. Go back only a few hundred years and practically everyone was a fundamentalist.

We don't have to assume that people in the past were stupid. Just that they didn't have the benefit of the knowledge that modern science gives us about the world.
Seems to me, chriswl, you're engaging in anachronism here, projecting modern fundamentalism backward into the past, as well as across foreign geography and social structures.

If the ancient redactors and compilers of the Talmud/Tanach had been highly concerned with a unified historical vision, it's difficult to understand why they would have preserved the traditions that they did in the way that they did.

These were highly educated people. Even without the benefit of modern science, it's transparently obvious that Genesis preserves 2 very different creation stories, that Joshua and Judges don't agree on the history of the conquest, that 2 irreconcilably different stories of David's youth are preserved, etc.

It's impossible today to know with certainty the extent to which the pre-history of any of these traditions was rooted in historical literalism, visionary mysticism, political propaganda, or what have you... or what the opinions were of the later compilers, for that matter, even though by comparing works of various origins it's possible to discern some strongly apparent political and doctrinal differences.

Btw, go back about 250 years in America and you'll find that among the highly educated and literate, it is incorrect to say that practically everyone was a fundamentalist.

[andyandy]

any anthropologists out there want to weigh in with when humans (or maybe apes) developed conciousness? come on.....it's not much to ask..... lol :)

[chriswl]

Seems to me, chriswl, you're engaging in anachronism here, projecting modern fundamentalism backward into the past, as well as across foreign geography and social structures.
I don't need to project modern fundamentalism back into the past. The notion of "fundamentalist" religion is extremely simple - it is the assumption that people actually believe in the religion that they claim to believe in. This surely is the default position unless we have reason to think otherwise. We assume this as a matter of course when we examine, say, the religions of the pre-conquest native Americans or pre 19th century Australian aborigines or pre-colonial African tribes.

What is complex (perhaps unique throughout history) and needs explaining is modern non-fundamentalist Christianity. Normally, in a society, there is a clear distinction between literature, which may contain much symbolism and deep insight into the human condition, but is acknowledged as fiction and religious texts which are supposed to be true. For example, Aesop's fables were not part of the ancient Greeks religious beliefs. They were not believed to be true stories.

Thanks to the discoveries of modern science, most Christians can no longer believe in their religion literally. But they don't wish to abandon it. They could be honest and simply say that much of the bible is clearly wrong. But that would throw the rest of it into doubt, so they try to pretend that the not true bits are deliberately not true and were intended to be fictional all along. I think this is a fairly desperate manoeuvre and I doubt they have any good reason to believe this other than wishful thinking.

Btw, go back about 250 years in America and you'll find that among the highly educated and literate, it is incorrect to say that practically everyone was a fundamentalist.
But Christianity was predominantly fundamentalist, whereas nowadays (even in America) it is predominantly not. Fundamentalism is not a new phenomenon, in fact (in Christianity and Islam) modern fundamentalism is quite consciously an attempt to get back to the older certainties and to reject the modern scientifically inspired doubts.

[andyandy]

they try to pretend that the not true bits are deliberately not true and were intended to be fictional all along. I think this is a fairly desperate manoeuvre and I doubt they have any good reason to believe this other than wishful thinking.


.

i hope i'm not included in this "they" lol.....i "saw the light" and stopped being a Christian years ago :) :) :)
i still find the bible fascinating from a historical perspective.....not because of any religious beliefs :)

i think it's possible that a lot of the bible was written as fiction to serve as an analogy for whatever moral message the author intended....

we know that the early catholic church "cleaned up" the the lives of dead saints in order to provide more pure role models for their followers....the only question we have to ask is were the followers aware of this...?

[Huntster]

...its pretty common to wish someone "good luck" in English - whether they are going to play an important football game, take an exam etc.....now in japanese the closest approximation for this would be gambatte kudasai....which means "please try hard."...

My exposure to Japanese culture is limited, but isn't there something that illustrates "luck" or "fortune"?

...This completely changes the emphasis - from one which implies that everyone needs luck to be successful, to one which implies that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough.....

With regard to God and Christianity, there is no "luck". There is the "grace of God". Christ also illustrated the facts of life with this:

.....Hear this! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain. And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." He added, "Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear."....

Mark 4:4-9

There are no guarantees of salvation.

...Etymology really tells you a lot about how societies think.....im sure there's a lot of translations in the bible which have changed the original context or meaning....

That, too, isn't a one-way street.

[Meadmaker]

as a result of their new state of conciousness they can no longer live in bliss, and for the rest of mankind's life he must live with pain and suffering....


I Never noticed the relationship Buddhist thought until you put it that way.

FWIW, Iremember reading in something by Joseph Campbell something about that the bit in genesis where, after Adam and Eve are kicked out, the way to the tree of life is blocked by an angel with a flaming sword. He said it was very closely related to a passage from East Asian mythology. I don't know if it was from a Buddhist or Hindu, or other, tradition. That would indicate strong eastern influence on the OT, and if that passage were related to consciousness, you would have something very interesting, indeed.

[Huntster]

....FWIW, Iremember reading in something by Joseph Campbell something about that the bit in genesis where, after Adam and Eve are kicked out, the way to the tree of life is blocked by an angel with a flaming sword.....

Although Joseph Campbell is someone I hold in high regard, I don't remember a particular statement from him in this regard.

But I do remember this from my childhood in Catholic Catechism.

I don't understand the symbolic significance of this, but my opinion is that once the "leap" is taken (from a purely physical life to a spiritual existance), there is no going back.

[pipelineaudio]

are we seriously suggesting that early man, and lower life forms than man are not conscious?

[chriswl]

i hope i'm not included in this "they" lol.....i "saw the light" and stopped being a Christian years ago :) :) :)
Not at all, I wasn't assuming that you were a Christian.

i still find the bible fascinating from a historical perspective.....not because of any religious beliefs :)

I think it's possible that a lot of the bible was written as fiction to serve as an analogy for whatever moral message the author intended....
I think as history the bible is pretty dubious. I saw aprogramme on Channel 4 a year or two ago that suggested that most of the Old testament was fictional. For example, there was no evidence at all that the Hebrews spent time in Egypt and King David was probably the first character in the Bible who actually existed.

However, I don't think we should assume that they disbelieved their own national mythology, or that someone cynically sat down and invented it, knowing it was lies. To take a modern example, if revisionist historians are right that the Battle of Britain was not, in fact, crucial to Britain's survival in the WWII and that Hitler had no serious intention of invading in 1940, this will not mean that it was just an inspiring piece of fiction. The myth of "the few" has become an inspiring national myth but that does not mean it was deliberately fabricated with that purpose in mind. And it could hardly have functioned as a source of patriotic pride if people didn't believe it was true.

we know that the early catholic church "cleaned up" the the lives of dead saints in order to provide more pure role models for their followers....the only question we have to ask is were the followers aware of this...?
Did they knowingly fabricate stories and suppress things they knew for certain to be true? Or were they working from fragmentary and contradictory historical records and rejected stuff that they genuinely believed couldn't be true about such a saintly individual?

In any case, why would medieval peasants doubt the veracity of what they were told about religion by their priests? Especially as they were constantly warned about the dangers of being tempted from the path of righteousness by Satan and had a real fear of hell. Failures of personal morality were inevitable and could be forgiven but rejecting the basic tenets of the religion was heresy.

[andyandy]

wow...so much to respond to...:)

In japanese, if you want to talk about luck you can it's "un" and so the sentence "un ga ii" means luck which is good....but if you were translating from the English "good luck" you wouldn't choose "un ga ii" - because no japanse speaker would use it in that context....you would have to choose "gambatte" - even though as I've explained the implication is different.

to the question as to whether or not early humans had a developed consiousness....yes i am asking that...i don't know what the general consensus amoungst anthropologists is. If we take it as (likely) fact that say a fish has no consciousness of being...and that a modern day man has.....then at some point along the line it must have evolved/developed. I was wondering when that was likely to have happened.... it seems a reasonable question to ask.....

as to the bible being of questionable historical value - wow....it's incredibly valuable....it tells us about how early societies thought, how they worshipped, what their culture was like and how religious thought evolved. Even if the bible was 100% a work of fiction - representing 100% made up places, 100% made up people and 100% made up events, it would still be a fantastic historical document for people to study.

[andyandy]

Did they knowingly fabricate stories and suppress things they knew for certain to be true? Or were they working from fragmentary and contradictory historical records and rejected stuff that they genuinely believed couldn't be true about such a saintly individual?



well it's a fascinating question....it is possible that the early OT stories were written down as, and intended to be seen as, fictional accounts from which moral messages or analogies should be drawn....and the fact that people started beliving them as fact was not what the original author(s) intended....it's pretty hard to gauge intentions.....what if the original depiction of events in the OT was meant in the same way that Aesop's fables were meant? Isnt it conceivable that under different circumstances Aesop's tales could have been passed through the ages, and wrongly believed to be factual depictions of events....that Aesop himself intended to be taken as such?

[FireGarden]

I don't understand, you mean "isn't history" don't you?

I can see how you parsed the sentence, but what I meant is pretty obvious and you guessed it.

But there is no good reason why it couldn't have seemed true for Mesopotamians 3000 years ago.

I agree. Which is why I phrased things the way I did. There are at least two versions of the genesis story collected in the OT. That's consistent with it being an anthology of stories which meant something other than literal truth to the editor. Perhaps I should have added "But doesn't prove it."

But out of interest,
How do you explain the presence of contradictory stories? Were the compilers copying words without understanding?

That's the main point of my position, Piggy gives more examples:

These were highly educated people. Even without the benefit of modern science, it's transparently obvious that Genesis preserves 2 very different creation stories, that Joshua and Judges don't agree on the history of the conquest, that 2 irreconcilably different stories of David's youth are preserved, etc.

Yes, Chriswl, it's possible that they believed it all -- much as modern fundies. But somebody compiled the OT that way. Deliberately. With understanding. It's not like they were posting to a forum, unaware of what's happening on other threads. :)

[Piggy]

I don't need to project modern fundamentalism back into the past. The notion of "fundamentalist" religion is extremely simple - it is the assumption that people actually believe in the religion that they claim to believe in.
In fact, that notion of fundamentalism is overly simple.

But in any case, as far as I know, we don't have any "claims" from ancient times regarding the opinions of the redactors of the Tanach concerning which passages were considered by which persons/groups to be historical, metaphorical, etc.

There were certainly political considerations at play, and it's possible (I'd say likely) that important sections and even entire "books" of scripture were created from whole cloth for political purposes, then intentionally wrapped in a swaddling of bogus tradition.

There are many genres represented in the Hebrew scripture: history (as understood in that day), erotic poetry, laments, praise songs, curses, jokes, fables, genealogies, allegories, mystic visions, etc. And there are no markers for these, so we have to tease them out today, but we can expect that these genres were recognizable to the original hearers/readers.

Just as a modern preacher doesn't write into his sermon "Here begins a joke" before telling a joke in the middle of a homily and "Here ends the joke" when it's over, we find no such bracketing for, say, the story of Balaam's donkey. And even though many Xians view it as a bona fide miracle now, there's little doubt that it was recognizable as an illustrative joke at the time.

Again, there's no reason to project a ubiquitous attitude of historical literalism toward all scripture on the ancient composers and redactors.

This surely is the default position unless we have reason to think otherwise. We assume this as a matter of course when we examine, say, the religions of the pre-conquest native Americans or pre 19th century Australian aborigines or pre-colonial African tribes.
Who's "we"? None of my profs adopted this "default position". Religious stories run the gamut from the purportedly historical to the purely visionary to the purely expressional. In any culture, you'll find some variation in how different parts of the tradition are viewed.

What is complex (perhaps unique throughout history) and needs explaining is modern non-fundamentalist Christianity. Normally, in a society, there is a clear distinction between literature, which may contain much symbolism and deep insight into the human condition, but is acknowledged as fiction and religious texts which are supposed to be true. For example, Aesop's fables were not part of the ancient Greeks religious beliefs. They were not believed to be true stories.
Again, this "clear distinction between literature... and religious texts" is a modern viewpoint. Furthermore, it's also not valid even today.

But Christianity was predominantly fundamentalist, whereas nowadays (even in America) it is predominantly not.
Why do you say this? Where are you getting these ideas?

Fundamentalism is not a new phenomenon, in fact (in Christianity and Islam) modern fundamentalism is quite consciously an attempt to get back to the older certainties and to reject the modern scientifically inspired doubts.
Modern fundamentalism is more of an attempt to posit some imagined time of "older certainties" without bothering to do any real research into what ancient attitudes likely were.

[andyandy]

how about this.....

the adam and eve story in essence tells us that our consciousness is what causes us pain - once we have eaten the fruit from the tree we gain conciousness of self - and are condemmed to suffer for the rest of mankind....
does this tie into the fundamental premise of buddhism, which also deals with suffering, and teaches that it can be avoided through acheiving a higher state of conciousness....this is reached through meditation which seeks to clear the mind of "self".....so is the higher state of conciousness that you are taught to attain in buddhism actually the ability to revert back to a state of non-conciousness - when the brain was not aware of self...? If so then the fundamental bible creation story and the fundamental buddhist premise are entwined....ie. notions of "self" are what cause suffering....

maybe i should put that into a book....or has someone thought of that already? :) :) :)

[Humphreys]

I think you're giving the Bible far too much credit. Maybe it's just a really silly story that people were supposed to take literally, and did?

[andyandy]

I think you're giving the Bible far too much credit. Maybe it's just a really silly story that people were supposed to take literally, and did?

maybe you're giving the bible too little credit....:)

I don't think it helps to see the bible as "one story" - it's a composite of hundreds of stories, parables, myths and ideas written by a many people over a large period of time....and as such it's difficult to know what the authors who wrote intended....there are lots of examples in the new testement of jesus telling stories through parable in order to highlight a particular idea or moral point....who's to say older passages in the old testement didnt use the same devices to convey messages - without marking them so clearly as the new testement's...."I'm going to tell you a parable....."? :) :)

[FireGarden]

If it was meant to be taken literally, then why include contradictory versions of the same event? Was it on the grounds that they had heard both versions of genesis, didn't know which was true, so decided to include (and believe literally) both?

It still sounds iffy to me!

Anyway,

the adam and eve story in essence tells us that our consciousness is what causes us pain - once we have eaten the fruit from the tree we gain conciousness of self - and are condemmed to suffer for the rest of mankind....
does this tie into the fundamental premise of buddhism

I wouldn't read it that way. Adam and Eve wise up as they grow up and begin a family of their own. Becoming aware of Good/Evil is not the same as becoming self-aware.

I reckon there's some "ignorance is bliss" in the Adam/Eve story. Is that Buddhist? I didn't think so.

In Buddhism, as I understand it, it's not consciousness but desire that causes suffering. Kind of like a 2-year old will have a tantrum over not getting his own way. There is a more mature (enlightened) way to approach the same situation. But it's not really self-awareness at the crux of the matter.

[Humphreys]

If it was meant to be taken literally, then why include contradictory versions of the same event?

If it was not supposed to be taken literally, why include contradictory versions of the same event?

Or am I missing something here?

[FireGarden]

If it was just an anthology of stories then there would be no confusion as to why both stories are included.

There are contradicitons in Star Trek if you watch enough episodes. Would people collecting an anthology of Star Trek stories necessarily correct those contradicitons? I would be inclined to leave them as is, because I would value the anthology as a collection of entertaining/philosophical stories.

But if I believed them to be true....

Then there is an apologetics page ready to help me out!

http://winace.andkon.com/st_contradictions_refuted.htm
"In the scene where Picard and the others are transported into the courtroom [in "Encounter at Farpoint"], Q appears and Data says, 'At least we're acquainted with the judge.' I jumped three feet above my sofa. 'We're?' Well, well, well. Seems that Data unlearned how to do contractions after the pilot."

[andyandy]

I wouldn't read it that way. Adam and Eve wise up as they grow up and begin a family of their own. Becoming aware of Good/Evil is not the same as becoming self-aware.

I reckon there's some "ignorance is bliss" in the Adam/Eve story. Is that Buddhist? I didn't think so.

In Buddhism, as I understand it, it's not consciousness but desire that causes suffering. Kind of like a 2-year old will have a tantrum over not getting his own way. There is a more mature (enlightened) way to approach the same situation. But it's not really self-awareness at the crux of the matter.

hmm...i might be trying a little hard with the analogy....:)
i agree that buddhism teaches that desire causes suffering - and that to end desire is to end suffering.....but the way it seems to advocate achieving this is through meditation....where you effectivley clear your mind of all thoughts..i find it interesting that this pure state of "no thought" could be an attempt to over-ride the conscious mind.....
which brings you to the question - is consciousness responsible for suffering? Without awareness of self can you truly be unhappy?

not that i have these answers.....but i'd be interested in opinions :) :)

[FireGarden]

i agree that buddhism teaches that desire causes suffering - and that to end desire is to end suffering.....but the way it seems to advocate achieving this is through meditation....where you effectivley clear your mind of all thoughts

I claimed this myself, some years ago. (Can't find the thread, and don't remember who answered!)

But the answer I got was that you're not supposed to empty your mind, as such, more just watch it... See what it does. Let it go on autopilot for a bit, while you stand back and understand it.

How do you think of nothing at all? What would be the point?

[andyandy]

its pretty hard for us to comprehend what a state of non-awareness of self would be.... but i think that maybe meditation brings us closer to it....

i guess from our perspective there is no point to "thinking of nothing" - but then we can't really comprehend non-conciousness

there are some microbes that live on rocks for hundreds of years.... doing nothing - just existing....now we cant comprehend life's will to live....from a human perspective there's "no point" to that microbe existing....but there must be one....because it does

[Piggy]

andyandy, I don't see any evidence in the Genesis stories that there is a concern with consciousness per se. A&E were conscious from the start. The focus of the scenes involving the eating of forbidden fruit is the knowledge of good and evil, which is not the same as self-awareness.

Implicit in this story is that good and evil are pre-existing, and that God had an understanding of their nature -- in paradise (which is a sort of childish state of being) there is no human understanding of these things. So we're dealing with an understanding of an external reality of the world humans live in, not an understanding of human consciousness, with the caveat that this world is not the physical universe of today but rather the world of the ancients in which the physical and spirit worlds are one.

Which brings up an interesting point -- if A&E have no understanding of the difference between good and evil, they are incapable of knowing that by disobeying God they are committing a sin. They know what God has told them, but they have no comprehension of what it means (morally) to disobey. Only by committing the sin of disobedience can they understand that they have sinned.

It is analogous to reaching the age of reason in each person's physical and psychological development. And along with it comes shame, an understanding of sex, and an irrevocable expulsion from the childhood paradise of pre-responsibility.

[Piggy]

its pretty hard for us to comprehend what a state of non-awareness of self would be.... but i think that maybe meditation brings us closer to it....
The goal of meditation is not non-awareness of self, but rather a clarity of awareness in which the self and not-self are neither separate nor the same, but rather are "non-different".

Mental clarity is not non-thought, but rather non-attachment to the thoughts that rise and fall within the field of consciousness. Complete stillness (which could be called non-thought) is an expedient means, but it is not meant to be an abiding and continual state.

[Roboramma]

Clearly some aspects of the genesis story were meant to be taken literally - for instance, that god created the earth. The question is, which aspects of the story are meant to be read as literally true, and which, if any, are not.

[Humphreys]

maybe you're giving the bible too little credit....:)

In my opinion, it proves itself unworthy of credit throughout, with its myriad errors and contradictions.

[andyandy]

It is analogous to reaching the age of reason in each person's physical and psychological development. And along with it comes .....an irrevocable expulsion from the childhood paradise of pre-responsibility.

that sounds a bit lord of the flies :) :) :)
interesting....do you think the original creation stories were meant to be taken as analogies.....or written down as a representation of fact?

[chriswl]

If it was just an anthology of stories then there would be no confusion as to why both stories are included.
I think the complier of an anthology of stories would try to make the stories coherent. Having those sorts of contradictions detracts from whatever message they are trying to get across. Unless he regarded them as sacred, divinely inspired texts that he had no authority to edit.

We can't assume that the stories were written down once and then copied faithfully from then on. Over time many written versions would accumulate, some contradictory. I can think of two reasons why someone might merge two contradictory versions: 1) they believe one of them is true but they don't know which and don't want to risk discarding the wrong one. 2) They believe that both must be true and it's not our place to question the word of God, even if it appears to be contradictory. If was fiction then you'd just pick the one that worked best in the context of the story.

[chriswl]

But in any case, as far as I know, we don't have any "claims" from ancient times regarding the opinions of the redactors of the Tanach concerning which passages were considered by which persons/groups to be historical, metaphorical, etc.
That would be consistent with all the passages being believed to be literally true (or at least all the passages that appear to say something about the world. It would be fairly silly to even ask whether an erotic poem was "true").

There were certainly political considerations at play, and it's possible (I'd say likely) that important sections and even entire "books" of scripture were created from whole cloth for political purposes, then intentionally wrapped in a swaddling of bogus tradition.
Perhaps. But this implies that the ordinary people believed these stories were true (it wouldn't be much use as propaganda if they didn't).

There are many genres represented in the Hebrew scripture: history (as understood in that day), erotic poetry, laments, praise songs, curses, jokes, fables, genealogies, allegories, mystic visions, etc. And there are no markers for these, so we have to tease them out today, but we can expect that these genres were recognizable to the original hearers/readers.
But the idea of a supernatural God who performs "magical" interventions is completely central to it. You are not really suggesting that they had a naturalist viewpoint and viewed every single one of these supernatural interventions as merely symbolism, are you? If we accept that they were comfortable with the idea of the supernatural, then what is to stop them believing in the literal truth of Genesis?

Again, this "clear distinction between literature... and religious texts" is a modern viewpoint...
No, it is the distinction between what you believe to be true and what you believe to be fiction. Distinguishing between the two is a basic survival skill as old as humanity.

...Furthermore, it's also not valid even today
With the exception of postmodernists and slippery Christian apologists I think it is very widely considered to be a "valid" distinction.

Modern fundamentalism is more of an attempt to posit some imagined time of "older certainties" without bothering to do any real research into what ancient attitudes likely were.
At the very least it is a throwback to the heyday of Christianity, the middle ages. Do you really think that middle ages peasants seriously doubted the story of creation in Genesis? How did they think it really happened then?

In fact we don't need to go back to the middle ages. Before Darwin and the geological discoveries of the 19th century even most educated people were what we would now call Young Earth Creationists. Why wouldn't they be, they had no better explanation.

[Piggy]

interesting....do you think the original creation stories were meant to be taken as analogies.....or written down as a representation of fact?
There's simply no way to know.

But we have to be careful to distinguish, with stories as old as Gen 1-2, between the oral tradition and the later written tradition. The ancient tellers may have had different ideas from the folks who first preserved the tales on scrolls.

And no one knows what permutations these tales went through on their way to becoming written tradition. Whatever was first written down was, no doubt, merely one form which the tale took at that time (although some cultures have stronger strictures on variation than others).

We all have the same bodies, and by and large the same fears and loves, as the prehistoric ancients, but the world and the world-view -- even the possible world-views -- were so profoundly different back then, that to speculate on the motives of the earliest story-tellers is not something I feel qualified to do.

[Piggy]

I can think of two reasons why someone might merge two contradictory versions: 1) they believe one of them is true but they don't know which and don't want to risk discarding the wrong one. 2) They believe that both must be true and it's not our place to question the word of God, even if it appears to be contradictory.
There is at least one other possible reason: To preserve the dominant traditions so they are not lost.

[Piggy]

That would be consistent with all the passages being believed to be literally true (or at least all the passages that appear to say something about the world. It would be fairly silly to even ask whether an erotic poem was "true").
It is consistent with this viewpoint in the same way that quantum mechanics is consistent with the existence of Bigfoot.

But to presume, without evidence, that *any* passage which appears to be reporting something purportedly historical must have been interpreted literally by everyone who recorded it... that's mere unsupported assumption.

But this implies that the ordinary people believed these stories were true (it wouldn't be much use as propaganda if they didn't).
We weren't discussing "ordinary people". We were discussing the likely attitudes of those who recorded (and perhaps invented) the traditions.


But the idea of a supernatural God who performs "magical" interventions is completely central to it. You are not really suggesting that they had a naturalist viewpoint and viewed every single one of these supernatural interventions as merely symbolism, are you?
No, I'm not.

If we accept that they were comfortable with the idea of the supernatural, then what is to stop them believing in the literal truth of Genesis?
Nothing is to stop them. But that is no reason to assert that they must have.

No, it is the distinction between what you believe to be true and what you believe to be fiction. Distinguishing between the two is a basic survival skill as old as humanity.
You are changing the subject here from a discussion of the perceived distinction between "literature" and "religious texts" to a discussion of the perceived distinction between factual information and fables, or perhaps between purported truth and knowing lies in general.

With the exception of postmodernists and slippery Christian apologists I think it is very widely considered to be a "valid" distinction.
These are very slippery ideas. Notions of what constitutes "literature" have changed drastically even over the past 3 centuries, let alone 3 millennia. And even today no clear boundary can be drawn, to suit all cases, between "literature" and sacred truth, especially if you have to tease out the components of a single work -- such as a sermon -- which moves fluidly across these boundaries.

At the very least it is a throwback to the heyday of Christianity, the middle ages. Do you really think that middle ages peasants seriously doubted the story of creation in Genesis? How did they think it really happened then?
I don't know that the opinions of representative numbers of medieval peasants have been recorded.

But no, I don't see much of a connection b/t current fundamentalism and medieval dogma, except the core beliefs that define the religion itself.

In fact we don't need to go back to the middle ages. Before Darwin and the geological discoveries of the 19th century even most educated people were what we would now call Young Earth Creationists. Why wouldn't they be, they had no better explanation.
Are you suggesting that Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin were fundamentalists?

[chris epic]

im sure there's a lot of translations in the bible which have changed the original context or meaning....


Here's a good one- bethula almah

Jewish scholars will tell you that the Christians mis translated the word "virgin" in Isaiah, fortelling of the birth of the messiah. The word used in Isaiah is "almah" which simply means young woman, able to bear children which discribes the young age of "Mary" 13 or 14. The hebrew word for a virgin such as the "Virgin Mary" was bethula. So in Isaiah it says nothing of a "divine conception."

[FireGarden]

I think the complier of an anthology of stories would try to make the stories coherent. Having those sorts of contradictions detracts from whatever message they are trying to get across.

But that assumes the compiler wanted a single coherent story.

How about a collection of Superman origin stories? Is it hard to imagine every "origins edition" (where his origin is retold) collected in one volume?

If you can imagine such a volume, do you think every edition would be changed so that they all agreed? What would be the point of the anthology then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman:_Birthright

Among other changes made, the "birthing matrix" explanation was replaced by the more well-known rocket ship explanation, with Kal-El sent from Krypton as an infant, not a fetus. There are two portrayal styles of Clark Kents--"Smallville Clark" and "Metropolis Clark". "Smallville Clark" is the real person (who is also Kal-El and Superman) while "Metropolis Clark" is the mild-mannered persona he uses to blend in with other people. Clark is also portrayed as vegetarian, a move that has caused some interesting controversy.

We can't assume that the stories were written down once and then copied faithfully from then on.

We can't assume that the people who invented the story where the first to write it down. We can't assume much. We can't prove anything.

It's a judgement. I think it's more likely the stories were compiled much as the wikipedia article on Superman. Excpet the wiki reference the alternate stories rather than quoting them -- copyright laws.

At some point, people stopped knowing that genesis was just stories. Did/does George Lucas believe in the Force? There are Jedis of varying wakiness/seriousness in the world.....In 3000 years people may be asking whether the author meant the story to be taken literally! :)

[chriswl]

At some point, people stopped knowing that genesis was just stories. Did/does George Lucas believe in the Force? There are Jedis of varying wakiness/seriousness in the world.....In 3000 years people may be asking whether the author meant the story to be taken literally! :)
Well, I'm not going to say that couldn't happen. But I wonder, does that sort of thing actually happen in reality? Are there any known instances of stories that were conceived and widely accepted as fiction that then, in the future, became thought of as fact?

[FireGarden]

I'm not saying for certain that it did happen. I just find it hard to believe that the first person who put two genesis stories down on the same page thought they were both true. Or couldn't decide which was true.



I googled Jedi Knights hoping to find some true believers.... :)

Instead, I found some Lucas quotes:

http://www.explorefaith.org/news/05_17_05.html/

George Lucas once said in an interview with Bill Moyers: “I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people — more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.”

[...]

Lucas also said, in that interview with Bill Moyers: “I would hesitate to call the Force God. It's designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, ‘Here's the answer.’ It’s to say, Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like? What does God sound like? What does God feel like? How do we relate to God? Just getting young people to think at that level is what I've been trying to do in the films. What eventual manifestation that takes place in terms of how they describe their God, what form their faith takes, is not the point of the movie.”

So didn't want people to take anything literally... But there was a conscious attempt at getting people to think spiritually!

[chriswl]

But to presume, without evidence, that *any* passage which appears to be reporting something purportedly historical must have been interpreted literally by everyone who recorded it... that's mere unsupported assumption.
I never said that any such passage must be interpreted in that way. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume, in the absence of other evidence, that apparently historical statements are intended to be read as historical statements.

We weren't discussing "ordinary people". We were discussing the likely attitudes of those who recorded (and perhaps invented) the traditions.
So you are arguing that the people may have believed in the religion literally but that much of it was deliberately invented for political reasons? Yes, I'm sure that's possible. What I find hard to believe is the idea put about by some Liberal Christians that the ordinary people actually believed in their religion in much the same way that a minority of modern, literate, sophisticated westerners believe in it today - as fiction and religion simultaneously.

I don't know that the opinions of representative numbers of medieval peasants have been recorded.
This pleading ignorance thing is getting tired. They believed in the literal existence of heaven and hell and they lived in a society where heresy was a crime punishable by death. We can loosely call their religion fundamentalist in the same way we use the word to refer to the religion of the modern day Iranians and Saudis.

Are you suggesting that Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin were fundamentalists?
Are you trying to tell me they are representative? I don't care what a few intellectuals believed.

[chriswl]

'George Lucas once said in an interview with Bill Moyers: “I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people — more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.”'
Hmm, I'd have thought the Force was much more like the Tao than any kind of God.

[Piggy]

Well, I'm not going to say that couldn't happen. But I wonder, does that sort of thing actually happen in reality? Are there any known instances of stories that were conceived and widely accepted as fiction that then, in the future, became thought of as fact?
Several. One of the most prominent examples in Western culture is the poetry of Milton (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained), much of which is now assumed by many Xians to be Biblical, and factually true.

I already mentioned the story of Balaam, now perceived as a bona fide miracle by many Xians.

Also, consider the case of Jose Luis Alvarez the channeler of "Carlos" -- an admitted hoax perpetuated with the help of James Randi. Even after the perpetrators themselves exposed the hoax, there were believers who continued to insist it was true, despite what Randi and Alvarez said.

The "Amityville Horror" is a nice bit of fiction still widely believed.

[Piggy]

I never said that any such passage must be interpreted in that way. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume, in the absence of other evidence, that apparently historical statements are intended to be read as historical statements.
Yes, making this assumption is unreasonable. "Apparently historical" is your guess in the first place. Then to merely assume that educated persons, who knowingly preserved blatantly contradictory texts, believed them to be literally true... that's an unreasonable assumption.

[Piggy]

So you are arguing that the people may have believed in the religion literally but that much of it was deliberately invented for political reasons? Yes, I'm sure that's possible. What I find hard to believe is the idea put about by some Liberal Christians that the ordinary people actually believed in their religion in much the same way that a minority of modern, literate, sophisticated westerners believe in it today - as fiction and religion simultaneously.
Well, that's all well and good, and perhaps a thread should be started on that topic, but that's not the topic we're dealing with here.

[Piggy]

This pleading ignorance thing is getting tired.
When the record is silent, the record is silent. It's no good filling in the gaps with guesses.

They believed in the literal existence of heaven and hell and they lived in a society where heresy was a crime punishable by death. We can loosely call their religion fundamentalist in the same way we use the word to refer to the religion of the modern day Iranians and Saudis.
Saudis? You think the house of Saud is fundamentalist? Or are you referring to the Wahhabis? Or do you assume they are one and the same? From where I stand, the house of Saud seems perfectly materialistic. As for Iran, to paint all of Persian culture with one brush is unwarranted.

In any case, these are modern examples. There are definite parallels in modern Xian and Muslim fundamentalism. But that's quite irrelevant to a consideration of the motives of the ancient Hebrew scholars who recorded the Genesis stories.

If there is some connection, I wish you would make it, aside from projecting your notions onto ancient cultures about which we know relatively little.

As for European culture dominated by the Church, in a society where heresy is punishable by death, how are you to judge what is in the hearts of men and women?

You throw around a lot of generalities. You use words like "most" very freely. Is this based on some research? Or is this just the view from your armchair?

It is not "pleading ignorance" to acknowledge that the opinions of medieval peasants were not recorded. It is a pertinent fact. We do not know how many medieval peasants spurned the myths of the church in their hearts and minds. And that is no small gap in our knowledge. I am not willing to fill it with your speculations.

I don't care what a few intellectuals believed.
Then why are you posting on this thread? The people who recorded the tales in Genesis were most certainly "a few intellectuals".

[chriswl]

Chriswl: So you are arguing that the people may have believed in the religion literally but that much of it was deliberately invented for political reasons? Yes, I'm sure that's possible. What I find hard to believe is the idea put about by some Liberal Christians that the ordinary people actually believed in their religion in much the same way that a minority of modern, literate, sophisticated westerners believe in it today - as fiction and religion simultaneously.

Piggy: Well, that's all well and good, and perhaps a thread should be started on that topic, but that's not the topic we're dealing with here.
Then we seem to be at cross purposes becase that is the point I have been arguing all along. That and the idea that it isn't ridiculous to imagine that the original writers believed literally in what they were writing, though I've no idea whether they actual did.

[Dancing David]

now....i'm not much of a theologist (lol) so go easy on me if this is a well established idea....

does the apple in the garden of eden represent consciousness - and therefore is the garden of eden story is effectivley a critique of conciousness.....?

In the beginning you have adam and eve living in bliss...until they develop self-conciousness (by eating the apple)....they then realise they are naked - and feel shame....

as a result of their new state of conciousness they can no longer live in bliss, and for the rest of mankind's life he must live with pain and suffering....

i suppose there are pretty fundamental scientific debates as to what self-conciousness actually is - and what effect it has upon the individual, but it seems to me that, say an ameboa merely exists without any notion of self - and as a result would not experience the same emotional pain as say a human...and as such would enjoy a more "blissful" existence.....

Now...what i would find remarkable about the adam and eve story, is that it would provide such a critique over 3000years ago....although i suppose Buddha and others were also looking at notions of self and suffering around this kind of time.....


Great question!
1. It is a slam on the local snake cults, perhaps the snakey woman that the Phoenecians had or some other snake cult.
2. It is anotrher refererence to the forbiden nature of the kabbalah, and the tree of life.
3. it is an incarnation myth, when adam and eve are driven from the garden they are forced to wear the skins of animals, so it is also a myth about the fleshy incarnation of the spirit.

On the buddha, is it consciousness that is suffering or the conception of the self?

[Dancing David]

This pleading ignorance thing is getting tired. They believed in the literal existence of heaven and hell and they lived in a society where heresy was a crime punishable by death. We can loosely call their religion fundamentalist in the same way we use the word to refer to the religion of the modern day Iranians and Saudis.


Are you trying to tell me they are representative? I don't care what a few intellectuals believed.

I think that you might be speaking from ignorance, so perhaps you are goinng to plead ignorance. the sources I read in college said that many of the serfs and peasants were totaly and thoughly atheistic or pagan. So what evidence, other than the wirtings of intellectuals paid by the oligarchy do you have to support the beleif that the peasants were devout?

the members of the clergy were constantly railing against the un-devout and heretical ways of thier followers. You have heard of the witch trials i assume, a good example of how the church was threatened by heresy and used it to benefit itself at the same time.

[Piggy]

What I find hard to believe is the idea put about by some Liberal Christians that the ordinary people actually believed in their religion in much the same way that a minority of modern, literate, sophisticated westerners believe in it today - as fiction and religion simultaneously.
that is the point I have been arguing all along. That and the idea that it isn't ridiculous to imagine that the original writers believed literally in what they were writing, though I've no idea whether they actual did.
The topic of this thread concerns the possible intended meanings/purposes of the written stories in the first 2 chapters of Genesis, so a lot of what you're on about seems to be irrelevant. I don't think the OP is concerned with later interpretations by the majority.

And it may not be "ridiculous to imagine" that the original compilers of the Torah/Tanach were literalists, but it is not the most reasonable approach and certainly should not be our default assumption as you have argued.

[chriswl]

The topic of this thread concerns the possible intended meanings/purposes of the written stories in the first 2 chapters of Genesis, so a lot of what you're on about seems to be irrelevant. I don't think the OP is concerned with later interpretations by the majority.
It wasn't at all clear to me that the original post was narrowly focussed on this (what did the apple "represent"? represent to whom and when?). But if you want to restrict it to that, fine, though I don't really have anything to say on it.

[andyandy]

The topic of this thread concerns the possible intended meanings/purposes of the written stories in the first 2 chapters of Genesis, so a lot of what you're on about seems to be irrelevant. I don't think the OP is concerned with later interpretations by the majority.

you're right - but it's an interesting side-topic - so I don't mind :) :)