The Hidden Message of Genesis 2-3: Was It Adam's Fault? > Likes and Comments
date
newest »
newest »
Martin wrote: "I may be in a minority here because I believe in the God of the Bible. Regardless of your belief status, arguably Genesis is the single most influential book in human history. If read Genesis 2-3 o..."Martin - Given Adam & Eve were (said to be) the very first humans on planet Earth, who actually reported on their adventures in the garden of Eden?
Unless it's fiction, I gather someone must have filed a report because I've read the relevant passages in Genesis...
Like any good (former) journalist, I'm always seeking the source for any story that catches my eye.
My disbelief in Adam and Eve stems from the inconsistency in their genealogy. Even if I can suspend disbelief and say “yes, god created one man and one woman” who then had two sons…how did their progeny propagate. It is said in Genesis that Cain feared what others would do to him so the lord put a mark on his head to let them know Cain was protected. Who are these others? Also, Cane went to the land of Nod and married and begot sons who married women. There had to be more people thus making genesis ultimately symbolic of humanity’s sins…it’s an allegory, but history, in my opinion. Now, apologists will say that he married his sister, but that seems like a recipe for disaster…furthermore, if I am to read the Bible contextually as some might, then I can’t infer that there were female siblings. Sort of a catch-22.
Hi. I have struggled with the same questions. This is how I see things...I don't think that Genesis necessarily had to clearly state that Adam and Eve were not the first human beings. This is suggested by the very contextual clues that lead to the questions about who Cain married, etc.
What I read in the creation account is that they were unique beings created by God. He placed them in a beautiful, protected garden, and made provision through the Tree of Life for them to gain unlimited wisdom and live forever (cf. Prov. 3:18). Not only that, he empowered them to take dominion over the earth and commanded them to do so. They failed due to disobedience.
Someone may respond that if other human beings existed, what made Adam and Eve special? I suspect that before they sinned, they had light bodies, which would have made them more like angels than like the human beings that existed outside the garden. I'm sure nobody outside the garden was literally seeing God in bodily form, talking with serpents, or were able to eat either supernaturally blessed or cursed food.
After the fall, they became highly conscious of their material or physical nature, which resulted in them feeling naked. Their conscious state descended from pure enlightenment to feeling a sense of shame and guilt. They had begun to look pretty much like the people outside the garden.
Throughout the Bible, the term "heaven" refers to unseen, higher spiritual powers and their realm, and "earth" refers to human authorities/subjects and our realm, including of course the planet itself. Therefore, I interpret Genesis 1 metaphorically.
Regardless, we should understand that the Universe is kind of an illusion. What I do know personally is that God is real, and that I don't have to have scientific answers to all my questions in order to believe in him and his Word.
Now to my main point... The study that I posted the link for does not respond to the question of whether or not Adam and Eve actually were real people in history. It's about them as archetypes representing humanity. You assumed that I think they were real people. Even though your assumption is correct, that has nothing to do with this particular post. It's comparable to someone writing about the archetypal significance of Zeus, only to have someone respond that Zeus never existed.
You are correct in that I made assumption. I based those assumptions on the statement “I believe in the God of the Bible”. Typically, friends, family and co-workers that believe in the God of the Bible also believe in every other character in the Bible. Not a judgment, just an observation. I find your analysis of Adam and Eve certainly interesting and my apologies as I was not able to access the link from my phone for some reason. The belief that the universe is an illusion is very Gnostic in flavor, which is also interesting. I have always gathered that gnostics spoke about Adam and Eve as Archetypal figures who wrestled with their ignorance as gnosis was knowing the true God resides in the Pleroma unknown to even the false god Yaldabaoth(arguably Yahweh of the Bible),so it matters not who was right and wrong whether Adam or Eve. Allegorically, Adam and Eve represent all of humanity that struggle under the yoke of a blind false god and that is their sin…the sin of ignorance. The serpent himself has been cast as an evil archetype but in most ancient religions including many Gnostic and mystery religions, the serpent was a light bringer i.e., Lucifer, a good guy.
Hi Martin:In message 1, you ask, “wouldn’t you agree that Adam was primarily at fault for the fall into sin?” It’s difficult to say who is most guilty, the instigator or the actuator. The law punishes the actuator more severely. Without an instigator, though, things probably, wouldn’t have happened, so I wonder how God judges such events. But, according to Genesis 2-3, Eve was not only the instigator but also the actuator. So, personally, I find her guiltier than Adam; but then the Bible was written by men, and we men always try to blame women for our shortcomings.
Unfortunately, I must disagree with a number of points you make. You wrote, “God promised Eve that a descendant of hers (the virgin Mary) was to father the Messiah.” The Jews, to whom Genesis belongs, do not interpret God’s promise to Eve this way. I suggest we try to respect the Jews’ opinion on the Bible because the Old Testament is theirs: we’ve only usurped it. What God promises Eve in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between thee [the snake] and the woman [Eve], and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (KJV) is that Good and Evil will be in constant antagonism; at times Evil tends to seem winning in the short term, but humans (Eve’s children) are created intrinsically good and so Good will eventually triumph over Evil. Just as light has an advantage over darkness, human goodness has an advantage over evil. This might be wishful thinking on the part of Genesis’s author, of course, but it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
You also wrote, “Adam was cursed to return to the dust.” Are you implying that Eve did not turn to dust; or that women won’t die and turn to dust?
Finally, you wrote, “It was Adam, not Eve, who was most greatly cursed in the aftermath of the event.” I’m not so sure; you haven’t experienced childbirth pain, and apparently you haven’t done much multitasking daily housework, laundry, cooking, and caring for children and a husband—with no weekends off.
Myth
But, all this is academic because there’s no question that Adam and Eve’s story is a myth. The intelligent, talking serpent is an obvious giveaway. We have no scientific evidence that animals lost their speech or their intelligence after the Fall; nor does the Bible attest to such, for that matter. Talking animals belong to the realm of fables: so Original Sin never happened; consequently, Jesus had nothing to redeem us from.
Despite Christians’ believing that our ‘first parents’ actually disobeyed God’s instructions, in this story, the biblical author tries to answer the age-old question of why (if God created everything good: Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31) we must die. He, therefore, templates his account on the ‘Epic Poem of Gilgamesh,’ http://l-adam-mekler.com/epic_gilgame..., which was discovered etched in cuneiform on twelve clay tablets dating back to around 2100 BCE—a thousand-odd years before Genesis. The only difference, as biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan writes in his book God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (p.56), “Unlike Genesis 2-3, the Gilgamesh tale is not about the arrival but about the acceptance of humanity’s mortal destiny.” (There is a greater affinity between the second part of the epic poem and the biblical account of the global Flood that allegedly happened in Noah’s time, but I won’t go there as it doesn’t pertain to this thread; however, I recommend your reading it.)
Parallelisms
The following biblical ideas are not original; they were in the epic poem beforehand.
(1) Genesis has, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’ … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” (1:26-27, KJV, emphasis mine)
Gilgamesh has, “The goddess [creatress Aruru] conceived an image in her mind, and it was of the stuff of [king of gods] Anu of the firmament … and noble Enkidu [Gilgamesh’s male companion] was created.” (pp.1-2, emphasis mine)
(2) Genesis has, “The LORD God formed man of the dust [mud or slime (DR)] of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (2:7, KJV, emphasis mine)
Gilgamesh has, “She [Aruru] dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created.” (pp.1-2, emphasis mine)
(3) Genesis has, “The serpent said unto the woman [Eve], ‘Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’” (3:4-5, KJV, emphasis mine)
Gilgamesh has, “She [Shamsat, the female protagonist] said, ‘You are wise, Enkidu, and now you have become like a god. … When I look at you, you have become like a god.’” (pp.3,4, emphasis mine)
(4) In both accounts, a serpent robs humanity of immortality.
Genesis has, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. … And the woman [Eve] said, ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’” (3:1, 13, KJV, emphasis mine) So Adam and Eve were barred from the Tree of Life (immortality). “The LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man [Adam] is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’: therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden … and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:22-24, KJV, emphasis mine)
Gilgamesh has, “Gilgamesh saw a well of cool water and he went down and bathed; but deep in the pool there was lying a serpent, and the serpent sensed the sweetness of the flower [of immortality]. It rose out of the water and snatched it away.” (p.27, emphasis mine)
(5) In both accounts, the female protagonist spurs her male companion to better himself by exploring unknown territory in search of wisdom.
Genesis has, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (3:6, KJV, emphasis mine)
Gilgamesh has, “She [Shamsat] said. ‘You are wise, Enkidu, and now you have become like a god. Why do you want to run wild with the beasts in the hills? Come with me. I will take you to strong-walled [city of] Uruk. … She said to Enkidu, ‘When I look at you, you have become like a god. Why do you yearn to run wild again with the beasts in the hills? Get up from the ground, the bed of a shepherd.’” (pp.3,4, emphasis mine)
As Crossan puts it, “Just as Eve seduces Adam, so a female protagonist, Shamsat, seduces Enkidu from nature into culture.” (p.56)
(6) One last point I’d like to make. Gilgamesh’s poem assumes an assembly of gods; for example, “When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body.” (p.1, emphasis mine) Occasionally, Genesis’s author seems to follow suit: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” (1:26, KJV, emphasis mine) And again, “The LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.’” (Genesis 3:22, KJV, emphasis mine) Is this a slip by the biblical author in editing a polytheistic myth to monotheism? Not really; in my opinion, this can easily be explained by the fact that the Hebrew word for God, ‘Elohim,’ is plural, implying that he is more than a simple person; somewhat like the royal “we.” So grammatically, the plural is required when God talks about himself; hence “we,” “us,” and “our” are used when translating faithfully the biblical text to English. But it certainly doesn’t imply the Trinity, as both Augustine of Hippo (‘City of God,’ XVI.6.3) and Jerome of Stridon (‘Douay Rheims,’ Genesis 1:26n) contend. Indeed, the Jews don’t believe God is a Trinity, despite the plurality in their Genesis text. As mentioned above, we Christians have no respect whatsoever for the owners of the Old Testament.
Conclusion
Genesis’s author plagiarized the Epic Poem of Gilgamesh at its core: it’s not God’s revelation as we Christians contend: it’s templated on a previous myth. What you read in Genesis is your upbringing (as I did for decades). I suggest reading some books about the Bible rather than just the Bible.
Now, in your message 5, you wrote, “What I read in the creation account is that they [Adam and Eve] were unique beings created by God. He placed them in a beautiful, protected garden, and made provision through the Tree of Life for them to gain unlimited wisdom and live forever.”
Really? It was specifically wisdom God disallowed them to access. They were not allowed to eat of the fruit of the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.’ “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17, KJV, emphasis mine) According to Genesis, God wanted them to remain ignorant, like the animals, in return for immortality. As Crossan puts it, “Shamsat persuades Enkidu to choose culture over nature, civilization over wilderness, knowledge over ignorance, and human-mortality over animal-immortality.” (p.58)
You also wrote, “I suspect that before they [Adam and Eve] sinned, they had light bodies, which would have made them more like angels than like the human beings that existed outside the garden.” This sounds more like your personal ‘bible’: bending over backwards to conform to your preconceived notions. Why don’t you gracefully admit that Genesis 4:16-17 “Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife.” (KJV) constitutes a biblical contradiction?
Finally you wrote, “I don’t have to have scientific answers to all my questions in order to believe in him and his Word.” I think this is a formula for disaster. If, a priori, you assume that the Bible is God’s Word, then there’s nothing anyone can tell you to convince you otherwise. With this attitude, in the near future, there will hardly be anybody left in our pews; meanwhile science is gaining everybody’s respect. As I showed minutely above, the Bible doesn’t seem to be God’s Word: it’s a book written by ancient authors, who honestly tried to ‘find’ or ‘define’ God using contemporaneous material. But, unfortunately, or rather as might be expected, they didn’t always get things right.
As I show in my book ‘Is the Bible Infallible?—A Rational, Scientific, and Historical Evaluation,’ the Bible fails all four ‘litmus’ tests for infallibility: (1) there are contradictions in its own texts, (2) its so-called prophecies hardly ever transpire, (3) its science is, at best, only half right, and (4) its history is inaccurate in details. Alternately, you may want to read some of the relevant articles in my website, https://faith-or-reason.com/, for free. If you don’t want to take my word, in her book ‘The Case for God,’ the well-known author and religious commentator Karen Armstrong confirms, “The Bible consists of many contradictory texts, so our reading is always selective.” (p.47) If truly there is a SINGLE contradiction in the Bible’s own texts, one of the versions, if not both, must be false or wrong: this automatically precludes its being God’s Word. And that’s a tall order to refute!
Regards,
Carmel
One of the main questions monotheism had to answer its critics was the ‘problem of evil’: If a benevolent God created everything good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31), how come there is so much evil in the world? In the Adam and Eve story, Genesis’s author tries to answer this question the same way he answers the question of our mortality (see my message 7): by introducing a malevolent creature—the serpent or snake. “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” (Genesis 3:1, NKJV)However, the above does not explain why the serpent (or devil, for that matter) is an evil creature if God created everything good. So the Gnostics did not buy this biblical concept, they insisted that besides a good Supreme God, there is an inferior, evil Creator God (Yaldabaoth—derived from Yahweh-Sabaoth—God ‘of hosts’). [The Latin version of the ‘Sanctus’ goes, “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth,” which is rendered in English as, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctus]
The Gnostics considered Yaldabaoth (the God of the Hebrew Bible—the Old Testament) an evil god because he created ‘matter,’ as opposed to ‘light,’ which they thought was a divine substance, despite its actually being a physical entity (energy). [Indeed, in the ‘Nicene Creed’ we still pray, “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nice... Notice the phrase “Light from Light.”]
According to the Gnostics, the God of the Hebrew Bible tried to withhold ‘gnosis’ (Greek for ‘knowledge’) of the existence of other higher gods from Adam and Eve—hence their name. “The LORD God commanded the man [Adam], saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16–17, JKV) The Gnostics simply wouldn’t accept the concept that a good God would want to keep humans ignorant. So the Gnostics believed that the serpent in Genesis was an illuminator that tried to show Adam and Eve the whole truth and transition from ignorance to knowledge. Consequently, as B points out in his message 6, “The serpent himself has been cast as an evil archetype [in monotheism] but in most ancient religions including many Gnostic and mystery religions, the serpent was a light bringer i.e., Lucifer, a good guy.”
Needless to add, perhaps, considering the God of the Bible (Yahweh) as evil and the serpent (the archetype of the devil in monotheistic religions) as good, was diametrically opposed to Christian doctrine. Consequently, they were declared heretics and systematically eradicated by the growing number of Christian communities in the West.
The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) portrays God with a dual personality—a ‘Jekyll-Hyde’ personality. Once he practically eradicated humanity with a global flood (Genesis 6:5–8:22); another time he burnt the cities of Sodom and Gomorra (Genesis 18:16–19:29); he made the Hebrew’s systematically exterminate their neighboring nations (e.g., Deuteronomy 7), and so on. Moreover, God is extremely sectarian in the Old Testament; he prefers the Hebrews, Israelites, or Jews over other nations. But, I guess, that’s because the Hebrews wrote the Bible: they portrayed God favoring them; just like ancient Greek and Roman authors (or any other nation, for that matter) portrayed their gods favoring themselves.
However, in the New Testament, we read that God is impartial. “Then Peter [Jesus’s leading apostle] opened his mouth and said: ‘In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.’” (Acts 10:34, NKJV) Personally, I believe the God of the Bible is a benevolent, unconditionally-loving God (like a good parent), as Jesus taught us, “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9 & Luke 11:2), and absolutely non-violent like Jesus himself, “who is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15, KJV). [But notice how contradictory our Christian Bible is.] I suppose the Old Testament biblical authors thought it too good to be true for God to be unconditionally-loving; if so, he could be easily taken advantage of: so they ‘made’ him like us, punishing evil. But a good father doesn’t kill his children when they quarrel among themselves; he lets them sort things out among themselves: he uses conviction and conversion, not violence.
Note:
In my opinion, by ‘serpent’ the Genesis’s author imagined a ‘dragon’ that eventually loses its limbs (legs & wings) in Genesis 3:14: “The LORD God said unto the serpent, ‘Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go.’” (KJV) Here’s why I think so.
(1) According to the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ “[A] dragon, in the mythologies, legends, and folktales of various cultures, [is] a large lizard- or serpent-like creature, conceived in some traditions as evil and in others as beneficent. In medieval Europe, dragons were usually depicted with wings and a barbed tail and as breathing fire. In Greece the word ‘drakōn,’ from which the English word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent (see sea serpent), and the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/drag...
(2) According to ‘Wikipedia,’ “A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons’ traits are often a hybridization of feline, reptilian, mammalian, and avian features.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon Notice the phrase “with above-average intelligence” as in Genesis 3:1.
Regards,
Carmel.
While it's true that he came out of it looking like the least guilty party, appearances can be deceiving. It was Adam, not Eve, who was most greatly cursed in the aftermath of the event. Whereas God promised Eve that a descendant of hers (the virgin Mary) was to father the Messiah, Adam was cursed to return to the dust. Also, which is worse: to sin knowingly (Adam) or to sin while not knowing you'd been lied to (Eve)?
The post can be found here:
https://yinwins.substack.com/p/adam-w...
My sole intention here is to get the word out about this important topic. In addition, if you have any criticism of what I wrote, I would be greatly interested in your feedback.
I'm not asking anyone here to pay for a subscription. The free subscription option is available for anyone who may be interested in subscribing. In addition, I am offering free, temporary archival access to anyone who messages me between now and July 31st.