Here’s the gist of the myth.
Adam (Man) created by God and Eve (cloned from Adam’s rib)
wake up in a beautiful Garden without a worry in the world. Lots to eat and
drink. No worries, no pain, no need for clothes so I guess no mosquitoes and
perfect weather. Totally taken care of and so I suppose plenty of servants to
clean house, prepare food, and wash clothes (oops! No need for them). Only one
thing they have to do or really NOT do; and that’s eat the fruit of this one
tree mysteriously called the Tree of Good and Evil.
In steps Serpent. Serpent talks with Eve and Eve listens. “Eve,
want some excitement? Don’t you want to be like God? Aren’t you a bit curious
why you shouldn’t eat the fruit of that one tree? C’mon try it.” And she does.
And then she gets Adam to try it too.
God booms out: “What have you done?” They hide, are ashamed
and blame each other. They realize their nakedness and put on clothes. Then, in
steps Angel with a fiery sword and kicks them out of the Garden and tells them that
now they have to work, bear children, have pain, and die.
Interpretation 1:
Fathers of the Church.
This disobedience of the divine commandment is the Sin of
Man with which every person who is born is cursed. This Original Sin will
plague all mankind and keep them from Paradise.
Serpent is Satan, the disobedient Lucifer who had led the
angels in a revolution against God and was cast down to Hell. Satan takes it
out on Man who is God’s creation and whom God put in charge of all the Earth. Eve,
Woman, was the tool of Satan to seduce Man into sin and thus separate him from
God.
This Sin brings Evil into the world and explains why bad
things happen to even good men (and women) including droughts and famines, anger
and murder, sins of the flesh and bodily sickness, wars and death. And because
Women seduced Man into this sin, she will suffer both bondage and the pain of
childbirth.
But there is a happy ending. Angry Father God sends down his
Son to be tortured and killed as a sacrifice to make up for this Sin. For only
someone equal to Father God could balance the scales. That’s why Jesus, the new
Adam, was born, suffered, and died for all mankind. And the Sin is removed from
all those who are born again with the resurrected Jesus through baptism of
water or the fire of martyrdom and who turn themselves over to the obedience of
God’s commandments within His Church. Felix culpa, O happy fault, that made
it possible for God’s Son to walk the Earth and lead men to salvation, the
Church sings at Eastertime.
Many fathers have gone on to speak of the New Eve, which is
Mary the Mother of Jesus/God, who was born without Sin and without pain. And
she didn’t have sex to get pregnant with Jesus—semper virgo. Her birthing pain would come when she watched and so
joined Jesus, the New Adam, in his sacrifice on the cross to appease Father God
for the injury done by the First Adam.
Order is restored. God rules with Jesus the Christ His Son by His side; and all in unison sing His
praise. Paradise regained.
Interpretation 2.
Mothers of the Church
(There were mothers back then like Magdalene, Phoebe, Priscilla,
Julia, Lucia, Mary; but they didn’t get published. Today there are many who are
getting published like Elaine, Rosemary, Corita, Elizabeth, Jane, Joan, Dorothy; but
most are not really recognized by the fathers.)
Here is an interpretation by Mothers taking Eve’s point of
view.
Eve is dissatisfied and bored. She is like Prince Rasselas
in Happy Valley as told by Samuel Johnson’s Tale. If Rasselas leaves Happy Valley
where all his needs are met, he can never go back. Nevertheless Rasselas and his sister
sneak out to find some adventure and, if not total happiness, at least the
satisfaction of new understanding of themselves and the world.
No wonder Eve talks with Serpent! Adam is hardly a good
conversationalist because he hasn’t explored anything anywhere. And obviously there
is not much of a sex life since the two do not even notice their genitals or
how to have children until after they leave the Garden.
Serpent is clearly another face of God. In some mystical traditions of India, the
rising Serpent is symbolic of rising kundalini energy, which is a Spiritual
awakening that can bring forth healing, empowerment, knowledge and wisdom. Throughout the Near East the serpent
was considered a symbol of wisdom, health and even immortality. This was usually
connected with snakes shedding their skins, which made a semblance of rebirth
into eternity. In some representations the goddess of fertility is entwined by
the serpent as a phallic symbol to bring forth new life.
So who is this Serpent God enticing Eve to become a goddess
of fertility and bring forth new life by disobeying the commandment of Monarch God
by eating fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil? The Serpent is telling Eve to
think for herself, to adventure out into the unknown by breaking the rules and
transcending the boundaries, to become as a god by taking on the divine
activity of creation.
Felix culpa—O happy fault! Original sin is really the
original blessing by which humanity is truly made in the image of God. This is
the moment of divine infusion, the divine spark, in which humanity knows good
and evil, in which humanity risks pain and death for hope and life, in which humanity wakes up to its responsibility by thinking, by questioning, and by going
outside the box. Adam and Eve become progenitors of homo sapiens only after getting out of the Garden of stifling
innocence and ignorance.
Thanks to the wise Serpent’s agitation, Eve becomes as a
goddess to seduce Man into the light of reason by discovering the capacity for
curiosity and care, the cogito. And
other gods and goddesses will rise up to continue to indicate the way, as did
the Serpent to Eve and Eve to Adam. There will be Vishnu/Shiva, Buddha,
Socrates, Aphrodite, Jesus, Magdalene, Francis, Martin, Joan, Dan, Jane and many more down to
our own day.
And so the story of Adam and Eve is really the creation
story when homo became sapiens. It points to that moment when humankind began to think and when thinking brought good and evil and so freedom and responsibility into the world.
The moment of transcendence. Across the boundaries. Outside the Box. The Big
Bang of the Moral Universe.
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