I have always found the biblical story of the Garden of
Eden to be puzzling and confounding, to say the least. Questions have abounded regarding
its moral lesson and utility. The story seems to suggest that original sin originally
came into existence as the direct result of disobeying (admittedly blind and
overbearing) power and authority; worse, since the act involved the dichotomy
between ignorance and knowledge, the Bible seems to suggest that the former is
preferable to the latter, hence delivering a primordial message of ignorance being
bliss. Did God really want to us to live and be stuck in the shadowy realm of
ignorance?
Add to that, the copious amount of misogyny thrown in as
well as thrown at Eve, the mother of all living who is blamed for
the ultimate form of temptation, i.e. knowledge and understanding, and one can
only scratch or better shake one’s head in profound disbelief, if not utter
astonishment at this biblical tale.
That is why until most recently the Gnostic reading and interpretation of Genesis seemed to be more reasonable and much more in line my
acceptance and liking. It was the serpent that spoke with the voice of reason,
whereas God’s (over)reaction spoke volumes about his fear of humans one day
equaling (or even surpassing) him. This may be the main reason why he not only
banishes Adam and Eve from his realm, but even puts a cherubim with a flaming
sword to protect the tree of life
lest humans become immortal too.
Yet when I stumbled upon Erich Fromm’s interpretation, it
shone much needed light upon the hitherto dubious beginning of humanity. This
all goes back to a concept of God that is overlooked and misunderstood in the
Christian view.
God is embodied as perfect and static. With it goes the mainly
cerebral definition (might I say limitation) that everything that is perfect has
already reached its full potential and cannot ipso facto improve in any
discernible ways whatsoever.
In that sense, the most perfect state would be one that
is utterly and completely dead, namely death seen from a strictly materialistic
and nonspiritual angle designated and determined as the endpoint and cessation
of any forms of consciousness. A stone would then be the most perfect of all
beings having reached the stage of being perfectly static and immovable.
But if anything, the Bible shows us that God’s heart alongside
his will are not made of stone. He is volatile and fluctuating; he is angry and
forgiving; he is loving and cruel; he is at times merciless and at other times
full of mercy. And if his very own statement and discovery to Moses were
translated as “I am that I am” and taken at face value, it would entail that we
are confronted with and praying to a rather intentionally and purposefully
conflicting, contentious and confusing power and being.
Yet if we consider God not as statically and immovably
outside of time but rather on a point on the plane of evolution, then God might
lose his eternally fixed constant of always being or rather always remaining
who he is, but he shall then become who he shall be, which could then continue
and be prolonged eternally to time immemorial.
This might be a possible and closer translation to the
actual meaning of his translated and interpreted comment. If seen as “I am who
I shall be,” there is room for the possibility of change and improvement and a
certain drive for perfection within divinity itself. If read in such a way, we
see evolution and evolvement not only within humans but reflected within God
himself as we were made in his image, the same way he is in ours.
If people object to praying to a god that is not already
perfectly formed but like his creation strives for perfection on a higher
plateau (a view not incompatible with the Buddhist concept of the universe),
then one might ask oneself why it would be preferable to worship him as a
seemingly emotionally unstable entity. Indeed there are countless moments of
anger and fury, where he is controlling and impeding his creations; yet over
time he begins to form a loving bond and relationship with humans and shows his
greatest sign of love by offering and sacrificing the Son of Man or by making
himself Flesh in order to sanctify all human beings and provide them with the
necessary divine spark, not unlike the fire of Prometheus in Greek legend.
Such a reading of the Bible would explain why God is initially
suspicious of his creatures, as there is a fundamental lack of trust and love and
there is not a relationship per se between him and Adam and Eve; yet God
manages to change and adjust his point of view.
In return, Adam and Eve did not have much rapport neither
to God nor to themselves. Erich Fromm points out that both Adam and Eve did not
know who they were and that they lived in a complete state of natural
primordial harmony. Our earliest ancestors must have lived similarly as they were
and saw themselves as an inseparable part of nature. Yet it all had to come to
an end so that growth and evolution could manifest itself.
This could be symbolized with Adam and Eve eating from
the tree of good and evil. Suddenly, they lost all touch and contact with
nature and were left on their own. They became aware not only of their separate
identities but more importantly of their loneliness. Suddenly they stopped
seeing themselves as one with nature, and they saw each other as perfect strangers.
Unadulterated paradise existed no more and each had to
survive on their own. There was no love yet between them, but only shame,
embarrassment and guilt. Adam does not act out of love but out of spite when he
blames Eve for the transgression. He tries to save and salvage himself. He has
completely forgotten that Eve is part of him and his equal since both are part
and parcel of nature and the harmony around them.
The fact that God created Eve out of his rib has given to
erratic speculation and the faulty and irresponsible conclusion that therefore
he must be superior and she inferior to him. This kind of conclusion is
misguided and harmful and is too focused on a literal meaning of an unnecessary
detail. What is more important here is the fact that she is created and taken out of him, his body and mind, and
that Adam without Eve is incomplete, not unlike Plato’s androgynous being as
described in the myth of Aristophanes.
The rib or rather rib cage is meant to protect and
support two of our most vital organs, the heart, which is an evident symbol of
and stand-in for love as well as the lungs, which regulates and controls
respiration, the very breath of life. Furthermore, bones are indestructible
life since they persist longer than the flesh. If we conceive of Adam as flesh,
then Eve is the bone, the physical and spiritual support of the body. In such a
manner, man and woman complement and complete each other.
The same idea is, in fact, expressed by Adam himself when
he states that Eve is the “bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” It is thus
that they shall be One flesh, and
both continue to be like God as he created them in his image and likeness. To
separate one from the other or to perceive one as essentially different from
the other in terms of spirit, love or intellect would be a faulty and misguided
interpretation then.
In addition, there might be also a case of
mistranslation, since the word rib may possibly have meant “side.” That means
that God did not take Adam’s rib but half of his side so that woman would be
be-side man, not beneath nor above him;
they would be side by side and
perfectly equal.
Before the supposed act of rebellion, Adam and Eve are
indeed in a world of pure sensations or rather what Freud would term primary process. Eden is a paradise in which all beings and animals are one and
communicate with each other and live in perfect harmony. This is akin to the
world of the infant who would have had his needs met in the womb and who comes
into the world blind to the outside world still feeling strongly connected and
attached to his or her mother.
The moment that this idyllic situation experiences a
rupture is the growing awareness of the outside world in terms of other people,
objects, and food. This world is explored primarily through the mouth of the
infant and through basic sensory experiences, including taste, smell and
temperature and corresponding feelings and associations.
It comes as little surprise then that the outside world
would be represented by a tree that contains fruit or apples. It is through the
physical ingestion of that so-called forbidden fruit that knowledge is gained.
Suddenly the perfect harmony is in disarray and Adam is disconnected from this
and begins to feel separate and lonely from nature as well as from other
beings.
In fact, what he feels for Eve is not nor can be love since
the first thing he does is to justify himself before God by accusing her of having
incited him. This is also connected to the sudden realization of not only
physical nakedness but rather a feeling of shame that is associated and
strongly tied with it. It is the budding of sexual instincts, not in the form
of spiritual or romantic love union but merely as a primitive instinct or
drive.
What stands out between them is their pronounced and
visible difference. There is a selfishness or self obsession that drives and
separates one from the other and it may be conceived as the growing pains of
giving birth. Adam and Eve, God’s first children are not led by rules any more,
by admonishments in the forms of don’ts,
but they shall acquire moral insight in how to be and how to become, that
arduous but eternally rewarding path towards morality and goodness.
In that
moment, in the very act of rebellion, humanity has taken its first stand, or
rather it is the first time that humanity stands on its feet; now it needs to
learn to walk, and, more importantly, love each other and its Creator.
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