Adam and Eve, True or False

RavenManiac

Do you believe the story of Adam and Eve? Why or why not?

nvrgnbk

Some light reading for a Monday morning...

The original Eve had no spouse except the serpent, a living phallus she created for her own sexual pleasure. Some ancient people regarded the Goddess and her serpent as their first parents. Sacred icons showed the Goddess giving life to a man, while her serpent coiled around the apple tree behind her. Deliberate misinterpretation of such icons produced ideas for revised creation myths like the one in Genesis. Some Jewish traditions of the first century B.C., however, identified Jehovah with the serpent deity who accompanied the Mother in her garden. Sometimes she was Eve, sometimes her name was given as Nahemah, Naama, or Namrael, who gave birth to Adam without the help of any male, even the serpent.

Because Jehovah arrogantly pretended to be the sole Creator, Eve was obliged to punish him according to Gnostic scriptures, (although it does not say how). Though the Mother of All Living existed before everything, the God forgot she had made him and had given him some of her creative power. "He was even ignorant of his own Mother . . . It was because he was foolish and ignorant of his Mother that he said, "I am God, there is none beside me." Gnostic texts often show the creator reprimanded and punished for his arrogance by a feminine power greater and older than himself.

The secret of God's "Name of power," the Tetragrammaton, was that three-quarters of it invoked not God - but Eve. YHWH, yod-he-vau-he, came from the Hebrew root HWH, meaning both "life" and "woman" - in Latin letters, E-V-E. With the addition of an "I" (yod), it amounted to the Goddess's invocation of her name as the Word of creation, a common idea in Egypt and other ancient lands.

Gnostic scriptures said Adam was created by the power of Eve's word, not God's. Adam's name meant he was formed of clay moistened with blood, the female magic of adamah or "bloody clay." He didn't produce the Mother of All Living from his rib; in earlier Mesopotamian stories, he was produced by hers. The biblical idea was a reversal of older myths in which the Goddess brought forth a primal male ancestor, then made him her mate - the ubiquitous, archetypal divine-incest relationship traceable in every mythology. Furthermore, Gnostic scriptures said Eve not only created Adam and obtained his admission to heaven; she was the very soul within him, as Shakti was the soul of every Hindu god and yogi. Adam could not live without "power from the Mother," so she descended to earth as "the Good Spirit, the Thought of Light called by him "Life" (Hawwa)." She entered into Adam as his guiding spirit of conscience. "It is she who works at the creature, exerts herself on him, sets him in his own perfect temple, enlightens him on the origin of his deficiency, and shows him his (way of) ascent." Through her, Adam was able to rise above the ignorance imposed on him by the male God.

By this Gnostic route came the Midrashic assertion that Adam and Eve were originally androgynous, like Shiva and his Shakti. She dwelt in him, and he in her; they were two souls united in one body, which God later tore apart, depriving them of their bliss of union. Cabalists took up the idea and said the paradise of Eden can be regained only when the two sexes are once more united; even God must be united with his female counterpart, the heavenly Eve called Shekina.

It is interesting that the mythical story of the original "Eve", the "Mother of All Living" was lonely and so created a companion - Think about it. It is the dilemma of every women since the beginning of time. No matter how intelligent, successful, or accomplished she may be, without a mate or spouse - a woman feels incomplete - she feels lonely. Often, a woman will compromise on the man of her choice with hopes of changing him and bringing him up to her acceptable mental and emotional standards, often failing miserably. Most women would cherish a man who she could honor and hold in the highest esteem, but unfortunately, he falls from the projected pedestal. (Men will do this projection too on the woman he falls in love with. But here, he is projecting his own internal "anima" or spirit onto the real woman.)

Directed toward Christian Doctrine:

Instead of blaming God for casting Adam out of the paradise where he might have lived forever, the patriarchs blamed Eve for bringing this about. Fathers of the Christian church said Eve conceived by the serpent and brought forth Death. The seeds of all women already existed in Eve, St. John Chrysostorn maintained, so that in her sin "the whole female race transgressed." This was the real origin of the church fathers' fear and hatred of women, which expanded into a sexist attitude that permeated all of western society. Heaven was closed to all women except those who were submissive and worshipped their husbands as gods. Even modern theologians naively blame human death on the Endemic sin. Rahner said, "Man's death is the demonstration of the fact that he has fallen away from God . . . Death is guilt made visible. Theologians have not yet dealt with the question of what "guilt" causes death among non-human creatures.

Actually, churches depend for their existence on the orthodox Myth of Eve. "Take away the snake, the fruit-tree, and the woman from the tableau, and we have no fall, no frowning Judge, no Inferno, no everlasting punishment - hence no need of a Savior. Thus the bottom falls out of the whole Christian theology.

Equally destructive to Christian theology would be the restoration of books arbitrarily excluded from the Canon, such as the Apocalypse of Adam, in which Adam stated that he and Eve were created together, but she was his superior! She brought with her "a glory" which she had seen in the aeon from which we had come forth. Some of these once-sacred books made Eve superior to both Adam and the creator. It was she, not God, who gave Adam his soul and brought him to life. It was she, not God, who cast down the evil deities from heaven and made them demons. And she, as the eternal female Power, would eventually judge the God she created, find him guilty of injustice, and destroy him.

http://www.astradome.com/adam&eve_myth.htm

Eyes Open

Do you believe the story of Adam and Eve? Why or why not?

No, because it's a story.

Finally-Free

I once knew a guy named Adam. I also knew a girl named Eve. To my knowledge they never hooked up.

W

worf

The story of Adam and Eve is false. It is illogical that "god" would create mans female counterpart from the mans rib. Why do that? Just directly create the female.

And what is the point of making a command not to eat of a certain tree? And then because of the disobedience to that command, the entire human race is plunged into so-called sin, disease, war, poverty, famines, pestilences, etc. etc. etc. continuing thousands of years after this disobedience allegedly occurred. It doesn't make a bit of sense.

There is also no proof that the events described in Genesis ever happened.

Worf

easyreader1970

I don't think it is true because it doesn't make any sense, for many reasons.

1. According to Bible chronology, Adam and Eve would have to have been created less than seven thousand years ago. You could, of course, argue that the chronology is wrong and that Moses miscalculated. But if that is the case then you invalidate his divine inspiration. If you invalidate his divine inspiration then you also invalidate Genesis. Since it's pretty clear that humans have been here longer than six or seven thousand years, the Adam and Eve story doesn't fit.

2. The story makes God seem a little clumsy and careless. He puts two trees in the "garden". One is the tree of life and the other is the tree of knowledge. The tree of life grants everlasting life. He doesn't tell them where that tree is. He hides it in with the rest of them. They don't even know it exists. He does tell them where the tree of knowledge is, though. Then he tells them that it's wrong to eat from it. Then why put it there? To test their loyalty? But he created them. If they fail to be loyal, then whose fault is that? Why give them free will if he is going to punish them for using it?

3. The serpent doesn't make any sense. Is the serpent supposed to be Satan? Do snakes talk on their own? Do other animals talk? Why would Eve listen to a talking snake? That would seem out of the ordinary if the other animals can't talk.

4. If God could create Adam out of dust, why was his rib required to build Eve? DNA? Couldn't God have just used a strand of hair or a fingernail or something?

5. Why punish all of their eventual offspring? This sounds evil and vindictive. Furthermore, he makes them imperfect and then punishes them for being so.

It's utter nonsense, really, if you just think about it.