Foreword:
This post is part of an ongoing series. For more information on why I’m writing it, and for a listing of all posts in the series in chronological order, see An Atheist Reading the Bible: Prologue.
“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” (Gene 3.3)
Discussing: The book of Genesis; Chapters 3 – 5.
Chapters 3 – 5 of the book of Genesis are the stories of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman created by God, as well as their first sons Cain and Abel.1
In these stories we learn the Biblical perspective on why human beings are naughty, naughty kids, and for some reason we are to believe that it’s the fault of… a snake? I can’t lie: I was really amused at the notion that a snake was already well aware of the difference between good and evil, but silly little Adam and Eve had no idea. I have some pre-existing knowledge of Christianity that charges the snake with being Satan, of course – but I haven’t gotten to that part yet, so I’m pretending I’ve never heard it. It makes one wonder, though, if the snake was supposed to be the Devil, why nobody felt the need to mention it here in the part of the book where it’s pertinent. If I didn’t know better I’d say that somebody completely different threw that part about Satan in as an afterthought.
We are also told the touching story of a man who murders his brother, and as punishment is given special protection by God. Still trying to get my head around that one.
Chapter 5 is essentially a genealogy of Adam’s kin, leading us into the generation of Noah, who will be the subject of my next post.
Knowledge of good and evil.
“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” (Gene 3.1) A close second, I’m sure, was that irritating gray squirrel, but when it comes to ‘subtilty’ the serpent just managed to edge him out.
Listen, friends, this is clearly a mythological reference to animals having personalities. It doesn’t say, “Because the Devil was in him, the serpent was subtil.” So I’m reading about a talking serpent. Why would I ever believe this? This is a fable. It’s meant to teach you a lesson by personifying an animal.
“And 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.” (Gene 3.6)
The serpent convinces Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is to say that she had no idea there was such a thing as good and bad morals to that point. God had commanded her not to eat of it (Gene 3.3). Think about that. She was not aware of the difference between right and wrong – how could she have resisted the suggestion to eat the fruit? What reason did she have to think she shouldn’t? She was told not to, but what does disobedience matter to a person who doesn’t know it’s wrong? This whole thing – if it isn’t fiction – is a setup.
Eve eats the fruit, and shares it with Adam, and suddenly they know right from wrong. Their very first revelation? Being naked is wrong. (Gene 3.7) Seriously? But okay, if that’s the story then that’s the story. Suddenly they are ashamed of their nakedness and try to hide from God, whose voice they hear in the garden as he takes an afternoon stroll. Note, by the way, that in this part of Genesis, God is depicted as coming down in front of people and talking to them. This changes later, and I’m pretty sure it’s because the author of the book changes. I’ll explain that later. For now, just remember that “they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gene 3.8), indicating a directly observable presence of God. There’s nothing vague about this: they heard him coming and hid.
God, of course, figures out what happened the way that Dad always knows you’ve been in the cookie jar, and then punishes them with a life of hard labor and kicks them out of Eden. Some things that caught my attention here include: Woman is sentenced to bear children in sorrow (Gene 3.16), which explains the roughness of labor for exactly one mammal on Earth. Gorillas, dogs, and kangaroos must have all committed their own sins. Also noteworthy: God says to himself, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…” (Gene 3.22) Who, exactly, is us? I’m sure it will be explained later.
Now apparently there’s a tree in Eden (which is in Iraq, remember) that will allow human beings to live forever, and God doesn’t want that, so he’s got a flaming sword guarding it. (Gene 3.24) Doesn’t he realize that with the scarcity of flaming swords these days, that will only make it easier for us to find it?
I’m trying to be serious – I am. But the story of Adam and Eve is some of the silliest stuff I’ve ever heard. Why would anyone on Earth call Aesop’s fables imaginative fairy tales, but believe the book of Genesis literally happened as written? I am holding out for some huge moment – some sudden clicking into place of the puzzle piece that makes this stuff seem plausible. Millions upon millions of people believe this. What am I missing?
Humanity’s first plea bargain?
Of course it wasn’t long after seeing each other naked that Adam and Eve figured out the whole baby-making thing. Cain and Abel come along in Chapter 4, and theirs is one of many strange tales in Genesis.
Both brothers offer up a sacrifice to the Lord, and Cain’s is not accepted. (Gene 4.5) Cain seems a bit hot-headed, so I’m guessing the problem is that God doesn’t like his attitude?
“And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” (Gene 4.8)
Whatever the case, Cain murders his brother in the fields, and God catches him at it. As punishment, Cain is essentially sentenced to exile. Later in Genesis God is going to allow the eradication of whole cities full of men for lesser crimes than murdering one’s brother, but Cain must have had a damn good lawyer, because he basically walks away with probation.
“And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.” (Gene 4.13) He’s a little worried that some jerk on the street might try to kill him, don’t you know, so he begs for mercy. And God puts a mark on Cain (Gene 4.15) that somehow communicates that anyone who kills Cain shall be avenged sevenfold (what does that even mean, he’s going to kill them seven times in return?).
So then what happens? Well… nothing. Cain goes out and gets a wife, has a few babies, and you hear virtually nothing more about him. Several generations later, his great-great-great grandson Lamech pays something of a tribute to him, boasting: “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” (Gene 4.24) The meaning of this is never really clear, except that Lamech killed someone and then bragged to his wives about it.
Eve, in the meantime, conceives a new son named Seth to replace Abel, and they all live happily ever after. Well, except for Abel.
The years were kinder back in the day.
Among the weirder claims in the book of Genesis is that original human beings lived for 800 to 900 years. Later on, God decides that’s not his best idea, and shortens our life spans to a much more manageable 120 years; we’ll get to that.
Chapter 5 is a line-item account of the lineage from Adam to Noah, describing the lives and firstborn of the generations between them. It frequently states that these men lived well into their 800′s. I want to know what explanation believers have for this. Do you really believe that men lived for centuries?
I have a hypothesis. Suppose you’re writing a history of your people (pre-internet, when people couldn’t fact-check and actually see that you’re full of shit), and in order for that history to work out for you, you have to explain why a finite number of people have existed in a region for a finite number of years that happens to be a few centuries longer than they actually could have lived there. One possible solution would be to say, “Oh, Adam was definitely there 3,000 years ago – see back in his day people lived to be 800. That’s why my lineage extends so far back in time with so few actual people.”
I have no evidence for this, I’m just saying.
The only thing that roused my interest here, other than the inexplicable lifespans, was what appears to be a very cryptic reference to a man named Enoch, whose life is listed as much shorter (a meager 365 years), and whose end isn’t necessarily death.
Most of the people listed in Chapter 5 are left off in this manner: “…and he died.” According to Gene 5.24, however, “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”
When I first saw this, I hardly suspected the detailed back story involved. I thought, “That’s weird, what’s up with Enoch?” I thought there would be a bunch of scholarly speculation about him, and there is, but I didn’t realize just how much.
Enoch, it turns out, wrote a book of his own, commonly called the book of Enoch or 1 Enoch.2 It contains quite a bit more of this mythology of God, including stories of Enoch rubbing elbows with him and with his ‘sons’ (more on that later) in Heaven. It is known to be the inspiration for numerous books of the Bible, but isn’t part of the Bible. I’m not yet clear on why. I do know that after looking it over, it paints imagery of this God and Heaven that isn’t part of what modern Christians are known for believing.
The full text of the book of Enoch is available online. I’ve linked to it in my Sources section below, if you’re as interested as I am.3
So now I’m curious: How many of you identify yourself as Christian, but don’t necessarily believe that the book of Genesis is literally true? It was never my understanding of religion that you could pick and choose what you believe. If you can, then you’re already a step closer to the truth than I credit you for. But seriously: A talking snake?
Sources:
- International Bible Seminary (2011). SearchByVerse™ Holy Bible (KJV) [Kindle]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
- Wikipedia Contributors (2012). Book of Enoch. Wikipedia.com. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
- Sacred Texts (2012). The Book of Enoch tr. by R. H. Charles [1917]. sacred-texts.com. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/
Amanda S. Moores
Robert D. Moores
Before you get too far away from the creation story, hop on over to wikipedia and read about Lillith, Adam’s first wife. She’s a well-know character of Jewish mythology who is somehow completely absent from the Bible. It’s a significant clue that what you’re reading has either been heavily edited by later writers, or is simply incomplete.
Posted by Stan Adermann | 10 July 2012, 10:11 pmHi Stan! I was intrigued by the story of Lillith as well, so I checked out what I could find. I hope you don’t mind me replying.
Apparently, the only passage in the Bible that could be construed as referring to Lillith is in Isaiah (34:13-15). And this seems to be debated because of the issues of translation. The word lilith can be translated loosely as a type of demon. It seems to have originated in Babylonian mythology, and therefore would have been a term known by the authors of the Bible.
I couldn’t really find any reference or proof that there were other mentions of Lillith that once existed in the Bible but were removed later. I don’t see any evidence that leads me to conclude that Christians, or other Bible followers, have tried to erase her story.
While I appreciate the significance of the story, especially the modern significance of her being a champion of sorts to the feminist movement, she appears to be a part of mythology that really doesn’t tie into the Bible. This is not to say that I feel her story to be any less important or any less real than Adam and Eve. As you may be able to tell from other comments, I don’t believe in them either.
Posted by Cari Osborne | 11 July 2012, 9:42 amAs always, though, please let me know if I missed something, Stan! I think the story of Lillith is fascinating. I had heard of her before my interest in reading the Bible, and I would be interested to see if there is more to the story that I couldn’t find. From what I could find, the idea that she was part of the creation story came about in the Middle Ages. Have you been able to find anything earlier? Thanks!
Posted by Cari Osborne | 11 July 2012, 10:41 amActually you’re probably correct about the “first wife” bit coming later. The Babylonian Talmud has a passage that refers Adam separating himself from Eve to fast for 130 years. During that time his wet dreams had him father many demons with Lillith. The Talmud was collected in the 3rd to 5th centuries, but Lillith was a demon with female appearance.
Posted by Stan Adermann | 11 July 2012, 12:21 pmHow about the ‘lulu’? These were the Babylonian first people, bizarre constructions created for the specific purpose of serving the gods.
Conveyed through written Hebrew text (no vowels) could these have gone from ‘lulu’ to ‘Lilith’ over the years?
According to one story, these beings were at first made deformed, due to a dispute between male & female creators — with the male challenged to find some use for them all. Of course the earliest Middle Eastern temples apparently did serve as ‘sheltered workshops’ for people who, for one reason or another, were too physically impaired to survive as farmers… an arrangement that also made them centers of manufacturing as well as trade… [a natural outcome when neither locals nor travelers could otherwise count on such basic rules as 'Don't kill the other dealer & rip off the goodies.']
Posted by treegestalt | 11 July 2012, 11:23 amSo interesting to see the way language and translations change! This is part of why I spent so much time trying to decide which translation of the Bible to use before I started reading. I think it very likely that the “lulu” could have been changed to lilith. It makes sense. Especially when you see how other words and phrases have evolved.
From what I have found, the idea of Lilith being part of the creation story does not, and never did, exist in either the Torah, or the Bible, but rather as part of early Rabbinical writings that were meant to interpret the Bible/Torah. Thus she was never part of a “Divine” work. But I intend to keep researching because I think it’s an amazing story.
I welcome any input anyone has. It’s definitely a fairly new research project for me.
Posted by Cari Osborne | 11 July 2012, 12:16 pmRob, you just nailed down the biggest reason that I have started and abandoned my study of the Bible probably 15 times. I just can’t seem to get by the story of Adam and Eve. First of all, why create the damn tree if you don’t want anyone to partake? Why the game? This is also the part of the Bible that tells me that wanting knowledge is wrong. I just can’t get on board with this. And I am definitely not a feminist, but if I was I’d be screaming like crazy about the idea that it was Eve who screwed it all up. You know, the “weaker” sex who was so easily manipulated and duped by the serpent. It’s no wonder misogyny reigned for so long. As far as the idea of a talking snake, man living for 800-900 years, a tree holding the knowledge of good and evil, etc., I am thinking if we can’t get by this, we may be fighting a losing battle going forward. Don’t forget, the flood and the immaculate conception are still to come.
I feel like this is where we are going to run into the same issue over and over. Are we going to be able to take any of this on “faith” in the power and wonder of God? Because I think that is the key to believing in most of the Bible. I don’t think I can do that. Hence the reason reading the Bible is still on my bucket list and not something I completed long ago.
Posted by Cari Osborne | 9 July 2012, 11:58 amAnother thing that has me going in circles: If we read Genesis literally, Cain and Abel are the first 2 children born to Adam and Eve who are the first two humans. Cain then kills Abel and is exiled. He is afraid he will be killed by anyone who comes across him, so God marks him to protect. But protect him from who exactly? There are only 3 people in the world at this point. And who exactly is his wife? Where the heck did she come from? And why isn’t she his sister? The genealogy has my head spinning.
Posted by Cari Osborne | 9 July 2012, 3:30 pmAlso, regarding the lines of Cain and Seth, I find the similarity in the names to be a little too coincidental. I understand families often had traditions of naming their offspring by what order they were born in, etc. But if Cain was exiled, what are the chances that 4 of his children would be named the same as 4 of Seth’s, and in the same order? I know this may seem like a minor detail, but it’s one that adds to my perception of the Bible as a fictional tale.
Posted by Cari Osborne | 9 July 2012, 3:38 pmsorry, I meant 4 of his line, not his children specifically. But 4 of the firstborn…
Posted by Cari Osborne | 9 July 2012, 3:58 pmI completely agree with what you are saying here, but didn’t bring it up, because I already know at least one loophole that I would use, if I were a Christian.
“And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters…” (Gene 5.4)
It sounds, to our rational minds, like Genesis is written in a sort of ‘event-order’ where, because Cain and Abel were mentioned before any other children were mentioned, their story must have taken place before anyone else was born. But the genealogy in Gene 5 says that Adam lived 130 years before he had Seth (his third child to our rational minds, but it’s not actually stated in the Bible), and that’s plenty of time for Cain, Abel, a few sisters, maybe a little mommy-lovin’ (if some random son of Eve made a few babies with her, I don’t think it would even be listed in the patriarchal genealogies of Genesis), and a whole bunch of stubby branches on the family tree.
I suspect if you took a strictly mathematical approach to this, you could demonstrate that it would work. I don’t have anywhere near the kind of interest it would take to do that, but my gut feeling is that you could make it make sense – at least to a person who is willing to believe that a talking snake tricked a grown woman into violating the edict of an all-powerful God.
As I read, I’m constantly arguing with myself: I am both the atheist and the Christian, trying to find the middle ground. These kinds of things come and go in my thoughts all along the way, and I only have enough time and space here on the blog to mention a few, so I tend to choose the ones that are most fun to talk about. But yes, you will find numerous occasions where, if you try to view the Bible literally, you will be forced to make some pretty bizarre rationalizations.
Posted by Robert Moores | 9 July 2012, 8:19 pmI’m pretty sure I can assert two things: 1) I’m never going to believe the Bible is a literal historical document (I have so many other things to pile onto the list of absurdities you won’t even believe it, lol, just wait till we get to Exodus and the story of Moses!). 2) I’m not going to stop, no matter how silly I think it is. Because the fact remains that the Bible is a tremendous driving force in my world, and I have to understand it.
Posted by Robert Moores | 9 July 2012, 8:01 pmAgreed. It’s something I feel like I MUST do. And if I did not know that it was believed to be literal, I probably would not have even noticed any of these irrationalities. In fact, I fully expect that the story of Christ and his teachings will move me, and I don’t doubt I will take away something of value. If that is all that was required to be a Christian, I would have been on board a long time ago. But…sigh…that does not seem to be the case. In any event, I’m looking forward to your next post!
Posted by Cari Osborne | 10 July 2012, 9:23 amThere is a lot of room for interpretation here…
http://www.sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2006/09/quaker-renewal-part-iii-truth-of-fall.html is my best effort so far.
People are seldom literal. When we’re talking about anything complex and/or important, metaphor is the only way we can expect to get a grip on it. [Even with something as seemingly "rational" as mathematics, George Lakoff has a good sized book analyzing it as an elaborate structure of metaphors linked to simple, concrete childhood play experiences... which is actually how anyone who understands mathematics typically tries to explain it to anyone who doesn't.] So I don’t know why anyone expects God to be so limited in modes of communication — except when they themselves have trouble with metaphor. Perhaps they think that God Hmrself claims literal truth for these writings? Perhaps they’re assuming that “If it didn’t actually happen that way,” it can’t be carrying a true, important message about the way things work.
When these stories were probably first told, there was no police force. There was a general expectation that people wouldn’t kill their close relatives. If that happened, family relations were likely to be strained for a long time, and the survivor would be wise to leave. And couldn’t expect much security elsewhere. Outside that family circle, the concrete deterent to murder would be: Somebody from the victim’s tribe would be obligated to exact vengeance.
Since vengeance and countervengeance easily gets out of hand, what with both sides keeping their own divergent scores — surviving tribes had ways of limiting it.
The names of individual characters in these stories are often names of ethnic groups significant in the lives of the story tellers. The Kennites were apparently a tribe of itinerant metalsmiths… and killing one of them could give your whole tribe a bad day, because you wouldn’t have anyone to make you a spear point next time you needed one.
One intriguing book explained the ages of the early patriarchs… by saying that “Moses” (or at least some member of the group that eventually left Egypt for Canaan) was educated in the Egyptian history of the time… and that the sequence and dates of individual characters in Genesis are a plausible match for the sequence and dates of early Egyptian dynasties. (Sounds good, but I don’t actually know.)
The books of Enoch were probably accepted as ‘scripture’ by Jesus and his contemporaries, but were written significantly later than the Hebrew books of the Bible.
Posted by treegestalt | 9 July 2012, 12:59 amFirst of all, the post you linked to in your comment was – like everything you’ve said here – perfectly brilliant! I can honestly say that I’ve rarely met a person with your understanding of metaphors… and your recognition of them. If everyone I knew could see the underlying poetry of the Bible, and it could work its message inside them without creating a legion of fundamentalist fanatics who impose their misplaced moral beliefs on the people around them, I would harbor no grudge against religion.
I am not inclined to give the name of ‘God’ to the things that most people call God, but if I were, I think I’d say that you and I believe in the same God. At any rate, I think that if you and I were to live long enough to see our views carried all the way to their logical end, we would end up very nearly in the same place.
The main thing, I think, is that no notion of a ‘God’ which promotes the suffering of another human being can truly be the nature of God. If your God allows you to cause suffering, your God is horrible. So far I’ve been pointing out the logical flaws of the book of Genesis, but I found when I had finished it that my real problem with it is the nature of this book’s God, who cares little enough for anyone but Hebrews, and is very willing to allow the perpetration of suffering on others. A literal interpretation of Genesis (and probably most of the Old Testament) leads to a lot of really terrible possibilities.
As you said, it’s our imperfect grasp of metaphors that leads us to misunderstand the knowledge being offered here.
I doubt we’ll ever really know why the patriarchs were said to live for so long, but that’s an interesting theory. One subject I intend to put a little effort into later is Egyptology, because, as I’ll mention later, it occurred to me that the story of Joseph, if it were even half true, ought to have some parallel in Egyptian history – to say nothing of Moses! But alas – ONE BOOK AT A TIME!
If the books of Enoch were written after the Hebrew Bible, then there’s a line in the 6th chapter of Genesis that I’ll have a lot of fun with, as you’ll see. I had thought that it was perhaps inspired by Enoch’s colorful tales, but perhaps it was the other way around… which makes it all feel even sillier from the literal point of view.
Posted by Robert Moores | 10 July 2012, 8:33 pmWhat was the reson God said, not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Adam and Eve, to that point, knew only good. That’s the thing, they knew only what was good. Remember after God created he said “It is good…” Whether this is illousury or literal, what it is saying is that man, though knowing only what was good, desired power, that desire for power led mankind to seek after the knowledge of what was evil and what was not good. How did satan (or the serpant) convince Eve to eat it? He tempted her with the same power God had. I think we can all agree that evil in the wold most often comes a as a result of a lust for power. Eve did not have this lust for power until it was revealed to her as a possibility by the Serpant. If the serpant is Satan than you will read later that the same lust for power is what God satan in trouble.
If there had been no “bad” then there would have been no death, no crime, no jealousy, no shame (as per thier shame in realizing they were naked). But (if looking at this as analogy) man, in seeking power, sought after those things that were bad. (Sounds an awful lot like growing up).
If you take it literally, it means that Adam and Eve physically ate the bad (also sounds familiar as we do it everytime we eat at Macca’s; I mean eatin in death!). Evil was introduces through the eating, but sin was introduced through the act itself.
But it is interesting. God gave them the choice. He put two trees in the garden, the one that is most often forgotten is the tree of life (goes to our focus on good and evil over what is good, as we like Adam and Eve still ignore this tree). He said they could eat of the tree of life, but that they could not eat of the tree of Knowedge of Good and Evil, becuase it would lead to death. Man willlingly chose the tree that would bring Death, even though they had been warned against this.
Perhaps one reason I believe this story, is becuase it is played out time and time again. In both lager societies or in individuals.
I do believe in it literally, I don’t have any reason to doubt it. I used to not take it literally. My salvation is not dependant on how I take the story of Genesis. Either way it says the same thing, the same message. You can believe the story without taking it literally.
If we break it down to this. That man was born, knew only good, was shown the possibility of power, sought power, in the process learned evil and death, man began to sin, man died.
If you look at your own life cycle, or the life of any others around you, you would see this very pattern. It is the pattern depected in Genesis.
Posted by tobeforgiven | 8 July 2012, 8:28 pmOriginal sin is an interesting idea. I really do think the book of Genesis nails it. Whether you believe in a literal or figurative interpretation of the Bible, the ” Knowledge of good and evil” is at the heart of what makes us as humans so incompatible with the world around us. Every time I hear an environmentalist talk about how humans are destroying the planet, I think “fall of man”. I honestly believe that evil is a uniquely human trait. Among animals, every action and decision is based on survival. Killing for survival or territory is animal instinct, murdering one’s own children is human. The first mistake of mankind, the knowledge of good and evil.
——”You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” -Genesis 3:4-5
Human beings have a remarkable capacity for evil, even when evil doesn’t suit our best interest. This is in contrast to animals. We also have a unique capacity to feel guilt, and to show mercy. These result from a knowledge of good and evil.
Immediately after that came murder, and then a lie; as with the first two children born, one brother kills another;
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”-Genesis 4:8-9
If we as humans would take responsibility for the welfare of our fellow human beings, the world would be a much better place. This reminds us that by nature, most people are not their brother’s keeper. In fact, people have a hard time taking responsibility for their own actions.
You’ve gotten to the fall of man. You’ve found that the world was a harmonious place until mankind started to screw everything up. Do you find any truth in this? You found that from the beginning, humans are capable of choosing between good and evil based on knowledge, not instinct. Humans feel shame and nakedness. They lie. They blame others for their own bad decisions. They don’t take responsibility for their actions. They get jealous. They are capable of murdering their own family members. We established all of this in a relatively short passage of ancient text. Now we have set the stage for the rest of human history!
Hope you’re still enjoying yourself. You’re putting lots of thought into this, I commend you for your scholarship.
Posted by Tony Lollio | 8 July 2012, 8:19 pmI couldn’t agree more that the knowledge of good and evil, being if not completely then at least primarily the province of human beings, is the precursor to evil behavior, and in that sense the story of original sin is a contemplation of humanity’s frequent failure to do good. I don’t necessarily share the religious perspective that God is responsible for goodness and man is his fallen creation, but in metaphorical terms I see incredible wisdom in the symbolism of humanity trying to reconcile itself to ‘God’s nature’. In fact, I think as long as people are sincere in their desire to reconcile themselves to God in that sense, it can only lead to good for all of us. I only differ from religious believers in that I don’t necessarily think ‘God’ is the only way to get there: there are a lot of supposed believers who never will reach their potential for goodness, and a lot of non-believers who will. The sincerity exists in both theism and atheism, and is not the property of either.
But you also make the great point that with our knowledge of good and evil come the capacity for guilt and mercy, which appear to be uniquely human. I think that our infant grasp of the knowledge we were given by the fruit is the real problem. I don’t exactly consider it a ‘fall’, per se – more of a ‘begin at the bottom and find our way up’. We are young and naive and we see that we can cause pain in others, but don’t fully accept accountability for that, and at least the story of Adam and Eve acknowledges that.
I think that along with the knowledge of evil came the complicating factor that we can see the evils which are done to us – including unavoidable, natural evils such as death and sickness – and from this stems our terrible capacity to hurt each other. My belief is that all suffering is spawn of suffering; I suppose I subscribe partly to the notion of ‘karma’ in that sense. We hurt, and we don’t know what to do about it, so we make others hurt. We must stop this cycle, by refusing to make others suffer. We must, as a Christian (or, I presume, a Messianic Jew
) would say, seek to forgive in order that we may be forgiven.
I know that in the story of Christ I will find something that really resonates with me – if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t still be reading. I doubt I will ever believe literally in his divinity, or in the existence of a being called ‘God’ in any sense of the word that we mean today. But that doesn’t mean that I shun the Christian message. I only want to stop people from using it as a weapon to push their power-mongering from behind a mask of righteousness. I want to show people that it’s okay to take away what’s good from the message and cast off anything which is not good. I don’t believe, for instance, that the persecution of homosexuals is ‘Godly’ in any good way.
As an aside, I had heard before that chimpanzees commit infanticide when they conduct a very human-looking form of territorial warfare. I think they are less prone to remorse than we humans, which makes it much more animal in their case, but I also think that it goes to show the existence of ‘evil’ (i.e. suffering) far predates humanity’s ‘invention’ of it. There’s a short mention of it by PBS here.
I continue to be very excited about this reading. I look for moments during my day when I can sneak away and read a verse or two on my phone.
I won’t be giving up, I know that for sure. Every day, my excitement grows. I can’t really call it a ‘religious’ experience in the sense that believers mean it, but it’s certainly a growing experience. I enjoy it immensely, and a lot of it is because of the great conversations we’re having along the way. Thanks for your presence and your assistance!
Posted by Robert Moores | 10 July 2012, 9:08 pm