Thoughts on Eden

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For the past few months I've been going to a small Unitarian Universalist church as my primary church. (There's a closer UU congregation than the one I go to, but it's more like a progessive social club than a church to me.) Every month they hold a spirituality meeting in which people get to present their own views on various topics. The next one is a free form one, in which I plan on presenting the following, but I thought I'd get comments from the peanut gallery here.

Note that I consider myself a Christian Universalist these days, but since UU's are not exclusively Christian I don't restrict myself to the Biblical account of Eden below but also include the one from the Qur’an, tho as far as I known we don't have any Muslims attending there.  The last spirituality meeting had people I could safely peg as being Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, shamanic (but not neo-Pagan), and agnostic in their primary religious focus.

As a note, CLF in the essay below stands for Church of the Larger Fellowship, which is a UU organization for those not in easy proximity to a physical UU church.  I don't know why Marsha forwards it us each month rather than simply send us a link, as it's on the web, but it is something that touches on my planned topic that I felt others there might have read so I mentioned it.


Anyway, enough of the preamble.  Here's the essay.  Comments welcome, especially about the ending since it lacks resolution.
I had been thinking about talking on the subject of Eden since shortly after the last meeting. So I panicked a little bit when I saw the piece in the CLF newsletter Marsha forwards us each month. Yet I needn’t have panicked. Charles Blustein Ortman wrote about how he saw the Eden story as a metaphor for mankind leaving a world in which everything was complete for one in which mankind would use his creativity.  My take on Eden isn’t incompatible with his, but mine has a different emphasis.

I see the story of Eden as a tale of morality and love.  Now by morality, I do not mean the Fundamentalist Abrahamic interpretation of the leaving of Eden, which is to some extent echoed in Mr, Ortman’s vision of Eden.  Eden is there viewed as a place of perfection and completion which is marred by the first sin of man, disobedience caused by the lies of Satan. The Qur’an is even more emphatic than the Hebrew Testament about the centrality of disobedience of God and listening to Satan in bringing about the departure from Eden. To quote from Sura 20:116-124:

¹¹⁶ When We said to the angels, "Prostrate yourselves to Adam", they prostrated themselves, but not Iblis: he refused. ¹¹⁷ Then We said: "O Adam! verily, this is an enemy to thee and thy wife: so let him not get you both out of the Garden, so that thou art landed in misery. ¹¹⁸ There is therein (enough provision) for thee not to go hungry nor to go naked, ¹¹⁹ Nor to suffer from thirst, nor from the sun's heat." ¹²⁰ But Satan whispered evil to him: he said, "O Adam! shall I lead thee to the Tree of Eternity and to a kingdom that never decays?" ¹²¹ In the result, they both ate of the tree, and so their nakedness appeared to them: they began to sew together, for their covering, leaves from the Garden: thus did Adam disobey his Lord, and allow himself to be seduced. ¹²² But his Lord chose him (for His Grace): He turned to him, and gave him Guidance. ¹²³ He said: "Get ye down, both of you,- all together, from the Garden, with enmity one to another: but if, as is sure, there comes to you Guidance from Me, whosoever follows My Guidance, will not lose his way, nor fall into misery. ¹²⁴ But whosoever turns away from My Message, verily for him is a life narrowed down, and We shall raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment."

That is surely a stern story, but placing so much focus on the disobedience of God can cause one to lose sight of the effects of that metaphorical fruit which imparted knowledge of good and evil and why God warned mankind against eating it. It is that which I which to talk about tonight.

You may have noticed that I said metaphorical fruit.  My own take on the tale of Eden, indeed of all of Genesis prior to Abraham, is that is purely a myth with no connection to specific events of history.  That doesn’t meant it is without truth or that there is not insight into the human condition to be found within. Quite the contrary.

Imagine what it must have been like for humanity at its dawn as we first became more than simply self-aware.  Think of the challenges that faced mankind as we began to think abstractly for the very first time. In that ancient time, there was no good or evil, things simply were. We drank; we ate; we raised our children; and eventually we died.  Life wasn’t good.  Life wasn’t bad.  Life simply was.  We were a part of the cycle of life and the cycle of life was a part of us.

Imagine if you will how it must have felt like when we first realized that we had free will.  We were not simply automatons following instinct, but we could make choices and life was no longer something we simply experienced, but something we actively participated in.  We were not bound by a predestined fate, but could choose what we would do.  That must have seemed like paradise.  Indeed, for many people today that is the definition of paradise: the freedom to do whatever we choose to do.

Alas, we did not remain in that paradise. We began to realize something. Perhaps God tried to warn us that it would not make us happy if we thought about it.  To warn us that it would be more pleasant if we did not examine too closely the fruits of our choices. Yet we did not.  We listened to Lucifer and sought how to make things better than they were.  How to make things good.  And that was when we realized something profoundly awful.  That implicit in the ability to choose good was the ability to choose evil.

Think of it. How awful it must have been when we first realized that we could be evil. Not only that we could be evil, but sometimes we might want to be evil.  That others might want to do evil unto us.  What had seemed like paradise, the freedom to do whatever we chose to do, was no longer so pleasant as it had been.  We sought protection, as represented by the aprons of fig leaves that Adam and Eve made, from the evils that could be done to us.  Not only that, but we doubted our worthiness to be loved.  Thus we hid from God, for it truly would be less hurtful to us for there to be no God than for there to be a God that loved us not.

But we were wrong. God loved us even despite our capacity to do evil and loves us even now.  God saw that we had left the metaphorical paradise. Thus God provided us guidance as represented by the garments given to Adam and Eve to replace the aprons they had sewn for themselves.  Instead of withdrawing within ourselves to protect themselves from the evils others might do, God gave guidance on how to do good and thereby not only keep us from doing evil ourselves but to remedy the evils others might do.  The cherubim and the flaming sword were not placed at the garden entrance to bar the way to the tree of life, tho it may have seemed that way.  Rather they symbolize the impossibility of us returning to that first paradise because it not possible for us to unpick the fruit, to untaste the sweetness of good mixed with the bitterness of evil, to unswallow the bite of self-knowledge that caused that first paradise when everything was possible to lose its savor.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Very interesting stuff, and insightful. Are you familiar with Dr. Joseph Campbell?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Somewhat.  I have his book The Power of Myth tho it has been a while since I've read it or seen the documentary miniseries it was based on.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well, I've been thinking on it some more, even if presenting it is three weeks away.  Here's version two.  It's a bit more somber than version one, but it also has a definitive ending.
Thoughts on Eden
I had been thinking about talking on the subject of Eden since shortly after the last meeting. So I panicked a little bit when I saw the piece in the CLF newsletter Marsha forwards us each month. Yet I needn’t have panicked. Charles Blustein Ortman wrote about how he saw the Eden story as a metaphor for mankind leaving a world in which everything was complete for one in which mankind would use his creativity. My take on Eden isn’t incompatible with his, but mine has a different emphasis that is somewhat more melancholy.

I see the story of Eden as a tale of morality and love. Now by morality, I do not mean the Fundamentalist Abrahamic interpretation of the leaving of Eden, which is to some extent echoed in Mr, Ortman’s vision of Eden. Eden is there viewed as a place of perfection and completion which is marred by the first sin of man, disobedience caused by the lies of Satan. The Qur’an is even more emphatic than the Hebrew Testament about the centrality of disobedience of God and listening to Satan in bringing about the departure from Eden. To quote from Sura 20:116-124:

116 When We said to the angels, "Prostrate yourselves to Adam", they prostrated themselves, but not Iblis: he refused. 117 Then We said: "O Adam! verily, this is an enemy to thee and thy wife: so let him not get you both out of the Garden, so that thou art landed in misery. 118 There is therein (enough provision) for thee not to go hungry nor to go naked, 119 Nor to suffer from thirst, nor from the sun's heat." 120 But Satan whispered evil to him: he said, "O Adam! shall I lead thee to the Tree of Eternity and to a kingdom that never decays?" 121 In the result, they both ate of the tree, and so their nakedness appeared to them: they began to sew together, for their covering, leaves from the Garden: thus did Adam disobey his Lord, and allow himself to be seduced. 122 But his Lord chose him (for His Grace): He turned to him, and gave him Guidance. 123 He said: "Get ye down, both of you,- all together, from the Garden, with enmity one to another: but if, as is sure, there comes to you Guidance from Me, whosoever follows My Guidance, will not lose his way, nor fall into misery. 124 But whosoever turns away from My Message, verily for him is a life narrowed down, and We shall raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment."

That is surely a stern story, but placing so much focus on the disobedience of man against God can cause one to lose sight of the effects of that metaphorical fruit which imparted knowledge of good and evil and why God warned mankind against eating it. It is that which I intend to talk about tonight.

You may have noticed that I said metaphorical fruit. My own take on the tale of Eden, indeed on all of Genesis prior to Abraham, is that is purely a myth with no connection to specific events of history. That doesn’t mean it is without truth or that there is not insight into the human condition to be found within. Quite the contrary.

Imagine what it must have been like for humanity at its dawn as we first became more than simply self-aware. Think of the challenges that faced mankind as we began to think abstractly for the very first time. In that ancient time, there was no good or evil, things simply were. We were born; we raised our children; and at last we died. Life wasn’t good. Life wasn’t bad. Life simply was. We were a part of the cycle of life and the cycle of life was a part of us as we partook of the fruit of the tree of life.

Imagine if you will how it must have felt like when mankind first realized that we had free will. We were not simply automatons following instinct, but we could make choices. Life was no longer something we simply experienced, but something we actively participated in. We were not bound by a predestined fate, but could choose what we would do. That must have seemed like paradise. Indeed, for many people today that is the definition of paradise: the freedom to do whatever we choose to do.

Alas, we did not remain in that paradise. We began to realize something. Perhaps God tried to warn us that it would not make us happy if we thought about the implications of choice. That it would be more pleasant if we stayed content with the tree of life and did not seek the tree of knowledge. Yet we did not. We listened to Lucifer and sought how to make things better than they were. How to make things good. It was in the seeking out of that knowledge that mankind realized something profoundly awful. That implicit in the ability to choose good was the ability to choose evil.

Think of it. How awful it must have been when humanity first realized that we could be evil. Not only that we could be evil, but sometimes we might want to be evil. That others might want to do evil unto us. What had seemed paradise, the freedom to do whatever we chose to do, was no longer so pleasant as it had been. As represented by the aprons of fig leaves that Adam and Eve made, we sought protection from the evils that could be done to us. We tried to withdraw from the world and hide the shameful knowledge that we could be evil from each other, and to hide the shameful knowledge that we felt shame. Yet that is not all we hid. Because of our capacity for evil, we doubted our worthiness to be loved. Thus we hid from not only each other, but from God, for it truly would be less painful for us for there to be no God at all than for there to be a God that loved us not.

But we were wrong. God loved us even despite our capacity to do evil and God loves us even now. God saw that we had left the metaphorical paradise and that we needed guidance. As represented by the garments of hide given to Adam and Eve in Genesis to replace the aprons of fig leaves, God provided us guidance on how to interact with a world in which evil can exist. Instead of withdrawing within to protect ourselves from the evils others might do, we could engage the world by doing good and thereby not only keep us from doing evil ourselves but to remedy the evils others might do. God provided guidance on how we could overcome our doubts and feel worthy once more of the love of each other and of God.

The cherubim and the flaming sword of Genesis were not placed to bar the way to the tree of life, tho it may have seemed that way for we still yearn for its fruit of innocence now forever lost to us. Rather they symbolize the impossibility of us returning to that paradise. It not possible to unpick the fruit of knowledge, to untaste the sweetness of good mixed with the bitterness of evil, to unswallow the bite of self-knowledge that caused that first paradise when everything was possible to lose its savor. Yet there are those who seek a return to the garden where we were content because we could not imagine how things might possibly be better because we did not see how they could be changed and thus could not worry that they might be worse. At times I wonder if I would return to the garden were that possible, but I never get past wondering for I know it be not possible.

[pbrower2a]

My take:

The Garden of Eden was a short-lived paradise that existed soon after the beginning of the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets when climates were changing. For a short time areas that are now parts of the Sahara or the Arabian Desert had delightful climates -- probably Mediterranean. Fruit and nut trees were plentiful enough to afford food to Man. Not quite fully forested, the paradise made hunting for small-to-medium game easy. There may have been no large, dangerous predators as threats. Flowing water (from a nearby higher elevation?) kept people from getting thirsty. A lake, creek, river, or perhaps a sea made fish easily available. Temperatures were warm enough all year that one could avoid the cold with minimal shelter. As the ice sheets slowly retreated toward the polar regions, so did the rain-bearing westerlies. The "Garden" vanished as the rains retreated northward, and people living there had to move or perish. Or perhaps it was inundated as the seas rose due to the melt of the glaciers.   

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Genesis 2:10–14 describes a river that divides into four rivers, two of which share the names given to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Hebrew. The geography given describes the garden as being situated in the middle of a fertile river delta with four main distributary channels. Whether the rivers bear any actual association to the current day Tigris and Euphrates rivers is fairly immaterial. Though if they do, then those who associate the Gihon of Genesis with the Karun in southwestern Iran are likely correct, and the association of the Pishon of Genesis with the Wadi ar-Rummah of northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is plausible.   However, those four rivers, if they were the four rivers, would be tributaries, not distributaries.

However, as I indicated in my little essay above, the physical location of Eden, if any, is immaterial to the importance of the story.

[anvi]

Nice essay, Ernest.  I wonder if the reason Cathcon mentioned Joseph Campbell above might have been because Campbell emphasized that Satan took the form of a serpent in the Genesis story, and in ancient Mesopotamian myth, the serpent was a symbol of worldly life-death-regeneration, sloughing off its skin and so forth.  So, in Campbell's reading, saying "yes" to the temptation of the serpent was a willful entry of human beings into the world of temporality and death and nature and so forth, as well as a way that human beings, in his words, "became the initiators of their own life."  I think the themes in your essay about the continuance of God's love and choice and so forth still hold up, given the covenant and the law and prophets and all that.  But Campbell's reading adds another fascinating dimension to the story.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Nice essay, Ernest.  I wonder if the reason Cathcon mentioned Joseph Campbell above might have been because Campbell emphasized that Satan took the form of a serpent in the Genesis story, and in ancient Mesopotamian myth, the serpent was a symbol of worldly life-death-regeneration, sloughing off its skin and so forth.  So, in Campbell's reading, saying "yes" to the temptation of the serpent was a willful entry of human beings into the world of temporality and death and nature and so forth, as well as a way that human beings, in his words, "became the initiators of their own life."  I think the themes in your essay about the continuance of God's love and choice and so forth still hold up, given the covenant and the law and prophets and all that.  But Campbell's reading adds another fascinating dimension to the story.

My religion teacher showed us some clips of Joseph Campbell and his emphasis of "truths" in myths that were beyond the physical, literal truth, and Ernest's discussion regarding the real meaning of the story of the Fall of Man reminded me of that. I'm not as deep as you assumed.

My take:

The Garden of Eden was a short-lived paradise that existed soon after the beginning of the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets when climates were changing. For a short time areas that are now parts of the Sahara or the Arabian Desert had delightful climates -- probably Mediterranean. Fruit and nut trees were plentiful enough to afford food to Man. Not quite fully forested, the paradise made hunting for small-to-medium game easy. There may have been no large, dangerous predators as threats. Flowing water (from a nearby higher elevation?) kept people from getting thirsty. A lake, creek, river, or perhaps a sea made fish easily available. Temperatures were warm enough all year that one could avoid the cold with minimal shelter. As the ice sheets slowly retreated toward the polar regions, so did the rain-bearing westerlies. The "Garden" vanished as the rains retreated northward, and people living there had to move or perish. Or perhaps it was inundated as the seas rose due to the melt of the glaciers.   

And I hadn't heard this theory before, not even from religion class discussions and I thought for sure that if it were out there my weird teacher would've brought it up. I'd been assuming for a while that the very idea of an Eden was more metaphorical/imagined and hadn't considered that the end of the Ice Age might bring its own "paradise" even to the desert. Interesting. Wonder how that would line up with Man's own coming of age that Ernest was discussing.

[barfbag]

Very interesting stuff, and insightful. Are you familiar with Dr. Joseph Campbell?

I remember the name from college. Can you please refresh me?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

As I understand it, Paul took the Biblical account of Eden literally in Romans, and since he'd been a Pharisee and knew the Old Testament better than almost anybody, I think it's safe to assume it was literal.  That's not to say those who disagree with me are wrong, just that it's how I feel.  While the Bible never actually says that the serpent was Satan, Satan is described in Revelation as "that old serpent."  It's clear that, at the very least, the serpent was under Satan's control because it told Adam and Eve to do something that would disobey God.  Some in my church have suggested that Eve was alone when the serpent talked to her, and that Adam simply went along because he didn't want to keep living after she died from eating the fruit.  I don't necessarily agree or disagree with this, but I can certainly understand this theory. 
Also, Genesis describes all the animals, including humans, as being originally designed as vegetarians, and I have to believe that some of these species "evolved" (simply meaning changed and adapted) to eat meat after Adam and Eve fell and also after the Flood.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Very interesting stuff, and insightful. Are you familiar with Dr. Joseph Campbell?

I remember the name from college. Can you please refresh me?

Some philosopher type dawg. My religion teacher showed us a couple of videos with him in it. He was focused a lot on his definition of "myth", the common strains across different religions, and the lessons they were meant to teach us when interpreted non-literally. I can't remember many specifics, but he drew out someting called the "hero's quest" that Star Wars along with a number of myths are based on. You could, with interpretation, say Lord of the Rings follows the same model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Actually if you read the account in Genesis, it is not the case that in the story that Eve ate and then took the fruit to Adam and bade him eat.  Indeed, it is quite clear she gathered the fruit and then ate it in his presence.  Indeed, one has to infer that the word order is significant to assume that Eve ate first instead of them eating the fruit together. Both fit the literal text.

Indeed, I can't see Eve choosing to offer the fruit to Adam once her eyes had been opened to the concepts of good and evil.  (Or rather if she had so chosen, it hard to understand why she would seek to hide the fact they had eaten it from God.)  Hence even if Eve ate first, the full effects must not have become apparent before Adam ate.

[afleitch]

Even as a metaphor, the story of Eden is one that doesn’t necessarily encapsulate the human experience. There is no definitive moment in our evolutionary history at which man, or specifically ‘a man’ became the first self aware of his kind as self awareness is progressive. Even if there was a specific plateau that mankind collectively reached in which we could now define ‘man A’ as being fully self aware and ‘man B’ as being not self aware, then ‘man B’ never reached self awareness so knew no different and ‘man A’  never knew any ‘ignorance’ and so also knew no different.  I would argue that mankind is essentially still ‘automatons’; we have an evolved sense of the world that is advantageous to us, but the same is true of the fruit fly or the dolphin. We see ourselves as the pinnacle of nature because we set the standards. That is evident in the Genesis story. We still see ourselves in this world as the pinnacle even though we are consciously aware that there are billions of habitable planets and moons in our galaxy alone and that the probability of life that would consider itself to be higher than we is fairly high.

‘Good’ and ‘evil’ are arbitrary. They always have been. Why? Because humans set the standards of what is moral. Now much of what is moral is universal because it is entirely advantageous to us for it to be. We consider it morally wrong to kill (with caveats of course) because we would not function as a society if that was the case. Humans are social animals. Social animals from us, to lions, to geese don’t kill for the sake of it. They kill others of their own kind as we do; for territory, for competition over resources, for self defense, for the defense of infants and over ‘property’ including sexual mates.
Regardless of how sentient we are ‘good and evil’ has always been with us. We cannot assume that we have a more evolved notion that ‘killing is wrong’ when other animals seem to make the same subconscious choice not to kill. Therefore the idea that there was ever a time when we were not aware and simply ‘did’ is not borne out by the human experience. You do not spend your existence willfully ensuring that everything you do is good. You do not agree in your mind, in the space between every heartbeat, that killing is wrong in order not to do it. For the same reasons you don’t think about breathing or think about your heart beating. Humans (and the Humanist in me is speaking here) are naturally ‘good’ by the standards set by ourselves which tend to sit neatly with what is an evolutionary advantage to us (with the curious exception of the sociopath) Our capacity and our ability to learn and empathise with others moderates and tempers our morality. At the same time however, established human society in which power and influence can now be exerted much wider than the immediate family circle has led to innovative ways in which do things which we would consider ‘morally wrong’; that however is also relative to our experience. We can make bombs but we can also build hospitals. Life comes with more and more choices and more and more caveats but you’d be surprised how often people tend to do the good thing even faced with more ‘choices’ than they had to make a year ago. It takes up the same time and cognitive ability today as it did 100,000 years ago when you had far less choices to make. It’s a wonderful progression and it has given us time to rest and think and reason and ponder.

[barfbag]

Eden was not a real place, but a symbol for where the first humans lived in reference to our relationship with El. If you notice, Genesis 2 is in contrast to Genesis 1. There were two accounts of creation because the J narrative of Genesis 2 was disputed by northern Israelites. In the 6th century BCE, the priests made a P narrative also known as the priestly account. Now everything was in harmony. Notice how the first and fourth day deal with the sky and atmosphere, the second and fifth day deal with the sea and sea life. The third and sixth days deal with life. You can look at the story from the serpent's point of view too. Many Gnostics believed that Satan was the good side of the story for offering humankind knowledge from good and evil while El kept us in the dark. Eve simply means mother of all living or more literally that which was before. Adam translates to Adamah which means mankind. They were never to be thought of as a real place we can get to. Eventually it came to be associated with God's Kingdom or Israel because the Jews believed they were Yahweh's chosen people. I wish I could get into my Word documents and paste some of my college papers. I have them in my e-mail in case I need to get a new laptop.