The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

Let me admit again I am by no definition a biblical scholar, or any other kind of expert on religion.  The bible may or may not be the word of God, as far as this study is  concerned. However, it contains a story of creation, in some respects much like other stories of creation. What we should remember as we read it is the context within which the telling of it was conceived. There are two choices: it is the word of God, or it is not. If it is not the word of God, we again have two choices. Either someone was present at the creation, or someone made the story up. If it  is the word of God, verbatim, then the story is of course true as written. If the story was made up (I tend to believe no one else was present at the creation) then it could have been written as a parable, and may also contain anecdotal facts.

Whatever you choose to believe, the fact is the creation sequence in Genesis has been an important part of the Judeo-Christian religion for thousands of years. Which in itself is remarkable, since in many ways it’s just another “god made the world and made man and woman” story. What has made it so important, of course, is the “forbidden tree” section, which has spawned countless interpretations, including the concept of “original sin.” It has also spawned this study.

God told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil on pain of death. Let’s talk about that, too, for a minute. God made man, then God made woman. At one point in time, I wondered if the tree of knowledge and of good and evil was an allegory representing the carnal knowledge of man and woman, pregnancy, and birth. Thinking He had made a couple of humans in His (our) likeness and that was plenty unless he decided to make some more. But that was pretty well quashed when He said “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

So how would they do that without sexual intercourse and pregnancy and birth? Well, they wouldn’t. But after they eat “the apple” He says to Eve “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” So evidently intercourse, pregnancy, and birth was the plan all along; He’s just going to make it an unhappy event as punishment.

No, I don’t understand all that, either.

Anyway, God made man and woman, and the snake came along, and the rest is history. Voila! Original sin. But what actually was the sin? Disobedience? Nope. Hubris? Nope. It would be a petty god indeed who doomed mankind forever for such venialities. In fact, it was not a sin at all. It was an act that had almost nothing to do with God, or the serpent, or any petty (or even egregious) wrong.

God wanted Adam to continue in His image. That requires purity of thought, purity of emotion, purity of soul. It also requires the absence of knowledge, the suspension of conventional reality. “Mar 10:15  Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein.”

By “eating” the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve brought mortality into their souls. Not just the fact of death, but a completely new perspective – that reality was only what you could touch and feel: the “reality” that keeps us from believing in God and that we are God’s creations, and therefore godlike ourselves. The only “sin” they committed (except for the obvious disobedience and lack of gratitude) was that they were henceforth barred from full exercise of their spiritual powers.

Gen 3:16 (and forward)  “Unto the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’  And unto Adam he said, ‘Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’”

This was not punishment; it was simple fact. God obviously knew that by diminution or complete absence of their godly powers, Adam and Eve and all their descendants were going to have a tough time in the world.

So what was Adam and Eve’s sin? Let’s see how their actions fit the traditional “seven deadly sins.”

Wrath? Obviously not. They weren’t “mad” at anyone. Wrath is described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. In its purest form, it involves self-destructiveness, violence, and hate. I read none of these feelings in the story of Adam and Eve except, perhaps, where the serpent is involved.

Greed? This would probably be the closest description of their “sin.”  The Catholic church defines greed as  “a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.” The serpent tempted them with the promise that they would “be as gods,” so the greed definition seems to fit. The problem is, they were already “as gods.” They were immortal, and had been given “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” What more could they want? The serpent explained “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.” (Some translations use the noun “angels” instead of “God.”

This is enormously interesting. God created two sentient beings, at least one of whom was intelligent enough to name all the plants and animals of the newly created world, and who was given dominion over all of them. Which is secularly defined as “control or the exercise of control; sovereignty.”

Biblical scholar and essayist Theodore Hiebert says this: “The inescapable fact about the biblical term “dominion,” from the Hebrew verb radah, is that it grants humans the right and responsibility to rule, to govern the rest of creation. It establishes a hierarchy of power and authority in which the human race is positioned above the rest of the natural world. Such a conclusion is clear from the use of radah elsewhere in the Old Testament, where it is employed for the rule of the head of the house over household servants (Lev. 25:43) and of Solomon’s officers over his conscripted labor force (1 Kings 5:16 [Hebrew, 1 Kings 5:30]). On the international scene, radah is used for the rule of Israel’s king over Israel’s enemies (1 Kings 4:24 [Hebrew, 1 Kings 5:4]), or for the rule of Israel’s enemies over Israel itself (Lev. 26:17). In all cases, radah signifies the power, control, and authority of one individual or group over another.”

It is inconceivable to imagine someone receiving “dominion” over all things without some kind of concept of good and evil, or what’s right from what’s wrong. Perhaps a better definition of the nouns used by the serpent would be “happiness” and “sadness,” or “pleasure” and “misery.” Note the serpent doesn’t say “you will know good from evil;” he said “you will know good and evil.”

Being newly formed, it’s quite possible Adam and Eve’s elevators didn’t go all the way up to the top floor, but you’d think any simpleton would turn down an offer like that, because all they currently know is good. Why bring evil, or misery, or sadness into the picture? I’m certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m pretty sure I would have said “thanks, Mr. Serpent, but no thanks. I’ve got it pretty good here, and I don’t need any pain, misery, death, or sadness in my life.” So greed doesn’t really seem to work. Unless he said “you will be God,” he’s offering an empty promise.

Sloth? Doesn’t appear to be true. After all, Adam named all the beasts, and fowl – not a small job in itself – and evidently took care of the “garden,” since that was his job: to “dress it and keep it” – another pretty big job. Since we have no evidence that he did not do it properly, we must assume he was not slothful.

Pride? Many have used pride and envy as the basis for Adam and Eve’s actions, but it simply doesn’t hold up, for much the same reasons that greed doesn’t hold up. And gluttony isn’t even in the picture. Oh, I suppose you could make a case for Eve wanting to be on the same level as God, envious of His powers, etc. But that’s actually irrelevant to the fundamental truth in the story. In fact, it is a parable, but as far as I know, no one has discerned the true meaning of it. Many do believe, however, that this was the sin – the original sin – that Jesus came to absolve us from. Which never really made sense to me.

I could never believe in a god who made two creatures in His likeness, and gave them dominion over the entire world in which they lived, with only one rule – which he knew they were going to break – so he could damn them for an eternity to mortality, sickness, and chaos. Then he spends the next few thousand years intermittently torturing them, saving them, killing them, rescuing them, then has a sudden change of heart and sends his only son among them to absolve them from whatever the sin was the two progenitors committed, knowing he will be tortured and killed. From fairly neutral god (in genesis) to vengeful god, to loving god. I simply never understood it.

So here’s the truth of it. Whatever “sin” made Eve eat the apple was only, as Alfred Hitchcock used to say, the McGuffin – the thing that captures and keeps our attention while important things are going on in other areas.

What made Adam and Eve do what they did is not nearly as important as what they did, and what followed from that act, which also explains the appearance and importance of Jesus. Because their “sin” was separating themselves from their higher power. Embracing the belief that only the things we can prove are real. That our five senses are the limits of our world. That god was inaccessible, if not unreal. In other words, they chose materialism rather than spiritualism. The apple was merely an earthly symbol of their choice.

In other words, instead of moving up to his level by “becoming as gods,” as the serpent promised, they turned the phrase around, and brought god down to their level. Eve allowed the serpent to diminish the distinction between God and humanity so she could be tempted to eat the fruit.  She would never have disobeyed GOD. But disobeying “someone who was her equal” was not such a big deal. So instead of trying to make themselves gods, their “sin” turns out to be just the opposite – humanizing God, and thereby shutting the door on him and on their own unearthly powers.

God didn’t kick them out of the “garden;” they walked out. If I were god, this would make me unhappy – to see the creatures I made turn their backs on me. But of course I’m not god. It must have had some effect, however, because the next few thousand years appears to be the source of fire and brimstone, with those who disobey him (and sometimes those that don’t) receiving terrible punishment. He is, as Adam and Eve came to believe, a separate, authoritarian, fearsome god with more cruelty than love in him.

Occasionally, as we’ve said, someone would believe in god so intensely that he was able to work miracles. Maybe. Or maybe God worked them. Maybe those stories are anecdotal, too, intended to tell us that with a connection to our extrasensory powers we can do extraordinary things.

Then Jesus appears. And what is his message? That we are divine creatures, capable of performing miracles. And of course he gives us proof: turning water into wine, healing the sick, raising the dead, and the ultimate proof: his own immortality.

So Jesus is, in effect, our connection with our higher power. And sin, in Jesus’ mind, is separation from that power.

John the Baptist said “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” Note John used the singular: sin. Not sins. Jesus came to revive our spirituality, to make us believe all things are possible, to re-instill in us the knowledge that we were made “in the image and likeness” of God. He came to re-birth us, because in order to be all that we can be, we must “be born again.”

God said to Adam and Eve, in effect: “Don’t stop believing in your godliness.”

Jesus said to us, in effect: “Start believing in your godliness.”

Why hasn’t anyone (to my knowledge) brought this to light until now? Probably because it’s too subtle, and we get too caught up in the religious inference – kingdom of god, heaven, hell, sin, etc. Or maybe I just haven’t read enough commentary.

But this is not about religion; it’s about enlightenment. You’re certainly free to believe in God or not, afterlife or not, sin or not, guilt or not. Those beliefs are irrelevant to the concept of self-actualization, as Goldenstein (and later Maslow) labeled it. Or as a past Army commercial encouraged you – to “be all that you can be.”

Religion and God are not a necessary part of the equation. They are, however, handholds many have used on their way to achieving this fully developed state, Jesus being the most outstanding example. Jesus told us “All these things that I do ye shall do also, and greater things.”

“Whatever you wish, ask it in my name, and you shall receive it,” he told us. He reminded us many times that we are “children of God,” capable of performing miracles. He showed us by his miracles what we might achieve through faith. He made a handhold of himself, and of His Father, that we might pull ourselves out of our assumed mortality and become as gods again.

Really? We can work miracles? Us ordinary people? Well, Jesus evidently said so, and strangely enough, so does quantum physics. We’ll look into that a little later.

By the way, here’s another, sartorial question.

In Genesis, the Bible says (Gen 3:8,9,10, and 11): “Late in the afternoon a breeze began to blow, and the man and woman heard the LORD God walking in the garden. They were frightened and hid behind some trees. The LORD called out to the man and asked, ‘Where are you?’ The man answered, ‘I was naked, and when I heard you walking through the garden, I was frightened and hid!’  ‘How did you know you were naked?’” God asked.

Okay, here’s my question.

So God was walking in the garden, came upon Adam and Eve, and discovered they were naked. My question is “What was God wearing?” Either He was covered or He wasn’t. If he was, then it would have been no problem for Adam and Eve to also be covered. So obviously God was naked, unless He had made it clear that it was appropriate for Him, being God, to be covered, but inappropriate for Adam and Eve, his creations. But the Bible doesn’t say that. It’s my guess the authors didn’t think of that niggling problem, or thought it would never come up, because no one reading the Bible would ever imagine that God was walking through the garden naked.