Adam and Eve Interpretation Part 2


It all began with "Eve," the one wily female that has become emblematic of the tempter and seducer of fragile men. Men are viewed from this wrongful Christian interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth as being victims of the enigmatic strength of women. Strangely, this depiction empowers women even if the depiction of Eve as a femme fa-tale figure is primarily viewed as an insidious model.

At the core of the Christian heart lies a great masculine fear of uncontrollable lust and desire. The contents of Augustine's "Confessions," is an elaborate prayer to God to help defeat the sinister, unappeasable  hunger for lust. Soon enough Augustine realizes that women are blameworthy for this lust. Instead of being emboldened by a true realization of his internal sin, Augustine realizes he can craft women into the perfect scapegoat.

Interestingly, Adam does an identical thing when he blames Eve's craftiness for eating the apple of the Tree of Good and Evil. While some Christians think in a linear fashion and therefore think that an apple carries the potential to bring about the fall of the world. Both Adam and Eve may be utilizing the apple as a scapegoat for a symbolic sin. Could Eve have had an adulterous relationship with the snake who Christians view as Satan, While Jews interestingly view as nothing but a stand-in for some force of evil, many Christians have now led us to believe that the Jews were unconsciously writing about the medieval figure of "Satan." (Though they know subconsciously that their interpretations are erroneous, they still "tempt" their minds to feel obligated to believe in the false literal interpretation in order to earn their ID God's acceptance)


More than likely, there are different underpinnings to this myth. Religious scholars who have no affiliation with any one religion always remark that the most accurate interpretations of Biblical myths originate from the Jewish faith. Christian theologians often make the mistake of viewing Christianity arrogantly. Thus, when they read through the Bible, they think of the Christian revisionist view as being highly superior. In result, the Adam and Eve story becomes more proof of the disreputableness of  women and the wrongful idea that they are solely culpable for unleashing good and evil in the world.

The Jewish depiction instead describes the Adam and Eve story as metaphorically standing for being in refined kinship with God. The fall of humanity never truly happened as some unprecedented event in the history of the realistic world. It is nothing but a mythic way of describing ideal wholeness when we are not dwelling within our reality. Actually, the whole Adam and Eve story is like a reverie of being unionized with nature and the ineffable sense of God. That reverie though is dispersed when we are awake and are dismayed to discover that reality involves some polarization within ourselves which we mythically depict as forces of good or evil. Then again, as we have uncovered more information about ourselves, we are becoming overstimulated to the point where these things appear as ambiguous. Thus, a religious structure helps us to regain the illusion of simplified morals. It helps us to imagine that we are inherently simplistic to the point where we either obey our religious structures or the anarchy of our consciences.

Eve is left with that choice when beholding the apple of the core of her "superego." She must decide whether or not she wants to follow the traditional rules of gender imposed on her by a patriarchal religion. Or, she wants to explore and then learn through trial and process about the complexity of the  facets of this universe. Christians weirdly view Eve's choice to follow her own conscience as an emasculation process where Adam follows the whims of her wife rather than his superior masculine ego. With this interpretation, women would be deprived of individual rights and a sense of humanity within the world of Christendom.

With the Jewish interpretation, they do not bother deluding themselves with the superficial literalism of Christianity. Instead, they do not put much emphasis on the idea of gender when it comes to who is to blame for bringing the destruction of the world. It is merely a allegorical tale of divorce from our ideal dream of a world where our maker is tangible, rather than intangible. Also, there is oneness within everything. We are in communion with nature or the sense of God. In this dream of ours, we are separated from the social constructs of gender, religion, and other things that we insist upon having to distract us from the overbearing sense of nihilism within the inexplicable world of our universe and individual existence.

In the end, the Adam and Eve story is not the fallacious scientific account of the probable creation of the world. God does not conjure things like a wizard within a fairly tale. JRR Tolkien's Simarillion  reflects the artistry of the creation account. JRR Tolkien does not disrespectfully make the Christian creation story become devoid of mystery or artfulness. Instead, he composes it into a evocative song that conveys to us the mysterious language of God being "art." Art has been unable to be explained within human language which is linear. Art instead is nonlinear and therefore requires careful examination. Perhaps, JRR Tolkien might have believed that the idea of the Bible being divinely inspired was not the foolish idea of some Christians that some tangible, curmudgeonly God spoke for a week to the prophets while they miraculously neglected using the bathroom or eating just to write down every word of the Bible.

No, the creation of the Bible came through the necessity of humans to try to explicate a God that no one has a clear idea of. Only their dreams and visions that are summoned from their imaginations can weave some sort of mythic tome that provides a collection of parables that were never meant to literally speak of religious truths. Instead, they were the equivalent to the Greek myths in that they provided an imaginary history that cohesively reflects our futile search for meaning within an overwhelming universe where God infinitely appears nonexistent. When Christians impose literal interpretations on text that was written as a story of the imagined world of the metaphysical, they are artlessly denying people the privilege to freely engage in the universal spiritual search for meaning. Also, they are being very disrespectful of the history of Jewish tradition that surrounds the Bible. More often than not, they forget that originally that the Old Testament was meant as the mythical history of the Jewish people. Judaism did not exist just to later serve Christianity in providing text that would be completely revised. In many ways, Christians are anachronistic when they read the Old Testament and that is the next area of discussion I'll be delving into with my next post.