Musings on the Bible 1
Book of Genesis, ch 3:1-7; (serpent story) But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evilI thought, until the moment when woman decided to try the fruit, woman and man only knew "good". Everything in creation was approved of and was
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It's like the snake was the other friendly soul who sacrificed its own purity so the little soul (man and woman) would have something to compare themselves with. The "bad" that's needed to compare the "good" with and give it meaning.
But yeah, I know what you're on about. "Going out on a limb" is pretty much what I've done by moving to England without a fixed plan. And yea, trial and error and all that. I really feel like the little soul, or Eve or even the snake at times. I think one needs to be all three: the whole, the good aspect ànd the bad aspect, in order to be truly alive. I never forgot who I am inside though.
Also, something else just came to me while writing the previous paragraph XD
"I think ONE needs to be blablabla". ..instead of saying "I think WE need to blablabla". ..so WE = ONE, even in the English language! (Doesn't work in Dutch, fyi XD)
Ok, uh, oh yes, Eden. I think Eden (or at least its aspects like beauty, love, peace, contentment, truth, singularity..) was the Bible writers' idea of paradise: that which was before all that was came to be. Because they had no idea what that looked like, they went back to what they thought of as the most beautiful physical thing: nature.
With this, I end this little novel XD
I've noticed that as I grew spiritually, I started writing more and longer pieces of text.
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I think that perhaps Eden was like a state of mind, and not really an actual physical location. Like that long ago, maybe there was a beautiful place near where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet, and now the geography has changed some. But the idea of "Eden" and paradise sounds like a state of mind to me, becuase by knowing defiance, taking a risk, doing something independently, you can then question anything and everything at anytime, and paradise is "lost". Suddenly people realize they're naked and cold, suddenly they realize that their bodies aren't physically created to have normal painless births, suddenly they realize all sorts of things and the pandora's box is opened, one thing leads to another, eventually people have reasons to want to deceive and kill each other (Cane and Abel story). But that doesn't mean that paradise itself has been lost, it only means that we've developed an awareness that is independent and growing. It's a good thing! We can then create our own paradise and appreciate what we have, because we know the difference.
Like Noah or Abraham wouldn't be so revered as faithful good men unless there were unfaithful bad men to compare to.
I think maybe God wanted man/woman/serpent to take of the fruit of the forbidden tree, knowing that by singling out this tree, the mind would beg to wonder about it, eventually. It was only a matter of time and that it was all according to plan.
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..if you don't want me to eat it, don't fucking leave it out like that XD
God's the "father of all", so it's kinda duh that the children ate the cake/apple. It's like handing a dog a cookie and then scolding it for eating the cookie. God intended for the snake to tempt Eve, and for her to tempt Adam. This reminds me of CwG again. "There you go again, making me not responsible." -Ellen Burnstyn, as God.
It's kinda interesting: it wasn't man's fault, he was tempted by woman, who was tempted by the Serpent. It's like.. they want to blame God for leaving the cake out, but they were afraid of God so they invented the Serpent to blame. I mean, before that episode, they loved God, and after it they suddenly feared him because their consciousness was kicked into life.
Finally they could experience love, for now there was something to compare it with: fear. A small price to pay, I feel. I felt that SO strongly when I came out of that depression I had about 2 years ago. All the misery I'd been feeling made every tiny positive thing feel like a gallon of chocolate sauce XD
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But yeah, the way I feel about the Bible is that the whole idea of blaming another and being tempted by another, was something that people made up in a failed attempt at interpreting the real point of the story. For the first time God was angry at them too. If they knew nothing but perfection, they'd have no idea what anger even was. I think the idea of eating the forbidden fruit was either intended by God, or a fluke because mankind was created in the image of the gods, thus having free will and a curious mind as part of that. Though really, God having created everything perfect and available to all things and then going "..but not this one", already sets in the factor of something to compare.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I don't think temptation was a factor at all, like temptation kind of assumes there's ill will involved and I don't think there was any.
Even when God got angry and said basically "Serpents crawl and writhe around on their bellies! Women have painful pregnancies and are weaker than men! Men have to work hard for us all because of their strength!" Like, he didn't change the structures of serpents or women or men, I think he was just stating the obvious - like not getting angry, and perhaps not even yelling, because we know sometimes God's voice comes to us through our own epiphanies! Like now that their awareness was heightened, knowing "other than perfection", they were aware of other undesirable qualities of themselves. Oh, snakes have no limbs, how pitiful! Even though all other mammals are quadrupeds and give birth quickly and relatively painlessly, humans are bipeds and have small birth canals, and also have larger skulls than any other animal! Women would go through extreme pain and might even die in childbirth because of our physical design! Men are physically stronger than women and can easier overbear them, but at the same time they can last longer in the fields and so they would toil for the sake of society.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in fact, God didn't actually shout that out to them as a curse in anger, but more like suddenly they were extremely aware of less-than-perfect in every aspect of their lives.
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