Not a happily ever after...

A note of caution: This is a LONGGGGG post...Reading this post may cause discomfort, frustration and boredom....after all it is not being considered a juicy subject...it is just about our creation....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once upon a time there was a man – which apparently was unbelievably clueless and gullible- and there was a woman which came from the man’s rib and was very naughty…and there was a serpent that carried the mission of seducing the woman…and then the woman obviously in her naughtiness seduced the man…and the little gullible man listened to her and they both ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge that made them be aware that they are naked head to toe…and right then and there the SHAME was born….OH THE SHAME!!!

Then the man, the woman, all their children and the children of their children and so on, and of course the serpent for that matter, were condemned to doom and gloom…

Well that is really the gist of the story…that is what became the basis for so many blames that was upon the women through the generation, that is the foundation for why the human race has to go through hell all the time and this whole little not so happy ending story is why we are plagued with death and disease…one should wonder that for people that ate the fruit of tree of KNOWLEDEG, our race ended up being more clueless than before, more dumb than ever…

This little “not so much fairy tale story” always tempted me…I never forgot the “condemned” look that I got from my religious teacher when I asked her why we are not celebrating Eve? Didn’t she show enormous amount of courage? She was a curious woman and pushed the boundary and wanted to KNOW…so what is so sinful about it?
Well I think that day I also learned how to censure myself from that moment on….Another grate religious lesson….

Years passed by, I became the student of mythology and through that I came to encounter the “Goddess” worship in the history of humanity…the worship of “Mother”... and then I started to learn how "all" got twisted…Some where along the road mother became this evil force that could be seductive, destructive and easily tempted and father became the poor little man that was just listened to his little wife and was mislead….It is amazing how our “Goddess” worshiper race suddenly became such a patriarchal beings….

Well you can read this little story in very well known resources. After all, all three “holy” books talk about it. They refer to this little “happy couple” as “Adam and Eve”…You can find their not happily ever after life in the Torah, the Bible and the Quran.

If one really is into researching, he or she can find so many references in Genesis, the Talmud, and Gnostic texts. Jewish tradition sometimes has some references to other wives of Adam’s. But Eve is the heroin of this glorious story!!!!

Among all the monotheism religion, Islam is the only one that regards Adam as “the first prophet” for the rest, Adam is just the man…the first father….

But the main gist of the “story” is the same…poor Adam, naughty Eve, the blissful garden of Eden, the serpent and the fall…oh the fall…the eating of the forbidden fruit.

In so many sculptures and paintings, you can even find the Edenic serpent being pictured as a “woman” and sometimes being referred to as “Lilith” (Hebrew לילית).

For me the most interesting one of these art works is the sculpture of Adam and Eve and the very visible (female) serpent at the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It is truly a work of art and a work of “MAN’s” perception….but I am getting ahead of myself here….

The interpretation of the Female Edonic Serpent refers to the seductive nature of that particular serpent (seductive and logically should be more feminine!!!) as well as emphasizing on its relationship to Eve.

In Jewish tradition they even take it one step ahead and interpret that Hebrew word of “Heva” is not only the name of Eve, but in its aspirated form is a female serpent.

In Islam there is not any direct reference of Eve’s creation, it is not recounted in the Quran. Some Islamic philosopher talked the biblical tale of her creation, that she was named because she was created from a living thing (her name means living).

The Torah gives an etymology for woman, or rather the Hebrew equivalent (ish-shah), stating that she should be called woman since she was taken out of man (ish in Hebrew).

In Christianity the story of Adam and Eve had the major impact and became the basis of the doctrine of “Original Sin”. Saint Paul even talks about the fact that “death” is the result of “that” sin which “that” one man committed “and so death spread to all men because all men sinned,"…. (and don’t ask me how this generalization should happen…one man sinned and therefore all of us did / do / will be held accountable…whatever!!!)….

Even the origin of Baptism is thanks to our little story of Adam and Eve…as a mean to “wash away” the “stain of the hereditary sin”…In all accuracy the whole idea of “Original sin” is no where to be found in either old or new Testament.

Although both of them very frequently talk about the sinfulness of humans but neither talk about “original sin” and even “ancestral sin”. This whole idea – like many others “doctrine” in the Christianity – is there thanks to the “Paul the apostle”!!!!!!!!!!!

The Quran blames both Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and as a punishment they were both banished from Heaven to the Earth and were forgiven after…and because they got the punishment for it there is no ancestral sin.

Interestingly (and surprisingly) Muslims interpret that this even does not pose a problem of women inferiority to men. The concept of “Original Sin” doesn't even exist in Islam. But again there is so many “equivalent” to “Paul the apostle”…the ones that became more Muslim than the original Islam (so to say) and thanks to all those gentlemen (and all of them are gentlemen) we have a lot of blame on female gender….

The whole idea of Eve coming from “the rib” is specifically comes from Jewish tradition. According to the Torah God is described as causing a deep sleep upon Adam and then removing part of his body -usually this part Is being interpreted as a rib though in all accuracy the literal translation is non-specific, referring to "side".

I have to add this here that in another Jewish tradition God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite and in this way the “human” was bodily and spiritually male and female both at the same time. God later decided that "it is not good for Adam to be alone", and therefore created the separate beings of Adam and Eve…somehow the whole idea of two people, from two separate spirit and body joining together to achieve a completion can be trace back to this one….You know what I mean: YOU COMLETE ME!

And then we have the FALL OF MAN…or what is simply being stated as “THE FALL”:

In Genesis, the first book of the Jewish and Christian bibles, God creates Adam and Eve... God forbids Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden and God directly forbade Adam to eat from it and Eve at that time has not been created.

Life apparently going on blissfully in the Garden and I can imagine how bored Mamma Eve was. So….One day…

A serpent persuades Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve tempts and seduces Adam to share the fruit with her AND they immediately become ashamed of their nakedness….Actually that is the ONLY DIRECT result of eating the fruit of "knowledge" tree…makes one wonder: Ummmm the only knowledge in life is related to “nakedness”??? WOWWWWWWWW

Well what comes after that is very interesting.

The short version of the ending is that the couple and all their children and the children of their children were banished from the Garden. Apparently the whole reason for banishing them from the Garden and sent them to the Exile of hostile Earth, was to deny them access to the Tree of life (and, hence, immortality). So one can see where the theology got the idea that the death and disease is part of the punishment.

The detailed version of what comes after is little bit more interesting:

To the serpent God said: you did this and because of that you are cursed among all animals and wild creature. You shall be always on your belly and eat dust…and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers

To the women God said: I greatly increase your pangs in childbearing. In pain you shall bring children and your husband shall rule over you and yet your desire shall be for him.
[Did anyone out there is starting to get some feeling of conspiracy theory here? I mean some how this can be a classic case of abuse]

And to the man God said: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife [Do you get this part? The man is apparently so dumb that only listened blind fully to the voice of little wife], and have eaten of the tree, curse will be upon the ground because of your sin [and this part for the life of me, I never got!!!!!].

The ground shall bring thorn and thistles for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground… you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Considering that “the ground” is actually the “mother earth” and is the domain of the “Goddess” from the start of time with cave men AND having in mind that Goddess, the mother, was responsible to give blessings to “earth / ground” in order for any agriculture purpose, this whole little twist of punishment is even more interesting to read. So Agriculture "by the sweat of [their] brow” is a punishment….

Actually this whole “earth becoming part of the punishment” for the couple is also stated in Quran. But in actual text it does not says that first Eve got mislead, then Adam. It says: Iblis (Satan) misled Adam and his wife Eve to eat from a tree that was forbidden for them by God. Due to their disobedience, God ordered the removal of Adam and Eve out of paradise and down to earth. God promised that “the earth will be a dwelling place” for them and their children for a limited time (Until the Day of Judgment)….and it goes and says: If men and women obey God, they will lead a successful life on earth and be admitted into paradise as a reward.

I was fasinated when I found out that similar trees appear in other religions. The most relevant comparison of all is the iconic image of the tree “guarded” by the serpent which appears on Sumerian seals. The tree is the central feature of the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology where again the GUARDIAN serpent has the name Ladon. In Buddhism,the Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree.

And the most interesting link…the biblical tree is usually interpreted as representing sensual pleasure, other references to THE TREE in mythology and other poly theist religions talk about pure transcendent knowledge when there is a refrence to THE TERE.

In Hinduism, the Tree of Jiva and Atman is usually interpreted as a metaphor (yes you read it correctly: A MEAPHORE) concerning the soul, mind, and body.
There are a group of scholars in Christianity that do believe the Bible is filled with parables and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is actually a library or some other form of educational writings.

So somehow this little story became the base for knowledge, morality, judgment, shame, guilt and eternal stain on human race…. And then it starts: the war between him and her….

For me, this little story represents a very powerful woman. A woman in search of “wisdom”… a wisdom that had nothing to do with knowledge of nakedness…she wanted to know, to find out possibly what so many of us want to understand one day… that who are we? What are we suppose to do? Why are we alive? Is there ANY purpose, any dream, any responsibility toward ourselves and others we have to fulfill?

She pushed the limit…Did the punishment fit the crime?…well I am not sure she was punished. I think “men” punished her….is punishing her…the same way that wise women was burned on the fire for being wise, for being different, for being unique and daring…for being so much wiser than men….

I truly don’t have anything against wise men. I am a daughter to a wise father; a wife, lover and best friend to a wise husband; and above all I am a mother to an innocent boy which I hope one day becomes a very wise man….so I love, cherish and admire this creatures with Y chromosome. I just have to laugh when with these “stories”, with this wrong interpretation of myths, they make themselves so gullible and with no mind of their own.

Well who are we to say anything when men make themselves LOOK less wiser than they can be…

But again my God is a gentle, loving and forgiving one…my God is mother and father and anything in between….My God….