Opening blog: first bite

When Adam first sank his teeth into the apple, he bit off far more than we could chew.

We all know the tale, and it doesn’t matter whether you consider this Bible story to be fact or fable. You could be the most literal fundamentalist or the most skeptical freethinker on the block, but you can’t get away from the fact that the story of the Fall has set the tone for all of western history, and for our present way of life.

The story of Adam & Eve has shaped western civilization’s attitudes toward nature, sin, evil, gender relations, and man’s relation with divinity, all within the context of that one event on which it centers: the Fall. Sin goes all the way back to the story of Adam & Eve. The story of the Fall is the account of man’s first sin.

But just what was the Fall, a “downfall” as seems to be commonly held, or a slide from blissfully ignorant grace into intellectual discrimination? And what was the “sin,” merely disobeying God or gaining the forbidden knowledge of good & evil?

Why should the knowledge of good & evil have been forbidden? Because an all-knowing God knew that the power of discrimination brought with it indiscriminate desire?

If you look at the story as fable, you have to think of it in terms of the purpose it served. Fables were created to explain things or to teach lessons. (Remember Aesop?) In the case of Adam & Eve, their story conveniently explained why we have to work for a living: because our ancestors were kicked out of a paradise in which they didn’t have to lift a finger. Isn’t that a story likely to be told by primitive peoples around a campfire? Once upon a time people didn’t have to hunt animals or till fields, all they had to do was reach up and pick fruit from trees; then one day they picked the wrong fruit....

That seems to be a simple explanation for how such a fable might have come about, but somewhere along the line in the development of religion, a different theme was seized upon: the story of the Fall explains why there is sin in the world. Church fathers found it convenient to infer from Genesis that Adam’s punishment imposed the stigma of sin on all of his descendants when in fact that isn’t stated at all. Go and re-read chapter 3: sure, God meted out some heavy punishment—painful childbirth for women, a life of hard labor for men—but nowhere does He say that mankind is forever burdened with something that has to be atoned for. That was what subsequent theologians read into the event.

Just what is the origin of the story of the Fall? Did one person, some Hebraic Homer, make it up or is it part of some oral tradition common to many peoples? Julian Ford has an interesting interpretation. In his book The Story of Paradise, he ties the legend of Eden to the folklore of Mesolithic peoples who sought to commit to group memory key events in their distant past: a severe drought, the discovery of irrigation, and an explanation for volcanic activity. In a nutshell, Ford links the Fall to a people’s eating forbidden fruit of a totemic tree during a time of famine and drought. It turned out to be the coconut, which not only yielded its succulent flesh and milk but also gave them a waterproof container that enabled Neolithic peoples to carry water and “become as gods”—the rain gods on whom they had depended. The flaming sword of the angel guarding the tree of life was, suggests Ford, a volcanic plume.

But there’s more to Ford’s explanation: “Since women had been the chief repositories of the agricultural mysteries, and the seism which destroyed Eden was seen as divine retribution for the agricultural activities which angered the rain god, it was quickly decided that Eve was the great culprit and that she alone bore the onus of responsibility for the disaster which had struck the Adam people. Eve was now tarnished with the reputation of sinner and evil-doer and her power and social standing vanished overnight.”

Ford isn’t the only one to suggest that the story of Adam & Eve is a means of putting women in their place. Archaeological evidence points to the prevalence of a Goddess cult in Neolithic society, and in the face of an up-and-coming deity like Jehovah, myth is a powerful tool for overturning entrenched beliefs.

Just as the mythology and folklore of many cultures have their versions of creation, even the flood, there are other explanations of the Fall—just consider the Greek myth of Pandora. Myths are created to explain phenomena, and while the Greeks were concerned with explaining the existence of a spectrum of curses, the author of Genesis created the myth of Adam to explain why man is sinful and needs to obey God’s law.

This notion of sin is the bedrock of Judeo-Christian belief, since it is sin that requires salvation. (As an aside, let me observe that the success of any religion in attracting and holding followers depends upon premises that are never challenged, that are so ingrained in tradition that it is unthinkable to question them. Buddhism seems to depend on Gautama’s First Noble Truth—that “life is suffering”—but also rests on Brahmanic belief in reincarnation and the need to be freed from it. Christianity rests on the need for salvation, but salvation is necessary only because there is sin.)

But there is an aspect of the Fall that is not often discussed. Most interpretations focus simply on the fact that Adam disobeyed God, for which we all supposedly pay. But consider what it was he did: he obtained the knowledge of good and evil. According to Genesis, this knowledge had been privileged information, known only to God and his angelic sidekicks. That’s why God mutters that “man has now become like one of us” and boots Adam and his missus out of Eden before he gets a taste of the fruit from the Tree of Life.

So just what is this “knowledge of good and evil” that the apples of Eden were ripe to dispense?