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The origin of Eden.

Article Excerpt
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 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 evil. "--Genesis 3:1-5

THOUGH THE STORY OF THE "FALL OF MAN" in Genesis 3 is brief and perfunctory--essentially, along with the stories of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, it is little more than a prelude to the history of the patriarchs--it carries impressive weight as a source of religious and moral doctrine. Even those who might well dismiss it as literally true will often see it as true in a figurative sense; i.e., that humans exist in a "fallen" state and are intrinsically depraved. This is the doctrine of Original Sin and it has shaped much of our moral and political culture.

The Eden narrative is part of the "J" Document, the earliest narrative strand of what eventually became the Torah. Had the author of J known that his story would have been used to support a doctrine that said we were all born utterly depraved and guilty of a sin we didn't corm-nit, and that we inherited this depravity through sexual intercourse, he would have been amazed. Moreover, in one of the Sumerian antecedents of the Eden myth, the change from being naked to being clothed was viewed as a positive change. The myth of why we die is the most universal of all myths; but in primitive cultures, in its initial telling, it was devoid of the psychological baggage of either doctrine of Original Sin or even of the Fall.

How did this all come about?

The Eden Narrative

The story of the creation in Genesis 2 presents a far more primitive story than that of Genesis 1. The god of Genesis 1 creates by verbal command, whereas the god of Genesis 2 hand-molds the first man out of clay (but neglects to create a woman in the process). In other words, the grand architect of creation in Genesis 1 has been replaced by a handyman in Genesis 2, one who has to correct oversights in his original execution.

In Genesis 1, God repeatedly looks on his creative works and sees "that it was good" (Gen. 1:10, 14, 18, 25), culminating with the statement in Gen. 1:31 that "it was very good." In sharp contrast to this, after creating a lone male, the god of Genesis 2 says (Gen. 2:18), "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him." Even then, God doesn't seem to understand that what the man needs is a woman. Instead, he creates every other animal that now exists, only creating Eve from Adam's rib as a last resort when none of the animals suit man,

The oddities of the J Eden narrative only increase in the story of the Fall, which is full of anomalies. It is a stow that, despite its familiarity, most people don't really know. For example, most people believe the snake lied to Eve and that Yahweh told Adam the truth concerning the effects of eating the forbidden fruit. They also assume that God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden because of their disobedience. Neither of these assumptions is true. Consider the following. In Gen. 2:16-17, God tells the newly created Adam:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

As can be seen in the epigram for this article, the serpent tells Eve in Gen 3:4-5, "You will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." In fact, Yahweh seems to have been less straightforward than the serpent. Nor did God drive Adam and Eve from the garden because of their disobedience.

In fact, Gen 3:22-24 make it quite clear that Yahweh drove them out to prevent them from eating the fruit of the Tree...