GENESIS... THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND - PART 5

EVE AWAKENS...


In the center of The Garden of Eden was a tree... and God told Adam and All the rest of humankind they were not to eat of this tree. The reason God gave was that IF, they ate from this tree they would have knowledge, knowledge of Good and Evil.

So for many years Adam toiled alone, tilling the fields within Eden, the Garden; his friends were the animals God gave to him, they were in his keep. They were not his partner either.

So one day, God causes a deep sleep to come upon Adam, and God performed surgery upon Adam, removing one of his rib bones, and creating the woman. When he awoke, he had a new companion, a woman,  he named her Eve.

CREDIT for Biblical Quotes: DEVOTIONS - THE OLD TESTAMENT ONLINE

Genesis 3

3Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that theLord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ 

2The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 

3but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ 

4But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; 

5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 

7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

They were both naked and unashamed of their nakedness.

My opinion, the serpent was a penis. Shocking, I imagine. The idea. I simply don't believe in serpents that speak. It was a metaphor, for Eve's sudden epiphany, at the center of The Garden.

Didn't God say, be fruitful and multiply in Genesis, Chapter One? 75,000 years ago this was humanity. Hominids becoming human. Adam somehow was selected to begin the reign of humankind in our world. But he wasn't alone.

Other men, other women, sought Adam....

 One was a woman named Lilith:

Lilith (1892) by John Collier in Southport Atkinson Art Gallery

It is said, "Lilith was Adam's first wife..." but since at the time humankind had no real self-awareness, no knowledge of good or evil, it is unlikely Adam knew he had a wife. At least there is no record that any ceremony had made them husband and wife.

That Eve ate the fruit from the tree God forbade humans to eat from, is in my opinion, something that was inevitable. It is my belief, that God knew, at some point in time, someone would partake of the fruit. It is also my believe that it wasn't so much a command by God not to eat of the fruit, but a warning.

Innocence is Bliss, as the saying goes, and Eve, for whatever reason, ate the forbidden fruit, and found that it was good..

Adam and Eve by Maarten van Heemskerck (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg).

When I was in my late teens, becoming an adult, I admit I was pretty ignorant. I believed others held the key to life, to the truth. I didn't question authority...  I had been taught conformity and lock-step. Among the truths I was led to believe, that drugs, like marijuana, were dangerous, a forbidden fruit. 

Hardly.

When I tasted it, the first time nothing happened. It was a couple years until the second time... god did I laugh, as did my two friends. I'd not laughed like that ever... that I could remember, and it was very good to laugh.

Yeah, laughter is deadly... especially when it opens one's mind to the impossible, that is possible.

I learned the truth, I became aware that day. Self-aware. Not a bad thing is it? 

At around age 40 I made an appointment with a minister at a Unitarian church in Portsmouth NH. I sat with him and discussed my belief that Eve had experienced was an awakening based upon the use of a psychotropic plant... however, he completely disagreed with my hypothesis. His reason - marijuana was an illicit drug, and the scriptures did not support the use of an illicit drug as being the crime Eve had committed.

Yet today, we know many people are made outcasts for the use of illicit drugs, that their lives are ruined by man-made laws that forbid such fruit. And we know some such fruits, especially those made by man, also destroy lives. Yet, I have seen cannabis grow as tall as a tree... and I have seen it is indeed a very beautiful tree, a plant; not the bad or grotesque plant others would command me to believe it is. I understand knowledge is power, and any power can be used for good, or evil.

GENESIS 3 concludes with the CURSE:

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 

9But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 

10He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 11He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ 

12The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ 13Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’ 

14The Lord God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.’
16To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’
17And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it”, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;
you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. 

21And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 

23therefore theLord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

I am cursed... we are all cursed having gained self-awareness. It was not a crime, but rather our fate. Woman should be no more condemned than man, as it was our destiny to become self-aware. It was our destiny to discover the truth. What we make from our knowledge of good and evil, our knowledge of life, is ours to command, to bear, and to build upon. We can continue to condemn each other, hurt others because they may be different from ourself or what we believe is right or wrong, but we are all one. We are humankind. We are God's children. We were created in His Image.

GENESIS... THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND - PART 4

Edited Sept. 25, 2010; 11AM

Here is where we begin to discover a paradox, between Genesis 1:26, the sixth day of CREATION and Genesis 2.

CREDIT for Biblical Quotes: DEVOTIONS - THE OLD TESTAMENT ONLINE


From Genesis 1:

"26 Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind* in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,* and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
"27 So God created humankind* in his image, in the image of God he created them;* male and female he created them."
"28God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ 29God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."

Those passages from the Old Testament, suggest man and woman were created together, on the sixth day of Creation. And God said: "Be fruitful and multiply..." In addition, "God created man and woman in his image..." Years later, Jesus, the Son of God said much the same thing. But that is for another post. Fact is... humankind were created on the sixth day... with dominion over the Earth, and encouraged to "be fruitful and multiply". Man and woman procreating.

Which brings us to Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 7:

"7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being." 
"8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed." "9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Man, reborn, after God rested on the seventh day.

"15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it." 
"16And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden." 
"17But 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."

Well we already knew that was coming - Drug Prohibition... "The forbidden fruit!" But what drugs, if drugs the tree was? And apples, really?? It doesn't specify apples... at least not yet.

Adam working away, alone, tilling fields. Sounds like history when our species changed from hunters and gatherers, around 75,000 years, ago if I remember correctly, to set down roots and become farmers.

"18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."

"19So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." 
"20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man* there was not found a helper as his partner."

Gone now are the dinosaurs, and modern animals now populate the earth. And poor Adam, alone somehow,  tilling the fields, though we know humankind exist, so I would have to assume that Adam, with dominion over the earth, was not only working hard at something new to humanity, but also probably pretty depressed without a partner. So God tries one more thing:

"21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh." 
"22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man." 
"23Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman."

Why the paradox of the creation? Genesis One, and Genesis Two? The answer is, humankind evolved during the millions of years that God rested.

After God awoke, something happened, something changed. 

Next Post: EVE AWAKENS...

GENESIS... THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND - PART 3

Welcome to GENESIS and "The Temple of Time".

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Over the years I have collected books. Historical books in particular. The image posted above is from a book called "Universal History", by Emma Willard, 1855. I have no idea who Emma Willard was... have not had the chance to research her yet. 

It sets the date in history of CREATION, at 4004 BC. In the image above that is the centerpiece of the Temple and at the very back of the temple. It's the answer to the argument by today's creationists. Her book is divided into three separate eras: "Ancient, Middle, and Modern". It's priceless in it's understanding of the world before Darwin.

I wondered for years why dinosaurs mattered... why I asked my Sunday school teacher about them. There's a lot I didn't understand until my early twenties. The primary reason was I didn't feel comfortable questioning things. I believed life and society were organized, and to question that organization was inappropriate. Yet, I did question things, and the mystery of how dinosaurs and man began, and historically could coexist, was a burning question. 

My Sunday school teacher, Joel, wasn't completely wrong when he answered my question, and told me dinosaurs were from when the world was a dark void. It's obvious to me now that at age 8, I have some idea that Creation happened after the dinosaurs. Somehow, this notion that Creation happened, say 4004 BC, was  a fact I believed in my subconscious. Yet I knew dinosaurs roamed the Earth long before... 

According to the most recent understanding of the origins of a modern people, it's estimated they left Africa between 120,000 years to 75,000 years ago. Long prior to 4004 BC.

I also understand now that GOD "created plants and animals and creepy things" long before humankind..That the Creation did take place, over millions of years, and I believe it did take 7 days... 7 very long days... days that lasted billions of years.

Dinosaurs roamed the Earth long before man, and God made it so according to the Book of Genesis. Plants came before the dinosaurs. Plants like cannabis, which I can't resist but admire, and highlight. All prior to the existence of humankind, and "God saw that it was good". 

The origins of who we are go back millions of years, but there was a time ignorance was bliss, and we were akin to animals. There also came the time of the first "self-aware" human being. We can take it from the Bible that first self-aware human was named Eve. And she influenced Adam. 

We can add the mystery of the snake in the Garden of Eden, and the existence of other humans, like Lillith, described in details in books the Catholic church chose to expunge from "The Bible" in the 14th century.

Next time... "The Original Sin and the Original Penalty..."

GENESIS... THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND - PART 2

I began GENESIS with the Third day of Creation. The reason I did so was because after the First and the Second Day, which follows, God made the plants, made Nature.

Whether you take the Bible literally, or as an interesting story, fact is, Nature came before humankind. Before living creatures. At the end of the Third day of Creation, the world was formed, but neither human, nor animal, nor creepy thing existed.

God created the Paradise of Nature first. And that is when life began, after the Third Day. But In The
Beginning:

CREDIT for Biblical Quotes: DEVOTIONS - THE OLD TESTAMENT ONLINE

"In the beginning when God created* the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God* swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day."

I was an inquisitive child. Thanks to my Aunt Helen who gave me Ray Bradbury's book, "R IS FOR ROCKET", at around age 8, I began to gain interest, insight and knowledge of the world. I can't say I was truly "self-aware" then, just that a seed was growing, a seed that might continue to grow, or may have died.

I don't recall what age I was when during a Sunday school class, I had a burning question for my Sunday school teacher, a man named Joel. What I couldn't understand is where the dinosaurs fit into the origin of humankind.

In my own mind, it was Day Four and after that stuck.

"And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day."
Here we have Nature, plants and then the creation of all the different kinds of animals and creepy things. The end of the Fifth Day. And Humankind has not yet been created. Yet, my Sunday school teacher told me dinosaurs came before man, when the Earth was without form. And he was wrong. It didn't make sense to me then that dinosaurs ruled the world before mankind. Growing up, man always came first somehow. We were superior to everything within creation. That is what I was taught. Man had to have come before the dinosaurs, if man's dominion was real. Yet, archeology taught, dinosaurs came first. My teacher's answer to my question didn't settle well; it made me curious.

And then I found out why.

Man; Humankind didn't come first. Plants, Trees, Animals and Creepy things did, as did the dinosaurs. It wasn't until the end of the Sixth Day that God made Man and Woman. The reason is self awareness. The whole story as to why Darwinism and Creationism seem to conflict is what happened on the Sixth day of Creation?

Did humans evolve, or were they "Created" by God? The answer is "YES" to both questions. What the Old Testament of the Bible teaches is, God looked upon the Earth and All that had been Created. Whether the story of Genesis says so or not, Hominids already existed... and on the Sixth Day God Created the first humans:

"Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

The Old Testament tells the story handed down over generations of Humankind's origin. It's a fascinating and remarkable story. The mere fact the story was handed down over many generations to find itself in print is extraordinary!

In my next post - the "Temple of Time" and our origin... the Sixth Day.