Saturday 6 May 2017

Adam and Eve

As promised in my last post on marriage, this is a discussion of Adam and Eve the first married couple and the ancestor/ancestress of the human race. If you find stuff problematic, its probably because you need to up your education.

The Bible (Old Testament) starts with creation, all taking place in seven days which includes a rest day. God, whatever His/Her qualities, found creation quite tiring. Humanity was created on day six, a day after sea monsters, although as we know  human monsters are much more fearful than sea monsters. Except this primal being was a vegan, eating only vegetation so was probably reasonably calm and empathetic. Humanity was created male and female, which medieval Jewish writers thought meant hermaphrodite, beings with dual gender. This is because in the next chapter God divided them into two different sex beings by cutting the primal being up. The male was called man,'adam, the woman Eve or 'issah, woman  as she came out of man's side. The same logic could have claimed that man came out of woman's side as they were equally divided. Sure we regard them as two separate contradictory creation stories, but the same writer or editor placed the stories side by side and had an agenda. And it was a patriarchal agenda -  Adam, the man, needed a playmate, not vice versa. The marriage and childbearing side does not happen yet, this is a result of sin. Without that the two would have enjoyed an eternal love affair.

They lived in a garden called Eden, whose location is specified through rivers. It was in ancient Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. There was a marsh there, studied by Wilfred Thesinger in The Marsh Arabs, well worth following up. The dictator Saddam Hussein drained the marsh to destruction to starve out the local population, though it is now recovering.

So to our romantic couple. There were two sacred trees that must not be touched, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Everything else was available for food. So the first couple was to be deprived of knowledge and were not to live for ever. The US President will be relieved by the former and depressed by the latter. Give human's something to think and worry about and they will get depressed. Far better just to party all day and night. who needs education. Adam was fine about that since there was food aplenty, and no doubt drink too. The woman was not so sure. She wanted to see through this shallow life. There must be more than naked dancing and eating bananas. She was prodded by a thought, described as a serpent within her or hanging off the tree branch, or indeed walking over since the serpent then had legs. This voice said Wait, surely knowledge must be a good thing to have? Wouldn't it be good to see and think as Gods? Why should the Gods have it all to themselves. And she saw that the fruit is good. So she picked and ate, and gave to Adam who was a mite peckish and ate without much thought.

The soundtrack crashes since the world as it was has ended and a new order has come in. (Remember a myth in those days was rather like a soap today). Before the conservative Christian voice gets me in their cross-hairs, let me quote exactly - "And the LORD God said, The man [i.e. human] has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever" (Gen 3.22 NIV).

Hold it there. Humans have wisdom equivalent to God, understanding good and evil, so God's only edge is eternal life. Eve fought for it in principle, but Adam benefited because of his greed. God's goal is achieved through banishment, far away from this equally attractive tree. The first symptom of the new knowledge was to cover their nakedness - their frolics were over, they now took to underwear and skirts. In the story it doesn't make much sense, unless they don't want God to see them naked - but it explains why the human race cover up. Mostly.

But hold on. Eve discussed wisdom and thought the fruit good to eat. God's position was a exercise of power, Do as I say or you will surely die. And the rebellion caused divine panic. The man would have to eke food out of the soil as a farmer, the woman would bear children in pain, and the serpent would slither and be in danger of being trodden on, and endanger human heels. Thus human marriage as we know it started with a curse. We have no idea how humans reproduced before this (they were told to be fruitful and multiply) but it is clear that marriage as we know it is a punishment. Across history, Eve has taken the bulk of criticism for the situation as the one who ate the forbidden fruit and persuaded her man to do likewise.

Two verses are interesting:"For this reason a man will leave his mother and his father and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2.24); and  "Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you" (Genesis 3.16). The first we could read as location of the couple. Robertson Smith long ago suggested he went to live with her family. Those were times of extended families so if it means setting up a separate home, it may have relevance to tent communities. Or it could refer to relationship - before the husband was responsible for his parents, and now his wife. However there is no indication that he ceased to be responsible for his parents. So in deciding on an answer we have to take full note of the phrase "one flesh". The New Testament made something of it in terms of divorce: "What God has joined, no man should put asunder". Marriage is thus a special relationship, different from consanguinity. We can't change our blood relatives, but have to broaden our relatives through marriage (affinal kinship). This presupposes affection between husband and wife,

In this 'myth', the experienced world is given some explanation. On death, the body returns to dust is one of these; the relationship between humans and snakes are another. This explanation of marriage is an ideal, a couple in love. The second quotation offers the flip side, patriarchy. The rule, or mastery, or hegemony may be benign, but maybe not. A patriarch in the stories that follow have the power of life and death.

As a model for 21st century relationships, all this is a non-starter..A woman's husband may be her choice or her families, but the man you thought you knew does not always turn out well. Better quick divorce than long-term pain. Marriage should be entered into with concent, but it is a rolling consent. One act of consent cannot define the next 20 or 50 years. if either side no longer consent years later, then rearrangement of relationships is in order. It is the maintenance of children which may complicate decisions..

Genesis 1-3 do set up an ideal. Husband and wife helps each other, loves each other, discusses with each other. Until things were disrupted, their relationship was good, no embarrassment. The gaining of 'knowledge' disrupted this. Nakedness became a problem, and animals had to he killed to provide clothing. Humans ceased to be vegans and became carnivores. God however preferred non-thinking creatures to be without knowledge or intellect. The 'Fall' into sin may not therefore have been a fall at all but a positive development of intellectual life.

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