Re-Translated from the Original by Tony Lewis
When the earth was young, the gods made the first human beings, breathing into them the breath of life and thereby giving them their souls. The gods then created a garden paradise called Eden for the first two humans to live in, filled with many trees to make the garden a beautiful place and to provide food for its inhabitants. In the middle of the garden, the gods put two special trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Wisdom.
The gods wanted the humans to help them take care of the beautiful garden, so the All-Father asked the Boy to come up with names for all the animals. But there were so many animals, the Boy quickly realized he needed help. The All-Father said the Girl would help him, but he warned the pair not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom, for once they did, it would be all over for them. Then, the All-Father told the rest of the gods, “It’s best that the humans remain innocent, for they’re not ready to know what we know.”
The Boy and the Girl were so innocent they went around the garden naked and it didn’t bother them. One day, though, the crafty Snake came upon the Girl when she was alone. Snake asked her, “So the All-Father said you can eat from any tree in the garden?”
The Girl answered, “Yes, any of the fruit trees. Except the two in the center. He said if we eat that fruit, we’ll be struck dead.”
Snake laughed. “The gods are going to strike you dead for eating some fruit? That’s ridiculous. They know that the day you eat the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom, your eyes will be opened. You will gain all the wisdom of the gods.”
The Girl thought that wisdom sounded like a good thing, and the fruit did look pretty tasty. She decided to eat some, and then she gave some to the Boy, and he ate it too. Suddenly, they realized they were naked and, filled with embarrassment, they wove together some leaves from a fig tree to cover themselves. When they heard the All-Father approaching, they were overcome with shame so they ran and hid.
The All-Father called out, “Hey, where are you?”
Sheepishly, the Boy and the Girl came out from behind the trees. The Boy said, “When I heard you in the garden, I was afraid… because I’m naked. So I hid.”
The All-Father said, “Oh, and who told you that you were naked? You weren’t eating the fruit I told you not to eat, were you?
The Boy pointed at the Girl and shouted, “It’s her fault! She gave it to me!”
The All-Father asked the Girl, “Why did you do that?”
The Girl blurted out, “Snake tricked me into eating it!”
The All-Father turned to Snake and said, “You trickster! They won’t thank you for this. In fact, they’ll probably hate you for it.”
Then he turned back to the Girl, sighed, and said, “You wanted the wisdom of the gods? Well, here it is. Eventually, you’re going to get pregnant and have babies. And it’s going to hurt. A lot. And the men around you are always going to want to tell you what to do. That’s just how life is.”
Then he turned to the Boy and said, “You know what? You don’t get to play in the garden forever. You’re going to have to work hard for most of your life just to scratch out a living. You’ll curse the weeds that sprout among your herbs and vegetables, and you’ll eat your meals with sweat on your face. That’s just how life is.”
Then the All-Father said to the rest of the gods, “Hey, look! Now the humans are as wise as we are! We’d better kick them out of the Garden of Eden before they foolishly eat from the Tree of Life as well and become immortal! Then their sufferings would never end!”
But before sending them out to make their own way in the world, the All-Father made tunics of leather for the Boy and the Girl so they would at least have some proper clothes. They had to grow up now, but they were still his children and he loved them.
Some explication: The second creation myth that appears in the Bible contradicts the first in many details, but the main problem is that the author gets too bogged down in unnecessary details and loses the main thread of the story. The opening spends far too much time explaining the circumstances of the creation of the Garden of Eden and its two human inhabitants, as well as trying to give some hints as to the garden’s geographical location. It also suffers due to the author’s inherent misogyny, which has allowed the story to be used to justify the mistreatment of women throughout the ages.
ReplyDeleteAncient interpreters of the Bible saw in this story what has come to be called “The Fall of Man,” in which humans committed their first sins and were thus cast out of paradise and cursed by God in various ways. Many modern biblical scholars see instead a mythical treatment of humanity’s movement from a hunter-gatherer existence to an agricultural economy and the mental/spiritual anguish brought about by such modernization. I think they’re both wrong. It’s actually a very simple tale about the end of childhood, and the sad duty a father may be called upon to do.
Thus, the best term for the main god in the story (called Yahweh in the biblical version) is “All-Father,” a name often used for Odin and similar patriarchal figures in other belief systems. It emphasizes his role in the story as the cosmic Dad. Likewise, “the Boy” is more appropriate than “Adam” or “the man,” since he is clearly a juvenile throughout the story. For the same reason, “the Girl” works better than “the wife.” (In the Bible, Eve isn’t given a name until the very end of the story, almost as an afterthought.) The Serpent is your typical animal trickster figure seen in a variety of myths, and is more mischievous than sinister.
Note that when the Girl tells Snake about the forbidden trees, she misinterprets the All-Father’s warning, as a child is likely to do. It’s true that he maybe could have been a little more clear, but dads are often guilty of that. And Snake says nothing that isn’t true.
As others have noted, Eve at least shows some agency in deciding to eat the forbidden fruit, after being talked into it, whereas Adam seems to just go ahead and eat some without so much as a thought. It may be that Eve eats the fruit first merely because girls tend to mature faster than boys, and boys are then eager to catch up to them—hence Adam’s eagerness to eat the fruit also. What the fruit grants them, clearly, is the self-consciousness of the teenager. But like typical kids, when faced with their disobedience, they immediately try to shift the blame to somebody else.
The All-Father is then forced to give them the “wisdom” that they sought—the knowledge of what adulthood has in store for them. This is not a curse—any more than knowledge itself is a curse—but merely the hard truth about being a grown-up. The All-Father’s exhortation to the other gods serves as the “punch-line” of the story, revealing that expulsion from the Garden of Eden is not a punishment—he’s actually doing the humans a favor, before they make their situation worse. It also makes the reader realize that if the humans had eaten from the Tree of Life first, they’d be screwed—when they finally ate from the Tree of Wisdom, they’d already be immortal, so it’s a good thing everything happened as it did. It all works out okay, insofar as everybody has to grow up and leave the safety of their parents’ garden eventually (“garden” in this sense evoking the British use of the word to mean a house’s backyard).
I think the last bit makes it clear that the father-figure is not angry and is not throwing his poor kids out into the street. He makes sure they have something (clothing) to get them off on the right foot. In this version of the story, I feel, everybody comes out looking much better than they do in more traditional misanthropic tellings.