We have realized that the Bible, when read as symbolic literary history is a poetic and symbolic chronicle composed over time to analogically describe the world as seen and recorded by its numerous authors. To do otherwise, i.e., to perceive it literally, is arrive at bizarre and useless declarations. For example, the declaration in Genesis that the world was created in six days, after which God rested on the seventh day is no less than theologically and logically bizarre. A God who is described as “omnipotent” does not tire easily, and further, experts have determined that our Planet is no less than four billion, three hundred million years old. Reading the declaration as literature, viz., as symbolic of its author’s meaning we might rationally read the symbolic declaration to signify that the World was created in stages.
The ubiquitous application of this more useful and credible rendition, would clarify the apocryphal history of Adam and Eve (mankind). The universally accepted version is that Eve tempted Adam to eat of the serpent occupied, forbidden “Tree of Knowledge” causing the two (mankind) to be forever banished from the Garden of Eden. Religion had thus indicted all future mankind with this “Original Sin,” so that from innocent birth to the end of life, man is a sinner and is eternally obliged to pursue redemption.
The Serpent, as Biblically depicted, induced Eve to enticingly tempt Adam (“Adam in Hebrew, means “earth”) to eat an apple from the forbidden “Tree of Knowledge” can more usefully be read in symbolically rational terms. The “serpent” residing in the Tree has grossly and unfairly been adjudged to be an evil entity. Yet readings of the World’s prominent scholars of ancient myth, such as Joseph Campbell and Edith Hamilton, reveal that the snake was the symbol of fertility, It is but a small skip and a jump to assume that the snake, viz., the symbol of fertility, lodged in the Tree of Knowledge, can be perceived as the symbol of mental (humanistic) fertility. In our view, Eve being induced by the snake to tempt Adam (“Man”) to partake of the Tree of Knowledge represents a salubrious invitation to conscious reality, i.e. “reason. “
The plinyblog take on Genesis is that it was the female of the species, properly, to be credited as the deliverer of human consciousness and rational thought to mankind; a laudable accomplishment, far from the popular religious perception of an evil temptress to sin. The Biblical myth concludes with the “banishment” of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which can be symbolically and rationally understood to proclaim Man’s evolutionary exit from the state of base and instinctively motivated Earthly fauna to a sentient being, It is difficult to comprehend the image of Eve as a temptress whose eternal indictment for the commission of an evil felony was, in reality, that of bringing human enlightenment to the World; like the Greek God Prometheus who mythologically is painfully punished for life for introducing “fire” (knowledge) to Mankind.
It would be appropriate in this context to generally accord historical value to the entire “Good Book,” but not necessarily to its harsh, stereotypical promotion by implacable evangelical literalists.
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If a more rational and just perception and symbolic interpretation were applied to the event, not only would the development of Homo sapiens be usefully described but chubby little newborns would not begin life with a criminal rap sheet.
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