A Mid-Semester Recap

My Personal Creation Story prior to reading the text of the Garden of Eden was as follows:

"In the beginning, God decided he wanted to create man in His image. He created the man and called him, Adam. Adam was naked and spoke to God. God told him he was perfect and good. He told Adam that he would place him in paradise, where all the animals would be his friends and the plants in the garden would be his food. God told Adam that he could eat every fruit in the garden, except from the tree of knowledge. God told him if he ate this fruit, he wouuld die. Adam agreed and live in the paradise called Eden. He was friends with all the animals, but Adam got lonely because he did not have any living thing like him to be friends with. He saw animals around him, and they all had mates, but not him. This made Adam very sad.

God saw that Adam was sad and went to comfort him. He asked adam was was wrong, and Adam explained what was troubling him. God agreed to give him a mate. He took one of Adam's ribs and from it created a creature called woman, and he called the woman, Eve. Adam fell in love with Eve, and they praised God in thanksgiving.

One day, when Eve was in the garden, a snake spoke to her. He told her that she should eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. But Eve remembered what God told Adam, and told the snake to go away. But the snake was cunning, and told Eve that the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge merely gave them immortality and the knowledge to be more powerful than God. Eve was hungry, and believed the snake. So, she ate the fruit. She gave the fruit to Adam, and he also ate it. But when they ate it, they both realized they were naked and gathered leaves to cover themselves.

God saw that Adam and Eve were shamed of their nakedness and realized they had eaten from the forbidden tree. He asked them why they ate the fruit. Adam said Eve gave it to him, and Eve said the snake told her to eat it. This made God angry and sad. He forgave them because he knew they were sorry, but he had to ban them from Eden because they ate the fruit. He banished them from the Garden of Eden, and they were now mortal. He also made sure that when Eve gave birth, it would be very painful. He also told the snake that the woman would always attack her and man would always kill it. God also made the snake and all his descendants forced to crawl on its belly for the rest of its life."

For one thing, in the Garden of Eden story, God called the creature "Man," not specifically Adam. This was mostly due to the translation, since ha adam means human in Hebrew. Also, in my story, Adam was told by God that he would live in paradise, rather than just saying, God created Adam in Paradise. Also, in my story, Adam was described as being lonely, and this was the reason why God created woman. But rather, God saw that it was not good that Adam was alone, and therefore, God created woman so that man could reproduce. This most likely originated from a childhood story told by a schoolteacher or a parent, since they would most likely "clean up" the story for a younger child. Also, in my personal story, I had it so that a significant amount of time passed between the creation of man and woman. Since Adam becomes lonely and sad because he observed all the other animals, and saw that they had mates. So not only did Adam have to name all the animals, but he also (in my story) became lonely and sad. This addition was most likely a cleaned up version of the Garden of Eden story told by a teacher or parent.

Also, it seemed that my personal creation story gave Adam much more power, and it seemed that God was much on the same level as Adam in the story. This most likely originated from the notion that, before the fall of man, humans, especially Adam, were very much created and possessed the social status equivalent to God, but when they sinned, they lost their divine qualities and gained mortal ones. For instance, in my creation story, it was Adam who said he was lonely and it was Adam who told God what he wanted. In the actual text, God decided it was not good for Adam to be alone, and thus, he took the initiative to create Eve from his rib.

What was interesting also was that my personal Genesis 3 was much more analogous to the actual text. I used the word "cunning" to describe the snake. However, there were many mistakes made. First of all, I stated that the Tree of Knowledge, according to the snake, gave them immortality and knowledge more powerful than God, but rather, in the text, the Tree of Life granted immortality, the Tree of Knowledge did not cause death, but gave them knowledge to make them more like gods. This interpretation may have been a misunderstanding of the text that stated that the Tree of Knowledge granted all the possible qualities to become like God, but rather the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge were separate trees, and gave humans a choice between immortality or knowledge. Also, my reason for Eve's sin was that she was hungry and believed the snake. In other words, I believed that Eve's gullibility and her hunger, rather than her carnal desires, drove her to eat the fruit. Many have interpreted that because Eve was more gullible and thus inferior to Adam was the reason the snake chose to confront her, rather than Adam. These ideas most likely originated from there.

In my story, I mentioned how Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves after they ate from the Tree. This was a correct quote from the Genesis story. I also correctly described how Adam told God that Eve told him to eat it, and how Eve told God that the snake told her to do it. Thus, these interpretations matched the Genesis text. I also interpreted the notion that God "forgave" Adam and Eve after the fall, which was not necessarily so. This most likely originated from the part of the text when God better clothed the pair with animal skins, and also from the Christian idea that God was a forgiving God. Also, in my story, I interpreted that the fall of Adam and Eve caused them to be mortal. I also noted the punishments of the snake and Eve, but none towards Adam. I also did not note that Eve was to be ruled by her husband.

What do I believe now?

The many questions posed by the various theologians and philosopher that have been mentioned on this blog have left me with many different views. But there are certain things I feel strongly about. I believe God created woman originally as a tool of reproduction and companionship. Unlike the other animals, God created Adam and Eve from different sources, one from the soil and one from Adam's rib. Thus, God made it so that Adam and Eve would essentially be the same person. Without each other, they not only wouldn't be able to survive, but they wouldn't have complete souls, since without one another, they are incomplete. Other animals were all created from soil, and all had the ability and urge to reproduce. Thus, this major difference between animals and humans clearly established the notion that humans have a much different bond to one another that surpasses physical explanation.

I believe that the snake was in fact, Satan. How could the snake talk without the help of a (once) celestial being. I also believe this explained why Eve ate the fruit. I believe that Eve's shift from not wanting to eat the fruit to desiring it was a clear example of the power of Satan. His temptations exist in our world even today. I believe that Satan chose Eve because it would be more fitting of a way for him to get revenge on Adam, much like the Vita elucidated. Much of my Catholic beliefs, I believe, come from the Vita. I believe that in some ways, in both a biological and philosophical sense, man and woman are equal because in certain aspects of life, man predominant, and in others, woman predominate. Thus, their strengths and weaknesses balance one another out. Furthermore, I believe Satan chose to tempt Eve because he realized if he tempted Adam, Eve would not eat the fruit because Eve would not be so inclined to eat the fruit from her husband. But rather, Satan knew that if Eve told Adam to eat from the Tree, he would do it, since her physical beauty was a huge power at her disposal.

I also believe that man and woman had the ability to be immortal as long as they were in the garden. I believe that the Tree of Life was more of a life sustainer rather than an object that create a person immortal. Thus, when Adam and Eve were banished, they lost this elixir of life. Even though it was never stated that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life, they very well could have, since God only instructed Adam and Eve to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Thus, in the end, Adam and Eve, under Satan's influence, chose a life of knowledge, an aspect of human nature that is crucial to our superiority to other animals, rather than a life of immortality. As such, (even though I hate to admit it), Satan was the hero in a sense. For if we lived a life of immortality, life would become dull and boring. Without pain, suffering, or death, how could one truly appreciate the beautiful aspects of life. Life would become repetitive, and would not be worth living.