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I'm not a Christian or Jew or Muslim. But I am a believer that, on the whole, ancient wisdom is superior to modern knowledge. I see them as largely metaphorical and not literal but I also believe metaphor and story to be a vastly superior way to pass on wisdom. So here's something to ponder & discuss. For those of you who have read D. Quinn's book, ISHMAEL, then this will sound familiar.
In the Genesis myth (myth = explaining story, not just a fanciful tale), Adam and Eve were forbidden to touch or eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In rabbinic literature, as I understand it, "knowledge of good and evil" are often used as shorthand for "knowledge of everything, even up to what is good and evil" the same way that "40 days and 40 nights" is shorthand for "a very, very long time." After eating the fruit, Adam & Eve gained some knowledge (their nakedness -- vulnerability, perhaps?) and were cast out of the garden, cursed to live by farming and distance from God. We call this "The Fall of Man."
Yet we, as a culture, consider knowledge (science, for example) sacrosanct. Farmers, doctors and scientists are a sort of secular priesthood in our culture. But farming was the curse and the sin was a thirst for knowledge of all things. We tell the story of the dawn of agriculture and the age of science, not like it's "The Fall" but like it's "The Ascent." We tell a story of progress and achievement of our destiny but Genesis seems to tell a story of tragedy and the rejection of our destiny.
The theme is repeated in the stories of Cain and Abel. Cain, the farmer, kills his brother Abel, the shepherd. Again in Jacob and Esau. Jacob, the one who stays at home in the tents, steals the inheritance of his brother, the hunter, whom his father loved more (those darned city folk!). The author of Genesis has a consistent theme but it doesn't seem to me that we, as a culture, talk about it at all.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm become quite comfortable living in paradox and contradiction. I work in finance, do some light farming and enjoy reading and learning a lot. I go to the doctor, eat food grown from farms, drink wine and otherwise enjoy all the benefits that civilized life in the age of science can provide. And why not? It's not like we can go live in the forest eating nuts and berries. Heck, it's illegal anyway.
Yet, I puzzle over what it would mean to spit out the forbidden fruit -- to give up the endless search for knowledge of everything. To live life in full dependence on God (Allah, Wakan Tanka, whatever) and what it means for our culture that we so readily adopt with pride the very thing that the author of Genesis attempted to convey with shame.
So my question to the board is how do you see the Genesis myth. How do you enact your version of this story? How do our cultural values influence how we see the myth and how would you reinterpret the myth in our modern, American life?
No right or wrong answers here -- just looking for good, though-provoking discussion.
In the Genesis myth (myth = explaining story, not just a fanciful tale), Adam and Eve were forbidden to touch or eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In rabbinic literature, as I understand it, "knowledge of good and evil" are often used as shorthand for "knowledge of everything, even up to what is good and evil" the same way that "40 days and 40 nights" is shorthand for "a very, very long time." After eating the fruit, Adam & Eve gained some knowledge (their nakedness -- vulnerability, perhaps?) and were cast out of the garden, cursed to live by farming and distance from God. We call this "The Fall of Man."
Yet we, as a culture, consider knowledge (science, for example) sacrosanct. Farmers, doctors and scientists are a sort of secular priesthood in our culture. But farming was the curse and the sin was a thirst for knowledge of all things. We tell the story of the dawn of agriculture and the age of science, not like it's "The Fall" but like it's "The Ascent." We tell a story of progress and achievement of our destiny but Genesis seems to tell a story of tragedy and the rejection of our destiny.
The theme is repeated in the stories of Cain and Abel. Cain, the farmer, kills his brother Abel, the shepherd. Again in Jacob and Esau. Jacob, the one who stays at home in the tents, steals the inheritance of his brother, the hunter, whom his father loved more (those darned city folk!). The author of Genesis has a consistent theme but it doesn't seem to me that we, as a culture, talk about it at all.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm become quite comfortable living in paradox and contradiction. I work in finance, do some light farming and enjoy reading and learning a lot. I go to the doctor, eat food grown from farms, drink wine and otherwise enjoy all the benefits that civilized life in the age of science can provide. And why not? It's not like we can go live in the forest eating nuts and berries. Heck, it's illegal anyway.
Yet, I puzzle over what it would mean to spit out the forbidden fruit -- to give up the endless search for knowledge of everything. To live life in full dependence on God (Allah, Wakan Tanka, whatever) and what it means for our culture that we so readily adopt with pride the very thing that the author of Genesis attempted to convey with shame.
So my question to the board is how do you see the Genesis myth. How do you enact your version of this story? How do our cultural values influence how we see the myth and how would you reinterpret the myth in our modern, American life?
No right or wrong answers here -- just looking for good, though-provoking discussion.
I know what you meant, but it made me smile! 
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