🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6266r4$c1p@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, 
leftylu@ix.netcom.com(Carol Ann Hemingway) wrote:
> 
> In <344545be.27652068@news1.ibm.net> sarsok@ibm.net (Gary Paul Sarsok)
> writes: 
> >
> >In Genisis,
> 
> >It was the woman who sinned against man's law, and the man that 
sinned
> >against God's law. And so it must be that women must not interfere in
> >the roles of a husband and vice versa. We are fundamentaly broken
> >because of the first sin. 
> 
>         -----------
>         hehehee....what if we go back to the garden so that Eve
>         can politely decline?
>         -----------

The question is, would she?

My reading of Genesis 2 and 3 is a bit more radical than Genesis 1.  I 
think there's a lot of truth in the Bible, if you read it with a bit of 
imagination.  Genesis 1 is a pretty obvious -- and pretty *good* -- 
description of the Creation.  OK, it got one or two things in the wrong 
order -- like, how can you have the earth bringing forth grass *before* 
you get around to sticking the sun in the sky to provide sunlight for
photosynthesis?  And the time scale was a bit off.  Only six days?  But 
what the heck; if you turn to Ps. 90:4,  it says "For a thousand years 
in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
night."  What are a few billion years to God?  Just like a week, really.  
What's a time scale between friends?  :)

In other ways, it is a good description of the Creation.  It starts with 
the Big Bang ("Let there be light!"), goes on to describe the 
condensation of the Earth from fluid matter, and even gives a hint about 
all life on earth originating in the seas.  (Gen. 1:21 notes that "the 
waters brought forth abundantly" every living creature that moveth, 
including, significantly, "winged fowl.")  It's a lot better than the 
creation myths some primitive people came up with, about giant dragons 
laying eggs that hatched into the Earth and the like.

Most people can see that much, but it's when we get to Genesis 2 and 3 
that we find an interesting parable about Man's origins from ape 
ancestors.  Adam and Eve were really apes.  They lived in a "garden" 
with trees (primeval forests), scampering around naked.  They apparently 
subsisted on a chiefly vegetarian diet, the fruit of these trees.  It 
was Eve who was tempted by watching some other creature (which may or 
may not have been a serpent) to eat "the fruit of some tree" that was 
formerly not part of the ape regimen.  Clearly what was happening was 
that as the forests contracted, these apes were forced to seek out some 
new food source they were not previously dependent on.  Whether that 
meant moving out onto the savannahs, or (according to a very plausible 
theory) into a more watery environment for a time, it could well have 
been a female who took the very first step in this direction to find a 
new food to feed her hungry infant.

Paraphrasing Neil Armstrong, that was "one small step for an ape, but a 
giant leap for mankind."  It led our first ancestors out of the "Garden 
of Eden," but once they had left, they could never return -- just as 
Genesis says.  They changed their lifestyle, and took the first step on 
the long upward journey toward humanity.  There were benefits, but there 
was a cost as well.  They were warned that if they ate the fruit of the 
forbidden tree, they would surely die.  And die they did.  They died as 
a species.  They were no longer mere apes; but in time they were reborn 
as humans.  They were told that it was the Tree of Knowledge; and 
knowledge and intelligence are what they acquired, what we have today, 
in consequence of eating its fruit.  It was the Tree of Knowledge of 
Good and Evil.  By eating its fruit, they gave up what some call 
"innocence," and others call "ignorance," but above all they left behind 
their old, happy-go-lucky animal ways in which they never worried about 
such things as morality, and acquired a new human awareness of 
themselves and of the consequences of their acts, including such ideas 
as "right" and "wrong."  These new abilities helped them to survive, and 
more, to survive so well that in time we have dominated the entire 
Earth.  But with our newfound awareness we have also acquired new, 
almost Godlike responsibilities, and new worries.  Acts, including the 
eating of "forbidden" fruit, are not always definable as "right" or 
"wrong," but they all have consequences we must judge.

It was as they ventured out also that they "realized they were naked," 
and invented clothing to protect them from more hostile climates.  
Genesis 3 condenses millions of years of evolution and exploration into 
a single day.  But the story it tells is still true.  Creationists ought 
to read their Bible to find the truth instead of perpetuating silly 
stories about men's footprints being found alongside dinosaurs'.

If it was a female who "committed the original sin" and tempted a whole 
tribe of our ancestors out of the "garden," the consequences fell on 
males and females alike.  "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread."  Life was no longer the old, happy business of plucking fruit 
off trees or grabbing an occasional small animal or insect to supplement 
the diet.  It meant hard work, scavenging, hunting, ranging farther even 
for gathering, and in time the labor of farming.  "Unto the woman he 
said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow 
thou shalt bring forth children."  This was the consequence of physical 
changes in body shape: upright walking, and giving birth to the larger 
head that goes with higher human intelligence.

"And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."  
I don't personally see marriage as a ruling of husband over wife; 
ironically I think this is a masculine view that some women (feminists 
especially) take advantage of for their own gain, where there is 
actually an exchange of needs taking place and a great deal more 
equality of power than either chauvinists or feminists want to admit.  
But it is a long-term relationship of interdependence; and it's 
certainly true to say that by stepping into this new lifestyle, females 
gave up much of the independence that female apes have, and a great deal 
more sex *equality* -- on men's side -- was realized.

         Gordon S. Little
     (Gordon.Little@bull.com)