| It Didn't Work Out That Well For Frasier Crane, Either |
[Feb. 5th, 2013|05:59 pm]
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Old Old Testament! Darkness was upon the face of the deep!
The Bible is actually silent on the subject, but according to an old and dense mat of myth, Adam had a first wife who was co-created with him, equal and equivalent. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. However, when the job description was explained to her – the actual word used in the KJV, which as you know was dictated directly by God, is "Helpmeet" – she declared herself unimpressed and left Eden. Just left. This is Lilith, who was later described by the patriarchy as a female demon, but was, of course, their worst nightmare – a woman who flatly refuses to assume a subservient position and the domination of some hairy bastard.
Like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, my wife, and Miss Piggy, I put Lilith in my list of women who have chosen not to accept the usual ration of shit. Like Richard III (who has finally come to light), the new administration desperately had to soil her reputation, lest people start to think and question.
This brings us to the serpent.
What has long struck me about the serpent in the Garden is, the serpent is absolutely not Satan. Judiasm isn't even dualistic. I think he wandered in, later, from the Persians. The serpent is Trickster, later typified as Loki and Coyote. The interesting thing about Trickster is, he doesn't specifically fuck you up. All he does is set things up so that you can fuck yourself up. It's funnier that way. The serpent and the forbidden fruit (certainly not an apple – apples were still confined to the Tian Shan mountains in Central Asia in the Bronze Age) are absolutely a Trickster story.
One of the things that struck me when I studied myth (Myth, it is written, is the stories a people tell themselves to define who they are and to bind them together) in college is that Genesis very closely resembles a lot of other creation and emergence stories. They all boil down to an explanation of why life is so hard here in Middle Earth – We used to live somewhere much better, but Trickster fooled us into leaving, and now we can't find our way home. The Jews were not the only ones to figure they must have done something really stupid to be stuck here.
That being said, I also have a theory about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
It was an intelligence test. We passed.
The name is a pretty clear label. Eat of its fruit, and you'll have agency, the ability to choose, the ability to make the right choices – or not. You'll be an adult, not the guiless children God had left gamboling in a nursery. God forbid them to gain this knowledge, without any particular reason, and left them alone with the possibility. Were these first people smart and responsible enough to emerge from their crib, or placid and pliable enough to just obey a stupid prohibition?
Eden – Earth – is a fine cradle, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever. |
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| Comments: |
I've never understood how it could be a sin to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because if you don't have that knowledge then how could you be sinning?
But yes, I've always felt that was a coming of age story. When you grow in wisdom of the ways of the world the gates to the garden of innocence are closed to you forever.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/74853163/15433037) | From:  natevw
2013-02-11 05:35 pm (UTC)
Works For Me ! | (Link)
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Especially since the G.O.E. didn't have Motocycles , old Pickup Trucks , Libraries and so on....
Who'd want any Woman who was subserviant ? blech , _TRIPLE_ blech .
-Nate
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