Jimmy Higgins

Well maybe your religion does, but mine certainly doesn't.

Biff the unclean

My study of Genesis hasn't gotten that deep to know such a thing. Is it just a jibe at women in general?
You find myths from that time period all over the region that blame women for everything that is wrong with the world. In Greece and Turkey you get the story of Pandora the first woman whose very name means "all troubles." She opened a box against orders, which had been booby trapped by the Gods.
But basically it's the same story are the Semitic one. There's the "One forbidden thing" and the woman lets her curiosity get the best of her and so causes EVERYTHING that is wrong. Men suffer through no fault of their own. In fact in Milton's version of the story (Paradise Lost) Adam is like a noble knight in shining fig leaf who willingly sacrifices himself for the love of Eve after her fall.

You have to wonder what the Hell was wrong in the region that they would come up with stuff like that?
Was there saltpeter in the water supply? Were they a bunch of Nancy boy myth makers from downtown Sodom? Were these Semite gals in need of a facial depilatory? We might never know, but whatever it was it was bad.

So the question for me becomes, does the woman eat the fruit first in the original story?
No, if you'll check out Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God you'll find that in the original story a god has created the first couple to be mindless slaves in his garden. This is because all the weeding and pruning is a pain in the ass and the God wants to have the garden to entertain all the other Gods and Goddesses, and not bother with the work.
In the garden are two snakes on a tree--which still exists as the symbol of medicine the caduceus. Mrs. Snake sees the humans and feels bad for them and she urges her husband to help them. He tells the people that there are two magic trees in the garden. One has the fruit that makes you immortal. He suggests that they eat that because the God has made them so that they would die. The God's thought was that after awhile the humans would start to complain so he made them to last only a short time. When they were gone he would whip up some fresh slaves.
The snake tells the people that the other magic fruit has the knowledge of human culture and society. He warns them that there is no way that they can get both pieces of fruit. The trees are at opposite ends of the garden and as soon as they touched one the God would know and be down on them like a pile of bricks.
The man and the woman decide together that to live forever as slaves is not living at all. They choose knowledge and the freedom knowledge affords them over life itself. They choose together.
The rest of the story is the same as the one you know. The God comes and chases them out with a monster who has a sword of flame. Then he attacks snake for helping the humans. Without the humans to keep it up Eden falls apart.

A very similar story in all it's parts. But with a completely different meaning. Somewhere between the first version and the one we know society had some pretty drastic changes. And if the story is any indicator they weren't changes for the good.

Jimmy Higgins

I believe there is a Sumerian (?) version of the story. I think the character Asu is given the option of eating the divine fruit that will give everlasting life. For some reason he decides not to eat it. Now we have death. What a bummer.

Biff the unclean

There's at least half a dozen versions. The tree of life makes it into the Genesis retelling but only as sort of an afterthought.
In Gilgamesh the tree of life is still around and is the subject of the quest that is central to the story. It's growing on an island where the stories version of Noah still lives (and is the reason he is still living)

Marduk

“I believe there is a Sumerian (?) version of the story. I think the character Asu is given the option of eating the divine fruit that will give everlasting life. For some reason he decides not to eat it. Now we have death. What a bummer.”

One version goes like this:
The Adam character has the chance to visit the great God Anu in Heaven. Enki the God who made the humans to do the work of the Gods warns Adam (Adapa) not to eat or drink anything Anu offers “it will kill you!” warns Enki. Adapa goes to see Anu, Anu admires the courage of Adapa for coming up to heaven and offers him a drink of the water of eternal life, but Adapa heeds Enki’s warning and refuses. Enki tricked Adapa out of eternal life.
And so it goes.

Biff the unclean

All these desert folks seem to have myths that go, once upon a time everything was great and then somebody screwed up and now we're going to die.
You don't seem to find stories like that coming out of cultures in decent climates. Many Polyneasian stories have the opposite--the early world was worse and then the hero/god made things better.
I wonder if it could have any thing to do with cultures migrating?

Llyricist

Actually it was the climates that migrated. During the last glacial period, up to 10-12,000 yrs ago, the Northern Africa - Eastern Med-Persion Gulf regions were lushly vegetated and got lots of rainfall. When the glaciers retreated (rather quickly I understand), the Rainfall moved North with them. Sorry I can't document this, it's just from recollection.

Biff the unclean

Cool, that would date the original "Eden" at 8000years before the creation of the world...in the same myth

Llyricist

yep... Kind of amazing the story lasted as long as it did and with relative accuracy, before writing was developed actually.

Biff the unclean

We go off to hunt mammoths and what do we find when we get home? Gone! EVE!!! What did you do with the rain forest?

Sort of like "I Love Lucy" but with the real "Lucy'