What can we gather from Genesis?

[marco]

Can we extract anything good from the Genesis account of creation? God apparently told Adam, the first human: "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." He didn't say why he had planted poisonous berries in a perfect orchard. Adam seems to have lived on, having escaped the dangerous garden.


We can extract beautiful meanings from the tales of Hans Andersen, such as the Little Mermaid who learns that pleasure comes at a great price. From the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Greek mythology we can understand that a man can enter his dark psyche to find something precious, only to have it snatched away.


Can we learn anything useful from the Genesis creation story?

If we accept the existence of Neanderthal man do we simply throw Genesis in the bucket?

[marco]

I understand that, and that's exactly why I said we are guilty of the same thing Adam and Eve were, constantly, every single day. No offense intended, but to dismiss this as somehow not making sense and/or unengaging seems to me to be classic avoidance, even to the degree of absurdity,

Myths make sense but there's no need to introduce a deity into a myth and treat this introduction as fact.


Your happy explanation of a modern sense of shame at one's nakedness, referring it to some original fruit theft, reminds me of Kipling's Just So stories for children. We learn how the camel got its hump and the leopard its spots. And we can read Genesis and learn how humans got their shame. Just so!

Among the sensible things Paul suggested was that when we grow up we put childish things away. Go well, PinSeeker.

[Tcg]

This is the origin myth of choice of the greatest collection of ancient literature known to mankind, ..The Bible.

What are the other candidates for this award?

Who decided that the Bible is the greatest collection of ancient literature known to mankind?

What criterion did they use to make this determination?


Tcg

[marco]

Am I avoiding what Adam and Eve did if I accept the miseries [or blessings] which escaped from Pandora's box [or jar]?

It is good to immerse oneself in literature, to imbibe what our dead fellow humans have committed to text. Pandora is a lovely symbol as is Prometheus; Shelley used Prometheus to give us some fine poetry and in Spring we shall soon be seeing the narcissus in our gardens, whose beauty recalls the sadness of a handsome lad. The tale of the gay relationship between David and Jonathan rivals any modern gay literature, while the boy with the catapult killing the giant is Robin helping Batman. Jesus is a minor Superman, able to fly in a limited way, an alien from some other planet born to earthly parents. But many would consider modern stories and films superior and more exciting than biblical fare

Zeus is far more interesting than silly Yahweh. But the exercise here is to try to rescue something rom Genesis, anything from a book that has served man for some time. Perhaps the best we can do is smile, as we are entertained.

[Diagoras]

But the exercise here is to try to rescue something from Genesis, anything from a book that has served man for some time. Perhaps the best we can do is smile, as we are entertained.

Perhaps re-purpose it as a primer for critical thinking? It’s often easy to forget that we were all once credulous children. We didn’t question the authority of our elders, even about Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.

Once children start exploring the world for themselves and asking ‘why’ and ‘how’, then Genesis is a nice, easy way of helping them to discover methods to separate fact from fiction. It would be only fair to add in some similar tales from different mythologies like the Norse gods, for example. Learning that different people at different times could believe vastly different things would go a long way to teach children about diversity and beliefs in a positive way.

[earl]

"To rescue something from Genesis"
The Jew historians or who ever they call them selves in those earlier times traced their lineage back to Adam and stopped.They claim Adam was the first man.
Those historians failed to cover up pre Adam civilization.
All it took is a three letter word to send us all down the rabbit hole.
Gen.3.1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.


Gen.3.1 Now Serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
I fixed it for ya.
Beasts were created on day 5 Adam on day 6.

More reading will show that Serpent 's family and Eve's family hated each other.
Here lies early man that was rejected as a man by the historians.

[marco]

Perhaps re-purpose it as a primer for critical thinking? It’s often easy to forget that we were all once credulous children. We didn’t question the authority of our elders, even about Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.

To every civilisation its myths. While Genesis may be like a Kipling Just So story, what follows when God gets angry and silly offers no lessons, but a commentary on how ready man is to accept brutality and practise it. It is true that the Greek myths contain brutality: Apollo lashing Marsyas to death, but they were tales to interest; the brutality of the Bible is meant to be copied. In countries today girls are stoned for love making or less. And the start of this is Genesis when God saw that it was good, but was wrong.

[Thomas123]

[Replying to post 45 by earl]

To earl ,
I have been reading this post and attempting to get it's intended meaning.
Are you saying that the Genesis writers or even the original oral myth gave any cognisance to ideas that we now associate with Darwin?

Genesis 3:8 might indeed suggest that they did as Adam is selected and 're-planted 'in a specific spot within Eden.

'And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.'

[Thomas123]

Reply to Athetotheist.

I have read more into this passage than simple nakedness. I think that it is shown as you say, that there is nothing wrong or sinful in the original primate state of not having clothes.
The primates have made a huge discovery in self awareness symbolized by the moral tree of good and evil. Yahweh asks them, who told them they were naked. The answer is that they themselves have become self aware.

We could speculate about what developmental breakthrough ,in human evolution, might correspond to this depicted Genesis event, In my mind it corresponds to mans early use of tools and possibly even fire. This is early man starting to 'enlarge' his perception of himself and of his capacity to both change and destroy his Yahweh paradise.

I doubt that there's any clear 1 to 1 correlation between the story as a whole and a particular point of human development as we currently understand it, but I agree that it quite probably was originally intended as an allegory for human [development of] intelligence, self-awareness, agriculture and civilization. [Not necessarily in an evolutionary sense as we understand it today, of course.]

As you've mentioned, the story of Cain and Abel seems to focus on the contrast and tension between the horticulturalist and pastoralist ways of life, with the less sedentary/civilized being deemed superior; arguably a similar theme is again seen later in Genesis with the contrast between Abraham the righteous nomadic herder and the sinful cities of the plain. The punishments meted out on Adam and Eve in the story of the fall - increased pain in childbirth (due to humans' unusually large heads) and hardship in working the ground for food - seem to reference human intelligence and agriculture respectively. Perhaps even the fact that it was Eve who first took the fruit: If women were more commonly the gatherers in primitive hunter-gatherer tribes, it would be they who first noticed that fruits were growing thicker and jucier in the places where they'd left their waste in previous seasons and began to exploit that.

Of particular interest to me are Benjamin Franklin's thoughts - almost envious, it seems - on the lifestyles he observed among the American Indians of his day. There may have been a time in the ancient near east when living examples of hunter-gatherer tribes were still around, and certainly examples of nomadic herders at the least, which is when a story like Genesis 3 may well have been created by a people or group disgusted with the crowds, diseases and other pressures of city life. But eventually cities grew bigger and more cities were founded; perhaps by Jesus' day, if not earlier, living examples of even nomadic herders were more remote and more intertwined with the civilized economies and lifestyles. Without some visible examples of more primitive societies seeming more innocent and free, such an allegorical interpretation of the story could easily be lost. And Christianity itself took root more in the cities than in the countryside, eventually developing a certain disdain for folk from the countryside (paganus). Quite ironic, considering Jesus himself is reported to have told his followers to surrender all possessions and live more like the birds of the field, very much along the lines of a 'return to the garden' kind of theme.

• Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, 9 May 1753
  
  
  The proneness of human Nature to a life of ease, of freedom from care and labour appears strongly in the little success that has hitherto attended every attempt to civilize our American Indians, in their present way of living, almost all their Wants are supplied by the spontaneous Productions of Nature, with the addition of very little labour, if hunting and fishing may indeed be called labour when Game is so plenty, they visit us frequently, and see the advantages that Arts, Sciences, and compact Society procure us, they are not deficient in natural understanding and yet they have never shewn any Inclination to change their manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our Arts; When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural [to them] merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger Brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and a match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness.
  
  Though they have few but natural wants and those easily supplied. But with us are infinite Artificial wants, no less craving than those of Nature, and much more difficult to satisfy; so that I am apt to imagine that close Societies subsisting by Labour and Arts, arose first not from choice, but from necessity: When numbers being driven by war from their hunting grounds and prevented by seas or by other nations were crowded together into some narrow Territories, which without labour would not afford them Food.

I apologise for not giving this post due consideration earlier. As we appear to be reaching the 'eulogy 'phase of this thread I would like to add my own few words, with regard to the depiction of Eve in the Genesis narrative, which you briefly mention.

Genesis 2:2525 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

There is considerable content here and an interpretation or consequence of the depiction is offered here.
marco; the brutality of the Bible is meant to be copied. In countries today girls are stoned for love making or less. And the start of this is Genesis when God saw that it was good, but was wrong.

Personally, the tribal attitude of the writers towards the male/female relationship , which was totally reflective of their time and culture ,was never going to see these events any other way. Women continue to suffer outrage in many of the Abrahmic Faith's. We need to look at this sensibly and I doubt if Genesis would make reading material for children unless it was made into something that it's not.

[Thomas123]

[Replying to post 33 by Mithrae]

Mithrae: We can extract anything good from the Genesis account of creation? God apparently told Adam, the first human: "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." He didn't say why he had planted poisonous berries in a perfect orchard. Adam seems to have lived on, having escaped the dangerous garden.

.............

I was further considering the above post and I tried to contextualize the Genesis narrative within the realms of this narrative's sources and the cultural and historical eras of its early advocates. I was looking at the writings in Proverbs which are very old and at least reflective of the time of authorship of Genesis.
Why demonize a snake? Why a fruit? I dont like snakes in any shape or form.it would be unfair to blame my bias on the Bible. Some snakes are poisonous, they rest in shade and hide, so that our clumsiness can bring about a dangerous encounter.
I was looking at this passage in Proverbs ,warning about the 'demon drink,, more specifically in this case the product of the vine . That is wine.
Proverbs 23
Do not look on the wine when it is red,
When it sparkles in the cup,
When it [a]swirls around smoothly;
32 At the last it bites like a serpent,
And stings like a viper.
33 Your eyes will see strange things,
And your heart will utter perverse things.

Is it worth considering that the serpent /evil fruit thing, is a close variant of the above simile?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History ... lic_drinks

[marco]

Is it worth considering that the serpent /evil fruit thing, is a close variant of the above simile?

There is no limit to the ways we can expand on the simplistic and turn it into a Platonic debate. Humpty Dumpty is a metaphor for careless risk taking; Catullus wrote a poem about his girlfriend's pet sparrow, but modern minds have found a cheeky metaphor for that dead bird.

And yes, the nonsense that fills the Old Testament lends itself to wise metaphorical interpretation, but why bother? The Bible offers folk God, albeit a brutal thing, and that's its whole point. We should leave God alone between the Tigris and Euphrates and seek our wisdom elsewhere. But if we want to take the Bible as a literature from a primitive past, and admire it as we might the Book of the Dead, then all is well. For my part I prefer classical mythology and we can play philosopher and psychologist there too.