Almost all of us lie to ourselves and others. Many cheat and steal. Even more either consciously or unconsciously manipulate others. We have no idea why we do many of the things that we do and we engage in behaviors that are hurtful towards ourselves and others. We often assume that we know who we are, but after doing a little bit of thinking, we discover that we don’t even know what the question of who we are entails. We might start saying things like our job title, hobbies or even possessions. We act in ways that are inauthentic and agree with things that we don’t truly agree with just to please others. Meanwhile we ignore making the changes that really count, with regards to how we treat other people. We often prefer what is easy over that which we know to be right. We are cowardly, ashamed and vulnerable and since we know that others share our condition, we exploit this fact in our dealings with others. All of us don’t. Few do all of these things. But many do at least some of them and many would never admit this to themselves. It can take the form of anything from brutal violence for the sake of nothing but satisfying sadistic urges, to pretending that something that we are selling is a little better than we in fact know that it is, to little stings disguised as jokes that we dish out to our loved ones.
I could go on and if you sit down and honestly think about it, you can probably find plenty of examples of your own, both from your own life and from others’, both from your past and from your current situation.
With the prior discussion in mind, I want to propose that question of whether biblical creation myth is literally true or not, takes the focus off of what is truly important about it. Namely its psychological significance when it comes to the state that we are in today. This belief also has the support of one of my favorite thinkers, Jordan Peterson.
I will go through it in the right order: In the beginning of the Old Testament Adam walked with God. Should we look at this literally, as if God was walking with Adam as a physical person? Or maybe there is some symbolism here? I would like to propose that the these walks that God does with Adam in the Garden of Eden are meant to symbolize the close connection with God that we are meant to have. Even that it is one that we can have right now if we open up to it.
When it comes to the fall, there may or may not have been some event that triggered it, that is symbolized by the eating of the forbidden fruit. Maybe there was even an eating of an actual fruit that was off limits. Since I believe that most of the things that we think that we know about history probably to a large degree is false, I cannot completely discount this possibility. But I don't know. And since it’s so clear that the biblical stories have huge symbolical meanings, it’s therefore here that their true value lies.
There is a lot to unpack here and what’s interesting about the Bible, is that you can find so many connections between different parts in it. A perspective that I find interesting, is to look at the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament as the display of an original event and all of its consequences laid out over time. Seen from this perspective, these stories show us flawed individuals with good wills, trying to find their ways through a fallen world, encountering all that has gone wrong with humanity along the way.
What I’ve come to believe is that the fall represents the birth of the ego. And the main characteristic of the ego is pride. Pride was also why what got Satan cast out of heaven. And remember that we are talking symbolism here. I’m not talking about Satan as an actual being, even if I don’t rule out his existence completely either. But regardless of Satan’s actual existence or not, there is a symbolism here that has something fundamental to say about our being in the world. As a side note, it can be interesting to think about the fact that one of the core ideas of modern satanism, is one’s embrace and strengthening of the ego which, at least officially, Satan is seen as just a symbol of.
Adam and Even ate of the fruit because they wanted to be like God (Laveyan satanists consider themselves their own gods by the way). At this point they were still innocent though, even though a seed has been sown even before the eating of the fruit, because of the discontent that the snake has put into their minds. Discontentment with what is, is in other words the absolute starting point of everything else that is broken with our being in the world. Adam and Eve lived in absolute love and harmony with God, each other and the world. And yet, a little voice whispered that there might be something more. Something better.
Adam and Eve didn’t know what they were doing. It is how they acted after their eyes were opened that got them cast out of Eden. How they acted when they lost their innocence and learned about good and evil. When they learned about good and evil they chose evil.
Instead of being honest and upfront about what they had done, Adam and Eve tried to hide. And when God found them, instead of owning up to his mistake, Adam blamed Eve and God. And Eve in turn blamed the snake and God. Here we see two of the evils of the world: the impulse to try and hide our mistakes and to blame our mistakes on others.
When they ate from the fruit they discovered that they were vulnerable. They had always been vulnerable. But now they saw their vulnerability. And not only did they see it. They wanted to hide it. Why do you hide your vulnerability, besides because you are afraid that it is going to be exploited? Because you don’t want to look vulnerable. Most of us want to look better than we actually are and so we hide that which we consider shameful about ourselves. Most of us need to be so broken that it becomes futile to hide our vulnerability, before we own up to it. We are afraid that if we show our true selves we will be rejected. And since we’re not in control of ourselves, this fear often cause us to act in ways that cause actual rejection.
In the next generation discontent and the knowledge that we are vulnerable causes Cain to murder abel. And soon this knowledge, coupled with ego, discontent and pride caused power struggles, betrayal, wars, weapons of war and so on.
As stated earlier, the Hebrew Bible shows one people’s honest attempts to find something right and true in this broken world, which culminated in the birth of Jesus, the first person that lived a life completely untainted by the world.
Or maybe I’m just reading too much into a fictional story about a garden, two people, a talking snake and an old man on a cloud. I don’t think so. But maybe I’m wrong. But if I’m not wrong and if these stories really are saying something fundamental about our being in the world, the natural questions become: How do they relate to you? And what are you going to do about it?
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