Eden: The Buried Treasure

By Eve Wood-Langford

Can the concept of original sin truly be founded on the beautiful Genesis creation story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Only if the story is misinterpreted in terms of literal truth which entails belief in an articulate serpent. But when the story is interpreted as myth-history - not literal history - this important myth records a unique, fundamental and uplifting event in the human story.
The garden paradise pre-dates the written Old Testament, having circulated in Abraham's country of Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC incorporated in some of the world's oldest literature: the epic poem of Gilgamesh. Behind the naked figures of Adam and Eve stands an earlier naked couple whose 'history' should certainly be preserved in Genesis. However, interpretation of this 'history' in literal terms and from the standpoint of monotheism turns that ancient 'history' on its head.
During its long life the story of the first man to enter the garden paradise has been interpreted differently from at least four differing standpoints: Mesopotamian polytheism, the revolution of patriarchal monotheism, Christian monotheism, and the standpoint of science. At its origins, however, this priceless 'history' had nothing to do with the origin of sin. On the contrary, that interpretation throws the baby out with the bathwater. Look at the story in terms of myth, and in sympathy with its integral guiding images of serpent and tree and the garden reveals its long-buried treasure of truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 8, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452058054

Eve Wood-Langford

Eve Wood-Langford is a Unitarian, raised to accept Jesus as a human being, a prophet and sublime teacher of ethics. From this unorthodox standpoint the magnificent Eden creation account does not appear as the biblical illustration of original sin, but as a fabulous creation myth, complete with articulate serpent,long misinterpreted in the Judaic/Christian tradition of monotheism. Behind the naked figures of Adam and Eve stands a much earlier naked couple whose story preserves an important and inspirational 'history', a treasure from the ancestral world having nothing to do with human downfall and disgrace.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

An Introduction

1. In The Beginning

2. Adam The Agriculturist

3. The Great Goddess

4. The Young Lord

5. Gilgamesh – Hero Of Uruk

6. The Jewelled Garden

7. Job and the Dragon

8. Out of Mesopotamia

9. Out Of Egypt

10. The Goddess At War

11. The Yahwist

12. A New Testament

13. The Gospel According To Me

14. Sin In The Garden

15. Heretics In The Garden

16. Evolution In The Garden

17. Creation In The Garden

18. Treasure In The Garden

19. The Wisdom Of Eve

Notes

This book is dedicated to my Unitarian mentors who taught me long ago that it was possible to be a Christian without believing in miracles such as a virgin birth, or the concept of original sin based on a beautiful creation myth complete with articulate serpent.

Acknowledgements 

In writing this individual quest into another, earlier and spiritually uplifting interpretation of the unforgettable Genesis myth of Adam and Eve, I owe the greatest debt to the Bible itself, with its rich and invaluable eye-opening insights into the age of Abraham and his descendants. My gratitude goes also to those scholars whose books gave me such wonderful guidance into the world of the ancient Near East. This pursuit would never have begun, however, had I not read a work far older than the Old Testament: the famed poem of Gilgamesh, the first man to set foot in the Mesopotamian garden paradise. For only then did I discover for myself its incredible parallels with stories in the Old Testament.

Even so the task would not have been envisaged had I not been raised as a Unitarian, given the freedom to accept Jesus as a human being – not a Divine being – should I wish so to do, and strongly encouraged also to use my God-given reason and conscience to make sense of my religious beliefs. And though I was unaware of it at the time, the concept of this book originated decades ago when Unitarian mentors presented the Eden story not as a biblical illustration of Original Sin, but as an ancient and important creation myth rightly preserved in Genesis, but long misinterpreted in the Judaic/Christian tradition of monotheism.

Believe nothing O monks, merely because you have been told it, or because it is rational, or because you yourself have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for your teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find it conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings, that doctrine believe and cling to.

The Buddha

‘… though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways … when they would base themselves always on the literal truth of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred and sometimes forgetfulness of things past and ignorance of the future.

Galileo Galileo

An Introduction 

Since the dawn of consciousness human beings have sought answers to basic questions concerning their mysterious world, and the global myths provided answers. In the age of science, however, non-factual myth is sometimes dismissed as fairy tale, but this can throw a valuable baby out with the bath water, for though myth is not factual it can represent a form of history. For almost two thousand years the Genesis creation story of Adam and Eve has been interpreted in Christian monotheism as literal truth: but today this magical myth, set in a garden paradise complete with articulate serpent, is not acceptable generally as a factual record of human genesis. Even so, paradoxically this important creation myth continues to be interpreted in terms of literal truth because it is preserved in the Old Testament. Not surprisingly this memorable work presents something of an enigma, but it is seldom pointed out that almost all its constituents pre-date the Old Testament by many centuries. Moreover, in the changing vicissitudes pre-biblical records of a consequential meeting between a naked man and woman have been interpreted differently from at least four differing standpoints.

That something was strange about the Eden story was shown to me in childhood when it was presented in utterly contradictory terms. At my first Sunday school we learned how the disobedience of Eve – my namesake – brought all evil into the innocent world. Fortunately for me I was introduced subsequently to the society of those most gentle and unorthodox Christians, the Unitarians, who saw the Eden story quite differently. From their standpoint the ancient record was not literal truth, but a beautiful and important creation myth long misinterpreted in the Judaic/Christian tradition. Furthermore, when seen in that light the garden paradise story preserved an inspirational ‘history’ far removed from the orthodox Christian concept of the origin of sin.

Though Unitarians are strongly encouraged as individuals to question their religious beliefs, it did not occur to me then to investigate the myth for myself. It was not until my children were grown that I read some of the world’s oldest literature, the famous epic poem of Gilgamesh, and was astonished to see that it preserves almost all the constituents of the myth of Adam and Eve. This masterpiece circulated in Abraham’s country of Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE – or BC - predating the Old Testament by centuries.¹ Nevertheless, incredibly, it describes the creation from dampened clay of a male instant-adult – though he was not the first human being. Another section chronicles a consequential meeting between a naked man and woman in the natural world; and the epic even refers to a serpent with a human head known as Ningizzida, ‘Lord of the tree of life’. Here too is a record of the first man to enter the garden paradise, and another biblical parallel documents the life of a strongman whose mistress seduced him with deliberate intent to weaken his powers – as the biblical Delilah seduced Samson. The epic also includes an account of the building of a vessel in which to save the seed of all human and animal life from a predicted deluge sent by the gods.

Despite these remarkable parallels, the man in the Mesopotamian garden was separated from Adam in Eden by more than a matter of centuries. Though he spoke personally with his god – as did Adam – his deity was not Elohim/Yahweh/Jehovah: but the Mesopotamian Sun-god, Shamash. In his polytheist world, the frightening nature deities were deemed so disapproving of human advance that heroes were obliged to flout divine will for the sake of progress. At that period, when history was handed down generally in the oral tradition, no strict separation was made between factual and non-factual events. Hence myth-makers could enliven their stories, myths and allegories with memorable fantasy and the guidance of widely recognised archetypal images such as those of serpent and the tree. The tree represented the bounty of Mother Nature – earth - and the serpent-agent symbolised fertility – life – wisdom and guidance.

In the first millennium BCE during the founding centuries of the revolution of patriarchal monotheism, the story of Adam and Eve as we know it from Genesis entered Hebrew archives. At that time a scholar in Canaan collated stories from the oral tradition and other sources from which to weave the first contiguous Hebrew history.² This work recorded the Lord’s creation of Adam, fashioned from damp earth as a fully grown, fully conversant instant-adult. This man, the first human being, lived naked and alone with the newly created animals until the arrival of Eve, his naked partner. Eve, advised by the serpent to become ‘wise’ by tasting the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil, took the fruit and shared it with Adam. The Lord punished all concerned and banished Adam and Eve from the garden.

In time that history entered the written Old Testament, the Eden story appearing in Genesis as the second of two differing accounts of human and animal creation. Like other Genesis stories, the Eden record underlines the monotheist message that disobedience to the unique single God, Yahweh, would reap the Lord’s just retribution. To the monotheist eye, therefore, a record in which the serpent contradicted the Lord, made sense only if the creature was in the wrong - an inversion of the polytheist view. Consequently, the man in the original garden was separated from Adam in Eden not only by many centuries of time, but also by fundamental differences of religious and cultural understanding – particularly with regard to human disobedience.

When Christian monotheism branched from its Judaic root in the first millennium CE – or AD - Church Fathers examined the Old Testament from a new revolutionary standpoint. In the belief that Jesus died to save the human race from sin they needed to establish the origin of that sin, and in Genesis found something hitherto unrecognised in the Old Testament. Surely, the disobedience of the first woman, Eve, was clear biblical evidence of the introduction of evil into an innocent world. Here, it seemed, lay the origin of all human sin at woman’s instigation. The consequences of that exegesis for future female Christians may never be fully calculated. Furthermore, that sin subsequently became associated inextricably with natural human sexuality, a unique exegesis resulting in sad consequence for future Christian populations.

The doctrine of ancestral sin, ultimately Original Sin, based on the Eden myth was held largely unquestioned until the nineteenth century when the work of Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species was published in England. Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection resulted in scientific rejection of the biblical concept of human genesis as instant, fully articulate adults, the female from the rib-bone of the male. This created dissension among Christians, and a seeming split between science and religion. If the Eden story is literal truth, however, then so is a speaking serpent in Eden: but if this record is myth or allegory, then like many other creation myths around the globe it was never intended to be interpreted in literal terms. In this case, what Darwin’s theory contradicts is not a factual record of human genesis, but a memorable creation myth rightly preserved in Genesis, but wrongly interpreted in terms unsympathetic to its origins. Furthermore, any interpretation of myth as literal truth without cognisance of its fundamental guiding images – such as serpent and tree – risks distorting or obscuring the original message or ‘history’ it was created to enshrine.

Where we stand determines what we see, and this individual pursuit of the original message in the Eden myth is made from the unique and unorthodox standpoint of a Unitarian. This liberal movement originated in the sixteenth century when scholars in Europe, searching the gospels for evidence that Jesus claimed Divine status for himself, failed to find it. As a consequence they upheld their right to believe in one God, as did Jesus, and to reject the concept of Trinity, should they wish so to do. The concept of a human Jesus, a prophet and pacifist, above all a sublime teacher of ethics, creates a bridge to the first monotheists, the Jews, who do not regard Jesus as Divine. It is also in agreement with the views of the most recent monotheists, the Moslems, who accept Jesus as an important prophet in the line of Abraham, Moses and Mohammed.

Unitarians strongly encourage the individual questioning of personal beliefs, relying on the importance of conscience, reason and common sense. Their meetings have no set creed, and inspiration is sought from many sources, including the natural world and insights into other religious movements, monotheist and non-monotheist. Since the sixteenth century Unitarians have shown that the concept of a human Jesus does not detract from the ethics of Christianity, for a Divine Jesus is not essential to those who marvel at the enlightenment, the importance, and the difficulties of his compassionate teachings.³ When my quest into the Eden myth began later in life, it was to Unitarian literature from my youth that I turned seeking inspirational guidance and found there a reference to the Eden myth as an account of a process ‘out of which have arisen all the distinctive achievements and possibilities of human life…’⁴ Here was a revelation: buried in the garden was an inspirational meaning having nothing to do with original sin, or a human fall into shame and disgrace, but something quite opposite. From that moment I wanted to know how, why, when, where and by whose actions this unforgettable myth became misinterpreted. Did it truly originate as a record of an impressively uplifting event in the human story, and if so how was it re-interpreted as a history of the human fall into sin? I also had to understand just exactly what was that lost inspirational treasure of truth long buried in the garden.

In the pre-biblical epic poem of Gilgamesh, it was Aruru, the Creatress, who took dampened clay from which to create a naked instant-adult in the image of the high god, Anu. In the subsequent revolution of patriarchal monotheism, however, priests of Yahweh struggled to uphold the unique concept of a single male God, a Creator without consort (womb) or pantheon. Hence the concept of Goddess, or Creatress, female representative of the divine and bringer forth of life, was anathema, and had to be excluded entirely for the first time. Here began the long battle to abolish all representation of female divinity, and ‘backsliding’ Israelites were ordered to destroy groves of trees sacred to the Goddess (Exodus 34:13). The revolution of monotheism thus disturbed the natural gender balance of divine representation, and when the oldest stories were adapted to the revolution it is not surprising that some suffered an interpretative metamorphosis. Moreover, it is possible that when old material long cherished as ‘history’ was transferred into the culture and religion of monotheism, that no story underwent more drastic reinterpretation than that of a consequential meeting between a naked couple in the natural world.

Behind the naked figures of Adam and Eve stands a much older record of a naked couple whose story may no longer be understood at face value, or from the standpoint of monotheism – Judaic or Christian – or the examination of science. Perhaps now at the start of the third millennium we may look again into their world, querying for instance why the allegedly non-inspirational record of Adam and Eve, still upheld in illustration of disobedience, sin, and shame, has paradoxically appealed to human imagination through thousands of years and all vicissitudes. Why is this chronicle of alleged human perdition crowned with such perennial success? Is it possible that the once potent images of serpent and tree still communicate something meaningful to the human subconscious?

Today the global myths belong to humanity as a whole, preserving in a timeless language a story of the human race itself, and accessible routes back are open to all. These pages trace the Eden myth from its Mesopotamian origins and on through its preservation and interpretation in the saga of the Israelites in Testaments Old and New. Finally, the Eden myth is examined in the light of its genesis to show how this small masterpiece, rightly preserved in Genesis, guards one of the most beautiful anthropological records bequeathed to us from the ancestral world. Enshrined in the garden is an astonishing human record, a treasure of truth of value still to people of all races and creeds. Moreover, Genesis encapsulates an historic event in the human story in remarkable agreement with some modern scientific views on the same subject. It may also be seen to align with Darwin’s theory, for the anthropological treasure it preserves may itself be recognised as the simple and beautiful chronicle of a breathtakingly important evolutionary event in world history.

‘While Gilgamesh walked in the garden by the edge of the sea Shamash saw him, and he saw that he was dressed in the skins of animals, and he ate their flesh. He was distressed, and he spoke and said, No mortal man has gone this way before, nor will, as long as the winds drive over the sea. And to Gilgamesh he said, You will not find the life for which you are seeking.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by N.K. Sandars.

Unto Adam and also his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said. Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life: and eat and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 3: 21-22

1. In The Beginning 

The Book of Genesis opens the Hebrew sacred book we call the Old Testament, the history of the religious and cultural revolution of patriarchal monotheism, with the magnificent Priestly creation account. This beautiful and solemn record starts with the simple words: ‘In the beginning’ (Genesis 1:2-5a). In this chronicle of six days of Creation the Hebrew Lord commanded the appearance of light ‘and there was light.’ The Lord then divided the waters from the waters to create a firmament, and called forth sea, earth, vegetation, sun, moon, and all planet life from creeping insects to great whales. Finally, God said ‘Let us (plural) make man in our image,’ and human beings, male and female, were created. They were given blessings and every seed-bearing fruit to eat. The bringing forth of light by command reflects an Egyptian creation record in which the appearance of light was commanded by the deity, Amen.

The scholar who collated the second creation account, the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:5b – 3) referred to the Lord as Yahweh, and is known either as the Yahwist source, or as J – for the Germanic pronunciation of Yahweh as Jahweh.⁵ Though the Eden creation account is deemed the older record, it appears in Genesis subsequent to the Priestly account and is often presented as a continuation of it. Nevertheless, these creation records differ