http://news.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Eve-Apple-Forbidden-Study.jpg
Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden is one of the most evocative stories of all time but not for its literal meaning.
It was extraordinary when it was first told. It was extraordinary when it first appeared as marks on a papyrus. It is still extraordinary today for its durability and perspicacity about the human psyche and condition.
Does it really matter what the fruit was - apple, peach, pear or fig? In fact it doesn't matter even one!
The point is that temptation is as powerful an impulse as it was then; that morality is an unavoidable challenge; that innocence is impossible to maintain in life's progress; that good and evil still determine man's fate and mental state; and an earthly utopia remains an unachievable ideal.
The foundations of the relationship between the sexes and between man and the natural world, not to mention the relationship between man the supernatural, were there laid down, which have had a profound influence on all societies that have come in contact with it.
And oh the serpent, the serpent! Has it ever since lost its chilling shadow? Temptation, failure, rejection, annihilation haunt us still.
From The Expulsion Of Adam and Eve from Eden by Masaccio. 1426-1428. Altered in 1680, left frame; restored in 1980, right frame.Wikimedia. https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2016/10/five-puzzles-arising-from-the-story-of-adam-and-eve/
Pedro Dos Santos the fruit was ................DISOBEDIENCE.................
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Tim Veater
Tim Veater No the 'fruit' was moral awareness and accountability. The disobedience was in the eating or partaking of it. Perhaps significantly in evolutionary terms, isn't this one of the significant distinguishing features between humans and other animals?
Tim Veater
ReplyDeleteMarch 1, 2017 at 11:36pm ·
The argument of "where did God come from?" and "how could a spiritual force create a physical world" is presented as an opposing duality, between science and religion and as a proof that a spiritual force - call him/it what you will - does not exist. It suggests that science is superior because it has the answers, whereas religion is fundamentally flawed rationally - that it is mere speculation and a form of superstition. It is true that science has provided mankind with a more accurate picture of the universe at a macro and micro level than ever before, but it has not expelled the mystery. It has merely deepened and expanded it. Even if current and incredible theories of the "Big Bang" help to explain the fantastic universe that we see, it still cannot explain where all the matter - a figure so huge it cannot be calculated - came from before it. It in fact defies the current physical laws. It seems to me (and I only have a very small and inadequate brain) there is not a great deal of difference between an atheistic scientific view and a theological/deist one when it comes down to it. Both rely on largely unprovable theories and end up as human belief systems. Neither know what came before that creative event, we now call the "Big Bang", or what could instigate it. In both cases it must fall back on the inspired guesswork, which both might still term "God".