The story of Adam and Eve is one we all know and have been told since childhood, but have you ever thought about the story, really considered the story from the standpoint of reality? Paintings of Adam and Eve nearly always show them wearing fig leaves (or some kind of leafy covering that hovers over the genitalia) before they have even committed the sin of eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is often a snake coiled around the tree and inclined toward Eve. Try looking at the story from a more realistic point of view, taking the story out of the divine aspect that surrounds it and putting it into a more familiar reality -- as if it had happened.
Adam and Eve, according to the Hebrew Bible on which the Old Testament is based, were the first human beings. Forget about Lilith, another dramatic construct from the Jewish midrash (explanation and commentary on the Hebrew Torah (which became the Christian Old Testament with appropriate additions decided by the Roman council of Nicaea). What is immediately apparent is that though Adam was still the first (at least for this discussion) another female was created as his mate, Lilith. In the Vulgate Bible (first Latin bible written for the masses (vulgar - vulgate) Lilith was called Lamia, a Libyan serpent goddess, or Lamashtu, a female demon who killed children, drank the blood of men and ate men's flesh. She also caused pregnant women to miscarry, disturbed sleep, and brought nightmares. Basically, woman was a demon, an evil being wreaking havoc on the world of men.
Considering raging hormones during puberty, I can see how that would be perceived and how, from personal experience, it feels.
Lilith can be viewed another way -- that there was another female created with Adam from earth. It was Eve, the second female in this story, who was created from Adam's rib.
Putting this in context and comparing it to the older Sumerian account of creation, Lilith would have been the first attempt at creating earthlings and Eve perfected when the DNA retrieved from the rib of the Creator -- or Adam as the story goes -- made Eve more human. Consider that the creator of Adam and Eve -- however many attempts at creating a humanoid capable of thought and learning to perform tasks useful to God (or gods) -- perfected his model and sent two specimens, male and female, to the leader of the group (high commander or Commander of Earth) as a gift. It is very likely a pair from the first batch of earthlings, male and female, had also been sent as a specimen of the ongoing work to create a being able to carry out orders and do the hard work, freeing the rest of the colonists for less sweaty and dirty tasks. Would a pair of earthlings be sent as mature adults or as children?
I say children were sent, especially with the perfected batch of earthlings produced with the DNA taken from a male and female colonist obtained from the ribs. Like any modern scientist, the obvious source of DNA would be taken from his own rib and the female DNA would come from his scientific partner, the geneticist making it all possible. The new pair of children were sent to the Commander of Earth and he kept them as pets in his garden, naked as the day they were born, and just as unaware of who and what they were. But pets grow and they grow up.
When the latest Adam and Eve grew up, at least to the point of puberty and its inherent changes in body and mind, the scientist (Lord of Water) visited the Commander's garden to check on the progress of Adam and Eve. I can imagine the scientist saying, "How you have grown," when he encountered Eve. Probably through the worst of puberty, Eve would have answered the scientist's questions and told him about how odd and different she felt, how much pain she had had, and how funny she felt. She would have told him she had blood coming from down there and wondered if she was dying. The scientist was ecstatic. No longer would the earthlings be mules (infertile), they could produce children on their own. That was far more desirable than growing the earthlings in tanks or female volunteers and would speed things up nicely so the work force would be ready sooner.
The scientist is a sensualist. He liked women. He enjoyed them. He admired everything about them: their beauty, softness, receptiveness to his advances. They smelled nice good and, as he usually did, he was aroused. The scientist took Eve for a test run and was pleased with her willing responsiveness. She was still a child, but a talented and curious child eager to experience . . . everything, and so was the scientist.
After experiencing the new sensations of physical intercourse with the scientist, Eve noticed she needed to get cleaned up. She pondered what had happened with the scientist as she bathed and looked at herself in the water's surface. She felt she had changed and she looked changed. Her cheeks were flushed. Her breasts were fuller and flushed. She felt sore, but she also felt warm and tingling and . . . good.
She waited for the scientist to return so she could experience it all again. He had told -- and showed -- her they could be close many times and how good it could be. The initial pain dulled and was replaced by a warm and tingling feeling that did not go away immediately. It lingered. Her thoughts lingered on the experience long after the scientist was gone, her fingers and hands touching and stroking and feeling her body. How good it was and the feelings lingered.
Eve may or may not have known Adam, but it is likely they were companions, play fellows. She wanted to share the new experience with Adam. He was shaped like the scientist and she had seen his body change first thing in the morning when he awoke and sometimes through the day, his phallus growing hard and sometimes dewy with fluid. Eve had never really thought about it, but Adam's phallus got hard like the scientist's and she thought Adam might also enjoy the new experience with her.
That's what happens when a new experience is introduced. We want to tell our friends and companions. We want to talk about it and get others to help us understand it. We want to share those feelings and experiences.
Adam might have noticed that Eve touched her body more and he could have noticed that her body changed when she did so. Adam likely caught Eve bathing after the scientist left and acting strangely. When Eve emerged from the water she might have covered her genitals and breasts. That would have piqued Adam's interest. She would have gathered a branch or stepped into the bushes while she talked to Adam, gathering leaves and flowers and weaving them into a belt or apron to cover herself and hide the swollen pudenda that still tingled and felt warm -- and was growing warmer and tinglier as she told Adam what had happened with the scientist.
Eve touched Adam as she told her tale and Adam's body responded in a way that was natural and yet different. His body tingled in ways it had not tingled before. He felt warm. His phallus swelled and became erect and his scrotum tightened and tingled. Adam touched Eve as she touched him, cupping a breast and stroking the suddenly prominent nipple, teasing its sensitive tip while Eve touched the tight buds of his nipples. Ripples of tingling warmth coursed through their bodies and Adam gasped as he felt Eve's warm, wet embrace as she mounted him, wriggling as she guided his swollen phallus between her legs and deep inside. Adam and Eve began to move together, lost in their bodies awakening to each new sensation. At first, they were a little awkward. Then the pace smoothed out as the alien sensations overwhelmed them, finally giving into the rushing waves of heat and the growing sense of racing toward . . . something -- an abyss, a warm ocean swell, a crashing sensation and fullness that engulfed them and forced squeals of pleasure and surprise and climax.
Adam and Eve fell together, sweaty and excited and somehow replete as from a feast, marveling at how everything seemed different, felt different, was different. Every inch of their bodies tingled and they giggled and smiled as they touched each other. They were tired and excited and drooped a little.
As they continued to explore each other's bodies, they discovered they were ready for more, and they indulged themselves laughing and giggling and sighing and groaning with every sensation. When they were exhausted from their new experiences, they bathed, splashing each other, drawn together to experience it all again in the cool waters. When they finished and stepped up onto the bank, they blushed all over as they looked at each other. They would never look at each other in the same way. They knew each other in a very different way, an intimate way. They immediately felt shy and covered their self-consciousness by weaving leaves and flowers into a covering so they could go about their usual tasks or get some food to eat.
The Lord of Earth's pets looked different when he came upon them as he walked through his garden. They seemed fuller, more aware, and wore coverings of leaves and flowers. Was it some new game? Had they begun to imitate the colonists, to imitate him? Clever earthlings . . . or were they merely clever mimics?
The Lord of Earth questioned his pets and the answers he received explained so much, explained the strange noises he had heard and their exotic behavior. It didn't take long to find out that the Lord of Water had visited and been up to his old tricks. He would not allow his private sanctuary to be violated in such a way. His pets would have to leave his garden and live with the other earthlings. They would learn to toil and feed themselves and no longer be loved and petted and cared for. They were no longer pets. They were something more, something else. His brother had gone too far.
The Lord of Water's symbol was two snakes coiled around a staff, the symbol of his calling as a scientist and his creation of the slave species. It is not surprising that he would be called a snake by future generations as the snake was a symbol for the creative branch of science. Call it poetic license, a poetic license that has turned a scientist into a living serpent, a demon tempting innocence into the sin of knowledge of the full extent of the changes made in the earthlings. The earthlings could procreate and probably had souls. They were no longer just slaves and pets because they contained the essence of the colonists's being.
By his meddling, and his own curiosity, the Lord of Water had changed humanoid beings into beings closer to the humanity of the colonists.
I have often wondered if the First Sin was not a sin of eating a piece of fruit, but of introduction to sexual intercourse with the Serpent (the scientist that created earthlings) and the eventual pregnancy and birth of the first earthling child, Ka-in (Cain to Christians). Adam and Eve would have continued enjoying the experience of intimate intercourse and Eve would have become pregnant again, giving birth to the first earthling child. As a hybrid, Cain would have been obviously physically different from Abel, the second child born to Adam and Eve, and would have been treated differently by the Lord of Earth, the Commander. He would have favored the earthling child over the further hybridized child and that would have created further conflict between the half-brothers. They each had their own tasks, but Abel, favored by the Commander, would have lorded his favored status over his brother because he knew the Commander would side with him.
Children are sensitive to what goes on around them. Try as we might to shelter them from discord, children will be aware and know not only something is wrong, but what the something is.
Sin and shame are social constructs. Left to their own devices, people (earthlings) will find no problem with a woman sharing intimacies with whomever she wants or wants her. Children are a byproduct of that physical communion and the only thing that affects the harmony in their lives comes from outside. In Adam and Eve's case, their previous master's affection for their second child and their creator's affection for their first born would have been apparent, but not an issue until it became an issue between their sons, ending in the death of Abel at the hands of Cain when they argued and fought over the importance of their jobs and which of their overlords favored which.
Cain was probably as shocked as their masters and his parents, but he was to be punished and that was the end of it -- for him. His actions would become legend and be used as a cautionary tale to future generations.
Finding out that I was not the only person that believed the First Sin was the earthlings' creator explaining -- or showing -- Eve she could procreate was comforting. I was not the only weirdo in the world. How could I be when others read the words in Genesis and see a different tale? Not just because I am a writer but because I saw the story differently as a small child. No amount of bowing to my parents' will and trying to fit in lasted long. I did not see things as they did and no one could shake me from the certainty coming from deep within me. I imagined the story as I've written it above, although the sexual content came when I had my first experience of sex as a teenager of 18, nearly an adult. I remember the wonder -- and the shame -- that accompanied the strange new emotions and sensations, even more so when I discovered I was pregnant. That is when the shame kicked in.
Actually, the shame kicked in when I realized I would have to tell my parents. Facing my overlords was a lot more difficult than it would have been for Eve since she had no idea what had happened to expand her awareness of herself and the world around here would be met with anything but kindness as she had known from the first time she stepped foot into the master's garden. She was a child, not in body, but in mind. She had never been ill treated and she expected understanding and kindness from her master just as if she had found and presented him with a new flower or a unique stone or shell or animal. She did not expect the shock and revulsion on the master's face when he realized that her pregnancy was as a result of his brother lying with his pet. No doubt my parents would have been more stunned had I told them I had had sex with the family German Shepherd.
Others will see -- do see -- the story of Adam and Eve differently than I do. It is to be expected since we do not see the world in the same way. Others may or may not believe the story in the Bible and the way it is told and some may even call it a myth, a story told for children, to explain how the ancients explained and viewed the world around them. Whatever point of view others take, for me, the story of Adam and Eve is someone's version of events and a propaganda tale to make women out to be the villain of the story secon only to the serpent that tempted her.
Woman is weak and easily tempted and she is a seductress that lures man from the straight an narrow path and onto the dark path that leads to sin and destruction.
The truth is that the scientist was a sensualist and given to enjoying females. He took every opportunity to indulge his desires whenever and wherever he found them, much as Zeus did when he turned himself into a swan, a shower of gold, or a sunbeam into a dark room, or cuttlefish in pursuit of a sleek-bodied goddess disguised as a fish, or even taking on the likeness of the female's mate to enjoy the exercise of his desires. Whatever tale in which the scenario of seducer and seduced appears -- and there have been many -- someone with knowledge uses that knowledge to take advantage of a more naive prey. Today, we call it rape or sexual harassment, but at the heart it is the same tale of the serpent and Eve. Assign blame where you will, the tale becomes either a story of sensual expression or sin based on your own beliefs and experiences. These differing views are portrayed admirably in art, born of creative impulse ending in beauty and the representation of society's sensibilities.
Shakespeare was right when he wrote all life is theatre and we earthlings merely players fretting our hour upon the stage.
Take the tale of Adam and Eve as allegory or cautionary tale or celebration of the beginning of knowledge of self and the world and use it as a stepping stone to wisdom.
That is all. Disperse.
