Adam and Eve are metaphors for you and I

The story of Adam and Eve is not a story about the first man and woman. It is the story of every man and every woman who has ever lived. Everyone who reads the Adam and Eve story needs to be reminded that they are not reading history. Rather, they are reading an ancient story that seeks to explain why things in life are the way they are.

The story has four participants: God, Adam, Eve and a serpent. It is obvious to the reader that God is in the control position. The author of the story knew he was writing a God story, not a piece of human history. People who try to read the Creation and Garden of Eden stories as history will always be chasing rabbits that do not exist. Myths can never be read as history. Myths do not conflict with history. History attempts to report the facts of what has happened. Myths attempt to explain why things happen the way that they do.

Bible mythology was developed against the background of the dominant cultures that surrounded the Israelites. Abraham, the legendary founder of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is described in the Bible as a wandering Aramean. As the head of a wandering tribe, he was exposed to dominant cultures that had established cities as centers of power. His wanderings took him and his clan from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to Egypt. Even though he wandered all the way to Egypt, Mesopotamia was his roots. Written language first appears in Mesopotamia, and the first known mythologies are found in Mesopotamia.

The earliest Mesopotamian mythology is found in an ancient document called the Enuma Elish. In this story there is an ongoing battle between two gods. Marduk, who had formed the heavens and the earth, was the dominant god who was constantly challenged by Tiamat, the god of chaos. Marduk won battles but never the war. Tiamat always returned to challenge once again. For whatever reason, the clan of Abraham throughout its history always refused to assimilate with surrounding cultures. They wrote their own mythologies.

In the Israelite mythology, their god, Jehovah, is the only God. The Genesis 1 creation account is the Israelite myth about how the Israelite God addressed chaos. He reshaped life by the doing of good work. In the reshaping of life with good, the Israelites addressed one problem but were left with another. Why do human beings, created in the image of a good God, continue to foul their God-given nest?

The Garden of Eden story itself follows a basic organizational pattern. The ancient Eastern Mediterranean was a maze of wandering clans and small land-based communities. Large cities with established power structures were few. A semblance of order was maintained by covenants that were made between the heads of clans, small communities and the power brokers of the cities. The covenants followed a pattern. There was always a dominant power. Responsibilities were dictated by the dominant leader. If responsibilities were met, the dominant power assured safety and well-being to the lesser party. If responsibilities were not met, the covenants spelled out the consequences.

The Garden of Eden story follows this exact pattern. God writes the covenant. Adam and Eve as the lesser parties are given huge benefits — living in a lush garden. God set limits. They could not eat the fruit of a particular tree. God even spelled out the consequences of disobedience — eviction!

Now enters the fourth party in the story. Temptation. The serpent is neither good nor bad. Adam and Eve were free to tell the serpent to go away. They made a decision, a choice, and paid the price. God was not responsible for the bad decision. The serpent was not responsible for the bad decision. Adam and Eve made choices and were fully responsible for what they did. The consequences of their decisions were irretrievable.

The Israelite tradition says that the experience described in the Garden of Eden story is repeated by every human being. We human beings keep making the same wrong decisions over and over again. One would think that we would learn and change our ways. But we do not. The Israelite tradition says that life is unrelentingly consequential. But we constantly avoid and deny this truth.

Profoundly, I believe the Adam and Eve/Garden of Eden story. People who deny it do so at their own peril.

The writing of this column was triggered by the current argument about whether or not Adam and Eve were historically the first man and woman on earth. The brief summary that I have shared is taught in every non-fundamentalist seminary in America. I cannot fathom why ministers do not share with their congregations what they have learned in seminary. Meantime, we avoid the hard truths of the stories and engage in silly discussions.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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