The
Adam & Eve
Fan Club |
i.e., Eve’s true function described
Genesis 3:20 (Section 39): The man called his wife's
name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
+ “The man called the
woman/wife’s name chavvah1
+ because she was the
mother of all living.”
–
The
man renames the woman2
–
He
calls her ‘Life’ (or ‘Living’), not Eve3,4
–
It is
not stated how the man arrives at his conclusion that the woman ‘was the mother
of all living’
–
Neither
the storyteller nor the Lord God comment on the woman’s new name
–
The
man neither praises nor blames the woman for becoming ‘the mother of all
living’5
–
The
man neither praises nor blames the woman (nor the serpent) for the situation in
which he now finds himself6
–
It is
not stated if ‘becoming the mother of all living’ multiplies her sorrow during
conception and childbearing7
÷
Footnotes
39.1 … Young’s (less than)
literal translation reads: “And the man calleth his wife's (i.e. woman’s ??)
name Eve (rather than Life, my insertion): for she hath been mother of all
living.’ Young’s translation is disinformation. The original meaning of the
Hebrew word chavvah was (the injunction or order or capacity to give)
‘life’, hence ‘living’.1 The (mythic) 70 translators who create the
first Greek version of the story, i.e. the Septuagint, translate her name as
Zoe, meaning ‘Life.’ The Old (i.e. ‘dog’) Latin translation (used by Augustine)
also gives the woman’s name as ‘Life’.2 Clement of Alexandria also
translates her name as ‘Life’3,4
39.1.1 … Strong’s reference
(02332) suggests that the term chavva or chavvah derives as
causative of the word chavvah (02331), meaning: to tell, declare, show
or make known; or to breathe (i.e. life). That opens up lots of interesting
translation and interpretation options
39.1.2 … Many Bibles now add
a footnote purporting to explain the name Eve. One bible, i.e. the Gute
Nachricht Bibel of the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, claims (i.e. in a footnote)
that “Eve sounds like the Hebrew word for ‘life’.”1 In fact the
reverse is true. Eve (or Havva2 or Ava or Eva) is the sound (or
phonetic transliteration) of the Hebrew word chavvah, meaning: the
injunction to (Hebrew: vah) life (or living) (i.e. chai or chay)
39.1.2.1 … The footnote
seeks to disguise the true content of the first part of verse 39, namely that
the woman is called Life and not Eve (the name Eve having no meaning for
non-Hebrews). This is quite extraordinary deception. Even today, theologians at
such reputable universities as Cambridge and Durham, continue to uphold this
deception1
39.1.2.1.1 … The purpose of
this deception is to hide the true function of the woman, namely that of life
giver. Her function as life giver cleverly eliminated, religious blackguards
such as Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian can calumniate the woman with impunity
(see: 39.1.3 and 39.6.2, wherein Tertullian makes Eve responsible for Jesus’
death)
39.1.2.2 … The translation
of chavvah as ‘life’ becomes even more interesting when it is noted that
in the cognate Arabic and Aramaic languages the word havvah (and which
sounds as a pun of chavvah) means ‘serpent’ (in Aramaic hiwya),
moreover, can also mean: desire; also ruin; calamity, iniquity, mischief,
mischievous (thing), naughtiness, naughty, noisome, perverse thing, substance,
very wickedness. Take your pick
39.1.3 … Clement of
Alexandria writes: “In fact the woman (not the man, my insertion) who
first began transgression (not the serpent?, my insertion) was named
‘Life’ because she became responsible for the succession of those who were born
and fell into sin (that’s not stated in our story, my insertion), the
mother of righteous and unrighteous (according to Augustine’s free
interpretation of our story (but not of the other version), every child is born
unrighteous, i.e. a criminal, my insertion) alike, since each one of us
makes himself (this does not follow, my insertion) either righteous or
disobedient.” (note the extraordinary spin from righteous to disobedient)
Elsewhere he reconfirms the woman’s name as ‘Life’: “The Church must be chaste,
both from inward thoughts contrary to the truth and from outward tempters, that
is the adherents of the sects who would persuade her to commit fornication
against her one husband, Almighty God, lest as the serpent deceived Eve, who
is called Life (i.e. Zoe, my insertion), we too should be led
to transgress the commandments by the lewd craftiness of the sects.”1
39.1.3.1 … Clement
statements suggest that he does not accept Augustine’s flaky theory of Original
Sin, therefore is, according to the edicts of the Councils of Carthage and of
Trent, a heretic, therefore justly worthy of being tortured and fried, as so
many hapless humans were fired for not accepting Augustine’s unfounded
speculation
39.1.4 … Augustine knows
that the woman’s name is Life, rather than Eve, hence the name’s true
significance and import. Yet he chooses to deliberately misinterpret the verse
(i.e. and its actual meaning) to support his theory of Original Sin. He writes:
“Who is not troubled by the fact that after sin (which one?, my insertion)
and the sentence of God as judge (?), Adam (here intentionally given the
personal name Adam by Augustine, i.e. to personalise his attack on the man and
the woman, though the original text
speaks of the adam) calls his woman (sic.) ‘Life’? For she is
(called) the mother of the living, after she merited death (not in the
story, my insertion) and became destined to bear mortal offspring.”
Augustine’s exceedingly slick innuendo, achieved by adding the superfluous
adjective mortal, hence suggesting that the woman’s offspring will also die
(the suggestion being that they will die because of her) is vicious mental
misdirection
39.2 … The name first given
by the adam to the help-as-counterpart is woman, i.e. “because she was
taken out of man” (in this instance not ‘the’ man but generic man). He
appears to derive the first name from her origin.1 The second time
he names her he appears to derive her name from her (basic) function,2
in other words, from her newly emerged, or soon to emerge capacity to
motherhood, hence the proper name Life3
39.2.1 … The hero of this
story (and of the other version of the Life of Adam) is described in Hebrew as adam
(possibly meaning earthling, dust or soil creature or production), because he
is formed of (red) dust or soil or of the ground (Hebrew: adamah, the
latter term being the feminine form of the term adam). His description
(and which is not a name) derives from the material from which he is formed,
and not from his function The earthling (or dustman) has no name since he does
not give himself one. The insertion into this verse of the proper name Adam is
a deliberate text falsification by the translators of the Septuagint. Whether
or not the Hebrew term adam should be interpreted as ‘man’ or ‘mankind’
(i.e. since in Genesis 1 it is stated that (the) adam was formed
male and female), or as a particular ‘man’ (i.e. as ‘the’ man), or as a man
called Adam, is uncertain. In this verse, the Hebrew term adam (meaning
man, but not the male man, i.e. iysh) is linked with the term ishshah
(meaning woman) rather than with adamah (possibly the female
groundling), thereby introducing serious ambiguity and suggesting that the
verse a redacted extract for an earlier source interpolated later
39.2.2 … In ancient times it
is thought that a person’s name contains something of the very essence of that
person. Therefore, by giving someone a particular name one can influence that
person’s fate, and, by changing the name, manipulate his or her fate. The
etymology of a name also contains something of the person bearing that name.
Hence the proper name Yahweh is sometimes interpreted to mean (or to
have been derived from) ‘Being’, which is why the Lord God (i.e. the Hebrew
mountain strong one, named Yahweh, formerly called El-Shaddai,
meaning the God of the mountain and regularly mistranslated as God Almighty or
God on high) is alleged to have told Moses, on being questioned about His name,
“I am that I am”, or words, in fact consonants, to that effect1
39.2.2.1 … There is
obviously a serious problem here. Since it is the mythic (i.e. now known to be
a composite, mainly fictional character) Moses who is first told by the strong
(ones) (i.e. the elohim, later interpreted to mean godhead or God (in
the singular)) that He now wants to be known as Yahweh, that is to say,
centuries after this story is (allegedly) first told, it is not entirely clear
how the name Yahweh finds its way into our version of the Life of Adam
story1,2
39.2.2.1.1 … The notion that
the self description, “I am that I am” should be understood to mean that the
Hebrew deity refers to himself as ‘pure being’ is developed centuries, probably
in Greece. It is of course developed early on in India, specifically by
commentators of the Upanishads. They also produce the notion of the formless
(i.e. nirguna) Brahman (very loosely translated, but never understood by
Indians, as God) and referenced as (all pervading or all-being) sat-chit-ananta
(rather than ananda) and, moreover, described as ‘the one without a second’. It
is the Indians who first come up with a genuine notion (and experience) of
mono-‘theism’, though their ‘theos’ (i.e. the Brahman) is not a person
but a combination of fundamental functions (later wrongly reified as
qualities), hence a pre-quality Basic Operating System. The Hebrews (more
precisely stated, the people of Israel, to wit, the people of EL)
eventually accept the god, Yahweh as their sole god, thereby becoming
monotheists. However, since Yahweh Himself accepts that there are other
gods,1 the Hebrews actually practice not monotheism but monolatry
39.2.2.1.1.1 … The God of
Israel (and not the God of any other nation), Yahweh, makes the
following statements (Exd 20.3), thereby admitting that other Gods exist1
and, moreover, that He is not the one God of all humans. “Thou shalt have no
other gods (elohim) before me” and (Deu 6:14): “Ye shall not go after
other gods, of the gods of the people which [are] round about you;…”. In short,
Yahweh insists that the people of EL (i.e. Israel) worship (i.e.
fear and love) only him. 39.2.2.1.1.1.1 … Apparently Yahweh, and who
appears to have been merely one of 70 sons of the supra-god EL (i.e. the
ancient God of Canaan, and who is later reincarnated as the Arab deity Al-lah,
possibly derived from al-elah), inherited the tribes of Israel,
specifically Jacob, as ‘His portion’ of the supra-god El’s domain, i.e. the
tribes who worshipped (to wit, Isra-) the super god El (Hebrew: el’yown,
to wit, El on high1), quite obviously fanatically. Yahweh
appears not to have a problem with other gods2, not because thy
exist but because he is jealous and needs to be the sole deity of the tribes He
has received, or has chosen, or who have chosen Him, not taking kindly to any
of his flock drifting off to worship (or serve) the competition
39.2.2.1.1.1.1.1 … It is
clearly stated in Deuteronomy 32:8, “When the most High (Hebrew: elyown)
divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam (here
interpreted as man or mankind, my insertion), he set the bounds of the
people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD'S (Yahweh’s)
portion [is] his people (that is to say, the tribes of Israel, my
insertion); Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.”
39.2.2.1.1.1.1.2 … Yahweh
never claims to be the god of all nations, therefore of the nations of the
uncircumcised. It is stated 235 in the OT, mostly by Yahweh, that He is
the God of Israel, i.e. the God of Abraham and of Jacob. He does not state that
He is the God of the Irish, the Mongolians or the Pygmies, let alone of the
Arabs. The notion of one God for all, and, indeed, of a loving God, the latter
notion wholly alien to the belief of Hebrew priests, and Jesus too, is derived
by Paul from Greek philosophy and then used as fundamental article of belief
framing his new Christos cult
39.2.2.1.2 … There are two
possible reasons why the name Yahweh, always intentionally mistranslated
(and/or misspoken) as Lord (Hebrew: adown or adon, plural adonai),
appears in our story. Either the editor who later rewrites the story, and when
he inserts the false story elements (i.e. relating to transgression) in order
to ‘bend’ the moral of the story, i.e. from a simple passage solution to a
‘crime and punishment’ drama, to suit current socio-political (hence religious)
need, simply adds (i.e. superimposes) the name of Yahweh to give the
story greater credibility; or the basic story (as passage myth) is actually
composed (or borrowed and altered) when the unknown authors of the Books of
Moses invent the fable of Moses and his grandiose achievements (now known to
have been fantasy), possibly just prior to or during the Babylonian captivity.
In any case, the name Yahweh cannot possibly have been part of our story
(moreover, the other version speaks only of elohim, i.e. the gods, and
not of Yahweh) since the man, who alone is given the authority to name,
does not name Him. There is serious cheating going on here
39.2.3 … It is probable that
this verse has been moved forward in the story. For at the time when the man
renames the woman Life she has not yet conceived and born her first child (of
3). The verse fits better (i.e. more logically) after the birth of Cain outside
the garden
39.3 … The renaming of the
woman as ‘Life’ or ‘Living’ begins the process of turning the entire story away
from the primary theme, namely the mortal danger of eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and bad, and from the secondary them, namely from the notion
that transgression (i.e. crime) and punishment, i.e. disobedience, sin and
death, result from (‘one man’s’) sin, as interpreted later into the story (i.e.
specifically by the expert witnesses Paul, Augustine and Luther, and the
countless others who accept their mindset), to the third theme,1
namely that the man (and, possibly, the woman) leaves the garden as peer of
gods, his ‘as (one) of us’ status, restricted albeit to his (alleged) knowledge
of good and bad, and without any Law being imposed on him
39.3.1 … The shift in
(possible) meaning is made all the more dramatic and significant when the Lord
God makes garments of skins for the man and the woman (although they are
already wearing aprons) and then declares; “Behold, the man has become as one
of us, knowing good and bad …”, thereby (i.e. by having the man wear His clothes)
announcing to the ‘us’ (but not to the man) the man’s status change (indeed
‘rise’) to membership of the (peer) group of the Lord of the gods, i.e. the elohim,
i.e. the ‘strong ones’1
39.3.1.1 … The non-inclusion
of the extremely important, in fact, deciding content of this verse Paul and
the verse’s ‘playing down’ by Augustine in their respective interpretations of
the whole story, and which results in misinterpretation of the story (i.e. as
crime and punishment account), amounts to intentional deception1
39.3.1.1.1 … It is truly
astonishing that neither Paul nor Augustine refer in detail and at length to
the prima facie evidence against punishment of man’s apparent rise in status to
‘as one of us’, and which stands out
(or must have stood out) like a sore tooth. Paul does not refer at all
to this sentence. Augustine appears to gloss over this verse and the last part
of the story, and which suggests a different solution to the story.1
And the reason is obvious. If, as the sentence seems to suggest, the pair eat
from the tree of life rather than from the tree of the knowledge of good and
bad, and therefore commit no transgression, then Paul’s (and Augustine’s)
theory of Original (hence absolute, because transmitted from one source to all
human offspring in the man’s semen (so Augustine)) Sin as the cause of death
(and which is presented by Paul as a flat assertion) cannot be sustained. If
Paul’s disobedience, sin and death theory fails (i.e. ‘falls’, and it ‘falls’
because neither disobedience nor sin are mentioned in the story), then his 1st
Adam - 2nd Adam theory also fails (i.e. ‘falls’, because a lie)
39.3.1.1.1.1 … The solution,
and which the Lord God Himself provides (in verse 41), is that the man is ‘sent
forth’ from the garden as a mortal peer (i.e. ‘as one of us’, i.e. as one of
the ‘gods’, i.e. as one of the elohim) and not as an evil or wicked man
condemned to a life of misery ending in death (after 900 years), as claimed by
Augustine and Luther. However, this solution, namely that (the) man lives
beyond the garden as a mortal, albeit foolish god - since he has quite
obviously not acquired the knowledge of good and bad (but merely the experience
of nakedness), and which is why the Lord God later needs to invent His (10 plus
n) commandments - would not have served the fanatic cult founder Paul’s need
for an absolute whipping stick (i.e. endemic sin and/or guilt)1
39.3.1.1.1.1.1 … Endemic (or
inherent) sin (hence guilt), first suggested by Paul and later firmly
established by Augustine, is their most creative and productive, albeit
malicious contribution to Christianity. The theory of endemic sin, namely that
each and every child is born a criminal because corrupted by Adam’s sin, allows
the Church to proclaim: ‘A person (man or woman) is guilty until proven
innocent’, in contrast to the civilized (indeed Roman, indeed pagan) view that
‘A person is innocent until proven guilty.’ Proof of innocence, if not proof of
the ability to achieve innocence, derives, according to Paul, in a person’s
faith (i.e. faith in Paul’s (but not Jesus’) version of the Chrestos
cult1). However, Augustine claims that proving (indeed recovering)
lost ‘innocence’ (hence righteousness) lies solely within the power of the God,
i.e. in the sanctifying grace (and which was another of Augustine’s weird and
wonderful inventions) and which God gives according to His (unknown and
unpredictable) reason. According to Augustine, a person has no chance of
proving his or her innocence any effort on their part. Neither ‘keeping the
law’ nor ‘faith’ nor doing ‘good works’ suffices to induce God to declare a
person born of a male’s semen innocent. The notion (later dogma) that all
human’s are guilty (i.e. criminals at birth) together with the notion that
humans cannot their innocence produces the perfect rationale for the nigh
irresistible protection racket which the Christian Church eventually
establishes all over Europe
39.3.1.1.1.1.1.1 …
Resistance to or loss of faith in Paul’s
(and Augustine’s) highly speculative opinion, later accepted by the
Church as dogmatic fact, decides to declare himself infallible, results in the
robbery, torture and murder of millions of innocent humans. The lives of
countless humans, in particular woman, are blighted, indeed wrecked by Paul and
Augustine’s (and later Luther’s) sin and guilt obsessed religious fantasies. It
seems that no one dared, nor dares to touch these saintly conmen whose crooked
and malevolent (personal) opinions led (and still lead) Christian clerics to
indulge in worldwide crimes against humanity, in particular crimes against
female humanity
39.4 … The man does not call
the woman ‘Knowledge’ or ‘Smart’ or ‘Clever,’ and which he would have done -
following the practice of deriving a personal name from an individual’s primary
function - had she acquired knowledge, i.e. by eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and bad. By naming her ‘Life’, the storyteller (or the
redactor who ‘planted’ this verse, introduces massive ambiguity into the story1
39.4.1 … It is not clear why
the storyteller has the adam re-name the woman ‘Life’ and, to make her
function absolutely clear, that she is (or will be) ‘the mother of all living’,
thereby increasing the ambiguity of the story, widening the range of the
story’s (or oracle’s) solutions, and preventing a clear cut moral from
emerging. Is he suggesting that the pair did not after all eat from the tree of
the knowledge of good and bad but of the tree of life, since neither died, as
the Lord God had predicted (at least for the man), and when the woman’s life
giving faculties might have been started up?1,2,3
39.4.1.1 … This is precisely
what Augustine suggests when he speculates: “For in the first stirring
of the disobedient motion (read: arousal, possibly erection)
which was felt in the flesh of the disobedient soul (the soul
is not mentioned in the story, my insertion) and which caused our first
parents to cover their shame (in fact they covered their
nakedness, my insertion), one death indeed is experienced, that,
namely, which occurs when God forsakes the soul.” This statement is pure
fiction and full of intentional disinformation. Augustine uses this fictional
detail to support his theory of Original Sin (or guilt), and which is then
accepted as fact (to be turned into dogma) by the pope and the whole Christian
Church, notwithstanding a few dissidents, who are then quickly dispatched (i.e.
excluded and then exterminated) by the Church
39.4.1.2 … It is interesting
to note that in the Middle Ages it gradually becomes accepted, a least by
painters, that Eve ‘tempts’ (or seduces) Adam with an apple. The apple
(possibly derived from the fact that the Latin term malus (meaning bad)
also describes the genus term given to the apple, i.e. malus) is a
symbol of female fertility. Obviously someone (else) realized that quite
possibly the woman and the man ate from the tree of life and not from the tree
of the knowledge of good and bad. The storyteller does not state that the man
and the woman indulged in sexual activity after they. The Lord God does not
accuse or condemn the man and the woman of sexual misconduct
39.4.1.3 … The God of the
Arabs, Allah, when speaking through his Prophet Mohammad, may his name be
praised, clearly states that the man and the woman ate of the tree of
immortality, hence of the tree of life. And who would doubt the word of Allah,
let alone his Prophet,1 on pain of getting assassinated
39.4.1.2.1.1 … The message
of Allah’s prophet to Arabic speakers is clear: (Surah 20.120) “But the Shaitan
(i.e. Satan, not mentioned in the Hebrew version of the story, my insertion)
made an evil suggestion to him; he said: O Adam! Shall I guide you to the tree
of immortality and a kingdom which decays not? (20. 121) Then they both ate of
it, so their evil inclinations1 became manifest to them, and they
both began to cover themselves with leaves of the garden, and Adam disobeyed
his Lord, so his life became evil (to him)…” Mohammad, speaking for Allah, does
not mention the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. It does appear that
Allah’s version of events corroborates the Hebrew storyteller’s account given
in verses 25 and 26. Recall that the woman merely states, “The serpent beguiled
me”, but does no specify the tree from which she ate. And the man merely
states, “and I ate’, but does not admit to having eaten of the tree of the
knowledge of good and bad
39.4.1.2.1.1.1 … It would,
of course, have been helpful if Allah had described the type and range of those
evil inclinations
39.5 … The new name the man
gives to the woman appears to be derived from the functions he observes, or
anticipates, in the woman, though she has not yet activated her reproduction,
i.e. life giving, functions. However, he does not disclose the reason why he
names his help-as-counterpart ‘Life’. Whether or not his statement about the
woman (i.e. as ‘mother of all living’1) amounts to praise or blame
is not disclosed in the story. Neither the Lord God nor the storyteller comment
on the woman’s change of function and of name
39.5.1 … Mad Martin, it appears,
is truly baffled by this verse. So he sets about inventing some facts (and
which is pretty poor academic, though excellent theological procedure) in
support the traditional view He writes, “But you will ask: “Why does he call
her ‘mother’ when she was still a virgin and
had not yet given birth?” He does this, too, to bear witness to his faith in
the promise (what promise?, my insertion); for he believes that the
human race is not to be cast away or to be destroyed, but is to be preserved.
And so this name expresses a prophecy of the future grace (Wow? that’s not
in the story, my insertion) and points to the comfort which is necessary
against the temptations of Satan (he’s parroting Paul, my insertion) in
the continual misfortunes (no fortunes at all?, my insertion) of this
life (whose life? all of it?, some of it?, my insertion). Moreover, it
is possible that this delightful assignment
of the name, which is a superb witness of Adam's faith (Wow!. my insertion)
and of his cheerful spirit, prompted the holy fathers later on to regard as
more festive and joyful the day on which an infant was circumcised (he’s
lost me here!, my insertion) and named than the one on which it was born.’1
39.5.1.1 … Once again, dizzy
with misguided passion, Diddy (Bonhoeffer) needs to go one up on mad Martin.
Bonhoeffer fantasizes, “There is a wild exultation, defiance, audacity, and
triumph (I could not find this bit in the original text, my insertion)
when Adam now gives to his woman, the very woman on whom this curse has fallen
(no curse fell on the woman, my insertion), the name ‘the mother of all
that lives’. It is as though, like Prometheus, he boastfully (??, great
rhetoric, my insertion) insists on his claim to have pulled off a robbery
against his Creator (Razinger, now Pope Benny 16, will later call the man’s
acquisition of the knowledge of good and bad a rip-off, German; entreissen, my
insertion)); and now, with his booty (what booty ?, my insertion), this woman of his to whom
he is bound in a new way, in defiance of the heavy fate that the curse has laid
upon them both (a curse was not laid on the man or the woman, my insertion),
he renounces all ties with the Creator.’ It is not stated in the story, nor,
indeed, in the other one (Gen 1 and 5), that the man renounces all ties with
the Creator. Bonheoffer is lying. The problem with dizzy Diddy (Bonhoeffer) is
that he reads too much of Augustine and Luther and does not check the facts
provided in the original story and use them, rather than Augustine’s and
Luther’s malevolent fantasies, to support his over-the top apologetic
39.6 … There is no
indication at this point in our story of the world’s first family squabble. It
appears that the man accepts (i.e. is man enough1 to accept) the new
reality without resorting to blaming, and, indeed, to denigrating2
39.6.1 … It appears that the
woman resorts to blaming, for she appears to try to shift the blame for her
alleged transgression (and she is not told by the Lord God precisely what her
transgression was, i.e. the Lord God simply says: “what is this (unspecified,
my insertion) that you have done?”)1
39.6.1.1 … The blame
shifting interpretation changes if the Hebrew term nachash, and which
can mean serpent (Strong 0517) or enchanter (or deceiver or diviner, to wit,
whisperer) (Strong 05172) or enchantment (i.e. as deception or divination)
(Strong 05173) is translated as enchanter. If nachash is translated as
enchanter, then the woman merely states the obvious, namely that the enchanter
(i.e. whisperer or hisser) enchanted her (i.e. ‘caused her to forget’), and the
notion that she is blaming disappears
39.6.1.2 … Paul, the
Christos cult founder, is certainly given to blaming.1 He writes,
“Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that
dwelleth in me”. Elsewhere Paul claims (i.e. without proving, or even seeing
the need to prove his case) that Adam (actually, the nameless groundling) is
responsible for sin (unspecified, and absolutely or universally endemic in ‘all’,
though here and there only some humans’). In short, Paul is inventing
the adam as a fall guy. Paul is not prepared to take the rap for his own
failing (Greek: hamartia, Hebrew: chattah). What Paul is actually
saying is that Adam, i.e. the 1st Adam, got him into the mess he is
in (so that he is not personally responsible), and that Christ (alone), i.e.
the 2nd Adam, will get him out of it (and for which act of
deliverance he too is not responsible, unless he has ‘faith’, maybe). Of
course, that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus seems occasionally to incline to the
opinion that individuals are, or become righteous (hence justified) if they
adhere to the Law (+ do good works, + love their neighbours + pay their taxes
and so on)
39.6.1.2.1 … Likewise (the
married!) Tertullian, Church Father extraordinaire, and who is not present when
the events in the garden unfold, and is, therefore, not a witness, though he
speaks as an expert anyway. He heaps sheer awful blame and abuse on the woman,1,2
indeed, following Paul’s lately developed proclivity to universalise, on all
women. Tertullian castigates all women, i.e. for being the daughters of ‘Life’:
“Do you not believe that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex
of yours lives on even in our times and so it is necessary that the guilt
should live on, also. You are the one who opened the door to the Devil, you are
the one who first plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree, you are the first
who deserted the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil
was not strong enough to attack. All too easily you destroyed the image of God,
man (WoW!!, my insertion). Because of your desert, that is, death, even
the Son of God had to die.” Wow! So Eve is responsible for Jesus’ death, and
his death was not a voluntary act of self-sacrifice? Elsewhere he gives his
misogynistic extremism free reign: “You (i.e. every woman, my insertion)
are the devil’s gateway… you are she who persuaded him whom the devil dared not
attack. Do you not know that every one of you is an Eve? The sentence of God on
your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, of necessity, lives on too.’
Tertullian’s brutal, merciless denigration, indeed demonization of all women is
without grace, compassion and love. This malevolent, hate-filled religious
blackguard should have been condemned and fired, if not on a pyre, then at
least from his job. Sadly, though Tertullian’s wholly un-Christian opinion did
untold damage to women, he is still revered as one of the Church’s finest.
Still, it’s not too late to declare at least this piece of Tertullian’s
religious crap anathema
39.6.1.2.1 … Thomas Aquinas,
the angelic Doctor, one of the Christian Church’s more creative and respected
religious fantasy writers, though playing the dummy to the ventriloquist
Aristotle, has this to say about (the) woman: “As regards the individual
nature, woman (i.e. generic woman, i.e. all women, my insertion) is
defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to
the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production
of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material
indisposition, or even from some external influence.” Words fail me! How an
intelligent man, and one who presumably has faith in the Lord God’s absolute
goodness, could even think such horrendous nonsense beggars belief. That the
Church accepted, and apparently still accepts Aquinas’ psycho-pathological
delusion, and which led and still leads to the most cruel psychological abuse
of women worldwide, speaks volumes about the Christian Church’s inability or
unwillingness to clean up its act and change its fundamental attitude to women
39.6.1.2.1.2 … Augustine
expresses his derogatory opinion of women succinctly. He writes, “What is the
difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress
that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to
man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.” Apparently the Lord God
did not share Augustine’s opinion. After all, He ‘made’ the woman as a
help-as-counterpart rather than as a ‘bearer of children’
39.6.2 … Following Paul’s
disparaging comments on the adam’s help-as-counterpart, the Early Church
Fathers gradually dragged the Christian Church into full-blown misogyny. In
short, neither they nor the later Church (despite its invention of Mariolatry
(and which concerns itself with the virgin Mary, i.e. as God Mother and/or God
Bearer, and not with old Mary (and woman as such), the mother of several
children in her role as life giver) had not a good word to say about Eve (i.e.
generic woman) and her countless daughters, even though the adam had
declared her to be ‘the mother of all living’. How could the Christian Church
get it so wrong? How could the Church condemn rather than praise giving birth
to children, indeed to life giving in general, when the Lord God had clearly
stated (and on several occasions after the pair had left the garden and the
Flood) that the physical life He had created was good1 and, moreover
the man and the woman should multiply (to wit: copulate) and be fruitful? How
could the Church blame the woman (i.e. Eve) for Christ’s death and not praise
her for His birth? After all, if the Christian assumptions about life in the
garden in Eden are accepted, then reproduction would not have happened (since
reproduction requires not only desire (forbidden by Paul as sinful) but also
sexual activity, deemed sinful by the Early Church Fathers, in particular by
Augustine) and you would not be reading these words. The Christian Church’s
misogyny, indeed, misanthropy was, and still is, staggering. No love there for
the human (in particular for human women). The damage it did to humans, in
particular to women, is legion
39.6.2.1 …Even if death is
considered bad, and that depends on who is doing the considering, since the
Lord God appears to believe it is good, at least for him, life, i.e. life
giving, is certainly good. To be sure, death ends life; but life has to emerge
before death can happen. Life, i.e. physical live, the life of the flesh, is a
wonderful gift, even though it comes at a price. The Lord God created human
life last, possibly as His highest creative achievement, i.e. because of its
widest range (or freedom) of experience, hence of consciousness. That might
suggest that every life form prior to human life was less of an achievement,
and that would include God’s life too, at least that’s the conclusion to which
the Indians, both Hindus and Buddhists, came
39.7 … Life, alias Eve,
conceives 3 children after she leaves the garden.1 It is not stated that
she has increased sorrow during her very few conceptions and/or childbirths.
Indeed, it is not stated that she experiences any sorrow at all. Yahweh’s
prediction, namely that she will have her conceptions multiplied, appears not
to come true. But then, Yahweh gets His predictions wrong almost every
time
39.7.1 … The other story of
the Life of Adam does not mention the adam’s wife by name; nor does it
mention the births of Cain and Abel. The other story confirms the birth of
Seth, i.e. when the adam is 130 years old, after which it states that he
has several more sons and daughters. The story does not state that the adam
is forcefully evicted from the garden in Eden for wrongdoing. Indeed, it does
not mention the Garden in Eden. That suggests that either the Garden in Eden
story is a ‘plant’, i.e. between Genesis 1 and 5, and which purport to describe
human beginnings; or the Garden story is authentic and the other story is a
fake. Take your pick