On Valentine’s Day, I’ve been thinking about couples who work together and change the world. I pursued my reflections and focused on the mythical couple of Eve and Adam.
Much has been said about this legendary couple, but little has been said about their collaborative work and their free will to acquire knowledge.
In Genesis and throughout history it has been told that the fall of man came from the consuming the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge by Eve.
It was the disobedience of Adam and Eve, who had been told by God not to eat the fruit of the tree (Gen 2:17), that caused disorder in the creation, thus humanity inherited sin and guilt from their sin.
But beside inherited sin and guilt, what really happened in that mythical time and space? Is there another interpretation? An interpretation that allows us to better understand the motivations of Eve and Adam?
Can we imagine a situation where Eve and Adam worked together on the quest of knowledge? Would it be possible that their act of disobedience created free will and paved the way of the amplification of consciousness ?
Would it be possible that thanks to this first act of free will and disobedience of Eve and Adam humanity had access to knowledge, science, and later medicine in order to overcome pain for future generations to come. Would it be possible that the rebellion of Eve and Aadam against God liberated themselves and give them a new meaning in their life. Would it be possible that the taste of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge allows men and women to discover the spatiality of consciousness (1).
…Adam and Eve tasted the fruit, and the eyes of both of them were opened
Moments of rupture in the mental space
Many researchers in the field of phenomenology are searching into our collective distant past and are studying the moments of rupture of the human mental space. The myth of The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life is one of these moments.
By questioning our distant past and the root myths of our civilization we propels the consciousness to ask questions on the direction of the distant future. I do believe that the myth of Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life revealed the engine of human history.
But the most popular interpretation of the myth, pushed by the Christian world, printed a design and a direction into the memory of men and women and transforms their actions and their own Nature. Throught the interpretation of the myth with filter of sin and guilt they created a direction where instead of working side by side, men and women are divided in different roles and functions, while the woman is submitted to man. It created conditions where the free will of the men and women is subject to a God, a king, or to another’s form of authority. A social context where the amplification of human consciousness is stuck in a sequence of tensions, actions and reaction that belongs to a past moment.
Today as the old forms of authoritarianism are awakening all over the world and generating conflictual situations between various groups and cultures, I believe it’s a good moment to look back at this fundamental myth of the Western culture. I am not saying that we should abandon the myth, but rather revise it in light of the current situation and the complexity of the world.
When we uncover the fundamental historical tensions of a people, of a civilization, we come closer to understanding its ideals, its values, and its hopes. Myths are dynamic images that drive behavior in one direction or another and are closely linked to a landscape. Today our social and personal tensions reveal the truth inherent of love, hate, fear, and joy, because they possess a register, an internal sensation that is unmistakable to those who experience them.
The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life is the root myth. It’s a factor of cohesion and orientation within human groups and acts upon strong beliefs.
To support this revision work of the myth, I would like to share Silo’s interpretation from the book Universal Root Myths based on J. Milton book, Le Paradis Perdu.
The Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life (2)
“…Out of the ground the Lord God made grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And in the midst of the garden, he set the tree of life and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil.… And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die
And so it was that Adam and Eve lived in Eden, where a river flowed out to water the garden, and from there it divided into four streams. The name of the stream that flowed around the land of Havila, where there is gold, was Pishon. The second one, which encircled the land of Cush, was Gihon. The name of the third, hidden and shaded, which flowed to the east of Assyria, was Hiddekel, and the fourth, of good and murmuring words, was Euphrates. And Eden overflowed with plants and animals, and our parents were the namers of all the living things there. But how could they give a name to the tree of life or that of the knowledge of good and evil if they did not know them, if they did not even approach them? So it was that they yearned for the knowledge that they did not have and did not even know how to attain.
One night, troubled by this question, Eve fell asleep, and, sleeping, she dreamed. In her dream, she saw the tree of knowledge shining in the darkness. As she approached the tree, there suddenly appeared before her a disquieting winged figure. Although beautiful to look upon, in the darkness she could not see its face—perhaps it was that of Adam. Its dew-dampened hair exhaled a fragrance that filled her with feelings of love. And Eve wished to see more. The figure, gesturing toward the tree, said: “O beautiful plant, heavy with fruit! Is there no one who will lighten your burden and taste your sweetness? Is knowledge so scorned? Is it only envy or an unjust prohibition that forbids your being touched? Let him forbid it who will! No longer will anyone deprive me of what you offer. If not for this, why are you here?” Having spoken, the figure hesitated no longer, but with trembling hand plucked the fruit and tasted of it.
In her dream, the audacity of the winged figure left Eve frozen in glacial horror, but immediately it exclaimed: “O divine fruit, you alone are sweet, and so much sweeter plucked in this way—forbidden, apparently set aside for the gods alone, and yet capable of converting men into gods! And why should they not be so? Good is increased the more it is shared, and in this its author, far from losing, only acquires more praise. Approach, fortunate creature, beautiful and angelic Eve—share this fruit with me!”
Eve awoke with a start and recounted her dream to her companion. Adam then asked himself: “Does not God speak through dreams? If during the day he prohibits and by night he invites, how, with my meager knowledge, shall I know to which incitement I should respond? We should acquire this knowledge so as to direct our destinies, since God Jehovah created us but did not say how we should make our own selves.” Then he told Eve his plan to take the fruit and run with it to the tree of life in order to become immune to the poison of knowledge. So it was that they waited, until the God Jehovah strolled through the garden in the cool of the afternoon, and when he had passed by they went to the tree. Seeing a serpent gliding among the branches toward the fruit, they thought its venom must derive from that food. And because of this they doubted, and while they doubted time passed, and the God Jehovah began his return to the garden.
Then they thought they heard the serpent whisper: “You shall not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (3) The snake was not lying, but wanted to stop them from eating from the other tree, the tree of life. As it was already very late, Adam and Eve tasted the fruit, and the eyes of both of them were opened. But when they wanted to reach the tree of immortality, the God Jehovah blocked their way, keeping them from fulfilling their plan.
Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and what if he now reaches out his hand and takes also from the tree of life, eats, and lives forever?” Therefore, the Lord God drove him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he came. He cast out the man, and to the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword of flame that turned in all directions so as to guard the way to the tree of life.
And so Adam and Eve went out from Eden, but their gaze was always turned toward Paradise, whose presence was revealed only by the smoke of the sword of fire during the day and its radiance during the night. And they did not return because they could not, but since they believed it pleased him they began to offer the God Jehovah sacrifices of fire and smoke. And with time, many peoples came to think that the gods preferred the high mountains and the volcanoes because these are the bridges between the Earth and the heavens. And so when the time came, it was from the fire, from the mountain, that the God Jehovah delivered the Law for which humankind searched so that they might make straight their Destiny.(4)
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Source: Genesis 2:9 and 2:16–17., Genesis 3:4–5, Genesis 3:22–24.
(1) Spatiality of consciousness: the discovery of new internal realities and the expansion of the psychological horizon, past, present and future.
(2) In this story, following the tone of the myth of Gilgamesh—”he who knew all” but who returned to die in Uruk—the serpent is interested in having man acquire knowledge, but impedes him from achieving immortality.
(3) John Milton’s Paradise Lost
(4) Annunciation of the Laws of Moses.
