Adam and Eve – Do you know the real story?

Today is the 104^th bible story. That’s one year of twice a week. Congratulations to me!

Back in the days when the Earth was new, there was a young man named Adam and a young woman named Eve who lived in a garden paradise created for them by God. It was just the two of them of course, and if you only ever have one person to talk to and you never have to do any work, you might get pretty bored; eventually. I mean, there was no celebrity gossip column 6,000 years ago. They didn’t even have Ricki Lake OR Guiding Light.

I’m sure when the serpent suddenly started talking to Eve she was thrilled to talk to someone that was interested in saying anything other than: "I bet you wish you could pee standing up," "Be careful when you squat so the pee doesn’t end up running down your legs," or "I sure bet you wish we had a way to make toilet paper" (it turns out that Adam was kinda a jerk).

So, after introducing himself to Eve, the snake said, “So, what gives here? Do you just wander around all day eating fruit off trees?” Eve said, “Pretty much. We just have to be careful to not eat anything off the tree right in the center of the garden. God says it’s poisonous and if we eat it we will die.” The snake laughed and said, “You actually believe that? God is so full of shit. He doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because it will make you smart. Perhaps even smart enough to invent toilet paper, or indoor plumbing.”

This sounded pretty awesome to Eve so she chowed right down on some of the magic fruit and became super smart. Then, because she already thought Adam was a vulgar ape, she gave him some of the fruit in the hope that more knowledge would help him reform his behavior and make him a better conversationalist. Adam ate it and the only thing that occurred to him was the idea that women MUST be covered at all times. He immediately made Eve cover up and explained that Men have no control over themselves and if they see bare flesh on a female they will be compelled to rape her. As we all know, everyone in the bible was all about blaming the victim in the case of sexual assault.

Pretty soon afterward, God came to visit the garden. When he saw that Eve was wearing a burka made out of leaves, he asked Adam what was going on. Adam immediately panicked and said, “It’s not my fault. This ‘woman’ creature you made for me tricked me into eating the forbidden fruit and it made me afraid of female skin. It’s your fault really!” God turned to Eve and said, “Is this true?” Because Eve was a morally superior creature she simply said, “Yes. After the snake told me the fruit would make me smart enough to make toilet paper, I couldn’t wait to eat some.”

God called the snake and said, “Snake, because you told Eve about the smart-making fruit I am going to take away your legs and I will instill fear of you into the heart of every single descendant of Eve. They will try to kill your kind anytime they see one of you, until the end of time.” Then God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and made Eve a fancy new burka out of animal skins.

 

Notes:

Many people believe the serpent in the Garden of Eden was Satan. I find this patently absurd. The idea of “Satan” didn’t enter into Jewish writing until AFTER the Babylonian Exile started in the early sixth century BC. Incidentally, this is when the concepts of “heaven” and “hell” showed up as well. Of course the serpent in Genesis was just a really clever talking snake, exactly as described in Genesis 3:1. The other crazy belief I run into a lot is that the “original sin” was vaginal intercourse (thank you Roman Catholic Church).

Let me explain: Right after Eve was made from Adam’s rib, the bible says: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:23-24, KJV) I don’t know how you imaging Adam “cleaving” unto Eve or how they became “one flesh,” but for me it definitely involves the bump ugly. Seeing as how all this “cleaving” and “one fleshing” was going on before the incident with the snake, I propose sex didn’t get the young lovebirds kicked out of the garden. Instead, it was Adam forcing Eve to wear clothes.

Moral: naked is better

Ref: Genesis 2-3