Reply #21: That is the simplified view

[bloom]

Also patriarchal in effect. And it does not address the meaning of the symbolisms. The story - as is seen in the Bible is the patriarchal version anyway. And most of the interpretations that are commonly heard are the standard patriarchal ones that ignore what had been going on in the world when the story was written down - and why it was written as it was - and the intended future effect.

See Adam, Eve, and the Serpent by Pagels for more interpretations as well as The Chalice and and Blade by Eisler and When God Was a Woman by Stone.

Here is a section of an online essay that mentions the Adam/earth/humanity thing (as a female interpretation) as well as some of the serpent stuff...


...Ancient peoples did not understand the serpent as some deceitful embodiment of evil. On the contrary, the serpent was, and in some cultures still is, regarded as the source of great wisdom, for the serpent can shed its skin and go on living. Like the butterfly which bursts out of its own chrysalis to new life, the serpent was often regarded as a symbol of immortality. And more, perhaps because of this intimation of new life, the serpent was frequently regarded in the ancient world as the messenger from the great Goddess and the guardian of her sacred precincts (see Eliade, Patterns 164-74; Sinha 45, 56).

If this is the symbolism intended, the tale of the Garden of Eden takes on radically new dimensions. The essential plot can be understood not as a struggle between God and the Devil, but as a conflict involving the dynamic, royal, masculine God of the heavens and the primordial Mother Goddess who for millennia had been worshiped as the Mistress of the earth. To be sure, the story is told from the point of view of the former. The serpent is reduced to being the subtlest of the creatures which the Lord God had made. The Goddess is not even mentioned by name, though she is there as the tree of life, for that is how she was so often depicted among the ancient Canaanites. Indeed, because she was represented in tree form, it is not surprising that Yahweh declared that the tree and its fruit were taboo. Usually Asherah was represented by a pole. Archaeologists have discovered a pre-Mosaic casting mould which pictured the Goddess as a tree with knobby knees and body, rooted in the earth. She is also sometimes pictured as a woman offering her breasts to the world for sustenance.

The Goddess was not a newcomer to human history. Archaeologists have discovered on the Golan Heights an image of her which can be dated to more than 220,000 years ago! From a human point of view, Yahweh, and all the other, heavenly Gods like him, are far more recent historically. Her predominance in earlier forms of the story may well be mirrored by the fact that the very name Adam is cognate with adamah, earth. In other words, humanity was originally hers.

Indeed, the Hebrew word Adam can be translated as simply "human." Adam, as originally created, contained within "him" both male and female. Therefore, it is appropriate to speak of the man and the woman (ish and ishshah), but not Adam and Eve, in the garden. The male only claims to be the whole of Adam and therefore calls his wife Chawwah (in Greek, Eve) after they have been driven out of the garden.

Yahweh's triumph over the Goddess, which this tale describes from his point of view, marked a radical transformation of society, a transformation which has continued virtually to this day. (In many respects, this victory is reminiscent of Apollo's victory over the Pythian serpent Goddess at Delphi in Greece.) When Adam is divided into male and female, the story makes clear, the first stage of human life was matriarchy, for the male "left his father and mother to cleave unto his wife" (Gen. 2.24). In a patriarchal society, which the victory of Yahweh brings, the direction is reversed. The woman goes to live in the man's home. It is also obvious that before the "fall" the woman (later to be called Eve) takes the leading role, reasoning about her options and, in effect, deciding what the couple will do. Only after Yahweh steps in does the male claim rule over the female by naming her...."

http://southerncrossreview.org/38/williams.htm