Could it be that everything you thought you knew about the second creation story is wrong?

First, remember that Genesis chapters 2–4 were inscribed onto tanned animal skins (“parchment”) around 1000 BCE, the late Bronze Age. The second creation myth set into writing beliefs that were already centuries old.

Second, remember that IN THAT ERA, Judaism was not monotheistic (one deity only, as in mononucleosis or monolith) but henotheistic — lots of gods and goddesses but one “top dog” (one deity out of “one, two, three”). The Southern Kingdom worshiped Yahweh, his queen Asherah, and various lesser gods and goddesses, such as LeeYah (goddess of cattle), and demigod YahKhov. The Northern Kingdom worshiped El, his queen Elath, and various lesser deities, such as El Shaddai (“the male god with milk-producing breasts”), RakhEl, goddess of sheep, and demigod IsraEl.

Along with being conquered by various nations (Assyria, Chaldea, etc, etc), the Southern Kingdom “took over” the Northern Kingdom, and priests, levites, and scribes began conflating the two religions. That is why the Hebrew Scriptures have two creation stories; two “folk heroes” (Israel and Jacob) merged into one; Rachel and Leah demoted from goddess into their husband's property; two stories turning the goddess Sarai into a wife; two vastly different “histories” (Kings and Chronicles); and so forth. (The goddess Lilith didn't even make it into the Hebrew Scriptures!)

Another thing you need to understand is that the goddess Asherah, aka the Queen of Heaven, was wildly popular. Around 570 BCE, the prophet Jeremiah ranted about the fact that Asherah's symbols were still in the Temple and that most people, especially women, still preferred the Queen of Heaven over Jeremiah's misogynistic deity. The Queen of Heaven's symbols included the tree (life), water (“She who subdues the sea”), bees (the queen bee leads her hive in creating life), and the serpent (wisdom, reincarnation, and healing).

The second creation myth subsumes a much older myth in which the Queen of Heaven created the Garden of Bliss (“Eden”) as a blessing. The Tree of Life was a blessing, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was to be desired because it was beautiful, the fruit was good for food, and wisdom ought always to be desirable (3:6) — a blessing.

The Bible says very specifically that the woman was created to be the man's ezer kenegdo. The word “kenegdo” means “suitable,” and “ezer” means “savior” — everywhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures, God is humanity's ezer. Naturally the men who translated the Bible into English thought that “helpmeet" meant “servant.” You may have noticed that in Genesis, the woman discusses theology with the symbol of Wisdom while the man is standing silently right next to her (also 3:6), possibly with his finger up his nose.

Why did a representative of Wisdom discuss theology with the first woman, when the first man was standing silently right next to her? Maybe because the man was totally passive. Or maybe because the original myth was about the Queen of Heaven, not a male who cursed an entire gender with labor pains for the crime of wanting to be more like God.

Why didn't the man say to the woman, “Hey, back when we were ha'adamah, the creature molded out of clay like a little girl's mud pie, Yahweh told us NOT to eat the fruit, for fear that we might become too wise” (3:22)? And why was the man's first instinct to blame the woman for what they both did? (“the property that you gave me,” 3:12). The men who translated Genesis into English were sexist pigs, that's why. Everything bad is always the woman's fault.

23 : /Christianity/serpent&Eve.php : 25Oct25