"She was my rain. She was my unpredictable element. She was my fear."
- Garth Stein, "The Art of Racing in the Rain"
Originally my post for today was going to be about the Garden of Eden. The usual musings about the deeper meaning of the "fruit of the knowledge of good and evil." As the saying goes, been there done that.
What ever metaphorical value you assign to the fruit the real core of the matter was the sin itself, Adam and Eve defied God. God said don't, they did, end of story.
Perhaps what is more interesting is the role Eve played in the whole sordid affair, and Adam's culpability in the matter.
One of the common themes surrounding Eve is that as temptress. Since Eve somehow tempted Adam into disobeying God it implies Adam is in some way not as responsible. This point of view was heartily endorsed by the male dominated church.
Being of the male persuasion I can assure you, men are not that hard to tempt. If Eve tempted Adam it was probably the easiest thing she did that day. However, Adam was an adult. He knew the injunction against eating the fruit, and was as accountable for his actions as was Eve.
There is also the side question here about what kind of sin was original sin. Although Adam and Eve knew that the rules stated they could not eat of the fruit, they could not know that eating of the fruit was evil, or even that disobeying God was "evil". They hadn't eaten it yet.
It is often said that Eve's sin was that of pride. She wanted to be like God, and the serpent led her to believe that she would be. So then why did she offer the fruit to Adam? If her prime motivation was pride then why not simply eat the fruit herself, and leave Adam as a big dumb ape?
I don't usually like to make generalizations about men vs. women, and usually I think they aren't very accurate. I think the story of Adam and Eve implies women are naturally better at seeing that the success of the individual is inseparable from the success of the couple.
If Adam had gotten the fruit first he would have told Eve he was going out to play a round of golf with the seraphim, then he would have snuck out the back way and gone looking for some hot young homo sapiens.
But what of Adam's true motivations? Perhaps lust for Eve? She held out the fruit and said "Wanna?", and Adam said "Oh yeah! Oh yeah!"
That's really the other side of the sexist view of the story. Eve was a gullible female, Adam was a horny male.
In the Filipino version of the creation story the first man is known as Malakas (Strong One) and the first woman as Maganda (Beautiful One). In that creation story the world is made of Sky and Sea. Kite (a hawk like bird) was tired of flying around.
He stirred up the Sky and Sea, who began to fight with each other, hurling boulders and thus forming the islands of the Philippines. Then Sky commanded the Kite to build a nest, and stop stirring up trouble.
In the meantime, Bamboo was created, and he bumped into Kite. Kite was hurt and angry, and split the bamboo in two. Out of one half emerged Makakas, and Maganda from the other.
They had many children, but eventually tired of all of them, and wanted some peace and quiet themselves. So Malakas started beating about with a stick, scattering the children.
There are as many different creation stories as there are cultures in the world. Even if one chooses to believe one as the literal truth about the beginnings of humanity all of them have valuable insight into human nature.
In the Filipino version everyone just wants a little peace and quiet. The story of Adam and Eve has different lessons to be learned. Of all the lessons I think one of the truest can be summed up in the words of Mark Twain, "There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable."
And of course, having a good marketing campaign never hurts.
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