More holes
This was given to me I hope I got the credit correct. I hope you enjoy, and hope it gives you more arms to deal with people coming over giving you a hard time due to the fact you are a Pagan.
The Other People
"Ding - dong!" goes the doorbell. Is it Avon calling? Or perhaps Ed
McMahon
with
my three million dollars? No, it's Yahweh's Witlesses again, just
wanting to
have a
nice little chat about the Bible.......
Boy, did they ever come to the wrong house! So we invite them
in: "Enter
freely and
of your own will..." (Hey, it's Sunday morning, nothing much going
on, why
not have
a little entertainment?) Diane and I amuse ourselves watching their
expressions as
they check out the living room: great horned owl on the back of my
chair;
ceremonial
masks and medicine skulls of dragons and unicorns on the wall;
crystals,
wands,
staffs, swords; lots of Goddess figures and several altars; boa
constrictors
draped in
amorous embrace over the elkhorn; white doves sitting in the hanging
planters; cats
and weasels underfoot; iron dragon snorting steam atop the wood
stove;
posters and
paintings of wizards and beasties and lots more dinosaurs; warp six
on the
star-filled
viewscreen of my computer; a five foot model of the USS Enterprise
and the
skeleton
of a plesiosaur hanging from the ceiling; very, very many books,
most of
them dealing
with obviously weird subjects.... To say nothing of the great horned
owl
perched on
the back of my chair and the unicorn grazing in the front yard. You
know;
early
Addams family decor. And then, of course, it being late in the
morning, you
can
expect Morning Glory to come wandering out naked, looking for her
wake-up
cup of
tea. Morning Glory naked is a truly impressive sight, and the
Witlesses look
as if she'd
set titties on stun as they stand immobilized, hands clasped over
their
genitals.
With the stage set and all the actors in place, the show is ready to
begin.
Their mission, of course, is to save our heathen souls by turning us
on to
"The Word
of the Lord"- their Bible. I guess they figger some of us just
haven't
heard about it yet,
and we're all eagerly awaiting their joyous tidings of personal
salvation
through giving
our rational faculties to Jesus.
Everytime they come around, I look forward to trying out a new
riposte.
Sure, it may be cruel and sadistic of me, but hey, I didn't call
them up and
ask them to
come over; they entered at their own risk! This time should be
pretty good.
After
letting them run off their basic rap while lovely Morning Glory
serves us
all hot herb
tea, I innocently remark: "But none of that applies to us. We have
no need
for
salvation because we don't have original sin. We are the Other
People."
"Hunh?" they reply eloquently. It's clear they've never heard this
one
before.
"Right," I say. "It's all in your Bible." And I proceed to tell them
the
story, using their
own book for reference: (Genesis 1:26) The (Elohim) said, "Let us
make
humanity in
our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be
masters of the
fish of the
sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the
reptiles that crawl
upon the earth." Elohim is a plural word, including male and female,
and
should
properly be translated "Gods" or "Pantheon." (1:27) The Gods created
humanity in the
image of themselves, In the image of the Gods they created them,
Male and
Female
they created them. (1:28) The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be
fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of
the sea,
the birds of
heaven and all living animals on the earth."
Now clearly, here we are talking about the original creation of the
human
species:
male and femal. All the animals, plants, etc. have all been created
in
previous verses.
This is before the Garden of Eden, and Yahweh is not mentioned as the
creator of
these people.
The next chapter talks aobut how Yahweh, an individual member of the
Pantheon,
goes about assembling his own special little botanical and
zoological Garden
in Eden,
and making his own little man to inhabit it: (Gen 2:7) Yahweh God
fashioned
a man
of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath
of life,
and thus the
man became a living being. (2:8) Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden
which
is in
the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. (2:9) Yahweh
God caused
to
spring up fromt he soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and
good to
eat, with the
tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the
middle of the
garden.
(2:15) Yahweh God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden
to
cultivate
and take care of it. Now this next is crucial: note Yahweh's precise
words:
(2:16) Then
Yahweh God gave the man this admonition, "You may eat indeed of all
the
trees in
the garden. (2:17) Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good
and
evil you are
not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die."
Fateful
words, those.
We will refer back to this admonition later
Then Yahweh decided to make a woman to go with the man. Now, don't
forget
that
the Pantheons had earlier created a whole population of
people, "male and
female, "
who are presumably doing just fine somewhere "outside the gates of
Eden."but
this
set-up in Eden is Yahweh's own little experiment, and will unfold to
its own
separate
destiny. (2:21) so Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep.
And while
he
slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. (2:22)
Yahweh God
built the rib
he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.
Right.
Man
gives birth to woman. Sure he does. But that's the way the story is
told
here. (2:25)
Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no
shame in
front
of each other. well, of course not! Why should they? But take
careful not of
those
words, as they also will prove significant.....
Now this next part is where it starts to get interesting. Enter the
Serpent:
(Gen. 3:1)
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh
God had
made. It
asked the woman, "Did God really say you were not to eat from any of
the
trees in the
garden?" (3:2) The woman ansered the serpent "We may eat the fruit
of the
tree in
the garden. (3:3) "But of the fruit of the tree int he middle of the
garden
God said,
'You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." (3:4) Then
the
serpent said tot
he woman, "No! You will not die! (3:5) "God knows in fact that on
the day
you eat it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and
evil."
What a
remarkable statement! " Your eyes will be opened and you will be
like gods,
knowing
good and evil." The Serpent directly contradicts Yahweh. Obviously,
one of
them has
to be lying. Which one, do you suppose? And, if the serpent speaks
true,
wouldn't you
wish to eat of the magic fruit? Wouldn't it be a good thing, to
become "like
gods,
knowing good and evil"? Or is it preferable to remain in ignorance?
(Gen. 3:6) The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing
to the
eye, and
that it ws desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she
took some
of its fruit
and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and
he ate
it. (3:7)
The the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they
were
naked. So
they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths. The
author
maked an
interesting assumption here: that if you realize you are naked you
will
atomatically
want to cover yourself. Further implications will unfold
shortly...........
(Gen 3:8) The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from
Yahweh God
among
the trees of the garden (3:9) But Yahweh God called to the
man. "Where are
you?" he
asked. (3:10) " I heard the sound of you in the garden,"he
replied. " I was
afraid
beacuse I was naked, so I hid." (3:11)"Who told you that you were
naked?" he
asked.
"Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?"
And so the sign of the Fall becomes modesty. Take note of this. The
descendants of
Adam and Eve will be distinguished throughout history from virtually
all
other
peoples by their obsessive modesty taboos, wherein they will feel
ashamed of
being
naked. It follows that those who feel no shame in being naked are, by
definition, not
carriers of this spiritual disease of original sin!!!!
(Gen. 3:12) The man replied, "It was the woman you put with me: she
gave me
the
fruit, and I ate it." Right. Blame the woman. What a turkey! (3:13)
Then
Yahweh God
asked the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman replied, "
The
serpent
tempted me and I ate." So of course she blames the serpent. But just
what
did the
serpent do that was so evil? Why, he called Yahweh a liar! Was he
wrong?
Let's
see......(3:21) Yahweh God made clothes out of skins for the man and
his
wife, and
they put them on. Out of skins?? This means that Yahweh had to kill
some
innocent
animals to pander to Adam and Eve's new obsession with modesty!
And now we come to the crux of the Fall. Yahweh had said back there
in
chapter
(2:17), regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that "on the
day you
eat of it you
shall most surely die." The Serpent, on the other hand, had
contradicted
Yahweh in
chapter (3:4-5): "No! you will not die! God knows in fact that on
the day
you eat it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and
evil."
So what
actually happened? Who lied and who told the truth about this
remarkable
fruit? The
answer is given in the next verse: (3:22) Then Yahweh God
said, "See, the
man has
become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and eveil. He must
not be
allowed
to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also,
and eat
some and live
forever."
Get that? yahweh himself admits that he lied"! In fact, and in
Yahweh's own
words,
the Serpent spoke the absolute truth! And moreover, Yahweh tells the
rest of
the
Pantheon that he intends to evict Adam(and presumably Eve as well)
to keep
them
from gaining immortality to go with their newly-aquired divine
knowledge.
To
prevent them, in other words, from truly becoming gods! So who, in
this
story , comes
of as a benefactor of humanity, and who comes off as a tyrant? THE
SERPENT
NEVER LIED!!.
This story, to digress slightly, bears a remarkable resemblance to a
contemporary tale
from ancient Greece. In that version, the Serpent (later identified
as
Lucifer, the
Light-Bearer) may be equated with the heroic titan Prometheus, who
championed
humanity against the tyranny of Zeus, who wished for the people to
be mere
slaves of
the gods. Prometheus, whose name means"forethought" gave people
wisdon,
intelligence, and fire stolen from Olympus. Moreover, he ordained the
portions of
animal sacrifice so that humans got the best parts (the meat and
hides)
while the
portion that was burned tot he gods was the bones and fat. In
punishment for
this
defiance of his divine authority, Zeus condemned Prometheus to a
terrible
punishment for an immortal: to be chained to a mountain in the
Caucasus,
where
Zeus' gryphon/eagle (actually a Lammergier) would devour his liver
each day.
It
would grow back each night. Zeus promised to relent if Prometheus
would
reveal his
great secret knowledge: Who would succeed Zeus as supreme God?
Prometheus refused to tell, but history has revealed the
answer...... The
interesting
thing about all this is that the Greeks properly regareded
Prometheus as a
noble hero
in his defiance of unjust tyranny. One may wonder why the Serpent is
not so
well
regarded. On the contrary, snakes are loathed throughout
Chritiandom. (3:23)
So
Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil
from which
he had
been taken. (3:24) He banished the man, and in front of the garden
of Eden
he posted
the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way to
the tree
of life.
So that's it for the Fall. But the story of Adam and Eve doesn't end
there.
(Gen4:1) The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she
conceived and
gave
birth to Cain....(4:2)She gave birth to a second child, Abel, the
brother of
Cain. Now
Abel became a shepherd and kept flocks, while Cain tilled the soil.
(4:3)
Time passed
and Cain brought some of the produce of the soil as an offering for
Yahweh,
(4:4)
while Abel, for his part, brought the first-born of his flock and
some of
their fat as
well. Yahweh looked with favor on Abel and his offering. But he did
not look
with
favor on Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and
downcast. Well,
why
shouldn't he be? Both brothers had brought forth their first fruits
as
offerings, but
Yahweh rejected the vegetables and only accepted the blood
sacrifice. This
was to set
a fruesome precedent: (4:8) Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us
go out:"
and while
they were in open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and killed
him.
Accursed and marked for fratricide, (4:16) Cain left the presence of
Yahweh
and
settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. We can assume that the
phrase
"left the
presence of Yahweh" implies that Yahweh is a local deity, nad not
omnipresent. Now
Eden, according to (Gen. 2:14-15), was situated at the source of the
Tigris
and
Eupharates rivers, apparently right where Lake Van is now, in
Turkey. "East
of Eden,"
therefore, would probably be along the shores of the Caspian Sea,
right in
the
Indo-European heartland. Cain settled in there, among the people of
Nod,
and
married one of the women of that country. Here, for the first time,
is
specifically
mentioned the "other people" who are not of the lineage of Adam and
Eve.
ie: the
Pagans. So let's look at this story from another veiwpoint: There we
were,
around six
thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities around
the
Caspian Sea,
in the land of NOd, when this dude with at terrible scar comes
stumbling in
out of the
sunset. He tells us this bizarre stroy, about how his mother and
father had
been
created by some god named Jahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful
garden
somewhere out west, and how they had gotten thrown out for
disobedience
after
eating some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of
enlightenment. He
tells us of
murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept
blood
sacrifice,
and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would know ham as a
fratricide.
The poor guy is really a mess psychologically, obsessed with guilt.
He is
also
obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes even in the hottest
summer,
and he
has a hard time with our penchant for skinny-dipping in the warm
inland sea.
He
seems to believe that he is tainted by "sin" of his parent's
disobedience;
that it is in
his blood, somehow, and will continue to contaminate his children
and his
children's
children.
One of our healing women takes pity on the poor sucker, and marries
him....
(4:17) Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and
gave birth
to Enoch.
He became the builder of a town, and he gave the town the name of
his son
Enoch.
With both of their first sons not turning out very well, Adam and Eve
decided to try
again: (4:25) Adam had intercourse with his wife, and she gave birth
to a
son whom
she named Seth....(4:26) A son was also born to Seth, and he named
him
Enosh. This
man was the first to invoke the name of Yahweh. Now it doesn't
mention here
where
Seth's wife came from. Another woman from Nod, possibly, or maybe
someone
from
another neolithic community downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates
valley. But
her folks
also, cannot be of the lineage of Adam and Eve, and must also be
counted
among "the
other people".
But whatever happened to Adam? After all, way back there in chapter
Gen.2:17,
warning Adam about the magic fruit of knowledge, Jahweh had told him
that"on the
day you eat of it you shall most surely die." So, when did Adam die?
(Gen.5:4) Adam
lived for eight hundred years after the birth of Seth and he became
the
father of sons
and daughters. (5:5) In all, Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty
years:
then he died.
Hey, that's pretty good! Nine hundred and some odd years isn't bad
for a man
who's
been told he's gonna die the next day!
Well, the story goes on, and maybe next time the Witlesses come to
visit
I'll tell more
of it. But suffice it to say that those of us who are not of Semitic
descent
(ie. not of
the lineage of Adam and Eve) cannot share in the Original Sin that
comes
with that
lineage. Being that the Bible is the stoyr of that lineage, of Adam
and
Eve's
descendants and their special relationship with their particular God,
Yahweh, it
follows that this is not the story of the rest of us. We may have
been
Cain's wife's
people, or Seth's wife's people, or some other people over the hill
and far
away, but
whichever people the rest of us are, as far as the Bible is
concerned, we
are the Other
People, and so we are continually referred to throughtout.
Later books of the Bible are filled with admonitions to the
followers of
Jahweh to
"learn not the ways of the Pagans...." (Jer 10:2) with detailed
descriptions
of exactly
what it is we do, such as erect standing stones and sacred poles,
worship in
sacred
groves and practice divination and magic. And worhsip the sun, moon
stars
and the
"Queen of Heaven." You must not behave as they do in Eygpt where
once you
lived:
you must not behave as they do in Canaan where I am taking you. You
must not
follow their laws." (lev 18:3) For Yahweh, as he so clearly
emphasises, is
not the god
of the Pagans. We have our own lineage and our own heritage, and our
tale is
not told
in the Bible. We were not made like clay figurines by male deity out
of the
"dust from
the soil" We were born of our Mother the Earth, and have evolved
over aeons
in her
nurturing embrace, All of us, in our many and diverse tribes, have
creation
myths and
legends of our origins and history: some of these tales may even be
actually
true.
Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us also have stories
of great
floods,
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other cataclysms that wiped out
whole
communities of our people, wherein "I alone survived to tell the
tale"
Nearly all of
our ancestral tribes (and especially those of us who today are
reclaiming
our own
Pagan heritage) lack that peculiar obsessive body modesty that seems
to be a
hallmark
of the original sin alluded to in the story of the fall. We can be
naked and
unashamed!
Why, our Goddess even tells us, "as a sign that you are truly free,
you
shall be naked
in your rites." Not being born into sin, we have no need of
salvation, and
no need of a
Messiah to redeem our sinful souls.
Neither heaven nor hell is our destination in the afterlife; we have
our own
various
arrangements withour own various deities. The Bible is not our
story; we
have our
own stories to tell, and they are many and diverse. In a long life,
you may
get to hear
many of them.... May you live long and prosper.!!!
by Oberon (Otter) Zell
Don't Dream it. BE IT!
LK
The Other People
"Ding - dong!" goes the doorbell. Is it Avon calling? Or perhaps Ed
McMahon
with
my three million dollars? No, it's Yahweh's Witlesses again, just
wanting to
have a
nice little chat about the Bible.......
Boy, did they ever come to the wrong house! So we invite them
in: "Enter
freely and
of your own will..." (Hey, it's Sunday morning, nothing much going
on, why
not have
a little entertainment?) Diane and I amuse ourselves watching their
expressions as
they check out the living room: great horned owl on the back of my
chair;
ceremonial
masks and medicine skulls of dragons and unicorns on the wall;
crystals,
wands,
staffs, swords; lots of Goddess figures and several altars; boa
constrictors
draped in
amorous embrace over the elkhorn; white doves sitting in the hanging
planters; cats
and weasels underfoot; iron dragon snorting steam atop the wood
stove;
posters and
paintings of wizards and beasties and lots more dinosaurs; warp six
on the
star-filled
viewscreen of my computer; a five foot model of the USS Enterprise
and the
skeleton
of a plesiosaur hanging from the ceiling; very, very many books,
most of
them dealing
with obviously weird subjects.... To say nothing of the great horned
owl
perched on
the back of my chair and the unicorn grazing in the front yard. You
know;
early
Addams family decor. And then, of course, it being late in the
morning, you
can
expect Morning Glory to come wandering out naked, looking for her
wake-up
cup of
tea. Morning Glory naked is a truly impressive sight, and the
Witlesses look
as if she'd
set titties on stun as they stand immobilized, hands clasped over
their
genitals.
With the stage set and all the actors in place, the show is ready to
begin.
Their mission, of course, is to save our heathen souls by turning us
on to
"The Word
of the Lord"- their Bible. I guess they figger some of us just
haven't
heard about it yet,
and we're all eagerly awaiting their joyous tidings of personal
salvation
through giving
our rational faculties to Jesus.
Everytime they come around, I look forward to trying out a new
riposte.
Sure, it may be cruel and sadistic of me, but hey, I didn't call
them up and
ask them to
come over; they entered at their own risk! This time should be
pretty good.
After
letting them run off their basic rap while lovely Morning Glory
serves us
all hot herb
tea, I innocently remark: "But none of that applies to us. We have
no need
for
salvation because we don't have original sin. We are the Other
People."
"Hunh?" they reply eloquently. It's clear they've never heard this
one
before.
"Right," I say. "It's all in your Bible." And I proceed to tell them
the
story, using their
own book for reference: (Genesis 1:26) The (Elohim) said, "Let us
make
humanity in
our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be
masters of the
fish of the
sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the
reptiles that crawl
upon the earth." Elohim is a plural word, including male and female,
and
should
properly be translated "Gods" or "Pantheon." (1:27) The Gods created
humanity in the
image of themselves, In the image of the Gods they created them,
Male and
Female
they created them. (1:28) The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be
fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of
the sea,
the birds of
heaven and all living animals on the earth."
Now clearly, here we are talking about the original creation of the
human
species:
male and femal. All the animals, plants, etc. have all been created
in
previous verses.
This is before the Garden of Eden, and Yahweh is not mentioned as the
creator of
these people.
The next chapter talks aobut how Yahweh, an individual member of the
Pantheon,
goes about assembling his own special little botanical and
zoological Garden
in Eden,
and making his own little man to inhabit it: (Gen 2:7) Yahweh God
fashioned
a man
of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath
of life,
and thus the
man became a living being. (2:8) Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden
which
is in
the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. (2:9) Yahweh
God caused
to
spring up fromt he soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and
good to
eat, with the
tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the
middle of the
garden.
(2:15) Yahweh God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden
to
cultivate
and take care of it. Now this next is crucial: note Yahweh's precise
words:
(2:16) Then
Yahweh God gave the man this admonition, "You may eat indeed of all
the
trees in
the garden. (2:17) Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good
and
evil you are
not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die."
Fateful
words, those.
We will refer back to this admonition later
Then Yahweh decided to make a woman to go with the man. Now, don't
forget
that
the Pantheons had earlier created a whole population of
people, "male and
female, "
who are presumably doing just fine somewhere "outside the gates of
Eden."but
this
set-up in Eden is Yahweh's own little experiment, and will unfold to
its own
separate
destiny. (2:21) so Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep.
And while
he
slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. (2:22)
Yahweh God
built the rib
he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.
Right.
Man
gives birth to woman. Sure he does. But that's the way the story is
told
here. (2:25)
Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no
shame in
front
of each other. well, of course not! Why should they? But take
careful not of
those
words, as they also will prove significant.....
Now this next part is where it starts to get interesting. Enter the
Serpent:
(Gen. 3:1)
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh
God had
made. It
asked the woman, "Did God really say you were not to eat from any of
the
trees in the
garden?" (3:2) The woman ansered the serpent "We may eat the fruit
of the
tree in
the garden. (3:3) "But of the fruit of the tree int he middle of the
garden
God said,
'You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." (3:4) Then
the
serpent said tot
he woman, "No! You will not die! (3:5) "God knows in fact that on
the day
you eat it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and
evil."
What a
remarkable statement! " Your eyes will be opened and you will be
like gods,
knowing
good and evil." The Serpent directly contradicts Yahweh. Obviously,
one of
them has
to be lying. Which one, do you suppose? And, if the serpent speaks
true,
wouldn't you
wish to eat of the magic fruit? Wouldn't it be a good thing, to
become "like
gods,
knowing good and evil"? Or is it preferable to remain in ignorance?
(Gen. 3:6) The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing
to the
eye, and
that it ws desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she
took some
of its fruit
and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and
he ate
it. (3:7)
The the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they
were
naked. So
they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths. The
author
maked an
interesting assumption here: that if you realize you are naked you
will
atomatically
want to cover yourself. Further implications will unfold
shortly...........
(Gen 3:8) The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from
Yahweh God
among
the trees of the garden (3:9) But Yahweh God called to the
man. "Where are
you?" he
asked. (3:10) " I heard the sound of you in the garden,"he
replied. " I was
afraid
beacuse I was naked, so I hid." (3:11)"Who told you that you were
naked?" he
asked.
"Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?"
And so the sign of the Fall becomes modesty. Take note of this. The
descendants of
Adam and Eve will be distinguished throughout history from virtually
all
other
peoples by their obsessive modesty taboos, wherein they will feel
ashamed of
being
naked. It follows that those who feel no shame in being naked are, by
definition, not
carriers of this spiritual disease of original sin!!!!
(Gen. 3:12) The man replied, "It was the woman you put with me: she
gave me
the
fruit, and I ate it." Right. Blame the woman. What a turkey! (3:13)
Then
Yahweh God
asked the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman replied, "
The
serpent
tempted me and I ate." So of course she blames the serpent. But just
what
did the
serpent do that was so evil? Why, he called Yahweh a liar! Was he
wrong?
Let's
see......(3:21) Yahweh God made clothes out of skins for the man and
his
wife, and
they put them on. Out of skins?? This means that Yahweh had to kill
some
innocent
animals to pander to Adam and Eve's new obsession with modesty!
And now we come to the crux of the Fall. Yahweh had said back there
in
chapter
(2:17), regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that "on the
day you
eat of it you
shall most surely die." The Serpent, on the other hand, had
contradicted
Yahweh in
chapter (3:4-5): "No! you will not die! God knows in fact that on
the day
you eat it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and
evil."
So what
actually happened? Who lied and who told the truth about this
remarkable
fruit? The
answer is given in the next verse: (3:22) Then Yahweh God
said, "See, the
man has
become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and eveil. He must
not be
allowed
to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also,
and eat
some and live
forever."
Get that? yahweh himself admits that he lied"! In fact, and in
Yahweh's own
words,
the Serpent spoke the absolute truth! And moreover, Yahweh tells the
rest of
the
Pantheon that he intends to evict Adam(and presumably Eve as well)
to keep
them
from gaining immortality to go with their newly-aquired divine
knowledge.
To
prevent them, in other words, from truly becoming gods! So who, in
this
story , comes
of as a benefactor of humanity, and who comes off as a tyrant? THE
SERPENT
NEVER LIED!!.
This story, to digress slightly, bears a remarkable resemblance to a
contemporary tale
from ancient Greece. In that version, the Serpent (later identified
as
Lucifer, the
Light-Bearer) may be equated with the heroic titan Prometheus, who
championed
humanity against the tyranny of Zeus, who wished for the people to
be mere
slaves of
the gods. Prometheus, whose name means"forethought" gave people
wisdon,
intelligence, and fire stolen from Olympus. Moreover, he ordained the
portions of
animal sacrifice so that humans got the best parts (the meat and
hides)
while the
portion that was burned tot he gods was the bones and fat. In
punishment for
this
defiance of his divine authority, Zeus condemned Prometheus to a
terrible
punishment for an immortal: to be chained to a mountain in the
Caucasus,
where
Zeus' gryphon/eagle (actually a Lammergier) would devour his liver
each day.
It
would grow back each night. Zeus promised to relent if Prometheus
would
reveal his
great secret knowledge: Who would succeed Zeus as supreme God?
Prometheus refused to tell, but history has revealed the
answer...... The
interesting
thing about all this is that the Greeks properly regareded
Prometheus as a
noble hero
in his defiance of unjust tyranny. One may wonder why the Serpent is
not so
well
regarded. On the contrary, snakes are loathed throughout
Chritiandom. (3:23)
So
Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil
from which
he had
been taken. (3:24) He banished the man, and in front of the garden
of Eden
he posted
the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way to
the tree
of life.
So that's it for the Fall. But the story of Adam and Eve doesn't end
there.
(Gen4:1) The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she
conceived and
gave
birth to Cain....(4:2)She gave birth to a second child, Abel, the
brother of
Cain. Now
Abel became a shepherd and kept flocks, while Cain tilled the soil.
(4:3)
Time passed
and Cain brought some of the produce of the soil as an offering for
Yahweh,
(4:4)
while Abel, for his part, brought the first-born of his flock and
some of
their fat as
well. Yahweh looked with favor on Abel and his offering. But he did
not look
with
favor on Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and
downcast. Well,
why
shouldn't he be? Both brothers had brought forth their first fruits
as
offerings, but
Yahweh rejected the vegetables and only accepted the blood
sacrifice. This
was to set
a fruesome precedent: (4:8) Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us
go out:"
and while
they were in open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and killed
him.
Accursed and marked for fratricide, (4:16) Cain left the presence of
Yahweh
and
settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. We can assume that the
phrase
"left the
presence of Yahweh" implies that Yahweh is a local deity, nad not
omnipresent. Now
Eden, according to (Gen. 2:14-15), was situated at the source of the
Tigris
and
Eupharates rivers, apparently right where Lake Van is now, in
Turkey. "East
of Eden,"
therefore, would probably be along the shores of the Caspian Sea,
right in
the
Indo-European heartland. Cain settled in there, among the people of
Nod,
and
married one of the women of that country. Here, for the first time,
is
specifically
mentioned the "other people" who are not of the lineage of Adam and
Eve.
ie: the
Pagans. So let's look at this story from another veiwpoint: There we
were,
around six
thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities around
the
Caspian Sea,
in the land of NOd, when this dude with at terrible scar comes
stumbling in
out of the
sunset. He tells us this bizarre stroy, about how his mother and
father had
been
created by some god named Jahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful
garden
somewhere out west, and how they had gotten thrown out for
disobedience
after
eating some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of
enlightenment. He
tells us of
murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept
blood
sacrifice,
and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would know ham as a
fratricide.
The poor guy is really a mess psychologically, obsessed with guilt.
He is
also
obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes even in the hottest
summer,
and he
has a hard time with our penchant for skinny-dipping in the warm
inland sea.
He
seems to believe that he is tainted by "sin" of his parent's
disobedience;
that it is in
his blood, somehow, and will continue to contaminate his children
and his
children's
children.
One of our healing women takes pity on the poor sucker, and marries
him....
(4:17) Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and
gave birth
to Enoch.
He became the builder of a town, and he gave the town the name of
his son
Enoch.
With both of their first sons not turning out very well, Adam and Eve
decided to try
again: (4:25) Adam had intercourse with his wife, and she gave birth
to a
son whom
she named Seth....(4:26) A son was also born to Seth, and he named
him
Enosh. This
man was the first to invoke the name of Yahweh. Now it doesn't
mention here
where
Seth's wife came from. Another woman from Nod, possibly, or maybe
someone
from
another neolithic community downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates
valley. But
her folks
also, cannot be of the lineage of Adam and Eve, and must also be
counted
among "the
other people".
But whatever happened to Adam? After all, way back there in chapter
Gen.2:17,
warning Adam about the magic fruit of knowledge, Jahweh had told him
that"on the
day you eat of it you shall most surely die." So, when did Adam die?
(Gen.5:4) Adam
lived for eight hundred years after the birth of Seth and he became
the
father of sons
and daughters. (5:5) In all, Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty
years:
then he died.
Hey, that's pretty good! Nine hundred and some odd years isn't bad
for a man
who's
been told he's gonna die the next day!
Well, the story goes on, and maybe next time the Witlesses come to
visit
I'll tell more
of it. But suffice it to say that those of us who are not of Semitic
descent
(ie. not of
the lineage of Adam and Eve) cannot share in the Original Sin that
comes
with that
lineage. Being that the Bible is the stoyr of that lineage, of Adam
and
Eve's
descendants and their special relationship with their particular God,
Yahweh, it
follows that this is not the story of the rest of us. We may have
been
Cain's wife's
people, or Seth's wife's people, or some other people over the hill
and far
away, but
whichever people the rest of us are, as far as the Bible is
concerned, we
are the Other
People, and so we are continually referred to throughtout.
Later books of the Bible are filled with admonitions to the
followers of
Jahweh to
"learn not the ways of the Pagans...." (Jer 10:2) with detailed
descriptions
of exactly
what it is we do, such as erect standing stones and sacred poles,
worship in
sacred
groves and practice divination and magic. And worhsip the sun, moon
stars
and the
"Queen of Heaven." You must not behave as they do in Eygpt where
once you
lived:
you must not behave as they do in Canaan where I am taking you. You
must not
follow their laws." (lev 18:3) For Yahweh, as he so clearly
emphasises, is
not the god
of the Pagans. We have our own lineage and our own heritage, and our
tale is
not told
in the Bible. We were not made like clay figurines by male deity out
of the
"dust from
the soil" We were born of our Mother the Earth, and have evolved
over aeons
in her
nurturing embrace, All of us, in our many and diverse tribes, have
creation
myths and
legends of our origins and history: some of these tales may even be
actually
true.
Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us also have stories
of great
floods,
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other cataclysms that wiped out
whole
communities of our people, wherein "I alone survived to tell the
tale"
Nearly all of
our ancestral tribes (and especially those of us who today are
reclaiming
our own
Pagan heritage) lack that peculiar obsessive body modesty that seems
to be a
hallmark
of the original sin alluded to in the story of the fall. We can be
naked and
unashamed!
Why, our Goddess even tells us, "as a sign that you are truly free,
you
shall be naked
in your rites." Not being born into sin, we have no need of
salvation, and
no need of a
Messiah to redeem our sinful souls.
Neither heaven nor hell is our destination in the afterlife; we have
our own
various
arrangements withour own various deities. The Bible is not our
story; we
have our
own stories to tell, and they are many and diverse. In a long life,
you may
get to hear
many of them.... May you live long and prosper.!!!
by Oberon (Otter) Zell
Don't Dream it. BE IT!
LK
posted by Lord Kronouss at 7:13 AM
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