One of the stories that has always puzzled me is the Biblical account of the Fall; a tale literally as old as time. Most of us are familiar enough with the story to have opinions about it, whether it is historical or mythical. I think it is a chimera: historical and mythological. Don’t get me wrong, I am as orthodox as a rabbi’s yarmulke; I believe there was a historical Adam and Eve, the Tree of Life, the talking snake and all those side dishes. But the story also has a fairy tale motif which is not inconspicuous. Fairy tales often employ fantastical situations to show deeper truths which we can connect to in a way which is not always present in mere historical accounts of events. So I believe there was a real, blood and soil account of the Fall, but also it is told in such a way as to hint at deeper realities than a mere chronology of events.
I would like to bring to your attention one particularly fairy tale-ish part of the story and then use it to point to a larger opportunity for us to think more broadly and dig more deeply. First the story.
Yahweh finishes creating the heavens and the earth. We got stars, birds, animals, fishes, oceans, shrubbery – all the props. Onto this stage God creates Man. Male and female He made them, and he did so, as the French say, sans vestments – in the nude – to which the author adds, “and they were unashamed”. After this there is a sort of coronation ceremony where Yahweh gives them directions about how to keep up the joint, take dominion over creation and get busy making little ‘uns, cause Yahweh wants Him some grandbabies. Lastly he gives them a single dietary restriction: they can eat anything they want in the garden – anything in the whole garden – except for that one tree over there with the cheery looking apples. If they do, they die. This tree is ostentatiously called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. These two freshly created beings exist in this state of perfection for what seems to be about 14 seconds before a slithering Parseltongue charms Eve into eating this forbidden fruit. She shares some with Adam. When they do this, their eyes are opened and they realize, the whole time, they have been naked.
The story has some clear trappings of a fairy tale: ominous threats, obviously named objects, talking animals, and a conditional state of joy balancing precariously on an arbitrary commission. For all oddities of this story, one of the oddest is the obvious non-sequitur here which we tend to gloss over: How does it follow that eating a piece of fruit makes them realize their genitals were hanging out?
That is what happened, isn’t it? Adam has the sudden awareness of things dangling in garden breezes; Eve moves to cover her breasts and vagina, like a coyless Venus de Milo. I ask you, what is the logical connection between eating an apple and the shame of nakedness? They didn’t die like was portented, at least not in a way the reader was anticipating. And, they didn’t try to stash away their hands or cover their mouths, presumably the body parts which transgressed the command. They went for the naughty parts.
Now, I have my own thoughts on this strange history, but that is not my point. My point is it doesn’t seem strange to us and it ought to; it has ceased to knit eyebrows in bewilderment. We are unpuzzled by the fact that apples lead to testicles because the the story has become domesticated. This seems to happen, especially of those stories which have been solid under our feet for our whole lives, the ones we have built our houses, lives and beliefs on. We take them for granted and they lay unbothered and gray like concrete; as immovable as it is unalive, as solid as it is gray.
To question the familiar (not in a critical way, but a curious one), is how our eyes are opened to the strangeness of foundational truths which are taken for granted, and it is in the strangeness that these stories, pregnant with truth, will take on new and deeper meaning. Underfoot the cold, hard concrete softens into bouncy grass and the history becomes alive with meaning and identity.
Thought Butter 