2021/01/01 by Larelle Bossi, Bossi, Larelle
Arts and Humanities · #Biblical Studies and Interpretation #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
paper · pdf · doi:10.26021/10682
openalex publication_date 2021/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
The genealogy of sin will always begin with Eve in what has become known as the Western narrative. In communion with the wicked serpent, Eve betrayed humanity when she ate the forbidden fruit from the Sycamore Tree. Since, women have been burdened with painful labours and sovereign husbands, and men have been sentenced to a life of toil for being influenced by a woman. What precisely constituted the original sin was never particularly clear to me. Was it listening to the serpent, eating the fruit, defying God’s instruction, consuming the knowledge of good and evil, or sexual consciousness? If the latter, how did the fruit beget the power of the orgasm, even if the shape and sweet nectar of the fig is suggestive of the woman’s vagina? It is no wonder that the creation story in Genesis is either disregarded as myth, or a misbelief outgrown by education and science. Yet, notwithstanding its discordance with the contemporary narrative, myths are stories that bring order and meaning to our existence. If understood as serving as a valuable probe into the worldview and values of a particular culture, the deep history of a myth tends to suggest that the fatuous character of its current interpretation is at best superficial, and ignorant at worst. It has been argued by feminist writers (Stone 1976, Sjöö and Mor 1987, Collard and Contrucci 1989, Merchant 1989) that our Ancestress caused the expulsion of all humankind from the original home of bliss in Eden for nothing more than celebrating life. In her own biblical rediscovery titled “When God was a Woman”(1976), Merlin Stone says that Eve was accused by the temple fathers of dreaming dreams and using her own mind.