This article commences in Genesis chapter 2 and includes references to the creation story in chapter 1. Stating it very simplistically, symbols such as light = Day = love and darkness = Night = hate. Starting with Gen. 2:8 the speci man, called Adam (referring to both male and female - Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 5:1,2) having evolved to the height of conceptual thought is a conscious being, a living soul, in a garden eastward in Eden. As well as trees for food, there is also the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We must investigate what “eastward in Eden” signifies. What does “eastward” infer? This is a core example, of how to use the lexical sources to trace the original writers’ thoughts.
If we look closely at the Genesis stories we find each scene is subsequently followed with backup stories giving more details of a former narrative. The ancient engravings are like circles within circles, spiraling larger and larger in circumference and circumstance. Proceeding to travel through Genesis, little family groups multiply and diversify into larger families with a common ancestry, then intermixed as each lineage develops – e.g. Japheth’s son Tubal marries a Cain progeny and produces Tubal-cain.
In Gen. 1 man rises above his instinctive animal kingdom that was mentally without form and void of any moral consciousness. He arose being capable of applying virtuous conceptual thought, with complete, selective control over complacent, melancholic behavior. Here apposite characteristics were finally apparent - born physically alive was to laugh and to cry – to conquer death by life. Such diversified archetypal characteristics are distinguishing features – the rock of sublime quality. Coming from the soul they are perceived intangibles being abstract but just as real, eternal truths compared to that of objective forms. The ancient writers sought to convey this advancing distinctive aspiring stride as the great turning point of the human mind and heart. Such deft characteristics had become persuasive, and were innate within the individual and are very real. They are best called-up, remembered or brought to realization by using familiar objects. That is something seen, something known or something felt. Some of these symbols were the everyday - Day and Night, Heaven and Earth and earth divided into Earth and Sea. All these familiar objects are used as symbols throughout the graphic writing of the Scriptures. So with symbols, the working of the mind and the heart could be expressed and eventually recorded.
It was an honourable period before I or me began to dominate. It could be said to be the I of grace. Leading up to the emergent picture of man in the garden we read, “But the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth” - Gen. 2:5. Rain, waters, sea and flood are more images within the narrative scripture – see Jer. 46:7-8, Isa. 8:6-8, Isa. 28:1-2, Isa. 17:12-14 and Rev. 17-15. All these texts in some way pertain to human life. Bible symbols must be self-interpretive. Institutions of incrusting folly have had a vested interest in self-proliferation so avoiding any hard, detailed scholarship or revelation of liberty, or voice of conscience for the flock. My contention is that original word meanings must be strenuously sought to understand simple, straightforward messages of human behaviour that the writers left for all who care to know. My approach is not to give a personal interpretation but to use lexical sources only for tracing word interpretation. By doing this ego I, is taken out of the discipline.
Returning to the phrase, “not caused it to rain”. “Rain” here is taken from the word MATAR. Dealing with the word “rain”, Joel 2:23 speaks of the early or former rain. Former rain is from the word MOWREH meaning, teacher of righteousness. This phrase “not caused it to rain” tells us there was no teacher of righteousness, eastward in Eden. So immediately the original interpretation begins to be clarified. “But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground, Gen. 2:16. The word “mist”, from the original ED means an enveloping fog or vapor, representing a mental fog, mental darkness or a dimness of cognitive understanding. Here is pictured man with no learning, no teacher, no invention, no organization, no government and no ownership - just a dimness of base-level perception – supine or frozen intellect. It was noted that, “there was not a man to till the ground.” Such a necessity had not arisen. Every plant of the field was in the earth and every herb of the field grew. This indicated that pre-conceptual man was an agrarian hunter and gatherer with his hands.
Let’s investigate Eden. This portrait, we are told, was “eastward in Eden”. “Eastward” from QEDEM means, the forefront of time, antiquity, anciently, before east, before the sunrise on Eden. Have you ever heard an institution describe it that way? The original writer is saying primitive man was pre-Edenic – eastward of Eden. Eden means delightful and pleasant. Unfortunately the delight was in enchantment and the knowledge of how to live, shall I say, voluptuously – where vocation, the pivotal spot was unknown and insecurity abounded. The cause of the excitement of living luxuriously will unfold a little latter in this paper. But remember spiritually, this picture is a conditional state of mind and heart.
It is here that the early picture of mankind broadens a little. Woman or ISHA enters the scene. She is ISHA because she is taken out of man who is ISA. This is the first mention of division in human society, showing the woman of the populace, as life-givers and man, as law-givers. These are very important concepts in the ancient writers’ catalogue and have been taken more literally than symbolically by those obsessed by an ecclesiastical grip on subjugation, dullness and darkness.
In contrast woman’s communal bonds and constitution is not from dust but from the essence of the speci man. In other words the perennial life-giver is a reaction to the constituent lawgiver (continued in today’s duality or plurality). Woman’s personification and temperance is resultant from the essence of man. Woman’s embodiment is that of the complete psychosomatic separation from man. In marriage they co-exist despite the ongoing tension. It’s never been a truly subservient relationship, but two equally independent forces within the individual and society. The symbolic woman’s soul or mind is described as apparently outside the physical law, but prolifically signified. Man’s body (structure, law, form) was set as the foundation of the creative fountain of woman (mother of all living). Thus woman was distinctively drawn from the masculine.
What was the next etching of this duality to be considered by the writers? Pristine humanity was a free spirit, and was owned by nobody. The word “free” of course means liberty and not license as we see in I so often in freewill. But Adam, man, the law-giver and Eve, (CHAVAH - mother of all living - the life giver), took what was not theirs to take. “And when the woman saw that the tree (of knowledge of good and evil) was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband and he did eat.” - Gen. 3:6.
We have now covered the story of early, primitive society in a nutshell. Its ramifications are revealed and explained in more detail chapter-by-chapter in the Book of Genesis. By now in Genesis chapter 4, tribes were growing as narrated in the lineage of Cain. The meaning of “taking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” is about to be magnified, as it gradually becomes multi-layered “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bare Cain, and said I have gotten a man from the Lord.” Cain means acquisition. Eve said, “I have gotten”. Yes acquisition had entered the heart and mind of early mankind. This temperament, to possess, came from the symbolic woman. Cain (acquisition) killed his brother Abel. Abel means keeper of the sheep - the shepherd. Acquisition is a deadly vice and it killed the spirit of loving care, typified as a shepherd’s tender care for his sheep. These were days of fight to the death. Historians called this epoch Savagery. The philosophical artists illustrated this time as pre-Edenic.
Cain was jealous of Abel’s major life contribution. Cain, being a tiller of the ground, made an offering of the fruit of the ground, but this was unacceptable. Abel brought an offering of his flock. This was acceptable. Abel’s offering illustrated, by bringing the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof that he was offering the richest or choicest part of his life’s work. Fat from CHELEB means richest or choicest part. The idea sought to be conveyed is simply the difference between those with a sacrificial, communal attitude compared to those without. To sacrifice the richest prime time of one’s life-activity, so as to endeavor to raise living conditions for others in the face of avaricious acquisition, it was believed, would bring betterment to mankind.
Overwhelmingly man’s fear of enslavement caused him to choose to fight for supremacy. This is the male influence within each individual – whether physically male or female. Likewise the female’s constitutional elements exist within social bonds, but as creativity requires resolute, reflective effort, it is easier to decide might is right, and even portrayed as the masculine way. How true the verse “Not by might, (from CHAYIL – army) nor by power, (KOWACH – force, strength, wealth) but by my spirit saith…” “a still small voice”.
Cain, too, had lost peace and tranquility and had to till the ground for his livelihood. Gen. 4:16 records, “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” This picturesque narrative is saying, acquisition took a backward step – going east of Eden to a place called Nod. Nod means wandering. This gives a sense of chaos and disorder. When studied carefully this story is clear. It is not the empty story of fundamentalism (a what will I get if I am good). As one travels carefully through the Scriptures it can be seen to be a very rich and fertile message of the honourableness of allocating time for self-sacrifice – or devoted to grace – an acceptance of the inherent voice of conscience. It is wasted on the inattentive thoughtless reader, who is easily influenced and lead to the darker side of life and who sees only desolation in his/her journey. Such a vocation fails to grasp anything beyond the needs of I.
The idea of the victorious conquering tribes possessing the captured and putting them to work, instead of being assimulated (life-giving), as once was the way, came from the members, of the tribes, not the leaders. Symbolically written this was woman – Eve taking of the forbidden fruit. Dominance and ruler-ship was enhanced by possession and gave the tribal leader or patriarch the idea to take complete charge of the defeated and appropriate them. Remember, it is said, Adam took the fruit “and did eat”. Thus arose a new commander stealing the voice of conscience.
Firstly, the members of the tribe had “gotten”. The “right” to possess had completely changed the serene nature of life. Secondly, the militarist commander or mighty hunter replaced the tribal god or patriarch. The inordinate revenge, the desire of taking possession without due regard to the rights of others began in the nomadic life of ancient tribes and then spread to the leaders. The nucleus of possession or ownership, “a gotten for me mentality” a distorted psyche, had reared its ugly head in many different fields. This was a very important development in societal relationships and is well documented graphically in Genesis. We do not know how many eons passed before it dawned on Homo sapiens that they could possess anything, but pre-Edenic conditions were no doubt lengthy.
The story of pristine man being a free spirit (without the ego of I) prior to bondage needed to be hidden. Such native freedom was too democratic and this would leave the peers of society, who taught I guaranteed freedom, without an obedient and meekly accepting flock. Hence came the centuries old deception in translations by turning metaphor into literal application. But even in the days of Nimrod, leaders, in a very blatant autocratic way, knew how to condition and deceive the genuine seeker. Some verses in Scripture have escaped mutilation by “the powers of darkness in heavenly places”. So in Genesis 11:3-4 we read “And they (HUW, HIY HEMMAH = a man) said one to another, Go to, let us make brick…And they (a man) said, Go to let us build a city…and let us make us a name”- very democratic indeed!
Now remember, early pristine humanity was a reconciled spirit and governed by nobody except the innate. Once genuine liberty is redeemed, then a government by the united spirit of the vocative consciousness, that is a government of the ever-present still small voice, would rightly be called theocracy. The rule of the liberated, creative Spirit is where the active God abides. So you see, the true God is a verb, benign thought plus action.
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