A Mere Afterthought God`s Creation - Report Example

A Mere Afterthought God`s Creation by The of the The of the School The and where it is located The Date A Mere Afterthought God`s Creation Any religion stands on its “pillars”-dogmas, which are prohibiting logical analysis of the “divine revelations” or stories. However, the more progressive the humanity becomes, the more chance it is getting for the emergence of various theories and searches of logical inconsistencies. To confirm it is enough to read about the origin of man, and especially the appearance of matriarchs Eve on biblical pages is enough to cause heated debate and careful researches. The fact that the women`s right are hidden by religion will be the subject of this report. Did Eve exist? The famous biblical story is known everywhere – the story of forbidden fruit: Adam and Eve thereby violated the covenant with God - to eat of all the trees in the Garden of Eden, besides this – “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). Although in this specification, all seems quite relevant to Biblical account, its actually quite far from the truth: there was no Eve, nor apple there (Carol et al., 2012, pp.23-41). Second surprising fact is that the Bible does not say anything about the paradise apples or apple-tree of paradise. The story of Adam could not be “the life story of one family” (Stockwell, 2007, pp. 67-72). A woman named Eve first plucked the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Her name will forever remain in the memory of mankind, and the knowledge has led to the impairment of a woman and made her the epitome of sin. History brings to us a very controversial image of a woman - Eve and the Virgin, who are like light and dark, lofty and low, angelic and devilish (Cunningham, 1992, pp.211-214.). The canons stated that the first created people were not Adam and Eve, but Adam and his wife. Name “Eve” - from ancient Jewish - the wife of the first man gets after the expulsion from Eden (Schwartz, 2007, pp.42-61). Only the fact that Eve first was caught on the snake`s provocation has violated certain equality of man and woman. The words that man would rule over woman and she would desire him were said to his wife with exile, rather than after creation (Russell, 1985, p.76). Eve as a secondary creation  “Creation of the rib” (Gen 2:22) served as the basis for a serious assault on a woman. After all, the Bible says that after the creation of Adam, God breathed an immortal soul into him, and with respect to Eve there is no indication, if God breathed soul into her or not (Pardes, 1993, pp.17-27). The question, whether the soul of woman exists, caused great controversy among the clergy. Many of them even began to doubt whether a woman is a human or not. In 585 A.D., the Christian priests at the Masonic Council specifically discussed this question and after much discussion, a majority of only one vote formally recognized that a woman has a soul (Saebo, 2014, pp.21-22). This truly “heroic” recognition has become possible due to the saving Scripture, which states that Jesus Christ was at the same time the son of human, as his mother Mary was a human (Gardner, 1982, pp. 98-105.). Let`s pay attention to the fact that “a secondary product”, created by God, could not have a soul. Is this not a sign of discrimination and neglect? This is the first key point for understanding the biblical vision of women. The other texts (Gen 2:18, 2:22, and 3:16) indicate the following: Woman is secondary in comparison with a man, as she was created later; A Woman was created for the man, as assistant, an addition, a “helper” and is not recognized as a self-sufficient entity; Marriage is understood as a man`s reunion of lost part; as the return to him of what he is legally entitled to possess. Without marriage, the man does not have the fullness of human nature. First woman on the Earth The fact of the existance of two first women is mentioned in the stories, mythologies and manuscripts of various nations. First time mention of the name of Lilith could be found in “Gilgamesh”, Sumer`s 4 thousand years old epic. Where the myth of Lilith came from? The fact is there is no such story in the Bible, whose history dates back to Adam and Eve. Lilith and several related figures are found in the Babylonian and Sumerian sources dated before the Old Treatment in Scripture and Tradition of the Jews (Frey-Anthes, 2008). Myth, as it is told here, goes back to Ben Sira Alphabet, an anonymous source, which dates from the end of the first century A.D. (Baskin, 2002 pp.51-60, Klein, 2007, p.45 Scholz, 2014, pp.11-18). It found a lot of reflections in art and got a second wind due to feminism, especially Jewish. In Semitic mythology and Judaism Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She was mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Alphabet of Ben Sira, Zohar. The Hebrew text says she was before Eve. This name can be found in apocrypha. It is said she asked God for the opportunity to have children without a man. Particles of the body of Lilith severed be magical spear became a new human. Jewish mythology describes that after this “gift”, angels daily were killing up to 1,000 of her children. There is an opinion that the story about world creation does not belong to one author, but is consisted of presentations of more than two different people. The name of Lilith is noted in the Kabbalah`s book, dated the 2nd century B.C. and it could be found in the Torah`s – dated the 6th century B.C. The system view on the conflict, expressed in the myth of Lilith, is a conflict between male and female (Berg, 2007). The myth of Lilith tells a different story of the first people: the first woman was not Eve, but Lilith. Lilith was not created from Adams rib, but by God himself, so as Adam was. Once they were both created, they immediately began to argue. The dispute was about who would be governing. Adam believed that Lilith must obey, and Lilith refused submission, recalling to their equivalent origin. Adam complained to God. The God sent three angels who handed a message to Lilith, that briught het the fact that she has to go back to Adam as a punishment and obey him. Lilith refused once again and was punished: she was sent under the Red Sea. The children she conceives every day with the demons there, God orders to murder, while Lilith, as otherworldly creature, kills in cradles the offspring of the earth mothers. On one legend, God satisfied the desire of an independent free woman to have children without a man - and cruel revenge on her for the fact that he was unable to refuse, and that she was not eager to bow in front of his "best" creation - man? The God did not want to repeat his mistake - he created a new "helper" for Adam - Eve, who owes her existence to the rib of Adam, but not directly from God, so that she did not resist submission. The myth about Lilith can be a sign that the Christian religion did not want to see an independent woman, equal to man, but it preferred to throw her from the Bible pages. Middle Ages and Eve`s sin The Fall of Eve is imputed as guilt over the thousands of years and much less attention is paid to the next pages of the sacred texts. The Fall of Eve led to the fact that for two thousand years the Holy Church Fathers strongly cursed woman, cultivating the guilt for violation of divine law in her nature; they cursed her for the seduction of man, created in the image and likeness of God. The patriarchy basic position is that a woman will always be a mere afterthought, and this role has also been identified by society (Stanton, 2013, p.22). Many Christian saints also gave themselves free rein, piously condemning and cursing the female gender. For example, St. Jerome (347-420) called the women as the gates of the devil. The woman was like a “scorpion, always ready to sting”, according to St. Bonaventure (1221–1274); “an instrument used by the devil to master our souls”, according to St. Scipio, and “dragon rage”, according to St. Gregory the Great (Waltz, 2013, pp 22-23). Mostly it has come from the Eve`s Fall which gave an opportunity to judge all her daughters. Woman in Christianity is interpreted as the creature, designed for men, as “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him (Gen 2:18). As can be seen in the Orthodox tradition, a man is not only a “master of his wife”, but also her teacher, spiritual guide, a kind of mediator between God and men (Hellwarth, 2002, pp. 23-30). It is clear that such images of women cannot be, but called discrimination. The victory of God the Father has led to the triumph of the patriarchal mindset, despite the fact she got the name Eve as “the Mother of all Living” (Gen 3:20), suggesting that the first woman “was originally a goddess who was demythologized by the biblical writer”. To talk about Eve in the Middle Ages` view we need to turn to the works of Tertullian of Carthage. He believed that Eve was relevant for judgment of the women (Flood, 2011, pp.12-15). Then Thomas Aquinas touched in his works the opposition of Eve to Magdalene (Flood, 2011, p. 13). Until the XIII century Eve was seen as the main culprit of the Fall, the XI-XII centuries brought attacks on her with the more stringent requirements of celibacy. In Western Europe, the idea of women`s communicating with the devil has become the most widely spread in the XIII - XIV centuries (Russel, p. 144). Medieval authors` thought was that woman is a constant danger for man because of her sexuality. Thus, Abelard (1079 - 1142) condemned woman for that she introduced him into temptation, as “Eve tempted Adam and like every woman seduces a man since creation of the world” (Russell, p.145). The most important argument of Catholic Church against her is the fact that there was no woman among the closest disciples of the Christ. In addition, the woman is not allowed to fulfill this role of deputy of Christ (Pardes, 1992, pp. 87-94, Kvam, 1999, pp.55-61). Returning to the duties and rights of women Catholic and Lutheran Catechism left only the duty of procreation for the woman, as Eve was imprisoned in motherhood. (Bal, 1987, pp.105-107). The woman is being minor, second-rate. "God-breathed" book of the Proverbs of Solomon mocks women declaring them to be the vessels of contamination, a source of temptation (Haddad, 1985, pp. 267). If the need and grief will bring a woman to fall, then she would spend all her life in rot and die at the bottom of it. So religion sanctifies the class oppression of women, inequality and exploitation (Prov., Ch. 30, p. 23). The New Testament, supposedly brought to the Earth by the legendary Gospel of Christ, also contributed to the humiliation and enslavement of women, pointing to her that she was bound by the law “as long as her husband is alive” (Qor., Ch. 7, p. 39) that as a sign of humility and submission, she is obliged to go covering her head (Qor., ch. 11, art. 3 and 5). To nowadays, women are encouraged to remember the fact that there was “not from woman, but woman from man” (Qor., Ch. 11, p. 8). At the same time we may look into “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation” by Phyllis Trible, where the idea of radical feminism is expressed; that he women were simply the subject of recoup for the misfortunes of the world. This idea was in humans’ “androgynous until the separation of female and male”. The idea of the “Depatriarchalizing” is centered on the God`s depiction “in terms of both male and female... which reflected into the mutuality of the sexes” (Shectman, 14). Equality in Quran? Furthermore, if we look through the Quran pages, what would we find? “Their Lord responded to them: “…be you male or female - you are equal to one another” (3:195), “…male or female, while believing, they enter Paradise” (4:124). “In contrast to Bible Quran tries to demonstrate women’s equality (2:34-36, 7:19-22, 7:27). It could be thought that fall from the Heaven is not blamed on Eve. As an example we can take the following words: “The devil whispered to them [ ]... He said, "Your Lord did not forbid you from this tree, except to prevent you from becoming angels, and from attaining eternal existence” [ ]… He thus duped them with lies. As soon as they tasted the tree, their bodies became visible to them, and they tried to cover themselves with the leaves of Paradise”. (7:20-22). Quran (3:195) continues to develop the equality talking - “each of you is equal to the other” (3:195). It is not limited only with religion and spirit, but can be called a base for human`s activity as the Quran 4:1 shows the reader. Quran is not dividing the sexes and it even does not pay attention on who was created first – man or woman, and it do not matter for our goals in this world. Quran (2:30-37) tells us that both Adam and Eve have paid the price for their mistake and this makes us to see that Islamic belief suggests the gender equality. It says: “and whatever wrong any human being commits rests upon himself alone” (6:165). With these words the Quran takes the blame of Eve from all her daughters, giving them freedom of choice and the ability to maintain independence. Humiliation of women by religion was due to socioeconomic factors. As it is known, originally woman played a leading role in society (Frymer-Kensky, 2002, pp. 76-89, Shectman, 2009, pp.92-93). Now, when the position of the church is weakened, and the movement of feminism is rising, religion is offering a new interpretation of the Bible and making concessions. Thus, the blame for original sin is sometimes divided equally between Adam and Eve nowadays. Contrary to the Bible it is stated: woman was created in the image and likeness of God, endowed with the same aspirations and abilities as men; the first marriage on the Earth was the sign of the marriage equality; the state that the wife needs to fear her husband is not the fear of punishment. However believers still continue to think that “all human sin and all death are generically descended from a single act by a single pair of human beings who lived at a single moment in time, or that the cause of their original transgression was Satan in the guise of a snake” (Towner, 1984 p. 58). However, the permanent “deficit” of priests makes clergy to raise the question of attracting of women to worship (Huizen, 2000, p.115-118, Cummings, 2009, pp. 4-10). With the approval of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church the women can perform the duties of a deacon and cantor (Stanton, 2013). In fact Genesis leaves the possibility to interpret it in two ways: thinking about the equality of women and their subordination to men, but for centuries the second option was chosen for major religious interpretation. It is difficult to say whether attacks biblical on Eve were justified. Nevertheless, these texts preserve her essence as a mere afterthought god`s creation. Till the middle of the XIX century the vast majority of scientific and theological studies conducted with pre-feministic positions, based on the assertion that womens experience is not relevant to the intellectual and spiritual spheres, which are a mans world, “closed” for women. The Bible and other sacred texts, which were created by male narrators in the patriarchal notions reflected patriarchal views and attitudes, the idea of which takes the root from Eve and people are still calling her a mere afterthought god`s creation. . . References Bal, M. (1987). Sexuality, Sin and Sorrow: The Emergence of the Female Character, in Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p.105-107. Baskin, J. (2002). Constructing Eve: Midrashic Revisions of Human Creation, in Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rabbinic Literature. Hanover: Brandeis University Press. p.51-60. Carol Ann Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, Jacqueline E. Lapsley (2012). Womens Bible Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. p.23-41. Cunningham, A. (1992). “Type and Archetype in the Eden Story” in ed. Paul Morriss and Deborah Sawyer. A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden. P.211-214. 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Stanton, E.C. (2013). The Womans Bible. Start Publishing LLC.p22. Stockwell, Foster (2007). The Bible Says: History of Abuses Committed in the Name of the Biblical Text.p.67-72. Waltz, Robert B. (2013). The Bible in History. WordPress.p. 22-23. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., (2004). Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 2d ed.; Dallas: Word.p.45. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Ellison Banks Findly (1985). Women, Religion, and Social Change, SUNY Press. P.267. Read More