I've been thinking about the story of Adam and Eve for the past few days. I didn't even mean to start thinking about it. It just turned on in my head. It erupted into my consciousness. Usually that's the way the most creative ideas come to me. It's the way many of the most touching, enduring, expanding ideas come to me. As though my mind and consciousness need to get out of the way so these wonderful ideas can present themselves. How should I feel about that?
These thoughts came to me as I drove to Bear Lake over the weekend. I was thinking about sin and redemption after listening to a Christian radio broadcast about that subject. Many thoughts came to me and I had a powerful and beautiful personal experience as well. I thought about our existence, from the pre-mortal life, to our current life, and on into the next. They're really one life. It's one eternal life. Just different stages within that life.
For the first time ever in my life I started looking at the story of Adam and Eve as an allegory. I started seeing them not as real people, but as symbols. It may seem strange that I've never looked at them that way, but I've always been taught they were real people, part of a real story, or history. But when the idea came to my mind to consider them as symbols, part of an allegory, I was able to go deeper into the meaning of that episode. On mormonstories.org I recently listened to a podcast interview with Terryl Givens. He talks about a class he teaches or taught in which he presented the Genesis story of Adam and Eve in a way that presented the devil as the one doing good and God as the one doing wrong. I thought about that and realized that I've felt that way in a sense, in a way I wasn't able to articulate, or wasn't able to really consider fully, many times in my life. He's offering Adam and Eve a choice. One that leads them to become like the Gods, knowing good from evil. We believe that without Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit none of us would be able to exist in this mortal realm. What would be the point of Adam and Eve living in a state of innocence for eternity?
God is telling Adam and Eve do not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why would he do that? God doesn't want us to know good from evil? No, I don't think so. God may have warned, "If you partake of the fruit you will suffer. I want you to know that. Be aware of that before you make the decision."
So let's take this to a new level. Let's look at Adam and Eve not as real people but as symbols. And let's say they didn't exist in this world, but that paradisiacal state before coming to this world. Adam and Eve represent all of us as we were in the pre-mortal life. We all had a decision to make. Would we partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and come to this world? A world filled with pain and suffering? A world in which we would surely die? A world in which we would be cut off from the physical presence of God? Sounds like a deeply challenging and trying experience. Or would we choose to live in a state of comparative innocence eternally? In the "garden of Eden." Or pre-mortal existence.
Could it really be that the Genesis story has been so corrupted that we're getting God's role presented to us as Satan's role almost and Satan's as God's? It wouldn't really surprise me that much. I'm not sure I feel like the roles have been reversed, more like the story has been corrupted altogether, with bits and pieces of truth mixed in with myth.
Speaking of reversing roles and corrupting stories. We talk of Adam's transgression, which I don't believe was a transgression at all. I don't believe God would have commanded them not to eat the fruit. Not to mention Adam didn't partake of the fruit first. Eve did. It's almost as though in most accounts she's invisible. And again it wasn't a transgression. Eve had the brilliance of mind and the foresight to know that the human race would not exist in a mortal state, vital to our growth, without her eating the fruit. She sacrificed her own comfort and peace for the greater good of the human race. How many women do this on a daily basis?
For me, all these things happened not at the beginning of our existence in this life, but in our pre-mortal life. God explained to us that we needed to experience mortality to continue our eternal growth. It was vital. But he also warned us that mortality would be filled with extreme sorrow, difficulty, pain, terror, depression, and so on and so on. He warned us. He didn't forbid us, he didn't command us not to do it. He warned us. We all ate the fruit nonetheless. Could it be that in that pre-mortal life it was a woman, or many women, who took the lead in convincing us that this was the course we must follow? That even though it would be filled with difficulty it was the best course for us. Hence Eve's portrayal as the one partaking the fruit first? Then the men followed, understanding that she was right.
What would Lucifer's role be in all this? The story as I've explained it? I don't believe he was the one enticing us to partake the fruit and experience mortal life. He was the one saying it's too hard, don't do it. Many of us won't survive. We'll be lost. Follow me and I'll save everyone through force. As we see in modern scripture. His portrayal in modern scripture as the one wanting to take choice away contrasts drastically with his portrayal in Genesis as the one who wants to give us choice. It was never God's plan to take choice away. Our right to choose is the shining ideal in his plan. He wanted so badly to protect that ideal that he was willing to sacrifice his most obedient, most powerful son, for us, so we could still choose and fail. And he would pick us up.
If we choose to follow God, we've never been lost. The Fall was not a fall. It was a new vital step to our eternal lives. Yes, we left God's personal presence to experience this life. That's a massive challenge. People could even call it a fall from grace, if you consider God's presence grace. But I don't look at it that way. From very early on in our existence, if not from the very beginning, God had a plan. It always included choice and a Savior. The fact that the Savior was part of the plan from so long ago means we were never lost. We have the freedom to choose not to be saved, but we were never lost. Jesus Christ was always part of the plan. Choice was always part of the plan, therefore, mistakes and sin were always part of the plan. We were never lost.
How do we change our minds? How do we rethink this important story? How can we erase the past story and write it anew? I don't believe these old stories are true. They've misled us. God is not the one in Genesis interacting with Adam and Eve and neither is the devil. They're almost the opposite of how they're portrayed. How do I erase my memories of the old story and create new ones? It will take some disentangling, some rearranging, some retelling altogether. It's well worth the effort. Just as this life is.
