A very high-level thinker and scholarly writer on and off Medium, Graham Pemberton, recently did an exhaustive series looking for the original meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis. Here's his summary piece. https://medium.com/@graham-pemberton/what-do-the-first-three-chapters-of-genesis-really-mean-summary-and-concluding-thoughts-9439b97f666d
His discussions of Adam and Eve support thoughts of my own that I have had over the last few years since I spiritually awakened and also helped refine some.
Perhaps as with any great piece of literature or poetry, Bible verses intentionally have many levels of meanings. Long ago, I intuited that the story of Adam and Eve and eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge represents the cycles of reincarnation and that we always have the choice to remain in Heaven or return to the Masterclass called Earth. See my https://medium.com/promptly-written/reimagining-sacred-texts-and-their-messages-ac5f6306a7f7
Graham's work and the work of others helped me refine earlier thoughts. Humans are a uniquely designed symbiotic species of highly evolved animals and souls. See White Feather’s https://medium.com/grab-a-slice/simultaneous-selves-8eca7d61801d. This is also the story of creation in Genesis when one looks back at the original texts before certain words were mistranslated to man and woman. See Graham Pemberton's https://medium.com/@graham-pemberton/what-do-the-first-three-chapters-of-genesis-really-mean-chapter-2-the-creation-of-eve-7aa72143925b and https://medium.com/@graham-pemberton/what-do-the-first-three-chapters-of-genesis-really-mean-chapter-2-further-thoughts-b6797482fd5c.
Simplifying the analysis, Adam and Eve do not represent the creation of man and woman but rather the creation of a species consisting of animal and soul. I had started to think along these lines a couple of years ago when I had the realization that the terms divine masculine and divine feminine actually refer to ego and soul (https://medium.com/new-earth-consciousness/my-reaction-to-two-recent-pieces-on-the-concepts-of-divine-feminine-and-divine-masculine-1f9b899faa17) which I later refined to animus and soul in my https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/the-human-spirit-duality-e456c0729e99 in which I explained my view that we are neither humans seeking spiritual experiences nor spirits seeking human experiences - we are simultaneously and inseparably both.
Later in your excellent essay, Nicole, you point out that Judaism was not always monotheistic, and thus had it not been for that evolution, Christianity might not be monotheistic (albeit one with a holy trinity). Well, the evolution of Judaism to monotheism may also result from a mistranslation. I often site an excellent essay by Gavin Sher, https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/how-do-you-define-god-9898492eae9, in which he writes:
"I would argue that the biggest reason that people lose faith in there being ‘God’, is because ‘God’ is the most misused and misunderstood word that there is. The pervasive and pernicious caricature that ‘God’ is some dude on a cloud with a beard, makes a mockery of religion and of the very idea of Divinity and turns away anyone who has a capacity for critical thinking, but lacks access to truthful religious teaching…Too often, people base their opinion on what ‘God’ is by this ‘God’, the all-powerful father metaphor, that they may have encountered in their childhood, rather than by developing a more profound understanding of the concept through deep personal study, let alone from personal experience.
In Judaism, the progenitor of monotheism, there are 72 names for ‘God’, each referring to some aspect of the Divine, yet in day to day practice the Divine is referred to simply as Hashem, ‘The Name’, precisely because it is considered better to leave undefined a concept that is too expansive to fit into a single word.
Outside of the religion itself, I have seldom seen anyone adequately explain the Jewish concept of ‘God’. Most folk seem to think Jews believe in some vengeful ‘God’ named Jehova, or Yahweh, but that is not the case. The same understanding of ‘God’ that is found in Judaism, properly understood, can also be found within streams of all the major religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, which typically aren’t considered monotheistic.
The holiest prayer in Judaism is the Shema, in which the holiest line, affirmed by Jews repeatedly every day, is often translated as ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is One’. Obviously Hebrew is not English and translation can be a subtle thing. A more truthful translation of that holy line would be ‘Hear O Israel, The Lord is your God, the Lord is a Oneness,’ i.e. that ‘God’ is a Unity…This idea that ‘God’ is a oneness is simply an expression of the idea that: nothing exists but ‘God’. Everything that is in existence is one inter-dependent, inter-twined Whole and that Whole has intelligence, that Whole is conscious, that Whole is consciousness."
See my essay, https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/how-do-you-define-god-9898492eae9, and my poem https://medium.com/illumination-curated/love-letters-to-god-79268db5dc45 for two of the several times I have cited Gavin's piece.
Before I leave and check the box to publish this comment as a not meterable piece in my profile and email it to subscribers in the hopes that they will discover yours, Graham's, Gavin's, and yes, some of my own pieces that I link that they may not have read, I also want to build a bridge to Jodie Helm who has an ongoing series of asking the archangels (interdimensional entities) she channels to explain many questionable/misunderstood Bible stories, including even the Ten Commandments (https://jodieshelm.medium.com/do-the-ten-commandments-need-an-update-92abdc418e35) and how many stories, all written by humans and probably men, end up with messaging influenced by their own filters and biases. If you search her profile for “Bible Series” you find the rest.
