Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 9

 New Year's Day
Adam & Eve (& Steve)

On New Year's Day, it's appropriate to talk about new beginnings, so what could be more fitting than the Biblical story of Adam and Eve?

According to Genesis chapter 1, "And God said, let us make man in our image, i.e. with a penis.  And behold, God saw what he had made, and it was very good."  (I'm paraphrasing.)

Adam and Eve has been a favorite subject for artists, not just for the religious significance, but because it was an excuse to depict a naked or nearly-naked man and woman.  In an earlier post I showed the painting above, Adam in Paradise, by Kristian Zimmermann, 1914.

Some artists used branches or leaves to conceal frontal nudity, but not all.  Above are two frescos in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence by Masolino da Panicale, dating to 1425-1427, the early Renaissance.  At left is The Temptation of Adam and Eve, showing the serpent with a human head, and at right is The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.  Interestingly, for hundreds of years these paintings had fig leaves covering the frontal nudity, but the fig leaves were not original.  They had been added in the 1700s.  A restoration in 1990 removed the fig leaves.

Apparently, Michelangelo had seen da Panicale's frescos.  Above is Michelangelo's version of the same two subjects, painted in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican (1508-1510).  Note the similarities, and note that Adam and Eve are also frontally nude.

This is Adam et Eve by French artist Gustave Courtois, painted in the late 1800s.  Adam's nudity is at least partially concealed by flowers.

Which leads us to our next subject, Adam and Steve.  I was unable to identify the artist who did this clever variation of Courtois' painting.  No concealment by flowers here.

The slogan "God made Adam and Eve, not  Adam and Steve" dates back to 1977 (a picket sign at an anti-gay rally) and has been used by bigots ever since.  Let's examine it for a moment.  What evidence is there that God created Adam and Eve?

None.  Because, of course, it's not true.  It's yet another Biblical story written by ignorant Bronze Age tribesmen in the Near East who didn't even know that the Earth is round.  Overwhelming fossil evidence proves that humans and apes and every living thing on Earth evolved from common ancestors, and our lineage goes back all the way to something more primitive than a bacterium, as beautifully explained in The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins.  Scientifically, there was no Adam and Eve.

But let's examine the story, not from the standpoint of scientific accuracy, but as a myth.  Ah, that's another story.  Literally.  Jewish lore includes another story that Adam's first wife was Lilith, and Eve was his second wife.  Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen wrote in the 11th century that Lilith had sex with the archangel Samael and then refused to go back to Adam in the Garden of Eden (after which, presumably, Adam got together with Eve).

What's my point?  If Bronze Age tribesmen can make up a story about Adam and Eve, and a medieval rabbi can make up a story about Adam and Lilith, we can make up stories about Adam and Steve.  As myths, they're all equally valid.

Here are depictions of Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer in 1507 in the Prado, Madrid.

Of course the real significance of the myth of Adam and Eve lies in the story of the apple.  God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of a certain tree, or they will die.  The serpent tells Eve that they won't die, but their eyes will be opened and they will know good and evil.  Adam and Eve eat the fruit, they don't die (so God was lying), but now they know good and evil (so the serpent was telling the truth).  God is furious with them for disobeying him, and they are driven out of the Garden of Eden.

The moral of the story is to do what God tells you.  If you don't, you'll be punished.

I draw a different conclusion.  Does God get punished for lying?  Does the serpent get rewarded for telling the truth?  No, the serpent gets punished, and Adam and Eve get punished for following the serpent's advice (which was the truth) instead of God's (which was a lie).  In my view, the moral of the story is that God is a lying bastard, and you shouldn't trust anything he says.

Here's a depiction of Adam and Steve, based on the Dürer paintings, by Murat Urlali, 2018.

As I noted earlier, we can make up our own stories about Adam and Steve that are just as valid (as myths) as the Biblical myth of Adam and Eve.  Here's my story of Adam and Steve:

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In the beginning, God created Adam with a penis, and God saw what he had made, and it was good.  Then God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet.  Get it?  Help meat."  Then God took one of Adam's ribs, and made a companion for Adam named Steve.  You were thinking it was Eve?   Of course not.  Adam's rib was genetically XY, not XX, so any person made from it had to be male, not female.  And Adam and Steve were both naked, and they took one look at each other and fell in love.

God said to Adam and Steve, "Do not eat the fruit of this apple tree, or you will die."  Then the serpent said to Steve, "God is a lying bastard.  You can eat the apples and you won't die, but you will know the difference between good and evil."  So Steve picked an apple from the tree and offered it to Adam, saying, "You can have this apple if you suck my cock."  And Adam picked an apple from the tree and offered it to Steve, saying, "You can have this apple if you suck my cock."  Then they both ate the apples and sucked each other's cocks.  And behold, it was very good.

Then God came upon Adam and Steve sucking each other's cocks, and God said "Well, well, what have we here?  Stop it; it's an abomination."  And Adam said "No, it's not.  We ate the apples, so now we know what's good and what's evil.  Sex and love are good, not evil.  On the other hand, God, you lied to us when you said we would die if we ate the apples.  Lying is evil.  You, God, are a lying bastard, and you're evil."

Then Adam reported God for inappropriate touching (see the first image in this post), and God got pepper-sprayed.  Then God disappeared, and Adam and Steve lived happily ever after.

(Thanks to Franco at Vellohomo for the pepper-spray image.)

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Note: naysayers might object, where did the cop come from who pepper-sprayed God?  Well, where did Cain's wife come from?  Honestly, naysayers, you'll have to do better than that!  Then they might object that my myth doesn't explain how the world got populated, since Adam and Steve were both male, but that's not a problem.  Genesis says that Adam and Eve's son Seth "begat sons and daughters," but there is no mention of Seth having a wife at all.  Apparently Seth had children by magic without the need for a woman.  In my myth, so did Adam and Steve.  So there!

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It has been one year since I started this blog.  I wish you all a Happy New Year!