Nah, the nakedness was meant to symbolize humanity gaining self-awareness, which separates them from the purity and innocence of other animals. After Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they realize they're naked and feel instinctively ashamed of that (as most people would, but regular animals wouldn't), so they cover themselves with leaves. In fact IIRC, the fact that they're covering themselves up is what tips off God that they ate the fruit.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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Which begs the question what the actual intention behind the allegory was.
I suspect that pursuing knowledge is bad and you should not do it and trust in god instead? It fits with the church's then (and partially now) stance I suppose.
God said do/don't do a thing. Person didn't listen. Person is punished.
Respect mah authoritay!
Because people are inheritly sinful
"The Church" isn't a part of this. This was Judaism. Christians inherited this.
It’s a much older story than the Catholic Church tho. Obviously older than Christianity as a whole right? It’s one of the oldest parts of the Torah/Old Testament. It did change over time, but I believe it has much more religious implications than political.
In any case, I believe it’s a story to explain our difference from animals, our apparent separation from creation while also being a part of it. An attempt, within the metaphysics of early Semitic religions, to answer one of the most fundamental questions humans always had: what are we and what are we doing here?
I also like some of the more esoteric interpretations, so idk
According to World History Encyclopedia, the story is adapted from non-Israelite, near eastern myths.
... the concept of a “garden” of a god(s) was a very common metaphor in the ancient Near East of where the god(s) resided. For the narrator of Genesis, the “Garden in Eden” was imaginatively constructed for an etiological (origin or cause of things) purpose, not as a divine residence, but of the first man and woman on earth – Adam and Eve. As generally accepted in modern scholarship, Genesis 1-11 is labeled as the “Primeval History,” which includes mythologies and legends that were very common not just in Israel, but throughout the ancient Near East. These myths and legends are not Israelite in origin but were adapted by the biblical writers for either polemical or rhetorical purposes.
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I've heard a theory that it was a myth based on the transition from hunter gatherers to farming. In the Euphrates and Tigris triangle, living conditions were very favourable for humans and may have seemed like paradise in hindsight. Then population pressure triggered the transition to farming, i.e. toiling "by the sweat of your brow".
It's the other way around. Agriculture was easier, not harder, it allowed rapid population growth with much less risk and improved survivability, making enough food for more people more easily, which led to a demographic explosion and the rise of cities. It's the exact period of about 2~3000 years where population centers grew from hundreds of people, to thousands of people, to tens of thousands, having to build communal centers to store all the food to give out to those who can't work.
While agriculture allowed for vastly larger supplies of food and surpluses large enough to sustain cities (and even non-working ruling classes) it wasn't "easier" per se. If we look at modern day hunter-gatherer groups they expend about the same calories as they bring in, but they typically work fewer hours per day than do agricultural peoples, leaving them with more leisure time. A combination of sedentism and the ability to produce a surplus of food and probably some factors we are just not privy to in the historical record made agriculture more appealing, and it absolutely made it more capable of supporting cities and empires. But easier isn't really a good descriptor.
Easier on average, still. Of course the labor was different - more long lasting strain and stress that we can see in the bones and the teeth, but with less everyday danger from going out. One hunter-gatherer may have more free time, but half of the population of a city can straight up do something else for a living. I'm no expert in why hunter-gatherers couldn't do the same, probably something to do with storing food all year round without rotting, but the massive difference in how many people could be fed with a lesser fraction of people doing the works, mathematically shows that agriculture was more energy efficient per head over the years. The population jump from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands in cities like Eridu then Uruk during that period is insane.
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. In fact IIRC, the fact that they're covering themselves up is what tips off God that they ate the fruit.
You mean the all knowing all seeing deity didn't know about it until they got dressed?
They also successfully hid from Yahweh in the garden, and he had to search for them.
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Children also don't feel shame about being naked until they gain the knowledge of sexuality. Parents would probably notice a child covering themselves up after an encounter of that nature.
I'm also assuming the story would be altered in a number of ways to change the meaning to the biblical one.
I think you are confusing what OP is saying with what the Bible says.
I took it more along the lines of “this story existed and was originally meant to teach young girls not to be tempted” and then the writers of the Bible came along. They used a common story to help with the point they were trying to get across.
This is not too far off from what is commonly known about pivoting the pagan ritual for the winter solstice and dressing up a pine tree. Now know as Christmas tree.
(as most people would, but regular animals wouldn’t)
Yeah, but it's religion that makes people ashamed. Don't get me wrong. I'd prefer not to see your asshole. But other than that, it's probably learned shame more than anything.
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They realize they’re naked and feel instinctively ashamed (as most people would…).
For the sake of readers familiar only with Abrahamic traditions we might add “in that community.”[^1]
Their notion of nudity’s inherent sexual shame was weird in broader antiquity where mores re: nakedness were more often related to decorum or social status. Abrahamic religions all regard the human form as carnal, one way or another, so even today the weirdness persists in the laws and conventions of secular cultures, but still it isn’t universal.
[^1]: That community by modern estimates was a group of Judean captives in Babylon (near Baghdad) c. 540 BCE who began compiling the oral traditions (ancestral folk tales) that had been preserved in exile.
How would an omniscient, omnipotent Deity not know what happens in their own garden?
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Associating the original sin with sex is how you get people to confess and "donate" at collections, and it way overassumes what actually happened.
The original sin was theft, then lying about said theft, then blaming god for his (Adam's) own mistakes.
God asked them to baby make before all this. They did not try for baby until after all this went down.
I thought the original sun story was a story about how the evil overlord of the universe forbade humanity from the knowledge of good and evil and a nice snake showed us the path to the truth
I’ve wondered about this before, but it seems like a coincidence.
As I understand it, serpent type monsters are one of the oldest surviving concepts from ancient myths and stories, and are usually more associated with evil or chaos than sex.
I looked at it as an unintended evolution story, but your take is far better.
Man's happily swinging through the trees, picking fruit, easy life. Then he gets smart. Now babies have huge heads, causing miserable childbirth. Now man is aware of his mortality, something many animals don't understand.
Since we're no longer foraging, we have to farm, toil for our food. And we gotta wear clothes.
Can’t be farming with no clothes on man.
Even them Cahokia dudes wore a little belt thing when they hoeing that maize.
The problem with interpretation is that, if you can make a convincing argument about why something should be seen a specific way, youll have people see it that way. Same thing here. I agree that it's a possible interpretation, but it also just depends on who you're talking to. Point being others in the comments with wildly differing views, but with justifications that are equally as valid. Who knows what's the right interpretation, your guess is as good as anyone's.
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