[continued from previous message]   
      
   John the Baptist had tried to criticize the marriage of Herod and Herodias on   
   the basis of Mosaic law, but he was on shaky ground – certain special   
   conditions prevailed under which a man might, or rather must, marry his   
   brother's wife – e.g. if his    
   brother dies childless. [272] And there was, as mentioned earlier, clear   
   permission for the man to divorce his wife and for that ex-wife to remarry.   
   Regarding the man's remarriage, this is a moot point because a man was never   
   prohibited from having more    
   than one wife under Mosaic law. [273] Most probably John based his attack on   
   Leviticus 20:21, wherein it states that it is an “unclean thing” for a man to   
   “take his brother's wife”, [274] but we may surely debate whether or not this   
   injunction applied    
   after a divorce, when the woman would be no longer “his brother's wife”, or in   
   the case of half-brothers as were Herod and Philip. For his purposes, Jesus   
   found it absolutely necessary to reinforce his argument and somehow contradict   
   the law of Moses. So    
   it was that he banned all divorces outright, on the basis of mythological   
   moralizing in the Adam and Eve story. In reply to those who protested that   
   Moses had permitted a man to “put away” his wife, he prevaricated, saying:   
   “For the hardness of your    
   heart he wrote you this precept.” [275]   
      
   One might think that the creation tale had done enough damage without going   
   farther, but that would be to underestimate the shrewd genius of early Jewish   
   story-tellers. Continuing with the story, [276] a talking snake persuades Eve   
   to eat the forbidden    
   fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, convincing Eve that she would not die from   
   eating it as God had threatened. [277] In point of fact she does not die, nor   
   does Adam with whom she shared the fruit after he first saw her eat it. God   
   then comes for a walk    
   in the garden and discovers, after asking a few questions, that Adam and Eve   
   have seen through “his” prohibition and eaten of the fruit. God interrogates   
   Adam, who very gallantly blames everything on Eve. Eve then passes the blame   
   on to the subtil [sic]    
   serpent, whose only crime was to tell Eve the one hundred percent truth. And   
   finally, that deceptive but very powerful God metes out punishment to all   
   three. The man's punishment, and that of the serpent, are really not out of   
   the ordinary, considering    
   the nature of life. To woman, however, God's punishment was monstrous. “Unto   
   the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in   
   sorrow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy   
   husband, and he shall rule    
   over thee.” [278] And, to add insult to injury, God declares (presumably to   
   the other Gods or angels or cherubim, or maybe to Satan), “Behold, the man is   
   become as one of us” [279] – the man, yes, but the woman, obviously not. Then   
   God drives out the man    
   from the Garden of Eden lest he eat from the hitherto unmentioned Tree of   
   Life, and thereby become immortal. As for Eve, the Bible doesn't say how she   
   left Eden, but one may assume that Adam dragged her out by her hair.   
      
   If the first half of the creation story was seen as deplorable, the second   
   half would, by any measurement, be considered as absolutely appalling. Though   
   it seems unnecessary to belabor the obvious, a few further observations must   
   be made. First, the God    
   in this creation story, besides being a super-man, is not a very likeable or   
   lovable fellow. In addition to his patent improbity, he appears to be quite   
   tyrannical in nature. And this God was anything but formless – a formless   
   entity does not take a walk    
   in a garden. [280] Also this God would appear to lack most other divine   
   qualities, such as omniscience, ubiquity and uniqueness. If the creation story   
   accurately reflects the Judaeo-Christian conception of God, it seems a wonder   
   that anyone dared suggest    
   that either Jews or Christians believe in monotheism. And if this story is   
   nothing but a myth, then it hardly becomes a reasonable foundation on which to   
   establish the subjugation of women as was clearly done.   
      
   As to the other characters in the story, the serpent appears to be a   
   much-maligned personality, for we cannot find anything really objectionable in   
   his conduct. Regarding Adam, his behavior was certainly less than noble. And   
   Eve, she may not have been    
   more honorable than Adam, but she was certainly more intelligent and more   
   courageous; she was the first to detect the dogma relative to the Tree of   
   Knowledge, and she was the first who dared to eat from that tree. Eve also   
   embodied the quality of sharing    
   with her husband that which she found to be good. No doubt, had Adam somehow   
   eaten first of the magic fruit, he would have gone to any length in order to   
   prevent Eve from also enjoying it. Finally, when Eve was questioned by God,   
   she may have passed the    
   blame on to the serpent, but she also could have blamed Adam, that he did not   
   stop her from eating this fruit, in the same way that Adam blamed her for   
   giving it to him. It is to Eve's credit that, even though her husband betrayed   
   her, she nevertheless    
   supported him.   
      
   In the creation story, woman had all these fine qualities – no doubt she has   
   them and still more today. But after many thousands of years of suppression,   
   woman has developed an inferiority complex that makes it difficult for her to   
   give expression to    
   those latent abilities. Like a bird which has lived its entire life in a cage,   
   woman hardly knows how to enjoy the taste of freedom when her cage door is   
   accidentally or intentionally left open. Today many women have lost the   
   capacity to distinguish    
   between service and slavery, between freedom and waywardness. Man must bear at   
   least an equal share of the blame for this ignorance and this offensiveness.   
   It was man who propounded and man who propagated the dogmas which represented   
   even women's virtues    
   as vices, and which falsely taught to women and men, in countless direct and   
   indirect ways, that the woman is inferior to man and, by divine decree, is   
   enthralled to his every whim.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)