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Notes -
I've always found these kind of myth inversions (with respect to the traditional Christian Eden myth) compelling, particularly when they tie a liberatory progressiveness to the gain of knowledge. Stealing forbidden knowledge from the gods and paying an inordinate price for doing so -- that is real sacrifice. The self-sacrifice at the core of the Christian tradition has always felt a little insincere by comparison -- as if one is not really sacrificing, just placing downpayment on their eternal reward. What kind of real sacrifice is positive sum for the sacrificed?
Eve's choice to steal knowledge from the gods can easily be recast as a Promethean act along these lines -- to make away with the fire and to bear whatever punishment comes. To take pride in what could be built with one's own hands, instead of resigning oneself to an easy half-life of providence. The Romanticists felt this keenly (though they often cast Satan as the Promethean rebel instead). Goethe:
It's fairly natural for feminists to pick up the thread of this kind of myth revisionism, which I find similarly compelling, e.g. Vashti or Jezebel, or the Atwood or Emily Wilson take on the Odyssey.
Despite its overwhelming pessimism in other respects, I thought the lone triumphant spark flickering in the heart of Three-Body Problem trilogy was similar -- humanity is comically outmatched by the Gods, but we're stupid or naive or brave enough to spit in their face anyway and to hell with the consequences. I have a lot more respect for an Abraham, who, knowing that God is real and all-powerful, and against whom resistance is truly utterly futile, refuses to kill his son.
Yes, it’s post-modernism at work. Re-framing Jezebel, Salome, or Delilah lives on in the flicks about Malificent, Cruella DeVille, or Ursula the sea-witch. Same principle, same aim.
Interesting read of the Abraham story. In Kabbalistic thought, it’s Abraham’s willingness to kill his son, to give up what’s dearest to him that moves God to stop him just before the act and bestow his blessing. The lesson being that providence shines only when you’re willing to give up the thing you’re most afraid to lose.
Your reading reminds me of the reading many have of Jacob, who is so stubborn he manages to wrestle God-himself to a stalemate. God congratulates him, then — just to show him who’s God — dislocates his hip, giving him a limp for life. He then changes his name to Israel. The Kabbalist’s reading of this story is that the Jewish people are prized by God specifically because of their “unreasonable” stubbornness.
What really gets me is how the methodologies of the Torah are used all of the time now. They’re really myths of the highest order.
For instance, Edward Bernays got women to smoke cigarettes in the early-20th century by convincing them the only reason they hadn’t already been doing so was because men didn’t want women to be like them. With this new frame he re-named them Freedom Torches and they sold like hotcakes.
Notice this is the exact appeal the serpent makes to Eve. “God knows you’ll be like him if you eat” becomes “Man knows you’ll be like him if you smoke.”
The same framing was used to get women to go to work.
It’s the reason why most goods are marketed to women. Give her a false promise and an appeal to her vanity and she’ll chomp every time.
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