Updates, Thoughts and Faith in General

Updates:
It has been a busy summer.  And it has been an interesting summer too.  The big deal was; some people found out my husband didn't see Genesis chapter 2 literally (not actually possible).  He is a scientist, would they like him to lie?  Fudge his data? Pretend he is wrong? Join them in making up lame conspiracy theories against science (to add to the growing collection)?

Thoughts
I am learning a lot too.  There is quite a group of Christians out there who see Adam and Eve as essential to our Christian faith.  Now, I am not so clueless as to why this would be - Jesus, according to Paul, came to redeem mankind from Adam's sin.  So, just to be crystal clear here - We need to remember that this supposed "original" sin occurred when there was only one man on the earth.  Once he sinned, he had some magical power to bring down the entire human race (thank goodness Eve didn't - since she was the original human sinner - the serpent was the original sinner, but I digress).  If a Christian says they don't believe in a literal Adam or Eve, the reaction is pretty strong and consistent - that Christian is weak, lacks faith, etc.  What is interesting (more on this further down) is that it takes a fair amount of reprogramming and faith to switch to the literal side - yet Christians do it when they convert as adults.

Who are the big pushers of this?  Neo-Calvinists, all those who have the Chicago Convention's statement on Biblical inerrancy hammered into their constitutions, everyone who feels they have just been enlightened and figured out why we are all being punished for some random guy's sin.  Now, this isn't to say there was no Adam/Eve - their could have been - but it is now realized through Genetics (not Darwinism, or whatever people like to call the fossil record these days) that any first Mother/Father were not alone, our population has always been in the thousands (at least) and we are descended from many different people, not just one couple.

Faith in General
The other thing that has been on my mind is faith and belief.  The idea is that when we are saved (if we are not brought up in the church), the Holy Spirit gives us "Spiritual Eyes" or a Spiritual Awakening and we can see that Jesus is our saviour.  For many, certain things in our lives just change immediately when this happens - no more taking the Lord's name in vain, no more gossip, people claim addictions just melt away too.

Then we adopt a Christian World-view.  Is it because of Adult Sunday School? Social Evenings?  I have no idea.  But over the course of a few years, most new believers will begin to fit into the Christian culture.  This isn't all bad, we do step away from worldly ideas and ideals and this makes us counter cultural.  It is nice to have friends who also feel this way too.  But... soon after we become believers, we quit questioning everything.  I was 12 and I remember being told Evolution was garbage.  I just sort of said 'yeah'.  OK, so 12 year olds don't spend much time checking out their science textbooks (back in the days before the internet was used, it was the library or school textbook for info) for fact finding.  But, and I have done this a few times, I would question my whole faith, or none.  It took a while to realize why faith is so difficult to keep believing in sometimes (when we aren't being persecuted, etc.) - because there is so much unnecessary "essentials" tied into our understanding of God.

People may wonder why we have all these pre-human hominoid skeletons lying around, and early ancestors in Africa (despite Eden being the beginning of life), but they have to categorically ignore it all to preserve their faith (or hope Adam gets found soon).  Or, like myself, one may try to envision a world where people lived 700 years (how many greats needed to be inserted before grandfather?), Angels came down (not sure where I heard the Son's of Man were Angels, but anyways) and slept with the beautiful women and had hero-kids (like The Incredibles?).  Think too much and your head might pop.  The safe alternative is - just don't think about it.  Claim endless ignorance.

Here is how I deal with it now.  Nice Myth.  Were Adam and Eve real? Maybe, but if so, there were others around.  Why couldn't Adam and Eve be real?  Well, it took humans 190,000 years to get agriculture working well enough to abandon hunting, Adam didn't just go an plant a field - he passed enough farming knowledge down to his son, that his son managed to build a city - cities are utterly dependent on agriculture, putting this story in a time and place that doesn't jive with what we know to be true of first humans.

Undoing a part of my belief system and letting it go is great.  But, it is NOT easy.  From the day you arrive at a Christian institution you are warned that you must hang on to your faith (don't listen to this or that preacher, anti-christian commenter, or science prof) and undoing one part of the Bible will unravel the rest.

But here is the tough question.  How much of our faith is from God?  It seems that so much of our faith is tied up in the Christian Culture.  My husband points out organization after organization gets well funded to fight evolution.  Why? because this belief it is essential to being a Christ follower in this day and age.  When confronted with something we believe is wrong - we have a strong reaction (some people say they are sensing the evil in it).  That strong fear reaction creates a sense of legitimacy to the issue.  But few people recognize that fear reaction is what is not Christian - God has won and we can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

I see people's reactions when you say the accounts of Adam and Eve parallel ancient Mesopotamian myths (tree of life, woman taken from man's rib, woman getting man to eat taboo foods, Noah's boat and the flood in general, extended life-spans, etc.).  Their doubt about my faith.  But the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, but Myth is one of his genres in a book full of poetry, prose, parables and proverbs.  Like poetry, Myth doesn't have to be literal.

I wonder what else is not really a belief in God, but a belief in something I have assigned to God as essential?

Thoughts on a Floating Planet

The horrible earthquake, followed by a Tsunami, in Japan should wake any Westcoaster up.  Japan's earthquake - at 8.9 had a hundred times more force than Haiti's.  Haiti's was, according to Wikipedia, 7.0.  I don't know what each number means on the Richter Scale, but there is a huge difference between a 7 and an, almost, 9.

The 8.9 looked like a 5 or 6 earthquake on the videos, no windows busting out, no collapsed buildings.  The only hint of the huge force of it was the the people's reactions.  Some fell on the sidewalk and most seemed scared.  For a country used to earthquakes, that was a clue this was huge.  The reason the videos fooled us was Japan's incredible engineering.  It is amazing to watch those huge buildings swaying, yet holding up.  Christchurch crumbled and Haiti collapsed with much less force.

The horrible part was the Tsunami, breakwaters cannot stop the force of a 10 meter high wave.  And watching the video, it appears nothing can.

Which makes me think of the great benefits of our ancestors' way of life.  A hunter-gatherer would just pick up a fallen tent, and keep going after an 8.9 quake.  Everyone has to run from a Tsunami, but the hunter-gatherer will have a much easier time rebuilding his life.

My thoughts as I feel as vulnerable - realizing how fleeting life, safety and/or security is.

My other thoughts are, when God provides for our needs - our needs for survival are pretty basic.  If he answered the Hunters need, they would find a flint to make into spear or a deer in their path.  Our basic needs are really food, clean water, and shelter/clothing to protect us from the elements.  A tent, water and rice and beans are really all we need in temperate climate - along with outdoor wear, and good boots.  Maybe I should put these in an earthquake kit.  Are we entitled to more because we choose such a complicated life?

Let me add:

I am shocked and saddened by what I have seen on the videos.  I cried when I saw the cars driving, yet the waves approaching.  I live on the Westcoast, in that same 'Ring of Fire' and am under no illusion that we are any safer.  In fact, I think we are less so, none of our infrastructure has been tested by a 6.5 or 7 earthquake, let alone an 8.9.  If one does strike, I doubt we will fare as well as Japan.  Tsunamis have ways of twisting and weaving, and Islands of supposed protection may be bypassed and areas of perceived safety may get hit.  I am pondering what I expect from God - safety, security, things I feel I need and reality.  Does God promise us wealth and abundance, or just the basics?    

First one Second, Second one....? Last? (Part 2)

When I treat the bible as a primary source, (that is a book written at a certain point in history by an eyewitness to that particular time or event) rather than a holy book lowered from above, I can see a cultural divide.  Here you have ancient Ur, a Mesopotamian City with it's non-creator gods.  At the zenith of the Mesopotamian civilization - where everybody is supposed to want to be, you have Abram and his wife, clearly Nomadic Herdsmen, called away.  I always thought of Abe and Sarah as 'Ur'ites - folk from Ur.  Now, I see them as the Nomadic herdsmen who traded with, but were not from Ur.  They were wealthy, not because their business was in Ur - but because they profited from selling their flocks to the city, likely on religious holidays (this happened in India during Eid, a week before the holiday goat herders began showing up in the empty lot by our house, there were goats all over the place).  That is why their nephew Lot is allowed to go with them and later, their servant runs into their extended family (Rebecca) out in the desert.  They profited from that pagan-worshiping society, but they weren't actually a part of it.  They had a different God.  He was a worshiped God, hence Abraham running into Melchizedek.  So, who was this God?  The God worshiped by Shepherds?  In ancient times, that would mean God was the god of the shepherds.

I think those urban gods and goddesses were new.  The world was still largely Nomadic Hunter-gatherer when Ancient Mesopotamia rose from the Myst's of Time.  Creator-gods were still worshiped everywhere but the urban centers.  Nomads, being closer to the old way of life, worshiped the Creator-God, not as an anomaly, but as he had always been and still mostly was.  It was Urbanites, with more time, possessions and an ability to accumulate wealth that began true paganism in earnest.  The nomadic hunters wouldn't of have time to build multiple temples, create elaborate stories and divide period of time (I doubt they even had days or weeks) into days for each Deity.

When I read Job (the oldest written book of the bible) or Genesis, I am struck with two points.  The first is, Abraham and Job are not the only God-believers.  Abraham's family believes in God, Job's friends, and Melchizedek is a high priest.  And second, They are all herdsmen - Job, Abraham, and Abe's extended family (Jacob's wives, Issac's wife - Rebecca).  God gives Abraham Israel to herd in, not farm.  Lot takes the greener valley (Sodom) and falls into the non-God fearing, Urban way (he is living in town when Judgement comes).  The refrain running through these tales is: God calls his people away from the bad cities, guides them to good grazing and rescues them from the perils of Urban life.  Almost sounds like a psalm (David was a shepherd as well).

Not that God was going to remain a god of the herdsmen, he gives them Israel 400 years later with rules on how to farm it (apparently they learned this skill in Egypt).  They are now just another Kingdom in a shifting, battling, very pagan Middle East.  But their roots are wanderers, they are not as far, religiously, from the Hunting tribes that wandered the earth for most of human history.  This makes me think that God was worshiped for many Milena before written history arrived.  That we are only getting a small glimpse of God's story with Humanity.  That Adam and Eve are arch-types of the great shift that faced humanity - Agriculture.  Who got in trouble for their offering - Cain or Abel?  Why?  What was wrong with grains?  They were hard to grow - labour intensive, needed ploughing, sowing, reaping and watering.  They were, though, Urban/Agricultural offerings.  Offerings to other gods, newer gods.  Long before Agriculture, back when all of us humans hunted, meat was the harder wrought offering.  Gatherers could find wheat in the middle east, it grew wild - before rivers were diverted to water farms, trees were cut to make more farmland and animals were herded in large numbers to feed vast cities.  Back then, hunting was the harder work, and that made meat the greater sacrifice.

First one Second, Second one....? Last? (Part 1)

I spend most of my space here talking about Genesis 2
I do see the two chapters (Gen 1 and 2) as two different creation stories, but let me explain.  Genesis one puts earth into a form the ancients could relate to - the whole earth, God's creation, as a temple.  Genesis 2 puts our relations with this Almighty and powerful God into perspective.  I like the God/human aspect of faith.  It is all great that God went out and made a beautiful universe, that doesn't really make people worship God, perhaps a creator, but not any particular one.  Genesis 2, now that is where I can see people being impacted.  It is personal now.  God isn't some Big-Bang creating, Universe expanding deity we call up to with offerings once or twice a year.  This is our God, who created a temple for himself, who searches for a place to dwell, and has chosen us, out of millions of creatures, to dwell with.

Still sounds ridiculous?  Maybe, but I love human history, so here is what I think is going on.  For 200,000 years man walked this earth, hunting, gathering, wandering farther and farther.  He (plural) was smart.  He learned how to make fire, cook food, make tools, boats (apparently), hunting weapons and clothing in cold climates.  The Neanderthals could do this too, but Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us) were smarter, and managed to out-compete them for food.  Fifty thousand years ago the stronger, taller and more powerful Neanderthals died out, we expanded.  We hunted species to extinction, sailed to all livable corners of the earth, and developed better techniques.

Of course, no one had time or need to create an alphabet, so we have no record of what our ancestors believed.  People love to say humans used to be afraid of lightening and thought it had supernatural powers, but now know it doesn't.  That's not fair, really, because hunter gatherers are rarely afraid of the land or aspects of it they see regularly.  They obviously weren't afraid of it's effect on the land - Fire, because they discovered this early and used it ever since.  I have lived in the far north, and with people who love to live out on the land.  I have never noticed these people to be afraid of natural occurrences.  They are much more in tune with how nature works than us urbanites are.  A storm is fine, it happens, so what?  But the last remnants of hunter gatherer societies on earth all point to belief in a creator god.  Some have other gods, but usually lesser.  The Great Creator was a common theme from the Kalahari in Southern Africa to the Northern Plains Indians to the Inuit to the Australian Aborigines and the Amazonian Stone Age tribes.

Then humans began to figure out agriculture.  It started with a few false starts.  Societies in Africa and Asia would begin to cultivate and grow crops, some successfully, then they would abandon it, and move back to the Nomadic hunting way of life.  In Mesopotamia it finally took hold.  They had a slight advantage since wheat grew wild there, and it required little modification to become a life-sustaining crop.  They were conveniently located between two major rivers, that they learned to divert to water their crops.  Once they improved at agriculture, they began to urbanize.  See, pre-agriculture, humans couldn't settle.  Hunting is a nomadic lifestyle.  You hunt in an area, then move on.  There was no point in building huge buildings, developing permanent things like writing, because who would read it once you left?

Agriculture changed everything.  People settled, they improved food production to the extent that some people could actually stop spending their lives getting food.  Up until the agricultural revolution, everyone spent their life searching, and then growing food to eat.  Once people managed to grow enough food to feed more than their families change began.  Now, some of the people could do something other than farming.  A Class system was formed, Priests and Kings at the top, Solders and Tax Collectors next.  Whoa, taxes already?  Unfortunately it got an early start, all that water needed to be diverted, sewers needed to be built, and then protection from raiders was needed - when you have food, it gets dangerous.  So armies were trained up, this required means - the army needed food, the King and court did also, so the king ordered everyone to bring in a bag of this and a bushel of that.  Yes, they were urban dwellers, but everyone went out to the surrounding fields to work, even if they had houses in the city.  By taxing people, some could stop farming and fishing and do things like crafts, building, being a full-time priest or solider.  They would get paid from the King's coffers, and the King would fill his coffers from the taxes. This was all great, but it got a little confusing keeping track of who brought what.  This is why numbers and written words were invented (taxes, go figure).

At some point in this shift from more equal, food producing societies to class divided urban societies, lost a creator god.  Who knows, maybe they needed to justify twenty expensive temples, so they gave each god equal value.  What is apparent is, urbanized societies had very, very different religions from hunter-gatherer societies.  Now, around these rare early urban centers lived Nomads.  They were the herdsmen.  Agriculture was still grown for people and the useful domestic animals, like Ox or Horses, but Sheep and goats were often brought into town and sold, rather than being raised on the surrounding farms.  It is only recently that huge animal farms have existed, usually farmers raised a little of each type and sold what they had to market.  Animals were eaten for ceremonies and holidays, not as daily dinner.  The Shepherds wandered around grazing and raising their flocks.  They would have supplemented their meals with hunting, since they were not able to carry much with them.  Sure, they were better off than the Hunter Gatherer societies far to the North and South of the early civilizations.  They probably had animals to help transport their belongings - camels or horses.  They could trade or buy food in the Urban areas, to supplement their diets.  But they were not city-folk.  They didn't live in the city, nor did they pay taxes, except. perhaps to enter and trade.  They didn't worship at the city either.  The Nomadic herdsmen had their own god - he was a creator-type.

The Wider Scope

I am going to bookend the Bible by going from Genesis to Revelations then back again (first to last book).

First a quick note on my take of Revelations  It makes great Hollywood fodder, it is the most graphic book of the Bible, and one of the best written books of the Bible (although there are others).  For most Evangelicals, it terrifies Christians.  It is often read as a coming doomsday, actually, more accurately described as a dooms-decade, dooms-century or even a dooms-millennium- with the worst at the end, hence the fear.  I read it with fear as a teen.  It seemed ominous, bleak and something everyone would rather not be around for.  Not that I would want to live through a decade like that myself.

In the Evangelical view, Revelation is going to happen to the world, then in a nuclear-Holocaust style finale, the Earth will disappear and Christians will go be with God in Heaven.  This is pretty standard belief, so not agreeing with this (as well as doubting Gen. 2 is literal) really puts me into the black-sheep category/is she a real Christian? category.

Genesis 1 gives us God's creation account.  N.T. Wright gave a public talk in our town, about the temple imagery of Genesis 1.  The talk explained that to someone living during Second-Temple Judaism, the imagery and wording used in Gen. 1 would have lead people to recognize God's creation taking the shape of a temple, with Man and Woman sitting in the center, where one would find an idol in the pagan temples of the day.

If Genesis 1 shows us God's creation as a temple, with us as the image-bearers of God, then Revelations shows the cosmic surroundings of this temple.  Revelations, according to Darrell W. Johnson's Book Discipleship on the Edge shows us "things are not as they seem".  Revelations is not something that is going to happen to the world, it is something that is happening while Christians live.  It is why Christians should pray (supported by Daniel's Angelic visitation), why we should not become discouraged in light of present circumstances and that no matter what, God has won.

In the book, Darrell points out that Christians are persecuted on two fronts, one, is from the outside - Christians in Domitian's Rome were being fed to the lions with earnest.  The other, is from within the Church.  There is a 'Jezebel' amongst one of the congregations, Satan has his throne there.  This is the battle to keep Jesus on the throne, and keep what a Christian ought not to tolerate, out.  The enemy is far more effective if he can convince Christians to accept compromise, since the church is often strengthened through persecution.  Letting Christians mold their faith to fit the darkness of their age (whatever thinking that is strongly contrary to Christianity in a certain place and time - something that is usually different from place to place and time to time), is more effective in eroding the collective faith then forces from outside the church.

Now, I read Revelations as an idea of what is going on in the Spiritual Realm while life, and in Revelations it is mostly Roman life, goes on as we know it.  While we live life unaware of the Spiritual forces and battles, Revelations shows us that God's power unfolds as does his judgment and wrath on wicked, oppressive rulers - just not in a time-line that necessarily is discernible to us (ie. convenient).  As Darrell Johnson's book explains, it is not that Revelations gives us something new, it just retells what the Bible has been saying all along in a symbolic, epic form.  It drives home points that have been consistent throughout the Bible, in vivid graphic images.  

I now view much of Revelations as what was occurring in Rome while the Christians were being persecuted.  It shows that God has not forgotten the injustices done to his church and the bowls of wrath will be poured out.  Looking back in hindsight (20/20), by holding his wrath against Rome, Christianity not only became legal, it became the Empire's Religion.  The blood was not spilled in vain, but no one in  Domitian's day lived to witness this (Domitian was around in the 80s and 90s AD- Constantine was around in the 320s AD or so).  It doesn't mean that the bowls of wrath aren't poured out, Rome was attacked by warring invaders, suffered pestilence and famine in those 200 years.  Even after the Empire converted to Christianity, it was sacked by the Huns, never to return to it's former glory.  I am sure Christians and non-Christan's alike suffered greatly for wrath unleashed on them, unwittingly, by their ancestors centuries before.  Perhaps the Christians held off the wrath, perhaps that
is how God works, perhaps it was avoidable had the latter Church been as faithful as the early church, perhaps not.  But what Revelations does show is God as the controller of all Nation's destiny.

Okay, so this is why I haven't been blogging.  I am in Revelations and Daniel studies/ books etc.  But I haven't forgotten Genesis 2.  See, so much is devoted to Genesis 1.  Genesis 2, NT Wright explained, is how God wants us to look at our role as his image bearers.  We are to go out to his earth, and care for it, mold it, work it, and bring him offerings from it.  We are the priests of his temple, so to speak.  Adam is put in charge of the animals in Gen. 2, called to subdue the earth later on in Genesis.  So our destiny is to go out and work in the world, and bring the fruit of our labours to lay before God.

For the Jewish religion, this was tangible offerings.  They tithed everything, income, livestock, spices etc., God gave, they worked and were to give it back to God.  In Christianity, we don't have a temple, or priests and nor are we to have tithes.  Yeah, I know.  Every Christian feels obligated to tithe.  But that is not what our Kingdom is about.  We are to be the sacrifice.  Whoa.  The image-bearers are to follow Christ.  Christ's whole life was a sacrifice.  Not just his death.  What we do, who we marry, who we minister to, pray for, care for - is it for our benefit, or Christ's glory?  


Most Christians in the world view North American Christians as wishy-washy.  We don't really suffer persecution, we don't make huge sacrifices in our lives.  We find following Christ difficult.  We are sort of like the camel.  He found it harder to go to Heaven then through the eye of a needle.  I know this is considered to be alluding to one of the gates into Jerusalem, but take it literally for a second.  I don't think a camel would walk into a needle very willingly.  Camels eat very needle-y cactus **, so they are tough.  But I am thinking once they keep pressing into the pain, they may quit. 

 I am guilty of this inside complacency.  I have a mortgage so I can own instead of rent my house.  It's an investment for retirement, so I may have a good reason.  I also have a piece of land, that is clearly not for investment purposes.  This is where we will build our cabin, our place (me, mine, ours, not yours).  But our cabin, if built well, could be our retirement home, so we are planning for the future.  Safe, secure, you know we won't be killed early due to witnessing or converting someone.  Not here, we are safe, so we need to live like we are safe.  We need to spend these years amassing for the next years.  I guess if you're a martyr it makes retirement planning easy.


This is where I need to figure things out a bit more.  It is not a this or that is OK or not.  It is a what is my purpose for being here.  To feel a calling, or live as a sacrifice?  Mostly, I was taught to find a calling.  What is it?  What should I do? Where will God lead me?  Who will God give me to marry?  But that may not even be what it is we are here for.  Maybe we are here to see a need and respond, whether we can afford to or not.  Maybe we are called to own little, possessing brings many burdens.  Maybe we are here to own lots, and give it away.  If the paradigm shifts from we are a called people to minister for/to God over to we are a sacrifice for God then a lot of suppositions change with it.


I haven't really figured it out.  It is just things I mull over. 



**(I know they eat very needle-y cactus because the camel I was riding in India went up to one, being a horse rider I would never let him take a bite of food while I was on his back, but how was I to know he would actually eat the most prickly, stingy cactus of them all? He got his snack, I got to fight him the rest of the camel trip - 3 days of warring with a snitching snacker!)

Now that I have wasted half my 'free' day, I need to justify my time spent pondering....

What The Adam and Eve story could mean.

If the Adam and Eve story (which I will refer to as Eden) is an allegory, is it alluding to something?, and in this day and age that 'something' can only mean one thing.

I have noted in past posts that the Adam and Eve story is similar to other ancient Mesopotamian cultures', but different too.  In the Gilgemesh epic the woman seduces the man, in Eden the woman compels the man to eat forbidden fruit.

The story, as an allegory, sounds like the "forbidden fruit" means something else, but weather that is because it is alluding to sexual sin/temptation or weather it is carried over from the early epic that did deal with sexual enticement is something that needs to be considered.

I am going to assume it is not dealing with sexual sin per se but all sin.  here is what I think the allegory is telling us.

Humans are great at making excuses for bad behaviour.  Sure, in the olden days Judges didn't go lenient on youth because of a broken home, or poverty, but they sure blamed one group for their sins.  In the Middle East of the gospels women were not only less then men, they were the tempters.  The Pharasees bring Jesus a woman "caught in the act of adultery"!!!!  Um, and she was alone?  Of course not (rhetorical question).  But she was the women in this act, and a man was considered to be easily tempted, so easily, in fact, that he wasn't really capable of saying "no", so the Pharasees are implying she is a wanton woman, or a prostitute or someone who enticed the poor man, who is just a victim of her cunning charm.

Well, maybe not entirely, but think about the East for a second.  Who has to cover up - the women.  Why? in order to not tempt men.  Um, if a man sees a beautiful woman he is incapable of restraining himself? If a couple is caught in adultery who is going to get stoned?  Never have I heard of a human rights case pleading for a man to be spared a stoning, lashing, jail sentence because he was caught in adultery (with a woman).  No matter how 'right wing' and 'eye for eye' a society is, it seems the concept of a woman's charms are a guaranteed excuse for immoral behaviour.

So, back to Eden.  In Eden the man and woman are completely innocent - that is, unaware of the power of sexual attraction as well as sinless.  They can walk around naked, yet never fear being overcome with lust, sort of the opposite of the Bibical Jewish, and all ancient eastern, culture(s) - that would assume any young couple left to wander around naked together ought to be stoned for their sin (for a sin would surely have occurred).  Adam is free from the tyranny of a Woman's charm, in the beginning.

This is where it gets tricky.  Is the women then, once fallen, able to tempt Adam because she is now sexually alluring?  Is she using her sexuality/femininity to win him over to herself? or her schemes - apple eating-?  Or, is this a story about people in a state of innocence, unencumbered by worldly lusts just being human and sinning no matter how free from excuses they may be?

I side with the second idea - Eden is a sin-free, excuse-free setting.  God is not saying people lived in a state of innocence once, he is saying IF people lived in a state of innocence, raised free from parental foibles (hence no mom or dad), societal/ cultural pressures (hence no one else around) and other's sins (hence no 'fallen' world) they would still mess up.  We are sinful by nature, not nurture. 

I like the fact that Eden doesn't really have a 'real' sin in the story.  Eating fruit is hardly a sin, but disobedience is a sin and is actually what all sin is.  So, from this analogy we all let God down (aka fall short of the Glory of God), even if God eradicated our past, scrubbed our memories and put us in a magical garden, made us as pure as the driven snow, and hung out with us every day, we would sin (and not be slow about it). 

Note: This is just my opinion and could change.  I can find very little in evangelical literature on what the allegory of Adam and Eve in Eden is saying, since most evangelical's take it literally or if not, debate it's veracity.  I just want to learn what God is telling us through this allegory, and throwing out my own views here.

So This Is Where it is at.

I am still not fully able to appreciate the allegorical aspects of the Garden of Eden, because of my desire to 'stay the course' on the New Testament.  It is one thing to take Adam and Eve as an allegory, written for less scientifically minded types over at least three thousand (if not more millennia) years ago.  All of the time I have spent attending Christian Churches, the one thing that is drilled into us is that the New Testament is the tenant of our faith.  Most Evangelicals allow poetic license for old testament writers.   The Psalms are poetic, Job was not a scientist (hence the world's pillars mentioned), The Israelites didn't understand the earth's orbit - so Joshua stopped the Sun to buy time.  But that same poetic, free license is not given to New Testament interpretations.  Of course all scripture has been translated, cultural differences are noted, but to varying degrees.  What is often enshrined in our sub-culture of Evangelical Christianity is that Paul spoke directly from the mouth of God.

If Paul says.... then that must be the truth.  Which is fine, to a point.  Paul is almost infallible.  I have heard many an evangelical comment negatively about the Catholic notion that the Pope is the continuation of the apostle Peter's work, and, due to this, he speaks infallibly when the Catholic church has it's huge once-a-century Council of Trent (or somewhere) meetings.  Evangelicals know everyone is sinful and cannot be infallible.  Unless that person is Paul and he is writing down something, even if it is a letter to a specific person, about a specific situation, at a specific time in history.   Oh, it is never directly said, but it is implied.  Just try to question whether Paul really was speaking from God, or himself of as a product of his time.

But lately I have been realizing that God never changed.  He addressed Job in his world (a flat disk-shaped earth) held up by pillars (Job 9:6), the Israelites in theirs (Joshua 10:13) as stopping the Sun meant lengthening their day (something an over-tilt of the earth's axis would do - as it does in an arctic summer) and he does it again in Paul's day.  Paul is subject to his own biases and world views?!?  If so should we take him at face value for validity of Adam and Eve?

Here is where Paul is subject to his time and culture's understanding:

⁹One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, ¹⁰because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. Hebrews 7: 9 - 10

Here is what Paul means.

In Paul's time, and for millennia before babies were made in this manner.  Adam, or first man, whose name varies in various cultures, was formed with all of humankind inside his testes.  His sperm were tiny formed babies (hence, his seed).  Inside the microscopic, fully formed Seth was an even more microscopic fully formed Enosh and inside Enosh was a tinier, yet, fully formed Kenan... all the way to Paul's day.  Since Levi was a future relative of Abraham, inside Abraham was a fully formed, yet microscopic Isac and inside this tiny Isac's sperm was an even tinier Jacob who had a microscopic Levi in him when Abraham tithed to Melchizedek.  This is also how Adam can bring down everyone with his sin (and not Eve, since she sinned alone, not having 'seeds' within her). (Romans 5: 12 -14, well actually verses 12 - 19).

Whew.  So Paul, thinks that Adam caused humankind's fall because only Adam carried humankind in his loins.  Did God know women also carried (slightly over) half of our genetic make-up?  And Paul didn't get this correct, even though he (supposedly) heard each word he wrote straight from God?  So if God isn't teaching his leaders scientific details, would it be safe to assume that God isn't about to challenge the one Mother/Father theory of humankind, widely held in Paul's day?  Does that mean it is a fact?  Not if the Old Testament is any indication.

The more I live the more I am convinced that our current focus on the New Testament being a direct quote from God is seriously flawed.  Paul does speak from a prophetic. apostolic state of grace, most of the time.  But not every letter of every word of every scroll is a direct quote from God Himself.  Some is from God, prompted by the Holy Spirit, but some is just Paul, being Paul in his 35 (?) AD Grecco/Roman world.

Paul is busy writing to people, sometimes it is a reply to a long-lost letter, sometimes it is a response to something that he has been told about.  Paul's letters are to a group of people who see the world very differently from us.  In their world everyone is related to a first father.  In their world men make the babies, women grow them.  The point isn't how much Paul got scientifically correct, it is that he responded to the points of their letters, queries and situations correctly, of Jews and Non-Jews getting access to God (another reason why he brings up Adam and Eve rather than those sinning Isrealites in the dessert), of the poor and slaves being treated as equal, of how to manage a meeting of Christians and other important concepts that make Christianity what it is.  Does it really matter if he had the concept of genetics correct, or weather he believed in a literal Adam or Eve?