A spiritual view of Genesis

RE: A spiritual view of Genesis for Songstress

Hi Kim,

Yes, I am very aware of some people, including you, saying evil doesn't exist at all - not only in reality, in the absolute, but also in the relative - in this present human experience, but that is oceans apart from my understanding.

We cannot ignore evil - it needs to be uncovered and healed, by understanding its unreality and powerlessness.

Apologies if I have misunderstood you. I just went back to an old forum where you talk about negative and positive energy (copied below). When people put forward this view that you have to have evil in order to appreciate good etc, they are always quoting the need to have the balance of negative and positive.

On the 27th Dec 2001 on my forum "Destroying darkness with light" you wrote this:

I do not use the word 'evil' for everything in the universe comes from the source of God. I see polarity and duality in negative and positive energy and dream that we will come into oneness and total alignment with the source so that negative energy will grace our planet no more with its anti-love.

Only good comes from God. Negative energy in my book stands for evil. That sounded to me Kim, like you believed that "negative energy" comes from God, if "everything" comes from Him. That would make it legitimate and necessary. That's obviously what I misunderstood.

People misundertand me all the time Kim because they don't actually read what I write, but what they assume I write (tarring me with the whole baggage of 'religion") and I guess that this is what I must have done to you. My apologies.

Love and peace,

Judy

RE: A spiritual view of Genesis for Songstress

Day 12

Genesis 2: 18, 20
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Uh Oh! Here’s where all the problems start! In Second Genesis man is ALONE. He is incomplete. Not only is he separated from God, but there he is having to work in the garden (the spiritual man in Genesis 1 doesn’t have to till the soil – he/she just goes out and multiplies and replenishes the earth, effortlessly) and he also needs a helper suited to him (the meaning of that curious word "meet") Today we would say he needs a mate, a companion, a partner, a spouse, an other "half".

Loneliness is the cause of so much suffering and unhappiness. Most human relationship problems arise out of loneliness. We all know too that you can be just as lonely in a relationship as when you’re on your own.

It is loneliness and the misunderstanding of what real love is that is the root cause of all the sexual perversions – of child abuse, paedophilia, pornography, rape, etc etc They are simply the counterfeit of the true and pure love which is the expression of our real selfhood.)

So, how does this compare to our spiritual identity in Genesis One?

Genesis 1: 26 & 27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Man is spiritual, whole and complete, the reflection of God, composed of the womanhood and manhood qualities. He/she has God-given authority and dominion.

"Tell me which man you believe is you.
Genesis 1 or Genesis 2?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 13

Genesis 2: 21
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. (S&H 530)

One definition for sleep is diluted death! Sleep can also be described as apathy, listlessness, boredom, laziness. Adam was put into a "deep sleep" – and it doesn’t say anywhere that he woke up, so perhaps it was just all a dream and we’ve been fooled all these thousands of years by a dream! While I joke, - this account is of course simply an allegory – I see it as an attempt by the author to explain the origin of suffering and evil in the world.

So, after all was created spiritual, perfect, complete and very good in Chapter 1, we’ve now had the first account of knowledge of evil; the first account of loneliness and now we have sleep – or hypnotism and we have an account of the first medical operation.

Genesis 2: 22
And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Now we have the separation of male from female. Adam loses a rib and feels incomplete and looks for his completion outside of himself. Eve feels subservient – she feels she’s a second-class citizen because she was created after man and from him.

Genesis 2: 23
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

EVE. A beginning; mortality; that which does not last forever; a finite belief concerning life, substance, and intelligence in matter; error; the belief that the human race originated materially instead of spiritually,--that man started first from dust, second from a rib, and third from an egg. (S&H 585)

"…. bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" This is the origin of personal attachment, of those obsessive, fearful, dominating, hating, critical or idolatrous relationships.

Mary Baker Eddy writes;

Remember, it is personality, and the sense of personality in God or in man, that limits man. (Miscellaneous Writings 282)

Tomo

RE: A spiritual view of Genesis for Songstress

Day 14

Genesis 3:1-6

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

THE SERPENT;

There is a story that a little Sunday School pupil asked his teacher if the serpent in Genesis was the same as the dragon in Revelation. When answered in the affirmative he said "Gee, why didn’t they destroy it while it was still little?"

The serpent in Genesis 3 denies the truth, he’s a liar, a mischief maker, he whispers that there is an advantage in disobeying law and no penalty is attached. He scoffs at those who stand for principle, he questions the validity of sin, blatantly contradicts truth and suggests that good can come from evil. (By the way, that little word "sin" which seems to inflame such passions here on HP merely means "the ways that do not work" – like going through a red traffic light does not work. Traffic lights, like moral law may seem to be an unnecessary inconvenience but they are actually loving protection.)

Speaking of the true creation in Genesis 1, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

The serpent of God's creating is neither subtle nor poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its adroitness, for Love's ideas are subject to the Mind which forms them, .. (S&H 515)

But, about the chatty chap in Genesis 3?

From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge,--all evil,--are typified by a serpent, or animal subtlety. Jesus said, quoting a line from the Psalms, "They hated me without a cause." The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. From the beginning to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, "more subtle than any beast of the field." In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, this evil increases and becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory. (S&H 564)

The serpent promised:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

YE SHALL BE AS GODS

Well, if any statement contradicts the First Commandment – but of course, that was to come later! I wonder (this is me thinking out loud here) whether there has ever been a time in history when humans have been perceived as gods like they are now with the celebrity worship we practice today? Man has gone through centuries making and worshipping idols out of material substances like stone and wood and there have been rulers, like the Roman Emperors and the Japanese Royal family who were considered ‘divine’, but it seems so wide-spread nowadays. Movie stars, pop singers, footballers, models etc etc

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, "Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth. (S&H 307)

RE: A spiritual view of Genesis for Songstress

Hi Judy
I can see that ths is going to be an enormous thread. Are you planing to discuss all 50 chapters of Genesis or just up to the to the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4 ?
I should, at some point, like to come in and discuss Genesis chpts 1 & 2 from another perspective.

Much love
astra

RE: A spiritual view of Genesis for Songstress

Hi Astra - oh help no - not all the chapters!! Just up to where Adam and Eve are expelled, that's all. That's more than enough! It's the comparison between the two accounts, the spiritual and complete and the material and incomplete that I'm trying to stress.

I'm using my old material, but drastically cutting it down, but it's still long. However, it is an important topic, because it has influenced the thinking of Judaism, Christianity and Islam for thousands of years and as I've pointed out, has even affected the health and well-being of millions of women too.

How many women, even if they have never read the Bible in their lives and don't have an idea of what they are alluding to, will say they are feeling ghastly because they have "the curse"? It's a sobering thought.

I look forward to hearing your perspective.

Love,

Judy