The Bible: Ancient Story-Telling?

In the beginning, according to the Bible, God created man and woman and they lived in the garden of Eden. Man was created in Gods image, made of the Earth upon which he lived, and woman was made of mans bone. If you're like me you look to the stories in the Bible as beautiful imagery used to teach about morality and conscience. These stories aren't meant to be taken literally, if they were then most of the Bible would contradict the very world we live in; I think it's safe to assume that even most Christians accept that carbon dating has placed the age of our planet around 4.5 billion years old, and while not everyone accepts evolution over creationism, I have met many Christians who believe dinosaurs indeed walked this Earth millions of years ago.

So what's my point then? It's simply this; the Bible and indeed many other religious tomes, writings and artifacts are great symbolic stories which use metaphor to convey deep spiritual messages. We were never meant to take these writings as literal, as they were written to use symbolism to tell the stories of those times. In those days people used story telling, much as ancient Bards and Shaman and tribal elders, to pass down rites and rituals, to share cultural guidelines and to connect people via the stories which were woven.

So if we look at the old testament of the Bible as a beautiful metaphorical story woven to teach us about the nature of people and the Universe, then it makes much more sense. If you take the stories in the Bible as literal truth then you're looking at some very whacked out sci-fi types of stories. Giant whales swallowing men whole, who then live in the whales belly? An ancient sacred garden that was full of peace and joy, but had one taboo tree which when eaten of cast the inhabitants out of bliss because it defied an angry wrathful Gods orders? An old man building an arc big enough to carry two of every creature on the planet through 40 days and nights of horrendous floods?

No, the literal take on these stories seem like they were taken out of the pages of the Brothers Grimm, and Mother Goose.

If we look to these stories as cultural metaphor they begin to make more sense. Let's take Adam and Eve for instance, and draw the parallel between their story, and polarity. Polarity is the state which we live in on this planet, where every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Everything on Earth is mirrored, where there is dark there must also be light, up is always balanced by down, happy is dual to sad; every thing we see and experience in this life is built up around polarity.

So spiritually and metaphorically speaking, Adam (who represents Man and the Masculine aspects of the Soul) and Eve (who represents woman and the Divine Feminine) are created by God in His image and likeness, made of the Earth and of bone (evolve from the natural cycles of the Earth and it's elements) and live in a peaceful garden. The garden is Maya - the illusion; the simplest way to describe the Garden of Eden is to call it the bliss of ignorance. And this is the way we each come into this life experience - blissfully ignorant, as babies. We come in trusting, unaware, moment driven, reliant upon love and loving acts alone. Even the serpent is richly metaphorical, as the symbol for our Medicine has been passed down through the millenia; the caduceus symbol truly represents the Tree of Knowledge. The Caduceus which is an ancient Pagan symbol of healing shows the double serpent (which can also be interpreted as the double helix of DNA) flowing upwards much as the serpentine energy of the Kundalini climbs the spine, progressing up the chakra's to meet the Angelic wings or divine connection chakra of the Crown chakra. The ancients understood that our spiritual connection to our physical body was another polarity driven aspect of spirit living in body with mind.

But as soon as we bite of the bitter apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge we are cast out of the garden. Simply speaking, the apple from the tree of knowledge is representative of knowledge; when we become self aware or begin to "awaken" to our consciousness and sense of self, we are cast out of ignorance. And this loss of ignorance is also a loss of bliss, because we learn about duality; this is the price one pays to gain knowledge, because the more you learn, the less you realize you truly can know.

So you can see that taking the Bible stories of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden as cultural metaphors is an effective way to teach people 2000 years ago about spiritual awakening. It isn't meant to be taken literally; the story is meant to be passed down amongst the tribes and clans, from village to village, over camp fires, told by medicine men, sacred healers, and the elders to help the people to better understand the nature of life and death on Earth while helping them to know that we are all connected via this journey from the ignorance of childhood bliss into the self-aware fragmented reality of polarity. This story is rich in symbolism, connecting us to the Kundalini, the Chakras, the Crown Chakra; also taking us on a journey through the Yin and Yang of our dual natures as male and female. The serpent also symbolizes evil, which I've shared before in this blog as being anything that infringes upon our ability to live. You can see the imagery in the creation story is rich, and full of inspirational reminders about our connection to the Divine through the Earth itself, the fruits upon it, and our union of body and mind and spirit.

It is helpful to look to all ancient stories from all ancient cultures in this way. If you take anything too literally you're going to miss out on the imagery and symbolism. And let's face it, 2-5000 years ago people were not telling literal stories, all historians will verify that story telling thousands of years ago was the basis for teaching and learning. Stories about giants being slain by a single small boy, or a man building an arc based on pure faith, or a man preparing to sacrifice the life of his son for the love of God... these are all stories which are symbolic of aspects of who we are in this world. They are meant to help people to make value judgments, to learn right from wrong, to listen to discernment and intuition.

So while I don't believe Noah came down from a mountain with stone tablets with 10 commandments from God written on them, I do believe these 10 commandments came to man via Divine intervention; channeling, or communication with the Higher Self. I do believe that the stories in the old testament still have valid meaning in our lives today as they teach us about ethics and dignity, and always point us back to God - the creator of all life - Nature.

We've taken beautiful stories from previous millenia and made them fact, when indeed I believe they were meant to be tales used to weave image-rich stories. Imagery is a great tool for teaching, especially when 2-5000 years ago there was no internet, and indeed even papyrus was rare to come by. Story-telling was an art, and stories were passed from generation to generation, much like we share our own family stories with each new generation; the people of those times shared via word of mouth.

So here we are in duality, living outside of the bliss of the garden, rooted in our illusion driven reality full of polar opposites. And yet the bliss of ignorance can be transformed into the bliss of acceptance. We can accept all that we see and sense and feel within ourselves, and stop trying to find answers to questions which have no meaning in our current day and age.

As Joni Mitchell said in her song Woodstock (also redone by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young):

We are Stardust

We are Golden

We are billion year old Carbon

And we've got to get back to the Garden...