Category: Bible stories

Genesis, the Wizard and the Prophet

The Fall of Adam and Eve as depicted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo

This post is very much opinion / faith / personal views. If you want to stick to facts, see my climate change lessons. It is also inspired by two books I’ve recently read: The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I recommend both books – one biography, the other fiction. The first helped me put the second into perspective as a “Prophet story” (ironically, Ishmael uses the term “prophet” in a way that links more to the “Wizard” viewpoint, but both, roughly, recognise the same dualism). It also has some ideas I got from “The Human Planet: how we created the Anthropocene” by Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin (I recommend that one too, and I know Mark).

The first chapter of Genesis tells a very different story to the story that follows in Chapters 2-4. Chapter 1 (and the first three verses of Chapter 2, to be pedantic) tell a story of a world and universe that “God saw was good” and that was created for humanity. Chapter 1, verse 26 (almost perfectly repeated again in verse 28 to really bring the message home) sums it up with:

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  NRSV Anglicised, my emphasis in bold.

In this story there are already cattle and humankind’s dominion (farming?) is a blessing.

In chapters 2-4 there is a different story being told. Here Adam eats of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” after the serpent tells Eve: “… for God knows that when you eat of it you will be like God, knowing good and evil …”. Being like God, humanity can choose which animals and plants get to live, and which get to die – and that curses humanity to be farmers. “… in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground…”

Just to emphasise the point, in Chapter 4, Abel, the sheep herder, is brutally murdered by Cain, the farmer. When God calls up Cain for this, Cain asks: “… am I my brother’s keeper?” – the farmer has rejected the herdsman, taken his land to farm, and killed his brother without care for his brother’s livelihood (life). Again, God curses Cain: “When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength…” But then God protects Cain and builds everything that follows on him and his descendants.

The argument in Ishmael is that this is the story that the ancient, herding and gathering Semites told to explain how the northern farming tribes burnt their pasture to turn it into farmland that quickly disintegrated by over-farming – so they burnt more, killing their “brother”. In farming, humans make the choices about what species live and which die, and humans go out to search and kill (plants, animals, other people) to limit competition, and not just for the immediate purposes that hunter-gatherers kill (food, safety, maintaining/gaining territory). The farmers are “like Gods, choosing good and evil” rather than like animals living in accordance with the hunter/prey relationship. In that argument, the Hebrews, who wrote the story down and were descendants of the original Semite story tellers, could no longer understand this story, as they too had abandoned herdsman lives for farming and “civilisation”, but they recognised it as their story, so wrote it in their creation. The first (probably later-written) chapter, in contrast, is the creation myth (I don’t necessarily treat a myth as “untrue”, depending on how you define “true”!) of a civilisation (the Hebrews) that sees humankind’s destiny as owners and controllers of the land as a blessing rather than a curse.

In “The Human Planet”, there is supporting evidence for these ideas. Farming started on a large scale around 10’000 years ago in different locations, including the “fertile crescent” (modern day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Egypt), but that this was a “progress trap” – farming made people’s lives worse: they had to work longer hours, they were more at risk of starvation when a harvest failed, life expectancy decreased as diseases increased (cross-over from animals and having people living closer together). But once you start on the journey of agriculture, it is very difficult to go back. Later, we, the descendants of those early farmers, fell and jumped into further “progress traps”: globalisation 1 (Europeans to Americas), the industrial revolution and then globalisation 2 (modern life). In each of these progress traps, life got harder for most people in the short term, then easier in the longer run – and with it we got/took yet more control over (and, unfortunately, because we didn’t manage it well, created damage to) nature. We have become more and more like Gods making decisions of who and what is good and who or what is evil, and now we control the whole planet.

In Ishmael the two cultures have divided, with the majority of the planet following the path of the “Takers” – societies that control nature. Only a few “Leavers” (hunter/gatherers and small scale herdsmen) remain. In Ishmael, Quinn encourages us to believe that only the “Leavers” are living in accord with the fundamental laws of nature. He makes some points that I don’t agree with – we have (possibly) managed to get on top of population since he wrote it, and by feeding people and educating women, rather than by letting people starve (I don’t like the suggestion in Ishmael that we should leave, or even encourage, people in poorer countries to die because that’s more “natural”!).  I also don’t think his “Leavers” were quite as pure as he makes out – or as unsophisticated (Lewis and Maslin describe how the early American tribes also cut down large amounts of the rainforest and possibly altered the climate in so doing). But overall, I think he’s absolutely right – that it is our cultural assumption that we are meant to rule the world, that has been extremely damaging – for that world, and also for ourselves.

In this, he is proposing the worldview of the “Prophet” in the “Wizard and the Prophet” book. If ever-increasing technology has caused the problem, and if our “ruling” over nature has only made everything worse, then we should stop with the technological fixes and move to a more localised, small scale production: organic farms that bring nature back into our food supplies, small, supportive communities and a fundamental shift in our lifestyle so that we can become more in tune with nature (even if we don’t give up all of our “civilisation”).

The Wizard worldview, according to Mann, is very different: it says that the solution to our poor management of the world is good management of the world. We should accept that we are now running the world, whether we should have done or not. Wizards wouldn’t usually put it like this, but basically: the fruit of knowledge of good and evil has been well and truly eaten over and over again in the last 10000 years and we cannot go back into the Garden ever again because we have been cursed. Even God has recognised this, which is why he still protects Cain, even after his murder of Abel. Given that we do rule the earth, we can no longer relinquish our control, and maybe now we are at the beginning of the wisdom necessary to control it well. We shouldn’t give up just as we have learnt that wisdom, instead we should harness our technology to save the world, rather than to harm it. We should build carbon sequestration units, install windmills and LED lighting, build hydrogen and electric vehicles, limit our farming to small areas of intensive farming and manage the rest of the land for wildlife and biodiversity.

I find myself curious about both approaches. I have a lot of sympathy with the Prophet/Leaver viewpoint, but I wonder if we no longer have time to wait for a complete shift in human philosophy. I wonder whether a Wizard/Taker approach may buy us that time and whether it just feels a more feasible shift in a world that is so dominated by “Taker” thinking. I know, however, I have friends who strongly feel that we can shift humanity towards a more natural life.

I’ve always found Genesis 1 consoling and Genesis 2-4 disturbing. Perhaps it’s time to accept that that may be because of my cultural conditioning and, as so often in my faith, I’d be better to sit with the disturbance than take refuge in the consolation! Maybe Jesus’ biggest challenge – far more challenging even than loving our enemies – is to consider the birds that do not sow and reap and the lilies that do not spin. Almost none of us have taken that particular statement literally!

 

Martha and Mary

“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’”

Luke‬ ‭10:38-42‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

For centuries this story has been read as two women quarrelling over the housework or food preparation. And it rather puts women in a no-win situation: it comes out clearly that Mary is better for sitting and listening and yet every woman knows the housework still needs doing, especially when visitors come round. 

I was thinking of this when I was watching someone’s post on Facebook of a video of a rather smug mother showing off about what a better mother she was than other people. She was talking about how she was bringing up her children to be respectful while other mothers clearly didn’t care. And realising full well the irony of telling myself a story about her to understand why she was telling herself stories about others, I couldn’t help noticing her expensive sports clothes, immaculate kitchen and other things that suggested she was rich, not working in a paid job and privileged. And I thought that she probably had no idea what the lives of the women she was criticising were like. We women can be really horrid and judgemental to each other. As in my post on defensiveness, I wonder whether this judgemental accusation is hiding our own weak ego, needing the reassurance that we aren’t wrong. 

So back to the Martha and Mary story, which for so long has frustrated me because it made me feel guilty about being so overwhelmed with my busyness that I don’t make time to sit still. I felt doubly got at: first I do more than my share of work and then I’m told that I’m wrong to do so! (See how I’d personalised it?!) The story pits the two sisters against each other and doubly seems to punish the hardworking one who is already exhausted. 

So I was fascinated to read a book by Mary Stromer Hanson which told the story differently. She pointed out that the King James translation has an extra word “also” in verse 39:

“And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.” KJV Luke 10:39.

This goes back to the Greek but has been missed out in modern translations. The implication is that both Mary and Martha “sat at Jesus’s feet” (which is likely to be an idiomatic phrase describing their roles as his disciples – and therefore, as an aside, taking on a role that was clearly not just for men).

It goes on:

“But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭10:40‬ ‭KJV‬‬

There is no indication here that the “serving” is in the kitchen. It could equally be some other type of service, perhaps in a community, or even “ministry”. 

Jesus answers, and we have always read this as a rebuke, but try reading it again in a comforting voice, reassuring her that he has heard her worries and sympathises, but wants to remind her that the type of service Mary is doing (one which has led her to leave home and Martha, perhaps?), is good for Mary. 

“And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭10:41-42‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Now, is this new reading more “right”? I don’t know, and from how I interpret spiritual truth (see earlier blogs on religious Truth), it doesn’t matter too much [any atheist reading this far who thinks this shows how you can read anything into the Bible and therefore it’s meaningless is missing my point as much as any Bible-literalist who thinks I’m wrong because I’ve looked at it differently from how they were taught…]  The point is, that how we read Jesus’s reply depends a lot on the story we’ve told ourselves about who Mary and Martha are. 

And maybe how we read other people’s parenting stories on Facebook depends a lot on the stories we tell ourselves about them. 

So let’s return to what Jesus might be saying here: Mary’s way (the type of work she does) is good (for her). You have your own burdens, Martha, and I sympathise, but you don’t solve those by stopping her following her path. 

So, whether we are mums or not, whether we work outside the home or with our families, whatever we do, let us not attack each other!

But one final contradictory word (because I like living on the contradictory edge) – when I do stop my busyness and just sit, I always benefit and know it is good.