I watched a very interesting show last night about the garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve. It suggested that the original sin story was actually a metaphor for our transition from hunter/gathers to agricultural farmers. It also offered up evidence to support a flood story with the melting of glaciers 6000 years ago.

One scholar found connections between the story of Adam and Eve, and the neolithic period when mankind lived in hunter/gatherer societies. He claims the story of how Adam and Eve could just pluck the food they needed from the earth as they needed it sounds very much like a hunter/gatherer way of life. Then, things changed, and mankind discovered agriculture. Of course, by hunter/gatherer standards, farming, or the manipulation of plants and animals for one's own benefit, would have seemed godlike in comparison to simply wandering around and stumbling upon food here and there. On top of that, it would be impossible for the an agricultural society to go back living as a hunter/gatherer society, or the garden of Eden. This doesn't really sound like a sin to me, but perhaps ancient people made a connection between this lifestyle change, and a great catastrophe-- a massive flood.

One scientist claimed that with the use of satellites he discovered two ancient dry riverbeds, one flowing from Saudi Arabia, the other from Iran, that could account for the Bibles talk of four rivers joining into one. He thinks that before the glaciers melted 6000 years ago, the Persian Gulf was just a river, and that these four rivers flowed into it. He believes the area refered to as the garden of Eden existed on the land which is now covered by the Persian Gulf. If this were true, we would now have both a figurative reason to explain why mankind could not return to the garden of Eden (explained above) as well as a literal one-- it's flooded over.

Perhaps ancient people made a connection between their change from to agricultural lifestyle and a terrible flood 6000 years ago caused by melting glaciers. The flood was seen as punishment from the gods for changing from their original hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Of course, once making the transition to an agricultural society, they can never go back because a hunter/gatherer society can't support them any longer. Therefore, all they could do was go on with it and hope for forgiveness. The documentary doesn't suggest these ideas. They are my own, which I deduced from the information presented.

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Another theory regarding the flood is that it refers to the inundation of the Black Sea -- then a freshwater lake -- by the Mediterranean thousands of years ago, when the Med finally broke through the Bosporus. Scientists have found the old coastline, complete with signs of human settlement, deep under the waters of the Black Sea.

The hunter-gatherer/agriculture transition theory is a new twist, though. And an interesting one.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

You are all blasphemous fools! The Bible "clearly" states exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden and The Great Flood. Note my capitalization to make them all seem exceedingly important.

IMO, they were all sitting around tripping one evening by a campfire. Noah looked over and saw (hallucinated) some water. Ignoring the paranoia that normally accompanies his frequent "trips," he immediately feared for his life and started gathering animals, both male and female, and boarding them up in this wooden ship.

Unfortunately for the animals, Noah forgot that the circle of life dictates that some animals will eat other animals. After coming down from their high, they quickly opened up the Arc to ensure the animals were ok. Imagine their horror when they saw the slaughter that had taken place inside the Arc. It just so happens that the only animals to survive were the lions and the birds.

Noah and his groupies spent the afternoon dismantling the Arc and cleaning the blood. Noah knew they would need to explain what happened to everyone else. So, to get the inspiration for the story that became "The Great Flood," they tripped again that night.

And so, the story of Noah lived on through the centuries in the world's most well-known collection of tall tales, the Bible.

The End.

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Blind acceptance is a dangerous practice.

ARGH what is the name of the book where a gorilla is teaching a dude about how life used to be and where man went wrong.
Want to say David or someother biblical name.

Anyway, this book is exactly what you are talking about. How Agriculture ruined man kind.


Ixtellor

P.S. I have the book at home, will have to look for it. Maybe its called blah blah Daniel something.

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George W. Bush "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building"

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

Joker:
Have you ever read anything by Daniel Quinn? he has written several books on this topic 2 of which i've read. They are very interesting. They are all about the hunter gatherer to agricultural revolution. He does it in a really neat way by having a Super intelligent gorilla that can communicate telepathically teach his students. "Ishmael" "my Ishmael" and "a tale of Adam" are three of the books, YOu should really check um out.

Back to the question of the sin. The original sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating from the tree we became our own gods, we no longer left life up to nature(god) but instead started to do everything ourselves(agriculture). Only since the agricultural revolution has our population sky-rocketed and starvation and mass disease become an issue. The agricultural revolution led to the over population of earth which will eventually lead to the annihilation of man kind. If we had stayed with the hunter gatherer life, society/civilization would have still advanced but probably in a more environmental and peaceable way.

Check out those books

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"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." -V

Ya that was a good book, Ishmael By: daniel quinn

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"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." -V

Makes sense.
The story of Cain and Abel has always seemed to be a barb against agricultural societies by a pastoral one.

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The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Thanks Locke, and Ixtellor, for the recommendations. I haven't heard of them, but I'd like to check them out. I'll keep an eye out for them.

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