Saturday, March 9, 2013

the gospel of St. Mike (part 2)



            Many people think they know the story of Adam and Eve (the first two people on the Earth) like the back of their hand, but the Bible got it wrong.  Adam was the first man on Earth, but the details that led to the creation Eve went a bit differently. I’m not talking about Lilith, the wife who was supposed to have come before Eve, I am talking about the partner after Lilith but before Eve came into the picture. However, in order to tell that story you have to know the legend of Lilith.
            According to some stories Adam had a wife before Eve and her name was Lilith.  Instead of being formed from Adam’s rib or ANY part of Adam she was formed just as Adam was, from the earth, clay, dirt, or whatever.  God said in Genesis 2:18 “it is not good for man to be alone” so he formed Lilith so Adam would not be alone.  However, Lilith would not submit to Adam (I don’t think women should have to submit to men I think they should be equals, but that’s my own opinion), because she would not submit, or be Adam’s subservient domestic partner, God banished her from the Garden of Eden.  According to the popular story Eve was then created and everything was hunky-dory.  Not so, there is a whole other story out there that has been neglected.   How many times have you been reading the Bible and thought ‘okay sure, so-and-so begat what’s-his-face and what’s-his-face begat this guy and so on and so on.  Where’s the sex?  You don’t just beget people, there’s sex that leads to that.  Isn’t there any sex in this book?’  Come on, you know you’ve looked for it at least once.  I’m not the only one who’s searched for sex in the Bible, am I?  Oh. . . um. . . okay, never mind.  Regardless, I am here to tell you that the sex which has been neglected in the Bible is in this next story
AFTER LILITH BUT BEFORE EVE.
          It was a fine day and God had just banished Lilith from the garden and everything was going great.  Well everything except for one thing, now that Lilith was gone Adam was alone.  God thought about creating another woman right then and there, but he paused. 
“Lilith proved to be a disaster,” he said to himself, “maybe what Adam really needs is another man, a friend to talk to. Maybe women, while initially seeming like a good idea, aren’t such a great idea for Earth.  Or maybe I should put women on an entirely different planet. I wonder if they would like living on Venus”
So God created some women and placed them on Venus in their own Garden of Eden and then he created another man to be Adam’s friend. This man was named Steve.  Steve and Adam quickly became the best of friends playing games in the garden. Talking about this and that, everything under the stars, the moon, and the sun.  They even talked about the stars and the moon and sun sometimes. Adam and Steve being innocent and curious creatures decided to “experiment” a bit.  (I think you can grasp my meaning, they decided to do a little more than talk.  I don’t know who will and won’t read this so I’m going to be a bit vague, if you want me to be more explicit send me an email and I will send you a more “spicy” version especially for you.)  God didn’t see anything wrong with this, it was just innocent play, but he could tell that Adam missed female companionship. Steve, on the other hand, was not even aware that such a thing as a woman existed.  However, God was still reluctant to send a woman for Adam.  So God made a compromise. He made a slight modification to Steve.  With some creative wordplay Steve transformed from the normal Steve into TS Eve.  Steve was still male physically but would have related more with females, if he/she had even known what a female was.  God hoped that having a more feminine partner would satisfy Adam’s urgings for a female partner.  But while Adam appreciated everything God was doing just for him, he longed for a true woman.  In addition to that now TS Eve knew something was wrong as well.  He/she felt like there was something vital missing, like he/she needed a whole body makeover. 
After much debating God finally sat down and had a long talk with some of his most trusted advisors.  God thought about sending women to Earth instead and letting the men live on Mars, but in the end it was decided that maybe God had been wrong to send all the women to Venus.  Men and women would have to learn to live together in peace.  God decided that he would gradually send more and more women from Venus to Earth and they would acclimate to life on Earth or not.  TS Eve was transformed into female Eve and then Satan realized that God wasn’t really sure what he was doing. Satan realized that maybe God wasn’t as all-knowing as he seemed.  So Satan transformed into a snake and it was entirely too easy to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the tree that God had forbidden them to eat of.  The tree that would give Adam and Eve ultimate knowledge of Good and Evil, or so the fables say.  But really why is sex and/or nakedness seen as evil?  Sex is not a sin and the naked body is supposed to be a work of art, right?  I think the tree was more a tree of guilt than anything else, but I digress.
One small side note before I end this chapter.  Even though Steve was now Eve some of those older versions of him still exist as echoes in humanity and thus we have gay people, lesbians, transsexuals, transgendered people, and everything in between.  Even though Eve is the one that made it into the history books, it’s fun to think that somewhere out there, in an alternate timeline, Adam and Steve are out there having the time of their lives.  Just as God originally intended.