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This is Dominique Johnson’s first blog post on this website. He is a sophomore at DePaul University, seeking a major in Religious Studies. Domonique is an active member of DePaul Interfaith.

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“…But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”—Genesis 3:3

“And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die: For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…”—Genesis 3:4-7

When both Eve & Adam eat of the tree of hidden knowledge according to Genesis, the eyes are opened, and immediately this speaks of Adam & Eve becoming self-conscious beings. Before they were “self-conscious beings” and we can see how the God speaking in the Garden of Eden (assuming it is the same voice that spoke unto Moses from the burning-bush) is ordering Adam & Eve to not eat of anything from the tree, and instills fear in them, as a Father does with authority.

In the Greek myth of the Titan Prometheus, he is credited with giving to man “divine-fire” in order to animate man who is before the animation a clay-figure (probably really not clay but of its likeness). Before Adam & Eve became self-conscious by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they were mindless, and being mindless, they were then obedient.

In the Greek Myth of Prometheus and in the Enuma Elish (Babylonian account of Genesis) the Gods certainly disagree to give man what They have. The forbidden “divine-fire” hidden by Zeus is self-conscious intellect. This is what separates man from the animal; without the divine-fire. The human would be no more than a brute or pure-animal without iit. With the “divine-fire” man is a god in animal form. The serpent in the Garden of Eden did not lie, for after Adam & Eve ate of the tree of hidden knowledge, they did not die, and their eyes were opened and they knew good & evil but yea, the human race fell under the beguiling of the serpent in the Genesis myth) thence man descended fully from spirit into matter. “Jesus answered them (Jews that were stoning him), Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?…For a good work we stone you not; but for blasphemy; and because that you, being a man, make yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods?”—John 10:32-34.

So then, the bringer of light or Prometheus, which is the same as Phosphoros (in Greek for “light-bearer”) and lucis ferre (“light-bearer” in Latin), the terrestrial light (of Mind). The Bringer or Bearer of Light is Phosphoros, Morning/Day-Star, Lucifer (from lux = light/fire), Prometheus (clearly Lucifer “light-bearer” was an adaptation of the Prometheus myth). The divine-fire is a forbidden prize to gain but nonetheless needed, or the progeny of our epoch (according to the myth) could not have become animate or self-conscious. The mindless—by taking in this principle of light, became a god (self-conscious, self-governing being).

The Christian theology sees “The Fall” as negative, I see it as positive. I think that Genesis is trying to put a million years’ process of human evolution and cosmogenesis in deep allegory. I think the myth is trying to say that the human species has a divine-origin, which is opposed to the theory that the human evolved from the anthropoid.