BLAME NO WOMEN FOR ORIGINAL SIN    

 

February 22, 1977.

 

     Serengeti at last!

     Still, I’m haunted by Michelangelo’s masterpiece of illusion, I’ve been reflecting on the Book of Genesis and came up with instance after instance of illusions, illusions of the very cosmic kind, beginning with, in the beginning, the image of God, since from my Chinese perspective, God really can’t look like a white man.

     Visual aspects aside, there are also intellectual illusions, some dead centre of the Church’s teachings.  In a bookstore in Dar es Salaam when I first arrived, I came upon a “non-sexist” version of the Bible, which I even brought on a whim.  In it, I found that “Our Father” had been changed to “Our Sovereign”, “Son of God” to “Child of God”, “Man” to “Human”, “He” to a cumbersome “He/She”, and so on.  I asked Raminothna for her comments on this new development in the long history of the Bible. 

     Her answer was:  “Skin-deep cosmetic surgery.”

     “Show me one place where sexism remains,” I said, a little defensively.

     “What did they do with, say, Genesis 3:16?” 

     “We haven’t even looked at Genesis 3:16.  How do you know?”

     “It is incorrigible.”

     Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis, which depicts Eve tempting Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, resulting in their eviction from the Garden of Eden, thus precipitating the Original Sin upon humanity.  When I looked, it read, “Unto the woman He/She said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shall bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” 

     “Well, you’re right.  There’s really not much one can do about it, is there?  But, what about the Original Sin?  Is Eve really the root of all evil?”

     “Let’s go for a drive,” Raminothna said.

     We were privileged to witness a cheetah taking down a Thompson’s gazelle, but all too soon, a clan of hyenas arrived and appropriated it from the cheetah who, still panting from the chase, relinquished it without a fight. 

     “What do you say about this?”

     “Upset.  There will be no justice for the cheetah.  For this blatant axt of theft, the hyenas will go unpunished.”

     “Is sin involved?”

     “Of course not.”

     “Why not?”

     “Animals can’t sin.”

     “How about lions killing one another and the cubs of the vanquished?”

     “No.”

     “How about chimpanzees?  Jane Goodall discovered that they too commit murder and even cannibalism.”

     “Still no.”

     “How about your own ancestors then, say, Australopithecus?”

     “Not unless and until they have defined what is right and what is wrong.”

     “The knowledge of good and evil?”

     “Uh huh.  Ah Ha!””

     “So, knowing right from wrong, good from evil, is the origin of sin?”

     “It does seem so.”

     “When did animals begin to know right from wrong, good from evil?”

     “Possibly beginning with Homo Erectus.”

     “What makes you think so?”

     “Just a wild guess.  Maybe even Australopithecus.”

     “Do you have any evidence in support of it?”

     “No.  I don’t.  Failing Homo Erectus, it would leave only our species - Homo Sapiens.”

     “Definitely?”

     “Undoubtedly.”

     “Any evidence in support of this?”

     I thought at length, then said a definite “Yes.”

     “Namely?”

     “The Bible.”

     “Does the Bible contain any knowledge of good and evil?”

     “Yes, all over the place.”

     “Beginning with?”

     “The Origin Sin.”

     “Was the Bible written by men or women?”

     “Supposedly by God, through men.”

     “Not by women?”

     “No, not by women.”

     “Therefore, blame no woman for Original Sin, even if there were Original Sin,” said Raminothna.