Genesis 2:25
Now while the couple, the Earthling and his mate,
were without costume or craft 1,
they were not abashed 2 -- לא יתבששו
LO YiT’BOSHaSHOO.
1 ערום [A]ROOM: naked, openly honest,
naïve, not wearing a shred of pretense;
nothing up their sleeves. בגד BeGeD means both garment and betrayal. They
were the opposite of the ערום [A]ROOM “subtle”
serpent in the next verse.
This is the first time in the
unmatched Hebrew Bible craft where
opposites are blatantly employed with the same exact word: ערום [A]ROOM. Opposite meanings of the same word (usually just the
same root)?! Yes. Fasten your seatbelt. You are dealing with the
Creator’s language. This is no multi-redacted edited text by the puny human
mind that craves clarity, and fears the creativity of ambiguity. (This annoys the
linear, sometimes Torah-hating “bible scholars.”) The two sides-of-a-coin
device expand the text with serious wordplay.
The
English word echoing ערום [A]ROOM is iRoNiC. [A.
Ansley] The Serpent spoke carefully plotted iRoNy, speaking with a forked tongue. Pre-fruit Adam
and Eve could not imagine iRoNy.
2 This B-SH/ב-ש root is found in לבוש L’BHOOSH (clothes),
which literally can mean “for shame.”
Genesis 3:1
But the snaky Neanderthal1
was naked of soul
but the craftiest of beasts, ironic (from ערום
[A]ROOM)
that were evolved by the Lord
God of pre and post history;
[seeing the humans openly
love,]
he approached the naïve female
with words:
“Just because your Lord of
Laws said so,
you will not taste everything
which can be enjoyed here?”
1 “Neanderthal” worked better in the early 1980s
when this project began. Anthropoly has
better terms now, Adam was guilty of
stressing the negative of 2:17, without the overwhelming positive of 2:16. This
allowed Eve to fall for the “law is death” line and the “Progressive” argument
that one’s own views are as good as any authority’s. The soulless hominid and future
snake, or נחשNa[K]HaSH , is also
a personification of the illusion that non-matter doesn’t matter. See “Evolution” in the Introduction.
While Torah has no theological
room for an evil power which opposes G-d, many cultures have taken precisely
that idolatrous stance against monotheism. Dualism wants a Devil, Satan or
rebellious Lucifer to be behind anything “evil” that couldn’t be from their
simplistic Sugar Daddy concept of a deity of only love. Many cutures have
turned this tempting Serpent of Eden into a hydra of personified evil. The Pre-Asian Ainu of Japan have a word for
dragon, sikanna, which echoes snake and reverses נחש Na[K]HaSH.
2. The נחש Na[K]HaSH is described as ערום GHaROOM,
translated “subtle, crafty or cunning.” ערום GHaROAM means naked, exposed and transparent; [O]WR means “skin.” Pretending to be naïve and unsubtle requires great
cunning and subltety.
On whatever level he is
perceived, the crafty נחש Na[K]HaSH
here leads mankind to mortality via the lure of esoteric wisdom.
Ayin-Resh-Mem fits Hirmes, the messenger deity who guides the dead to
the mythical Hades. Greek Hermes is
associated with Egyptian Thoth, who also is involved with wisdom and
death. These gods sprang from the head
of the נחש Na[K]HaSH.
Present-day pagans have cast the serpent as a Devil, a fallen angel Lucifer who
defies God and leads sinners to hell. This pagan mis-reading of these dramatic
verses drama both warps the only good or ultimate good of G*d, and His great
gift to humanity: Free Will.