Eden. Man. Environment. Microparassites

EDEN

…Besides God planted a garden in Eden, eastward, and there He settled the man he had shaped. So God made every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil come out of the soil[1]

…And God took man and put him in the garden of Even so that he could cultivate and take care of it. And God gave man this order” But as to the tree of knowledge of good and evil you mustn’t feed on it, because on the day when you feed on positively you’ll die[2].

Tree of knowledge of good and evil

Many people think there is an indissoluble correlation between what man does and the various epidemic diseases in the course of history.

The problem isn’t only to prove it but understand how important all this may be. To do this we have to go back over the time or better to a dimension wherer time, as we consider it now, didn’t exist; that is when we weren’t aware of ourselves and even less of time.Let’s enter the Earhly Paradise.

The Earthly Paradise

It must have been a wonderful site[3]: trees, vegetation, flowers, scents, chirping of birds. Our ancestor felt at his ease, he lived on the trees, was vegetarian and as such he had, at his disposal, all that he needed without doing any effort[4]. The hot humid climate allowed him to live naked[5]. But above all he trifled in a situation of a happy unconsciousness. After eating the forbidden fruit the first troubles start for our ancestor: his brain grows bigger and becomes, in proportion to the body, the biggest among all the other animals.

Man begins being conscious of himself and first he realises he is naked[6]. At the same time he assumes an erect position, climbs down the trees and starts thinking of what he can do with his fore legs not engaged with walking and climbing; what the Earthly Paradise offers him isn’t enough for him any longer and tries to get from the soil, not without a lot of labour[7],[8], more than till that moment he could find on the trees spontaneously. Having at one’s disposal two free hands is certainly useful: catching a curdgel is sufficient and so many fears pass away. If then man gathers with his fellow men and instead of a cudgel he holds a stone axe, even the wildest animals are afraid of attacking him.

Hominid in an erect position

Things are a bit worse for women. The new erect position and the very big head of their children make delivery difficult, cause them a lot of pain[9] and sometimes, not rarely, while giving birth to other creatures they risk their life. On the other hand she was the one who had told her man to eat the apple, so everything is clear. Anyway the two, somehow, decide to stay together, make long leather clothes[10] for themselves and since they couldn’t set foot in the Earthly Paradise again, they go around the world[11].

Eventually our man becomes carnivorous with Noah[12] and learns how to massacre his fellow men with Cain[13] and Abele.

Noah’s ark

Studies about the teeth of the remains of our first ancestors suggest they were carnivorous but with a clean preference for fruit, larvas, sprouts, rather than for meat so confirming the slow passage from a diet which was above all vegetarian to a mixed one.

[1] Genesis. 2:8-9

[2] Genesis. 2:15-17

[3] Recent anthropological and genetic studies agree on asserting the birth of man in Africa. Therefore we could place the Earthly Paradise in an African equatorial forest.

[4] “There, I ‘ve given you all the vegetation which makes seed that is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree that makes seed on the earth the use of which may be food” (Genesis 1:29).

[5] …. and they both continued being naked, the man and his wife,and yet they weren’t ashamed. (Genesis 2.25).

[6] (Genesis 3:7)

[7] ….and the soil is cursed because of you, with pain you’ll eat its product every day of your life. (Genesis 3:17).

[8] …. and( the harvest) will cause you pains and troubles and you must eat the vegetation of the field. With the sweat of your face you’ll eat bread. (Genesis 3:17-18).

[9] He said to woman” I’ll greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy, you’ll give birth to your children with travail. (Genesis 3:10).

travail

[10] And God made long leather clothes for Adam and his wife and dressed them. (Genesis 3:21).

[11] If we see it in a mythical-historical key, the story of the Genesis is nothing but the prehistoric story of man evolution from monkey to homo sapiens-sapiens. In this sense the “Original Sin” consists just in this passage, somehow, “wanted” by man. As a primate man couldn’t do but obey the laws of Nature-God; as homo sapiens-sapiens he gets the knowledge of good and evil, he can, if he wants to, oppose these laws.

The original sin

[12] And God went on blessing Noah and his children and said to them: ” be prolific and multiply and fill the earth. And fear of you and dread of you will continue in every living creature of the earth and in every winged creature of the skies, in every thing that is moving on the earth and in every fish of the sea. Now they are in your hand. Every moving and living animal may become food for you. Like the case of the green vegetation I’m giving you all this, indeed”. (Genesis. 9:1-3)

[13] Cain that is (Kainw) in Greek is translated with I kill; in this sense the biblical character assumes the mythical value of the first example of a mortal intraspecific aggression.

Cain and Abele

Translated from “Il Virus Intelligente” by Enrica Narducci