Saturday, December 1, 2018

Eden, Clothing, Evolution

Probably because of the traditional Theological focus on Reproductive processes, the absence of some details in Genesis 3 has usually been overlooked, e. g. how Adam and Eve know how to sew, what materials they use to accomplish that, etc.  But the perhaps most significant lack is of an explanation for why they do not need clothing.  Now, one natural account is that the climate in Eden does not require any such protection, e. g. it is constantly warm enough, it does not rain, etc.  But, on the basis of that premise, the logic of the subsequent events potentially changes.  For, preceding the temptation of the serpent might thus be a wanderlust, which would entail travel to a different climate, and, hence, to where clothing might be needed.  Accordingly, leaving Eden is not an unintended consequence of straying from assured survival, but, rather is the initial impulse to begin with.  In other words, once a plausible explanation for the nakedness of Adam and Eve is accepted, Genesis can transform into a proto-Evolutionist account of the earliest days of Human History--the instinct to transcend the given, the zoologically unique need for clothing, the uniquely versatile thumb, knowledge of the use of that thumb to manufacture clothing, and, the eventual departure from Eden.  Perhaps after Evolutionism has been more fully absorbed into Human culture, such a radical revision of one its most influential documents might become more widely accepted.

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