The God Named Lettuce

The God Named Lettuce

I recall, oh say a thousand times, sitting in Bible Studies in the Ambassador Gymnasium and HWA beginning his study with, “Elohim is a uniplural word.  I could feel my chest sink, my posture slouch and in my head I was begging the Deity to “please, not again!”    Next, we would hear, again, “And God said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after our likeness….”   And thus, in my rather passive aggressive mind, the study was going to be on the Uniplural God, Elohim, whom I had nick named “Lettuce”  from my disdain of hearing the words “Let us….” over and over and over and over and over….

 

Christians are brought up to believe that the Old Testament is such an amazing document because it is the first to portray the true monotheism of reality in the spiritual world.  It does not.  What we have is the fact that Israelites believed in more than one god but that YHVH was the high God who deserved their worship.

When, in the Ten Commandments, God is quoted as saying “You shall have no other gods before me….for I the Lord THY God am a jealous God,” we are being given the rules of engagement in a world of many gods.   A better translation might be, “You shall not bring any other gods into my presence.”  Reason?  “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.”  There are other gods in Israel and they all knew it. All they needed to do was not bring into the presence of YHVH and all would be good. 

Clearly the Old Testament teaches the existence of many gods.

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods (Elohim).  Who is like you…”  Exodus 15:11

“For the Lord is a great God (El, singular) and a great King above all the gods. (Elohim)

“Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.” Ps 103:21

“Praise him, all his angels. Praise him all his host!”  Ps 148:2

These “hosts” and “angels” are all members of the Divine Council of the Gods with El being the chief god.  BTW…The original “El” was Canaanite in origins. 

And so let us speak of the great God “Lettuce.”

“Let us make man in our image.”  The speaker here is YHVH El, the Chief God over the divine council of whom “the Satan,” whom we see fully accepted as a council member more in the book of Job, familiar to most of us. El is speaking to the Council of the lesser gods and telling them that humans will be made after the image of these gods and in their likeness. And so it was.

An interesting and surprisingly blunt admission of this multiplicity of gods is found in Deut. 32:8-9

“When the Most High (Elyon) apportioned the nations, when he divided human kind, he fixed the boundaries of his peoples according TO THE NUMBER OF THE GODS. (Elohim). The Lord’s (YHVH a lesser god than Elyon) own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.”

Here we have a rare and somewhat embarrassing admission that there was a god even higher than YHVH. The Most High was Elyon who had the authority to divvy up the nations between the other lesser gods.  In this account YHVH is a lesser god who was placed over the limited geographical area inhabited by Jacob.  This is why it was always well understood that the power of the god diminished the further away from its allotted land.  If they strayed too far, they qualified as “foreign gods,” which we all know were powerless in the new areas and definitely false.  You know, “My God is the true god, and …well…your’s is the Satan, or lesser and pow erless god around here. “

So we learn that  YHVH and YHVH Elohim may have several implications.  This can mean that YHVH is the god over a band of lesser gods or that YHVH is a god that comes from a class of gods known as Elohim.  

And now let us speak of the God “Lettuce.”  Back to those Bible studies by HWA that began with the chilling and “oh please not again!” words, “There were Two Trees in the  Garden of Eden.”  Towards the end of his life, it seemed to me that HWA could only conduct studies that were the ones he could give on auto pilot.

 I felt the same way about Gerald Waterhouse who simply seemed to flip a switch, sometimes probably not knowing exactly what church area he was now in due to his extensive travels around and around to all the churches.  In all my time in WCG, I never heard Gerald Waterhouse give any other sermon topic besides the one he was considered “an expert” in.  I don’t question his sincerity but I did question his sanity at times.  The man simply spent years on auto pilot to where even the “conviction” seemed contrived or at least way too habitual.  Frankly and in hindsite, he was the the Goebbels of the WC G.  He was the propagandist that kept us all “inspired.”  I hated those visits. I told the elderly and those with small children not to feel guilty if they could not come midweek for a four hour harangue and speculation on things that probably would not happen the way he felt they would. It was unfair and unkind to the elderly and really to all to sit for so long and gain so little from it.  Of course there were Gerald Waterhouse groupies but I stayed away from them as much as possible with my very bad attitude about the value of his visit.  I often had to go multiple times in a row due to pastoring multiple churches.  It was a real groaner for me.  Towards the end I finally got up the courage, with a kick in th e shins delivered under the table, to tell him that his visits caused me more problems and need to deal with member fears and concerns than the inspired.  He just looked at me.  I then got really brave, what the heck, I was cooked now…and asked him what he was going to do or think when HWA died? His answer made me realize my ministry was coming to an end in time.  He said, “I’ll believe it after three days and three nights.”  All I could do was sigh and get ready to endure yet another four hour trial.

At any rate, back to the God Lettuce and the concerns about the now accomplished fall and sin of those created by the “Us” of the Council in “Our image, after Our likeness.” 

“And the Lord God said, ‘The man (hey I thought it was the woman who sinned?) has now become like one of US, knowing good and evil. “  Right here I have to say I always wondered what was so wrong about humans knowing right from wrong?  And if the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong came only from eating from a forbidden tree, how can humans be blamed for sin since before eating it, they did not know right from wrong or good from evil?  Kids, not clouded by the filters accumulated by adults over the years think like that.  No problem, it gets shamed out of them for even asking.  

 

Back to the story.  ‘ He MUST not be allowed to reach out his hand (hey what about her?!) and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever!’  So the Lord God banished him (Hey, what about them!) from the Garden of Eden  (BTW, the Sumerian version calls it the Garden of Edin), to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man (Can Eve come with me?) out, he placed on the East side of the Garden of Eden Cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth  to guard the way to the Tree of Life.”  Genesis 3: 22-24

Now once again, as a kid, I wondered how you kept people out of an area by only guarding the East side of the compound?  Could they, if they wished, not sneak back in from the North, South or West?  I would almost bet that this Cherub in the story was the Constellation of Orion who rises in the East, huge obvious with an upraised sword twinkling with starlight, but I spare you.  Astrol-theology at its best.  Literally the story makes no sense, but in the sky…very nice touch.

The Plain Truth is that both trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and The Tree of Life were God-Food Trees. Only the gods were allowed such esoteric knowledge and only the gods were allowed to live forever.  El and his Elohim , or Council of the Gods, could simply not abide the idea that worker drones in the original Sumerian myth could attain godhood and know such things.  And so they were driven out to work even harder on the planet to survive.  

An additional funny comes later when Cain gets booted from his space for killing his only brother and son of the only other two humans on the planet, Adam and Eve.  (Seth is called the third). His fear is that “whoever finds me shall kill me…”  Ummmm Cain!  There are no other humans   “out there.”  You killed your only other brother and caused there to only be you, mom and dad on the planet for now.  THERE IS NO ONE ELSE OUT THERE TO KILL YOU!  However, El/YHVH failed to clarify this and told Cain not to w orry about that and that if someone did, they would really be sorry but the mark God puts on him would prevent that. I guess El also forgot there were no other folks out there to cause Cain a problem. 

Myths brought to earth can get corny out of their original context. 

So there you have it. El was NOT talking to anyone who would eventually become Jesus. That’s all made up a few thousand years later to explain how a Jesus could have been around forever and a godman.  In context, gods forbid, it was about the polytheistic beliefs of, first of all the Sumerians, and then the Hebrews who tweeked the original story for to give themselves their own special origins.  Insignificant types often contrive huge stories to give themselves amazing pedigrees no matter how phoney.

The Hebrew Sabbath origins also sprung from the original Sumerian creation myth where it was the gods and El who were wanting peace and quiet on the Seventh Day but could get none due to the complaining of the worker drones who tended the god-food trees in the Garden of Edin. When they finally drove the humans out, they rested on the Seventh Day…finally. The Hebrews tweeked the story to mean that both gods and man would rest on the Sabbath.

And so now we can, for the first time and as never understood  and now revealed by me, understand a God called Lettuce.    

 ( I guess I could add, "And Brethren, I don't believe I have ever given a sermon quite like this before.  Maybe something like it back on Feb 17th, 1989 but really that was nothing like this.  I'm sure you have never heard anything like this before...ala Dave Pack, but I won't :)

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Adam and Eve Meet Hansel and Gretel

 

Adam and Eve Meet Hansel and Gretel

Much of New Testament theology is based on ideas drawn from the literal creation and existence of Adam and Eve This common, seldom questioned, oft repeated, historical fallacy of a literal Adam and Eve in a literal garden, with a literal talking serpent antagonist, has been the foundational explanation of how mankind arrived on the scene and ultimately fell from grace. However, the story serves as more of a political statement of what Israelite culture was not to be. It is a clear placing of blame for sin, evil and disobedience clearly on women (matriarchy) and a societal shift to correct the damage (Patriarchy). In fact, we have no choice, as this one literal act was supposed to have condemned all future humanity to eternal death without recourse! But did it? If it never really happened in time and space, then perhaps we need another look.

To set the stage, anyone who is familiar with the elements of the higher criticism knows that there are two creation of man stories in Genesis. The first, or Priestly Account, was written in the fifth century B.C. and extends from the beginning of Genesis through verse 3 of chapter 2. The second, or Jehovistic Account, begins with verse 4 of chapter 2 and extends through the third chapter. This version of the story was written in the eighth century B.C. It is interesting to note that the second account is about 300 years older than the first. They are two different accounts and are not compatible with their "facts." Orthodox Christians insist that both stories must be true and compatible, even though they contradict each other on many points, as do the birth, death, and resurrection accounts in the New Testament. Admitting this, however, would hurt faith and faith always comes before facts to literalists. "Faith" sometimes, is what covers the facts so we are not uncomfortable. When all else fails, you will be lashed with "the wisdom of man is foolishness with God". That will pretty much end the discussion.

The simple fact is however, Adam/Eve and Original Sin never LITERALLY happened in space, time and history. The idea that man literally came in an instant just 6000 years ago in the form of an Adam and Eve is simply not based in FACT. It is mythology, and not an original one at that.

The hypothetical first man of the Bible was rightly named Adam, since the first Adam , which means "MAN" was made out of "adamah" which means "earth". Adam was not so much who he was, but what he was. The Romans called men "homo" since he was made out of "humus". And other mythologies have man made of clay and blood mixed and formed. It is a common origin story, not unique to Genesis. Taking a woman from male parts is also not unique to the Bible account.

Now all through the pages of the Bible, of course, it is considered a real event. That is the nature of the Bible. Or at least that is the nature of the Bible when read by literalists, who perhaps are unaware of any deeper, though not literally intended meaning.

A couple of years ago, while teaching an anatomy class for a massage class, I reminded them that they needed to know that humans had twelve pairs of ribs, ten fixed and two floating pairs. Several students brought up the with the Biblical story of human origins being literally true, informed me that "of course, men have one less rib than women " I said no, that women did not literally come from the rib of man , an expendable part, no matter how close to his heart the smooze might have you believe. The Genesis story was not explaining biology and human origins. One girl said she was telling her father and he'd be calling me. He never did... darn!

To get a non literalist view I suggest you read The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke or even The Christ Conspiracy by Archarya. While less pleasing in places, The Christ Conspiracy forces one to look at history and other possibilities. A good background on the mythology of the Adam and Eve accounts, and Goddess worship at the time the Bible was written, can be found in When God was a Woman as well.

Paul clearly plays off his belief in the literal truth of Adam and Eve to make a very ignorant point of supposed truth to the early Church. This "truth" is designed just as much to keep women out of the male church as the OT law was designed to keep women out of the male system.

"Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. FOR (this is the reason why to Paul) Adam was formed first, THEN Eve. And Adam was NOT deceived, but the woman being deceived, FELL into transgression. Nevertheless (I, Paul, still have a role for her to fulfill), she will be saved in childbearing (though painfully which was part of the punishment in Genesis), IF they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self control. I Timothy 2:11-15.

Do you honestly believe this is why women should not speak in a church, or if they have questions, go ask their husbands? I don't. So plainly Paul bases his teaching on a mythology that he believed to be literally true. It will also be asked if Jesus himself was a literal believer in Adam and Eve and Original Sin.

Perhaps you think I think they were all lying. I don't think they were lying for what they knew or believed, any more than I think Elijah or Jesus knew that remains of Neanderthals lay under their feet in Jerusalem or in Caves of Carmel. (They do). The answer is, of course Jesus believed it was literally true, or at least the writers who put their own reflections on Adam and Eve in Jesus mouth believed it. This was a COMMON practice in the writings of the time Western Christians are most unfamiliar with. "God said it, I believe it, that settles it for me" is the phrase that indicates a general ignorance as to how many conversations in the Bible are written. It is often written as fact, what the author imagines the character to have said in such an instance. Jesus' alone time in the Garden of comes to mind. Who wrote his prayer down? Did he tell the sleeping disciples what he said in his personal prayer minutes before his arrest. No.

It might also help to point out that Paul also believed that marriage was to avoid fornication but the best choice was to remain single like him. Do you believe that is valid thinking? I don't. Ask a Catholic Priest! Paul says a true widow, who lives in pleasure, is dead while she lives. (I Tim. 5:6). Do you believe that is a balanced truth about widows? Paul says younger widows will weaken and grow wanton against Christ and cast off their faith and marry, the marriage being the proof of her wantonness. Do you believe this? I don't.

Paul says weak people marry and single people think only of Jesus, while married people think only of pleasing their mate. Do you believe this? I don't. I know lots of mates who don't. I don't remember a lot of wives telling me ask their husbands to stop paying so much attention to them. I don't remember any singles so caught up with Jesus and the Church, I had to tell them stop it. Paul was naïve about relationships in the extreme. Perhaps because he seems not to have had any quality ones in his personal life given what we have about him. Paul said he had the power to lead around a wife. I doubt most women were interested in his power to lead them around.

In another place Paul says "for the man comes not from the woman, but the woman from the man" referring back to the Adam myth. Do you believe that biologically? I don't. No one does today, at least no one with an open, functioning mind not clouded by years of superstition, fear and compliance to the expectations of others.

One of the benefits of making mythology literally true is that one can formulate laws to prevent the literal problems from happening again. In the origins stories it is WOMEN who take the biggest hit. It is not possible to make laws against various things, or institute whole religious systems if the origin stories are perceived as mythical. They must to have literally happened to enforce literal laws and control people.

While not literally true, the story of the fall of woman and matriarchy, which it really is, has been used by the men of the Old Testament, predominately the controlling priesthood, to re-institute patriarchy and protect Israelite men from the dangers of surrounding Goddess worship.

It is no coincidence the great counselor to the female Goddesses (Astarte, Ishtar, Isis, and many more) of the nations around Israel, was the wise and benevolent Serpent. In a Goddess oriented society, birth and reproduction was the sole function of the female. This was real mystery to the male who could not connect the events of nine months previous to the birth. Women were mystical. They could produce humans. Remember, the male spermatozoa was not discovered until 1677 by Hamm and Leeuwenhoek and the female ovum by Baer until 1827! It is no coincidence that once the woman was again connected to the how of birth process after 1827, women began to demand equal rights again with men.

In a Goddess oriented society, women get a lot of respect as well. The Goddess could give her property to all her children. It did not matter who the fathers were. Specific paternity with multiple partners could not be proved. If they were hers, and she'd know, they were family! But this would not do in Israelite society. If Israelite men cohabited with "pagan women", property could go to these women when the man died and this was unacceptable. The nation was in danger. Matriarchy had to be prevented in Israel and Patriarchy installed to enforce paternity and the laws of inheritance.

The Goddess concept had to go. God now HAD to be male. And with a male God, only marriage could prove fatherhood and property rights of children. One woman to serve the one man. Any children would be his children and only his children would get the land. It would not be lost to a pagan wife or unmarried woman.

Remember too that women in the Patriarchal Israelite society were basically property. Much like we still see today in the Middle East. "You shall not covet your neighbors house (thing), your neighbors wife (thing), nor his male or female servants (things), or his ox , nor his donkey (things), nor any (thing) that is your neighbors" (Ex 20:17) .

In Genesis, Lot was able to barter his things, (daughters), to the town folk so that his guests would not be raped. (The rape of strangers was not sexual, it was to humiliate and warn them to not endanger the clan hometown). Lot was concerned about his image as being a safe and hospitable man to these men. When he fled Sodom he begged not to go Zoar, but rather the mountains, as he knew what his fate would be at the hands of some of the men of Zoar, symbolic humiliation.

In war, it was fine for Israelite soldiers to take the girls who could show signs of their virginity (don't even imagine it), and kill those who could not prove it. You can take your enemies' "things", just not your neighbors.

Most laws against sexuality were enforced, often fatally, to serve as warning to others and insure paternity. A woman was not stoned if raped in the country because she is assumed to have cried out for help and no one could hear. She was stoned for not crying out for help if raped in the city as this might indicate she was enjoying herself, and the paternity of the baby might not be known.

You might notice the pattern through history of first the Goddess alone, fertile and a mystery. Then as suspicion of a male role in birth arose, the Goddess takes a male consort, though always portrayed as smaller and less powerful than her. Then as connection between the male contribution to birth is more suspected, the consort becomes her equal and the shift that she becomes his equal occurs, as we see in Egyptian culture.

Next, the male begins to feel that he alone is the cause of the mystery of birth and the female is a mere incubator. Now we have the death of Matriarchy and the Goddess and the birth of male dominated Old Testament Patriarchy. We now have a God that doesn't even have a consort, needs no company, knows no female and reproduces all by himself.

From this we have the story fall of the goddess in Genesis 2, and her evil (though never alluded to as Satan... that was added later) serpent counselor. The fall, caused by Eve (the goddess) is the reason for every evil thing to come and why humanity is the way it is. Therefore, she now only gets to have babies painfully and be subject to the one man. This is the meaning of Genesis 2 and 3.

Let the Taliban open your eyes to the real results of the political, social and human fallout for women who still are victims of rabid patriarchy. In those "cultures" you can shoot women on the fifty yard line at soccer games for failing to wear the Burka, or behead fifty or so as you please, as was recently done in Iraq by Sadaam's son.

Let me be perfectly clear. The story of the fall of man or woman or both never literally happened. It is a mythology written for the purpose of derailing and dethroning goddess worship in ancient Israel. It is to avoid the attendant risks of losing land to pagan wives and men finding more theological satisfaction in Goddess worship and fertility rights than in being controlled body, mind, spirit by a male Priesthood with all it's attendant obligations.

New Testament authors reach back to The Fall as literally true for the same reasons. Modern Christian do the same, some thinking it is literally true, and many other individual pastors KNOWING it is not, but hey, "I'd lose my job".

So why do I bother to write about the mythology of Adam/Eve and Original Sin, and invite the scorn of literalists? Well first of all, I used to believe and teach it faithfully myself as a literal fact. As a pastor, I did not have the guts to publicly question church teaching. And by church, I mean all denominations. I am past that stage now and am seeking the simple truth for me and my life, which I will never again give over to the group, the organization or "the church". Had the information available to me today been available when I was younger, I never would have gone into the ministry. All denominations only teach what supports the view of some founding individual.

I have learned that when science makes a mistake, they generally examine it, admit it, change it and appreciate the information that can still be used. When religions make a mistake, they simply kill the person who pointed it out, and perpetuate the Dark Ages. It is no coincidence they arose shortly after the establishment of literalist Christianity with its torture, forced conversions, state sanctioned edicts of truth and deeply troubled wanna be's. I suggest a study on Martin Luther's attitude toward Jewish people to properly curl your toes and give you insight as to how the holocaust could have come about in Germany.

So back to the original premise. Adam and Eve did not literally exist in space and time. There was no Garden of Eden in the salt flats in southern Iraq. There was no talking serpent (a sure sign of a mythology). The events of the Fall have the deeply political and theological intent to dethrone goddess worship and thus all women from any special treatment or adoration save for having babies painfully and serving men. We, meaning every human to come along since, did not fall into sin because of Adam, from which we must be theologically extracted by bloodletting of any sort. If the events did not literally take place, the consequences did not either. Perhaps one can now feel they were born right the first time.

It's a long and painfully negative road to attempt to go from a being whose "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it" to the absolute requirement to become "perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect". No pressure to perform there!

I spent 26 years with these concepts. I met NO perfect people, "like your Father in heaven is perfect"--NONE. None were close. None were much on their way. I met a lot of wonderfully normal people, but also, a lot who never could feel quite good enough to be who they are, and a feeling somehow this is just not achievable.

Being told that it is God and the Holy Spirit that will now do this for us, or maybe to us (whether by unconditional love, which seemed to have lots of conditions, or by grace, which in practical fact had a lot of laws), never really helped. Even Paul, depending on the book he may or may not have literally authored, never quite seems sure where law and grace, faith and works converge, or if they do.

This is what literalist Christianity does to people. Literalist, Patriarchal Christianity thrives on division. If it has no enemy, it has no purpose or motivation. There can be no "we only" without a "not them". There can be no "chosen" without the "unchosen" . There can be no "converted" without "the unconverted". And certainly no "true church" without the "false church".

When it finally discovers (don't worry, it won't) that the inerrant and literally true Book is neither inerrant nor literally true, it will have to face the fact that literalist teachings, Christian or Fundamentalist Islam, have been responsible for more damnable repression and destruction of the body, mind and spirit than a literal Satan could ever dream of.

We're all here to learn. I don't ask you to see the world of religion and theology through my eyes, nor would most. I got here with my own experiences, curiosity and need to know. However, I do encourage you to see it through your own eyes, and not as interpreted for you by Apostles, Ayatollah's, Prophet's, Priests and King's.

Also by Dennis Diehl on The Missing Dimension

Sincerely

DenniscDiehl@aol.com