Adam's disobedience there would have been no death in the world and Paradise would have remained in man's possession forever. But there is not the shadow of a foundation in the story as told in the bible for such an inference. The bible teaches the very opposite of what the churches hold. Adam is driven from Paradise to prevent him from becoming immortal by eating also of the tree of life. If God really wished the happiness of man, he would, instead of warning him against magical trees, have instructed him in the things that preserve life and promote joy. He would have told Adam and Eve how to love one another, to moderate their desires, and to labor daily for beauty as well as for bread. He would have warned them, not against the tree of knowledge, but against the cunning, crafty serpent, of whose existence he leaves them in utter ignorance. If the bible God were really the friend of man, he would never have pitted two inexperienced children like Adam and Eve against Satan, the Lord of hell, and a match for God Almighty himself. And in the hour of danger the Lord was not there to help his little ones! He left them alone with the fiend who plays with loaded dice! By whose permission did the devil make his appearance in Paradise? And was there a devil before Adam fell? What a story! Created and concealed in Eden, there was a devil, a monster, who springs upon the first human pair, and they bleed to death in his clutches; and "the Lord God" does not appear on the scene until after the devil has retired. And this is the being whom we must call "Our Father"! We are unable to find in the bible either a paradise or a father. We have been taught to believe that where the devil is

there is hell; the devil was in the Garden of Eden, therefore, the Garden of Eden could not have been truly a Paradise. And had God really been a " father," he would never have forgotten to warn his children against the serpent and his deadly sting.

But the story as told in Genesis is more creditable to the Evil One than to "the Lord God." The devil told the truth to Eve when he assured her that "In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." His statement squares with the facts. He did not deceive them. Nor did he coax, or urge them to eat of the fruit of the tree. Adam and Eve were left to do as they pleased. The devil did not threaten them with dire consequences if they refused to obey his word. No attempt was made to scare or stampede" them into plucking the forbidden fruit. All he did was to tell them exactly what would happen if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; and then he retired. Let us place in parallel columns the words spoken by the serpent, or the devil whom he is supposed to have personified, and those of the Lord God:

The Lord God said:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.*

And the serpent said:

Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.†

Which of the two speakers told the truth? Adam and Eve did not die on the day they ate of the tree, as God had said they would - Adam lived to be nine

*This was spoken to Adam alone, for as yet Eve was not created. See Genesis ii, 16, 17.

† Ibid. iii, 5.

hundred years old know good and evil, just as the devil had predicted. We have already anticipated and answered the argument that when God said they would die on the day they ate of the forbidden tree, he meant they would become mortal. They were not immortal before they had tasted of the fruit, since God expelled them from Eden to prevent them from eating also of the tree of life and becoming immortal.

and their eyes were opened to

To few of the readers of the bible has it ever occurred that the first commandment God ever gave to man practically made the acquisition of knowledge a crime. The truth is that the first commandment of every revealed religion is a "Thou shalt not know." According to Genesis, the Lord offered a Paradise to man on condition that he steer clear of knowledge. There has been considerable discussion as to the precise location of the Garden of Eden. But if we do not know where the Garden of Eden was, we know very well what it was. The Garden of Eden was Ignorance. This is the Paradise which the revealed religions offer to man. To know is to be expelled from Paradise. After God had placed Adam in Paradise, that is to say, in a state of ignorance, he said to him: "Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge," threatening him at the same time with death on the day that he ate of the fruit of that tree. Everything else was permitted save the acquisition of knowledge. On the day that man opened his eyes he lost the paradise of the gods - Ignorance!

It has been customary to trace modern scepticism, or free inquiry, to the eighteenth century, or to the Renaissance; but in reality modern thought began with

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Adam in the Garden of Eden-assuming for the time being the correctness of the narrative. Man broke the very first commandment the gods ever gave, Thou shalt not know," and by so doing he became himself a menace to the gods. That is very interesting. It was not man who died on the day the fruit of knowledge was plucked; it was the gods. "Take care!" said man to God. "Take care! The day on which I eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge thou shalt die!"

It is now admitted by the foremost biblical scholars that there are really two different stories of the creation of man in the first and second chapters of the bible. The universe is called into being by Elohim in the first; while Jahve is the name of the creator in the second. Another important difference between the two accounts of the creation is that in the one, man appears before the deity has completed the creation of the heaven and the earth; while in the other man is the last thing God creates. It will be observed also that there is not a word said in the second account about man being made in the image of God, or of his being created male and female; while there is nothing in the first account about a garden or a forbidden tree. On the contrary, in the earlier story every tree is given for "meat" unto the man and the woman, who were created at the same time, and not the one out of a rib of the other, and at a later time, as is related in the second account. In the first, or Elohistic story, God blesses Adam and Eve and commands them to "be fruitful and multiply"; in the second, or Jehovistic story, child-bearing is not a blessing, but a curse pronounced upon the woman for having eaten of the forbidden fruit. Eve has no offspring until she is expelled from Paradise in the second

version, while in the first, Adam and Eve are commanded from the start to "multiply and replenish the earth."

But why are both stories published? In all probability, to satisfy both the Elohistic and Jehovistic factions. It is also probable that the different accounts are the work of different compilers or collectors of news. The bible gives many signs of being a miscellany of floating reports and rumors, or "they says," picked up here and there, and put together very loosely. Nor should we be surprised at the differences between the Elohistic and Jehovistic writers, for they are not more hopelessly at variance with each other than are the evangelists who tell the story of Jesus.

W

II.

Taboo and Totem.

HAT is the most probable explanation of the Garden of Eden story, whether in its Babylonian or Hebrew form? To answer this question and also to help explain many of the institutions and ceremonial observances in the bible, it will be necessary to acquaint ourselves with the meaning of certain words, such as taboo, totem and magic. The word taboo has come into the modern language from the Polynesian, and it means forbidden. And yet there is a fundamental difference between a thing which is forbidden in the English sense of that word, and a thing which is taboo in the sense which primitive races attached to that word. For example, when we see a notice which reads, "Passengers are forbidden to stand on the plat