The Passion of Eve: Remembering the End

By Edward N Brown

This book is a story; a story based on multiple versions of accounts handed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, linking the time that the first human life was created to the time when somebody finally decided to write it down. It is a story that revolves around two primordial characters, Adam and Eve, and their experiences both in and outside of the Garden of Eden. The Biblical account has been with us for centuries. But science, history, and philosophy are ever presenting new perspectives. Worthy stories that interpret and expand the Genesis account, within the bounds of these new perspectives, are indispensable for clearing the mind, broadening our understanding, and instilling new wonder. And wonder is something at the core of what makes us human.

In this book, the people, places, and times are real. But the story is fiction. Or is it? Maybe this really is the way it played out. The emphasis here is not on event detail, but on Eve’s perception, consideration, and assessment of the events – the rational thought processes that preceded her decisions, her reasoning that tried to explain why things are as they are, and the prophetic insights she had that tried to predict how things might be in the future.

Immerse yourself in the thoughts and feelings of Eve, considered by many to be the progenitor of us all. What was she really thinking? How did it all actually happen? Read and contemplate. Then, putting away the effect of hindsight for the moment, you’ll be able to ask yourself, “Would I have acted like Eve did, if I had been in the same situation? Or would I have done otherwise? Just what would I have done?”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward N Brown
• Release date: Feb 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733827157

Edward N Brown

Edward N Brown is a researcher and storyteller who specializes in writing about topics revolving around antiquity, morality, science, Christianity, and human nature. With an educational background of three advanced degrees (PhD + two MS), his technique is to blend the interesting nuggets of fact, drama, mystery, romance, and spirituality - and mix them together into informative, but easy-reading, faith-based accounts of courage and heroism. His work represents an elegant fusion of style - action, dialog, thoughts, and depictions in riveting story form - excitement and intrigue that will inform, entertain, and inspire readers of all ages.

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Introduction

The Power of the Story

In some ways, the age-old act of listening to stories is a lot like examining the nature or operation of physical objects, looking at and perceiving images (moving or still), or contemplating and reflecting on abstract notions (such as mathematics or literature). The imagination is stimulated, the mental models are mesmerizing, and the excitement is captivating. You are immersed in an alternate reality, like a fantasy or dream.

But hey, this show is for real! You are not simply at the movies, watching TV, or immersed in interactive video. You are instead listening to someone telling a story, regardless of the media involved. Not just any old story of dry boring events and rambling words. But a story of adventure and intrigue! In this reality, you’re not safe and sound at home. Here, you’re on an away-mission! And on this mission, you’re on an astral plane, where you must be prepared for the new, the strange, and the unexpected! It’s not for the timid or the meek. Those set in their ways, or oblivious to the world around them, can remain comfortable in their humdrum living-rooms.

Your mission objective is to create, discover, and partake in new concepts and ideas – to understand new things. To design, to encounter, and to investigate are the new action catch verbs. But you must be prepared to suffer new emotions and new realizations, and to enter new realms of experience – for things will never again be quite the same. Prepare to think big and be challenged. Engage in flights of fancy, connect with spheres of magic, and dip into the orbits of the imagination. Expect a healthy dose of philosophy, history, design theory, theology, hard science, and human emotion. But also anticipate smaller doses of the mystic arts, such as spiritualism, the occult, angelology, and the paranormal. Along the way, the wild card is always faith and belief. Keep them close, for without them you will surely lose your way.

Yes, there are some special stories that hold special power over all of us. Ancient stories of faith and mysterious stories of hope – creation, covenant, good and evil, virtue and vice, life and death, resurrection and salvation – stories of how others before us dealt with the concepts, and coped with the dilemmas. These are the stories that affect our souls – stories that we hunger for – because there is a yearning deep within us to want to discover, to understand, and to experience.

For better or for worse, we are influenced by the stories we hear, see, read, and share. That is why the Christian liturgy, rich in scripture and stories of faith, has a deeply formative power. Over time, as we encounter the presence of God in the liturgy, we become what we receive. As darkness settles each night and we prepare to rest for a new day, again and again we turn to stories – in our thoughts and in our dreams – to remind us of who we are, what we are, and where we should be going. It’s in our nature to want to do what is good. But the dark forces of Satan are constantly seeking to thwart that desire.

Stories have the power to shape us in ways that turn us toward the Good and away from the Bad. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. It’s a simple act, but a good story can have positive life-changing consequences – both to the individual and to the world. Sharing a story, whether by radio, TV, book, computer, or word-of-mouth, helps us understand ourselves, our world, and our proper relationship with God – a powerful tool to spurn the Devil! This, then, is the POWER OF THE STORY.

The story of Adam and Eve, and the Beginning of our relationship with God, is so innately tied to our inner being, that it’s just in our nature to want to understand it. Whether myth or history, allegorical or literal, one fact remains – it’s a darn good story – a ‘tall-tale’ like no other! And besides, ‘origin’ stories usually sell good copy. So, what you read in this book is my contribution to the tale, and all the buzz surrounding the tale. I’ve tried to fill in the gaps that many people find disconcerting, usually not by just inventing things from my imagination (although sometimes that was done), but by researching the historical literature and then synthesizing a plausible story thread that, to me, is logically and historically sound; and which many of you may find personally satisfying –– or not!!

allegory

The Satanic Influence

Not too long ago, in a place far, far away, a council meeting was convened. Present in attendance were the top-ranking demons, fallen angels, and diabolical fiends who inhabit the realms of Hell, Sheol, and Hades. [1] Lucifer, [2] the Devil himself, the great Satan, presided. He banged his gavel on the table, called the meeting to order, and laid out the objective of the gathering: The time has come, he announced, "to devise a new plan to pervert, corrupt, and damn the human race. We need new conspiracies, intrigues, schemes, and ruses. We need new perversions, novel prevarications, ingenious corrupt inventions, and foul tricks to entice human beings away from our Enemy and closer to our level of darkness and degradation.

However, that is not to say that our previous plans have fallen short. On the contrary, our previous plans to lure humankind into our domain of evil have proven hugely successful.

There was a brief timeout for raucous applause and all-around pats-on-the-back.

We have seen many generations of human beings greedily accept our lies, misrepresentations, and deceptions. For example, our efforts to inundate the world with social progressivism, secular philosophy, and individualized morality have been working just super. Humans are being more and more convinced that historical standards are passé, like just another folktale shown to be irrelevant in today’s world. Starting with the young people, their belief that self-gratification and lust are synonymous with love, continues to grow.

With fiendish glee, he continued, In fact, they are believing now that immorality and sexual promiscuity are really ‘freedom’. They even call it ‘free love’! That sounds so utterly legitimate! And our efforts at deceiving humans into believing that they can create their own morals are moving ahead full steam. We’re using the educational system and mass media to great advantage, in order to present it to the average person as situational ethics or personal moral choice. ‘Personal choice’, that’s another great term. Even our emplaced slogans, like ‘Go for the gusto’ and ‘If it feels good, do it!’, are popping up everywhere!

Whereupon the hall where the dark ones were gathered spontaneously erupted in gratuitous self-congratulations.

As tangible proof that our efforts are paying off, many young people are now sincerely convinced that terminating a pregnancy, and killing a growing living fetus, is a perfectly normal and justifiable thing to do. It falls under the rubric of ‘It’s my body – I can do with it what I want’. They have all sorts of rationales for this: rape, incest, poverty, shame, health of the mother or the infant, etc. etc. etc. But the bottom line is that one more person joins our ranks, and one less person is born who could possibly expose our conspiracy. It really is a great time to be on our side!

Once more, wanton self-congratulations erupt.

After a bit, the Devil continued, Not only have we infected the minds of these human beings, but we have also infected their bodies. We have introduced the desires associated with pervasive substance abuse, chemical dependency, and contagious, fatal venereal diseases. New ways to enhance the old ills and tribulations of perversion, addiction, obsession, plague, and death have been instigated. Ah, the sheer diabolicalness of it!

Brilliant! Marvelous! roared the debased crowd, craving still more.

So the Devil continued, "But now we need to work harder at undergirding all of these wonderful, fiendish endeavors with more intense intellectual lies that we can disseminate into the thinking process of every human being. Let’s continue to tell the human race, with even more fervor than before, that contrary to what they innately know, God’s character is not goodness and love. God’s mission is not redemption and salvation. Let’s turn the tables on our Enemy and go about convincing human beings that God, not us, is their enemy. Let’s lie to them and persuade them that He is making them sick, that He is out to get them, that He is watching everything they do and is just waiting to ding them for any mistakes they make – that He is the one who is hurting and punishing them. We can whisper into the ears of anyone who prays, ‘God will never hear you. He won’t answer your prayer. Forget it. You can’t trust Him in your case. You’d better take matters into your own hands and forget about God.’

My comrades, I just know this will work. We’re already hearing complaints that say to the effect ‘Why would a just God allow this or that to happen?’ and ‘What kind of God would do this or that?’ We need to keep pressing.

Yes!  Yes!  God does not listen! God is not there for you, the demonic throng began to chant over and over.

Finally, the Devil hushed the entourage and uttered his final diatribe: "Now here is my final direction. We need to take all that I’ve previously said one step further. Move the ball downfield, so to speak. And this is a big step. But it may just be the game-changer – the winner!

"Human beings are innately proud and inquisitive creatures, so we need to capitalize on this weakness and emphasize the intellect. And here is where we find the kicker! We need to convince them that there is nothing supernatural outside the realm of their own senses – no demons, no angels, no Satan, no God – nothing. All that exists is explainable by their understanding of the ‘laws’ of physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics. We will appeal to their intellectual arrogance by calling this argument ‘SCIENTIFIC!’ They will believe that everything in existence can be reduced to a process or mechanism that is explainable within their understanding of natural laws. Science will become a new religion! Scientism will reign! It will be a worldview that is the trend of the times. A new movement in secular thought! We’ll even give it a special name, like the ‘New Atheism’, or ‘Evolutionary Humanism’, or something like that. Oh, how I like the sound of that! We will have a new mass of followers! No one will want to say that science is wrong, even though past history has shown that scientific theories are constantly being changed or overturned. It just won’t be socially acceptable. Religious and faith-based explanations will be treated with disdain and marginalized. In time, they’ll be viewed, with some snide amusement and a bit of snickering, as just another fringe group-think. And it will be devilishly subtle, like allowing for a ‘god-of-the-gaps’ viewpoint,[3] where god steadily vanishes as all of the gaps in science steadily vanish. Oh, how wonderfully heinous it will be! Religious adherents will be humored, pitied, and generally marginalized as throwbacks and old-schoolers. They will be caricaturized as bigoted ignoramuses, while at the same time, the New Atheists will be shown as modern benevolent intellectuals. Oh, what a wonderful plan! We will be able to snare vast multitudes of human beings into an intellectual morass from which they’ll never escape! Can you imagine it? We’ll convince those proud human beings that anything supernatural, whether good or bad, is just not valid reasoning because it is untenable, unintelligible, incomprehensible, and intellectually outrageous. In other words, it’s just not the current trend in thinking! ‘After all, this is the 21st century,’ we’ll say, ‘it’s time to move on and get with it!’

"And how about this? We can even change the notational system for time history from BC (Before Christ) to BCE (Before the Christian Era), eliminating the concept of a Christ and implying that Christianity is just another run-of-the-mill cult. Oh, how sinister, how diabolical, how cunningly clever this all is!

We should begin by debunking that concept of creation that they’ve been loosely hanging on to for about six thousand years. You all know how I hate that entire Garden of Eden episode. Yet it was one of my most glorious moments when I deceived those gullible creatures, Adam and Eve. We’ll convince the masses that it never happened – that it’s just a folk tale. We’ll point to the findings of science, and Darwinian evolution in particular. Oh, how they love that guy Darwin! We’ll convince them that humans are just another animal, not much different than an ape; just slightly higher up on the evolutionary scale, in the group known as hominids, but in most respects no different than any other primate. Our minions will repeatedly reinforce the message that humans are not special, that biology and chemistry can explain all behavior; that DNA and the human genome are just random happenstances that occurred because of the pressures of survival in the changing earth environment. They’ll believe it, they’re so gullible! In fact, they’ll build a whole sub-science around it, and call it ‘Mainstream’. They’ll teach it in all the schools and museums, and ridicule any other explanations based on supernatural intervention. They’ll call it ‘Evolution by Natural Selection’, and it will become the predominant theory in society. Amazingly, it will be considered scientific fact, people will swear by it, and creation by design will be relegated to the junk heap of history.

More cheering, shouting, hailing, applauding, clapping, and foot-stomping by the decadent crowd caused a brief respite. But then the Devil continued.

"And we’ll also point to the findings of astronomy. We’ll convince them that the Earth is just another insignificant, run-of-the-mill rock in space with no privilege or special attributes – just one more unimpressive pale blue dot out of billions and billions.[4] They’ll believe it, they’re so gullible! Once again, it will be considered scientific fact, people will swear by it, and creation by design will be relegated to the dust bin of history, the back heap of human intellectual progress. Oh, what a marvelous deception! I’m giddy with glee. This could be our finest hour!"

Hail! Hail! Salute! shouted the frenzied flock of fiends, until they nearly collapsed with exuberant exhaustion.

And the best part of all this, continued the Devil, is that it’s a win-win situation. If the humans buy into this, we win! If the humans don’t buy it, but believe that Darkness is the true way of the world and cannot be overcome by Light, then we win again! Wow! This could be the turning point that will eventually result in our overall victory! Let us proceed at once! Onward with malice aforethought!

Aye! Aye! Aye! reiterated the denizens of darkness. Go! Go! Go!  Now! Now! Now!, until the hall was filled with thunderous acclamation.

Then let it be done! Make it so! shouted the Devil. And so it was begun.

###

And ever since then, human beings have been fooled - taken in by this deception in vast numbers - totally oblivious to the origins of these most insidious and effective lies.[5] The resulting effect on human souls is known only to God. But take heart, Satan will be defeated – that outcome is assured. The war is already won – only the cost of victory is unknown. And the key to minimizing that cost is the manifestation of love and holiness – as expressed by acts of mercy, charity, and kindness [6]– and accompanied by faith. Devoted prayer to God, and to the saints and angels for intercession, is needed now more than ever.[7] Amen.

(Note:  The concepts involved in this section were partially extracted from a previous work by Irene Simmons, and used here with permission) [8]

1  birth and temptation of seth

God has granted me another child in place of Abel-

Genesis 4:25

M other, where did I come from? Such is the whining question from many a child throughout the world and throughout history. In the beginning, it was no exception.

The Year is approximately 5404 BC.

The Place is nearby the Cave of Treasures on the Holy Mountain, just west of the Garden of Eden.

Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, is 20 years old. He is an exuberant and inquisitive young man, but he has no friends, no buddies, and no peers. He spends a lot of time exploring the surrounding natural landscape and the sparse flora and fauna. But he spends an equal amount of time thinking, imagining, contemplating, and brooding. He yearns for someone like himself to relate to. But there are only his parents and his older sister Aklia, who is not the mentor type. He is content, but he seeks knowledge.

One day, Seth pops the question. Eve realizes that she needs to tell Seth the whole complex and problematical story – but perhaps best in multiple sittings.[9] So, at the proper time and in a comfortable setting, Eve relates the story of how the person of Seth came to be.

Final Temptation of Adam

"My dear son, listen