“Of all wordly passions, lust is the most intense. All other wordly passions seem to follow in its train.” Buddha
As soon as the former androgyne couple saw their own bare bodies, which resulted from the side-effects of eating unwashed fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad, Adam became panicky, Eve giggled, but being a practical woman she apparently started thinking about making some temporary covering for their nudity. This is a story that the biblical translators want us to buy “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that there were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” When we decipher the Hebrew text a very different story emerges. Ancient people often used the word “nakedness” as a polite term for sexual organs. The Serpent, male or female, was there probably to initiate the newly formed heterosexual beings into the mysteries of sexual life. After consuming the fruits of their newly-acquired knowledge, they became aware of their anatomical differences which, in turn, stirred up their lust and the urge to explore their unfamiliar abilities. As Buddha rightly observed, lust, that most intensive of all human passions was there in the beginning. It was the consummation of the sexual act that the timid biblical translators called “sewing of fig leaves as pants to cover their genitals”. I must depart here briefly from semantics and plunge into semiotics – the science of interpreting signs and gestures. One of the very ancient gestures, present in many cultures but having different meanings, has been the thumb clasped between the middle and the index fingers. It is usually called the fig sign and in some societies it has strong sexual significance. In English, we use fig as a symbol of defiance *I don’t give a fig*, and Adam and Eve were certainly defying the order of JE and, frightened by their disobedience, dived into the bushes, hoping the All-seeing Owner of Eden won’t find them. But why did the translators use the rather uncomfortable fig leaves as the couples loin-wraps? Because Hebrew word “fig or fig leaves –tenah”, without diacritical signs- looks identical with the word “taanah – copulation, sexual lust” (ThANH) (Jer.2:24). The same verse in true translation reads now: “Then they became aware of their sexual organs and copulated.” As simple as that. More about this interesting subject of the symbolism of the fig sign on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_gesture#Fig_sign
PS. Fresh figs are actually quite delicious as an hors d’oeuvre with melted goat cheese. Try it and you may know what lust for figs means.J
Tags: Fig leaves symbolism, finger sign, lust, semiotics
