I have long thought that the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall of Adam and Eve as an allegory for the advent of civilization – and specifically the transition from hunter/gatherer existence to agricultural toil. The timelines don’t quite match up (7000 years since the fall of man, 10,000 years since the establishment of agriculture in the fertile crescent), but even so, the journey of Adam and Eve describes perfectly the loss of cohesion with the natural world and the separation of humans from the animal world.

Thinking about it this morning – I’ve discovered an interesting argument for that line of thought here.

I find it curious that upon the transition to agriculture, cities and so forth – humans have felt such a great need to pretend superiority from the natural world even as we devise whole core mythologies that lament our losses.