It All Begins in the Garden

I think a very good case could be made for mimesis gone bad as the reason for the fall. The serpent entices Eve....whispering seductively..."did God really say?" "He knows that the day you eat thereof your eyes will be opened and you shall be like God. God has something he isn't willing to share with you, something he is trying to keep for himself. Something you can't have!! "And then Adam "caught" his desire from her. And acquisitive mimesis was born.

I've heard people question why God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden to begin with. Perhaps it is symbolic of mimesis. (JUST musing here...this is all hot of the press ponderings) Mimesis is necessary for us to learn to do all the things we need to learn to grow from a baby to a full grown adult. It is by mimicking others (our parents, grandparents, siblings) that we learn to talk and eat and all the other eccentricities that form our cultures. If the tree of good and evil is symbolic for mimesis, God couldn't have "left it out of the Garden." I'm not sure how that fits with the Tree of Life...will have to ponder that a bit more.

So anyway, mimetic rivalry may very well have begun in the Garden and we all know "the rest of the story" (Thanks, Paul Harvey)

More to follow.....