Several weeks ago, I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post by a Wiccan woman. In her post, she explained that Eve’s eating from the tree in Genesis was not sin or rebellion, but a step toward wisdom. I read through the post and though I appreciated her point of view – I did not think much of it afterward. The following day I saw another post – this time by a Gnostic man – who wrote about the same topic. 

I read through his post, which had a bit more detail about the origins of our world according to Gnostic belief systems. Again, I read through his post, appreciated his point of view, but did not think much about it afterward. 

Then it came up again. This time, it was a post from a former pastor of a mega church. He talked about Eve’s taste-testing from a formerly evangelical point of view – and again asserted (as the others had) that Eve merely sought wisdom, not rebellion. 

After seeing this pop up three separate times from strangers of three different backgrounds. I decided to do some light research to understand more about why this well-known Biblical account had been interpreted this way by so many different types of people. I also wondered if there were any seasonal ties to why this was coming up in my feed. 

What I ended up finding was a treasure trove of Gnostic writings. 

This was exciting to me because Gnosticism is actually one of the few spiritual paths that I’ve never explored. I’ve known about Gnosticism for a long time, but I’ve never taken the time to understand it. 

It got interesting, fast.

I learned that, according to Gnostic writings, a divine entity named Sophia (Wisdom) attempted to create her own version of God and failed. What she ended up creating was a lion-headed snake named Yaldabaoth (child of chaos), or Demiurge. Ashamed of her mistake, she tried to hide Yaldabaoth. She sealed him away from other divine beings in a luminous cloud, hoping that no one would see him. 

In isolation, Yaldabaoth believed that nothing else existed but him. This isolation led to his belief that he was the only god in existence. Yaldabaoth created the world we live in and declared himself God over our world…

…which would mean that the God most of us are taught to believe in is actually Yaldabaoth.  

According to Gnosticism, Yaldabaoth has us trapped in this world, Eve ate the fruit in search of the wisdom needed to free herself and Adam, and Jesus was sent as a messenger to free us all by revealing our divine origin and bringing about spiritual awakening. 

At first, I felt that it was a bit sacrilegious for me to even read a story like this. I know God. And the God I’ve known all my life is not malevolent or ignorant. The world that God created is beautiful, and I don’t see how someone so malevolent could create such beauty. But I’m also committed to learning and staying humble in my learning. I wasn’t around when the world was created. And just because I believe in one version of the creation story doesn’t make that version any more or less true than any of the others.

And that’s kind of what faith is. None of us were here at the beginning of time. None of us really know that what we believe to be true is, in fact, true. We make a decision to trust in one thing or another, and we commit to it. 

I’m not here to make decisions about what’s true. I’m just here to learn. 

In the spirit of learning, I started reading “The Gospel of Thomas,” one of the Gnostic texts. The Gospel of Thomas claims 114 sayings of Jesus that are similar to riddles and meant to be pondered to bring about spiritual awakening. Once I finish with my 30 day #QuotingQuran series, I can’t wait to blog through the Gospel of Thomas here and on my social media.

I hope you’ll follow along and learn some things with me!