"This is absurd," said the other gods. "How could Adam ever be so foolish as to imagine he had the knowledge that enables us to govern the world and to do what we will do? None of our creatures will ever be master of the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die. This knowledge is ours alone, and if Adam should grow in wisdom till the very eclipse of the universe, it would be as far beyond him as it is right now."

But the other was not disconcerted by this argument. "If Adam should eat of our tree," he persisted, "there's no telling how he might deceive himself. Not knowing the truth, he might say to himself, 'Whatever I can justify doing is good and whatever I cannot justify doing is evil.' "

But the others scoffed at this, saying, "This is not the knowledge of good and evil."

"Of course it's not," the other replied, "but how would Adam know this?"

The others shrugged. "Perhaps in childhood Adam might believe he was wise enough to rule the world, but what of it? Such arrogant foolishness would pass with maturity."

"Ah," said the other, "but possessed of this arrogant foolishness, would Adam survive survive into maturity? Believing himself our equal, he would be capable of anything. In his arrogance, he might look around the garden and say to himself, 'This is all wrong. Why should I have to share the fire of life with all these creatures? Look here, the lions and the wolves and the foxes take the game I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the rabbits and the grasshoppers and the sparrows take the fruits of the land that I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the gods have set a limit on my growth just as they've set a limit on the growth of all others. This is evil. I will grow without limit, taking all the fire of life that flows through this garden into myself, and that will be good.' Tell me-if this should happen, how long would Adam live before he had devoured the entire world?" into maturity? Believing himself our equal, he would be capable of anything. In his arrogance, he might look around the garden and say to himself, 'This is all wrong. Why should I have to share the fire of life with all these creatures? Look here, the lions and the wolves and the foxes take the game I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the rabbits and the grasshoppers and the sparrows take the fruits of the land that I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the gods have set a limit on my growth just as they've set a limit on the growth of all others. This is evil. I will grow without limit, taking all the fire of life that flows through this garden into myself, and that will be good.' Tell me-if this should happen, how long would Adam live before he had devoured the entire world?"

"If this should happen," the others said, "Adam would devour the world in a single day, and at the end of that day he would devour himself."

"Just so," the other said, "unless he managed to escape from this world. Then he would devour the entire universe as he had devoured the world. But even so he would inevitably end by devouring himself, as anything must that grows without limit."

"This would indeed be a terrible end for Adam," another said. "But might he not come to the same end even without having eaten at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself that this was good?"

"He might," the others agreed. "But what would be the result? He would become a criminal, an outlaw, a thief of life, and a murderer of the creatures around him. Without the delusion that what he was doing was good-and therefore to be done at any cost-he would soon weary of the outlaw's life. Indeed this is bound to happen during his quest for the Tree of Life. But if he should eat of the tree of our knowledge, then he will shrug off his weariness. He will say, 'What does it matter that I'm weary of living as a murderer of all the life around me? I know good and evil, and this way of living is good. Therefore I must live this way even though I'm weary unto death, even though I destroy the world and even myself. The gods wrote in the world a law for all to follow, but it cannot apply to me because I'm their equal. Therefore I will live outside this law and grow without limit. To be limited is evil. I will steal the fire of life from the hands of the gods and heap it up for my growth, and that will be good. I will destroy those kinds that do not serve my growth, and that will be good. I will wrest the garden from the hands of the gods and order it anew so that it serves only my growth, and that will be good. And because these things are good, they must be done at any cost. It may be that I'll destroy the garden and make a ruin of it. It may be that my progeny will teem over the earth like locusts, stripping it bare, until they drown in their own filth and hate the very sight of one another and go mad. Still they must go on, because to grow without limit is good and to accept the limits of the law is evil. And if any say, "Let's put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again," I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And if any say, "Let's turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree," I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And when at last all the garden has been subjugated to my use and all kinds that do not serve my growth have been cast aside and all the fire of life in the world flows through my progeny, still I must grow. And to the people of this land I will say, "Grow, for this is good," and they will grow. And to the people of the next land I will say, "Grow, for this is good," and they will grow. And when they can grow no more, the people of this land will fall upon the people of the next to murder them, so that they may grow still more. And if the groans of my progeny fill the air throughout the world, I will say to them, "Your sufferings must be borne, for you suffer in the cause of good. See how great we have become! Wielding the knowledge of good and evil, we have made ourselves the masters of the world, and the gods have no power over us. Though your groans fill the air, isn't it sweeter to live in our own hands than in the hands of the gods?" ' "

And when the gods heard all this, they saw that, of all the trees in the garden, only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could destroy Adam. And so they said to him, "You may eat of every tree in the garden save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree you will certainly die."

7.

I sat there dazed for a while, then I recalled seeing a bible in Ishmael's odd collection of books. In fact, there were three. I fetched them and after a few minutes of study looked up and said, "None of these has any comment to make on why this tree should have been forbidden to Adam."

"Were you expecting them to?"

"Well . . . yes."

"The Takers write the notes, and this story has always been an impenetrable mystery to them. They've never been able to figure out why the knowledge of good and evil should have been forbidden to man. Don't you see why?"

"No."

"Because, to the Takers, this knowledge is the very best knowledge of all-the most beneficial for man to have. This being so, why would the gods forbid it to him?"

"True."

"The knowledge of good and evil is fundamentally the knowledge the rulers of the world must exercise, because every single thing they do is good for some but evil for others. This is what ruling is all about, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And man was born to rule the world, wasn't he?"

"Yes. According to Taker mythology."

"Then why would the gods withhold the very knowledge man needs to fulfill his destiny? From the Taker point of view, it makes no sense at all."

"True."

"The disaster occurred when, ten thousand years ago, the people of your culture said, 'We're as wise as the gods and can rule the world as well as they.' When they took into their own hands into their own hands the power of life and death over the world, their doom was assured." the power of life and death over the world, their doom was assured."

"Yes. Because they are not in fact as wise as the gods."

"The gods ruled the world for billions of years, and it was doing just fine. After just a few thousand years of human rule, the world is at the point of death."

"True. But the Takers will never give it up."

Ishmael shrugged. "Then they'll die. As predicted. The authors of this story knew what they were talking about."

8.

"And you're saying this story was written from a Leaver point of view?"

"That's right. If it had been written from the Taker point of view, the knowledge of good and evil wouldn't have been forbidden to Adam, it would have been thrust thrust upon him. The gods would have hung around saying, 'Come on, Man, can't you see that you're nothing without this knowledge? Stop living off our bounty like a lion or a wombat. Here, have some of this fruit and you'll instantly realize that you're naked-as naked as any lion or wombat: naked to the world, powerless. Come on, have some of this fruit and become one of us. Then, lucky you, you can leave this garden and begin living by the sweat of your brow, the way humans are supposed to live.' And if people of your cultural persuasion had authored it, this event wouldn't be called the Fall, it would be called the Ascent-or as you put it earlier, the Liberation." upon him. The gods would have hung around saying, 'Come on, Man, can't you see that you're nothing without this knowledge? Stop living off our bounty like a lion or a wombat. Here, have some of this fruit and you'll instantly realize that you're naked-as naked as any lion or wombat: naked to the world, powerless. Come on, have some of this fruit and become one of us. Then, lucky you, you can leave this garden and begin living by the sweat of your brow, the way humans are supposed to live.' And if people of your cultural persuasion had authored it, this event wouldn't be called the Fall, it would be called the Ascent-or as you put it earlier, the Liberation."

"Very true. . . . But I'm not quite sure how this fits in with everything else."

"We are furthering your understanding of how things came to be this way how things came to be this way."

"I don't get it."

"A minute ago, you told me that the Takers will never give up their tyranny over the world, no matter how bad things get. How did they get to be this way?"

I goggled at him.

"They got to be this way because they've always believed that what they were doing was right right-and therefore to be done at any cost whatever. They've always believed that, like the gods, they know what is right to do and what is wrong to do, and what they're doing is right right. Do you see how they've demonstrated what I'm saying?"

"Not offhand."

"They've demonstrated it by forcing everyone in the world to do what they they do, to live the way do, to live the way they they live. Everyone had to be forced to live like the Takers, because the Takers had the one live. Everyone had to be forced to live like the Takers, because the Takers had the one right right way." way."

"Yes, I can see that."

"Many peoples among the Leavers practiced agriculture, but they were never obsessed by the delusion that what they were doing was right right, that everyone in the entire world had to practice agriculture, that every last square yard of the planet had to be devoted to it. They didn't say to the people around them, 'You may no longer live by hunting and gathering. This is wrong. This is evil, and we forbid it. Put your land under cultivation or we'll wipe you out.' What they said was, 'You want to be huntergatherers? That's fine with us. That's great. We want to be agriculturalists. You be huntergatherers and we'll be agriculturalists. We don't pretend to know which way is right right. We just know which way we prefer prefer.' "

"Yes, I see."

"And if they got tired of being agriculturalists, if they found they didn't like where it was leading them in their particular adaptation, they were able able to give it up. They didn't say to themselves, 'Well, we've got to keep going at this even if it kills us, because this is the to give it up. They didn't say to themselves, 'Well, we've got to keep going at this even if it kills us, because this is the right right way to live.' For example, there was once a people who constructed a vast network of irrigation canals in order to farm the deserts of what is now southeastern Arizona. They maintained these canals for three thousand years and built a fairly advanced civilization, but in the end they were free to say, 'This is a toilsome and unsatisfying way to live, so to hell with it.' They simply walked away from the whole thing and put it so totally out of mind that we don't even know what they called themselves. The only name we have for them is one the Pima Indians gave them: Hohokam-those who vanished. way to live.' For example, there was once a people who constructed a vast network of irrigation canals in order to farm the deserts of what is now southeastern Arizona. They maintained these canals for three thousand years and built a fairly advanced civilization, but in the end they were free to say, 'This is a toilsome and unsatisfying way to live, so to hell with it.' They simply walked away from the whole thing and put it so totally out of mind that we don't even know what they called themselves. The only name we have for them is one the Pima Indians gave them: Hohokam-those who vanished.

"But it's not going to be this easy for the Takers. It's going to be hard as hell for them to give it up, because what they're doing is right right, and they have to go on doing it even if it means destroying the world and mankind with it."

"Yes, that's the way it seems."

"Giving it up would mean . . . what?"

"Giving it up would mean . . . It would mean that all along they'd been wrong wrong. It would mean that they'd never never known how to rule the world. It would mean . . . relinquishing their pretensions to godhood." known how to rule the world. It would mean . . . relinquishing their pretensions to godhood."

"It would mean spitting out the fruit of that tree and giving the rule of the world back to the gods."

"Yes."

9.

Ishmael nodded to the stack of bibles at my feet. "According to the authors of that story, the people living between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers had eaten at the gods' own tree of knowledge. Where do you suppose they got that idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever gave the authors of this story the idea that the people living in the Fertile Crescent had eaten at the gods' tree of knowledge? Do you suppose they saw it with their own eyes? Do you suppose they were there when your agricultural revolution began?"

"I suppose that's a possibility."

"Think. If they'd been there to see it with their own eyes, who would they have been?"

"Oh . . . right. They would have been the people of the Fall. They would have been the Takers."

"And if they'd been Takers, they would have told the story a different way."

"Yes."

"So the authors of this story were not there to see it with their own eyes. How then did they know it had happened? How did they know that the Takers had usurped the role of the gods in the world?"

"Lord," I said.

"Who were were the authors of this story?" the authors of this story?"

"Well . . . the Hebrews?"

Ishmael shook his head. "Among the people known as the Hebrews, this was already an ancient story-and a mysterious story. The Hebrews stepped into history as Takers-and wanted nothing more than to be like their Taker neighbors. Indeed, that's why their prophets were always bawling them out."

"True."

"So, though they preserved the story, they no longer fully understood it. To find the people who understood it, we have to find its authors. And who were they?"

"Well . . . they were the ancestors of the Hebrews."

"But who were they they?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea."

Ishmael grunted. "Look, I can't forbid you to say, 'I have no idea,' but I do insist that you spend a few seconds thinking thinking before you say it." before you say it."

I spent a few seconds at it, just to be polite, then I said, "I'm sorry. My grasp of ancient history is frankly negligible."

"The ancient ancestors of the Hebrews were the Semites."

"Oh."

"You knew that, didn't you?"

"Yes, I guess so. I just . . ."

"You just weren't thinking."

"Right."

Ishmael bestirred himself, and to be perfectly honest, my stomach clenched as the half ton of him brushed past my chair. If you don't know how gorillas make their way from place to place on the ground, you can visit the zoo or rent a National Geographic National Geographic videotape; no words of mine will make you see it. videotape; no words of mine will make you see it.

Ishmael lumbered or shambled or shuffled over to the bookcase and returned with an historical atlas, which he handed to me open to a map of Europe and the Near East in 8500 B.C. A blade like a hand sickle very nearly cut the Arabian peninsula away from the rest. The words Incipient Agriculture Incipient Agriculture made it clear that the sickle blade enclosed the Fertile Crescent. A handful of dots indicated sites where early farming implements had been found. made it clear that the sickle blade enclosed the Fertile Crescent. A handful of dots indicated sites where early farming implements had been found.

"This map, I feel, gives a false impression," Ishmael said, "though it was not an intended impression. It gives the impression that the agricultural revolution took place in an empty world. This is why I prefer my own map." He opened his pad and showed it to me.

[image]

"As you see, this shows the situation five hundred years later. The agricultural revolution is well under way. The area in which farming is taking place is indicated by these henscratches." Using a pencil as a pointer, he indicated the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates. "This, of course, is the land between the rivers, the birthplace of the Takers. And what do you suppose all these dots represent?"

"Leaver peoples?"

"Exactly. They're not designed as a statement about population density. Nor are they intended to indicate that every available stretch of land was inhabited by some Leaver people. What they indicate is that this was far from being an empty world. Do you see what I'm showing you?"

"Well, I think so. The land of the Fall lay within the Fertile Crescent and was surrounded by nonagriculturalists."

"Yes, but I'm also pointing out that at this time, at the beginning of your agricultural revolution, these early Takers, the founders of your culture, were unknown, isolated, unimportant. The next map in that historical atlas is four thousand years later. What would you expect to see on it?"

"I'd expect to see that the Takers have expanded." He nodded, indicating that I should turn the page. Here a printed oval, labeled Chalcolithic Cultures Chalcolithic Cultures, with Mesopotamia at its center, enclosed the whole of Asia Minor and all the land to the north and east as far as the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The oval extended southward as far as the entrance to the Arabian peninsula, which was a crosshatched area labeled Semites Semites.

"Now," Ishmael said, "we have some witnesses."

"How so?"

"The Semites were not eyewitnesses to the events described in chapter three of Genesis." He drew a small oval in the center of the Fertile Crescent. "Those events, cumulatively known as the Fall, took place here, hundreds of miles north of the Semites, among an entirely different people. Do you see who they were?"