Kafka is certainly up my alley. But his interpretation of the myth sounded crypto-theistic to me. Was that your translation of the German? Either way, I appreciate your posting of it, but I was somewhat disappointed by his reading of the myth. I have high standards for Kafka and for how that Rorschach test (of interpreting the Fall story) should be passed, precisely because the myth is so profound. But his interpretation didn’t strike me as especially original or insightful.
The part that stands out for me is his claim that “We were fashioned to live in Paradise; Paradise was destined to serve us. Our destiny has been altered.” I don’t know if he was speaking for himself there or was assuming that for the sake of argument, putting himself in the shoes of the Genesis authors or of the average religious reader. But any straightforward theistic interpretation of the myth is bound to bore me.
If Eden is just the Stone Age wilderness, there should be no talk of destiny, intelligent design, or even of paradise. The wilderness was no paradise. It only seems so to nostalgic conservatives or because we confuse the remote past with our civilized childhood. The myth should also be read against the Epic of Gilgamesh. Maybe I should write up my interpretation of the myth in an article.
Kafka’s point about our tragically dual nature or our natural hobbling is fine. It reminded me of one of Kazantzakis’s Zoroastrian descriptions of God in “The Saviors of God”:
“My God is not All-knowing. His brain is a tangled skein of light and darkness which he strives to unravel in the labyrinth of the flesh.
He stumbles and fumbles. He gropes to the right and turns back; swings to the left and sniffs the air. He struggles above chaos in anguish. Crawling, straining, groping for unnumbered centuries, he feels the muddy coils of his brain being slowly suffused with light.
On the surface of his heavy, pitch-black head he begins with an indescribable struggle to create eyes by which to see, ears by which to hear.
My God struggles on without certainty. Will he conquer? Will he be conquered? Nothing in the Universe is certain. He flings himself into uncertainty; he gambles all his destiny at every moment.
He clings to warm bodies; he has no other bulwark. He shouts for help; he proclaims mobilization throughout the Universe.
It is our duty, on hearing his Cry, to run under his flag, to fight by his side, to be lost or to be saved with him.
God is imperiled. He is not almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He is not all-holy, that we may wait trustingly for him to pity and to save us.
Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we be saved unless he is saved.
We are one. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endless arena of the Galaxy, only one person struggles and is imperiled: You. And within your small and earthen breast only one thing struggles and is imperiled: the Universe.”
