A psychological analysis of the story of Adam and Eve

Since the beginning of time, religion has directed both kings and peasants. The idea of a God and an afterlife, offered humans both hope and meaning, without which human life becomes unbearable. Even though Nietzsche proclaimed God dead, billions of people are still dependent on religion and the its promises.

However, today, people are more divided than ever on the meaning of religion. Some people claim that the stories in the Holy Books, such as Torah , did really happen and every word is a fact. Others insist that the stories carry a significant psychological importance and one can derive valuable life lessons from them.

In this article, I will analyze the story of Adam and Eve, as it’s told in the Bible . Rest assured that none of my personal beliefs will be projected, and the analysis will be completely psychological. References to Jungian Psychology will also be present. Bear in mind that the following interpretation is my wrong and can be different from yours, no interpretation is wrong, as long as it is constructed in a logical way and supported by evidence and arguments.

The story of Adam starts in Genesis 2, where God “plants a garden in the east, in Eden”. The garden is full of trees and rivers, and in the middle of it there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. God commanded Adam not to eat from that tree. Soon after, God created birds and animals and a woman, so that Adam won’t feel alone. This part of the story ends with “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” — a very important statement, that we will come back to later.

Genesis 3 starts with a serpent(Satan), tempting Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge and give some to Adam. So she does and “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked;”. Then Adam heard God walk in the garden and tried to hide from him, because he was naked and ashamed. God quickly realized that they had eaten from the tree he forbid them to to eat from. And severely punished all women and men, by kicking them out of Eden. “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” — God.

The general story can be interpreted in several ways. For example as the conflict of fathers and sons, since Freud considers God as a perfect father figure. But the Jungian interpretation of the story claims that the story is the archetypal description of the development of the human psyche. Before diving in, there are several Jungian terms that we should describe. Jung claims that men have an unconscious feminine side — Anima and women have an unconscious masculine side — Animus. In his book Aion, he also draws parallels between the Self and God. Jung believes that in the beginning(the womb), the human psyche and God(Self) are the one. But the creation of Adam and Eve is the development of Ego, which revolts against the Self. Also, notice how Eve is created from Adam’s ribs, indicating the unity of the masculine and feminine in the beginning — Anima and Animus in one.

This is my favorite interpretation, because many Christians claim that the story of Adam is a tragic one, but consider that at the end they got the knowledge of good and evil — their eyes opened. This corroborate with the Jungian theory since the development of the psyche leads to maturity and intelligence.

Also, we should consider the relationship of the serpent to the Garden of Eden. If you have heard of Jordan Peterson, then you are definitely aware of his interpretation of the Yin and Yang symbol. He claims that the black and white symbolize chaos and order. In order to live a good life, there has to be some order in chaos and some chaos in order. We can connect this with the story. The Garden of Eden was the Yang, order with a little bit of chaos — Adam needed to farm and there was a serpent — a sign of chaos.

Next point we should focus on is their nakedness. Before eating out of the tree, they were completely fine with being naked. But it’s the knowledge that made them ashamed. Why? What does it mean psychologically and what lesson does it carry?

Nakedness is vulnerability. When you are naked exposed and can easily be endangered by cold, predators or others judgement. In heaven, there was no danger, but in the real world, and with their eyes opened, Adam and Eve could easily be preyed upon by the real world. In a way tree of knowledge gave them self-consciousness.

There are many more symbols to be analyzed in the story, and if you are indeed interested, I suggest you do further research yourself. I hope you liked this article, its my first one on Medium. I’ll try to improve myself and I hope you can support me.

Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it!