In a forum discussion yesterday, the question arose about the significance of the first creation account compared to the second. I argued that the so-called paradise in the second creation account was a rather unpleasant place, whereupon a course participant posted a poem by Heinrich Heine that I was unfamiliar with.
Heinrich Heine — “Adam the First”
You sent with the flaming sword
The heavenly gendarmes,
And chased me out of paradise,
Completely without justice and mercy!
I'm moving away with my wife
To other lands on earth;
But that I enjoyed the fruit of knowledge,
You can't change that anymore.
You can't change that I know
How small and insignificant you are,
And no matter how much you
Important through death and thunder.
O God, how miserable this is
Consilium-abeundi!
That's what I call a Magnificus
To the world, a Lumen Mundi!
I will never miss
The paradisiacal spaces;
This was not a true paradise —
There were forbidden trees there.
I want my full freedom!
If I find the slightest restriction,
Paradise is transformed for me
In hell and prison.
Source: Wikisource
Heine certainly didn't make himself popular with theologians with this. However, they often overlook the fact that the paradise story itself is an ironic allegory and critically questions not the supreme being itself, but rather the anthropomorphic and grotesquely materialistic concept of God.
Heinrich Heine’s poem is therefore by no means as revolutionary as those revolutionary days in Berlin in March 1830. For those who want to delve deeper into the topic, I recommend not only to take a closer look at Heinrich Heine’s poem, but also to compare its symbolism with this very second creation account to compare!
