On Tue, 4 May 1999, Richard Keene wrote:

> I've seen this view of the fall being a allegory
> of the transition to agriculture.  I don't think so though.
>
> From God's viewpoint food just isn't that important.

Well, I don't want to invest too much in this interpretation of
scripture, but the main point of it is not about food so much as
it is about humanity's general mode of existence in relation to
the other creatures of the world.  In Quinn's terms, agriculture
initiated a "declaration of war" in which the world becomes a
place to be conquered and enslaved to needs of an expanding food
supply and human population.

In short, what we eat is a consequence of how we live.

It should be obvious, however, that Quinn doesn't view Genesis as
the word of God, so it would be a mistake to think of him as
proposing a *theology* of the transition from HG to agriculture.
For Quinn, "God's viewpoint" doesn't enter into it at all.  On
the contrary, in his philosophy the very idea of God's viewpoint
has been one of the tools that agriculture-based civilization has
used to supplant pre-agricultural societies.

Todd Moody
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