A common misinterpretation of the Adam and Eve story is that the "original sin" had something to do with sex or nudity. This confusion comes from that part of the story in which Adam and Eve eat from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" and immediately become ashamed of their nakedness. It was not nudity, however, that shamed them.
    Adam and Eve were mortified by what their nakedness re presented. Ancient Mesopotamian records depict human beings stark naked when performing tasks for their Custodial masters. Custodians, on the other hand, were depicted as being fully clothed. The implication is that Adam and Eve felt degraded by their nakedness because it was a sign of their enslavement—not because being naked in itself is bad..
.......The ancient version is that an extraterrestrial society had come to possess Earth and sought to exploit the planet's resources. To make the exploitation easier, a work race was created: Homo sapiens. Humans were treated as livestock and were frequently butchered when they became too numerous or troublesome. To preserve Homo sapiens as a slave race and to prevent future rebellion, spiritual knowledge was repressed, human beings were scattered geographically into different linguistic groups, and conditions were created to make physical survival on Earth an all-consuming chore from birth until death. This arrangement was to be maintained indefinitely for as long as the Custodial society possessed Earth. In contrast, the modern view is that human beings had evolved accidentally from "star stuff" into slime, into fishes, into monkeys, and finally into people. The modern view actually seems more fanciful than the ancient one.
    In the story of Adam and Eve we noted the appearance of a snake. The serpent was said to be "God's" enemy, Satan, who had literally transformed himself into a reptile. The Bible suggests that snakes are feared and disliked today because of Satan's alleged transformation back in the Garden of Eden. However, it should be remembered that the Biblical Adam and Eve story is entirely symbolic. The snake, too, was a symbol, not an actual reptile. To determine what the Biblical snake represented, we must go back once again to older pre-Biblical sources.
    When we do so, we discover that the snake symbol had two very important meanings in the ancient world: it was associated with the Custodial "god" Ea, reputed creator and benefactor of mankind, and it also represented an influential organization with which Ea was associated.

According to the Epic, a Babylonian named Utnapishtim was approached by Prince Ea, who opposed the decision to destroy his creation, Homo sapiens. Ea told Utnapishtim that the other "gods" planned to cause a deluge to wipe out the human race. Ea, who is described in other writings as a master shipbuilder and sailor, gave Utnapishtim instructions on how to build a boat which could survive the flood.
    Utnapishtim followed Ea's directions and, with the help of friends, completed the vessel before the flooding began. Utnapishtim then loaded the boat with his gold, family, and livestock, along with craftsmen and wild animals, and hoisted off to sea. Babylonian and Assyrian tablets relate that just prior to flooding the land, the Custodians scorched it with flame.
    Then they flooded the region by causing a long rainstorm and by breaking the intricate system of dams and dikes that had been built in Mesopotamia to control the erratic flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
    The Gilgamesh Epic relates that Utnapishtim and his crew survived the ordeal. When it was over, they sought out dry land by releasing a series of three birds; if a bird did not return to the boat, Utnapishtim would know that it had found dry land nearby on which to alight. Once back on solid ground, Utnapishtim was joined by several Custodians returning from out of the sky. Instead of destroying the survivors, a degree of leniency prevailed and the Custodians transported the surviving humans to another region to live.
    The tale of Utnapishtim should ring a bell with anyone who is familiar with the Biblical story of Noah and the Ark. That is because the tale of Noah, like many other stories in the Old Testament, is taken from older Mesopotamian writings. Biblical authors simply altered names and changed the many "gods" of the original writings into the one "God" or "Lord" of the Hebrew religion. The latter change was an unfortunate one because it caused a Supreme Being to be blamed for the brutal acts that earner writers had attributed to the very un-God-like Custodians.
     Early Mesopotamian writings gave us another famous Old Testament story: the tale of Adam and Eve. The Adam and Eve narrative is also derived from earlier Mesopotamian sources which described life under the Custodial "gods." The "God" or "Lord God" of the Bible's Adam and Eve story can therefore be translated to mean the Custodial rulers of Earth. The story of Adam and Eve is unique in that it is entirely symbolic, and through its symbols it provides an intriguing account of early human history. According to the Bible, Adam, who symbolizes first man, was created by "God" from the "dust of the ground." This idea reflects the older Mesopotamian belief that Homo sapiens was created partially from "clay." Adam's wife, Eve, was also created artificially. They both lived in an abundant paradise known as the Garden of Eden. Modern versions of the Bible place the Garden of Eden in the Tigris-Euphrates region of Mesopotamia. The Old Testament tells us that Adam (first man) was designed to be a servant. His function was to till the soil and to care for the lush gardens and crops owned by his "God." As long as Adam and Eve accepted their servient status and obeyed their ever-present masters, all of their physical needs would be met and they would be permitted to remain in their "paradise" indefinitely. There was, however, one unpardonable sin that they must never commit. They must never attempt to seek certain types of knowledge. Those forbidden forms of knowledge are symbolized in the story as two trees: the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of life." The first "tree" symbolizes an understanding of ethics and justice. The second "tree" symbolizes the knowledge of how to regain and retain one's spiritual identity and immortality

In Biblical days, human beings were also heavily propagandized as very sinful to justify the barbaric treatment humans suffered at the hands of their Custodial "God" and "angels." By extending this concept of sinfulness to the human method of procreation, every person conceived through human sexual intercourse was to be considered born in sin and therefore spiritually condemned. What a frightful dilemma this created! Every time a man and woman conceived and gave birth to a child, they had condemned a spiritual being; yet the human drives which produce children are strong. The religious teaching of automatic spiritual condemnation because of human procreation generated a powerful conflict between the drive for spiritual freedom and the physical drive to reproduce. The result was intense anxiety on the subject of sex and an increase in nonprocreative sexual activity such as homosexuality, autoeroticism, nonprocreative forms of intercourse, pornography, voyeurism, and abortion. The irony in this is clear. Those religions which have most strongly condemned the "inherent sin" in all human beings have also been those which have most vocally opposed nonprocreative sex. These teachings had another important effect. They helped reduce human resistance to engaging in war. It is easier for a religious person to kill someone if he believes that the victim is inherently sinful.