Ishmael - Chapter 9

This is a chapter that revolves heavily around mythology. Ishmael begins the chapter by creating a timeline for the Leavers and then modifying it to fit the Takers. He explains that the agricultural revolution, while it does have a clear beginning, doesn't have an ending point. In fact, it's still going. It's now called the second green revolution. Read more about how that and rice production in Asia here.

The Fall of Man depicted by Jan Brueghel the Elder and
Peter Paul Rubens

Anyways, Ishmael begins to connect the biblical ideas of the origin of man with our mythological ideas. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Ishmael argues, was forbidden from Adam because they feared he would consume the world thinking it was in his rights to do so. Herein lies one of the major problems in our culture. We assume what we're doing is the right things to do. We are deluded, and we think that agriculture and what's come of it is the only correct way to do things, and that this is the only way anyone should do things. With the Takers, there is no preference on how to live; there is one way and that is our way.

Following the Fall of Man, Ishmael states that those who were people representing Abel (the Semites) saw the people representing Cain taking over the land. This became the story of brother killing brother, told now by Takers to Takers, while it was originally told by Leavers for Leavers. We even take dominion over stories, that's how egocentric the Taker culture is. (Side note, I find it really interesting the Quinn chose Ishmael to be the name of his teacher, considering Ishmael was Abraham's first son in the bible who was banished along with his mother. Makes you think about the connections there. Ishmael is still part of Taker culture, he was raised by them, but he is inherently apart from that culture, understanding more of the Leavers.)

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.