Voltaire's take on Adam

I must admit, Voltaire's take on Adam does not feel sincere. I don't know why but I can sense a hint of sarcasm coming through the pen of this old philosopher. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong. But, he does have a bit to say on the topic of Adam & Eve, specifically Adam and since we are pursuing some intellectual avenues concerning such things it seems fair to include it in my research. Unfortunately, I feel as though more questions and alleyways will be pursued because of this - so much the better though.

Voltaire opens with some remarks about pious madame de Bourignon who was convinced Adam was a hermaphrodite. Voltaire neither agrees nor disagrees with her because he has not had the same revelation from God on this matter. This might be meant as sarcasm...

Cutting away from this little jab at some historical figure that I'm not quite intrigued enough to wikipedia search, Voltaire brings up an interesting point in his next haymaker. This time his object of scorn are the Jewish scholars who have read much on the subject of Adam. In his snide little remarks though he makes an interesting cross-religious comparison. In the ancient Vedas the first man was called Adimo, meaning the begetter. From there he does some rather hasty philological hop skips and jumps while tossing barbs at Judaism in general to bring up the point that maybe the ancient Hebrew Scriptures somehow borrowed from the more ancient Veda Scriptures of the Brahmins of India. Aside from his jokes, it does pose an interesting question about the similarities between religions. Why are the religions so similar on certain topics? Why are origin stories similar in nature? Is it because by the very fact that they are origin stories that they will inherently be similar? Or is it that word of mouth stories passed from east to west and west to east over generations to create slightly different variations of one old myth? Or is it that over generations one old story has been corrupted and twisted into different contexts that are yet similar enough to have the same feel? I don't know, but it is something striking to consider.

Of course, Voltaire's sardonic writings tend to blend the ridiculous and preposterous with a cutting point of truth and his mocking doesn't always lend itself to straightforward knowledge. However, he is a great philosopher and a personal favorite of mine so he will be referenced as much as possible on the subjects that I research throughout the run of this blog.