Adam and Eve: Couple or Culture?

So, here’s a heretical thought: what if Adam and Eve were not actual people, but cultures? What if their genealogy is not that of the first ever humans, but the first civilizations? There are some parallels to be drawn here.

Humanity began as a primitive species (well, duh, we didn’t just pop into existence fully civilized), with little understanding of the concepts we have now. Over time we coalesced into recognizable civilizations, and suddenly we needed some ethics to get us through things. This is where Mr. Serpent comes in, with his fruit of knowledge. We get booted out of the garden of ignorance, and into the international arena.

Following Adam and Eve are Cain and Abel, the two brothers. Cain represents the agrarian civilizations, while Abel represents the hunters. As history has shown us, when it comes to a clash between a settled agricultural (or even industrial) civilization and hunter gatherers, the hunters almost always lose. Cain kills Abel, farming replaces hunting as the dominant form of civilization.

This is far from a concrete idea, far from being proven, just my musings on “what if this thing isn’t literal”.