Some thoughts on Genesis, chapters 2-3

 

I.                    Gn. 2.4—3.24: The garden of Eden

A.    OBSERVATION

1.      General observations

     This pericope is all about “the ground”.  In 2.5, it is pointed out that “In the day that the LORD God (YHWH Elohim) made the earth and the heavens…there was no one to till the ground”.  Before the LORD God begins to explicitly create, there is “the (pre-existing) ground” and a stream that would water the face of the ground and/or earth (2.6).  “Then the LORD God formed man (Adam)[1] from the dust of the ground (adamah)” (2.7).  The Adam’s purpose is to till/keep the garden (2.15; cf. 3.23) that the LORD God had planted; i.e. the LORD God had made trees to grow “out of the ground” (2.8-9), from which He makes man as well as “every animal of the field and every bird of the air” (2.19).  After the eating of the forbidden fruit, the ground is cursed because of the man’s breaking of the divine commandment (3.17).  The Adam is told that he will return to the adamah from which he was taken (3.19).[2]  The commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is repeated three times.[3]  Chapter 2 ends with the man and his wife both unclothed and unashamed (2.25; cf. 3.7, 10-11).  Their awareness of nakedness leads to a first provisional attempt to clothe themselves (3.7), followed by a second “clothing” of the primal pair by the LORD God (3.21).  Finally, the man is sent forth from the garden “to till the ground” (3.23, which forms a kind of inclusio with 2.5; cf. 2.15).

2.      The 6 questions

a.       Who?  The LORD God, “the man”, the woman (ishah) and the serpent.

b.      What?  The creation of the garden of Eden, the primal pair and their disobedience of the divine command not to eat of the forbidden fruit, followed by their banishment from the garden.

c.       When?  “In the day that the LORD God made the earth…”

d.      Where?  “in the east” (2.8).

e.       Why and wherefore?  To explain the fundamental tension and disharmony between humans, between humanity and nature and between humanity and God.

f.        How?  Humanity, through the wiles of the serpent, is led to disobey the Creator and then suffers “curses”[4], a consequence of covenant-breaking (cf. Dt. 27—28).

3.      Outline/Structure[5]

(1)   Origin[6] of humanity’s vocation to till the ground/keep the garden = the primal covenant[7] (Gn. 2.4—25; cf. 9.13, 16-17).

1.      Problem # 1 = no one to till the ground (2.5).

2.      Solution # 1 = creation of man to till and keep[8] the garden of Eden (2.7-8, 15).

3.      Problem # 2 = no one to help the man (2.18).

4.      Solution # 2 = creation of birds and animals (2.19-20 = no helper among them[9]); creation of woman from the man’s rib (2.21-25).

(2)   Covenant-breaking as the origin of suffering, alienation[10] and the frustration[11] of humanity’s vocation to cultivate creation (3.1-24).

1.      The breaking of the covenant (3.1-7).

2.      The judgement of the covenant-breakers (3.8-21).

a.       The man and woman clothe themselves (3.7).

1.      The LORD God addresses the man (3.8-12).

                                                                                                      i.            The LORD God addresses the woman (3.13).

a)      The LORD God curses the serpent and announces the victory of the descendant(s) of the woman over the descendant(s) of the serpent (3.14-15).

                                                                                                    ii.            The LORD God (implicitly) curses the woman (3.16).

2.      The LORD God curses the ground and (implicitly curses) the man (3.17-19).

b.      The LORD God clothes the man and the woman (3.20-21).

3.      Exiled from the garden to till the ground “east of Eden” (3.22-24; cf. 4.16).

B.     INTERPRETATION

1.      Questions

     Why another account of creation?  Why such a different perspective from the account of chapter 1?  Why did the LORD God forbid the man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  Why is there a serpent in the garden?  Why didn’t the man and the woman die upon eating the forbidden fruit?  Why didn’t the man and the woman ever eat from the tree of life?  Was it ever possible to be human without the (seemingly) concomitant experience of suffering, or is suffering simply part and parcel of being a thinking, speaking, sexually differentiated, mortal creature?

2.      Answers

     Obviously (and frustratingly), this text was not composed to answer our questions.  The commentators I am consulting see this text, not as a quasi-historical account of events that transpired in a particular location at a particular moment in time, but rather as anthropological statements which reveal something fundamental about human nature, something that was all too apparent to the author(s) of this text.  Also, this text serves to root (the reasons for) Israel’s revolutionary ethos in the very mists of time.[12]  This pericope – from a strictly exegetical point of view – cannot support the theological burden that it is often made to bear (i.e. providing reasons for the origins of evil/sin, Satan, human mortality, etc.).[13]

C.     APPLICATION

1.      Interpretation

     “My” commentators do not perceive a necessary “link” between the two creation accounts, but rather take them to be separate traditions that have been juxtaposed in order to show some (surprising) congruence between them.  The differences between the two accounts are legion, and attempts to harmonize them do violence to both.  Prior to the creation of the woman (!), the man exists in a state of childlike innocence and bliss.  The man was not self-conscious, experienced no anxiety and enjoyed having all of his basic creaturely needs (food and rest) met easily and immediately.   The man had no concept of death, hence he didn’t eat from the tree of life.   Adam and Eve “died” after eating the forbidden fruit in the sense that they became aware of their mortality and would henceforth experience the anxiety of that knowledge (their childlike innocence died).  This pericope, like the rest of Gn. 1—11, was not written to offer full, “philosophical” explanations for why things are the way they are, but rather to teach the people of God how to live well in the world as we find it – i.e. as a place of conflict, frustration, suffering and death (albeit replete with signs of the Creator’s faithfulness).[14]

2.      Putting the text into practice

     As one scholar has it, humanity was made “for community, work and worship, i.e. for sex, gardening and God”.[15]  All of these aspects of the human vocation present numerous challenges, whether one be a (Christian) believer or not.  Genesis offers wisdom in the form of stories that help us wrestle with the ambiguities of our nature and our world, all the while assuring us of the Creator’s benevolent care (e.g. clothing Adam and Eve before sending them out of the garden).  This pericope portrays our need for reconciliation – with each other as male and female, with nature and with God.  The text arouses our desire and our hope for the redemption and reconciliation that have been made possible through the Word of the Creator becoming human and sharing our earthly condition, even to the point of death.  Jesus fulfilled the covenant between YHWH and his people Israel and that between the Creator and his world.  We thank God for his wonderful work of creation and salvation, and we hope for resurrection life in his new world (a world – presumably – without serpents).  Knowing that God is determined for us to share his own life, we can undertake to learn to trust and obey the One who desires only our flourishing.[16]

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[1] In the NRSV, Adam is always rendered “the man” in this pericope and never as a personal name.  Ish is rendered “Man” in 2.23f and “husband” in 3.6, 16.  Cf. Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 152n.1., where he explains his refusal to translate adam as a proper name, preferring to render it “Man”.

[2] The curse on both the serpent and the man involves (the) dust (of the ground): 3.14, 19 (cf. 2.7).

[3] Before the violation: 2.16-17; after the violation: 3.11, 17; cf. 3.1, where the serpent misquotes the command; cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 48.

[4] Cf. Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 55, who points out the contrast with the “first” creation account, which is characterized by God’s blessings.

[5] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, pp. 44-45, who divides the pericope into 4 “scenes”.

[6] Pace Ibid, p. 41: “The Old Testament…is not concerned with origins but with faithful responses and effective coping”.

[7] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 54, who emphasises the covenantal character of this pericope mostly in regards to the “community” of the man and the woman (Gn. 2.18-25); cf. Ibid, p. 17 where Brueggemann insists that Gn. 1 is a “proclamation of covenanting” as the shape of reality.  The claim of this tradition is opposed both to a materialism which regards the world as autonomous and to a transcendentalism which regards the world as of the same stuff as God.  The idiom of covenant applies to all of the materials of Gn. 1—11.

[8] Cf. Ibid, p. 46, which claims that “till and keep” may suggest a gardener or a shepherd (cf. the “dominion” of humanity over creation in Gn. 1.26-31).

[9] Cf. Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, pp. 55, 70, 73-77, 100; indeed, the man acts towards “the woman” just as he had done toward the animals, i.e. he names her in an objective (objectifying?) manner: Ibid. pp. 77ff; 102.  Kass concludes that the text portrays the man’s naming of the animals as serving to awaken his sexual desire, a desire that is finally (potentially) satisfied (2.23) when he is presented with the woman, thus becoming aware of his masculinity (maleness) via his sexual desire for her.  After the judgments for disobedience have been pronounced, the man names his wife again (3.20), this time appreciating her, not as an object of his desire, but as the hope of the world’s future.

[10] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 40.

[11] But NOT the nullification!

[12] E.g. sabbath observance is rooted, as per Gn. 1, in the very sequence of the creation of the cosmos (indeed, in God’s own activity!).  Gn. 2—3 begin to portray humanity’s need of renewal, a renewal which begins with Abram (Gn. 12), the father of a nation which will herself need to be renewed following her experience of exile in Babylon… The Creator is the covenant-God, and his (eventual) covenant with Abraham—Israel—Jesus is his means of bringing his purpose for creation to fruition (cf. the argument of Romans 1—8).

[13] Rom. 5.12-21 notwithstanding.

[14] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 61.

[15] Graham Leo, Sex, Gardening and God (2010, 2024).

[16] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, pp. 63f, concerning God’s solicitude for Cain, even after his murder of his brother (Gn. 4.9-16).