In which an alternative view is offered regarding the exit of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the action of women and the relationship of men and women are explored and the story of Cain and Abel is reinterpreted in light of the actions taken during the Garden of Eden Story.

 

In order to fully appreciate this discussion, it is recommended that the posts comprising the series “In God’s Image” and “Imagination and the Mind of Man” be read before reading the posts in this series.

 

Another Interpretation of the Garden of Eden Story

 

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 4 of 19, presented a discussion of an argument against the position that Adam and Eve were “banished” because they transgressed.

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 5 of 19, discusses the God’s “curse” with respect to Adam and Eve.

 

God’s “curses” did not indicate anger

The concept of “curse” as used in this context should be examined because as we understand the concept of “curse,” God’s “curses” could imply anger and hence punishment. Some even define a “curse” as a prayer for bad and which is said out of hate. This definition certainly could not apply to God’s feelings toward Adam and Eve (if for no other reason than since a prayer is directed to God, why would God be directing a prayer to himself? But, beyond that, why would God hate Adam and Eve?). Therefore, this “curse” means something else.

The Lord cursed Adam, Eve and the serpent[1] for their roles in the Forbidden Fruit episode^[1]. Through the years these curses have become associated with an implication that God was angry with Adam, Eve and the serpent, and this implication is followed by the view that God “drove” Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and this was the “Fall” of mankind. However, this discussion is intended to show that these “curses” did not imply “anger,” and hence, God was not angry with Adam and Eve and hence did not “drive” them from the Garden of Eden as an act of angry retribution or punishment.

While some in the Bible, such as Shimei in 2 Sam. 16:5, did “curse” out of anger^[2], such “curses” were synonyms for “insults”, and were, indeed issued in anger but not intended as means of retribution; other “curses” were uttered before battle which were intended to increase the curser’s moral and to decrease the cursed’s moral^[3]. However, most curses in the Bible are intended to pronounce a change in circumstances for the cursed entity as a consequence of some action taken by the entity being cursed: actions have consequences. In some cases, the changed circumstances will be less desirable than the present circumstances^[4]

The “curses” of God in the Garden of Eden story seem to fit the last, and most common, pattern: a pronouncement of a change in circumstances as a consequence of actions of the individual. Considering the above examples of curses, there is no indication in this story that God was insulting Adam and Eve, or that God was uttering the curses to Adam and Eve before battle with them. Thus, the “curses” of God to Adam and Eve should be considered as pronouncements of a change in circumstances which are consequences of their actions. Furthermore, nowhere in this passage is the word “anger” even used, let alone as a specific description of God’s feelings toward Adam and Eve. When God is angry, He says so – in no uncertain terms: “Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them,…” Exodus 32:10. No similar statement can be found in the Garden of Eden episode; therefore, it can be concluded that God was not angry with Adam and Eve or even with the serpent. Thus, it can be concluded that the “curses” described in this section of Genesis were predictions of changed circumstances for Adam and Eve as consequences to their actions, and were not intended to be angry responses to the actions of Adam and Eve.

As discussed in the essay “Partners,” God and man had formed a partnership in which God has certain responsibilities and man has certain responsibilities. As shown in the story of Job, when either man or God steps out of his defined responsibilities, problems arise. Therefore, God was looking for a partner in man who would remain within his defined areas of responsibility. In this instance, God’s responsibility was to bring rain and man’s responsibility was to till the soil. God defined man’s responsibility as including not eating fruit from a certain tree as a test of whether man would be a good partner and follow instructions. But when man overstepped this delineation of responsibilities by eating forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge which potentially gave man the ability to step further out of his responsibility of merely tilling the soil, he violated the terms of the partnership. Thus, God dissolved that partnership and assigned man a new role in a new partnership….a change in circumstances and a change in the terms and responsibilities of the partnership. Not a curse, but a signal of changed conditions and circumstances.

Furthermore, nowhere in this passage is the word “anger” even used, let alone as a specific description of God’s feelings toward Adam and Eve. When God is angry, He says so – in no uncertain terms: “Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them,…” Exodus 32:10. No similar statement can be found in the Garden of Eden episode; therefore, it can be concluded that God was not angry with Adam and Eve or even with the serpent. Thus, it can be concluded that the “curses” described in this section of Genesis were predictions of changed circumstances for Adam and Eve as consequences to their actions, and were not intended to be angry responses to the actions of Adam and Eve.

While the change in circumstances of Adam and Eve have previously been interpreted as being to circumstances that are less desirable (i.e., leaving the Garden of Eden where everything is provided for them to a world where they will have to work to survive), it is the thesis of this discussion that the changed circumstances for Adam and Eve are for the better as the new circumstances allow them to reach their destiny of exercising dominion over all the land and entities outlined in Genesis.

Thus, there may be another story here. There may even be a back story about what might have happened before the episode concerning the Tree of Knowledge.

 

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 6 of 19, discusses the two creation stories in relation to the “banishment” of humans from the Garden of Eden.

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^[1] See Genesis 3:14-19.

^[2] “As King David was approaching Bahurim, a member of Saul’s clan – a man named Shimei son of Gera  – came our from there, hurling insults as he came. He threw stones at David and all King David’s courtiers…And these are the insults that Shimei hurled:’Get out, get out, you criminal, you villain. The Lord is payng you back for all your crimes against the family of Saul, whose throne you seized…”

^[3] See, for example, the “curse” Goliath hurls at David prior to engaging in battle: “And the Philistine called out to David, ‘Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?’ The Philistine cursed David by his gods;…” 1 Samuel 43.

^[4] See, for example, Genesis 4:11-12 where God is cursing Cain for Able’s murder: “Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth.”

 

[1] ^[1] It is interesting to trace the history of how the term “Satan” became synonymous with the devil because it is not so in the Garden of Eden story. The name “Satan” has come to be analogous to the devil. However, this does not appear to be the import of this term in the Hebrew Bible. The word Satan appears only once without “the” in front of it in the entire Hebrew Bible: in 1 Chronicles 21:1. The noun Satan, Hebrew for “adversary” or “accuser,” occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible: five times to describe a human military, political or legal opponent, and four times with reference to a divine being. In Numbers 22, the prophet Balaam, hired to curse the Israelites, is stopped by a messenger from Israel’s God YHWH, described as “the Satan” acting on God’s behalf. In Job, “the Satan” is a member of God’s heavenly council—one of the divine beings, whose role in Job’s story is to be an “accuser,” a status acquired by people in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia for the purposes of particular legal proceedings. In Job’s case, what’s on trial is God’s assertion that Job is completely “blameless and upright” vs. the Satan’s contention that Job only behaves himself because God has rewarded him. Though a perception of “the Satan” as Satan would make this portrait of God easier to swallow, the story demonstrates otherwise; like Yahweh’s messenger in Numbers 22, this Satan acts on YHWH’s instructions (and as a result of God’s braggadocio) and is not an independent force of evil.

So if there’s no Satan in the Hebrew Bible, where does the devil come into the details of Eden?

The worldview of Jewish readers of Gen 2-3 profoundly changed in the centuries since the story was first written. After the canon of the Hebrew Bible was closed, beliefs in angels, demons and a final apocalyptic battle arose in a divided and turbulent Jewish community. In light of this impending end, many turned to a renewed understanding of the beginning, and the Garden of Eden was re-read—and re-written—to reflect the changing ideas of a changed world. Two separate things happened and then merged: Satan became the proper name of the devil, a supernatural power now seen to oppose God as the leader of demons and the forces of evil; and the serpent in the Garden of Eden came to be identified with him.

The concept of the devil begins to appear in the second and first centuries B.C.E.in Jewish texts. In 1 Enoch, the “angel” who “led Eve astray” and “showed the weapons of death to the children of men” was called Gadreel (not Satan). Around the same time, the Wisdom of Solomon taught that “through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who are no his die suffer it.” Though this may very well be the earliest reference to Eden’s serpent, as the devil, in neither text, nor in any document we have until after the New Testament, is Satan clearly understood as the serpent in Eden. At Qumran, though, Satan is identified as the leader of the forces of darkness: his power is said to threaten humanity, and is believed that salvation would bring the absence of Satan and evil.

The term Satan became quite synonymous with the devil in the New Testament.

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