10 October 2018
Deeper Message of Genesis 3
In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve did not literally die as they thought. They just experienced spiritual death, the message of the passage is that there is separation from God that was caused by man when Eve was deceived by the serpent. The serpent tricked Eve into taking food from the tree of knowledge and feeding it to Adam. When they ate from the tree they became like God, knowing good from evil. Adam and Eve realized they were naked. It was both of their fault, and they were both punished. It was Eve’s fault for listening to the serpent and giving the food to Adam, and it’s Adam’s fault for not being there to protect Eve. God punished Eve by making childbirth painful so it would be hard to reproduce. He punished Adam by making it hard to get food. Adam would have to hunt or farm for food by taking care of the earth and growing the food.
Historical Stage
There is no historical context for Genesis chapter 3. Israelite culture and religion was radically different from today. Israel was struggling to understand the same God and truths about relationship to God that we do. The issues they were facing 3,000 years ago were different from now. The way this biblical story is told, the metaphors and symbols used, the manner of speaking, the specific issues addressed, even the conception of God, are all expressed in the cultural language of ancient Israel. It will take some effort not to read too much of our modern world into the story (Bratcher, 1993).
Grammatical Stage
In Genesis 3 there are only a few words or phrases that stand out. One of the major words is serpent. In the original text instead of nachash which means serpent, it is cachash, which means liar or deceiver. This shows up many times throughout whether it is in a phrase or just the word. The word serpent shows up 39 times but the phrase “the serpent” shows up 12 times. Another is a name, Eve, Chavah, or hawah. Chavah means that is, living. Hawah sounds like hayah, the word for “life.” Eve is the primal mother (Shmoop Editorial Team).
Rhetorical Stage
The genre of Genesis is a biblical narrative. The Pope explained that the genre of the creation stories is a myth, but is not just a fable. It’s using an ancient story to bring out things that actually happened. Genesis 3 is vital. It explains the world and society as we observe it today. It informs us of the strategies of Satan in tempting men. It explains the reason for the New Testament passages that restrict women from assuming leadership roles in the church. It challenges us to consider whether or not we continue to ‘fall’ as did Adam and his wife (Deffinbaugh, 2004). The structure of the first chapters of Genesis demands this description of man’s fall. In Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we read of a perfect creation which received God’s approval as being ‘good’ (cf. 1:10,12,18,21). In chapter 4 we find jealousy and murder. In the following chapters mankind goes from bad to worse (Deffinbaugh, 2004). In Genesis chapter 3 there is use of symbolism, imagery, and allegory. For example, Eden is used as a symbol to represent paradise and a symbol of paradise lost. Eden is a major symbol that is why the authors of Genesis capitalized on it (Shmoop Editorial Team). The fruit from the tree God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from is used as a symbol for temptation and giving into temptation. It is a symbol of wanting what we can’t have and taking it anyway (Shmoop Editorial Team).
Canonical Stage
All biblical scholars acknowledge that in these three chapters we have two different accounts of creation (1:1-2:4a, 2:4b-3:24), although there are various views as to how they differ, and why. Most agree that they come from different sources and embody different motifs. They cannot be collapsed into a single account. However, it is a mistake to stress the differences in the two accounts without also acknowledging the close literary and theological affinity between them. The community of faith has placed these two stories together in the canon, so we must hear them together. We can only give some passing attention to the first creation story, but some observations are necessary in order to understand its relationship to the second account, which is the focus of our study. The first creation account focuses on God as creator. Throughout most of her history, Israel struggled against the prevailing mythically based, polytheistic religions of its Canaanite neighbors. To a people who were used to hearing creation described in terms of the myth of Ba’al, in which the world was created rather accidentally as the result of a battle among the gods, this account is a bold and powerful statement of faith. It declares that God and God alone is Creator. The first creation account (Gen. 1:1-2:4a) is a direct challenge to the Ba’al myth, using much of the same imagery to express its theology. It is God, not Ba’al who controls the cycles of nature. It is God, not Ba’al, who calms the raging deep and brings order and stability to the world. Creation is deliberate and purposeful, willfully done by God alone. In countering the Ba’al myth in this way, the Israelites portrayed God as doing what was attributed to Ba’al by the Canaanites. Thus creation is described in terms of order and stability. The entire account describes God as setting boundaries and limits on creation. Boundaries are set between light and darkness, between waters above and below, between sea and dry land. There is even emphasis on boundaries between different kinds of animals and plants (each after its kind). These two concepts, seeing the world in terms of either order or chaos and seeing God as the Creator who sustains the world by setting limits and boundaries in His creation, are crucial as background for understanding our story in Genesis 2:4b-3:24, to which we now turn (Bratcher, 1993).
Liturgical Stage
The biblical narrative of Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 2:4-3:24) is one of the best-known passages in the Old Testament, perhaps even in the entire Bible. Unfortunately, it is also easily misunderstood and misinterpreted. It has been used to prove all sorts of theological theories, some acceptable, others absurd. Through the centuries, it has been a source of speculation about God, the world, and human beings. Most traditional interpretations of this passage are rooted deeply in the theology of Augustine (5th century) that was later adapted by John Calvin (16th century). The idea of the “Fall” of human beings from an original state of Adamic perfection to a state of total sinfulness dominates most discussion of the passage. Some theologians have combined the idea of a “Fall” with Paul’s concept of the first Adam (Romans 5) and developed various formulations of a doctrine of original sin or inherent depravity. With the traditional doctrines of the Fall and original sin tied so closely to Augustinian and Calvinistic presuppositions, most interpretations of this passage–even by Wesleyans–tend to operate with these same presuppositions. This is not to suggest that these ideas are necessarily wrong in themselves. The point here is that the interpretation and resulting theology of this particular passage has traditionally been seen primarily in relation to larger systems of theology and philosophy. The narrative itself has usually taken a back seat to the broader debates concerning the historical origin of sin in the world, the incapability of human beings to do good, and the historical reliability and accuracy of the details of the account. The story itself, with which we are so familiar, has lost its freshness and vitality; and so it has lost its ability to grip us with its marvelously simple message about God that is especially relevant for those who see human freedom and responsibility as a major factor in relationship with God. It is this message that we will try to hear, and proclaim, anew (Bratcher, 1993).
Magisterial Stage
All human beings come into the world thinking that they are the center of the universe and that no boundaries really apply to them. A baby is concerned with nothing else than having its immediate needs met. This is simply the way humans are. In fact, this “instinct for self-preservation” as we call it can even be seen as part of God’s creation. We usually do not see anything sinful in a baby’s cry when she is hungry. Yet, this aspect of human existence has enormous potential for disruption in the world. It is one thing for a week old baby to demand that her world serve her; it is quite another thing for an 18-year-old (or a 40-year-old!) to make the same demands. At its most fundamental level, this is the nature of sin. It is the human tendency to be autonomous, responsible to no one but self and serving no ends but self-satisfaction. In this sense, it is “original,” because it lies at the very heart of who we are as human beings. While the story portrayed sin in terms of crossing God’s boundaries, it should not be seen solely in legal categories as a violation of external law. Ultimately, for the first pair sin unfolded in disrupted relationships resulting from their self-serving exercise of autonomy in God’s world, a world in which they could not be gods. There is really no concern in the story with how a single (“original”) sin by the couple could contaminate humanity (the “Fall”). There is only the recognition that all the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve live East of Eden; that is, that all human beings enter God’s world with the capacity to choose, but exercise that freedom toward selfish ends and bring disharmony and chaos into the world. Sin, then, is not something external to human beings that operates apart from human decision; it is personal and relational. Neither is it a flaw in God’s creation; our tendency toward autonomy is a fact of who we are, a gift of God. It is our perversion of this gift, the infantile grasping of this freedom to ourselves, the refusal to turn away from our self-oriented desire for the one forbidden tree and “grow up” into responsible, God-oriented and other-oriented persons, that is sin (Bratcher, 1993).
Works Cited:
http://www.crivoice.org/gen3.html
https://www.shmoop.com/genesis/chapter-3-summary.html
https://bible.org/seriespage/4-fall-man-genesis-31-24
https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/genesis/fr-william-most-on-genesis
https://www.bible-history.com/studybible/Genesis/3/
https://www.blueletterbible.org/rsv/gen/3/1/t_bibles_3001