GEN2b
Genesis 3. The serpent is introduced as one of “the creatures of the field” (Gen 3:1), whom Yahweh had apparently formed earlier and escorted to the man for naming (Gen 2:19).
The "clever" serpent figure questions Yahweh God's words and raises the issue of entitlement.
This creature and the man at least must have met before. Its name “serpent” (nāḥāsh), which in Hebrew resonates with “divination”(naḥash), must be the one the man had given it. We should not imagine the conversation between the serpent and the woman was private because the man “was with her” throughout this scene (Gen 3:6). While the man and the woman are “naked” (‘arom), the serpent is “clever” (‘arum).
Most English translations render this Hebrew word as “crafty,” thus inclining readers to view this creature of Yahweh negatively. While in some OT contexts this connotation may be appropriate, this Hebrew word occurs most frequently in the book of Proverbs (8 times), where it is always translated “prudent”! The basic, underlying sense of the Hebrew word is “clever,” which is an attribute that can be used for good or ill. Serpents were viewed ambivalently in both the OT and the ANE. Like snakes, they are hostile to humans with their bite (Gen 3:15). But when Jesus in the NT admonishes his disciples to be “wise as serpents” (Matt 10:16), he refers to their cleverness as admirable.
Most remarkably, however, this serpent is so clever that he can speak! Indeed, Yahweh speaks to the serpent. While God’s curse means that the serpent will be without legs, no mention is made that he will be without speech. As with the cherubim figures at the narrative’s close, these symbolic figures of the ANE clearly point to the symbolic nature of the narrative’s genre.
The serpent first questions the woman on what God really said or meant by selectively quoting and transposing “not” from God’s earlier words.
“From any tree of the garden you may indeed eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it, you shall indeed die” (Gen 2:16–17).
“Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’” (Gen 3:1).
In his second speech (Gen 3:4–5) he contradicts God’s death sentence (Gen 2:17b) and claims “your eyes will be opened and you will become like God, knowing good and evil”—each of which proves to be true. Instead of dying “in the day” they eat, they are expelled from the garden (Gen 3:23–24). Their eyes are opened, though to knowledge that they are naked, not clever (Gen 3:7). In the end even Yahweh acknowledges, “the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22). The serpent nowhere lies, though he does mislead. He questions and insinuates that God’s motives are self-serving and defensive regarding his exclusive hold on knowledge. In short, he raises the issue of entitlement with the garden’s laborers.
Yet Yahweh God is a generous CEO who invites his laborers to partake of every tree in the orchard, except for one that he reserves for himself.
The woman correctly perceives the tree as God had made it, that is, “good for eating and a desirable sight” (cf. Gen 3:6 and 2:9). There is nothing wrong with the tree’s fruit per se.
God's punishment is exile from the garden, which deprives the Man and the Woman access to "the tree of life," destining them to death.
The actual consequence for this transgression is not death “in the day of their eating,” but expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the appointment of cherubim “to guard the way to the tree of life,” “lest … he take from the tree of life and eat and live forever” (Gen 3:22–24).
Indeed, elsewhere in the OT “gaining insight” (Gen 3:6) is encouraged (Pss 14:2; 119:99; Prov 1:3 and numerous times; Jer 3:15) and “knowing good and evil” is a sign of adult maturity (Deut 1:39; Isa 7:15–16). But within the ground rules laid down in this narrative, this was the sole tree that the divine proprietor had reserved for himself, whose property it is “to know good and evil” (Gen 3:22). (Does this imply that Yahweh eats of this tree?) The man and the woman are guilty of trespassing over a divine boundary.
The issue is not simply disobeying God’s command (Gen 2:16; 3:11, 17): it was their sense of entitlement that enticed them to transgress into divine property. The Hebrew narrator may be engaging in wordplay: the serpent (nāḥāsh), in effect, encourages “divination” (naḥash), that is, an illicit means of obtaining divine knowledge. While the goal of obtaining divine knowledge may be a good thing, the offence lies in the means of grasping for what God has not granted. The narrative implies that temptation can be subtle, sneaky, and pernicious—just like a snake. It sets the stage so the characters are able to embody in their speeches the factors that typify temptation.
Without access to “the tree of life,” the “breath of life” that Yahweh had breathed into his nostrils (Gen 2:7) cannot be maintained and so human identity is reduced to dust, as Yahweh himself says, “you are dust” (Gen 3:19). The narrative is explicit that to “live forever” humans must have access to this single tree in the garden. Maintenance of the breath of life is ever contingent on Yahweh. “Living forever” is a special case made possible only by regular access to this tree. In other words, immortality is not a property that the human soul possesses. The implication is that, apart from this access, death is not a new condition but the assumed outcome of all God’s creatures, especially for those outside this localized garden. Yahweh had initially delivered the threat of death to the man without explanation (Gen 2:16–17), likely because it was the assumed fate of every creature.
In contrast to the common storylines familiar from their ANE cultural environment, the Hebrews were taught that humans lose access to the tree of life by their own trespass, not because they happen to be pawns in a rivalry among the gods. They toil, not because they are lackeys to the gods, but because they disobey God.
“Eden” and the Temple. But to the ancient Hebrew readers this was not the end of the story. As noted above, temples had gardens. The description of the structure of Solomon’s temple and its related furniture includes adornments of trees, flowers, and especially cherubim (1 Kgs 6:29, 32, 35; 7:36; further on cherubim see 1 Kgs 6:23–28; 7:29).
Embedded in the narrative is temple symbolism, which gave ancient Israelites hope of reentering Yahweh's garden by accessing the temple.
Prominent in Ezekiel’s vision of a new temple is a life-giving river (Ezek 47:1–12; Joel 3:18; Zech 14:8), on the banks of which are trees whose fruit will be for eating. The Psalms, the temple’s hymn book, also refer to trees in Yahweh’s house (Pss 52:8; 92:12–13) and to a river issuing from the sanctuary (Ps 46:4). Eden imagery is most explicit in a psalm celebrating the benefits of entering the temple: “With the river of your delights you give them drink, for with you is a spring of life” (Ps 36:8–9). The Hebrew word for “delight” is ‘eden. Thus, while the man and the woman were expelled from Eden in the narrative of Genesis 2–3, Yahweh as host of his “house” offers his worshipers access to drink from the “river of Eden” and so gain “life.” In the ears of his worshipers the Eden narrative rings not so much as a story of the remote past as a symbolic reminder that reentry into Eden is possible via the temple.
What type of literature is Genesis 2–3? Now that we have highlighted key themes and cultural echoes of the Eden narrative, we are a better position to come to terms with its literary genre.
The Yahwistic narrator stitches together familiar ANE stories to portray a radically new worldview of God and the human condition.
Several observations should help:
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Narrator’s Perspective. While the Eden narrative comes before Moses and even Abraham, the narrator writes from the retrospective viewpoint of the Israelite monarchy. This begs the question, what were his sources?
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Discontinuous, Episodic Narratives. While the individual narratives of Genesis 1-11 have been integrated into a thematic whole (establishing Yahweh as creator and the human inclination to encroach on the divine realm and to declare one's independence from God), they are discontinuous from one another. In the subsequent Cain narrative, readers might ask, where did his wife come from? Who is there to inhabit the city he builds? Who would form the posse that he fears? There is no link or transition to the next narrative about the sons of God (Gen 6:1–4), nor then to the Flood narrative (Gen 6–9), nor then to the Tower of Babel and then to Abraham. Even within the Eden narrative itself, some verses read like later insertions (Gen 2:10–14, 24; 3:20–21). The narrator appears to be an editor, who is reworking originally independent and unrelated narratives. Nothing in the narrative sequence suggests a continuous chain of tradition passed from one generation to the next.
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ANE Stories. As noted above, the narrator cuts his narrative cloth from familiar ANE stories in order to portray a novel theology of Yahweh and anthropology for Israel.
Info Box: Adam
Twenty times the Eden narrative simply refers to “the man” (the ’adam or ha’adam). Adam, as a proper name, appears only three times in most English translations (Gen 2:20; 3:17, 21), but in each case it is prefixed with the Hebrew preposition “to/for” (l in Hebrew, thus le’adam). Given the prevailing references to “the man,” the most natural reading of the consonantal Hebrew text is “to/for the man.” (The Hebrew vowel points were not inserted until around the 9th century C.E.) It is likely we should also read “the man” in Gen 4:25. Hence, the first mention of “Adam” as a proper name in the Bible appears in the Priestly genealogy (Gen 5:1).
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Type Scenes and Characters. While set in the distant past, the narrative employs character types, which are typical of human behavior and not unique to particular individuals and events. The Man and the Woman (named “Eve, which means “Living One,” as she becomes “the mother of all living” in Gen 3:20) live in the land of Bliss. Though generously supplied by Yahweh God, they feel entitled to what is prohibited and so aspire to become like gods. When cornered with an accusation, the Man passes the buck to the Woman, and the Woman to the Serpent (Gen 3:12–13). This is the story of Everyman and Everywoman.
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Etiologies. The Eden narrative serves an etiological function of explaining the causes for present realities: man’s (’adam) tie to the ground (’adamah), weeds and why his work is so toilsome, woman’s pain in childbirth, male dominance, why snakes crawl and are hostile to humans, and death as a return to the dust. This etiological function is especially noticeable in the awkward verse that explains the origins of marriage as leaving father and mother (Gen 2:24). Finally, the expulsion from the Garden powerfully foreshadows the threat of exile that both Israel and Judah will later suffer. Genesis 2–3 gives more attention to explaining present conditions than past events.
The Eden narrative presents itself as an artistic adaptation of human type scenes and ANE symbols while subverting common cultural assumptions about God and his relationships to humans and their life upon the land. Thus, while the narrative does not present itself according to our Post-Enlightenment conception of history, that is, a critical and verifiable description of concrete events, it does present itself as a powerful dramatization of the human condition—as true from primeval times to the present.
► If we use later biblical interpretations of the Eden narrative as an interpretive guide to its genre, they read it as symbolic and typological narrative.
Info Box: The Garden of Eden elsewhere in the OT
If we seek out other OT passages that might serve as commentary on Genesis 2–3, we discover that the principal texts referring to “Eden” in the OT offer symbolical/mythological interpretations. In Ezekiel 28:11-19 God instructs the prophet to lament over the current king of Tyre: “you were in Eden … an anointed cherub” (Ezek 28:13–14). This judgment oracle even contains a “fall narrative” including expulsion: “You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire” (Ezek 28:15–16). In Ezekiel 31 “all the trees of Eden envied” the historical empire of Assyria, which is likened to “a cedar in Lebanon” (Ezek 31:1). This tree was similarly to be “cast out” because of pride (Ezek 31:10–11). When it is finally “cast down to Sheol … all the trees of Eden … were comforted” (Ezek 31:16). (See also Isa 51:3; Ezek 36:35; Joel 2:3.)
Info Box: Adam in Romans 5
The apostle Paul interpreted Adam typologically as “a type [typos] of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14). The so-called doctrine of “original sin,” however, began, not with Paul, but with Augustine. He read the New Testament in Latin, not the original Greek. A literal translation of the key verse in Greek reads:
Therefore, just as through one man sin came into the world and through sin came death, and thus to all men death came, in that all sinned (Rom 5:12).
Thus, instead of the Greek phrase ἐφʼ ᾧ, which should be translated “in that all sinned,” Augustine read “in quo,” which he interpreted as “in whom all sinned,” that is, Adam. Hence, as Joseph Fitzmyer, a renowned NT scholar, says, “There is actually no teaching about a “Fall” in Jewish theology … ‘Original Sin’ is a Christian idea … When Augustine opposed Pelagius, who had been teaching that Adam influenced humanity by giving it a bad example, he introduced the idea of transmission by propagation or heredity” (Romans: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible 33; New Haven/London: Yale University, 2008), 409).
Paul’s exposition of universal human sin—his “fall story”—appears in Romans 1:18–32. It begins not with Adam, but with human behavior in general, especially the tendency to idolatry. Humans are culpable before God, not because of Adam’s transgression, but because of their persistent refusal to acknowledge God.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles (Rom 1:19–23, NRSV).
Paul’s exposition of “the fall” and its progression continues with a threefold phrase, “therefore God gave them up …” (Rom 1:24, 26, 28).
Info Box 10.8: An Interpretation from Second Temple Judaism
“For, although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment. And further, each of them has chosen for himself the coming glory…. Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam” (2 Baruch 54:15, 19).
Seven-Day Creation (Gen 1)
As any text must be interpreted within its context, we will interpret the Seven-Day Creation account in Genesis 1:1–2:4a by examining it within its expanding contexts: its literary structure, its role in the Priestly strand of the Pentateuchal sources (P), its ANE context, and then its wider biblical context.
Starting Point and Structure. The seven “days” of creation indicate the narrative’s structure. The “tense” (or more accurately, verbal aspect) of the Hebrew verbs indicate that Genesis 1:1 is a summary statement for Genesis 1:1–2:4a.
To our surprise Genesis 1 begins with the earth, the darkness, and the deep in disorder—a theme familiar to ancient Semites.
Genesis 1:2 begins the detailed narrative by setting the stage for the six days of God’s creative decrees.
1. In the beginning God created [perfective] the heavens and the earth.
2. Now the earth was [perfective] willy-nilly [tohu vabohu] and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the wind of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3. And then God said [vav-consecutive], “let there be light,” and there was [vav-consecutive] light.
4. And then God saw [vav-consecutive] …
Contrary to modern expectations, the opening stage is not empty: there are the earth, the darkness, and the deep/waters, over which the Spirit/wind/breath of God hovers. But this would not be contrary to ancient Semitic expectations, where the prevailing conception of deity and world order was expressed in the story line of divine cosmic kingship. If the Hebrew writer wanted to assert that his God is indeed the king over the cosmic powers and make it comprehensible within his Semitic culture, then he would need to testify that his God was the one who established order over the chaotic forces of the waters.
As in the West Semitic “Baal Myth” and in the East Semitic “Enuma Elish,” the god of the skies battles the god/goddess of the seas for supremacy. Once the god of the storm is victorious, he is acclaimed king of the gods and his palace/temple is constructed on a sacred mountain.
While the entities on this stage are similar in Genesis 1, their characterizations and relationships are markedly exceptional. Disorder is evident: “now the earth was willy-nilly” (Hebrew tohu vabohu). But the deep/waters are simply objects, not divinized or manifestations of deity, and “the wind of God” is not a weapon against the waters—it simply “hovers/flutters” over them. The narrative echoes the generic features familiar to its Semitic audience, only to overturn common Semitic expectations. On three occasions God names something (Days 1–3), and in each case it relates to one of the pre-existing entities: “darkness” he calls night (Gen 1:5), the firmament that separates the “waters” he calls skies/heavens (Gen 1:8), and the dry land he calls “earth” and the gathered “waters” seas (Gen 1:10).
Info Box 10.9: “Create” out of nothing?
Many readers assume Genesis 1 teaches what theologians call creatio ex nihilo. While this is a biblical doctrine (see below), it is not the starting point of Genesis 1. Some might suppose that the Hebrew verb “to create” entails creation out of nothing. While the verb is always predicated of God, its usage elsewhere indicates that it means “to do something unprecedented” (see esp. Num 16:30; Jer 31:22).
The first three days form a parallel structure with the second three:
Form/Space/Separation Fill/Creatures/Population
1 Said → Light (good) 4 Said → sun, moon, stars (good)
2 Said → Waters above firmament 5 Said → Birds
Waters below firmament (!) Fish (good)
3 Said → Land and water (good) 6 Said → Animals (good)
Said → Vegetation (good) Said → Humanity (all very good)
7 Sabbath