Dean Anderson

Whilst I don't for a minute consider the Genesis account a "shallow" story, I agree that the usual Christian reading of it is far removed from what the actual story says.

I've posted this before, but it is worth posting again...

The story in Genesis actually bears little resemblence to the story that Christians often tell. The Christianised version of the story seems to be a fairly severe re-interpretation of it.

It assumes that the character of Yahweh is the same as the omnipotent Christian God, when the author considered him a local tribal deity.

It assumes that the character of Adam is created immortal - which is a purely Christian concept.

It assumes that the world is damaged due to the "fall" - which is a purely Christian concept.

With those theological assumptions before the text is even looked at, it is no wonder that Christians often see a very different story to what was written.

Here's the story verse by verse, with my comments.

(I am using the ASV translation here, unless I say otherwise)

This is where the story starts. I don't know why the chapter break is traditionally placed three verses earlier. Don't forget that when written, these passages did not have seperate chapters or verses. That is an artificial system imposed later. This particular story starts half way through a verse (the first half of the verse was added later by the editor who stitched the stories together to form the Torah - similarly, the references to "Jehovah God" originally simply read "Jehovah" but were changed to help the Genesis 2-3 story more closely match the Genesis 1 story.

Notice how it says that part of the reason that plants were not growing was because there was not a man to till the ground.

According to the story, Adam was made specifically as a worker to work in Yahweh's garden. (See also verse 2:15)

There are two things to note here. Firstly, note the juxtaposition of the mist and of the creation of man - reinforcing the previous verse where it says that water and a workman were the two things that were needed for plants to grow.

Secondly, it is worth noting that the words used here for "breath" and "soul" are identical. It would be equally valid to translate this as "and he became a living, breathing man". This is because to the ancients, the soul and the breath were considered the same thing. After all, the main difference between living people and dead ones is that they have stopped breathing. This is also why it has the motif of Yahweh breathing life into the man. If life ends when you stop breathing, it makes sense that to start life you must put breath into someone.

The use of the English word "garden" here conjures up images of a neat and tidy thing filled with trimmed lawns and flowers.

The Hebrew word ("gan"), however, merely means a walled enclosure and has no such imagary attached to it. Indeed, given the following verses about the location of Eden, it would appear that what is meant is an enclosed valley walled by mountains.

The name "Eden" appears to be simply a placename. I know of no other meaning of the word (although perhaps someone else here can enlighten me...)

Also note that the man has not yet been named.

Note that these are different trees, as is made obvious in 3:22.

Unfortunately, this description is not enough for us to determine exactly where the writer of the story wishes us to think Eden is. Note however that Eden is not the name of the garden - only the name of the place that contains the garden.

Once again, we see that the man's purpose is to work in the garden. This does not fit the Christian view that the garden was some kind of paradise - it was a place of toil for the man.

This is a fairly specific threat, and seems to be a reasonably standard Hebrew idiom - for another Biblical example, the same threat is used by Solomon to Shimei in 1 Kings 2:42.

This threat is a direct one, indicating that the victim will be killed the very day he does the thing that he is warned against.

Whether it is being used here as a warning ("if you eat it, then it will kill you that day") or a threat ("if you eat it, then I will kill you that day") is not clear.

Note here that Yahweh is not looking here to create a companion for his man, he is looking to create a helper - someone to help him work in the garden.

So Yahweh creates the animals as potential helpers for his man, but they aren't suitable. This is another indicator that the Yahweh character in the story is not the Christian God - who would not make a mistake like that. He (being all-powerful) would get his man a suitable helper first time.

So Yahweh creates a woman to go with his man. From the context of the previous two verses, the woman is created as someone to help the man work - not created as a companion to make him happy.

Now this is a very strange pair of verses. If the story is taken as having the Christian interpretation, then this man and woman are the only two people who have ever existed. As such, it is very strange for the man to suddenly start talking about fathers, mothers and marriage. After all, by the Christian interpretation - these people knew nothing of sex and reproduction, still being innocent at this point.

Similarly, this verse is a strong indicator that these people were mortal - it indicates the following of one generation after the next, something which would not occur with immortal people.

The best explanation would appear be that verse 24 is the words of the narrator/storyteller, and is not supposed to be the words of the character in the story.

Note that this does not give any indication that the couple were not lusting after each other and having "hot monkey sex" - only that they were not ashamed. In other words, the couple just "did what came naturally" like animals.

Firstly, note that the serpent is compared with the other animals that Yahweh had made - implying that it is in that group.

Secondly, notice that nothing unusual is mentioned about the snake talking. It is just taken as accepted that snakes (or at least this one) talk.

No mention is made of the snake being "possessed" by an outside influence making it talk, or of the snake being some other entity "come down in the form of a snake" or anything else like that. The storyteller just assumes that the audience will accept a talking snake for what it is, with no explanation being necessary.

Secondly, the word translated here as "subtle" is the Hebrew "'arum" - which is variously translated (including elsewhere in the Bible) as "crafty", "shrewd", "sensible" and "prudent". That the English translation (done by Christians) chooses the most perjorative translation possible is another sign of Christian interpretation. If it had been translated as "the snake was the most sensible of ..." then the English translation would have been given a totally different imagary. This Hebrew word was also chosen as a pun with "'arom" - the word used for nakedness.

What the snake says here is true. The woman will not die the very day she eats the fruit - and the fruit will make her "as god" knowing good and evil (as seen in 3:22).

Only after they have gained enlightenment do the man and woman clothe themselves - differentiating themselves from the other animals that don't do this.

It hardly needs mentioning that this figure of Yahweh - having a physical body and walking in the garden enjoying the cool, and having to call out to ask where the man and woman are - is vastly different from the Christian concept of God.

Again, Yahweh has to ask - rather than simply knowing what had happened as the Christian God would have.

Once again, the word here translated as "beguiled" ("nasha'") need not be translated like this but the christian translators have chosen the most perjorative option in order to make the story fit their beleifs. The word also means "persuaded" or "opened" (and is used in the sense of "opening someone's mind" i.e. showing them a new point of view or new information.

There is no disctinction in the word itself whether this is a positive thing (giving someone new information) or a negative thing (giving someone false information). Again, the imagery of the story in English is very different if it says "The snake enlightened me..." rather than "The snake beguiled me..."

This once again affirms that the snake is a physical animal - and shows a story of why the snake has no legs and appears to lick up the dirt (as it flicks its tongue).

If we take the Christian view that this is Satan - the enemy of God and man - why would Yahweh need to put emnity between the snake and mankind. It would already be there.

This too supports the snake being a snake and nothing more.

Yahweh's "all the days of thy life" comment once again shows that the man was mortal. That comment would make absolutely no sense if spoken to an immortal being.

Notice also that Yahweh starts this list of calamities with "I will...". The list of calamities also takes the traditional form of Hebrew curses - as can be seen by comparing it with the words of various prophets when they curse places. Yahweh is cursing the couple for disobeying him, and is cursing the world to make life harder for them. There is no concept here that their disobeying him resulted in some kind of "fall" or corruption of the world - once again, purely a Christian view - in the story the world is a tough place because Yahweh deliberately makes it so.

Finally, notice that the man is still a worker - except now he must work for himself rather than working for Yahweh.

Incidentally, "Eve" translates directly as "lifegiver" and "Adam" translates as "man". Indeed, some translations use "And Adam called..." rather than "And the man called..." in this verse.

This is a crucial verse. Notice how in it Yahweh explicitly confirms what the snake had said - that the couple had become enlightened and like him. Notice that he also wants to prevent them also becoming immortal. This would make no sense if the man were already immortal.

And there the story ends. Neither the man or the woman have been explicitly named - "Adam" is just a translation of "the man" and "Eve" is just a translation of "livegiver" which is more of a title than anything else.

As you can see - the story as written in Hebrew bears little resemblence to the story as interpreted and translated by Christians. It is only when the Christian concepts of an Omnipotent God, The Fall, Original Sin, the Devil (as opposed to Ha-Satan, the Jewish adversary) and so on are superimposed on top of the story that it becomes the one that Christians tell.

Jayhawker Soule

May I ask your evidence for this?

The Evil One

Actually it is. It mentions the Euphrates and (under another name) the Tigris, putting the location in northern Mesopotamia (which was "way out East" for the writers of the story, as indicated a few verses earlier).

Biblical literalists avoid this conclusion - creationists in particular claim that these are not the Tigris and Euphrates that we know, but rather that these rivers were destroyed in the flood and the modern Tigris and Eurphrates named after them (and this they call a literal interpretation!)

Mihilz

I just want to clear up that it is not my opinion that the story is shallow. If you look back to the post of mine that you quoted I was replying to someone who said that I had a shallow skim of it. I was merely saying that if that is how she viewed my evaluation of it then that is how she should view the story itself.

Other than that it was a great post and very informative. I appreciate it!

Jayhawker Soule

What am I missing here?

Mihilz

All I was saying was that if my view of the story seems shallow then perhaps the story itself is shallow. My point was that we shouldn't assume that there must be more depth to it without good reason. I wasn't asserting that the story is shallow, and I am not committed to that view. I merely asked WishboneDawn to consider the possibility that she was reading too much into it and that her interpretation lacked support.

Dean Anderson

The phrase "Yahweh Elohim" is very rarely used in the Bible, particularly not by the 'J' author who wrote this story. The 'J' author almost always uses simply "Yahweh" or "Elohim" - not both.

To have both terms used together so frequently in this story when they are only very rarely used together elsewhere is a very strong indication that they are the result of a tampering or editing of the original 'J' text. Since this is the first 'J' text we come to as we read the Bible, and since it directly follows a 'P' text that exclusively uses "Elohim" and doesn't mention the name "Yahweh", it is reasonable to assume that the combination term was put in by the Redactor who spliced the 'JE' and 'P' texts together in order that the change from the 'P' creation story to the 'J' Eden story would be less jarring.

Jayhawker Soule

No, it is not "very strong indication that they are the result of a tampering or editing of the original 'J' text", and it is certainly not, in my opinion, evidence sufficient to state "the references to "Jehovah God" originally simply read "Jehovah" but were changed" as if it were fact.

GakuseiDon

Exactly. God restricts access to the Tree of Life because they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God says they are "doomed to die" if they eat from the ToKGaE, but only because He would restrict them from the ToL. The serpert, though, "subtly" mentions that they won't die if they eat from the ToKGaE, which is true, but it isn't really what God meant, and I suppose that those hearing the myth would know that also.

It all makes sense if "dying you shall die" has the meaning of "doomed to die". Of course, that it makes sense doesn't mean that it is an accurate reading...

Jayhawker Soule

Conversely, that it could make sense suggests that haughty claims that "God was lying in Genesis" are less than compelling.