Elephant Questions
The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Genesis 2:8 NASB
Planted – YHVH planted a Garden. The verb is nata (to plant, to fix, to establish). In Hebrew agricultural life, this verb is very common. But when it is used to describe God’s actions in the Genesis story, planting produces a lot of questions. It will take serious mental energy to think about them.
Why is the snake in the Garden?
Why is the Tree there?
Why doesn’t God want them to eat of this Tree? What is the fruit of this Tree?
Why should they obey? There is no mention of heaven so what is the reward for obedience?
What’s so bad about the knowledge of good and evil?
Can we be human without this knowledge?
Why is there a Tree of Life?
How does it differ from living?
Doesn’t the serpent tell the truth (“you will be like elohim”)?
Doesn’t this mean that YHVH has the knowledge of good and evil and if that is true, doesn’t that imply that He knows sin?
How is it possible that Adam and Havvah might eat of the Tree of Life after they sinned?
Who are the actors in the statement, “Become like one of Us? (Genesis 3:22)?
What does “live forever” mean in this story?
Can’t God prevent them from eating of the Tree of Life without casting them from the Garden?
And finally, what’s the difference between a child, an animal and a sinner?
God planted a lot of questions. Not one of them is answered by the text itself. This is a story that seems to be coherent on the surface but is a tangled mess of loose ends underneath. We can read it like watching a movie and not pay attention to all the apparent discrepancies, but I wonder if we really understand the story at all if we don’t try to do battle with the big elephants in the room.
God planted the Garden. Nothing grew there that He wasn’t directly responsible for. Nothing was in the Garden that God did not allow. So how did the serpent arrive? God made the serpent. That is disconcerting. Did God make the nāḥāš ʿārûm, the crafty serpent, without knowing its potential to deceive? Was God caught by surprise? And if He knew what the serpent was capable of doing, why did He let the serpent into the Garden. Why didn’t He at least warn Adam and the woman about the serpent? Something isn’t right about this. If God wanted His children to obey His one and only command, why didn’t He give them further caution about the circumstances and characters that might affect their efforts? Why did He sort of leave them on their own in the face of the greatest challenge to their very existence? Would you do that to your children? “You must never play with that loaded gun, right over there” you command your children, but you don’t bother to show them what a loaded gun is, who might give them one, how to avoid being around one, etc. What kind of parent would do that? No, something about this situation in the Garden doesn’t sit right.
Why is the Tree there? If God knows that eating from the Tree will cause death, then why doesn’t He keep it out of the Garden? After all, He’s the one who planted it. Would you do that? “Listen, children, today I am going to plant deadly nightshade in the garden. It’s a beautiful flower. Such lovely colors. And the berries—oh, my, they look so inviting. But you must never eat them. They are poisonous and will kill you. Just remember that.” Are you kidding? If you have young children, you simply don’t plant dangerous things in your garden. You keep those things away from your children. So why doesn’t God? It seems as if God sets them up to fail. What is this all about?
Just one more. Why doesn’t God want them to eat of that Tree? What’s so bad about knowing what is good and what is evil? God knows. Why can’t we know? If fact, how is it possible to be human in the world and not know this? What characteristics of the knowledge of good and evil are so dangerous that eating from this Tree results in death? Oh, and by the way, they didn’t die—at least not for a very long time. In fact, even their relationship with YHVH which was put under distress immediately after disobeying isn’t terminal. Was the punishment just hyperbole? Is there any place in the text that suggests God was speaking about “spiritual” death? Would Adam have understood such a concept?
The more we dig, the deeper it gets. And you thought you knew the story.
We’ll have to save the rest of the questions. It looks like it will take a book to answer them.
Topical Index: Garden, questions, planted, nata, nāḥāš ʿārûm, crafty serpent, Genesis 2:8
You are right, Skip. Reading the first couple of chapters leave us with glaring questions. I wonder if this is where some teachers decided we shouldn’t question God? I used to only have one question about this, and wondered why nobody talked about it. If I asked in a group of Bible students, the question was met with silence. It was, “Who told Eve not to touch the tree?” I’m glad this community is not afraid to discuss these questions. 🙂
Great “lead-in” for your next book Skip. Our curiosity is peeked.
We know you wouldn’t have put the questions out there if you didn’t have a response.
Eagerly awaiting… :-)))
Wait. Maybe I am working on these too. I am not the “Bible Answer Man.” But you already knew that. 🙂
@serpent: I have seen a fair amount of extra-Biblical suggestions that say the serpent was made as good as the rest of it, except perhaps the “fairest of them all”, some of the references even going as far as suggesting an intelligence – and perhaps even an ability to communicate (which would explain why Eve did not immediately freak out) – and the curse of going on its belly means it had to have had another method of locomotion, of which the most logical would perhaps have been flying? But it seems to me that if devils can enter pigs it is possible to do the same with serpents, or would that just be a New Testament dispensation? The serpents are still some of the most outrageously decorated animals, at least to me.
And, about that Tree, the way I read the text, the penalty of death is for disobedience, specifically, and not the desire to know, or the desire to eat fruit. Really, what smaller test of obedience could there have been? Naaman’s servants pointed out that dipping in the Jordan was not a big test, but a relatively small one. It wasn’t the tree, (seems to me it could have been anything), it was the test, but we now seem to be cursed with the greatest amount of temptation being directed at all our various appetites. Perhaps we are now predisposed to fall in that area? I have also noticed that the test of appetite was the first one presented to Yeshua in the wilderness temptation. The Second Adam won that battle back for us, and so now we have a Way back out.
@ Tree of Life. In this forum, perhaps most of us would agree that there is no assurance in the text that we were created immortal; in fact, the only reference to One with ‘natural’ immortality is YHVH, and the Son. Even in the New Earth, I have noticed that we are supposed to gather at least once a month to eat off that Tree. The suspended function we are all struggling with right now is not really truly life: not yet. I think the grace inherent in those curses are what are actually holding body and breath together, and life is something we have to choose our way back into. Yeshua went down into the grave to find us, and, in my mind, to also keep us while we get another chance to choose that life. Choice infers we don’t already possess something. The choice of life and death is post-Garden.
@ knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge is good, but some ways to it are not good. The Word says that He withholds no good thing, and surely He would have told the children who had freely chosen to trust and obey Him about this, too. Perhaps they jumped the gun and didn’t give Him a chance?
The terseness of this account also tells me that there could have possibly been a good deal more ORAL info back then, and the written was not so much about satisfying historical accuracy as in explaining WHY.
This is lots of fun! Especially not knowing!
Dr Moen & your many regular readers and contributors –
having recently found this site and after having printed the grammar of love piece, i will say that i am going through a time whereby i almost can’t read the bible given that the translations only touch the surface
one take-away from the grammar of love that i offer as a suggestion for a book that so many ‘elephant questions’ poses is that the explanations be framed in terms of the ‘greatest commandment(s)’ in addition to the decalogue
It’s so nice to have you join us. Welcome to the world of digging.
Comparing life now with life before the fall is not really possible since none of us has any experience with life free from sin. I wrestle with eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil every day. I love to use my own logic, to determine on my own by doing my own research what is “good” and “bad,” to solve my problems (and everyone else’s) using my own reasoning, etc. We were made to be in relationship with the one who is pure love, to believe He is good, to trust Him with our whole hearts, to seek Him in all things, to depend on Him for everything, and to listen to and obey His voice out of our love for Him. But I am prideful. I want the credit. I want to solve life’s challenges on my own using my own reasoning. I want to do all my Google searches and find out the answer myself. I don’t want to be childlike and look to Him with trusting eyes and obedient surrender. So I seek that knowledge of what is according to my definition “good” and “evil,” and I direct my own life based on that knowledge. The Bible is full of stories of the two ways of living. One leads to life and wholeness and blessings and goodness, and the other hurts the person and those around.
Hi Skip, What a great place to play in the Scriptures! There are even more intricacies in a deeper glance. It is interesting to note in Gen 3, that it speaks of the serpent in the field, not the garden. Adam named all the animals in the field. It does not speak of animals in the garden.
Also:
When God speaks to Adam,The translation says “surely die” but not so in the Hebrew. He says (in the Hebrew)” If you eat of it, you will die, die.” When Eve speaks to the serpent she quotes God in the singular “die” When the serpent replies to Eve, he quotes God correctly , ” God knows you will not “die, die”.
(There are two types of death).
Messiah says in Matthew 10:28, “don’t be afraid of someone who can kill your body, be afraid of Him that can kill your body and soul.
Fascinating!
Skip, a special thanks to you for the piece today. You had no way of knowing that today is the 40th anniversary of marriage to my wife. Even before we knew of a “Skip Moen” we were trying to live as in the Garden…but there are an awful lot of weeds and briers, literally and figuratively! We’re on the same page, brother.
Here’s a cute little story I read the other day that is actually a teaching tool from the talmud. Although it was given in a different context, it may be quite appropriate here as well.
The Talmud recounts that following the destruction of the first Temple the members of the Great Assembly successfully abolished the evil inclination for idol worship. Inspired by their success they turned their attention to the evil inclination for sex and decided to destroy it as well. Fortunately a spirit of caution set in and they made a three day trial before making the destruction final; much to their astonishment they discovered that following three days without the evil inclination for sex they couldn’t locate a single fresh egg. Needless, to say they decided to leave the inclination for sex almost entirely untouched. [Talmud, Sanhedrin, 64a]
Perhaps, like the sexual drive, the “answers” (no answers?) to many of these questions can be best expressed in the tension held between the necessity of having that drive in order to propagate and the very real risk of misusing them. (evil is not necessary, but perhaps the temptation toward it being there, is) If the drive for searching things out was eliminated, along with the “conduits” through which it’s propagated, where would we be at now? Besides, what would life be like without eggs for breakfast?
In regards to “as one of us”, it’s interesting that this term, as well as “in our image” and “as our likeness” has the same structure (NUN-VAV, nu) as “our God” or elohinu. In the “paleo format, the n-u would designate, activity-connected”, so that “our God” is not our God because we call Him our God but rather because our activity is connected (the same as) to His in doing the things He does. Perhaps, in our image, as our likeness and as one of use (in the english formation) has to do, not with the plurality of God, but rather with the plurality of activities that He has granted us as a gift to be in relation to Him.
THIS IS GREAT. Thanks. Can I quote you on “evil is not necessary, but perhaps the temptation toward it being there, is”?
Of course, but I’m glad you appreciate it.
very thought provoking post today, cant wait for the follow up i do hope there is one some many unanswered questions, waiting in anticipation. Thanks Skip
seems to fly in the face of the view of God ringing his hands in agony over the “lost”when it seems He could have prevented it!?!?
Could have prevented? Yes, but at what cost?
Dr. Michael Heiser, Ph.D. Hebrew, University of Wisconsin did his doctoral dissertation on the Divine Council which he contends is the “we” of Genesis 1:26.
Dr. Heiser would, I believe, have differences with Skip but I find him well researched and accessible by non-scholars. His thesis on the Divine Council is compelling.
I think he is Trinitarian and in so, and if I’m correct, differs from the conclusions you make Skip. His work helps me see that in the community of Israel of 2,000 – 3,000 years ago our paradigms simply did not exist as they do for us.
It is certainly true that the paradigms of 3000 years ago were different. I am not so such about Wittgenstein’s concept of “form of life.” When I have time, I’ll try to look at Heiser’s work, although the “Divine Counsel” is not a new idea and is employed by men like Nahum Sarna, who is certainly not a Trinitarian.
I’d value your view. Thanks Skip.
Since Eve have had no prior experience with death, what would “die die” have meant to her, or to them both?
Is the question “what’s the difference between a child, an animal, and a sinner?” some sort of quiz? Are you going to go somewhere with this? This has been driving me nuts.
Ok, to establish the differences, I had to look at the similarities, first. This is what I have so far:
Similarities:
-All the above seem to lack true autonomy to make free choices, independent of other authority.
-All lack ability to take their own responsibility.
-All are dependent upon a larger reference: child – parent; animal – instinctual nature; sinner – having lost some of their original identity, their larger context is now bound up in, or, compromised by, their sin.
Differences:
Child appears to be free – within their proper reference to their parents, of course – to obey, to learn, and to become self-aware.
Animal is not free to obey its instinct, neither is it self-aware in a responsible way. It can only learn to adapt and respond, but it cannot learn to obey via free choice.
Sinner is in the worst shape of all. Without an innate, hard-wired reference point to reality (instinct), nor the freedom (that they chose away) to experience that obedience, education, or true identity, the sinner, bound by sin, is no longer free to obey – at least until they get forgiven, that is. Also, trapped by sin, they are doomed to repeat their failure over and over again.
After long thought, I have begun to suspect that this condition has perhaps been the reason the East perceives us to be caught in endless cycles that are not only tied to the past (by sin), but, again because of that sin, helpless in the face of the future. I think they may be able to see more clearly than we can that where sin abounds, faith just does not work, nor is it even available. Faith, of course, like the other fruits of the Spirit, can only be found in places that have been freed of sin.
Animals have instinct instead of faith, and children are limited in their faith by the trustworthiness of their parents. Of course, as children of the light, we are signed onto a trustworthy Father, and to the extent that we are free of sin to obey in that faith, the sky is the limit.
Bound by instinct, the animal is innocent, but tied to our choices: the child can improve through grace, maturity, and proper instruction, but the sinner enjoys none of the above – without a Saviour, of course.
All are in need of redemption, at least here. The cosmos (including animals) by the perfection of us, as its stewards; the child by proper parenting, either earthly or heavenly; and the sinner, by the Saviour. Wait: that’s yet another way they are the same/different, too…
If we stay within Genesis chapter one, to understand this puzzling scenario, there will certainly be more questions than answers. Not until much later in the completed story are the answers finally revealed. The best commentary on the Scriptures are the Scriptures themselves!
~ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.. ~ No shortage of mystery!! How does a brown cow eat green grass and produce white milk and yellow butter? Lol!
Okay, Carl, here is more questions: Is you word “you”? If you had the power to make another person via your own word, would that person be you? Food for thought.
Skip, I am so enjoying these TW this year (not that I didnt the previous years) but the digging deeper/wider/higher is so thought provoking….thank you so much. I am back in UK and almost restored after my severe case of shingles when in the land. I just wish I could convince you to go through those questions one at a time each day?!? The thought of having to wait for your book is going to be a test of patience (smile)!
Also just want to say how I appreciate and enjoy the diveristy of this community and all the equally thought provoking comments – while so sick it was all I could do to read each day through one eye (shingles attacked my right eye)…so really blessed by being part of all of you exploring these weighty matters.
Christine, I’m thankful with you thatt you’ve been released from singles!
Tanya, I think you meant shingles not singles.
Maybe she meant what she wrote. That would be a release of major proportion. 🙂
yes – thankfully i was given a wonderful husband 5years ago and yes thank you im recovering fast from the horrid painful shingles!
Blessings
Even in the New Earth, I have noticed that we are supposed to gather at least once a month to eat off that Tree. Laurita can you please provide reference here.
Perhaps they jumped the gun and didn’t give Him a chance? Laurita this sounds something like the warning not to relay or trust in the strength of the arm of the flesh…
llie Agee you will die, die. Interesting phrase as in Genesis 4 we read of how we “Cain” was reminded that he has to rule over sin… Failing to rule would result in??? Sounds like will be separated and as Paul warns the root of bitterness will start controlling us and this will eventually separate us totally from the will of God.
Laurita nice comment on “what’s the difference between a child, an animal, and a sinner?” I believe as you explained the resemblance will reveal the differences. Child grows as it learns and discovers more. Animal becomes more ‘sneaky’ in the manner to catch or get hold of its food. Sin clothes itself in the promise of a truth we really do not need; The seven deadly sins then manifest and it is these that totally distances us from the giver of peace and sustained prosperity – created unto His image… The ultimate reality is that they all grow from reliance unto independence and eventually separation… so they in essence only differ now what happens with them as the uncover more truths is the same – more self focused – gone is the love in self by loving others and hello love in self and damned be the rest…
Seeker, you sure do think a lot! I like that.
If Adam and Eve had trusted more, they would have waited for that knowledge (all good things) to come only from the hand of their Father. This has been a very hard one for me to learn, too.
The reference to the eating of the Tree of Life every month in the New Earth is in Isaiah 66:23 and Revelation 22:2. If you put the two together, you will see that the saved will gather every new moon for a festival, and you will also see that the Tree has a different fruit every month. Makes sense, then, that both facts are related. We eat from the Tree and drink from the River of Life, too, every month. This tells me that, not only have we never possessed the innate capacity for eternal life on our own, we never will. Life will always be a derivative of access to the Source of it. Hope that helps!