The Power of Tradition

I recently read an exegesis of the particularly important passage in Genesis 3 regarding the punishment God issues after the disobedience of the first couple.  Since the author is a well-known Jewish scholar, I was a bit surprised to find that his exegesis actually incorporated many ideas from interpretations that arose centuries later.

Here’s the article:  CLICK HERE

Notice a few important points.  First, his comment about “the voice” walking in the Garden is treated as an anthropomorphism.  But Avivah Kushner’s analysis removes this difficult.  It isn’t the voice “walking” but rather the voice coming from all directions (see Kushner’s The Grammar of God).  Stumbling over the idea of “walking” only happens once we accept some sort of corporeal presence (as Christian commentators do when they claim this is the pre-existent Christ).  Since God is not corporeal, we should follow Kushner here rather than attempt to resolve any physical description with theological expediency.

Second, we must raise objection to the claim that the woman’s name is etymologically connected to the Hebrew verb for “live” or “life.”  Nahum Sarna clearly shows that the woman’s name is a borrowed word.  That’s why it requires the narrator to provide a definition (see Sarna’s JPL commentary on Genesis).  Naming the woman is an integral part of the “blame game” in this story since the name is provided by the man, not by God.

We must also challenge the exegesis of the “curse” passage.  The translation of the woman’s punishment as an increase in the pain of child-bearing and an enhanced desire for her husband is not only theologically repugnant, it is exegetically unwarranted.  Several commentators and scholars have pointed out that “increase pain” cannot be connected to birth.  At best it can only be a description of child-rearing.  This would follow the “measure-for-measure” sense of the punishment given the man.  But Bushnell’s work of more than a century ago already seriously questioned this reading, showing that it depends on much later Mishnaic pointing.  Furthermore, there is considerable debate about the very rare word teshuqah used here.  I have addressed these issues in my book, Guardian Angel.

It is unfortunate that even among Jewish scholars the traditional readings of these important texts is still influenced by doctrinal assumptions from the early centuries of the Common Era.  So much of our misunderstandings about the role of women before and after the Fall are governed by unfounded assumptions read back into the text, whether from Christian or Jewish sources.