Where It Belongs
Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Genesis 3:17b NASB
The ground – Let’s clear up a common misunderstanding. God does not curse Adam and the woman. Human beings are not cursed because of Adam’s deliberate disobedience. Augustine’s idea that Adam’s disobedience resulted in guilt for all subsequent human kind is not supported by the biblical text. God curses the ground, not those who inhabit the ground. Quite specifically, the verb ʾārar is applied to ha ʾădāmâ, not ‘adam. Human beings are still assigned the task of finishing the creative work begun by YHVH. We still act as His regents, even if the Garden environment is no longer the place of our employment.
Good. I’m glad we got that settled. No more inherited guilt. No more “I can’t help but sin” nonsense. No more, “God punished us all because of Adam.” But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any consequences. When the ground is cursed, everything about living is affected. In particular, “the estrangement that has come to prevail in the intricate relationship of human beings to the God-given life both around them and in them”[1] is in jeopardy. Givens notes that “we have learned a way of life in which a crowd of romanticized but destructive patterns of production, communications, and consumption form our appetites and claim most of our attention, blinding us to what lies right before us.”[2] From pangolins to plants, we are fulfilling God’s curse of the ground by being consumers rather than stewards. Instead of gardeners in the great creation of God, we are scavengers, taking what we want for ourselves without regard to the Master’s plan. And in the end, we will extend the curse to all forms of life that inhabit the ʾădāmâ, including our own.
India is perhaps the most polluted place I have ever been. Everywhere a human foot has stepped on the ʾădāmâ, there is garbage. People survive (I did not say “thrive”) in this trash heap of human waste by sheer will power. Most of the time, that isn’t enough. I can understand some of this as a result of a religious system that obstructs stewardship. But when I asked a Christian woman why she threw her package wrapper out the car window, she replied, “I used to keep things like that and put them in the bin at home, but what’s the point? Everyone throws trash on the ground. It doesn’t make any difference what I do.” And, of course, she’s wrong! Her obligation is not to clean the world. It is to clean her world. It is to be the steward of her tiny little part of the creation. Instead, through her depression of the whole, she adds her tiny bit to the curse.
Augustine was wrong about Adam’s transferred guilt. Adam’s guilt was not given to us, but his world was, and it seems as if we, as a race, have taken up the challenge of doing as much as we can to make sure the consequences befall us all. The real “Fall” wasn’t from grace. It was from responsibility.
Topical Index: ground, ʾădāmâ, stewardship, curse, ʾārar, Genesis 3:17
[1] Tommy Givens, “Restoring Creation: With Reflections on Laudato Si,” Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 36.
[2] Ibid., p. 38.
I live in the inner city and one day, some guy drove down my street, opened up his window and threw all of his McDonald’s garbage out onto our street. I was angry and he sped away without a care of what he did. It wasn’t his home (but then again I’ve been in homes that are like garbage dumps.) I have seen my share of people who just dump whatever they like, wherever they like.. What would our nations look like if we just took care of our garbage? I was in Liberia years ago, after the war, and rebuilding was starting. Garbage was everywhere and it was a mess. I came back the next year and I saw a difference so clearly. They were able to start garbage pickup again and they had people cleaning the sidewalks. I noticed the difference right away. Something so simple, that anyone can be responsible to do, can make such an impact.How simple, but changing the mindset that I can do what I want when I want, is a major uphill battle!
A parallel thought …
“Human beings are still assigned the task of finishing the creative work begun by YHVH”
… WE ARE STILL LIVING IN THE 6th DAY. THE PERIOD OF REST IS STILL TO COME.
I also see a redeeming work we are assigned to also. We could connect with a recent post .(yesterday?)
Yes… Indebted to the revelation of Rich Pease below: “But what happened to our FLESH?”
Where our spirit is perfect because it came from / is part of Elohim; and
Our flesh is ground / dust / earth / matter (according to the “Big Bang”) and therefore cursed;
Our MINDS are in process…
our assignment, through free will, by choice, under penalty of the second death,
to REDEEM.
“Augustine’s idea that Adam’s disobedience resulted in guilt for all subsequent human kind is not supported by the biblical text. God curses the ground, not those who inhabit the ground.”. I marvel at the vanity off man to spin his own yarns and then teach others that they are hertics if they don’t follow after his ideas. The lyrics of a Shaker hymn go like this “Tis a gift to be simple. Tis a gift to be free. Tis gift to come round where you aught to be. And when you’ve come around to the place that is right, it will be in the garden of love and delight”.
I love this: “The real “Fall” wasn’t from grace. It was from responsibility.”
This was just the kick in the pants I needed today!
Grace is for all, but I think the only thing grace can do for those who are presuming upon it is to keep them alive for one more choice opportunity; one more chance to choose life.
If grace is to be appropriated in our lives – if our lives are to actually become BETTER because of that grace, we must seize the opportunity grace provides to return to responsibility; to make a move back toward the front lines of duty. What is our duty? Like Skip reminds us, our assignment has not changed; we are still called upon to be stewards, and our biggest sin, after rejecting our Saviour, of course, is to continue to try to duck our responsibility to the planet we were given “to dress and to keep”. How many of us are going to stand before that Judgment Throne one day and hear the question “how did you keep My vineyard”? Um, that would include everything. We were given it all, but we weren’t given it all to trash and to be served by. These would be those sins.
I have to run. I have stewardship duties to attend to!
“The real “Fall” wasn’t from grace. It was from responsibility.”
What I so appreciate about Skip’s writing skill is his ability to bring his reader into a revelation of a deeper truth that is hidden in plain view by using elegantly sparse prose. There are no unsightly, careless and casual words strewn across the countryside, no “throwaway lines” tossed out the car window littering the view for everyone and leaving it for another to clean up (like this sentence). Thank you Skip. I definitely learn from you on several levels, not the least is English Composition 101. Perhaps the biggest difference in our writing is in my wanting to say something and in Skip having something to say. And to that charge I am speechless …
“Perhaps the biggest difference in our writing is in my wanting to say something and in Skip having something to say”
OK, Michael, you will have to admit that was a great one liner!
Skip may have the cerebral thing covered, but you have the funny bone down cold – always needed in my world, where taking myself too seriously is a continual sin. I am not a ‘normal’ person; I only suffer when I think I am or have to be. You have the ability to relieve me of my suffering. Much appreciated!
Yes, Michael, As I read (and we read out loud, so the words hit more fully somehow), I was brought to silence at least twice by Skip’s elegantly sparse prose. Thank you, Skip, for helping me THINK deeply and for continuing to encourage me to use the supplies at my disposal (no pun intended) to erase the false things from my theological whiteboard, written by men in permanent marker,
and pause,
contemplate the vast white cleanness,
and wait
before writing there with a dry erase marker, eraser in hand, because there is more, so much more, to grasp.
Like Laurita, gotta go attend to His assigned duties…
lol love your humility brother…
True, God cursed the ground. That obviously rattled normal living.
But what happened to our FLESH?
It replaced God as the center piece of our attention and priorities.
It froze perspective on one’s self, and put a huge damper on God’s Spirit.
That perspective still drives this world today. Have you seen the garbage?
Yeshua once spoke pointedly about this issue: “The Spirit gives life;
the flesh counts for nothing.” Apparently, only a “few” heard Him.
But the good news is, His Word still goes forth . . .
And so do the “doers” of His Word! Be of good cheer!
GRACE AND RESPONSIBILITY
The real “Fall” wasn’t from grace? It was from responsibility?
I will contend that the real “Fall” WAS and IS from grace. Though the real “Fall” from grace is EVIDENCED by irresponsibility, it is, however, a fall from grace.
All good things begin with grace and are to be sustained by grace and end with grace. It is mankind receiving, abiding in, living by, and giving grace that is true life, salvation, and restoration. Grace is the means by which life is both given, sustained, and restored. Certainly there is the necessity of RESPONSIBILITY in the receiving, abiding in, living by and giving of grace, but it is certainly the falling from grace that is the problem.
“Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Ruach, will you now reach the goal in the flesh?” [Gal 3:3]
If it is BY GRACE through faith unto righteousness that mankind is SAVED, then it is also the FALL FROM GRACE through unbelief into sin that led to the earth being CURSED, and it is by NOT falling from grace through faith unto righteousness that all things will be RESTORED, including the earth, as well as mankind’s relationship with God and with mankind itself, also. The receiving of the full grace of God is necessary to even have a heart of longing and willingness to seek and know God for who He really is and to be truly and completely conformed to being like Him, which of course involves the responsibility to truly know and completely do the will of God. But apart from grace, responsibility will be of no avail, for it will eventually fail. True grace will be manifest in true responsibility.
For certain and for sure, we all have fallen short of the mark of responsibility to which we have been called, and it is by becoming fully responsible that all things will be restored. However, it is by grace that we are saved and by which all things will also be restored, even our responsibility to faithfully co-labor with Him in that restoration.
MAY GRACE ABOUND STILL MORE AND MORE!
“For by grace you have been saved through faith.” [Eph 2:8]
“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God…” [Heb 12:15]
“For the One working in you is God—both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” [Php 2:13]
What is grace? Is it “unmerited favor”? Is it allowance for faulty nature? Is it the only way our Creator was able to stand to be around His creation? These are the questions we have to ask if we assume that grace was even around before the Fall.
What if grace was not only not possible without sin, but did not exist before it? If that were the case, we may need to ask what we did fall from, because it could not have been grace, and if not grace, then what?
After all things are restored, and there is no more sin, will there still be grace?
Great question!! Maybe this article will shed more light on the Jewish understanding of grace/chesed. www dot aish dot com/sp/k/Kabbala_10__Chesed_-_The_World_is_Built_on_Kindness.
By the way, if I’m not mistaken, I think even Skip has defined grace as, essentially, at least somewhat, God’s empowerment to humans to live a righteous life, though I would expect God’s grace is also that virtue of God that has been discharged and extended in the creation and sustenance of the entire universe from the beginning. How then can anyone be responsible to co-labor with God in the restoration of life, the world, and even the universe if one has fallen from or short of the grace of God? One must freely receive it, if one is going to freely give it, and if one is not freely giving it, then I would say one is not freely receiving it, and has fallen from or short of it.
Jerry and Lisa, you are right, of course, that grace empowers us to live a righteous life NOW. Grace fills in the missing links. We ‘fall’ from this all the time, but I assumed the “real Fall” you were talking about initially was about the original one in the Garden. I am asking if grace was the case before the fall of the race? If we are talking about grace as defined by popular theology, it would most certainly had to have been, but I am asking if that is necessarily the definition we should be traveling on here?
Attempting to put the “theological” definitions aside, (if that’s even possible) grace is simply(?) favor and kindness given to another. YHVH placed us as the head of His creation, endowing us with the ability and power to conform it to our will. If ruled correctly (as in His Image) the possibilities are unfathomable and true joy and fulfillment is available to us and is the stated intention of God right from the beginning. That’s grace (kindness and favor) because it didn’t have to be that way but it is because He chose it to be so. Skip’s right on this one, with that grace that was given, also an endowment of ability is given alongside and with that comes responsibility. Grace is still given and has always been here, but the reason we don’t operate in it, and probably more important, and don’t return to it, is a lack of responsibility on our part. He, blamed her. She blamed the snake. Nobody returned.
Just out of curiosity… Is conforming the creation to our will not telling God his provisions stink… Knowledge taking us away from wholesomeness if I may add.
I understood that my will is the Babylon or world I need to overcome so that I can be humbled to accept God’s control over me.
Is it not my will that separates me from God’s will.
Or am I confusing my thoughts with God’s will?
It’s not a denying of His provision but a living in His provision. God could have created this world fully completed, but He didn’t. Perhaps, He didn’t want to hog all the fun and would rather we share in the task of finishing His creation. Think about that for a minute, perhaps it tells something of the gift we’ve been given of being made in His Image. No it’s not a rejection of His gift or Himself, it is a taking on of the responsibility He’s tasked us with though. Not doing that is as big a sin as doing it the wrong way, maybe more so.
Very good thoughts. We know He starts things and He restores things, but does He ever stop being the way He is and doing the things He does, like creating? Are we merely discovering new things in creation or are things still being created? Nevertheless, I believe we will partner with Him in endless creative ventures, even after all things are restored, even endlessly growing ourselves. After all, is He not boundless and unsearchable? I suspect we will be forever searching Him out, growing in the knowledge of Him, growing ourselves in His ways, and participating in the works that He has prepared for us to walk in, co-laboring with Him, “from glory to glory”, world without end. Boundless, immeasurable grace! It’s always been that way and always will be. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. It’s only we who fall from or fall short of His grace that is the problem. Falling from His grace is falling from the responsibility to believe in, receive, abide and live by it. I’d say they really are one in the same.
I believe it’s true that He didn’t create the world fully completed. And as I said, I believe it may never be completed.
In the Apostolic Bible Polygot, it reads, “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; for in it he rested from all his works — which God began to do.”
In the Brenton version, it reads, “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he ceased from all his works which God began to do.”
In the International Standard version, it reads, “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God stopped working on everything that he had been creating.”
In the Tree of Life Version, it reads, “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for on it He ceased from all His work that God created for the purpose of preparing.”
In most other versions, it only says that He rested from all His work which He in creating had made. It doesn’t really say He completed His creation. Not sure many people know that.
Robert, Jerry and Lisa.
Partially I can agree on co workers on creation. But we must not forget that we do not create we manipulate to change. These are two different concepts. If we manipulate so that we remain within the realm of utilising the created solely to survive instead of to gather I will say we are supporting the created process. It is when we start gathering that we become arrogant enough to say we are blest and being blest.
Skip phrased it nice in a previous TW we keep taking from creation. Again that seems to be the order work and toil the earth only began after the fall. If I may add…
While it is true that God creates in ways we cannot, we must realize that the Genesis passage does not suggest that the difference is about ex nihilo creation. The Hebrew text does not say, “In the beginning”. The words suggest manipulation of already existing material (When God began creating). The ex nihilo idea comes much later in the prophets. If we read the text as the original audience would have heard it, we will not see the distinction later writings provide.
Thank you for that clarification it does change the complete understanding of the creation.
Actually, I would expect that all here essentially agree with each other and it‘s just that different things are being emphasized for different reasons and in different ways. It does, however, seem sometimes our manner of writing attempts to emphasize a point by making what can easily be interpreted as an “all-or-nothing”, “black-or-white” statement, attempting to prove one point while negating the other, when there is often truth in both points, and I most often think that doing so weakens an argument for the truth and can even distort the truth. I have done this at times, myself, and I can only assume that it is the same for others who do it, that there is some other motive or agenda going on, but I don’t think it is a wholly pure method of debate, reasoning, arguing, teaching or prophesying, and I think it can result in false teaching and prophesying.
Anyways…..grace is defined, in part, as benefit, favor, GIFT – “especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life” (Strong’s).
So, it seems, grace is anything of and from God provided and/or imparted to mankind to have divine influence upon the heart (it is God’s gifts [works of grace] to mankind, who is then to be responsible to believe and receive it – this is the affect grace is to have on the human heart – to believe and receive), and it is then to be reflected in the life (it is then mankind’s responsibility to be responsible with it and to give gifts back to God and others [good works] flowing out of that grace that has been received). It is not that grace is given and stops there in the receiving of it, and then responsibility begins, as like being a “copy-cat Jesus”, but that it is to flow out through responsible actions of grace, not falling from or short of believing in, receiving, abiding in, or living by it.
Grace was present within the nature of God before the foundation of the world and was given, at least, from “In the beginning…..”, if not before (Messiah was slain before the foundation of the world, for instance). It was not only for sin, “the Fall” that grace appeared and was given, but for even the creating of all things, and significantly for mankind and the whole of the cosmos, but supremely for His Son, as well as His own good pleasure as a Father. It was given for mankind for life, righteousness, every good work. Apart from grace there is no life, righteousness, or good works. It is not even possible to be responsible apart from grace. And I would contend that the very effort to be responsible apart from grace results in what is referred to as “dead works”, even the works of Adam and Eve were dead works at the time of the “Fall from grace”, and they brought forth death because they fell from grace. It was then that they fell from trusting in or believing and receiving, in that they became unbelieving toward God and believed the lie rather than the truth, and therefore then fell from responsibility. Well, Adam wasn’t deceived. He was just plain disobedient, but still, he also fell from grace in trusting and abiding in His word.
Grace empowers mankind to know God, His will, the truth, His love, the Ruach, and to be willing to do His righteousness. His grace demands us to be responsible and, yes, we must “extend” grace for grace to have it’s full effect in us.
But Shaul spoke of this supremacy of grace, I think, when he said, that in all his hard work at being responsible, it was the grace of God that was with him that was to be credited. He was responsible, but it was not so much him being responsible that he was what he was or did what he did, but grace.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace toward me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than them all—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” [1Co 15:10]
“For the One working in you is God—both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” [Php 2:13]
Some very deep thoughts thank you.
It nearly sounds as if the way of life we are responsible ino sharing is not manipulating creation but using creation and our skills to reveal grace unto others.
I was once reminded that our responsibility is to harness the natural resources to cover or provide in what we need to survive and within this is the responsibility to share this with others and teach them the same.
May I copy this?
Sometimes when I think I am being the epitome of responsibility ,I end up looking in the mirror of my mind expecting to see beauty I see the ugliness of pride. I realize how much my life is Gods endless mercy toward me. Yet Grace is so above and beyond it ,and when it’s given to to me it’s beyond words or explanation (unfathomable riches maybe?) Yahoshua is the ultimate Grace to me.
Thank you Skip. As you promised we are now by the tasking of the human being as the natural creation of God.
And all the contributors this far make valid and inquiring comments. What I read is we came onto earth with no responsibilities and all creation to to live from. The fall from free lifestyle into a responsible lifestyle…
Taking that a step further we have claimed to be mandated by God to be responsible… But in all truth we were instructed to honour God’s creation as it was and in that we are failing.
How do we serve God’s purpose is still the burning question…
Seeker, I do this: I equate purpose with love, and love with function, and function with connection. Our purpose is to connect everything with everything in more and more ways. How? Love. Be a part of the web. Return to connection with all. Each of us has a unique and necessary part, and we all need everybody and everything else to accomplish our design (identity). Our job definition, I believe, is “be glue”.
I asked the question, what did we fall from? I think it was full function; full connection with all. We are responsible for repenting for that fracture and responsible for participating in the restoration of that connection, so that everything can work properly again without grace to prop it up, but I think we are also responsible for maintaining that function again when we get there, and not dropping our end of the ball again.
I think Adam and Eve were operating at a high level of interactivity with their planet, and when they ‘fell’ from that connection, the planet suffered along with us. Being the apex of this local creation carries a lot of responsibility to all else. That was where we started from and I believe that is what we will be given another chance to do again in the restoration (“perfection”) of all connection.. At least, that is what I see right now and what is working for me today. I will amend as I see better.
Thank you Laurita, so my disconnected lifestyle may be the reason why I find no purposeful meaning. Hands on, do it now, do not procrastinate is then depriving me of connection. I can understand that.
So the attitude should be; Every day in every way, we are becoming holier and holier.
Instead of better and better….
“Better and better” I am now suspicious has to do with our Greek notions of individual perfection. I now find myself even thinking of salvation as happening BETWEEN; as in ‘my’ salvation means that my connections are restored between me and others. When I pray for my children to be saved, I now think of it as a restoration of relationship. Yeshua gave us a model prayer that was spoken in the collective, not the singular; as our big Brother, He even included Himself in it, too (amazing).
Salvation may not even be a solitary experience, either; it may simply mean the breaks in the lines are reconnected. I cannot get ‘better and better’ on my own; it has no meaning except to describe relationship with YHVH, myself, and others – now THERE is something that can really get better and better! I have started to think of salvation as what returns me to the connections (righteousness) with all that Yeshua enjoys.
If holiness is devotion, or, to follow the Hebrew more closely (thanks, Truett, for the book link “Come Out Of Her, My People” by C.J. Koster) separation from all that threatens to get in between me and YHVH – than you could say holiness is where our connection gets better and better, too. Holiness, then, would also be a description of relationship. A completely holy God would then be a completely connected (related) one, instead of a completely Other, which the Greek notion of perfection implies. I wonder how much more of this we just got ass-backwards?
Maybe we even have life backwards… Death to life rather than life to death…
Restoring has Job losing everything or like the father of the prodigal son.
What experience is ahead.
If it is history repeating itself well what was I for my parents… Lost as Job’s offspring our restored as the prodigal son.
Or wait and see for what must be must be…
Surely we learn something from the past half century or do we continue playing the role of a follower rather than a leader. It is what we do and not what we did that changes and shapes our future…
Thanks for sharing to enlighten once again.
Also Loretta I have an analogy from the physical realm to relate to your broken-ness and repair theme.
I think the healing of connection includes disconnecting more fully from that which fills the synapse but is not intended to be there. That God created place for connected-ness amongst individuals to.operate & still maintain personal identity but work for the whole.
Reality is regulated. It is of re-creation or conversely destruction.
When we put the wrong, misidentified or unsupportable (untruth, lies) there, the connection either fails entirely with no communciation or a malfunctioned response is incited , so the next synapse is disordered or not even disturbed into a functional response. Chaos. Satan’s desire to steal life in nano second grabs of time.
The disconnectedness from the untrue is primary to heal & God’s way to make space for that primary change of souce is Grace.
Grace is the flooding of the intended filler for the synapse.
So He is the instigator & primary Connection to bring the new communication that heals our synapse for true in & out commands to be received and fire out of the Repaired synapse. The connection to the Spirit dwelling in us continues this positive synapse affect of restoration if we keep turning to Him as the primary source.
This truth becomes order & peace & our ‘cells’ are capable of growth to more healthy connections within ourselves and outwards as the communcation is based on the same code towards others whom God is restoring.
Pour out your Spirit wash me clean with your waters!
I love that!
If anyone had questions about the rationale for rejecting total depravity, that discussion can be found here: https://skipmoen.com/2015/10/dwight-pryor-on-sinful-nature/
I think this TW focuses on the ‘cursing’ in Gen 3:14-19 at the expense of the ‘dying’. In Genesis 2:17 YHWH’s warning and the penalty for not heeding that warning was pretty clear: DEATH. The question that must be addressed is just what that death entails, for, obviously, Adam & Eve were still physically alive. Eve clearly understood God’s warning/penalty (Gen 3:3), yet she listened to the serpent, with Adam following. THIS is the primary issue in Genesis 3 as YHWH states in 3:22, this theme bookending the cursing (3:3-5 to 3:22). The ‘cursing’ was an effect of the SIN, i.e., disobedience. This is what Augustine et al mean by “original sin”, and the “inherited guilt” is what all Adam & Eve’s offspring receive as a result. We no longer have access to the Garden of Eden. We inherited the ‘fruit’ of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, while the Tree of Life is now accessed in a different manner.
God actually says that in the day they eat they will die. That strikes me as different from simply saying that if you eat you die. Psalms informs us that a day with God is as a thousand years. So the early ancestors all died within the day since none of them made it to the full one thousand years, but did come close. I don’t see anything in the text that indicates that they died at the time they ate the fruit, even though countless sermons teach that.
They lost access to the Tree of Life both for themselves and their offspring. So, something about this disobedience resulted in a forfeit of the possibility of lᵉʿōlām (3:22). Their “eyes were opened” as a consequence of eating this ‘fruit’, “knowing good and evil” (“becoming like one of us”)—they suddenly realized they were “naked”—something they’d apparently not known previously. Could this be what is entailed in “dying”? If YHWH meant by “you shall surely die” that their days would be shortened, why wasn’t this latter verbiage used instead?
Read the analysis in Guardian Angel (and on this web site) for “eyes were opened,” “naked” and “knowing good and evil.”
Couple of things. First, Augustine, et. al., do not simply mean that death is the inherited guilt. The doctrine of original sin entails that the GUILT of Adam is passed on to offspring and we die because of that inherited guilt (see Dwight Pryor’s lectures on the history of this doctrine). Second, do not assume that Havvah clearly understood the commandment. Her expression of it alters the original, as I have pointed out in several places, and suggests that she did not know the real commandment as a result of Adam’s negligence. Finally, remember that the story is NOT written for the actors in it. It is written for the children of Israel after Egypt. So the vocabulary and the symbols and themes belong to that culture. That changes a good deal of what the story is actually about.
Let’s just take the verbiage in John’s Gospel. All are in “darkness”, yet all who believe in the name of the Light/Son become “children of God” (1:12; 20:31), i.e., born again/from above (1:13; 3:3, 6-8). Thus, in a sense, we are ‘born dead’ initially, requiring a rebirth. Could this be what is inherited from Adam?
For my benefit, how does Eve’s expression to the serpent (3:3) “alter the original” (2:17) such that it points to Adam’s negligence in explaining it to her?
Notice exactly what “Eve” replies to the serpent’s agreement about God’s commandment. Obviously, she adds a crucial phrase not in the original. Where did she get that phrase? From God? No, she wasn’t around when God gave the original. It has to come from Adam who is responsible to communicate the commandment to his partner. So this implies that he added the phrase. Question is why? Answer is “fence around the commandment.” Problem is the serpent knows the original, so he can use this addition to create the apparent invalidation of the whole. This is why Paul says “Eve” was deceived but Adam sinned deliberately. Eve operates on the basis of false information. The Hebrew text suggests this as well in God’s description of the sin of Eve. See Katherine Bushnell on the misplaced pointing of the Masoretic text on the crucial verse in chapter 3.
While I do appreciate your answer, I’m failing to see your point. Perhaps I just don’t get it. The way I see it, Eve actually takes it a step further (“you must not touch it”), so, to my mind, even if she (mistakenly) understood that merely touching it would result in death, certainly eating it involves ‘touching’. Hence, she disobeyed.
Now, the serpent phrased it (in order to try to deceive) more broadly: ‘not eat from any tree in the garden’. Eve, rightly, corrects him, saying that they could eat from any tree, with the exception of the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent responds with more overt deception by telling her she’d not die if she partook of it, but that she’d be “like God, knowing good and evil”, to which the narrator records her as thinking it was good for obtaining wisdom. The way I understand it, the serpent portrayed God as if He were the one being deceptive, withholding something good, thus deceiving Eve, which led to her quite purposeful disobedience (her words in Gen 3:3: “God said, ‘You are neither to eat from it nor touch it, or you will die.’” CJB). For his part, Adam knew it was wrong—that is, he wasn’t deceived by the serpent’s words (Adam was with her; see 3:6 [but why didn’t he try to stop her?!])—so his sin was deliberate and was without having been deceived. This accounts for Paul’s differentiation in 1 Timothy 2:14.
Adam was not disobedient until he chose to accept Eve’s invitation and eat. We all somehow still have that weakness. E.g. O that is a lovely dress I will look good in it. Wow that is a great addition I think I must get it added to my vehicle as well etc. Never is it wow look how nice and juicy that peach looks let’s share it… Always I must get one. Is that not the fall we are still facing. Fashion trends as well as self justification…
But I am suggesting that Adam was disobedient before the test of the fruit when he failed to correctly teach his partner the real commandment. This gives the serpent the opening to challenge the veracity of the whole commandment.
Skip, I hear your view. I would easily accept it based on the fact the the man is the teacher while the female is the boundary setter. So it could be both ways. The boundary Eve set was different from the one God intended. How would Adam know the difference as he was expecting the real deal. And he got it from Eve’s counter argument . By just touching… What was the worst learning the truth from his boundary setter or the Creator leaving out minor detail…
As what death he was referring to. Then how would Adam understand death as he may not yet have witnessed it… Could not be experience it. If we go fully knowledgeable then the truth would have been knowledge supersede experience… Just an alternative view.
but don’t forget the story is NOT FOR ADAM AND HAVVAH. Remember the audience.
True, and that was to prepare them for the exodus so that they can return to being the beneficiaries of God’s promises.
But that assumes that Eve had no access to the Teacher. Did He not “walk and talk in the cool of the eve” with both of them? They both had ample opportunity to have been warned.
Well walking and talking could imply relationship building and not giving guidance and instruction… The records are vague on these details so we should accept God did not direct Eve as he delegated that to Adam…
Where is the verse that says that He did delegate that to Adam, and why has that changed today? I know that He directs me directly (as well as through others).
Eve was deceived, and Adam wasn’t; we are told that, but we are not told exactly HOW. Adam had additional culpability; maybe additional information; but the text does not tell us directly. Perhaps it was because he was told to stay together, and he failed to do that. We are not told, which is my point, but I don’t think it was because God does not direct women directly. If so, we have a big problem with all the women prophets.
God directs all those he calls. How he calls is most probably the only difference we will know. Some drive, some knowledge, some insight, some perseverance etc. Some he inscribes personally others he directs through discussion from others… Woman male not a gender issue here. I love Skip’s explanation us being tasking issue or responsibility. So gender is not my thought but purpose clarification may be a better way to relate to gender reference.
Now that is what I think, too. We are all created for different functions in the Body.
Let me try again. First, the serpent does not challenge the commandment. The text does not introduce doubt about the commandment. It is not a question. The serpent recalls the commandment, but deliberately introduces min kol (of all) causing the woman to reply. Her reply suggests that she does not know the real commandment since she adds “touch” to the command. The first point is that she has no reason to add that unless she was taught that the commandment included touch. After all, she correcting states that only a single tree is forbidden (although you will notice that she locates the tree in the middle, so her attention is already fixed on it). The addition to the commandment came from somewhere, and since there is no reason for her to add it herself, the rabbis suggest that Adam added it (for good purpose, according to his thinking). This means that Havvah is not working with a true statement from God, and the serpent now knows this. So he can demonstrate the falsity of the claim by touching the tree and the fruit, knowing that he will not die since that is not what the commandment actually says. Of course, it then appears that the entire commandment is false.
The serpent can respond with the overt suggestion that the commandment is false because he has demonstrated that the part that was added is false. This gives him the opening he needs to declare that she will not die. The clue is that Adam is present during this entire conversation yet he does not correct her nor does he challenge the serpent. Why?
Notice also that she determines the aesthetic, noetic and nutritional value of the fruit BEFORE she takes it. The battle is not about the fruit. It is about WHO determines good and evil (on this see Maimonides and David Fohrman). Havvah disobeys on the basis that the commandment isn’t really true. This is deception. But Adam knows the truth and yet he goes forward anyway. It is useful to ask why he would do this.
Skip there lies the paradigm. The conviction that what the Rabbi s added is the correct view. No such proof exist or can be argued from the scripts. You self remind us often that we must be careful not to read into records.
Seeker; wise words. We see people falling off either end of the spectrum – toward Catholic orthodoxy or toward Talmudic orthodoxy – but when we look through the window of this animal farm, it gets hard to tell the pigs from the people when they both are walking around insisting on the traditions of men. I say Scripture stands best alone.
Who IS the serpent? Is there an embodiment? Does it represent something to the original audience that we don’t understand?
Good questions. Is anyone going to answer them?
My only response to that is as Yeshua told Peter. Get behind me Satan as you think the things of man and not God… The spirit of darkness and the spirit of light were among the created…
Not a mind game but influencing thoughts originated from either darkness or light…
Skip, there might be another element to this scenario, in that Adam may NOT have been present. If those two had been told to stay together, but Eve had wandered off by herself, it would fit the narrative where she had to repeat the serpent’s words to him. She would not have had to do that if he were present at the time. If he had been there, I don’t believe the situation would have progressed the way it did. We do better together.
And that is the only time the dark side can get us off guard when we walk to close to the edge of the light provided. Trying to see more than which is revealed… Your other response to me explains this scenario. Falling from both sides instead of sticking to the original…
Yup. I see people tempted to “walk too close to the edge of the light” when they are trying to avoid the light they were already given. We don’t get new light just because we don’t like the last light.
100%
I realized this a few years ago. He didn’t have an ‘after’ version of humans. I think most people think He first created people without sin and then started with a new version with sin after that day in Genesis. The doctrine of original sin. I could imagine that most people would have a hard time with this post when it absolutely makes sense!