Egyptian DNA
And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Genesis 3:11 NASB
Who told you – What is God’s tone of voice in this question? Is it harsh, condemning: “Who told you that you were NAKED? Have YOU EATEN from the tree?” Is the emphasis on your guilt, your disobedience? Do you feel the flush of being caught? Oh, and by the way, what kind of question is this anyway? Certainly God already knows the answer. The question isn’t for Him. It’s for the couple. So does that make it pedagogical or condemning? How else can they answer except as God already knows?
Their answers, of course, begin the spin cycle of blame, something we are quite used to. But maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to follow the path laid out by Adam if the tone of God’s question didn’t seem so confrontational. What if God isn’t condemning? What if He’s really asking how they feel now that these things have happened? Let’s translate this a bit differently and see if the tone changes:
“How was it made known that you are aware of vulnerability? Have you eaten . . ?” The second question often forces us to consider the first question as condemnation, but it needn’t. The opening Hebrew term is a single letter, Hey, that acts as an interrogative particle (a question mark, essentially) but can express surprise, a question whose answer is unknown, or a rhetorical question with an expected answer. We interpret this as condemnation because we imagine that God already knows the real answer and is using the question to drive home the point of their guilt. But what if that isn’t true? What if the question expresses surprise by a loving parent that a child has misbehaved? What if it’s something like, “You didn’t eat from that tree, did you?” with the tone of empathy and concern?
Why bother raising a problem with this text? Isn’t it enough to read it as judgment? After all, Adam and the woman have sinned. They deserve punishment, which they subsequently get. Why should we worry about some possible alternatives in this text? The answer is a bit unsettling. I worry (you might not) because this text becomes the basis of 2000 years of theological terrorism. In other words, this text results in the Church teaching me that from the very beginning I was flawed, unholy, and incapable of being good. When Adam sinned, he set the stage for all of us, and since then every one of us has fallen. We deserve Hell because the Fall changed our very nature in the world. We are sinners and sinners need to be punished. Oh, and even if you don’t believe in original sin, you know perfectly well that you are a sinner. There’s really no denying that, and a verse like this simply reiterates your hopeless case before God. How long, how many centuries does it take, for your DNA to be altered by the epigenetics of believing you’re fatally flawed?
Why didn’t Israel succeed in crossing the wilderness to enter the Promised Land in a matter of a few weeks? The answer is this: they had Egyptian DNA. They believed what they had been subjected to for hundreds of years. They believed they were not worthy of redemption. Living in Egypt convinced them that they were slaves, the subjects of a Master who was cruel and ruthless. They never embraced Genesis 1:26-27. And as a result, they constantly desired to return to the hellhole they came from. The theological evil of Egypt infected them.
And so it is today. We read the story in Genesis. Do we come away praising God for His grace, thrilled that He shows Himself the loving parent, instructing, correcting, and nurturing our ancestors? No, I think not. Oh, the material is all there in the text, but I’m guessing that we read this story according to the depravity theology it engendered. We see God as prosecutor and judge. We fear Him. We read His “harsh” words and feel them in our well-conditioned guts. Praise is the last thing on our lips.
And what is the result? Centuries of believing God doesn’t really like us, that He’s entirely disappointed in what we have become, that He saves only because He has some opaque reason to do so, and that we aren’t worth anything without His apparently fickle rescue. Isn’t that theological terrorism driving us toward heaven through fear of punishment? Sounds about right to me.
Topical Index: Fall, who told you, depravity, condemnation, sin, Genesis 3:11
“Theological terrorism”… Now that’s something to ponder! Ties back into your statement of being fatally flawed through the on going replication of our DNA and the imprinting of our cellular structure… epigenetics. Lots to unpack. Thanks Skip.
I think part of the problem we have with (pre)determining the supposed tone of that encounter is because we identify so completely with the pair’s response to it: we hear it with ears already shamed; but THEY heard it with ears already shamed, too. That encounter did not shame them: they were already shamed: hiding. Their paradigm was already shifted. We didn’t need “2000 years of theology” to read this one wrong: we just had to identify with the pair in the bushes; and we do; oh, we do! We read the encounter with our shame already activated, too, and with ourselves already actively looking to ‘justify’ (find someone else to blame) that shame; just like they did.
I think we WANT to blame God, so we accuse Him of being harsh. When we do that, we ‘justify’ the bushes we are already hiding in. This is nothing new: it’s in our spiritual DNA, after all; but I think the evidence shows that that DNA goes all the way back to the Garden, not just to the first, second or third century AD. And, hey, it’s not a ‘flaw’, either, because we were designed to inherit the sum total – the result – of the choices of our ancestors (and they all blamed God, too), but that does not mean that we inherit the choices themselves: we all choose freely to blame God and reject His truth and grace. A baby born with thalodimide defects is not born with thalidomide in their mouths. A baby born from incest is not born unable to choose to not commit incest, either. To insist that nobody can ‘help it’ I believe is nonsense – insanity – REBELLION – of the first degree. Even the courts of the land practice better justice than this: they recognize that sinners are accountable for their own choices: not the choices of their forbears.
I think the choice to justify sin is the choice to blame God, which the Garden pair did. To blame God is to accuse Him of weighting the results: of lying (when we thought we had real choice) and cheating (when we just thought it was fair) as well as skewing the outcome by BLAMING US for what we, in fact, could not ‘help’ because creation was ‘flawed’ from the outset: the woman was flawed: the snake was unfair: the design was no good. There was no repentance that day because trust breaks when relationship breaks. but repentance must be based on trust. Oh, the dilemma! The temptation to blame God is huge because otherwise WE would have to do the work of taking responsibility, but who wants to do that when the milk is already spilled?
I think the doctrine of original sin teaches that we inherit the actual CHOICES (sins) of our forbears, but that is not how we are geared biologically, emotionally or spiritually. I think the doctrine of original sin is sinful in and of itself because all sin limits choice, but this diabolical doctrine removes all real choice at the outset. It is the core of Calvinist pre-election doctrine, too, and I think it represents the worst of what corrupted Christianity brought out of paganism: i.e. fatalism. This is naked fatalism in disguise; the idea that all our choices were made FOR US by those before us (including God) is a flesh conclusion of a flesh condition, but it disallows grace entirely because it changes grace from resetting our choices for us (which I believe is the function of true grace) to just ‘allowing’ us to go along with, well, fatalism! We couldn’t ‘help it’! There’s a flaw in the design! God isn’t fair! We were fated to condemnation before we started! This doctrine accuses God of it all. It blames God for the limiting (death) of choice that is the result of sin by accusing Him of CAUSING that limit – that death – from the outset. This is like thinking that the reason we are hungry is because food hates us. The insanity has already begun, I agree; but, sadly, I don’t think it started a couple of millennia ago. I think the evidence shows that we were crazy way before then.
Thank you for that Skip! It’s what I seem to be transitioning out of. Living out my life believing everything that was told to me about myself. I was limited, I was weak, I didn’t fit “what’s wrong with you ?” and on and on and on. In so many senses, hiding, although I didn’t recognize it or maybe admit it. Caught up in the performance mode, trying to appease a God I could never appease. So difficult to believe that I am actually loved. Period. How does one actually move from fear of rejection or living with a sense of never measuring up ? Instead of waking up in the morning all sleepy eyed, running into the arms of a waiting, warm, inviting father?
The negative is so inbred in us, it’s difficult to escape. It’s almost a feeling of being a child who hopes to be adopted and he’s visiting his potential adoptive parents. One false move, one mess up and no adoption.
Fortunately, for the grace of God and because of good, educated teaching and because of seeking with intention, I am moving from that scenario, slowly but surely. Growing in the grace and the knowledge of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His compassions, they fail not. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! Thanks again and shalom.
God’s first uttering of loving fatherly advise
to Adam is seen in Gen 2:17. It’s about free choice . . .
and the dire consequences thereof. “…for in the day
that you eat of it, you shall surely die.”
What Father wouldn’t graciously warn his son about
such a danger of separation from God?
Thousands of years later the pen of Paul advises
mankind about un-doing the consequences of sin’s
spiritual death that separated disobedient souls from God.
In 2 Tim 2:11-12 he writes about our identifying our
spiritual death with the actual physical death of our
Savior who lived and died on our behalf, thus bringing
us into His full eternal life.
“For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him.
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.”
God warned about the problem. God solved the problem.
And God brings us back to Gen 1:26-27, being created in
His own image.
Today, the choice is still ours . . .
“and the dire consequences…”
not “punishment” – accountability! What good parent would not discipline and give consequences to the child/ren he/she loves?
I do not remember when I first heard it in my heart as I read Yah asking this question: His anguish! His disbelief! “Oh, Adam, what happened?!?” The hurting heart of the parent who now must discipline in a way unexpected but oh so necessary. To discipline, not punish… to do so in love – tough love – not in anger. “This is going to hurt me far more than…” Have you said it/thought it as a parent? Did you hear it/feel it as a child?
We can wonder all we want what might have happened if Adam had admitted, confessed, repented on the spot. When Nathan (fearing being put to death I dare say) confronted David, David did. And the consequences were still there, as consequences must be.
So much to ponder.
I just want to get back and remember what tree to live off of.. Having personally defined the forbidden fruit as independent human reason, when I forget to include Abba in the considerations ,I attempt to repent, and return. He is so merciful, forgiving and welcoming after all. The whole blame, shame and guilt game is to be avoided at all costs, it’s death to the spirit.” If the old way,which brings condemnation was was glorious, how much more glorious is the new way that makes us right with God” 2 Corinth.3:9 N.LT.