The Death of Innocence
“but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”Genesis 2:17 NASB
You shall surely die– Adam and the woman eat from the Tree. They break the commandment. So, of course, they die, right? They die in the same day that they eat from the Tree, right? That’s what it says. “ . . . in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” But that isn’t how the story ends, is it? Somehow they don’t die. Somehow the commandment, the only one they needed to obey, doesn’t turn out to be true. God changes His mind after the fact. Or so it seems. As a result, theologians are required to explain away the obvious contradiction. This is usually accomplished by insisting that they did die immediately—spiritually, of course. Adam continues to live another 900 years so what happens on this day can’t be about the normal understanding of death. This has to be something that dies despite the fact that Adam lives. It must be spiritual, right?
Oh, but then there’s the complication that God continues to engage the relationship with the man and the woman. In fact, as Davidson points out in Flame of Yahweh, God reinstates the man and the woman as priest and priestess in the world even though there is no record of either of them asking for forgiveness or repenting. Just the opposite. They both blame someone else—and God doesn’t demand correction. Everything about this story creates theological problems. Even expulsion over fears about the Tree of Life seems more like science fiction than biblical exposition.
There is, however, another approach. Avivah Zornberg brilliantly reveals the psychological elements of the Bible. She often shows that stories that appear to be simple narrative contain much deeper truths about the human condition. This story is no exception. Noting that expulsion from the Garden is much more like birth than death, she suggests that the Garden story describes the pre-human state of innocence, lost forever in acts of self-awareness and self-concern. What dies is not spiritual, a concept that requires the understanding of a cosmic dualism perhaps foreign to ancient Hebrew culture. What dies is innocence, and this is an instantaneous and permanent demise. From this point on, humanity enters the world in a different psychological condition. Because each successive generation is intimately connected to the trauma of the previous generations, no human being ever again enters the world in a state of innocence. That psychological condition is permanently removed. Of course, moral innocence may still be the case for newborns, but every one of us comes into this world carrying the suitcase of our past. When God warns that loss of innocence means instantaneous death, He is absolutely correct. The loss is unrecoverable. In this sense, the “sin” of the Tree is actually a necessary element in becoming human in the world and expulsion from the Garden is an inevitable requirement of the human psyche.
This story is a mythic explanation of the reality of life to a people who had intimate experience with trauma and the damage done by lengthy traumatic history. Israel needs to know why. This story provides the answer in the form of tribal epic. It tells us why we are what we are and how it happened that we are this way. We died in the instant innocence was lost—and at the same time, we began the journey toward being human. Perhaps disobedience is necessary for human self-awareness, and if it is, perhaps our naive conception that innocence is perfection is a gross error.
Topical Index: death, innocence, Garden, Genesis 2:17
Lose of innocence makes sense! Is it also possible that “in the day” could have meant “in one thousand years” as per Psalms and Peter’s quote? Interesting that Adam and many of the early ancestors made it in to the 900plus ages but nobody got to 1000. I know the sages saw direct correlation of the individual days of creation and thousand year epochs of human history. Loss of innocence followed by physical death in that day.
The death of Innocence, remind me of a book my grandfather wrote. Which I read from time to time. The price of Silence, it is like the ostrich putting his head in the sand. As a traumatic event goes by. We must speak up. Or the drama weaves its way into our lives and is passed on from generation to generation. I would like to flip this and say this is like going back to the Exodus yet only with the cross in mind. We are sinners in the hands of a God of wrath, yet he was crucified for us. So as we carry our cross daily, and remember how our death is in him come up along with our new life along with the baptism of suffering. All of these events we must be mindful of. I know this is a lot to think about but being one who examines everything. And sometimes gets lost and confused this is my mainstay salvation. With the Passover coming up, this is in my mind very vividly. Not the Seder with its trappings as I see it. But with the Exodus, Deliverance, salvation, New Life, it is all there. One might add that we also need to remember that amalek was defeated. Just a thought, thank you
So far the death rate has been running at 100%.
Spiritual death lives on in each of us until new birth.
Physical death still awaits us all as promised.
Both deaths are very serious business.
Man can do nothing by himself about either. That becomes
obvious to any man who has tried — and more than obvious
to all true followers of His Word.
He and he alone repairs the damage.
The Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Rev 13:8) is
the eternal answer.
“Do you believe?”
Wow, this is really blowing my mind. Seems to be a theme I am hearing through a number of different teachers who are shaking off previous ways of looking at things. A willingness to look beyond the known, familiar and “established”
into the uncertain. It seems that God is shaking the church. Maybe it’s like a low level earthquake. All I know is something is happening because it’s happening in me and in a number of other people who are searching and seeking God, Truth. People who are discontent with what they have been handed and told to believe. We should be constantly evolving and developing as individuals and the resultant body of Christ. “And you will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with your whole heart “. Jeremiah 29:13. But be prepared for what you might find. Also, Jesus said, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you “. Matthew 6:33.
Also, Psalm 27:8.
It seems that this journey to God is through some pretty rocky crags and wilderness. A lot of unfamiliarity and uncertainty, calls us to walk of faith. We are always trying to get out of our wilderness experiences but that is actually where God seems to be to his greatest work. As James says, “let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, wanting nothing”.
No doubt Scripture is meant to be understood on multiple levels but I discount “spiritual” death as it is unscriptural and unnecessary. I agree with HSB that a “day” can mean a thousand years, or not, depending on the context. The KJV reads, “thou shalt surely die”, but the literal Hebrew reads more like, “to die you shall be dying”.
There are a few things about this phrase. First, it is found about six times in Lev 20. In each case it is used as an “execution” sentence against violators of various laws. Secondly, the phrase leaves open the time frame of that death. God may have sentenced Adam and Eve to a certain death, but the “day” the sentence is carried out is not necessarily immediate. Thirdly, it seems Adam and Eve lost some sort of “conditional immortality” that day and so, although they did not die that particular day, the certainty of it was established. So, the literal translation can be understood to mean they only “began” to die that day, “to die you shall be dying”. In that day they were cut off from access to the Tree of Life, and so eventually, their mortal bodies would succumb to the natural forces of decay leading to a “complete” death. Although we like to say we are “living”, it is more accurate to say we are “dying” right from birth. That, is the curse of original sin, which was passed on down to us. Real life does not include dying. Only in Christ will we really “process life”.
The western world defines death very physically – the ceasing of the heart and brain function. But maybe the idea is reversed in scripture? Physical death is secondary, real death arrives when we become a sinning automaton – driven by instinct, not much more than an ape driven by a larger cerebral cortex. This idea might even tie-in with how God judges (seemingly harshly) the sins of individuals and peoples. They are already dead, dead in the most meaningful possible way – but we, in our simplistic view think they are alive – simply because they are walking around with a beating heart.
I don’t know, there is a fate that can be worse than death. Wallowing in sin and guilt, so many take their own lives.
1 Corinthians 15:29 – “Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?”
This was the first verse that really got me thinking about the close association between “sin” and “death” in scripture. Of course innocence died – but I want to be cautious about lost innocence being somehow necessary. Doesn’t this border on yin and yang ideas about opposites necessitating each other – or the theology that evil is necessary for good to exist?
Is an innocent creature really human? What is missing that is essential to humanity in a being who is innocent?
Hmmm, I don’t know. And I can’t even attempt to talk about how “the image of God” fits into all of this. But, should I be thinking of innocence as the dualistic opposite of total depravity? Are we supposed to answer the question so that the definition of ‘humanity’ applies to all homo sapiens?
I tend to think of being truly “human” (recovering ‘the image’?) as a sort of inverted Maslowian hierarchy, or for lack of a better term – biblical “self-actualization”. But this sort of human potential, far from being dependent,.. is actually independent of social esteem, safety, physiological needs, ect. The disciples were beaten and then responded with rejoicing “.. to be found worthy of suffering…”. Their physical needs, social acceptance, and such were denied – but they still acted for the Kingdom.
I must admit to being heavily influenced by Philo’s “Every Good Man is Free”. After reading and re-reading, I saw this theme morre and more in scripture. As steeped in the Greek philosophy as Philo was, he was not a complete neo-platonist-allegorizer – he just erred on the side of Greek outreach evangelism. 😀
Genesis 38 & 39 seem to be paired largely to illustrate the freedom vs. slavery idea. In 38, Judah (the “free” man) is a slave to his passions with Tamar. But in 39, we see the “slave” Joseph defy Potiphar’s wife and his own possible passions. Along the same line of thought, Joseph exercises his true human potential, but Judah acts as “well-fed lusty horses, each one neighing after his neighbor’s wife.”
Psalm 49:20 – “Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, Is like the beasts that perish.”
The perfect Human was also perfectly innocent.
When did the Lamb get slaughtered in heaven? What action of heaven occurred to keep the pair from dying? If God is tied into our timeline through the action of free choice, would not His response to our problem also be in a timed sequence? We don’t know for sure why they did not instantly die, but surely it was grace: not a convoluted, esoteric explanation why death is not actual dissolution: why “ye shall surely die” actually means “ye shall not surely die”. This type of statement is all over Blavatsky’s work as well as the essence of Luciferism: the overt worship of the snake, who purportedly was ‘necessary’ to elevate us to a ‘higher’ state of existence than what we were created to be in. This language is all Kabbalah language. Be careful of dark light, is what I want to say.