The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 4

Sunset at Montmajour, Vincent Van Gogh

Same as it ever was . . .

Same as it ever was . . .

- Once in a Lifetime, by Talking Heads

Fall, or Folly? (4): As It Was in the Beginning . . .

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52493

by Chaplain Mike

November 13, 2014

This has been an interesting week for me at Internet Monk. As I’ve studied, thought, conversed, and prayed my way through these posts, I’ve gained a new clarity in my understanding about what the early chapters of Genesis are trying to communicate. Ever since my days in seminary, when Dr. John Sailhamer blew my mind with perspectives on Genesis that I had never conceived of, much less considered, I’ve come back to these chapters over and over again. As I have, I’ve been particularly impressed with how so many western Christian traditional views of Genesis are divorced from the original Jewish nature and perspective of the text.

For example, the concept of “the fall,” not just of Adam and Eve, but of the whole human race through them, is one of those aspects of Christian teaching, particularly in the Augustinian tradition, that I find hard to square with the actual stories we read in the Hebrew Bible.

Many Christians have this notion that the day they sampled fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the world underwent a dramatic change. Before that moment, all was not only “good,” not only “very good,” but pristine, perfect. Adam and Eve were the only humans in the world. They were perfect and immortal. Animals were not predators or carnivorous. There was no pain or death or disease. No such thing as a natural disaster had ever taken place.

One bite, and the previously sanitary and fragrant solid waste hit the fan.

Memory of the Garden at Etten, Vincent Van Gogh

The very nature of human beings changed. Not only did Adam and Eve cover up and hide and make excuses, but at that very moment, seven deadly impulses began coursing through human veins. The hospitable natural world around them — in an instant — became fraught with dangerous conditions and creatures. Tigers grew teeth and big birds morphed into vultures. People began to age (although slowly at first — look at the ages in Genesis 5!). They developed sniffles and headaches and diseases because bacteria and viruses (which apparently before that had either been non-existent or beneficent) became hostile. Accidents started occurring — a broken limb here, a bloodied brow there. No one had ever known fear before or a whole host of other emotions which protect the human psyche. Nature began its never-ending cycle of death and rebirth through the changing seasons. Previously lush landscapes started turning arid. Trees fell. Fruit rotted on the ground. Naked vegetarians whittled spears and knives and began hunting for their supper and new wardrobes. For the first time, tears. Arguments broke out where never a cross word had been spoken. The first grave was dug. The first poet sat under a tree and in her melancholy asked, “What’s it all about?”

This absolute transformation of humans, animals, plants, nature, and the entire cosmos began to happen “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” when Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit. People fell from the heights of immortality and perfection to the depths of depravity (at least in their hearts). Nature doubled over and groaned as the birth pangs commenced.

If that is anything like what happened in Adam and Eve’s “fall,” then their story is of extremely limited interest to me. It is a relic that merely informs me about something that happened long ago (and something rather inconceivable I might add) to two people with whom I have little in common.

That’s not how the Jewish people have read this story. Nor is it how many Christians, particularly those in the Eastern Church, have read it.

Broadly, they have read it as a story of wisdom, as an exemplary tale given first to Israel and then to the world.

We, all of us, are Adam and Eve. We are brought into the world not as perfect people, nor as depraved sinners because of some inherited sin nature which makes us totally corrupt. We are born simple. That is, human beings are personally, morally, and spiritually unformed, naïve, and susceptible to temptation and making bad choices. We are children who need to grow up. It is our duty to trust God and gain his saving, transforming wisdom, which “is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her” (Prov. 3:18).

Someone will ask, “Are you saying then, that people naturally have the potential to make the right choices and lead sinless lives?

I will answer: No. I believe in the universal sinfulness of humanity. No person who has ever lived, save Jesus, has been free from sin. No baby born from this day on will be without sin. The simple will always fall short. The simple will blow it regularly and often. The simple cannot avoid all the pitfalls life throws at him. The simple will invariably succumb to some temptation, fail some test, transgress some boundary.

On the other hand, sometimes kids amaze us with “wisdom beyond their years.” The image of God we bear is also visible in human experience. I’ve always been attracted to Scot McKnight’s description of people as “cracked Eikons” (“eikon” being the Greek word for “image”). Beauty and brokenness. Foolishness and wisdom. Good choices as well as bad. Responsibility as well as recklessness or rebellion.

If the point of the Adam and Eve story was that they inaugurated an entirely new situation in human experience, that they were transformed through their act into hopeless sinners and began passing that on to their children so that all people are born without any ability or capacity to do what is right or to engage in behavior pleasing to God and good for their neighbors, then why did the Jews not pick this up? Why does the Hebrew Bible continually call them to pursue wisdom and do what is right? Why does the Pentateuch, which begins with the story of Adam and Eve, end with Moses using words from that very story to tell the people that they should avoid the poor decision their ancestors made and choose the way of life instead?

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor

is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven

for  us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond

the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us

hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in

your  heart, that you may observe it.

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity [good], and death and adversity [evil];

in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep

His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply,

and  that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.

- Deuteronomy 30:11-16

Adam and Eve teach us that every human being is on this road from simplicity to wisdom, from being unformed to mature, from naïve to discerning. The full Christian answer to our human condition involves turning from our own ways to becoming united with God by his grace through faith in Christ and engaging in the process that the Eastern Church calls "theosis" - in which Christ becomes fully formed in us as “wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1Cor. 1:30).

Thistles, Van Gogh

What about the creation? Did the very world we live in, the very cosmos that houses us, undergo a dramatic transformation from “paradise” to “nature red in tooth and claw”? Yesterday, one of our commenters asked about Romans 8:18ff:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with

the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly

for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly,

but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free

from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we

know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

- Romans 8:18-22

The question is whether this passage supports the common interpretation that nature itself was transformed by the “curse” that God announced after Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:14-19). Although it is common for some interpreters to link this text with Genesis 3, it is by no means a universally accepted position. For example, C. John Collins, who sets forth fairly conservative interpretations of the Genesis narratives in his book, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary, doesn’t think this interpretation holds up.

He notes that there are no explicit allusions to Genesis 3 here. There may be allusions to other OT texts, such as the word “futility,” which looks back to Ecclesiastes. Collins observes that the key term in Romans is “decay” (Gk. psthora), translated in some versions as “corruption.” The passage that uses this term in the Greek OT is Genesis 6, which describes the world’s condition in the days of Noah. Collins draws out the implications of this:

Seen this way, the creation is “in bondage to decay,” not because of changes in the way it

works but because of the “decay” (or “corruption”) of mankind, and in response to man’s

“decay” God “brings decay to” (or “destroys) the earth to chastise man. The creation is

“subjected to futility” because it has sinful mankind in it, and thus it is the arena in which

mankind expresses its sin and experiences God’s judgments. No wonder it “waits with eager

longing for the revealing of the sons of God,” for then the sons of God will be perfect in

holiness, and sin will be no more. Paul here sees the resurrection of the sons of God as a

blessing not only for themselves but also for the whole creation. (p. 184)

Human sinfulness definitely has effects on the world and creation as a whole. However, I don’t think Scripture supports the notion that the world changed in its very nature or workings in the aftermath of Adam and Eve’s transgression.

We, and this world we live in, have always been mixed bags. As it was in the beginning, it is now and will be until the day Christ makes all things new. Until then:

The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom;

And with all your acquiring, get understanding.

- Proverbs 4:7

continue to -

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 3

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 4

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 3

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Benjamin West

Fall, or Folly? (3): Paul Reads the Story

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52462

by Chaplain Mike
[with added commentary by re slater]

November 12, 2014

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin,

and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— for until the Law sin was in the

world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from

Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense

of  Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. - Romans 5.12-14, NASB

[Paul] does not posit a perfect pre-fallen state, nor does he attribute later human sin to

the sin of Adam. Rather, he sees Adam as a kind of beginning — the beginning of a

death-bound mode of life. - Peter Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings

of the Biblical Creation Narratives

21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, so also in [a]Christ all will be made alive. [ie, the Messiah]...

45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The

last Adam became alife-giving spirit. - 1 Cor 15.21-22, 45, NASB

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Christian tradition has held certain views about “the fall,” “original sin,” and the part Adam played in plunging humankind into ruin on the basis of a few words by the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Romans (5:12-21). There is also a short statement focusing on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians (15:21-22, see v. 45). Other than these two passages and the seminal story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-4, the Bible is virtually silent about Adam and the nature and results of his first-recorded transgression.

The only other certain references to Adam in the OT are found in genealogies: in Genesis 5 and 1 Chronicles 1:1. In the Gospels, Jesus never mentions Adam and Eve by name or refers to their sin. Matthew and Luke include him in Jesus’ genealogies and Jude names Adam in another genealogical reference. Paul writes of Adam and Eve on one other occasion in a discussion about men and women in the church (1Timothy 2:13-14).

This paucity of material may come as a surprise to some, since the Creation-Fall-Redemption template using the account of Adam and Eve in a prominent role has become part and parcel of the way Christians present the message of the Bible and salvation.

Given this background, why did Paul set his attention on Adam in Romans 5?

Death of Adam, Francesca

First, as many have noted, there was an explosion of interest in the paradise narratives in post-biblical Jewish literature in the intertestamental period. As Peter Bouteneff writes,

[D]uring the centuries under review, and especially during the first century of our era,

several of the key, enduring questions surrounding the creation and predicament of the

human person as treated in Genesis 1-3 were already on the table, even if they were

not yet receiving clear and consistent answers. (p.25)

A vibrant discussion was taking place in Jewish literature in this period, raising questions (1) about Adam — was he a figure who stood for humanity in general [ie, as type, or typology - re slater] or an individual? (2) about Eve — was she (a woman) ultimately responsible for the entrance of sin? (3) about the state of the first-created humanity — a dual legacy emerged, that of both a glorious Adam and a tragic transgressor, (4) about what the effect was of the first transgression on subsequent humanity — there is a whole mixed bag of opinions and interpretations, from denying that Adam’s sin played any causal role, to exonerating him completely and blaming Cain, to holding him responsible for subsequent human sin because he was the progenitor of all humanity.

One prominent voice was that of Philo, whose view Bouteneff summarizes: “The transgression is regarded neither as the greatest of sins nor as the cause of subsequent sin. Rather, subsequent sin becomes progressively worse, effecting an ever greater distancing from the noble protoplast.” (p. 29) But Philo also set forth allegorical interpretations of Genesis that paved the way for later Christian allegorical thinkers such as Origen.

Paul’s use of Adam must be seen in the context of this discussion. He didn’t make it up.

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Second, it is clear that the primary reason Paul turned his attention on the one man Adam in the biblical story is because he began his thinking with the one man Jesus Christ [ie, as type, or typology - re slater].

His starting point was Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, who rose from the dead and was thereby declared Son of God and Lord of all, Jew and Gentile alike (Romans 1:1-5). For Paul, one Man now ruled the world, bringing life to everyone. As he sought to communicate this good news to both Jews and Gentiles, he thought through the biblical history and found a type (Romans 5:14) in Adam, one man who likewise had a worldwide influence by his actions.

And Paul is especially concerned to show how the world was filled with sin and death in the time before the Jewish Law was given at Mt. Sinai, making clear God’s religious, moral, and ethical standards (Romans 5:14). Adam and Eve set that “beginning” era into motion.

According to Paul, what did Adam do? As the first recorded transgressor [sic, in narratival terms that is, not as historical fact - re slater], he initiated an ongoing process of sin and death that affects the entire world. Therefore, Adam is the perfect foil for Christ. “Putting Adam and Christ together in Romans 5 is merely a way of showing how the actions of one lone figure can have profound (though opposite) effects on many people” (Bouteneff, p. 40). Paul is not analyzing and explaining Adam’s story as much as he is interpreting Christ through setting up the well-known case of Adam as his antithesis. [That is, Paul uses the Story of Genesis as Jewish wisdom (narratival) literature to speak to the historical Christ. He mixes literary genre to get to the theological truth of Jesus as Savior. - re slater]

It is important that we not take this comparison too far and draw conclusions from it that are unwarranted. Again, Bouteneff:

[Paul] does not posit a perfect pre-fallen state, nor does he attribute later human sin

to the sin of Adam. Rather, he sees Adam as a kind of beginning — the beginning of

a death-bound mode of life. (p. 45)

There is nothing here about drastic changes in the world or the nature of humanity after Adam’s sin. [There is] nothing about how Adam passed on a newly acquired sin nature to his progeny, or how his children bear original guilt because of the ancestral transgression [sic, this is entirely assumed by theological thinkers - re slater]. Nowhere in Genesis, the rest of the Bible, or in Paul is Adam blamed for any sin other than his own. Sin and death passed to all people, Paul says, because “all sinned,” which is fully consistent with what we read in Genesis 1-11. There is no denying the universality of sin and death, and that story begins with Adam, but we each bear our own blame.

All that Paul seems to want to say is that this epoch of human history is characterized 

and determined by the fatal interplay of sin and death — a partnership first established

in power at the beginning of the epoch, through the one man Adam.

- James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (WBC)

---

The main adjustment that Paul must instill in Jew and Gentile alike is the establishment of
(1) Jesus Christ as not only a prophet - and not only a prophet to the Jews - but also
universal Savior. And, still more, (2) the one in whom is founded not just Israel but all
of creation.

This is part and parcel of Paul’s transformation of the scriptural message. Genesis
becomes the story not just of the origins of Israel but of the beginning of universal
humanity, and this in turn paves the way for stressing the universality of salvation in
Christ for the Jew and for the Greek.

Paul’s universalization of the Scriptures and his understanding of the Scriptures as
revealing Christ are thoroughly interrelated. Together they constitute the cornerstone
of his work in the establishment of Christian thought. - Bouteneff, p. 38



continue to -

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 3

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 4

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2

The Last Judgment (Garden), Bosch

Fall, or Folly? (2): A Wisdom Story
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52433

by Chaplain Mike
November 11, 2014

St. Irenaeus (2nd century) described Adam and Eve as “adolescents.” They were not “perfect” in the sense of “complete.” They represent a beginning and an intention – but something that not only remained unfulfilled – but even something that had deviated from its intended path. From “mud commanded to become Gods,” they became beings unable to be truly human. Death and corruption mark their existence. The stories in Genesis include fratricide among their children. The early chapters of Genesis are not the record of a promising start – they are the record of the start of promises.

- Fr. Stephen Freeman, “From Mud to Light – the Saving Work of Christ”

The Last Judgment (Serpent and Tree), Bosch

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We do not normally think of the Book of Proverbs as a work of deep theological content. We think of it as a collection of sayings, practical in nature, giving sound advice for living. But portions of the book go far beyond that.

Take Proverbs 1-9 for instance, which form an extended meditation on the nature and blessings of divine Wisdom (personified), urging the young in particular to open their ears and hearts to receive her teachings so that they will “fear the Lord,” become wise in their lives and dealings, and find the reward of “life.”

Proverbs teaches “the simple” (the young, morally unformed, susceptible to temptation) to listen to and follow “wisdom” (fear the Lord and follow his instructions), because listening to wisdom is the path to “life” and failing to do so leads to “death.”

One characteristic of wisdom literature is that its teachings are rooted in creation more than in covenant. That is, they reflect on the world and life and the characteristics of people and how they relate to each other. Its counsels derive from observation, not from special revelation. To put it simply, wisdom posits that God designed creation and life to work in certain ways. The wise person trusts God and seeks to order his or her life according to those ways. He or she “trusts in the Lord with a whole heart.” The foolish person disregards God and seeks to live “leaning on his or her own understanding.”

I suggested in the previous post that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is a wisdom story. Those who composed and edited the Hebrew Bible in its final form were concerned that the post-exilic community learn wisdom about their past, present, and future. So they told the first stories about people in the Bible using wisdom terms and metaphors to make their message clear from the start.

This same language and imagery is prevalent in other wisdom literature, like Proverbs. Here are a few examples:

The story of Adam and Eve has been often portrayed as the story of two perfect people in perfect conditions who “fell” into a state of corruption and mortality and plunged all creation into such a condition because of rebellion. But “fall” is not really the best description, or at least the most accurate description of what this story teaches.

Instead, Genesis 3 tells how God set boundaries for two children (or adolescents, as Irenaeus suggested) who are “simple” — youthful, naïve, inexperienced, morally unformed, and susceptible to temptation.

• Look at them: “naked and not ashamed,” like children who don’t even know enough to be embarrassed as they frolic about without clothing.
• Look at them: enticed by a treat that looks good, that promises to taste good, something that engages a childlike curiosity which knows no caution.
• Look at them: easily distracted from their parent’s warning by a cleverer, wiser tempter.
• Look at them: persuaded into transgressing the boundaries set for them without even thinking.

This is not the “fall” of the perfect. This is Pinocchio, led astray by Lampwick at Pleasure Island!

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[T]he Adam story is not about a fall down from perfection, but a failure to grow up to godly wisdom and maturity. Adam and Eve weren’t like perfect super humans. They were like young, naïve children, who were meant to grow into obedience, but were tricked into following a different path.

...The serpent tricked Adam and Eve into gaining wisdom too soon, apart from God’s way. They were naïve children who did not have the shrewdness to withstand the serpent’s craftiness. They should have just trusted their maker. The knowledge of good and evil isn’t wrong, but getting it free from God’s direction is death. Without the maturity that comes from obeying God, Adam and Eve can’t handle the truth (said in our best Jack Nicholson voice).

This is the point of this story: the choice put before Adam and Eve is the same choice put before Israel every day: learn to listen to God and follow in his ways and then— only then— you will live. The story of Adam and Eve makes this point in the form of a story; Proverbs makes it in the form of wisdom literature; Israel’s long story in the Old Testament makes it in the form of history writing. - Byas and Enns, Genesis for Normal People

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This story was intended first for Israel, who throughout their history followed the same patterns set by Adam and Eve and then by their children Cain and Abel and were likewise sent off into exile from God’s good land.

But one effect of reading this as a wisdom story is that it tends to universalize its message. Jew and Gentile alike, we recognize ourselves in the stories of Adam and Eve and their children. As one of our commenters said in yesterday’s thread - "Adam is everyman. And Eve is everywoman. These stories reveal the universal human susceptibility to temptation. We all show ourselves to be simpletons, in need of divine wisdom."

As Pinocchio found out, no one becomes a “real boy” without first realizing he’s made a jackass of himself at Pleasure Island.

We all need to learn: “Trust in the Lord with a whole heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5).

And specifically, we must put off the old foolish Adam who leads us to death and put on the new man, Christ, “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption“ (1Cor 1:30). He is our Tree of Life.

continue to -

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 3

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 4

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), Bosch

Fall, or Folly? (1)

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/52382

by Chaplain Mike
with comments by r.e. slater

November 10, 2014

Whatever else one might say about Genesis 2-3 (the text actually goes from 2:4-4:26 and includes Cain’s story) and the account of Adam and Eve and the “fall,” it should be noted that, in its final form, this is a wisdom story. It is the first in a series of narratives that encourage the [Israel's] post-exilic community to reflect upon their history by showing them, in nascent form, the folly of their own ways which had led them into exile in Babylon. (sic, Genesis 2.4-4.26 was not written until 500 BC or thereabouts - re slater].

This week, we will consider Adam and Eve and their story in Genesis 2-3 and what it teaches about the human condition. We start with an overview of its context and general characteristics.

Adam and Eve, Cranach

Genesis 1-11 forms a preamble to the Hebrew Bible, and its focus is two-fold:

(1) it distinguishes Israel and her beginnings as set apart from the nations, particularly Babylon, and

(2) it shows that Israel was nevertheless just as foolish and sinful as the nations, even though chosen by God.

This section ends with the nations gathering at Babylon [the Great, sic Revelation in the NT - re slater] to found the city and build their great tower to the heavens. God comes down and scatters them abroad, paving the way for Abram’s call and the time of the patriarchs, when Israel as a people is formed in the midst of the nations. The stories that make up Genesis 1-11 set the stage by introducing us to several characters who represent Israel in both her chosen and foolish condition.

We read about Adam and Eve in the garden and exiled from the garden. Then we learn of Cain and Abel and God’s provision of both justice and mercy in the aftermath of the first murder. A list of Seth’s family line emphasizes both the greatness and mortality of the faithful ancestors. Noah and his family, like Israel in days to come, are saved through the waters from God’s judgment. The resulting “new creation” is soon spoiled again, however, in another garden and by another sinning son. The narrative then fast forwards, through genealogies, to a portrayal of the nations founding Babylon, the ultimate opponent of God’s people in the world.

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Genesis 1-11 shows an ongoing pattern of God’s blessing, human folly and sin, divine judgment, salvation and new creation. The first story — of Adam and Eve — has been understood by many as depicting a unique, cosmos-changing event — a “fall” from paradisal perfection to a state of depravity, introducing corruption and death into the world.

Many Christians are taught to read the Adam and Eve story something like this: Adam

and Eve are fresh-off-the-assembly line, shiny, new, perfect, first human beings — sort

of super humans. God tested these flawless creatures with this command not to eat of the

tree of the knowledge of good and evil, just to see if they meant business and would obey

him. But they failed the test, rebelled against God, and lost not only their own perfection

but also that of every other human being born since.

- Byas and Enns, Genesis for Normal People

But can the story bear the weight of this interpretation?

First, the early chapters of Genesis show that Adam and Eve were not the only human beings in the world at that time. There is more than one use of the word “adam” in Genesis 1-2. 1:26-27 describes the creation of “humankind” (adam), encompassing both male and female, as the crown of God’s creation, made in God’s image. On the other hand, the first human we meet, designated as a specific male individual (adam), is created alone in chapter 2, a much different process is envisioned, and the female is created out of him later. This suggests, in the logic of the joint narratives, that humans are created by God in the beginning and already in the world when God later deals with this particular couple. We also have the story of Cain, which portrays other people in the world at the time he is set wandering. Other human beings are living outside the garden; Adam and Eve are special because they are “first” in other ways, [but] not as the lone humans on earth.

Second, the story suggests that these first humans were already subject to death. Their mortality is assumed by the presence of the Tree of Life, from which they must eat in order not to die. Immortality is available to them; it is not their possession. Nor is death portrayed as the immediate consequence of their “fall.” Adam and Eve do not die after their transgression and, although physical death is described as their inevitable fate, it is not presented as part of the “curse” as such. As creatures made from dust they will return to dust. The couple’s expulsion from the Garden is for the specific purpose of denying them immortality through eating from the Tree of Life. All this fortifies Bouteneff’s conclusion:“Humankind does not begin as immortal and then become mortal as a result of the transgression” (p. 6).

Third, the story suggests that the first humans were not perfect before the transgression. Two sharply differentiated human natures pre- and post-transgression are not portrayed. The fact that God issues a prohibition to Adam and Eve implies not only that they are in communion with God, but also that they are capable of doing something of which God does not approve. Boundaries need not be set for perfect people. Furthermore, something within them makes them vulnerable to the serpent’s temptation, and their subsequent disobedience is not the behavior of pristine individuals.

Fourth, as mentioned above, in context the Garden narrative is one part of a whole decline narrative, the first in a series of “falls.” The Bible first mentions “sin” not in the garden, but with regard to Cain’s much more depraved act of murder. This observation led many Jewish and early Christian interpreters to emphasize the corruptive nature of this account more than the Adam and Eve story. And if we are looking for an account of a truly transformative “fall” leading to pervasive sin, death and destruction, then Genesis 6 fits the bill much better, when “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth [land], and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually”(Gen. 6:5). Bouteneff concludes: “Genesis 1-11 narrates a whole series of cycles or ages of human decline. . . .”

The transgression . . . is an ongoing reality or activity; Scripture does not present the fall

as an event but as humanity gone awry, though this sense is not properly (for Israel, at

any rate) identified with the tree in Eden. Scripture points beyond paradise, beyond Genesis

1-11, to existential life. “It is the ongoing sin of the human that returns the earth to chaos”

[quote: Ricoeur and LaCocque]. As we might deduce from Jeremiah 4:22-25 and Hosea

4:1b-3, it is not because Adam sinned that everything is askew; it is because everyone is

sinning. (p. 8)

Adam and Eve’s transgression is the first. In that sense it is unique. Their story is also singular in that it portrays Adam and Eve being banished from the garden and losing access to the Tree of Life.

These are important characteristics of the story, and we will explore them further tomorrow and see how they are designed to teach wisdom to Israel in exile.

In his examination of ancient Christian readings of the Bible’s creation narratives,

Peter Bouteneff gives several reasons why the traditional Augustinian view of “the fall”

does not fit the particulars of the garden story as it is presented in the Hebrew Bible.

continue to -

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 1

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 2

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 3

The Story of Genesis as Wisdom Literature, Part 4