Summary
In this chapter the serpent is mean, and God is arguably more so. Also, the implicit argument against the seeking of knowledge.
Commentary
I hate this chapter. It frustrates me on many levels, and I struggle to find anything I support within it.
It's the chapter in which a serpent tricks the woman into eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had forbidden. Incidentally, it's fairly easy to draw comparisons between God and a particularly frustrating and poor parent in this chapter.
The serpent is described as being "more crafty than any other wild animal". I'd say it's pretty crafty, given that it seems to be able to speak. Now, I know it's representative of the temptation to sin, but this also provides me with some frustration.
What is the sin? The seeking of knowledge that had been forbidden by God. Already we have an argument that in one stroke suggests we should blindly obey authority and that seeking knowledge is wrong and dangerous.
It gets better. When God discovers the mistake made by his two children, he throws a fit of epic proportions. The serpent is cursed to walk on its belly and eat dust. As an origin story, one out of two facts is, well, pretty poor, actually. Good effort, though. It also necessitates a deus-ex-machina enmity between serpents and humans —Oddly enough, I think this is the first time I've ever referred to God as a deus-ex-machina.
If you thought the punishment for the serpent was bad, wait until God gets to his own children. I don't know how long the pair have been around for at this point, but given the naïvete I would assume not too long, so I'm considering them to be effectively children.
For the crime of being curious, after being told not to eat something because they will die (a jedi half-truth at best), the woman is punished by pains in childbirth and desire for her husband who will rule over her. I'm going to leave the feminist arguments alone, because I know a lot of women, and I'm sure they'll be happy to cover it for me.
The man is cursed (for "listening to the voice of his wife", no less!) to toil in the earth to eat for his entire life, an earth that will bring forth thistles and thorns, and to otherwise generally be miserable for the rest of his life.
Let's draw a quick parallel here. Lets say when you were five, your parents told you that you couldn't eat those tasty cherries, because you would die. Then somebody crafty tricks you into eating the cherries and you don't die, but instead you get kicked out of the house to toil the earth for the rest of your life. It's kind of terrible, isn't it?
The rest of this chapter is a weird bit that feels almost straight out of Stargate. First God says, to an invisible audience,
"See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen 3:22, emphasis mine)Wait, what? Who is the "us"? I thought God was the only one. If it had just been "man has become like us", I might have been able to attribute that to the royal we, but "one of us" can't help but imply there being more than one.
Secondly, after getting over that shock, God casts humanity out of Eden because now we know too much. We're like God, we might learn the secrets of eternal life. It's not until much later in the bible that we get offered that one.
I still have some serious issues with the litany of overreactions and terrible things God does in this chapter. It's right up there with the killing of every Egyptian firstborn, to me. Anyway, my readers and commenters, enjoy yourselves, but remember to be courteous to all posters.
3 comments:
Wait - your parents never epically over-reacted to something you did as a kid? Really?
Wait...mine didn't...well, yeah. God seems a bit like a teenager who is stuck parenting.
Good insights...good plan on leaving the feminist argument alone.
Also, man transcribed this - how stupid is that? what if Adam had eaten it and was making up for his mistake, or ate first and then blamed eden. *grumbles*
You may just not have gotten to this part yet (I haven't read ahead), but it turns out the snake actually told the truth--and it was god who fibbed. The snake told them they would not "surely die" the day they ate the fruit. And he said the real reason god forbade it was that god was insecure they'd become wise like god. Sure enough, as soon as Yahweh finds out, the first thing he complains about is: Oh no, they can discern good and evil--just like I can--what do we do now?! We have to get the tree of life out of their hands, pronto! And he punishes them but they don't die that day--exactly as foretold by the serpent.
Sorry, should have read further down. The "us" and "we" is the pantheon. God is called El, as in "El of the Elohim." Elohim is a confused word in the Bible that sometimes conjugates with singular and sometimes with plural verbs. In other writings--outside the Bible, "Elohim" refers to a specific pantheon of gods that was first recorded, as far as I'm aware, in Ugarit. They have stories about El and many of the other gods that are noted in the Hebrew mythology. And, importantly, they predate the Hebrew scriptures. So, it _appears_, anyway, that the Rabbis borrowed some stories from the Canaanites and sort of made god "singular"--but didn't quite get to accurately editing out all of the plural references to the Elohim (Canaanite gods/goddesses) before the book was canonized many, many years later. Later, you will find references to Asherah--who was El's (the head god of the pantheon) wife. The Hebrew texts combine El and Yahweh--basically making a composite god afer many centuries and reformations by Kings who were loyal to the worship of one god (specifically King Hezekiah was a huge reformer). This does not mean they believed only one god existed--only that they were loyal to that specific god over others. Hope this helps.
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