Genesis 1 -3

This is something that I wrote for seminary recently that I thought turned out well:

While one could deduce that Genesis 1 through 3 is about the introduction of sin into the human life and the implications that follow, this would be a Christian point of view. When the text is read through retrospective Christian lens it is critically limited. Thus, approaching the text one should dispose of the lens of tradition and see what the text has to offer.
Upon re-examining the text my eyes were opened to all of the beauty the text holds. The story told is not chiefly about Adam and Eve’s sin (a term not even used in Hebrew scriptures until Genesis 4 with Cain) and the consequences of human kind.

Instead, it can be seen as a story of “coming of age”. It is unrealistic to say that God placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden but did not want the human pair to ever eat its fruit. Instead, it can be seen that the tree was not a temptation alone, but rather something to be invited to in the future. When girls are young they mirror their mother wearing her sparking diamonds by flashing plastic jewelry. For that stage of development the plastic is just as good as diamonds, and not until the girl proves that she can take care of valuables will she be given a real diamond. In other words, all good things are given in due season. Adam and Eve were not meant to live in a fog forever; God just wanted them to wait. Thus they were punished for not trusting God’s timing.

One could even make the argument that Eve, by first tasting the fruit, actually opened up possibilities for humankind. By eating of the tree, her eyes were opened to fully feel emotion, to reason, and to have the ability to glean and retain wisdom. All of these aspects are praised at other parts in the Bible. It would be unfair to deduce that life would be better without these qualities. What done is done, and we cannot return to Eden. We must walk on in this adventure of life, being thankful for what we have been given, even if the timing was wrong.

Of course most Christians are going to disagree with this stance. We go to church to get simple answers to complex questions that, yes, should be asked, but not answered in such tidy ways. The Bible tells the story of life. Genesis 1 through 3 tells the story of life, and life is messy and lacks neat resolutions. Sometimes we need to look at the complex answers. We cannot say that Adam and Eve damned creation, because we do not have the ability to say that life was meant to be lived perpetually in the garden. We need to stop blaming and start living. If we reap the knowledge from the text we must thank God for the wisdom he gave us. Even when labor is hard we can be thankful for the end results, food and life.

As to Magonet’s ( A Rabbi Reads the Bible) claim that reading the scriptures is a life or death experience, I agree, especially is a post-exilic context. If Genesis 1-3 tells the story of creation and re-creation, it is a call to those returning from exile to start over again, specifically to sink in roots and repopulate, or face extinction. Reversely, if the text is approached from the “Christian” stand point that Eve originally sinned, then the text can be (and still is) the emotional death and spiritual exclusion of women’s fellowship with YHWH. We cannot say that Eve damned creation, because we do not have the ability to say that life was meant to be lived perpetually in the garden. We need to stop blaming and start living. No reading of the text is ever neutral, thus there will always be consequences. The consequences of my re-reading of the stories Genesis 1 through 3 is a new appreciation of the story of life, of even hard labor yielding life. I realized that as Adam and Eve left the garden, God went with them, through all of the hard times throughout history, just as God walks with us today.