Hello, I'm Dr. Justin Jackson, professor of English at Hillsdale College. In this course, we'll be covering the Book of Genesis and some of the most famous stories that most people know, and we'll be keeping an eye on particular literary qualities of the text itself. The first story that we'll be covering will be the creation of Adam and Eve and their consequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Before we begin in the narrative proper, I think it's important to understand Kind of the various relationships that we'll see, not just in the opening story of Genesis, but in many ways, these relationships that will come to dominate throughout the entire narrative. The first relationship is the relationship between God and creation. After God and creation, we know that there's a clear relationship between God and human beings. A third relationship is the relationship between human to human contact.
And finally, One that we won't focus on too much throughout the text, but it's all throughout Leviticus and even here early on in Genesis, is the relationship between human beings and creation. And I think what's most fascinating when we start looking at this kind of four-part relationship is we want to start to ask about what is the intersection between the relationship between God and human beings and human beings and human beings. More to the point, I want to ask, what is the way in which... Perhaps the face of God shows up there in the human to human relationship. How does the human to human relationship offer us up kind of an eruption, an interruption of that divine in human relationship as well?
So let's turn to Genesis and the creation of Adam and Eve. We're told in Genesis chapter 1, 26, that God has made man in his image and by his likeness has he made him. And this is a really important distinction because man is unlike anything else in creation. In some ways, man is the mediator.
It's kind of this, it's standing there at this central position between heaven, that is to say the divine, and earth, that is to say the material creation, between the animals. In some ways, we see man standing right between, is in some ways just kind of, he sits there with these divine qualities. And simultaneously these very earthly qualities, and it's the tension between the two.
The tension between the earthly and the divine that comes to define man's interaction with other humans and the divine throughout the book. In Genesis 2, verse 5, On the day the Lord God made earth and heavens, no shrub of the field being yet on the earth, and no plant of the field yet sprouted. For the Lord God had not caused rain to fall on the earth. There was no human to till the soil, and wetness would well from the earth to water all the surface of the soil.
Then God fashioned the human, hummus from soil, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living creature. Now I'm sure this translation sounds a little odd to you, hummus from the soil. This is Robert Alter's translation of Genesis, and he's trying to, he's trying to depict for us it. in English, the wordplay that's there in Hebrew. Adam just means the human being.
And the human being, the wordplay there, it was taken from adamah, which means from the soil. God's taking this human being from the soil. But note, he is into the human once God blows into his nostrils. You see the breath of God. You see something of the divine coming down to the human, that soil.
The soil and the divine coming together in this one figure here. It's really a thing of beauty. You see this kind of majestic creature, unlike the other ones thus far. We go down a little bit more, and we see that the human has somewhat of a project here. And the Lord God took the human and set him down in the Garden of Eden to till it and watch it.
To till it means, another way to translate it, is to serve it. Abad and to watch it, samar means it's closer to something like to guard and protect it. So we're there to serve it, to guard it and protect it.
We're there as keepers of this creation and there's something of an irony here. By the time we get to the end of Genesis chapter 3, what you'll see is after the transgression, everything gets subverted. Rather than our guarding and protecting the garden, God has to send this cherubim with the flaming sword to in fact protect it from us.
The original transgression is going to throw a wrench into the system here of what this divine human relationship looks like. And the Lord God commanded the human saying, from every fruit of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat. For on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die. So now here we get this first commandment, this first prohibition, something about this tree of knowledge of good and evil, and we'll get there. a little more in-depth when we go to chapter 3, but we are not to eat of it.
We are doomed to die. And we have to ask, how do we understand we are doomed to die? Usually in class, when I ask, how do you understand this?
Most students will respond, oh, I've always imagined, they think if you heard that command, you would think as soon as you eat that fruit, you die. We'll see something else gets... played out a little bit more in the text. And I think the most startling statement in the entirety of these opening chapters of the first three chapters of Genesis comes now here in verse 18. And the Lord God said, it is not good for the human to be alone.
I shall make him a sustainer beside him. For the first time, if you go back to Genesis chapter one, God repeatedly says, and it was Every act of creation is good. All things are good in this narrative. But now we are going to get a key insight with regards to the human and really what it means to be a human.
Because for the first time we are told that something is not good. And it is not good that man is alone. This comes to help us understand our place in the cosmos. Is this mediator between the earthly and the heavenly?
We also know that we are... aren't these autonomous beings answerable to no one. We would like to say we're only answerable to God, but even here we understand there is something about what it means to be the human here, that being in isolation is wholly unacceptable. And so what does God do?
He starts fashioning animals. The Lord fashioned from the soil each beast of the field and each fowl of the heavens and brought each to the human to see what he would call it, whatever. The human called a living creature, that was its name.
So there are two things going on here. One, he's creating the animals precisely as he creates the human, that is to say, from the soil. Save he doesn't breathe into it. That's part one. Part two, and I want to go back to man being made in the image and likeness of God.
Notice what he does here. Man now is using his words to name these animals. And not only that.
But there is something of the divine human relationship here which then says, and God would abide by whatever the man calls these animals. So now man is almost taking part in this divine project. He is using his words as God uses his words at creation.
Man is now participating with the divine in this act of creation by naming these animals. But of course, we're told after all of this, There was no sustainer found for the human in these animals. Verse 21, And the Lord God cast a deep slumber on the human, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed over the flesh where it had been. And the Lord God built the rib he had taken from the human into a woman, and he brought her to the human.
And the human said, This one at last, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called woman. For for man was this one taken. It's this beautiful moment because what we see here with regards to humankind's notion of personhood is that it's a corporate personhood, is that to understand what it means to be a human person isn't simply to be a unique individual surrounded by all these other unique individuals made in the same way, but rather we are in a sense incomplete.
We can't even... Name who we are. We have no identity if we are not in a relationship to another human person. In fact, look at the poem that Adam offers to us.
This one at last, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Notice, he names this one precisely in the way in which he's going to name the animals. This one shall be called woman, the Hebrew.
Isha, also a word that's used for wife. This one shall be called woman, isha. And now notice what he does. For from man, ish was this one taken. It's a beautiful moment because now what you see, is in the act of naming this other human being across from him, only then can he actually name himself as a separate identity.
Because it's really not a separate identity. They're bound to one another. The very notion of personhood here is found here in this relationship. From Esau, only once that's named can I actually now have an understanding of myself. And so...
This begins to stake out what the human to the human relationship is, and then what we will see come chapter 3 is a fall, is a disruption, is a rupture of this human to human relationship. And it turns out the rupture in this human to human relationship, where she is to be a sustainer to him, he is to find his own personhood there in Esha. What we'll find here is it's also a disruption. in the divine and human relationship.
So now we move into the opening moments of the transgression. Now the serpent was most cunning of all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Though God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden, and the woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the garden's trees we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not be doomed to die, for God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will become as gods, knowing good and evil.
And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was lust to the eyes, and the tree was lovely to look at. And she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave to her man, and he ate. And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves loincloths.
So let's go through some of these details. and try to read them afresh, to read them anew. Oftentimes we can get stuck in that same theological narrative and not start asking these questions of this text. So let's just begin, first and foremost, with the narrative that we know all so well.
God gave Adam and Eve a commandment. Their prideful desire to become like gods is precisely what allows them to be tempted by the serpent. And giving in to this temptation, they break a commandment of God and thus break their relationship with the divine. And as a consequence of this, God, of course, escorts them out of the garden.
And in some ways, we read this as a just response. They had a commandment. They broke the commandment. They broke their relationship with the divine. And now, of course, they have to live their life quite differently now in this world.
So let's keep that in the back of our mind, but now I want us to start asking things anew, because there are all sorts of questions we can have here. The first question we can ask is about this tree of knowledge of good and evil. What is this tree?
What is this knowledge of good and evil? The first thing I think we have to assert is that the tree of knowledge and good and evil, because God made it, it is therefore good. We were told that everything God makes in this garden is, in fact, good. So that means this tree in and of itself is not evil.
There is a knowledge there and the tree is good. Though they have been commanded, do not eat of it. And so now we can ask, well, why would God not allow them to eat of it?
And now let's go back to where we were previously. He made them in the divine image and likeness. He breathed himself into them. They are these mediators of the earthly and the heavenly.
And yet they're told, you shall not have this knowledge of good and evil. You shall not be like gods. Adam gets to name the animals and God abides by his naming.
This seems very confusing. Is this not part of the project? That they should become like gods? We have all sorts of clues in the text that this may in fact be the case.
And so the question, the objections often raised to this. story is, why would God create something good that is the knowledge of good and evil, and then tell them no, and tell them no in perpetuity? So often we focus on just the knowledge of evil because of the shame they feel. But what about the good?
What about the knowledge of good? Would their knowledge of God not even be heightened at this moment if they ate of it, since God is the very source of good? And I think this is maybe what we start to come to understand, is that there is a double source of knowledge here. It is a knowledge of good and evil.
In this text, the evil is that consciousness of transgression and that consciousness of shame, but the shame comes from the very moment they eat of that tree. and are exposed even more to that goodness. It's a double exposure here. The more they're exposed to the good, the more shame they're going to feel.
Each piece of that knowledge feeds off of one another. So now let's go back and look through some of these details. The serpent says, though God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden, notice that Eve here interrupts him immediately.
She says, from the fruit of the garden's trees we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it and you shall not touch it. Notice she expands the command here. You shall not touch it. Where did she get this command? Does she have a great desire for this tree?
Which, by the way, is lust to the eyes. It's beautiful. And of course it's beautiful. God has made this tree. It is good.
It has a knowledge of the good and of the evil. Of course it's beautiful. Is this what's tempting her? She doesn't want to touch it because the moment she touches that fruit and takes it and she doesn't die, does that mean surely we can now eat of it?
Has she added this commandment to the previous commandment to give herself an excuse to go ahead and eat this? Or perhaps, as other commentaries have asked, is this the command that Adam gave to her to protect her? Did Adam say, Eve, don't eat of the fruit.
Don't even touch it. Is she simply repeating what Adam has said? So there's an expansion here. And notice the serpent.
This is why he's so cunning, because notice there are two things going on here. He tells a lie and he tells the truth simultaneously. You shall not be doomed to die.
And we know this is untrue. For God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will become as gods knowing good and evil. Notice the conflation here. You're not doomed to die because if you become like God knowing good and evil, therefore you shall be immortal. But there are two trees, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.
So here the serpent is quite cunning because he tells the truth as well. He says, you will become like gods knowing good and evil. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden in the evening breeze.
And the human and his woman hid from the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to the human and said to him, Where are you? What a beautiful question.
Where are you? And this is kind of this existential question for Adam now. Just think about it. He's hiding from his creator. The one to whom he was called to be in relationship, he's now hiding from him.
He won't, there isn't a respond here. And he said, I heard your sound in the garden, and I was afraid, for I was naked, and I hid. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? From the tree I commanded you not to eat, have you eaten? Notice these questions, and these questions are very interesting, precisely because they're questions.
This omniscient God, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, does not know where Adam and Eve are? What do we make of these questions? In some ways, we can look back to the various traditions, both rabbinic and Christian, and they understand these questions in a very precise way. And this is God calling Adam and Eve to repentance.
He's asking Adam to admit what he has done. Look, the narrative here, let's just boil it down to something simple. There are commandments. In this case, there's one command.
One is to keep it, to stay in relationship to the divine. In fact, it is a blessing to observe the commandments. Why?
Because they are divine given. The commandments come from the divine, and we meet those commands in our earthly and spiritual way. Then we are that proper mediator.
Follow the commandments. If you don't follow the commandments, repent. Repent.
Simply turn back to God and say, I'm sorry, God, I did not follow the commandments. And then, of course, you'll be asked to follow the commandments. It's a really simple narrative that we can see all throughout these biblical texts, and in particular here. If we understand this as part of a penitential narrative, This original expulsion that already has built into it a commandment and a desire from God who is long-suffering, merciful, and abounding in love, as Exodus tells us.
He desires the transgressor to turn and return to God in following the commandments. So he gives them the ability to repent, to admit what they've done. And he said, who told you that you were naked from the tree that...
I command you not to eat, you have eaten. And the human said, here's his chance to repent. The woman whom you gave by me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.
Now, all of a sudden, I think we can see what's going on here. If we're talking about the intersection of the divine and human relationship combined with the human and human relationship, then what we see here is a rupture of both simultaneously. Adam, who has his life, who names himself only after this woman.
who's taken from him his very self, who gives him his sense of personhood. This sustainer beside him, notice what he's willing to do. He cuts her off, and his language is perfect.
The woman whom you gave to me. In a double sense, he's passing off this responsibility to his wife and now to God. So we see a simultaneous disruption of the divine relationship and the human relationship here. Cutting himself off for both, rather than saying, I failed, Lord. Rather than taking responsibility for his wife, even if she is the one who gave him the fruit, rather than saying, I didn't teach her well enough, I wasn't watching her closely, rather than doing anything to try to sustain his sustainer, he cuts her off and cuts God off.
And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I ate. Notice what she does here, passes blame off to the serpent. She doesn't even mention.
that she gave the fruit to Adam and he ate. She doesn't even mention this. And maybe we can even ask, why are they so unrepentant here?
Why won't they turn back? And I think a lot of it has to go, we have to go back and say, and look at, I want to say, the prophecy that God gives to the humans. It's a commandment and a prophetic uttering. Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat of it, surely you're doomed to die. How do they understand that doomed to die?
Can they repent? What if that repentance in their name, yes, in fact, Lord, we ate from it. What if they understand that, that now here comes death?
Just ask yourself, how did you understand that first commandment? Did you understand it as an immediate death that's been promised to them? Not as something that's eventual, not as something that cuts them off.
from the tree of life, but something that is immediate? Is it their fear of death that allows them, that causes them not to repent? Is that what we're seeing here?
And of course, afterwards, we get to see the effects of all of this, the change in Adam's relationship to creation. Now he has to work by the sweat of his brow, the birth pangs for Eve. And the Lord God made skin coats for the human and his woman, and he clothed them.
And the Lord God said, Now that the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he may reach out and take as well from the tree of life and live forever. And the Lord God sent from the garden of Eden to till the soil from which he had been taken. I want us to just take a look. Now that the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he may reach out and take as well from the tree of life and live forever.
And this is poignant. Let's go back to our usual reading of this. How do we understand this usually?
If we take Adam and Eve's original transgression as one of pride, this innate desire, this overwhelming desire to become like gods, then we see in what God offers to us here is he has some sense of a rivalry between Adam and Eve. That he does not want them to become gods. Now that they know all of this, we can't let them live forever or they will be like one of us.
Does he fear a rivalry? I would say we can look at other details and perhaps give us another understanding here. Again, with the notion of repentance, with the notion that God is long-suffering and abounding in love, rather than some judgment for their pride, what if this isn't a God who is merciful and compassionate in his justice?
So let's just go back a little bit and ask a couple of questions. What is the state that Adam and Eve are now in with regards to their relationship to the divine? They stand in front of him naked and ashamed, whereas before they were naked and did not know it.
Because they've had this double knowledge. They've transgressed and are conscious of their transgression. And they are ashamed of it and they're standing in the very presence of the divine. And by the way, they have become gods knowing good and evil. Let's not mistake this.
They have become like gods knowing good and evil. Now God says, let's cut them off from the tree of life, lest they become immortal. But now let's just think of what their state is in this knowledge.
Now their state is one of shame. And now you can really start thinking about justice and mercy. Would not justice be God saying, I told you not to eat of the tree of knowledge and good and evil? And yet you've done so.
And so now you shall just have the fruit of your transgression here. You shall now live in this shame which you've brought upon yourself. And think about what this means, what they brought to the garden. A garden which is paradise. They now would live for an eternity in shame in the presence of God.
And there is a specific word for that. And that is hell. They would have transformed this paradise that God has given to them to become these mediators, to become these divine-like creatures.
And they would have turned it all into hell, to grow in their relationship and turned it all into hell. In fact, we can go back and even ask, then why put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden? Oftentimes we say because they needed to exercise that free will they had. They can't love God and obey him if there isn't a free will.
And let me just accept that, but let me go one better and say that it is a good thing and that at a certain point they would have been able to eat from. This is not a God who fears a rivalry. who created human beings in his image and likeness, is going to watch them grow to fruition of this and would have let them eat from the tree eventually. And then we ask, eventually, what would that take?
Let me just submit that at least the first step in growing towards that divine human relationship, the first event that would have allowed them access to the tree of knowledge and good and evil would have been to abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. and listen to the commandment of God. Had they done this, had they exercised that free will in following the commandment of God, that would have opened the path to the knowledge of good and evil for them and to become like God's, but to have a better understanding, to have grown in that relationship with the divine. And so when we look here, now that the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, that let us not let them take from the tree of life and live forever.
God is not afraid of a rivalry of his creation. He's not afraid that they've become gods. He set everything in place so that they could become godlike.
I mean, really, is a God who created mud, he's created soil, and he's turned them into gods, is a God who has that sort of enormous power really going to rival these godlike creatures that he's created from mud? Rather, it was a graciousness on the part of the divine to say, I am going to create creatures who with their will can live and participate in the divine life. And whereas at one point they had one commandment to do so, well now, okay, we have the original transgression.
Now they have 1613 commandments to do so. And those 1613 commandments should be seen as a joy, as another opportunity to exist in that divine and human relationship. So then what we see here then, cutting them off from the Garden of Eden, to put the cherubim at that tree of life, to cut them off from immortality, to become these godlike creatures living in shame and perpetuity.
Rather than an act of justice, it is an act of mercy. Rather than letting them, by their own free will, create a hell out of a paradise which he's given to them, he has cut them off from that and is going to now allow them to exist in relationship to the divine. in a different manner. And the rest of Genesis is going to be a teasing out and through the whole Tanakh, through the whole Hebrew Bible is going to be a question of what does that new relationship look like.
And so next time we will pick up on this as we take a look at the Abraham narrative. Thank you.