Perhaps the Tree of knowledge is tied to death because the only way to truly know the depths of evil or “bad” is to see death. To understand it. To succumb to it. To see that disobedience undoes the work God did in Genesis 1.
Tag: Genesis 1
Most Crafty
There is a ranking of cleverness in the creatures God created.
The serpent (a creeping thing) is more crafty than the wild beasts, but not described as more clever than the cattle/livestock.
God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so.
God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good.
Genesis 1:23-24 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)
Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that God יהוה had made. It said to the woman, “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”
Genesis 1:23-24 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)
Some translations render this as “more shrewd than all…”
Light in the Beginning
If God is Light, then light was not created in Genesis 1:3. It was there, hovering over our darkness in Genesis 1:2. We just couldn’t see it. It was there in the beginning.
Perhaps Genesis 1 isn’t an account of things being created, but an account of things being revealed.
Darkness
Darkness is mentioned at the start of Genesis 1, and the rest of the chapter continues in a description of days, and of things we see in the Light.
Darkness isn’t mentioned in Genesis 2. Or Genesis 3. In fact, we don’t get this word again until Genesis 15, when God makes covenant with Abram. It starts in darkness, and then God shows up. That is the story of our relationship with God.
Trust the Story
In Christianity, we’re taught “first you must know that you’re a sinner,” but this is not the pattern of Genesis.
Genesis doesn’t tell you about sin and death until after it establishes that you are beloved.
God is asking you to trust Him in the story.
The Name of the Creeping Things
In Genesis 3, we’re going to be introduced to the Serpent. He’s a “creeping thing,” unlike “wild animals” or “livestock.” All three are listed specifically in the creation account of Genesis 1.But when Adam names in the animals in Genesis 2, notice what’s missing. It’s the “creeping things” of Gen 1:24-25.
Why?
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
Genesis 2:19-20 (NASB)
I’m not sure, but perhaps it’s tied to this:
Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be careful; and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth.
Exodus 23:13 (NASB)
The creeping things point to the serpent of Genesis 3. The serpent points to all the false gods.
Plants or Humans First?
I mentioned before that Genesis 2:4 tells me that the order isn’t the point, so I’m comfortable with the order of Genesis 1 (plants before man) not being consistent with Genesis 2:5, where the plants do not seem to exist when God creates man. However, there is another approach.
when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because God יהוה had not sent rain upon the earth and there were no human beings to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth — God יהוה formed the Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.
Genesis 2:5-7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)
The key is in the word “טֶרֶם” (terem). Some bibles translate it as “before,” but the Rabbis say that this word gives us a tension of “almost, but not quite,” like the way one waits for the green signs of life to break through the surface of the ground. There, but not yet.
טרם יהיה בארץ WAS NOT YET IN THE EARTH — Wherever טרם occurs in the Scriptures it means “not yet” and does not mean “before.” It cannot be made into a verbal form, saying הטרים as one says הקדים (verbal form of קדם) and this passage proves that this is the meaning and not “before” as well as another (Exodus 9:30), כי טרם תראון “that ye do not yet fear the Lord.” Therefore you must explain this verse also thus: “No plant of the field was yet in the earth” at the time when the creation of the world was completed on the sixth day before man was created, and וכל עשב השדה טרם יצמח means “and every herb of the field had not yet grown.”
Rashi on Genesis 2:5:1
In this reading, God “brings forth” plants in Genesis 1, which points to seeds breaking open below the surface, waiting until someone can till the ground in Genesis 2, or perhaps as early as day 6 of creation in Genesis 1. This view is perhaps helpful for anyone who needs reconciliation between the timelines of the two chapters. It seems to work.
Suitable Helper
God created Eve from Adam, and we’re in the habit of imagining ourselves as Adam; we think God made someone specifically for us and from us.
But maybe Adam isn’t us. Perhaps he represents God in the story, and it’s a story of God making something specifically for Himself.
We are the suitable helper.
It feels like an echo of Genesis 1 when God created humanity. Perhaps Genesis 2 tells us how He felt about us in the words of Adam when he sees the woman.
Like God; Like One Another
Consider – man is made in the image of God. What could be the only suitable helper for someone like God, other than one who is also made like God? We read in Genesis 1 that Adam and Eve were BOTH made in God’s image.
So the woman is made just like the man to be suitable for him as well. Equal.
Not Good
Some of our Christian theologies argue that nothing “not good” could have existed before the fall. But here, the text points out that the man was alone, and that being alone was “not good.”
But also, Gen 1 says it was dark and chaotic. God made that, too.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
Some of our Christian theological perspectives are broken.
The text says God created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1, but God also created the chaos and the darkness in Genesis 1:2. Fortunately, He brings light and order in Genesis 1:3. That’s the correct framework.
Some of our theologies teach “God made it good, but we broke it with sin, so now we have to repent in order to be forgiven,” but this idea doesn’t flow from Genesis. I don’t think this teaching is correct.
Believing that God will heal us and bring us light is the good news.