First, keep in mind that we are viewing this as a work of literature, a piece of art. We are also reading this because of its impact on history and literature and art.
At the basis of all this, philosophically speaking, is free will. Adam and Eve choose their fate.
Know the number of "days" it took to create the earth and its inhabitants. Don't forget that there was a day of rest, one that has become for Muslims, Jews, and Christians the "Sabbath" or day of rest.
Note all the repetition. When someone repeats something over and over, it's probably because it's important.
"And God said, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. S
o God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
male and female created he them" (Norton, 53).
Note the repetition of man--and woman--being created in the image of God. If we theorize that God is good, this also means, that at his/her essence, man/woman is essentially good. We haven't gotten to the fall yet, but even after the fall, humans are supposed to be, at their cores, essentially good--because they were made in God's own image.
God creates man from "the dust of the ground"; God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (54).
The fall actually happens because we all have
free will. This is another important literary theme. Know it.
"And the Lord God planted a
garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food;
the tree of life [immortality] also in the midst of the garden, and the
tree of knowledge [lost innocence] of good and evil" (54).
The "let them have dominion over...." passage has, historically speaking, been interpreted or exploited primarily in two ways.
- If humans have dominion over everything, then they can do whatever they want. In other words, they can take what they like from the earth and use it to their own ends. This could be destructive to the environment. The invasion of other lands for profit was often justified morally by this kind of interpretation.
- Such a gift of power means that humans must be stewards of the land, that they must be responsible for it. In other words, they must take good care of what they have been given. With power comes responsibility.
Next, comes the "catch."
"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it" (54). Doesn't this reinforce the idea of man as steward?
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (54).
Note once more that God is giving them a choice and reinforcing that there will be consequences for the wrong choice. If you do this, that will happen.
At this point of the story, Adam and Eve, innocent though they are, are immortals. They will not suffer from illnesses that come along with aging; they probably won't even age. Knowledge, of course, is wonderful, but we lose a little of our innocence with this.
This passage also relates to the idea of free will. Adam can choose to eat of the tree or he can obey God's command and not do so. As humans, we all know the attraction of "forbidden fruit." It always seems irresistible. So one way of looking at this would be to suggest that God is a little unfair, that this is a kind of entrapment. Another way, again, is that they get to choose. Your parents do the same to you. They love you so they want you to make good choices. And a good parent lets you know the consequences of making the wrong choices. Similarly, though it pains them to do so, they enforce the rules.
The "thou shalt surely die" refers to our current status as human beings. We are born, we suffer through this life, and we die. It also results in our exile--not just from the garden of Eden--but from God. Once we were one. Now we are separate.
Exile is an important theme in literature. Exile equals a kind of death. There are many forms of exile in the Bible but also in other great works of literature.
God also gives Adam the power of naming everything: "and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field...." (54).
Then we learn that Adam is lonely. That's when God, who cares about Adam, creates Eve, the first woman, taken from one of Adam's ribs, as Adam sleeps. Note the end of chapter 2:
"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (55).
Consider this when you think of the first two chapters of Fountain and Tomb. The bawdy aunt's nakedness is not perverted because both she and the boy are unself-conscious. It is innocent. There is a kind of purity in the relationship.
In chapter three, we have poor Eve, newly formed, so innocent. Who could resist the serpent's words?
"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (55).
Who would not want to be "as gods"? Power is intoxicating. And, as humans, we often make the wrong choices when someone (often one without our best interests at heart) tells us a lie that sounds more like what we want to hear than the truth.
Of course, not only does Eve eat the fruit, she also gives "unto her husband with her; and he did eat" (55).
Adam is not a victim here. I don't see him putting up any resistance. "Oh no, honey, we shouldn't." I don't see that at all. Do you ? Instead, it's more like, "Cool." Like Eve, he chooses his fate. Free will.
And of course, the result is the following:
"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons" (55).
Suddenly, nakedness is a bad thing. It is a sign of our self-consciousness.
God totally knows the answer to "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" (55). But he asks it anyway, maybe to make them squirm a little longer. Or maybe he does this to make them think and to allow them to make a better choice. He doesn't take pleasure in this. It's really all about how they have choices--every step along the way. And the humans keep making the wrong choice.
Note how Adam first answers. It's also typical of human nature (we will see it over and over again in the great works of western literature) to blame someone else for the bad choice one has made.
"And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (55).
That phrasing even makes it sound like Adam is blaming God. After all, it's the woman "whom thou gavest to me" who made him do it.
Eve, of course, is going to use the whole "The devil made me do it" excuse. "And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (55).
Beguile: 1. To deceive by guile, delude. 2. To take away from by or as if by guile, cheat. 3. To distract the attention of; divert. 4. To pass (time) pleasantly. 5. To amuse or charm.
Guile: 1. Treacherous cunning; skillful deceit.
Note the passive nature of beguiling. The choice of such a word suggests Eve's innocence.
God curses the serpent, no big deal. He also makes Eve suffer in creating life (childbirth). The King James version also says that Adam will rule over his wife.
Adam, however, will have to work very hard. Life will be difficult; "For out of it [the ground] wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (55). In other words, you're going to have to work hard, suffer a lot, and then die.
God then names Adam and Eve and he "make[s] coats of skins, and clothe[s] them" (55).
The next line is downright sarcastic: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us" (55). He then ordains that man will no longer have access to "the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (55).
Sarcasm is a form of anger. It is also a form of humor. God is angry. And he is reinforcing the fact that they listened to the serpent rather than to God. The humans, who have made the wrong choice, must deal with his wrath. Actually, they chose it when they ate the fruit.
God then exiles or "drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (56).
Exile = Death. Adam and Eve will now eventually die. They are mortal.
This is how your text analyzes the King James version of the story: "Because God is all-powerful, even the resistance on Adam and Eve's part is in some mysterious way a manifestation of God's will. How this can be is not explained..., and we are left with the mystery that still eludes us, the coexistence of God's prescient power and humanity's unrestricted free will" (48).
Your text also says this: "The story of the Fall ends with a situation in which Adam and Eve have earned for themselves and their descendants a short life of sorrow relieved only be death. It was the achievement of later Hebrew teachers to carry the story on and develop the concept of a God who is as merciful as He is just, who watches tenderly over the destinies of the creatures who have rebelled against Him, and who brings about the possibility of atonement and full reconciliation" (48).
Just for fun (not to be graded), lets take a look at another version of the Bible. This is the 1989 Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press The Revised English Bible. On the book's jacket, it purports to be "one of the pioneering modern language translations," "the most readable and accurate contemporary English translation of the ancient texts available." There might be a little bias here, since it's on the book's jacket. At any rate, let's take a look at a few of the passages:
As in the King James version, God still sees that everything he has created is good. Now comes the passage of the creation of humans. It's not just man, but human beings:
"Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness, to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, all wild animals on land, and everything that creeps on the earth.'
"God created human beings in his own image; / in the image of God he created them; / male and female he created them" (Genesis I, 26-27).
Note how the syntax immediately puts man on an equal level with woman.
Now, let's see how God made the first man: "The Lord God formed a human being from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living creature. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden away to the east, and in it he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made the trees grow up from the ground, every kind of tree pleasing to the eye and good for food; and in the middle of the garden he set the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2, 7-9).
Note the differences in diction on the whole "He put Adam in charge" bit. It's much more specific that Adam is to be a steward. This same passage, however, also has the "free will" bit:
"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and look after it. 'You may eat from any tree in the garden,' he told the man, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the day you eat from that, you are surely doomed to die'" (Genesis 2, 15-17).
Then, Adam gets lonely, so God creates "'a partner suited to him'" (18). Then Adam does the naming. Again, God "put the man into a deep sleep" and takes one of his ribs to create a woman.
Note the changes here: "Both were naked, the man and his wife, but they had no feeling of shame" (3, 25).
Now the conversation between Eve and the serpent is a little different too:
"The serpent, which was the most cunning of all the creatures the Lord God had made, asked the woman, 'Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?' She replied, 'We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except for the tree in the middle of the garden. God has forbidden us to eat the fruit of that tree or even to touch it; if we do, we shall die'" (3, 1-3).
This Eve clearly knows what is right and what is wrong. Clearly, she understands the consequences. This Eve seems much more sophisticated than the Eve of the King James version. In spite of her awareness, the serpent is even more sophisticated. He plays on her vanity:
"'Of course you will not die,' said the serpent; 'for God knows that, as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God himself, knowing both good and evil'" (3, 4-5).
Instead of being like gods, she will be like the God. Being the God is a lot more impressive than being one of the gods.
The results in this version are the same. They both realize they are naked and they put on clothes because they are ashamed of their nakedness.
Now we have the angry parent who obviously knows that his children have behaved badly, but he sets them up anyway. Again, another way of looking at this is that he gives them a chance to do the right thing:
"The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from him among the trees. The Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He replied, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.' God said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I forbade you to eat from?' The man replied, 'It was the woman you gave to be with me who gave me the fruit from the tree, and I ate it.' The Lord God said to the woman, 'What have you done?' The woman answered, 'It was the serpent who deceived me into eating it'" (3, 8-13).
Deceive: 1. to cause to believe what is not true; mislead. 2. Archaic. To catch by guile; ensnare.
And especially notice the emphasis on Adam and Eve's status as equals: "'I shall give you great labor in childbearing;/ with labor you will bear children. / You will desire your husband, / but he will not be your master'" (3, 16).
Our desire for another human is often the source of bad decisions. I think that is one thing that this translation is trying to convey.
This is the contemporary translation of what God says to Adam:
"'And to the man he said,: 'Because you have listened to your wife and have eaten from the tree which I forbade you [note how specific God is here], / on your account the earth will be cursed. / You will get your food from it only by labor / all the days of your life; / it will yield thorns and thistles for you./ You will eat of the produce of the field, / and only by the sweat of your brow/ will you win bread/ until you return to the earth; / for from it you were taken./ Dust you are, to dust you will return'" (3, 17-19).
Again, we have the wonderful sarcasm coming from God: "'The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out and takes fruit from the tree of life also, and eats it and lives for ever?'" (3, 22).
The fact that God specifically points out that they will not be able to get to the Tree of Life again emphasizes God's anger at his misbehaving subjects. Often, anger arises out of pain. Someone has hurt us.
Those we love the most are therefore more capable of causing us to suffer more. We know what to expect from our enemies. But when we are hurt by one we love, we suffer more. We might even get a little angry.
This version also emphasizes the degree of the punishment: "When he drove him out, God settled him to the east of the garden of Eden, and he stationed the cherubim and a sword whirling and flashing to guard the way to the tree of life" (3, 23).
