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| PLEASE PIN - The temptation of Adam and Eve |
It’s a story most Westerners know, one which you likely heard repeated throughout both your childhood and adulthood, this tragic account of Adam and Eve being tempted by the devil and subsequently cast out of the Garden of Eden.
A snake tempted them to eat the forbidden fruit, they became aware of their nakedness and tried to hide from God, and God scolded them roundly, promising that childbirth would forever after be painful for women and that people would have to work hard to feed themselves forevermore.
If you’re like me, you heard this story in the context of how humanity is basically evil, even as an explanation for the “bad” behavior of children. But is it solely a store of humanity’s downfall, or does it contain seeds of hope?
Certainly, biblical scholars of all types agree that Genesis 3 relates how sin entered the world, bringing devastating consequences afterward. But there is more to this chapter than meets the eye, chock full of symbolism that points toward God’s plan for redemption.
In this blog post, I want to share the various scholarly perspectives on the third chapter of Genesis. Despite its morbid end, it is rich in symbolism that reveals God’s incomprehensible love for people.
His love for you.
The Fall and salvation collide in beautiful prose.
If you think this is going to be just another exposition on the story of the fall of man, think again. Because in a little while, I’m going to show you how the serpent is not what you’ve been taught it is.
The origin of pain and suffering.
If you’re like most Christians, you’ve usually heard a summary of Genesis 3 that emphasized the origin of sin. When hurting believers or skeptics wonder how a loving God could allow bad things to happen in His world, well-intentioned religious people are quick to remind them that it’s all Adam’s fault, that his disobedience brought sin into the world.
While that’s true, this precious account reveals so much more than that. Yes, Adam and Eve’s giving into the serpent’s temptation and their subsequent shame destroyed the idyllic life they’d been leading.
But the account also reveals God’s mercy and love.
It reveals how He had planned from the beginning for humanity’s eventual need for redemption.
The various interpretations.
As is true for the entire Bible, scholars differ in their beliefs about how Genesis 3 should be interpreted.
The literal/historical perspective.
As with the Creation story, there is a small – but significant – minority of biblical scholars and theologians who insist that the passage recounts a historical event. Their explanation of the talking snake is that the satan itself had possessed the creature, enabling it to speak. It had actually tempted the first woman to eat an actual fruit from an actual tree. Enjoying its flavor, she then shared it with the first man.
And suddenly, they knew – or believed they knew – the difference between good and evil. And suddenly believed that their nakedness was evil.
When God found all this out, He literally cursed Adam and Eve to a miserable life.
The literary/symbolic perspective.
Many more scholars look at the literary genre of the passage when determining its interpretation. For the ancient Hebrews, the genre for Genesis 1-11 is something akin to what we refer to as “mythological,” though that doesn’t mean that those chapters are myths.
I think a better term would be “God-inspired just-so fables.” As with Aesop’s famous fables, the stories teach important life lessons. As with just-so stories, they explain how the human predicament came into being.
Unlike most just-so stories, however, the early accounts of God’s encounters with humans likely have some basis in history.
The scholars who take this approach see symbolic meaning in Genesis 3, focusing on the symbolic nature of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the serpent (more on that guy coming up).
Rather than trying to provide evidence of historical accuracy of the account, such scholars emphasize the deeper truths that it conveys about human nature and people’s relationship with God.
The theological significance of Genesis 3.
Despite scholars’ sharp difference of opinion regarding how the early chapters of Genesis should be interpreted, they do agree that they all have theological importance. In this case, any scholar will tell you that the story is critical for explaining the origin of sin and brokenness in the world.
I think, as well, it explains why each of us yearns for something more.
Somehow, we know that the perfect world used to exist.
Psychological and existential interpretations.
Of course, there are plenty of non-believers in the world who put the Bible on the same level as any other religious work that has been written. Though full of fairy tales, it nonetheless offers a lens through which to view humanity’s frailties and thereby discover “cures” for these frailties.
The third chapter of Genesis resonates with the universal human experiences of temptation, choice, guilt, and loss of innocence. Secularists extract the lessons in the story and try to invent therapies that will heal hurting people of their shame and guilt.
To my knowledge, none has ever been truly successful.
Because there is only One Way for that to happen.
Genesis 3:15: The first announcement of the Good News.
After Eve tells the Lord that the serpent tempted her to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, and God curses the beast, He goes on to say, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel [Genesis 3:15, NIV].”
At this place in the chapter, all scholars agree: it is the announcement of a coming Victor over sin. God Himself was the first evangelist, proclaiming the Good News.
Because He already had a plan.
And even the literalists agree that the verse, as well as those that follow, are full of symbolism.
The serpent.
I have a vague memory of being a young child in a catechism class and being told that snakes are evil creatures because a snake tempted Eve into sin.
Why not a spider? Or a scorpion? They have nasty reputations, as well. Spiders have had the spotlight in at least as many horror films as snakes, and Middle East scorpions can be downright deadly.
For years as an adult, I resigned myself to the literal explanation that the devil had possessed an ancient snake which, at the time, had short legs (thus God’s curse that it would from then on have to crawl upon its belly).
The following video turned everything I’d learned about the tempting serpent on its head.
Remember that the guy in charge of this channel is a Hebrew scholar.
After watching that video, you might think back to the first verse of the chapter and wonder why the author implied that the serpentine being was a “beast of the field.” There are two things I can say to that.
First, recall that in the above video (and in a previous one of theirs), Tim and Jon discuss how the ancients believed that heavenly creatures mingled with earthly creatures. In that case, the serpentine being may have occasionally spent time in the Garden of Eden.
Secondly, the verse never states that this creature <i>was a beast of the field. Just that it was more cunning than the beasts of the field.
Crazy, isn’t it?
Or, maybe not so much… if you understand the original language and the culture that it came from.
That the serpent represents evil and the temptation to disobey God, even the satan itself, is a point all biblical scholars can agree on.
The woman, Eve.
Adam and Eve don’t have random names. In Hebrew, Adam means “ground” or “earth,” and Eve means “life.”
God created Adam, then Eve came out of him.
Eve. Life. Because without a female, life cannot continue. Most plants and animals require a female to reproduce.
So what did the satan hope to accomplish by tempting Eve?
To snuff out humanity.
The seed.
The Hebrew word translated to “seed” refers to offspring or descendants. God tells the satan that He will make human life its enemy, and that its seed (evil works) will be enemy to some future seed of human life.
Biblical scholars agree across the board that the future seed refers to God’s Son coming to live among us, eventually snuffing out sin and spiritual death.
What about “enmity”?
The word describes the ongoing spiritual battle between good and evil, between believers and the forces of opposition. By the time the author had written this chapter, they had likely seen plenty of that kind of battle in their own life.
They may have seen good people persecuted for their goodness. They may have watched the lives of loved ones or friends be destroyed by giving into temptation.
They may have become acutely aware that the world was not fair, and that humanity would never be able to conquer sin and evil all by itself.
The heel and the head.
“...he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel [Genesis 3:15 NIV].”
And here is the first glimpse of hope in the chapter. God has a plan in which evil will be crushed. At the same time, the devil will take a bite at the Savior’s heel, bringing Him down temporarily. But a “strike at” is never as permanent a condition as being crushed.
Crushed implies irreparable destruction.
Praise be to God!
The garments of animal skins: the second glimpse of hope.
In the twenty-first verse of this chapter, God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. While this sounds rather morbid, even punitive, it’s truly an act of mercy and love on God’s part.
Understand that back in that time, sacrificing animals to gods was a cross-cultural practice. So the author’s inclusion of this event is a picture of God’s generous character.
Instead of humans sacrificing for Him, He sacrificed for them.
It is a foreshadowing of Yeshua’s eventual words to His disciples: “The greatest among you will be your servant [Matthew 23:11].”
The act also symbolizes the truth that humans are incapable of erasing our own wrongdoing. The fig leaves that Adam and Eve put over themselves not only did not cover their bodies completely, but also would have been itchy and uncomfortable.
God replaced the leaves with tunics made of soft leather. Salvation is His work, a perfect work that we can’t come close to replicating.
The animal skins also represent the divine covering for sin we would one day receive through Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross.
It is the first act of grace in the Bible.
The expulsion from the Garden: the second act of grace, or utter cruelty?
When I was little, I was made to understand that when God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden, He kicked them out of the Garden. I mean, Dude Upstairs was mad!
I know I’m far from the only Christian who’s been taught to look at that particular event in that way. Imagine my pleasant surprise when, as an adult well out of my twenties, I heard that God expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden had been an act of mercy.
Remember that two special trees had been plenty in the middle of the Garden of Eden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life. Eating from the first meant to take on the desire to determine what is good and evil in one’s own eyes.
It meant to fall away from God by trying to become like God, to create one’s own morality.
And we know what happens when every individual on the planet decides to invent their own morality.
Chaos. Murder. Destruction.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the first tree, they had not yet eaten from the second tree.
The Tree of Life.
The Tree of Eternal Life.
God knew that if His children ate from that tree in the sinful state they had put themselves in, they would forever be miserable and separated from Him. So He commanded them to leave the Garden, then put a heavenly security detail to guard the Tree of Life to make sure His wayward children could never touch it.
Because He had a plan.
Though they would one day die in their sin, He would one day provide a way for them to be freed from that sin and return to follow Him.
A sad ending, or beautiful beginning?
Put together, the first three chapters of Genesis in the Hebrew language weave a colorful tapestry that depicts God’s generous and merciful character; His desire for Creation, particularly humans; and the gift He gave humanity in allowing them to choose to stay with Him, or to leave Him.
Though this chapter ends on a tragic note, it is full of promise, the promise of a way back to Truth and Goodness.
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