I love these lines from Zevit’s book:
“Where once life had only been lived, now life was lived and evaluated. The penalty for being alert, having open eyes, and knowing the difference between the acceptable, the desirable, and the appropriate and their opposites, was that the man and the woman would have to live with this knowledge, experiencing it in mind and body. … They [the punishments] were God’s way of demonstrating what it means to know good and bad, to distinguish between proper and improper. They were the aftertaste of the fruit.” (p. 224).
THorne56 said: I love these lines from Zevit’s book:
“Where once life had only been lived, now life was lived and evaluated. The penalty for being alert, having open eyes, and knowing the difference between the acceptable, the desirable, and the appropriate and their opposites, was that the man and the woman would have to live with this knowledge, experiencing it in mind and body. … They [the punishments] were God’s way of demonstrating what it means to know good and bad, to distinguish between proper and improper. They were the aftertaste of the fruit.” (p. 224).
Yes, this is a great insight! Note Zevit’s further comment on 225. “The absence of any real punishments from the story is also understandable in terms of the Israelite law that composed part of the legal background of the author and many generations of his audience.”
Though, this year, I’ve been doing more reading on the GOE. Other scholars, as Zevit does, point to a dating of the narrative of exilic. David Carr, (The Politics of Textual Subversion: a Diachronic Perspective, 1993) examines the chapters 2 and 3 with attention to language and literary characteristics. He sees an original story of marriage and rejuvenation by way of children but with later insertions into this story of text added at the exilic period intended to reflect an anti-wisdom political view.
I’m seeing four aspects of the story in my readings: 1) Law (God’s command) 2) Arbitrary rule (Adam and Eve’s decision to disregard the command and as seen in the prophets) 3) political influence (the serpent’s influential manner of speaking/a frequent symbol of wisdom in the Near East and as treated by the prophets), 4) Law as King in the spirit in which it was given (the punishment according to the offense and as treated in the prophets).
George Mendenhall who makes some other really great points about how this mashal has come to be so misunderstood (The Shady Side of Wisdom, in A Light Unto My Path: OT Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers, 1974) offers a biblical arch example of the shady side to wisdom, in the more than questionable charisma of Amnon’s friend, who enables him to find a way to rape his half sister (2 Sam 13). Mendenhall calls power, wealth, and wisdom itself, the Big 3 of wisdom tradition and he points to Jeremiah and his vain plea for the valuation of a fear (respect) for Yahweh (the law) I as the beginning of wisdom. Also, Judges 8 where Gideon tells the people that “I will not rule over you, [as the all-wise king] nor will my son rule over you, the LORD will rule over you.”
Finally, when it comes to Eve, I love that Mendenhall answers the question “why Eve?” was the one to succumb to the serpent’s false promises. Mendenhall gives us, what he calls the unquestionable fact, that since Jezebel, most Old Testament prophecy. . . rather than indicating a depressed status of women. . . an utterly unscrupulous competitiveness and unbridled ambition that could not have been without effect upon their equally unscrupulous husbands. Jeremiah 44 treats women’s self-willed and compulsive determination, to continue the cult of the Queen of Heaven [did this have something to do with fertility?) and their husbands defend it.
So, in a nutshell, that’s what, I think, can be said about the Garden of Eden parable. As a whole.
I humbly submit.
Well, there is some educated speculation that the Garden may represent the temple, and the tree in the middle (how convenient) as the asherah. That Adam may be the king. So, I suppose, by obviating God’s law, the tree of life is now off limits? This would be illustrating the destruction of/expulsion from the temple/garden and the exile of the elite.
Jill, absorbing stuff.
My image of Eden has been shaped by the description of Dilmun in the Epic of Gilgamesh. I’ve always compared Adam not with Gilgamesh but with Enkidu, the Natural Man, who “falls” into self-consciousness – and civilization.
“Why Eve?” Isn’t it an odd reversal here? It is Eve who acts and Adam who is acted upon. Actions for which she has never been forgiven.
Stephen, thank you for the really interesting and pointed comments. I really appreciate it, as you know, very well, there are many Near Eastern themes similar to those found in the Hebrew biblical stories. I’m thinking the biblical writers wrote from a little different perspective or with a true intent of attaining a one god dominance. It’s bordering on scientific I think. One god responsible for the workings of everything alive or dead.
But, to your thoughtful comment. I am only a little acquainted with the Gilgamesh epic. I think Dr. Ehrman suggests a translation of it in one of his courses. Ha! I think there is a snake in that story too! I think there is a snake who steals the leaf? of rejuvenation and sheds his skin. Yes? Does our serpent here in Genesis steal from the human the state of immortality? I can see (said the blind man) where Ben Sira might get it! No? Except rejuvenation is not immortality quite.
except
But the snake is just a snake, right? If this is just an etiology of a snake — biting the human heel and the human heel bruising the snake, and a snake is just a snake, the writer could be showing this and, it could be construed as an anti-wisdom message.
Enkidu is the man in the wild who is friend of the animals, like Adam, and who becomes attracted to the hired woman and taken into self-awareness and civilization and subsequently loses his kinship to the animals who are now in fear of him. I think he is ultimately assassinated for some reason.
You’re right! This really is absorbing. Here is the snake alone: symbol of Asherah and the bronze serpent of Exodus (and a question posed by Smith and Zevit, “does Yahweh possess Asherah?”), a symbol of wisdom, (questionable?)) power and wealth), and in Gilgamesh Epic rejuvenation (youthfulness?).
Then we have the natural man and the civilized man and poor seductive Eve on the side lines getting all the flack and trying to sort it out. The trees and the garden. The lions and tigers and bears! Oh gosh!
Hmm, interesting. I suppose we need to understand the ancients after all.
But . . .
Ecclesiates 4
9 Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Jill if you’re interested in reading The Epic of Gilgamesh I would recommend you go back to ** you do not have permission to see this link **
originally published in 1960 by Nancy K Sandars for Penguin. It is based on scholarly translations but it is a transliteration, a wonderfully written retelling. There are several good literal translations at this point but Sandars’ version is best if you want to simply get caught up in the story.
It is based on scholarly translations but it is a transliteration, a wonderfully written retelling.
What do you mean by transliteration? Transliteration is writing the same words (in the same language, it’s not a translation) but using a different system of alphabetic characters (like writing ballo rather than βάλλω). You seem to be describing something like a paraphrase, or even just a free retelling.
Or is there another meaning of the word I don’t know?
I think he means it’s based on a translation but not a literal translation. More to the meaning of terms and colloquialism types of phrases that might not make sense to a non-native reader, while matching the sound and cadence of the language. Much like R. Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible.
I have seen “transliteration” used colloquially as a synonym for “rendition” or “adaptation” of a text in an ancient language into a modern one, but as a “retelling” rather than a literal translation. That’s the way I meant it.
No complete version of the epic survives from antiquity. Several versions exist but all have gaps, fortunately for us at different parts. What Sandars did was to take three versions available to her and combine them together to fill in the parts that were missing in each. She adapted the tale to prose rather than poetry. It’s not scholarship but it’s based on scholarship. It’s an entertaining way in. I just think that’s the best way to approach an ancient epic rather than get hit with a literal scholarly translation. (I should point out that Sandars was an archeologist and an ANE scholar herself.)
If I sound like I feel the need to defend her I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that this was my gateway into a lifelong interest. In the first college Western Literature Survey I ever took the Prof walked into the class carrying a box of paperbacks. He said, “The syllabus starts at Homer but we’re going to read something that came before that.” And passed out copies of Sandars’ book.
Prof Jones initiated me into the cult and now I pass it on.
What’s amazing to me is that no one has ever taken this story and turned it into an epic fantasy movie. It has everything – heroes, gods, monsters (scorpion men!), adventure, love (both hetero and otherwise), danger, grief, tragedy – from one end of recorded history to us.
Well, duh! I forgot the obvious examples of what Sandars is doing from the Greek mythology that I read as a kid. See the work of Thomas Bullfinch and Edith Hamilton. Generations of students grew up on their stuff. More recently see the work of Roberto Calasso.
One other thing Prof Jones did that made a lasting impression was hand out photocopies of a chapter from Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces .
Wow, people not only read these tales for fun but they study them! Who knew?
for fun! an ‘elucidation’ from the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Dr. Eldon Clem English translation.
5 And when all the trees of the field had not yet existed on the earth, and when all the plants of the field had not yet sprouted up, for the Lord God had not brought down rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and the cloud of glory would come down from under the throne of glory and fill with water from the ocean and go back up from the earth and bring down rain and water all the face of the ground, 7 then the Lord God created Adam with two inclinations. And He took dust from the place of the sanctuary and from the four winds of the world and a mixture from all the waters of the world, and He created him red, black, and white, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the breath in the body of Adam became a speaking spirit for enlightening of the eyes and for hearing of the ears. 8 And before the creation of the world a garden for the righteous had been planted from Eden by the Memra of the Lord God, and He caused Adam to dwell there when He created him.
Stephen said, “Why Eve?” Isn’t it an odd reversal here? It is Eve who acts and Adam who is acted upon. Actions for which she has never been forgiven.”
Just one more thing. I think that the two, Adam and Eve, were complicit partners here because Adam is present with Eve while she is conversing with the serpent. It could be that the narrator is showing Eve as reflecting the serpent’s words regarding God’s command back to the serpent what it is she would like to believe. Adam is standing by her in agreement – proven by his action of taking and biting into the forbidden fruit.
So, I don’t think that there is necessarily a false justice here towards Adam. The consequence of each of their actions is handed out in a reversed order though. I think this is the art of the narrator.
A great possibility of a testimony to the patriarchal system of thought. But, I’m kind of thinking that the reversal has also to do with the serpent exiting the narrative. The serpent itself seems to represent a kind of false wisdom or rationale. The serpent continues to crawl along on its belly going wherever it will, lurking about to find who it can connive. How it got into the garden?
“Adam gets all the credit for the “Fall”. Why doesn’t Paul say that it was through one woman that sin entered the world?”
Well, I’m not an expert on Paul, but certainly Adam being the first man having fallen into sin would bolster his salvific message about Jesus being the last man who did not. Does that leave out women altogether? Or are women subsumed under Adam in Paul’s message? Paul allowed women to hold leadership roles in the community of Christians.
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