Journal On Lawn's Journal: Discussions in Genesis Chapter 3, Enter Evil... 4
Why is Eve talking to snakes? I mean, Adam might have been suspicous of what the fruit did when Eve came up to him with two pieces (one bitten) of forbidden fruit and announced she had been talking to snakes.
Although half in jest, there is something somewhat mythical about what is going on here. Many ancient cultures have strong religious dogma built on snakes. In Mesopotamia there is a good snake with human teeth and wings and healing, and a bad snake with sharp teeth and venom. Simularly, the Bible has the account of fiery flying serpents with sharp teeth and venom, and a brazen serpent with healing. Entire charismatic christian denominations handle poisinous snakes as a sign of their faith.
Its ironic that the poison of this snake is its words, which also come out of mouths. I think the correlation here nothing more then litterary, but its interesting to watch the actions transpire as a pseudo-biological metaphore.
The snake strikes first with a question, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" William Tinsdale renders that "Yea" as "Ahh Sir" which is interesting why the snake would have called Eve a "sir" at that point. But I think it accurately congeres up a figure of a smiling man in the streets of london, interjecting and interupting someone passing by on their own buisness.
One would anticipate "Ahh, Sir" would be said through a wry inviting smile and a intellectual intercourse of sophistry and persuation to the man's agenda would follow. With all that attempted charm, there is a reason he wants to talk to people.
The opening question catches her off guard, but in her innocence she pursues the conversation, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
Exposing his agenda, the snake counters with a slow poison meant to undermine the accepted authority of the day. His words sink into the flesh of her understanding of God in two points, he accuses God of lying and an ascribes self-serving agenda to that lie. See if you can see these teeth of his arguements, "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."
Surely this snake is the most subtle of the field. His words are false in context, yet true on their own. For Adam and Eve didn't die for many hundreds of years after eating the fruit, and God said they indeed had become as "one of us", knowing good and evil.
But what really made the fruit desirable to Eve was the fact that it "was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise." So she recognized it wasn't poison, it was enticing, and she wanted wisdom. Much of the philosophy of religions throught the ages is based on the extrapolation of that, that there was no other way offered to gain the kind of wisdom and experience that comes from the knowledge of good and evil. And then it follows that Eve wanted that wisdom, and recognized its cost.
And that understanding of what she needed to do she gained mostly from her chat with the snake. But alas, the poison of the snakes words were acting although they didn't feel the full effects yet.
She runs and gives it to Adam, and almost immediately they realize their nakedness and vulnerability. They hear God, and know they did wrong. So what do they do? They cover themselves up and hide. Oh how oft is that our first responce when we realize we did something wrong.
"Adam...Where art thou?" Any parent knows that when a child is ashamed, and hiding that the child must have done something wrong. When God finds Adam, and finds out that Adam recognized his own nakedness he levies a heavy question to Adam, "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
Adam says he did, and that Eve was the one that gave it to him. The significance of this is couched in the phrase he uses to describe Eve. He's not passing the buck, he's explaining himself when he says "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Eve wanted wisdom, and Adam wanted to stay with Eve becuase she was given to him by God in marraige to be with him.
I realize this is contrary to the doctrine of many churches that paint Adam as a sinner, doomed to hell. But I think its all right there, he simply didn't want to leave her, especially knowing she was about to be punished, most likely banished. I also tend to think that Eve explained to Adam the desire for wisdom, and that the path she was taking for it was going to be worth it. Adam apparently agreed.
Eve explained herself to God with an admonishion (perhaps she was learning already) that she was beguiled. But beguiled means a bit more then just decieved, its connotation is like a bait and switch or a promise that is not recieved. When Eve was beguiled, she was enticed by something and found out that the promise of it was not true.
But we already went over what was true about the snakes promise. So what was the lie? As I mentioned before, its all in the context. The context put his truths in opposition to God's truths, his understanding against God's. Or in other words, it seems to me that these truths were aligned to malign God's word. What they equaled to when they were put together was not factual at all, in fact very contrary to God's word and will.
And this is the great litterature of the Bible. I think it was sometime in my early twenties that I realized what was happening to me as a teenager.
People wanting to sell me something or get me addicted to something would use those two syringe sharp points to set me against my parentage first. This happens on many fronts, but I'll use the obvious one of drugs. They said,"Oh, don't listen to your parents, you won't die from doing drugs. They just don't want you to really know what life is like".
Isn't it interesting that sex, drugs, and other vices are considered "forbidden fruit", and the sales tactics of those that push them are so like the snake. A 4000 year old book touched the very heart of this battle in a simple story with four charectars, and that is why Genesis is such great litterature.
But lets finish this off with their reactions to the predicament. Adam and Eve and the snake present themselves to God. None of them hiding, they boldly stand in God's presence awaiting his action.
For Adam, God curses the earth. Adam will subsequently have to work every day of his life to nurture that which will give him nurishment and fend off those things that would be noxious to him.
Eve gets the heavy burden of child conception. She is told to follow Adam's lead from then on. My interpretation of this is not heavy on the gender domination, becuae I don't think that was intended. Rather, She is given a role to concentrate on while Adam works out the survival of the family.
The snake gets its wings stripped. A prophecy is mentioned where his head will be crushed by the seed of the woman, but he will be able to bruise the heal of that progeny.
They are protected from the tree of life by angels with flaming swords, and promised death as an escape from their burdens. Later, death and passing through those angels is how they are expected to return to the tree of life.
Here its interesting to note that the tree of life is a prominent symbol in many if not all ancient religions. We see that when God really wants something to be forbidden, he doesn't just say "don't eat it" but makes it physically impossible to do so. I take that to mean that God did play a passive acceptance of Adam and Eve taking the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. After all God said that man and woman were to leave their parents.
But now evil was known and everywhere. Its a venom who's reach extends now over the whole earth, and is constantly being healed and countered by God, and the rest of Genesis is the story of that struggle.
Re:Zoophony (Score:1)
Yeah, there's no saying it wasn't that way. Actually if I remember right, the taoists have used the snake to represent subltlety and evil inclination in simular ways as the Jews in Genesis?
garden (Score:1)
the mark of a great story is that it can be interpreted many many different ways :-)
Re:garden (Score:1)
The thing I'm most curious to hear from everyone is their take on the snake. Literarily we are setting up the world as we know it in a context conducive to holy writ. The snake is ascribed with the honor of introducing lies into the world, and thus brought on the fall. I'm interested in what everyone thinks were wrong with the snakes words.
I'd be interested in everyones take on the fall also.