Adam & Eve - Part 2

As noted in my previous post, whether one accepts a literal Adam & Eve in the creation account in Genesis, the story evokes something of a universal experience of humanity.  For me the story of Genesis lays the foundation for the rest of scripture and prepares us for an understanding of God’s intentions and work in the world.  

Because in Chapter 2 we see that Adam was created first many have made much of the fact that Adam was first.  I do not read too much into the fact that “the man” was created first.  It seems more significant that the relationship of God to humanity and humanity to the created order are established here.  It In Genesis 1:27 we read that God’s intent was to create male and female.  It was God’s intent to create male and female from the beginning and each was created in the image of God.  Eve was not an after-thought (although we might argue that she perfected creation).  The people were to be caretakers of the created world and were to live in perfect relationship with God and with each other.  It seems significant to me that at 2:25 says they were naked, but felt no shame.  God’s intent was that people live in perfect communion with God and with each other.  They were not ashamed and they were not afraid.  

While I have heard Jewish reflections on Chapter 3 of Genesis that do not include “a fall” and I can appreciate the thoughtfulness of such reflections, I am not convinced that the actions of Adam and Eve did not fundamentally change the nature of their relationship with God and with each other for the worse.  While many through the years have focused on Adam and Eve’s disobedience as the “sin” they committed, that observation, while fundamentally accurate, seems overly simplistic.  I think it is worthwhile to reflect on the fact that God created Adam and Eve with the capacity for rational reflection and the desire for knowledge.  It is this desire for knowledge that leads to the changes in their relationship with God and each other.  The reflection on freewill vs. determinism lies in this reality.  I will simply say that for me, people were created with the capacity to choose and this is fundamentally what makes true relationship and love possible.  I would argue that exercising freewill is not in and of itself sinful and that while God has the capacity to comprehend all possibilities at once and interact with possibilities as they unfold, God does not know our actual choice until we choose.

I find it interesting and humorous (in a sad way) to read how the choice in the garden regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  While many have read this passage and put the blame of the fall on Eve (and subsequently have blamed women for a sins through the ages), Eve is actually the one who demonstrates the greatest thought in the interaction.  The woman has an extended interaction with the serpent regarding the fruit.  She evaluated the fruit on its usefulness as food and she desired the “wisdom” that could be gained by eating the fruit (3:6).  Adam, on the other hand, gets handed a piece of fruit by Eve and just eats it without any thought about what he is eating or what there is to gain or lose.  Eve desires wisdom, while Adam just starts consuming.  In this way, there is a “sin” in which they both ate the fruit that God said don’t eat, but they each have an individual sin that is bigger than that.  Eve desires wisdom, but does not consult with God in her reflections.  She ignores God’s words and seeks wisdom apart from God.  Adam seems to sin in his lack of thought at all.  He lacks any reflection on his actions and consumes without regard for the consequences.  The bottom line consequence is the same for each.

Once Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, “Their eyes were opened” (3:7) and they realized they were naked.  Before this, they were naked and were not ashamed.  They did not fear one another, they were not embarrassed, and they were open and vulnerable.  Once they sin, they are no more vulnerable than they were before, but they are now aware of their vulnerability and the potential to be hurt.  They begin to blame one another and blame others for their decisions.  They immediately feel the need to cover themselves and they feel the feel the need to hide from God.  It seems that the relationship with others affects our relationship with God.  We also see that while we have knowledge of good and evil and it can lead to wisdom, it comes at a cost to us in our relationships with ourselves, others, and God.

When God puts Adam and Eve out of the garden and gives them consequences, God acknowledges that the knowledge of good and evil makes us like God, but notes that humans do not know how to exercise this knowledge with control.  The banishment from the garden and the subsequent struggles are provided by God to help Adam and Eve develop their knowledge into wisdom.  God demonstrates grace by providing covering for the two of them.  God cannot undo what they have done, but can provide for them and help shape them.  Our lifelong journey is one of seeking to connect with God, ourselves, and with each other.  We are to grow in wisdom and learn to use the knowledge we have as God would use it. 

Adam & Eve - Part 1

For some reason, there has been a great deal of talkrecently about biblical story of Adam and Eve.  Many people I know have asserted that to be a “true Christian” one must believe in a literal man, Adam, and literal woman, Eve.  This admonition seems to be aimed at trying to maintain the view that the biblical view of the creation of the world is complete and historically accurate as it is written.  Those that hold this view seem to  look to the accounts in Genesis as a history of the world and suggest that the stories there be held as factual accounts of creation without any attempt to interact or dialogue with the evidence for an earth that is millions of years old, the existence of dinosaurs, or the development of the human person over time as evidenced by fossil records, etc.  I am a self-admitted skeptic of things of faith and like Jesus’ disciple, Thomas, I want some proof for things; “Because the Bible says it” has not been an adequate explanation for me since I was in the 6^th grade.  I want to believe (and there are many things I try to accept on faith), but faith does not come as easily to me as others. 

That being said, it is not that I do not believe in an actual Adam and Eve, it is just that I don’t know.  I am not willing to stake my faith on their literal existence and I am not willing to judge others on their belief (or disbelief) in the existence of a literal Adam and Eve.  To me, the insistence on a literal Adam and Eve as a litmus test for faith creates many problems.  First of all, it creates divisions in the followers of the faith based on that which cannot be known with certainty and something that is not a fundamental of the faith.  The stance lacks grace and humility and it does not focus on the message and meaning of the creation story for the generations.   Just because I do not know for certain if Adam and Eve truly existed does not mean that there is not value in the biblical story.  To focus on one seems to diminish the other.

As I learned through the years, the creation story was not necessarily written to tell us HOW the earth was created, but by whom it was created and why it was created.  For me it is the story of humanity – both as a whole and as individuals.  To simply say that the story of Adam and Eve is the story of the fall of humanity is to miss a greater truth about what that might mean.  

Despite Dr. Mohler's (and others') argument, one of the reasons I believe that the story of Adam and Eve can be seen as story of humanity is because their names, Adam and Eve, literally mean “Man” and “Woman”.  In this I see that their story is our story and the story of every person.  It is the story of our personal history and the story of our corporate history.  This truth for me does not change if Adam and Eve are literal people or not.  They may have been literal people whose story speaks to all through the generations.  If, by chance they are not literal people, their story still speaks to something very real about our experience.  I appreciate the attempt to make sure that all parts of the biblical record fit together, but I do not accept that IF one part of the Bible is written as a metaphor, then the entirety of faith must crumble.  The of the faith would  then seem to be in the power of the metaphor to speak to generation after generation.  

See Part 2 for reflections on the meaning of the story for humanity.