SOURCE: “Genesis 2-3: A Story of Liberation,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, No. 55, September, 1992, pp. 3-13.

[In the following essay, Dragga surveys the assumptions that typically color one's understanding of the Adam and Eve story. Dragga argues that when these assumptions and their connotations are revealed and understood, the story may be viewed as one of the liberation of humans, rather than one of their fall.]

Genesis 2-3 is typically characterized as a tragic narrative of human failure and disgrace. This perspective, however, assumes that the human couple of the narrative is procreative prior to their act of disobedience, that the serpent who elicits their disobedience has malicious motivations, that the disobedience of the man and woman is disastrous, that the creator of the human couple is omnipotent, and that the removal of the man and woman from the garden of their creator constitutes a loss of paradise. Without the coloring of this series of assumptions, Genesis 2-3 might be interpreted as a story of liberation, a vivid and inspiring portrait of the origins of the human family.

THE PROCREATIVE COUPLE

In Genesis 2-3, the original human being is androgynous—hā’ādām.¹ It is the androgynous human being who receives Yahweh's command: ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die’ (Gen. 2.16-17).² Though the tree of knowledge is thus proscribed, eating of the tree of life ‘also in the midst of the garden’ (Gen. 2.9) is obviously permitted, indicating Yahweh's intention that this individual achieve immortality. Gen. 3.22-24 reinforces this reading: following the human disobedience, the absence of a prohibition regarding the tree of life leaves Yahweh apprehensive.

The significance of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and specifically its association with sexual knowledge,³ is obvious only following the human couple's eating of the fruit and their immediate and single discovery of their nakedness, their sexual differences (Gen. 3.6-7). The divine command to abstain from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is thus designed to preclude the human discovery of procreativity. Obviously this prohibition has little relevance to the isolated and androgynous human being; once the differentiation of the sexes occurs in Gen. 2.21-25, however, procreativity is a genuine option, and the prohibition is crucial to Yahweh's dominance of creation. Yahweh desires the human beings to abide as two naïve children without sexual knowledge. Yahweh intends to create only two human beings, two children eternally worshipful of their creator. Once the two have disobeyed, however, and have knowledge of procreativity, there is nothing to stop them from multiplying, from being creators themselves.

Possibly the unjustified assumption regarding the procreativity of the human couple is a consequence of the editorial juxtaposition of the Priestly creation narrative (Gen. 1) and the earlier Yahwist version (Gen. 2-3). Specifically, Gen. 1.22 (‘And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply”’) colors the reader's perception of Genesis 2-3, leading to the assumption that this blessing is also given to the man and the woman of the Yahwist's narrative. This assumption clouds the association of the tree of knowledge of good and evil with sexual knowledge and obscures the import of Yahweh's command regarding the eating of its fruit. This assumption thus also distorts Yahweh's motivation in creating the human beings and the serpent's motivation in directing the woman to eat the prohibited fruit.

THE WICKED SERPENT

In Gen. 3.1, the serpent is introduced and immediately associated with fertility through its identification as ‘more ‘ārûm (wise or prudent) than any other wild creature’, versus the immediately preceding description (Gen. 2.25) of the man and woman as ‘^arûmmîm (naked),⁴ again establishing a clear association between knowledge and sexuality. The serpent is also a traditional symbol of immortality; thus, though its location is never specified, it is only appropriate if the serpent is stationed at the tree of life ‘in the midst of the garden’ (Gen. 2.9), dutifully protecting the fruit of the tree from being eaten. Such a guardian of immortality is a figure common to the literature of the ancient world (e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh).⁵

Traditional readings of Genesis 2-3, however, characterize the serpent as a deceiver. Thus, though the descriptive word ‘ārûm has the meaning ‘prudent’ (e.g. Prov. 14.8) as well as ‘cunning’ (e.g. Job 5.12),⁶ translations and interpretations of Gen. 3.1 emphasize the pejorative meaning, thereby immediately impugning the serpent's motivation and biasing the reader's perception of its characterization. For example, RSV gives ‘more subtle’, NAB has ‘most cunning’, NEB has ‘more crafty’, and the AB gives ‘sliest’ as its translation. This assumption also yields subsequent interpretations and elaborations that identify the serpent as a demon who tempts the woman and the man to commit the capital crime of disobedience.⁷

Though the serpent's characterization as a demon has been widely rejected as anachronistic, the association of the serpent with specified or unspecified evil is tenacious, especially because the rejection of this association essentially eradicates the serpent's motivation.⁸ The alternative characterization of the serpent as representative of a rival deity, and specifically a fertility deity,⁹ though genuinely attractive because it allows a legitimate motivation and reinforces appropriate associations of the serpent with sexuality, is ultimately unsatisfactory. Gen. 3.1 itself identifies the serpent as a ‘wild creature that the Lord God had made’.

The perception of the serpent as the guardian of the tree of life is thus a superior alternative, offering a cohesive characterization and a compelling motivation—exploiting the serpent's associations with fertility as well as immortality, the Yahwist has the guardian of the tree of life direct the man and woman to the tree of knowledge to discover human sexuality. In addition, because the serpent is ‘more subtle than any other wild creature’ (Gen. 3.1), its protection of the tree of life through physical violence is unnecessary, since it has the capacity verbally to dissuade all who come to eat of the precious fruit. That is, as the woman reaches to pick the fruit of the tree of life, the serpent asks, ‘Has God forbidden you to eat from the trees in the garden?’ The woman is stopped, and she answers by identifying the forbidden tree. The conversation is shifted to the tree of knowledge and the serpent's defensive distraction is a success.

In addition, the serpent's assertion regarding the tree of knowledge, ‘You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’ (Gen. 3.4-5), is in direct opposition to Yahweh's earlier declaration: ‘in the day that you eat of it you shall die’ (Gen. 2.17). And though neither the serpent nor Yahweh reveals the entire significance of the tree of knowledge (i.e. the association with sexual knowledge), neither is deceptive.¹⁰ Indeed, the Yahwist seems to emphasize the truth of the serpent's assertion through the narrator's immediate echo of the serpent's words to describe the effects of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge: ‘Then the eyes of both were opened’ (Gen. 3.7). The serpent's accuracy is again reinforced with Yahweh's echo of its words: ‘The human being (hā’ādām) has become like one of us, knowing good and evil’ (Gen. 3.22). No similar repetition of Yahweh's words occurs.

The truth of their opposing promises, however, hinges of the meaning of mortality-immortality. To Yahweh, it seems that the individual dies unless he or she chooses the personal immortality that the tree of life offers. To the serpent, a different immortality is possible. This immortality is linked to the discovery of fertility: ‘and they knew that they were naked’ (Gen. 3.7). This immortality is achieved through the procreativity that the tree of knowledge allows, with the individual living on through his or her children.¹¹

THE TRAGIC DISOBEDIENCE

In Gen. 3.6, the woman consciously chooses: she sees, assesses, judges and acts, without a single thought to the prohibiting divine words. It is important to note here that the woman's role is active and the man's essentially passive acquiescence. It is she who observes the merits of the fruit of the tree, who perceives it as desirable, who picks the fruit, eats it, and gives it to the man. This series of active verbs in describing the woman's role is followed by the single verb regarding the man's role: he ate.¹² The man's role is thus minimized—he neither sees nor takes nor thinks; he just eats. He eats because she has eaten, siding with the woman in disobedience of Yahweh. This accords with the earlier and prophetic description of the relationship between husband and wife: ‘Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh’ (Gen. 2.24). This description is especially emphatic because it is the opposite of Jewish tradition, which has the woman leave her family to be united to the man.¹³

Because the responsibility of the conscious choice is thus given to the woman, the significance of the choice is critical to a genuine appreciation and evaluation of the woman's characterization. If it is the guardian of the tree of life guiding the woman to human sexuality, the woman deserves praise: she gives human beings the opportunity of life, sacrificing personal immortality to acquire fertility. If, however, it is the spirit of evil tempting the woman to commit evil, the woman merits condemnation because she yields to the temptation and causes the man to yield also. In doing so, she deprives human beings of the opportunity to achieve immortality. Various elaborations and interpretations of Genesis 3 echo the misogynous interpretation of the woman's choice.¹⁴

The comic episode (Gen. 3.8-13) following the eating of the fruit, however, solicits a positive perception of the woman's choice. If the disobedience were genuinely tragic, it is unlikely that the Yahwist would minimize this ethical failure with the humorous detailing of the couple's naïve behavior. First, they foolishly hide among the trees upon hearing the approach of their creator. Secondly, they inadvertently reveal their guilt (‘And he said, “I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself”. He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?”’). Thirdly, they ineptly pass the buck (‘The man said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate”. … The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate”’). This episode thus serves to diminish the reader's perception of the gravity of the human disobedience and the reader's expectation of the severity of the divine discipline likely to occur.

THE OMNIPOTENT GOD

Gen. 3.14-19 is typically perceived as appropriately punitive of the cosmic evil that the human couple has committed. And various elaborations of the Genesis 3 passage emphasize this perception.¹⁵ Possibly it is the juxtaposition of the Priestly creation narrative, with its repetition of ‘God said’ (Gen. 1.3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29), and thus with its emphasis on the power of the divine word, that yields traditional readings of Gen. 3.14-19 as the righteous conviction and bitter condemnation of the guilty. In Genesis 1, the creator speaks and thereby brings to being—the creator's word has power. In Genesis 2, however, Yahweh chiefly acts: forming, breathing, planting, taking, putting, and so on. Yahweh avoids words, giving to the human being the responsibility of naming ‘every living creature’ (Gen. 2.19). And whereas the serpent's words prove sufficient to protect the tree of life, Yahweh's words fail to guard the tree of knowledge. This exhibition of Yahweh's verbal impotence obviously diminishes the punitive power of the Gen. 3.14-19 monologue. A superior interpretation, consistent with the import of the earlier comic episode, therefore, is that Gen. 3.14-19 is a judicious explanation of the consequences of a disappointing disobedience.

In this monologue, it is critical that Yahweh initially silence the serpent, giving it no opportunity to speak because its verbal powers have earlier proved superior to Yahweh's. Conversation between the serpent and humanity is henceforth impossible. In its ability to molt, however, the serpent communicates the missed immortality of the man and woman, the personal immortality that this woman and man forfeited in order to establish a human family. Simultaneously, each child of the man and woman serves as a reminder to the serpent of the cause of its lowly and despised condition: by guiding the man and woman to fertility, the serpent has forfeited its privileged position as guardian of immortality.

The woman also experiences consequences. The creation of life is agonizing, bringing with it important responsibilities (as Yahweh has discovered), and it is the woman who especially is to experience this anguish. Gen. 3.16 describes the dominance of the man over the woman on issues pertinent to childbearing; because it is the woman who actively sacrifices immortality to possess fertility, it is the woman who carries the child, who is physically and emotionally drained during pregnancy, who has the pains of labor and birth, whereas the man is never thus oppressed.¹⁶ The man is assigned the similarly creative toil of cultivating crops to nourish the human family, thus tilling hā’^adāmâ to raise hā’ādām.

It is important, however, that only verses 3.14 (‘cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals’) and 3.17 (‘cursed is the ground because of you’) are performatives (i.e. ’rr), causing by verbalizing; that is, the serpent is accursed by virtue of Yahweh's cursing of it. The remainder of the monologue is all promises: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman’, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing’, and so forth. The only promise that Yahweh reinforces by subsequent action is the promise regarding human mortality: ‘you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ (Gen. 3.19). And the promise to the woman of anguish during childbearing is itself minimized with Eve's exclamation after the initial birth experience: ‘I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh’ (Gen. 4.1, emphasis added).

The frailty of Yahweh's words is also evident in the reaction of the man to this divine monologue. In his earlier behavior (Gen. 3.6 and 12), the man has displayed little courage or initiative. Immediately following Yahweh's explanation that human mortality is the consequence of their disobedience, however, the man reveals neither remorse nor regret. Instead, in spite of Yahweh's words, the man seizes the earlier awarded responsibility of naming ‘every living creature’ and praises the choice of human fertility by giving to the woman the honorific title of Eve, mother of all living.¹⁷ Without the woman's choice of fertility, he declares, the human family would have been impossible—a single man and a single woman would have composed humanity. Again the man sides with the woman.

Yahweh's only answer to the man's assertive words is again to act, giving the man and woman clothing, conferring on the human couple the symbols of civilization, the symbols of their sexual, social and psychological maturation. The naïve children have passed through rebellious adolescence, emerging as responsible adults.

THE LOSS OF PARADISE

Because two human beings who possess fertility and immortality constitute a god, with the capacity of giving birth to additional gods, Yahweh also acts on the earlier promise of mortality. The human couple is henceforth physically prohibited from eating the fruit of the tree of life. The previous guardian of the tree—the serpent—shielded the fruit of immortality with words, sacrificing the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Yahweh therefore silenced and banned the serpent. The newly appointed guardians are cherubim, figures with similar mythological associations.¹⁸ They wield swords of fire and, equally important, speak no words.

Traditional interpretations of Genesis 3, however, characterize this episode as the violent expulsion of a grieving human couple, and elaborations of Genesis 3 echo this reading.¹⁹ The assumption here is that a life of luxurious dependence inside the garden is superior to a life of rigorous self-sufficiency outside the garden. The world šlh (3.23) is therefore given the reinforcing translation ‘drove out’ (NEB) or ‘banished’ (NAB and AB), as opposed to the milder and morphologically appropriate ‘sent forth’ (RSV), which clarifies the relationship with ‘put forth’ of 3.22 (‘lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life’). Also possible, however, is a translation of ‘set free’ or ‘let loose’, emphasizing the liberation of the human beings from the cage of their creator. Similarly, the word grš (3.24) is given the ferocity of ‘drove out’ (RSV), ‘cast out’ (NEB), or ‘expelled’ (NAB and AB), as opposed to the civility of ‘put out’ or ‘took out’.²⁰

Without the assumptions regarding the procreative couple, the wicked serpent, the tragic disobedience, the omnipotent god and the loss of paradise, Genesis 2-3 is a radically different narrative, with different characterizations, motivations and meaning. It describes the origins of the human family as comic and heroic. It pictures the man and the woman developing as human beings, from timid dependence to aggressive irresponsibility to courageous maturity. It displays the woman choosing fertility and the man joining the woman, together forfeiting personal immortality, blessed and cursed with the ability of creativity, proud of their choice, and given their liberty by a sympathetic creator.

Notes

1. M. Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 112-14; L. Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979), pp. 76-81; P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 94-99; all identify the original human being as sexually undifferentiated. In the creation of the companion and the differentiation of sexes, the man is identified as ’îš and the woman as ’iššâ (Gen. 2.22-24). Thereafter, the world hā’ādām indicates the man if it is paired with ’iššâ (Gen. 2.25; 3.6, 8, 12, 17, 20, 21), and it identifies collective humanity without this pairing (Gen. 3.9, 22-24). If there is no pairing with ’iššâ, the man is referred to as ’îš (Gen. 3.16).

2. Translation is RSV unless otherwise indicated. Citation of the Book of Jubilees, the Apocalypse of Moses and the Life of Adam and Eve is according to the translations in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, II (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985).

3. See, for example, Bal, ‘Lethal Love’, pp. 121-22; T.E. Boomershine, ‘The Structure of Narrative Rhetoric in Genesis 2-3’, in D. Patte (ed.), Genesis 2 and 3: Kaleidoscopic Structural Readings (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), pp. 123-24; E. Leach, Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), pp. 14-15; S. Niditch, Chaos to Cosmos (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), p. 30; J.W. Rosenberg, ‘The Garden Story Forward and Backward’, Prooftexts 1 (1981), p. 17. In Genesis 1-11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), R. Davidson acknowledges the attractiveness of this interpretation; he points to the recognition by the man and woman of their nakedness after eating the fruit, and to the consequences to the woman of intensified pain in childbirth. He also sees associations with the Epic of Gilgamesh episode that has a prostitute seduce the naïve Enkidu, who thus acquires wisdom. But, having admitted all this, Davidson proceeds to reject this interpretation as unnecessarily limiting, preferring to perceive knowledge of good and evil as knowledge of everything, ‘the totality of knowledge’ (pp. 34-35). J. Bailey (‘Imitation and the Primal Woman in Gilgamesh and Genesis 2-3’, JBL 89 [1970], pp. 144-47) reviews the critical literature on this issue and, curiously, sides with the ‘totality of knowledge’ interpretation, proposing that this passage minimizes the sexual associations of its mythological sources. There is, however, no evidence that after eating the fruit the man and woman have acquired knowledge in addition to that which is associated with sex. The passage itself identifies a single change in their consciousness: recognition of their nakedness. In The Sons of the Gods and the Daughters of Men: An Afro-Asiatic Interpretation of Genesis 1-11 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984), M. Oduyoye describes the covering of nakedness as a consequence of civilization as opposed to sexual knowledge (pp. 46-47). He also declares, however, that, among primitive peoples, ‘Children were expected to go naked—and you were a child until puberty rites for girls and circumcision at initiation for boys’ (p. 46). This indicates that nakedness accompanies childhood, which stops at adolescence and is itself inextricably linked to sexual maturation.

4. G.W. Coats, Genesis: With an Introduction to Narrative Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), p. 54. See also J. Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology (New York: Viking Press, 1964), for a pertinent analysis of serpent symbolism: ‘The phallic suggestion is immediate, and, as swallower, the female organ also is suggested; so that a dual image is rendered, which works implicitly on the sentiments’ (p. 10). See also K.R. Joines, Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament (Haddonfield, NJ: Haddonfield House, 1974), pp. 64-67.

5. M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (trans. R. Sheed; Cleveland, OH: World Publishing, 1963), pp. 288-91. See also Joines, Serpent Symbolism, pp. 17-21.

6. H.C. White, ‘Direct and Third Person Discourse in the Narrative of the Fall’, in Patte (ed.), Genesis 2 and 3, p. 97.

7. See, e.g., Apoc. Mos. 16.5; LAE 33.3; Rev. 12.9; Wis. 2.24.

8. See, e.g., B. Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading (New York: Doubleday, 1977), p. 81: ‘No explanation is given why the serpent chose to interfere in the affairs of men or to assist in the disruption of good relations between God and man. … The serpent remains as a consequence the symbol of an unexplained source of mischief and wrong for which no accounting is given.’ See also Trible, Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 113: ‘The motives of this animal are obscure. … A villain in portrayal, he is a device in plot. The ambiguity of his depiction highlights the complicated dimensions of his nature without explaining or resolving them.’

9. M. Stone, When God was a Woman (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), pp. 198-223.

10. Bal, Lethal Love, p. 124.

11. Bal, Lethal Love, p. 122.

12. Trible, Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 113.

13. Davidson, Genesis 1-11, p. 38.

14. See, e.g., Apoc. Mos. 20.1-21.6; Jub. 3.20-21; LAE 35.1-2; 1 Tim. 2.14.

15. See, e.g., Apoc. Mos. 24.2-4 and LAE 34.1-2.

16. This passage is widely interpreted as circumscribing the relationship of men and women; see, e.g., Davidson, Genesis 1-11, pp. 43-45. However, because the subject of this passage is only the woman's experience during pregnancy and giving birth, it is wiser to consider the dominance of the man as limited also to this single experience. See also Bal, Lethal Love, pp. 126-28.

17. See J. Bailey, ‘Imitation and the Primal Woman’, p. 150; I. Kikawada, ‘Two Notes on Eve’, JBL 91 (1972), p. 34. According to Bal, this is a ‘dubious title of honor’ that leaves the woman ‘imprisoned in motherhood’ (Lethal Love, p. 128), identified by sexual function only. It is, however, through the woman's eating of the fruit that human sexuality is discovered and the human family is established; it is, therefore, the only appropriate title that the man might give. The man's naming of the woman is also traditionally perceived as indicative of his superiority: see, e.g., Davidson, Genesis 1-11, p. 47. This interpretation, however, assumes the wider meaning of Gen. 3.16 regarding the man's dominance of the woman. It also ignores a critical point: if Yahweh names the woman, this emphasizes a childish dependence on the divine, contradicting the narrative's focus at this point on the liberation of the human couple. And it is inappropriate for the woman to name herself; in the writings of the Yahwist, the only self-appointed name is Yahweh.

18. Campbell, Masks of God, pp. 9-16.

19. See, e.g., Apoc. Mos. 27.2 and LAE 1.1.

20. Obviously grš has a range of meanings. In Gen. 4.14, for example, the Yahwist has Cain describe his exile using this word: ‘thou hast driven me this day away from the ground’. According to Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (ed. R.L. Harris, G.L. Archer, Jr and B.K. Waltke; Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), I, pp. 173-74, however, this word always emphasizes a physical (as opposed to verbal) dismissing or discharging of individuals; it is thus especially appropriate to this passage, given the Yahwist's focus on the ineffectiveness of the divine word.