It's Always The Woman's Fault
This is the story of the beginning of the world before there was sky and earth, the story of how the Lord Yahweh made the earth and the heavens and every plant that grows in the fields.
The land was hot and dry because the Lord Yahweh had not yet created
rain on the earth, and there was not yet a man to cultivate the ground, so
nothing could grow.
The Lord Yahweh caused a heavy mist to rise from the earth and water
the ground. Then the Lord Yahweh formed
a man from the dirt of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life and the man became a living human being.
Then the Lord Yahweh planted a beautiful garden far to the east in a
land called Eden and he placed the man that he had made in that far off garden.
Out of the ground the Lord Yahweh made the trees grow so that we could
enjoy looking at them and enjoy food from them.
He planted two special trees in the middle of the garden—the “tree of
life” and the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
A river flowed out from the land of Eden to water the garden that Lord
Yahweh had made and from there the river separated into four branches. The name of the first is the River Pison in
the desert land of Havilah, where there is gold, aromatic spices and onyx
stone. The second river is Gihon, which
flows to Ethiopia. The third river is
Hiddekel, which flows toward the east to Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
The Lord Yahweh took the man he had created and placed him in the
garden of Eden and told him to take care of it and to maintain it. He gave the man very specific
instructions. He told him, “You can eat
fruit from every tree in the garden except for one, the 'tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.' That one tree is off limits.
Don’t eat the fruit of that tree or you will die.”
Then the Lord Yahweh thought, “Living all by himself with no animals
and no people is not a good situation for man—he will be lonely and bored—so I
will give him something to do.” So from
the ground the Lord Yahweh made every beast of the field and every bird in the
air; and he brought them to the man that he called Adam and told him to
give all the animals and birds names, and whatever Adam decided to name every
living creature, that was the name by which it was known from then on.
Adam was busy but he was still lonely because he had no human
companion. The Lord Yahweh then decided
to create another human being so that Adam would not be lonely. He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and
while he slept the Lord Yahweh took out one of his ribs and closed up the
flesh, and from the rib that he had taken from the man he made a woman, and brought
her to the man and gave her to him.
After he thought about it Adam said, “This woman was made from my
bones and from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was
taken out of man.” That is the
reason a man leaves his father and his mother and joins his wife in marriage
and they live together and are joined together as husband and wife.
Adam and Eve were both naked in the garden and they were not embarrassed.
There was a serpent lurking in the garden. He was smarter and more devious than any
other animal that the Lord Yahweh had made.
One day the serpent said to Eve, “Didn't the Lord Yahweh say that you
could eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
“Not exactly,” said Eve to the serpent. “He told us that we may eat the fruit of any
of the trees in the garden except the fruit of the tree in the middle of the
garden. The Lord Yahweh said that if we
eat the fruit of that tree, or even if we touch it, we will die.”
The serpent laughed. “That's
not true,” he said to Eve. “You will not
die. The Lord Yahweh knows that if you
eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that you will
become wise like the gods, you will know the difference between good and evil,
and you will no longer be an innocent child-like creature.”
So Eve went over to the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” to
see for herself. She saw beautiful ripe
fruit on the tree that looked ready to eat and good for food, and when she
thought about acquiring the knowledge and wisdom of the gods, she picked some
fruit from the tree and ate it, and handed some to her husband Adam, who was
standing beside her, and he ate some of the fruit also.
Suddenly they lost their innocence and they became self-conscious and
aware that they were naked. To cover their
nakedness they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves robes.
Soon they heard footsteps approaching through the woods. It was the Lord Yahweh walking in the garden
in the cool of the day. Adam and his
wife were suddenly afraid because they were aware of their guilt and hid from
the Lord Yahweh among the trees of the garden.
Lord Yahweh couldn’t find Adam, so he called out, “Adam, where are
you?”
Adam said, “I'm over here, among the trees. I heard you walking in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself among the trees.”
The Lord Yahweh replied, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree that I told
you not to touch?”
Adam said guiltily, “That woman you made to be my companion and wife
gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”
The Lord Yahweh said to Eve, “What have you done?”
Eve answered, “It's the serpent's fault. The serpent talked me into
it, so I ate some of the fruit.”
So the Lord Yahweh turned to the serpent and said, “Because you caused
this trouble for me, you will be cursed above all cattle, and above every beast
of the field. From now on you will crawl
on your belly along the ground and you will eat dirt for the rest of your life. Women will be afraid of you and hate you, and
so will their children. You will bite
the legs of women and they will stomp you to death in fear.”
Then the Lord Yahweh turned to Eve and said, “Because you ate the
forbidden fruit, I will make you suffer during childbirth. You will deliver your children in pain, and
your children will bring you sadness throughout your life. From now on, you will have to obey and serve
your husband and he will rule over you.”
Finally he turned to Adam and said, “Because you listened to your
wife, and ate fruit from the tree that I told you not to touch, no longer will
you be able to live in this garden or eat the fruit that I put here for you. I
am kicking you out of this garden. You
will have to make your own garden and grow your own food. Thistles, thorns and
weeds will grow in your garden. You will
have to work long and hard to earn a living cultivating the hard and barren earth,
which I have cursed because of you. You
will have a difficult and sad life.
“Hereafter your food will be the crops you grow in the gardens you
plant, and by hard work and sweat you will work for your survival all the days
of your life until you die and return to the ground out of which you were made,
for you were made from the dust and dirt of the ground and to dust and dirt you
will return at your death.”
Then the Lord Yahweh said to his fellow gods, “The man I created has
become like us now that he has eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge and
is no longer innocent. He has become
like us gods now that he can distinguish between good and evil. Before he reaches out and takes and eats from
the tree of life, and becomes a god who lives forever, man must be removed from
the garden.”
So the Lord Yahweh expelled Adam and Eve from the garden in the land
of Eden and returned them to the land from which they had come. From now on they would have to farm the hard
earth from which Adam had been made.
After he drove Adam from the garden the Lord Yahweh placed a winged
guardian with a flaming sword at the entrance of the garden to guard the tree
of life. Humans would not be able to get
at the fruit of that tree, and they would not live forever like the gods.
People who lived a long time ago all
over the world from many different cultures told stories about the origins of
their world. This creation story comes
immediately after the first creation story in the biblical book of Genesis
and gives a quite different version of creation. In this story man is created
first, before the animals and plants, and the woman was created last. The description of Eden places it
east of Canaan, in the vicinity of modern Iraq, between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. The first story
started with the chaotic dark waters of the ocean. This story starts with hot, dry barren land
that reminds us of the desert, which Yahweh makes productive with water from
a mist or heavy fog. It reflects the
origins of the Hebrew people as desert nomads. We learn from this story about the
origin of marriage and family, why humans are superior to the animals, how
animals got their names, the secondary position of women to men, why we wear
clothes, why people do not live forever, why life is so hard, why snakes
crawl on the ground, why (unlike among animals) childbirth is painful and
dangerous for women, and why women were expected to serve their husbands and
obey them. A long time ago people observed that
animals had a much easier life than humans.
Animals could eat grass or other vegetation, or the wild animals could
catch and eat their prey, but most of the time life for animals was pretty
easy, compared to that of humans who had a hard life as they farmed the land
to try to raise their food, or herded their sheep day and night, or guarded
their cattle from predators while they took care to see that the cattle were
watered and fed. This story explains the hardship of
human life as punishment for disobeying Yahweh and for competing with the gods
by acquiring the knowledge that raised them from being animals. We picture a jealous and angry Yahweh
intent on punishing humans and their children forever for their audacity in
assuming they could be like the gods. |
Comments
Post a Comment