The Garden of Eden story has served, and for many continues to serve, as an etiology or story that explains the cause or reason for things in our world. This is very fitting since it is a creation story and is meant to explain the origins of everything. Well, maybe not everything, not at least the origins of our world.
In fact, I would say that the first thing this story explains is how our world came into being. I can imagine this story being the ultimate answer to an annoying child's constant question "Why?". This story explains where the ground, plants, animals, water, and people come from, naming (the Lord) God as the source of everything one can see. This story also answers the question, "Why is a giraffe called a giraffe?" Gen. 2:20 Adam names all the animals. In verses 20-23 we learn why there is a difference between male and female. Even in 3:21 we see the origins of clothes.
Aside from these surface level questions, Genesis 2-3 answers deeper cultural and theological questions. In 2:7 we learn why humans are "superior" to animals, we were given the breadth of life by God. In 2:24 we find the etiology of marriage and see the establishment of the most widely acceptable practice of heterosexual relationships and marriage. In chapter 3, we learn why life can be hard and why people must farm (3:17-19). The explanation: God is punishing us and making us work for our food. Other answered questions include:
Why childbirth is painful (3:16) - God causes it
Why snakes slither (3:14) - God causes it
Why men are superior to women (3:16) - God commanded the men rule over women
Why every human eventually dies (3:22-23) - God has prevented us from reaching the fruit of the tree that gives eternal life. I would say that in the garden humans were immortal. God allowed them to eat of every tree, but one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were allowed to eat of the tree of life and I don't see why they wouldn't. However, they question then remains, if they had already eaten from it, why were they banished and why did they die eventually. One could argue that they were allowed to eat from the tree of life but had not yet or that long life could only be obtained by continual eating of the fruit from the tree of life. God could also have stripped them of their privilege of eternal life when they disobeyed him and he banished them so that they could not get it again. I believe this is a likely scenario.
I can still imagine the aforementioned child, sitting beside their mother or father and pestering them with these kinds of questions. By telling that child this story, that parent could attain some relief from all the questions.
We’ll go over some of these points in class (marriage; human exceptionalism).
ReplyDelete“Why men are superior to women (3:16) - God commanded the men rule over women.” Well not exactly, nor would I use the word ‘superior’ which implies some objective characteristic, that men are essentially better than women. In 3:16 there’s no word of command, just a description (“he will rule over you”). As we’ll see, and you can think about in the meantime, this is what follows from the punishment but is not the punishment itself.
On the question of creational immortality, you’re on the right track. However, it’s not clear to me whether you view the original humans as created immortal or given the possibility of achieving it by eating from the Tree of Life. Then you’ve correctly pointed to the question of the Tree of Life itself, whether eating from it was a one-time deal or whether one needed to, as it were, refresh life, by eating occasionally. The latter seems to be what you suppose in your conclusion, that the access to the Tree. If they had been created immortal (and you give no arguments on the other side of the question, betraying a biased approach), what would have been the purpose of the Tree of Life except to restore immortality that had been lost, and then why would God have taken it away just as it became useful?