Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Humberto Casanova on Genesis 3:8-13

  

Genesis 3:8-13: The God Who Walks through the Garden

 

8 Then they heard the sound of steps of Yahve Elohim, who was waking in the garden during the breeze of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves form the presence of Yahveh Elohim among the trees of the garden.

9 Yahve Elohim called to the man, and said: Where are you?

10 He responded: I heard the sound of your steps in the garden, and I was afraid because I’m naked, so I hid myself.

11 And [Yahve] said: Who taught you that you are naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

12 The man answered: The woman whom you gave me, she gave me [the fruit] from the tree, and I ate.

13 Yahve Elohim said to the woman: What is this that you have done? The woman answered: The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

 

When examining this story, we should avoid disfiguring it with prejudice coming from later Christian dogma. A god may be called “Almighty” (upermenēs), but the truth is that the gods were also portrayed in very human fashion. Susan Niditch points out that in trying to explain the story of the fall,

 

Modern scholars try to make sense of what they consider to be an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who appears to fear human’s possible acquisition of knowledge and immortality, who has to deal with humans on the loose, who has tricky snakes sneaking around his back, and who must adjust in a totally ad hoc way to the events around him. Not unlike all the great heads of pantheons such as Odin or Zeus, he is a powerful creator god—more powerful than all other forces—but he can be tricked, becoming subject to the wiles of those whom he has created, such as Loki, Prometheus, the snake, Adam and Eve. He is, in short, a parent. (Niditch, Folklore, 42)

 

If we idealized Yahve as a god who is invisible, omniscient and essentially different from the world, it is impossible to experience the dramatic force of Genesis 3:7-13. In the words of Hermann Gunkel: “The narrative does not report that Yahweh knew or saw it all, rather that strolling in the Garden, he accidentally discovered the transgression.” (Gunkel, Genesis, 18. Cf. Gen 18;20-21, where Yahve needs to walk down to the valley to look at the situation). The drama of the story only comes to life when we imagine a god who possesses the limitations and advantages of a physical body. He seems to be a god who has legs and feet; a god who went for a walk to refresh his body at a time when he would have enjoyed a breeze. The suspense of the narrative reaches its climax in vv. 8-13, when the mythographer reports that Adam and Eve heard the steps of the god who “was walking in the garden” (Gen 3:8). The couple realized that he was approaching, and they were thrown into a state of panic.

 

Yahve does not know where Adam is, so he calls him: “Where are you?” (3:9). Adam and Eve were hiding from the god, and we ruin the story when we insist that humans cannot hide form an omniscient god. Note that this god is able to speak out loud, which takes for granted that he has an articulatory system that allows him to talk (lips, tongue, teeth, vocal chords, etc.). It seems the god who also equipped with an auditory system that transmitted sound waves to his brain for Yahveh was able to hear and understand when Adam answered: “I heard the sound of your steps in the garden, and I was afraid because I’m naked, so I hid myself” (3:10). This god could learn something he did not know, for he’s surprised that Adam knew he was naked. Yahve infers that Adam must have eaten from the tree of knowledge, so he demands more information to confirm his guess: “Who taught you that you are naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (3:11). (A modern prejudice drives Wenham to argue that the question are rhetorical, because according to him we are not dealing with an “ignorant inquirer” but an “all-knowing detective” [Genesis, 77]. A real omniscient God doesn’t need to be a “detective [!]) Adam accuses his wife, and the god reprimands her: “What is tis that you have done?” (3:13). She defends herself accusing the serpent. As it happens with other gods of the Ancient Nera East, Yahve acts like a human being. And it is precisely this representation which allows the mytographer to write a story that evolves in such a dramatic way within a space-time structure completely alien to any immutable and omniscient divine nature. In fact, these attributes would have made it impossible to write a narrative that unfolds in this world. (Humberto Casanova, Imagining God: Myth and Metaphor [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2020], 63-66)

 

Further Reading:


Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment

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