Lectionary: Lent 1(A)
Texts: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11
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| From Paradise to Chaos Herrel, Edie Mae; 1975 |
The story of The Fall as it is commonly known, at
least within Christianity, can be interpreted in many ways. The most common and
I would argue, the least interesting goes like this:
Adam and Eve are fresh-off the
assembly-line, shiny, new, perfect, first human beings—sort of super humans.
God tested these flawless creatures with this command not to eat of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, just to see if they meant business and would
obey God. But they failed the test, rebelled against God, and lost not only
their own perfection but that of every other human being since.[1]
This is how most of Western Christianity has read and
interpreted the text since at least Augustine (CE 354-430). If you’ve heard of
the Doctrine of Original Sin, this is where it originates (pun sort of
intended), even though the word sin never occurs in these texts.
Now recall that I said, “Western Christianity.” This is
because the other large group of Christians, the Eastern Church, reads it
differently.
Another angle, one often taken by
Christians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is to read the Adam story as
being not about a fall down from perfection, but a failure to grow up to godly
wisdom and maturity.
Think of Adam and Eve not as
perfect super humans but as young, naïve children, who were meant to grow into
obedience, but were tricked into following a different path.[2]
Some of the earliest Christians read it quite differently
from even these first two that I discussed. Just prior to Augustine, Ambrose taught
that eating the “forbidden fruit” was “fortunate guilt.” It was because of this
“blessed fault” that Christ was able to enter the world.[3]
Now, when this interpretation is analyzed, it doesn’t take long to realize it
is based on several pieces of faulty logic.
For the early Jews, the story is not about human
disobedience.
The early Jewish focus is rather on
the garden itself, the gaining of sexual knowledge (“and they knew they
were naked”[4])
and the concurrent loss of immortality, and the regaining of the garden in the
future.[5]
For the early Jews, the loss of immortality of a single
individual was replaced by immortality of the community through reproduction
and descendants.
For the later rabbis, contemporary with the early Christian
period,
The idea of an edenic fall is a
minority opinion. More popular are countervailing claims suggesting the
everything, including death, was part of the divine plan.[6]
Why do I bring up these many interpretive variants? Some not
Christian? Because interpretation and development of doctrine don’t happen in a
vacuum. Development happens in conversation with the past and with
contemporaries who hold divergent views. Sometimes it agrees and at other times
it is a reaction against. Understanding
and knowing about them (hopefully) allows us to be better interpreters and more
open to listening to other viewpoints, even when we ultimately disagree.
In addition to different theological interpretations, there
are also different views about the historicity of these texts in Genesis. One
view posits that the stories of the creation, fall, and exile are literal and
historical facts. Another view is that while not everything should be viewed
literally, it is still a factual accounting of history.
A third view sees these stories as myth. Now “myth” does not
mean lies or falsehood. It does mean fiction. But as any good literature
professor will tell you, oftentimes, good fiction can communicate truths better
than bland facts.
I started in the “literally true” end of the spectrum. But
now I read these early chapters of Genesis as mythology. These are texts that
preserved early Hebrew traditions where they attempted to make sense out of
their world. They were in conversation with other cultures and mythologies
around them. They used familiar motifs and archetypes to create their own
mythology of how the world began and how it ended up so fractured in so many
ways.
The text of Genesis as we have them today wasn’t finalized
until well after the return from Babylonian exile. This is important because
Genesis 2 and 3, in addition to a mythological tale of Hebrew origins, it is
also an allegory of the historical journey that Israel has taken. The creation
of man from dust can be seen as paralleling the creation of Israel out of
slavery. The first humans were placed into a paradise garden; the Israelites
were led to a paradise-like land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” The
first humans were given a command to follow; the Israelites were given
commandments to follow. Life and perpetual habitation of the land given to them
would follow obedience. Conversely, disobedience led to death and exile for
both parties of the allegory. God gives warnings to both the first humans and to
Israel the consequences of disobedience.[7]
The mythology of Genesis is written by returnees from the Babylonian exile,
looking back at their history and diagnosing what went so wrong.
Lending more strength to the argument that Genesis 2 and 3
are stories about Israel is the different word for God used in chapter 1. In
Genesis 1, the word for God is Elohim, a general, cosmic deity. But when
we get to Genesis 2:8, the words used are Yahweh Elohim, naming a deity who is specific
to the Israelites.[8]
This is where we revisit the theological interpretation of
naïve children who are faced with a choice to obey God or do their own thing. Did
God want them to remain naïve? I don’t think so. Proverbs chapter 1 begins with
the following words on the purpose of this collection:
To know wisdom and reproof, to
understand discerning maxims.
To accept the reproof of insight,
righteousness, justice, and uprightness.
To give shrewdness to the simple,
to a lad, knowledge and cunning.
Let the wise man hear and gain
learning, and the discerning acquire designs.
To understand proverbs and adages,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. Wisdom and reproof dolts despise.[9]
During the Babylonian exile, the prophet Ezekiel wrote about
returning to obedience, not because of commands written in stone, but because
they would be internalized. One such text reads:
26 A new heart I will
give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your
body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put
my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe
my ordinances. 28 Then you shall live in the land that I gave to
your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. [10]
The writer of Hebrews writes about maturing in faith:
You need milk, not solid food, 13
for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word
of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those
whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.[11]
There is no shortcut to maturity. There is no shortcut to
genuine knowledge and wisdom. The problem with Adam and Eve in the garden was
not that they desired these things, but they took a supposed shortcut that was
offered to them.
And here is where Jesus’ wilderness temptation (our gospel
reading) becomes relevant. Jesus too, was offered shortcuts to achieve what he was
destined to do. But to take the shortcut would have prevented him from reaching
his goals. The journey itself – the learning that happens, the struggles that
must be overcome – are just as important, and perhaps even more than the destination.
The writer of Hebrews wrote, “Because he himself was tested by what he
suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested,”[12]
and “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”[13]
The writer also (in chapter 4) describes how Israel failed to grow and mature
because of their disobedience.
Shortcuts appeal to our own vanity, comfort, and power. These
are the things to avoid and give up (in the spirit of Lent).
Rather, we should not shy away from the hard work necessary
to gain Christ’s wisdom and knowledge. Paul writes in Philippians what this
means:
3 Do nothing from
selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than
yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests but to
the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he
existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
10 so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.[14]
Amen.
References
Alter, R. (2019). The Hebrew Bible: A Translation
with Commentary. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Bartlett, D. L., & Brown Taylor, B. (2010). Feasting
on the Word: Year A, Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press.
Enns, P., & Byas, J. (2019). Genesis for
Normal People: A Guide to the Most Controversial, Misunderstood, and Abused
Book of the Bible. The Bible for Normal People.
Hamilton, V. P. (1990). New International
Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis 1-17. Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Levine, A.-J., & Brettler, M. Z. (2020). The
Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories
Differently. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Van de Laar, J. (2026, February 12). Falling
Down, or Growing Up? Retrieved from Sacredise Your LIfe!:
https://sacredise.substack.com/p/revolutionary-blessedness
William B. Eerdmans. (2003). Eerdman's Commentary
on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.
[1]
Around page 37, Kindle edition.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Around page 128, Kindle edition.
[4]
Around page 113. Ibid.
[5]
Around page 123. Ibid.
[6]
Around page 129, Ibid.
[7]
Around page 36, Kindle edition.
[8]
Genesis 1:1-2:7 and Genesis 2:8ff are two separate creation accounts. The first
one, the more cosmic one, and the later one, could be read as Jewish reaction
to Babylonian creation mythology. The second is based on older Hebrew
traditions, still probably influenced by surrounding societies, but more
distinctly Israelite.
[9]
Proverbs 1:2-7.
[10]
Ezekiel 36:26-28. (NRSVue)
[11]
Hebrews 5:12b-14. (NRSVue)
[12]
Hebrews 2:18. (NRSVue)
[13]
Hebrews 5:8. (NRSVue)
[14]
Philippians 2:3-11. (NRSVue)
