Note: We dug fairly deeply, this week, and I’ve done my best to shorten my account. But there was a lot of material, and it isn’t easily glossed over. So this is a longer report, separated into 3 sections, with the first being by far the longest.
1. Eros Created. We reviewed the first part of the 2nd Creation Story (Genesis 2:4-24), pulling out some details of Trible’s reading. You may want to refer to the first page of the outline I provided, available here.
Life and Death Eros, as Phyllis Trible uses the term, means Life, which is: unity, harmony, delight, and fulfillment. It is not utopia, it is not perfection, but it is integration – perichoresis: the interpenetrating dance of life and living things in which all things function in union and harmony, but without giving up their individuality and uniqueness.
Think of birds in flight; the way they can suddenly change direction, seemingly flowing as one, without mishap, and then reverse direction, all without accident, conflict, or disharmony. That’s perichoresis. That’s Life as God created it.
And human beings are a part of that. But we were also created with something unique: the Breath of God was breathed into us (2:7), making us capable of God-like creativity, imagination and action.
Thanatos, as Trible uses the term, means Death, which is the opposite of Life (Eros). It is discord, strife, hostility, and danger. It is disintegration in which imperfections become problems, distinctions become oppositions, hierarchies become oppressions, and joy dissipates into unrelieved tragedy.
Neither Life nor Death is used in the physical sense: they are both about the quality of existence, the quality of our experience on this earth.
Life Exists within Bounds We all know that nothing valuable, nothing built up, nothing created from out of nothing can exist without boundaries. And God set up the Garden of Eden in that way. He placed the earth creature in the Garden, and in that Garden He placed two trees. Of one – the Tree of Life – God says the earth creature may eat. Of the other – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – God says the earth creature must not eat of it on the pain of death (verses 16-17).
What is the Tree of Life? It is the Tree of unity, harmony, delight, and fulfillment, because that’s what Life is. And of that Tree we may eat.
But why put that other Tree in the Garden?
Because not eating requires obedience and the respect of boundaries, and boundaries are essential for the integrity of every good thing. By confronting the earth creature with a tree from which it may not eat, God establishes:
a) That God determines what is good to do and what is not;
b) That Life (unity, harmony, delight, fulfillment) depends upon God, not humankind;
c) That there are limits to what humankind may do without destroying Life and replacing it with Death.
Put another way, the Tree of Life is the opportunity for human beings to use our God-given free will – or, as some wise person put it, to exercise our God-given power of free won’t. Free Won’t is that moment when we decide to not follow through on an impulse or imagined behavior; it is when we decide to not say that thing on the tip of our tongue, or take that action we know is harmful.
We have the power to create and destroy so that we can use free will wisely to build up the creation. Used well, we till the soil to productivity and beauty; used poorly, our free will leads to pillaging and blighting the earth. Free Will and Free Won’t make us capable of fulfilling our God-given role of nurturing the barren earth toward the fruitfulness God intends for it.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is our test and our limit: will we eat of it and presume to know for ourselves what is good and evil to do? Or will we refrain as God has commanded, and limit ourselves to what God tells us is good and evil to do?
Companionship After God put the earth creature in the Garden, God made the animals to be companions for it. (Remember, at this point in the story the earth creature is non-sexual: sexuality has not yet been created.) God brought the animals to the creature “to see what name it would call them” (2:19), and whatever name the earth creature called them, that was their name.
A Hebrew person reading the story in Hebrew would immediately know that none of the animals would be found comparable to the earth creature, because the Hebrew word translated as “to call the name of” indicates inequality.
Excursis: What’s in a Name? Naming is very important. The person who can “call the name of” another, is the one with power. Thus, the business owner calls the sales counter help “Sam” or “Samantha,” but the sales counter help calls the owner “Mr. Brown” or “Ms. Green.” Thus we know that the owner can “call the name of” the employee, but without express permission the employee cannot “call the name of” the owner.
In Genesis 32:28-29 God “calls the name of” Jacob “Israel”. This comes on the heels of a lifetime of Jacob’s misbehavior. First, as a young man he steals the blessing of Esau, his brother. As a result, he has to flee north to the clan of Laban. After marrying Laban’s two daughters, Jacob proceeds to steal Laban’s healthy flock (through an ancient version of genetic manipulation). As a result, he has to flee back south, with an angry Laban on his heels.
Learning that his brother is riding north to meet him on the road, and certain that Esau is coming to do him harm, Jacob is caught between two angry men who mean him harm. With nowhere to go, he sends his family and belongings across a river, and settles into an all-night struggle of the soul. The Scripture describes it as Jacob wrestling all night with a “Man.” That Man is an angel of the Lord, and since angels only do the will of God, where the angel is, there is God. Thus, Jacob wrestles all night with God, each fighting for Jacob’s soul. God wishes to vanquish Jacob and make him God’s own; but Jacob will not give in without receiving God’s blessing.
Finally, as dawn breaks, the angel relents and asks Jacob what his name is; then gives him a new name. “From now on your name is Israel.” That is: “From now on, your name is called Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
When God “calls the name of” Jacob Israel, God takes dominion over Jacob. He is now Jacob’s direct God: that is the blessing. And in naming Jacob Israel, God defines Jacob as Is-ra-El. Is = man. El = God. Ra is a verb that means “to strive against.” So Jacob is now God’s own, the man who strives against God and wins the blessing.
Having received a new name by which he is known to God, Jacob/Israel asks the angel what his name is, and is rebuked: “Why is it you ask my name?” Jacob will not be given power to dominate God; he will not be given the power to “call the name of” God.
Later, in Exodus 3, when God commissions Moses to go liberate Israel from Egyptian captivity, Moses also asks God His name (3:13), in order to be able to convince the people that he has come to them from God. God responds not with His name, but with a description: “I AM WHO I AM,” and tells Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (3:14). Here, again, the people are “called the name of” Israel, but they cannot “call the name of” their God. I AM is as close to a name as any people ever get to knowing who our God is.
God is not dependent upon human beings (which means, among other things, God is not a projection of our human psyches, as some scoffers claim), but all who are children of Israel are dependent upon God, who can “call the name of” them. That includes we Christians, who are grafted onto the Tree of Jesse (Romans 11:24).
That’s made clear to Christians in the ancient baptism ceremony. All Christians have first names. In the old days – you know, 50 years ago – those were referred to as our “Christian” names. They are called that because in the original Christian communities, new members were given secret names when they were baptized. Those secret, Christian names were the names by which each Christian is known to God, and to the other members of the faith community. Since the world did not know the Christian’s secret name, the world could no longer “call the name of” that person; and so, no longer had power over the Christian. But God, and the community of faith that knew the name, could “call the name of” each Christian, and so exercise authority over them.
Back to Genesis and Creation Because God brought the animals to the earth creature “to see what name it would call them,” a Hebrew reader would know that there will be no comparability between the earth creature and the animals. So something else has to be done to fully ease the loneliness of the creature.
The solution is elegant and instructive. God puts the earth creature to sleep; then extracts material from it, out of which God manufactures woman. This material (“rib” in verses 2:21, 22) is taken from the non-sexual earth creature and fashioned into “woman,” and what remains is fashioned (“closed up”) into “man.” In this way sexuality and male and female appear at the same time.
It is at this point that the Hebrew term for the earth creature, ha’Adam, starts being rendered in masculine form – underscoring the new creation of gender.
Note that both here and in the 1st Creation Account (Genesis 1:26-27), there is absolutely no indication that God creates males first and females second. In Genesis 1, God created man (humankind) in His own image, male and female. In Genesis 2, God uses the non-sexual earth creature as the raw material from which he extracts both male and female: the female from what God takes out of the earth creature, the male from what is left over.
When God brings the woman to the man, according to verse 2:22, God does not bring her “to see what name he will call her.” Rather, God acts as a matchmaker, bringing the two halves of His original earth creature into proximity. And ‘Adam, the now male remnant of the original creature, responds not by “calling her name,” but by spouting poetry; a poem of recognition:
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Issa (Woman), because she was taken out of Is (Man).”
Is and Issa. Man and Woman. The words are so close together that their commonality is obvious; and yet, different. Here is difference that is not division; unity that is not the smothering of individual character. And so it is possible for harmony and delight to unfold. All the ingredients of Life as God planned for it are now present.
And this, the writer tells us (verse 24), is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one flesh. Because it is when they have found one another, and recognized one another, and become “one flesh,” on both the carnal and spiritual levels, that God’s original earth creature is re-formed. In that joining, there is no, and can be no, superior and inferior partner.
2. Eros Contaminated. We previewed part two of Trible’s reading of this Creation Account, which she calls, Eros Contaminated. Here you may want to refer to the second page of the outline I provided, available here.
This section is bracketed by two references to the nakedness of the man and woman. In verse 2:25, the Bible says of the two who cling together: “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.”
At the other end, in verse 3:7, the Bible notes that right after they ate of the forbidden tree, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”
At the beginning, nakedness and no shame. At the end, nakedness and shame. How did shame enter the world? And what does it mean to be naked?
Verse 3:1 tells us that there was a serpent in the Garden, and this serpent “was more cunning/crafty/subtle/sly than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made.” This is an important sentence. It tells us a number of things about the serpent that puts the lie to what you learned in Sunday school.
First, it tells us that the serpent was created by God.
Second, that it is made of the same earth as all the other creatures.
Third, since it is “more” subtle/sly/crafty/cunning than the other creatures, it appears that God created the animals and critters with varying degrees of native, or natural, intelligence. Some animals are more crafty than others – as we all know if, for example, we compare a bear, a raccoon, and a rabbit. The serpent was the most cunning, the most sly, the most subtle, the most crafty of the creatures God created – but it was created by God in and for the world.
Fourth, we know that the serpent was placed under the authority of the man and woman, for they once “called its name,” and it never had the opportunity to call their names. Therefore, the man and woman have power over it, and the serpent can have no power over the man and woman except what they give it. This is an important theological point.
Now this serpent, being sly and cunning, whispers a question “on the sly” to the human couple: “Did God really say…?” And suggests that God is wrong; that when the couple eats of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
And that still, small voice still whispers in our ears. We still say to one another, “Do we really need God to tell us what is good to do and what is evil?”
There will be more to say about this in the next class.
3. Side Discussion. We got into a wide-ranging discussion of the Serpent. I can’t fully recount that discussion, so I’ll pick a key example. In a general way, without stating it succinctly, we chased the question: If the serpent is not the devil come here to break our bond with God, but just a part of nature, how does its whispering manifest itself in our lives?
I suggested that, among other things, it is inherent in the scientific impulse. Without condemning science – because I think science is good; and I love the benefits science and the scientific process has brought me – never the less, science is based in the Enlightenment; in the declaration, “I think therefore I am.”
Render that a little differently and we have blasphemy: “I think, therefore I AM,” where I AM is the name God provided to Moses.
Here’s an example of how that plays out: As science learns about brain chemistry we are tempted to absolve people of the evil they have committed. After all, if a person’s killing spree is the result of chemical reactions, how can it be a free choice? And if it is compelled, how can that person be guilty of a wrong?
But if we go down that road, do we not quickly find ourselves deciding what is right and wrong, good and evil, in God’s place? After all, God says “You shall not unjustly take the life of another.” (See the discussion of murder in the notes from 10/27/09.) If we say something different, are we not replacing God’s judgment with our own?
Modern culture and society are full of this kind of subtle, crafty reasoning. And we covered a number of examples, which caused consternation in our discussion. For example: there is a biomedical ethicist teaching at Princeton University, Peter Singer, who says that a mother should be able to abort her baby up to 1 month after it is born, especially if it is deformed. (See here and here.) Is that good? Or evil?
As a society, we want to say it’s evil, but as a society we do not call the abortion of a partially-born child evil. Singer says we are inconsistent. Can the difference of the minute it takes a baby to fully exit the womb really determine the difference between its being a human being or a lump of unwanted tissue?
And if it is said to be human when it is newly born, I must ask: is it not human when half born? And if human when half born, is it not human just prior to birth?
Singer wants to give mothers (or society) the power to decide what level of mental or physical competence qualifies for human rights. We are still not inclined to go along with him – though I have certainly heard more sympathy for his view over the last decade. And do we not already decide for ourselves at what stage a baby is a baby? Are we not already determining for ourselves when it is a good to kill an unborn, and when it is evil? So how much further is it to decide not just on the basis of how many months of development have occurred, but also on the basis of how able the baby turns out to be upon birth?
More importantly, in the abortion debate are we not arguing about whether the mother has the sole right to determine if the fetus she is carrying is – at any stage, or level of health – human or inhuman? After all, a person who assaults a pregnant woman and kills the fetus in her can be charged with murder – and will be, if she wanted the baby. But a doctor who kills a fetus of the same age will not be charged with murder if the mother did not want the baby.
So the status of “human” or “not human” is already largely dependent upon the whim of the mother. Peter Singer can’t see any logical reason why that power to determine whether an infant is “human” should not be extended to a period after birth. On what grounds can we refute him?
Is it good for a mother to be able to determine whether a fetus or infant is “human” or “unwanted tissue” based on her whim? And if she can, why can another person not make a decision about whether you are wanted or unwanted – at any age?
The fear of those who oppose national health care is that some unknown Board will end up setting policy on which humans are “deserving” and which are “not deserving” of expensive medical treatment; and some in Congress and the Administration have indicated that older people will have to do with less high-cost care so that younger people, with their whole lives still ahead of them, will be able to have more high-cost care. Is that standard – young vs. old – a “good” or “evil” standard for determining who gets an expensive treatment? And is it “good” for someone unknown to you to have the power to determine for you, with or without your input, whether you should get a particular medicine or procedure?
I am pushing this in immediate social terms because that is the issue being raised in Genesis. The serpent continually whispers, “you can know Good and Evil, and decide for yourself; you don’t need God.” And in our post-Christian age, we tend to listen with more attention than we did when we were a more faithful (God-observing) culture.
This is something we need to think about.
And we still need to answer the question: if the Serpent is not Satan, who is it?
We’ll look into that at the next class.
As usual, I welcome other participants to contribute to my summary of the class discussion. And I welcome any reader to reflect on any of the material.
