Genesis Diaries: 3:6-7

“…she took of it’s fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

This is one of the most flabbergasting sections of scripture for me. How in the world is Adam standing right there and not saying anything? How is he absolutely silent? Could he have prevented it? Absolutely he could have stepped in and said, “Nope. We are following the LORD,” but he didn’t.

I’ve joked for years that I think he kept silent so he could see what would happen before he committed. Remember the promise of the punishment? “…For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Surely Adam saw that it was good and beautiful for food like all the other trees. I have no doubt that the Serpent’s words had an effect on him as well. He was suckered into the marketing as well. Who wouldn’t want wisdom? How could that be bad? Who wouldn’t want to find out what God was hiding? Who wouldn’t want to be like God?

We are still bombarded with messages about how we are incomplete and if we just bite into this, if we just put this on our face or hair, if we just drive around in that, if we trade the monetary value of our hard labor for that drink then we will have “The Good Life”. I recently saw some advertisements on TV that said things like, “*this travel company* is how we get whole again”, “*this craft store*, where we make meaning”. Given the last couple of years we have endured as a species on this planet, everyone is naturally looking for wholeness, looking for meaning. But how dare these companies assume that it can be bought; that a tangible object can fulfill all our needs, all our deepest desires. It’s ever been the song. Every lie of the Enemy is just that line. “You won’t die! God doesn’t know what He’s talking about. You can be fulfilled without Him. They aren’t so much laws and commandments as…ya know…guidelines. It’ll be so much fun. And who’s going to get hurt anyway? Especially if no one finds out. Especially if no one knows. Just crawl up on that golden throne. You be the ruler of your life, the captain of your seas, the charter of your own destiny. You deserve it.”

Adam says nothing. Eve takes her first mouthful, chews it up, swallows and then she hands it to her husband. Not a word was spoken. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he was waiting to see if she dropped dead that moment. If she didn’t, wouldn’t that be justification for the Serpent’s position? It was the most cowardly way he could have moved through the situation. Adam did nothing to stand up to the Serpent nor did he stand up for his wife. This cowardice continues later on in the narrative.

“Then their eyes were opened…”

The fruit of the tree was always going to open their eyes if they ate of it. But what did it open their eyes to? What does having the “Knowledge of Good and Evil” have to do with their nakedness?

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson talks about this in his lectures on the book of Genesis, which was a massive inspiration for these “Diaries”. He believes that their concern with nakedness is that they recognize the potential evil lying dormant in the other. The places they cover up are those most sensitive to pain, the most sensitive to injury, the place were the other would target if they decided to be cruel, if they decided to force the other into submission.

One of Peterson’s greatest monologues is on the subject of Nazism. So many of us would like to believe that, “Oh, if I was in Nazi Germany I would have stood up agains Hitler and his thugs. I would have joined the resistance and not compromised my morals.” In his firmest voice he shouts, “Wrong!” at the students attending his class. Bonhoeffer was one of the few, the very few who stood against the regime knowing full well that it would lead to his death. Others participated, others allowed it passively, and others gave it full throated approval. The truth is that the Serpent’s forked tongue doesn’t just whisper to a few, but to the many.

We all have this evil potential within us. We all have a streak of Cain running through us that says, “Violate God’s law, commit the atrocity, if it gets you what you want the most. You’re out in a field. Who is going to know? You’re in an approving crowd. Who is going to call you out on it?” Between the Nazi concentration camp guards and the Gulag guards, from the SS to the Stasi, to the current atrocities in Australia, the temptation to cruelty is sadly universal.

If you believe it doesn’t reside in you, then I am truly sorry to tell you that you are kidding yourself. If you’ve ever massively over reacted because you were hungry, tired, emotional, or plain irritated then you’ve seen what that side of you can do. And brother or sister, the cure is the same for all of us. We so need Jesus. Lots of Jesus. All the time Jesus.

The word for “naked” here is the Hebrew word ‘eyrom, which means…well…”naked”. If we look at other verses in the Old Testament using ‘eyrom, there is this added element of helplessness and vulnerability. Naked we are exposed to the elements. Nakedness also carries an extra connotation of being “wretched” because one who is naked cannot help themselves. This causes us to ask an interesting question.

Weren’t they created this way, designed this way, intentionally made by God this way?

The fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil didn’t make them naked and helpless, it only revealed to them their own potential for evil and cruelty.

The Jewish Mystics long ago pointed out just how strangely God made man. Men are helpless at birth. Imagine a barn on fire where a horse has just given birth. The foal staggers to its legs and within minutes can save itself running from the barn. Once outside the barn if the foal encounters trouble with predators it can kick. Feebly but it can kick. One day it will run faster than most of the animals it will encounter and kick and stamp harder. As a prey animal there are other creatures that can best it, but it will certainly put up a good fight.

A human child born within minutes is relatively the same as a human child a few months older. It has no defenses. It has no ability to move. All it can do is lay there and wail to beg for help from others of its own species. As the human grows it continues to be relatively helpless. Strength of arm and leg does grow, but it does not gain protection from the elements nor does the human gain claws to protect itself. Without tools, without our cleverness, we are born helpless. And these helpless creatures were created by God to have dominion over the earth and every created thing in it.

Strange, isn’t it?

God made us, ultimately, to be completely dependent upon Him; His provision, His strength, His generosity, and His guidance. He had already created a complete eco-system, the ideal Human habitat, in which we would thrive and it seems he intended for us to spread Eden over the entire earth. Instead of seeing only the Good that was what God had given us, our eyes were opened. And what do eyes do? They see; objects and possibilities. Our eyes were opened to both Good and Evil. We were suddenly able to see both Good and Evil, to be able to anticipate the Evil that could befall us. The first thing we did was see the Evil in each other and take steps to mitigate that on our own rather than rely on God. it was about what we could do in our own power to prevent the evil.

Part of me believes that in being able to see the potential for Evil we lost sight of the possibility for Good from God and each other. We are so shocked when someone does something truly good for us. We stand amazed at the miracles the Lord does for us. We are surprised when He answers a prayer. Those Good things, those blessings from the LORD used to be standard operating procedure. They were our natural habitat…until they weren’t.

Consider how many times you have been in need and said nothing about it to the LORD until there is no other option. Like a little child we proclaim to Him and the world, “I DO IT!” and feebly, and imperfectly do what the LORD could far more perfectly accomplish. When it works out our way we feel a mistaken sense of pride. In our hearts we are sure of the strength of our arms and the quickness of our wits, instead of the goodness of God.

I chuckled as I wrote this, reading how true it is given our first attempt at our own provision.

Adam and Eve chose to sew fig leaves together. There are more than a few complications with that, chief of them being that they simply won’t last. That was their best solution for the problem of nudity.

God’s solution was animal skins.