Adam and Eve - episode 2

To cultivate and keep

In the present post, we read the second story of creation, in chapter 2 of the Book of Genesis. There are some differences with the first story we read in the last post: God’s name changes (now He is «the Lord», translation of the unpronounceable Tetragram which will be revealed to Moses near the burning bush: see Exod 3,14-15), the author’s idea about the Creator changes (with comparisons that put God closer to the humans’ world: He “forms”, “breaths”, “plants”), the initial environment varies (a dry steppe instead of the water chaos in Gen 1), the order of God’s creatures is not the same (man is the first one, while in Gen 1 he is the last one). Even a not specialized reader realizes from those cues that the texts we are about to read come from a different tradition and an editor put them together with the previous ones in a later (verse 4, the conclusion of the first story of creation, is like a “bridge” to the second one: hence, we newly report it to open the narration). However, we overlook the composition phases of those passages to read them as they are now: a unitary assemblage (Gen 2, this way, can offer us a closer point of view on the creation of man, after the panoramic observation of the previous chapter). Regarding the literary form of the text and its interpretation, I remind you what we wrote for Gen 1: we are looking for a “religious” meaning, not a scientific or historical one.
«This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground. The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. The LORD God planted a garden eastward, in Eden [in the steppe: another possible translation], and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. [...] The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it [cultivate it] and to keep it». Apart from the already cited differences with Gen 1 in the text form, we can find a strong similarity in meaning: the man/Adam (’ādām) is formed with the fertile ground (’_adāmāh), a reference to his fragility as a material creature, but he keeps in him the «breath» of God (do you remember the «image» we spoke about in the last post?). The «garden», in the same way, is not a place where the man can domineer, but recipient of care and conservation. We can compare this narration with Mesopotamian myths like Atraḫasis, in which man is similarly created with mud and a divine element (the blood of a killed god); his task, however, is not to be the keeper of the creation, but a servant who takes the place of the minor gods in the hardest works.
«The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you should freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” The LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him [as in front of him].” Out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper suitable for him. The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs [one of his sides: another possible translation], and closed up the flesh in its place. He made the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, into a woman, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man [these two word have a similar appearance in Hebrew, forming a wordplay].” Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh. They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed». The Lord warmly invites the man to benefit from the fruits of the garden (the Hebrew verb is in an intensive form), except one. As in Gen 1, the Creator puts a limit so that life can fully and rightly develop: not all knowledge is forbidden, only the one that wants power and possession over persons and things, expression of that uncontrolled animal “lust” God commanded to “dominate” in the previous story of creation.



The forbidden tree is a symbolic place where the man has to choose between two different images of God: a master who is jealous of his power and who menaces death in case of transgressions («you will surely die») or the careful Creator who warns him against the negative consequences of a life without limit and law. The Lord prepares «a helper» to the man; the Hebrew word for that indicates in the Bible an assistance, that often comes from God, in a situation of mortal danger: in this case the menace is not an enemy army at the door, but loneliness. The human being who remains alone is in mortal danger (even see Eccl 4,10). In this case the «helper as in front of him» is the woman: God creates her in a state of parity with her husband («in front of him»); however, the man does not have the same idea: there is no dialogue with the new “her”, only a very emphatic (and possessive!) speech that underlines her provenance from the man. This does not inspire us good expectations for the future of the story, due to what we wrote about the dangers of “lust”.
Follow in the next post.