Hey friends, so it's Thanksgiving week and we've
decided to record this episode a little bit early.
So last time we looked at the opening pages of
the book of Genesis and we allowed ourselves
to disentangle much of what we've been taught
about the book of Genesis and truthfully as a
result about what we think about the Bible. This
week, we're going to look at the next few chapters,
three and four of Genesis, that advance the story
of creation from the creating act to creation's
interaction with itself. And right on cue, humanity
begins to be confronted with a choice. The choice
to seek God's desire for us. or the choice to
seek our own desire. Chapters 3 and 4, we're
calling apples, rocks, and sin. On this installment
of the Semi -Seminarians Study Series, we're
calling the Bible for Grownups, our look at Genesis.
This week, chapters 3 and 4. The book of Genesis
receives its English name from the Greek translation
of a Hebrew word, Toledoth. That word is recorded
13 times in Genesis and is translated as story
or record or line. In Hebrew, it's known Genesis.
like many books in the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible.
It's known by its first word, Bereshit, which
means in the beginning. Genesis is indeed a book
about beginnings, the beginning of the natural
world, the beginning of human culture, and the
beginning of the people of Israel, whose story
will eventually occupy most of the remainder
of the Torah. In the ancient Near Eastern culture
in which Israel emerged, beginnings were deemed
to be crucial. For the origins of things were
thought to disclose their character and their
purpose. In Genesis, the origins of Israel, the
people known later as the Israelite people, will
eventually lie. in God's mysterious promise to
a Mesopotamian man whose name is Abram. And we're
going to find later in chapter 17 that his name
is changed to a more rememberable Abraham. The
essence of the promise is that God will make
of Abraham a great nation, bless him abundantly,
and grant him this land that is called Canaan.
Absurd as it is when it first comes, this promise
faces one obstacle after another. And those obstacles
come throughout the entire book of Genesis, principally
with the barrenness of Abraham's primary wife,
as well as of other matriarchs in the next two
generations. Also difficult is the murderous
fraternal rivalry amongst descendants. And yet,
by the end of Genesis, all the people of Israel
have indeed come into existence. There is an
Israelite effectively ruling the superpower of
Egypt. And the promise of the land, though far
from fulfillment, which comes about only when
we get to the book of Joshua, is anything but
forgotten. This book of Genesis is thus, in more
sense than one, a primary source for Jewish theology.
It presents its ideas on our relationship with
God. as well as the relationship of God to nature
and to humanity, as well as to the people of
Israel in particular. In ways that are, however,
foreign to the expectation of modern readers,
it is still containing a message of profundity
and seriousness. This first section in which
we continue to look, this primeval story takes
us. from the creation of the world through the
birth of Abram's father, 19 generations later.
Its stories are short, they're loosely strung
together, and then they're only connected by
genealogies that identify the generation in which
the action takes place. Despite this profundity,
there is... an overriding theme, and that is
the spread of human wickedness. The refusal of
humankind to accept their creaturely status as
they blur the all -important boundary between
the human and the divine. And every time that
humans blur that line, in the end, they bring
catastrophe upon themselves. The center of attention
here in Genesis is God, who is portrayed rather
anthropomorphically and speaks directly and frequently
to human beings, condemning or sparing, announcing
his judgment or his merciful forbearance. Largely
because of its focus on creation, the primeval
story of Genesis Mesopotamian mythology. The
account of creation with which Genesis opens
that what we looked at last week, for example,
has commonalities with the Enuma Elish, which
is a Babylonian epic which tells us how one god,
Marduk, attained supremacy over the others and
created the world by splitting his aquatic enemy,
Tiamat, In half, the story of Adam and Eve's
sin in the Garden of Eden displays very stark
similarities with Gilgamesh, an epic poem that
tells how its hero lost the opportunity for immorality
and came to turn with their own humanities. In
the Gilgamesh epic, after Gilgamesh acquires
the magic plant that will rejuvenate him, it's
stolen by a snake. In the story of Adapa from
Egypt, one of the guardians of Anu's palace,
where Adapa is offered the food of life, is serpent
-shaped or accompanied by horned serpents. And
he is the guardian of the demons who live in
the netherworld. In Egypt, the serpent, which
we will read about here in the Genesis epic,
is associated with both death and wisdom. both
of these aspects in the wisdom dialogue between
the serpent and Eve, and with the introduction
of death after the expulsion from Eden. Because
of New Testament developments in Christian theology,
it's most common for people today immediately
to think of Satan as the serpent in Genesis 3,
but I want to remind the listener that the Israelites
would have never made this connection. We can't
recover what Adam and Eve would have thought
about the serpent, but the ancient Near East
literature gives us an idea of some of the images
that came to mind for the Israelites as they
heard this story and lived within their own time
and culture. So with that introduction in mind,
let's go ahead and begin reading chapter 3. Now
the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild
animals the Lord God had made. He said to the
woman, Did God really say that you must not eat
from any tree in the garden? The woman said to
the serpent, We may eat fruit from the trees
in the garden, but... God did say you must not
eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle
of the garden. And you must not touch it or you
will die. So let's stop here and back up and
catch the trick right away that Hasatan, the
deceiver, tries to make with Eve. By asking a
completely different question. Did God really
say you couldn't eat of anything? Any tree? And
Eve corrects him by saying, no, no, no, no. It's
just that one that we can't eat from. Continuing
with verse four. You will not certainly die,
the serpent said to the woman. For God knows
that when you eat from it, your eyes will be
opened. You will be like God, knowing good and
evil. So in this story is this fruit that we
are talking about, many of us believe to be an
apple, although we've just read that apple's
not mentioned. Is it that that fruit is magic?
Is there some supernatural or chemical agent
within this fruit that will fundamentally change
Eve and Adam? No. What will fundamentally change
is that they will now be made aware of what it's
like to choose to disobey. Continuing with verse
5, When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was
good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also
desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and
ate it. She also gave some to her husband who
was there with her, and he ate it. and the eyes
of both of them were opened, and they realized
that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves
together and made coverings for themselves. Then
the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord
God as he was walking in the garden in the cool
of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among
the trees. The Lord God called to the man, Where
are you? Now, did God literally and visibly walk
in the garden? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Because
we know from other scripture God is spirit. The
sound of the Lord God walking in the garden is
a way of describing this infinite God that we
serve in finite terms. So real was the presence
of God that it was as if they heard God's footsteps.
However, God may have appeared to them as a theophany,
which is a temporary manifestation or appearance
of God. In the end, yeah, it could have been
God. He answered, I heard you in the garden and
I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid, Adam
said. We discover that once a place of joy and
of fellowship with God, the garden has just become
a place of fear and hiding from God. God said,
who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten
from the tree that I commanded you not to eat
from? The man said, the woman you put me here
with, she gave me some fruit from the tree and
I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman,
what is it that you have done? The woman said,
the serpent deceived me and I ate it. So the
Lord God said to the serpent, because you've
done this, cursed are you above all livestock
and of all wild animals. You will crawl on your
belly and you will eat dust all the days of your
life. God tells the serpent that he will crawl
on his belly. There's not a suggestion here that
the serpent had legs. Somehow he's going to lose.
Instead, the serpent is going to be docile rather
than an attack position. The serpent on its belly
is non -threatening, while the one reared up
is protecting or attacking. God continues, And
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers. He will
crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
To the woman he said, I will make your pains
and childbearing very severe. With painful labor
you will give birth to children. Your desire
will be for your husband, and he will rule over
you. The word translated childbearing is actually
the word for conception, not necessarily labor.
This requires of us a bit of rethinking since
there's no pain in conception. The word pain
is often linked to the word anxiety. Therefore,
this verse may suggest there will be anxiety
in the whole childbearing process. Because with
death introduced into the world, the lives of
both mother and child will hang in the balance.
Chapter 3, verse 17 continues, produce thorns
and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants
of the field. But the sweat of your brow you
will eat of your food until you return to ground.
Since from it you were taken, from dust you are,
and to dust you will return. Adam named his wife
Eve because She would become the mother of all
the living. The Lord God made garments of skin
for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the
Lord God said, the man has now become like one
of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be
allowed to reach out his hand and take also from
the tree of life and eat and live forever. So
the Lord God banished him from the garden to
work the ground from which he had been taken.
And after he drove the man out, he placed on
the east side of the garden of Eden cherubim
and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to
guard the way to the tree of life. I think it's
arguable that it's a mercy that God kept us from
the tree of life. By barring access to the tree
of life, God showed compassion in his omniscience.
Knowing that because of sin, earthly life would
be filled with sorrow and toil, God graciously
limited the number of years men and women would
live. To live eternally in a sinful state would
mean endless agony for humanity with no hope
of the relief that comes with death. By limiting
our lifespan, God gives us enough time to come
to know him, to know his provision, and to allow
for eternal life through Christ, but spares us
the misery of an endless existence in this sinful
condition. In three chapters, Genesis has set
the stage for human history and now shows history
begins to play itself out. The first childbirth,
imagine the shock, the first formal worship,
the first division of labor, the first extended
families, the first cities, and the first signs
of culture all appear in chapter 4. But one first
overshadows all others. The first death of a
human being. A death by murder. One brother killing
another. Sin enters the world through the first
family. And by the second generation, people
are already killing each other. So let's continue
now, beginning in chapter 4, verse 1. Adam made
love to his wife, and she became pregnant and
gave birth to Cain. She said, With the help of
the Lord, I have brought forth a man. Later,
she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now, in the
Hebrew word, that name is Habel, and it means
breath, or what passes away without leaving anything
significant. It's commentary on the short life
of Abel and his lack of children and their heirs.
Now Abel kept flock and Cain worked the soil.
In the course of time, Cain brought some of the
fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord,
and Abel also brought an offering, the fat portions
from some of the firstborn of his flock. The
Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,
but on Cain and his offering, he did not look
with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face
was downcast. Genesis doesn't record God asking
for these sacrifices, though he does approve
of the practice as a mean of his expressing thanks.
Gratitude. would not be expressed when the gift
was given grudgingly, apparently, as possible
with the case of Cain. Then the Lord said to
Cain, Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?
But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching
at your door. It desires to have you. But you
must rule over it. Now Cain said to his brother
Abel, Let's go out into the field. While they
were in the field, Cain attacked his brother
Abel and killed him. The Lord said to Cain, Where
is your brother, Abel? I don't know, Cain replied.
Am I my brother's keeper? The Lord said, What
have you done? Listen. Your brother's blood cries
out to me from the ground. Now you are under
a curse and driven from the ground, which opens
its mouth to receive your brother's blood from
your hand. When you work the ground, it will
no longer yield its crops for you. You will be
a restless wanderer on the earth. In Mesopotamian
thinking, the ideal lifestyle was not one of
a farmer. It was of urbanization and civilization.
Civilized life in the city is recognized in this
time of the ancient Near East as a gift from
the gods, as something that is highly valued.
Agricultural and pastoral activities are part
of the urban landscape. foundational to the success
of the city. In this way of thinking, nomadic
groups, those that would be cursed to travel
the ground, would be considered uncivilized and
a threat to society. Chapter 4, verse 13 continues,
Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is more
than I can bear. Today you are driving me from
the land and I will be hidden. from your presence.
I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and
whoever finds me will kill me. But the Lord said
to him, Not so. Anyone who kills Cain will suffer
vengeance seven times over. Then the Lord put
a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would
kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord's presence
and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain
made love to his wife, and she became pregnant
and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building
a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
Enoch was born Erad, and Erad was the father
of Hamuzajel, and Hamuzajel was the father of
Methusajel, and he was the father of Lamech.
Lamech married two women, one named Ada, the
other named Zillah. Ada gave birth to Jabal.
He was the father of those who live in tents
and raised livestock. His brother's name was
Jubal. He was the father of all who played string
instruments as well as pipes. Zillah also had
a son, Tubal -Cain, who forged all kinds of tools
out of bronze and brass. Tubal -Cain's sister
was Nema. In ancient Mesopotamian lore, there
are a group of sages, one for each generation
of kings in the age before the flood. They introduce
major aspects of human culture, just as the Bible
does here. The Bible teaches that these inventors
came from the line of Cain, although their work
could be used for good, in this case, seems to
have led to greater violence. Lamech says to
his wives, Ada and Zillah, listen to me, wives
of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man
for wounding me, a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech 77
times. The sin that Adam and Eve brought into
the world passes on to their son Cain. In chapter
4, it leads to envy and violence that results.
and the murder of one brother of another. As
these generations progress, the violence escalates
so that Lamech, the last of Cain's line, commits
murder to be avenged 11 times more than his ancestor
Cain. Chapter 4 concludes with Adam made love
to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son
named Seth. saying, God is granted be another
child in the place of Abel since Cain killed
him. Seth also had a son and he named him Enosh.
At that time, people began to call on the name
of the Lord. This verse then represents the beginning
of religion and that is where we will start off
next time. Well, what can you say friends? There's
a lot of moving parts there in the Third and
fourth chapter of Genesis. I hope that this was
illuminating for you as it was for me to prepare.
Hey, listen, if you like what we're doing, make
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word out. Hey, listen, until then, I hope you
have a happy Thanksgiving and you be blessed
and be a blessing.