Figure: Literary structure of the Garden narrative
The Garden narrative describes God forming the adam, resting him in his presence, then provisioning for his appetites of food, vocation, and mate. It continues to describe a snake, the introduction of death, and humanity’s expulsion from the garden. The pages of scripture are filled with retellings of this story.
The literary structure of the Garden narrative is shown above. It is recounted using a ten ring chiasm. Parts before the central crux are referred to as ‘entering’ elements and the parts after the crux as ‘exiting’ elements. I refer to a pair of entering and exiting elements as a ring.
The entering elements describe setting, introduce tension, and/or build to a crucial action. The exiting elements revisit the themes in the entering elements, reversing or transforming the thematic elements as a consequence of the transgressive action at the crux.
I organize this commentary by discussing the rings in the alphabetic sequence of their labels.
Ring A – Formation of man
The first ring of the Garden narrative describes the forming of man.
In the entering element, God forms ha-adam [האדם] from the adam-ah [אדםה] and breathes life into the creature which is described as a hunger (nephesh) [נפש] .
The exiting element is a Janus. It is the beginning of the Cain and Abel narrative, but also caps the material in the garden. Again, a man is created. The new man is consequent to the adam ‘knowing’ the woman. The verb describing the sexual union is the same used for the ‘knowing’ that accompanies the taking of the forbidden fruit.
The sense and meaning of being ‘like God’ is the central question in the garden narrative. Key to being ‘like God’ is to know like God. As the couple leaves the garden, they know each other in a manner that allows them to emulate God’s ability to create life. Hava’s name and her speech both draw our focus onto this. When she births, Hava exults that she now ‘possesses’ a man, and names her son from this root word.
The italicized and bolded word ‘like’ in the exiting element of ring A, represents my suggestion for capturing the intended meaning for an enigmatic two-letter word (את). The intended meaning is ambiguous. All major translations attempt to insert something for it. One should recognize that these insertions are pure interpretation.
The most prevalent translation is that Hava is expressing piety by declaring that she possesses a man ‘with the help of Yahweh.’ (ESV, JPS, ASV) There is nothing in the surrounding text to justify Hava’s piety. This is where the literary form of the text should guide translation. A chiasm functions by showing how the material at the crux actuates a change as the narrative proceeds from the entering to the exiting element in the ring. At the center of the chiasm is humanity taking the fruit in order to be ‘like God.’ I would suggest that ‘likeness’ is the meaning that the short disputed word is meant to capture.
Just as God can make life, now humanity can too. Hava’s exultation does not reflect her submitting her will, recognizing that all life ultimately flow from God. Rather, it is a triumphal assertion that she now shares and images the most awesome of God’s attributes: the ability to communicate the spark of life.
Ring B – Garden home
The story begins with a man living in an idyllic garden in the presence of God. The story ends with the man and his helper being driven-out from the garden and the presence of God.
Ring C – Fruit of mortality
The story introduces two special sources of food; both trees. God prohibits man from reaching out his hand to take from both trees, although the prohibition in taking from the tree of life only occurs after taking from the tree of knowing. Each fruit’s potency is in the realm of mortality; one tree causes death, the other brings life. The life provided by the second tree must be qualitatively different than the life experienced thus far, otherwise it wouldn’t be special.
The reader is left to articulate why humanity must be driven from the garden, denying them access to the tree of life.
Ring D – God equips man
Twice in the narrative Yahweh-Elohim equips the human. He equips the human with a helper in the entering element. He equips the man and the woman with covering in the exiting element. ‘Helper’ does not inhabit the same semantic domain as the notion of ‘covering’ or ‘nakedness.’
This coupling of ‘helper ‘and ‘covering’ is an ill fit and strains the balance of the literary structure. Balance is regained when one understands the action in the entry element as that of equipping the man with nakedness. This complements the exit element where the nakedness is covered.
Leviticus 18:7 says: ‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness.’ The father and mother are sexual partners. In the idiom of the pentateuch, one’s mate is one’s nakedness. In other words, the presentation of the woman creates nakedness, she is the nakedness provided for the man.
Nakedness opens a sexual outlet for the man. This is shown in the entering element. Covering nakedness closes the sexual outlet. This is shown in the exiting element.
Ring E – man names woman
The man supplies two names for the woman. In the entering element, the name highlights the woman’s origin: she is taken from man. His naming in the exiting element highlights that the origin of all living is from the woman.
Ring F – Pleasure and pain of procreation
The next element describes pleasure and pain resulting from sexual congress. The entering element describes a two in one union, the exiting element describes a two from one separation.
The entering element says that the man and the woman will (re-)unite into one flesh.
The exiting element describes a multiplied pain of childbirth as a consequence of eating the forbidden fruit. For something to be multiplied, it must already exist. It is understood before the fall by the woman that she will give birth. The Garden narrative provides no details of God’s original intention of procreation.
The Genesis 16 narrative is patterned after the garden. Abram and Sarai are promised an heir. They grow old and impatient. Abram listens to Sarai’s voice and takes Hagar. A child is born. These are clear garden echoes. If we back-annotate contours from that story into the garden narrative, it suggests that taking the fruit and the resulting knowledge gained is connected to creating life outside of God’s provision. The single totally unambiguous property of the tree of knowledge is that it is outside of God’s provision. By taking from the tree of knowledge, humanity capitulates to the seduction of regulating life outside the province of God.
Ring G – Innocent and crafty, inadequate and cursed
One sees a word-play in 2:25 and 3:1 that is opaque in major translations. Two terms separated by five words are homophones: the terms have the same sound and spelling except one includes a plural suffix. The first, describes the initial state of humanity, they are naked, expressed in the plural form arumim [ערןםים]. The second instance is the adjective that describes the snake, arum [ערןם], usually translated as ‘crafty.’
Naked humanity is vulnerable, and the snake exploits that vulnerability with its craftiness. David Rosenberg in his translation (‘A Literary Bible’ isbn#1582436193) helpfully offers that both naked and crafty derive from the shared idea of ‘slipperiness.’
The serpent subtly casts doubt on God’s motives with an indirect accusation. The serpent suggests that God’s motive for prohibiting the eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge was to preserve exclusive access to its accompanying knowledge.
After taking the fruit, humanity is conscious of nakedness. But nothing physically changes, but the significance of the nakedness has. After taking the fruit, the descriptor arum no longer indicates a childlike lack of shame, it now associates them with the crafty/arum serpent.
Humanity sought to be like God. God provides them a path towards this end; they were to remember and execute his word. However, they are beguiled by the serpent. Now their words become accusatory, like the serpent’s words. The man blames the woman, the woman blames the snake. God’s word brought order to the chaos, the serpent’s words accuse. Humanity’s words are not employed to enforce but evade. Their arum is transformed from being innocent and vulnerable, to being crafty. They image the serpent, not God.
The serpent’s description changes similarly. In 3:1 a word play exist between two words that sound the same but have different meanings. The serpent’s description transforms from arum, to arur [ארר] in Genesis 3:14. The term arum has a synonym [ערר], both mean naked. This second term for ‘naked’ is similar to the word for ‘cursed.’ If the guttural consonant of second ‘nakendness’ term erodes to a soft ‘ah’, the result is the word for ‘cursed.’ The emphasis of this term for ‘cursed’ is on sterility. The serpent transforms from being slippery to be cursed and sterile. The author intends the reader to trip over the homophones and near synonyms to bridge between craftiness, nakedness, and cursing.
Ring H – Interrogate
The serpent initiates the first dialogue in the garden by asking the first question. God initiates the second dialogue with another question. The serpent uses his question to deceive the woman, God’s dialogue holds the man accountable.
Ring I – Walking voices
In the entering element the text presents the alarming image of a walking and talking snake, both descriptors are at odds with the properties of a typical snake. In the exiting element the text literally says that the couple heard the ‘voice (not sound!) of YHWH-Elohim’ walking. This is at odds with the properties ascribed to a voice; voices do not walk. The startling images at these complementary locations of the literary structure suggests we are to notice and be shocked by both, but also we need to sort-out what is being communicated!
In Genesis, obedience is imaged by both ‘listening’ to God’s voice and ‘walking with God’. Recall Enoch walked with God, and was no more (5:24). Obedient Noah also walked with God (6:9). A walking voice wraps both obedience idioms into a single image. Two walking voices seek to direct the appetites of humanity in the garden. Humanity chooses to follow the serpent. The serpent is consequently cast down onto its belly, humanity does not walk with the serpent thought its voice continues to beguile.
Ring J – Eyes opened
On the entering element the promise of the first couple having their eyes opened and acquiring the knowledge of good and evil is held out by the serpent. The serpent deals a half-truth in the entering element. The exiting element confirms that the serpent truthfully told them that their eyes would be open. Their eyes are opened, they do know good and evil. This knowledge, however, does not lead to self-sufficiency, but nakedness and inadequacy.
Crux X – A meal
Humanity severs their dependence and childlike reliance on God. The fall consist of the taking of a meal. Humanity is created as a hunger (nephesh) [נפש] in 2:7. A meal offers little to a ‘soul.’ Humanity allows the serpent to direct their hunger, rather than the voice of the creator that walks in the garden.
After taking the fruit, the language of the text transitions. Before the disobedient meal, the text works in the word space of fruit and eating, then after taking the forbidden fruit, the language shifts to sexuality, life, and death.
The serpent tempts humanity with the promise of being like God. Note that when the woman is questioned by God, she does not report that the serpent lied to her, only that she was deceived. In other words, the woman does not complain the serpent’s words were untrue. She is aware that, truly, they are now like God.
By taking the fruit, humanity regulates the satisfaction of their desires independent of God. The first couple soon discover that their desires must be controlled. To complicate matters, the man’s and the woman’s desires are also now in conflict with each other, (”Your desire shall be contrary to your husband’’ Genesis 3:16). Nakedness arouses desire and the desires of the man and woman are unbalanced and at odds. Fig leaves prove insufficient at suppressing sexual triggers.
Consequently, we are provided with our first image of death. God kills an animal to provide their covering skins. Humanity will die too, but they die through a process, rather than an event. Death, as described in Genesis, proceeds not from disease but disobedience. The economy of life is no longer buttressed by God’s inexhaustible provision, this economy is now governed by justice: each adam must return to the adamah. Each new day of man is purchased by consuming the life of a plant or animal who itself came from the cursed ground.
Jesus in the garden
The economy of grace found in the garden is restored by Jesus in the way it was lost: through a meal. The meal is himself. Jesus asks us to feast on his body and drink his blood. It is a startling act. Like hearing his word and walking with him, it signifies our obedience. We allow Jesus to shepherd our hungers; to provide us with the single meal that will persistently satisfy. When sustained on this provision, our bodies graciously endure rather than justly return and remain in the adamah. Jesus is God’s son, his one seed. This seed dies on a tree at Calvary, and is then put into the earth for three days. The seed emerges as the tree of life, who is balm and provision for a new humanity. The images and themes central to understanding the meaning and significance of Jesus are planted in the Garden.
Scott Fairbanks is a student of scripture. He lives in Corvallis, OR with his wife and three children. He has begun maintaining a website to contain his observations on scripture at: www.LoTechWonders.com.