Of Snakes and Art

Earth Hour

In honor of Earth Hour, turn off all your lights between 8:30 and 9:30 PM this evening.  Go to http://www.earthhour.org

Cast out of Eden

Genesis 3:20-24

20 The man named his wife Eve,* because she was the mother of all who live. 21 And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man* and for his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

The Curses

Genesis 3:14-19

4 The Lord God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this,
   cursed are you among all animals
   and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
   and dust you shall eat
   all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
   and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
   and you will strike his heel.’
16 To the woman he said,
‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
   in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
   and he shall rule over you.’
17And to the man* he said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
   and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
   “You shall not eat of it”,
cursed is the ground because of you;
   in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
   and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
   you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
   for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.’

Shame and Blame

Genesis 3:8-13

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 10 He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 11 He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ 12 The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

Eating the Fruit

Genesis 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ 2 The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ 4 But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,* knowing good and evil.’ 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Creation of Man and Warning

^{Genesis 2:7 - 17}

⁷then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,^* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. ⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

My comment:

Knowing full well the dangers of interpreting a text such as this in a translation, I am nonetheless going to wade in.  If you know more about this subject than I, please leave comments.  Leave comments in any case.

I am struck by verse 17 where God says that if Adam eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he will die.  Did Adam know what death was?  If he did know, was he willing to trade immortality for knowledge?  Is that simply the nature of being human?

The Bible

In the last few weeks, I have become increasingly aware that people younger than I am are quite unfamiliar with things in The Bible.  Most of my ninth graders looked at me with blank stares the other day when I started talking about Adam and Eve.  Naturally, I filled them in.  It is one of the basic myths of Western Culture. 

Yesterday, I was in a conversation with people in their 30's and 40's discussing an article by Charles Darwin concerning "survival of the fittest."  When I began talking about its relationship to the creation stories in The Bible, one person began talking about the Snake and the Apple; another just stared and did not respond.

I was raised on these stories; most people living today were not.  Therefore, I will begin a series of posts reciting the stories.  Who knows?  I may learn something in the process as well.         

The Heart of the Matter -- More Discussion

In response to the recent post of my painting "The Heart of the Matter," Martha Terrill sent me these comments.  I share them here and ask you to join in the continued discussion.  If you click back to the original post, you can also read comments by Susie and Carla. 

Interesting you should bring that up.   Yesterday, I was in a discussion where one of the participants allowed as there was just no such thing as evil...that it was just a judgment about someone's behavior, which was different than categorizing someone as evil: the behavior was evil, not the person. ( I am over simplifying her statement).

You could have knocked me over with a feather! When I recovered from my shock at her thoughts, I asked her if a person knows that their behavior will harm someone and they deliberately, knowingly harm another person, does that not make the "person" evil, as well as the deed?

Then the discussion segued on to Hitler, Saddam, etc, which is obvious and a gazillion things have been written about them and evil......I am more interested in discussing a singular person, who does evil things and what really constitutes evil.

If you accept the notion that God created the Knowledge of Good and Evil and put the key to that knowledge in the Apple, then the responsibility for that action remains with God. Our responsibility resides in the fact that we now know what the difference is, we have a choice and hopefully we choose Good...because if we don't choose Good (and now know that we deliberately choose Evil) we risk the loss of God's what? protection? Grace? Love?