The Mystery of Eve and Adam

A Prophetic Critique of the Monarchy

Moe-Lobeda

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621891680
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

What if the story of Eve and Adam was not meant to be a story about creation and the origin of life? What if Eve and Adam were not personifications of all women and men? What if the curse on the woman had nothing to do with the physical pain of giving birth? What if working by the sweat of the brow was a description of the slavery that existed under the monarchy? What if being cast out of the garden of Eden was a metaphor for the deportation of people from Judah to Babylon?The author of this book takes readers on a journey of inquiry leading to the conclusion that the story of Eve and Adam was authored by the theological school of Jeremiah in order to dissuade the Judean people never to reinstate the monarchy after their return from Babylon--a monarchy that previously was responsible for so much infant mortality, subjugation of women, and enslavement of its own people. At the heart of this journey is the discovery that Eve and Adam actually are metaphors for Israel and Judah--two nations that chose to have a king like other nations and suffered the consequences.

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The Lens of Genesis 3:14–19

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. 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.” To the woman the Lord God 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.” And to the man the LORD God 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; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 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.”

As a young boy, I was taught that the physical pain that my mother experienced when she gave birth to me was the result of Eve’s disobedience and was evidence of the sinfulness of humankind. Similarly, I learned that the reason that my father had to work so hard in order to put food on our table was based upon the fact that Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. For most of my life, I felt uneasy about this explanation for the physical pain that women experience in childbirth and the labor that men have to endure in order to make a living. Consequently, twenty years ago, I began to search through the literature pertaining to these statements in Genesis 3, only to discover that for almost 2,200 years, no matter how differently scholars have interpreted this story, most scholars have deviated very little from this explanation about the cause of this pain and labor in the story of Eve and Adam.

One of the most important distinctions among all of these different explanations is whether or not these experiences of the woman and the man in Genesis 3 are prescriptive or descriptive. If they are prescriptive, then the pain for women in giving birth and the labor for men in earning a living have been determined by God as a result of human disobedience. A prescriptive interpretation of these experiences often assumes that prior to human disobedience, this pain and labor were non-existent in God’s creation. If these verses about the pain of women and the labor of men are descriptive, then they reflect the real conditions that exist in this world without attributing them to any specific cause. From this perspective, God is portrayed as describing how things are in this world as opposed to stating how things have to be. Not every interpretation of these six verses in Genesis 3 fits neatly into these two categories. However, most scholars tend to interpret the pain for women in giving birth and the labor for men in earning a living either prescriptively or descriptively.

Prescriptive Interpretations

Augustine is one of the best examples in setting the tone for a prescriptive interpretation of these experiences described in Genesis 3. He insisted that through an act of will, Eve and Adam did change the structure of the universe. By their single, willful act, human nature, as well as nature in general, was corrupted permanently. He believed that once-upon-a-time women could experience painless childbearing, but as punishment for Eve’s willful disobedience, all women suffer nausea, illness, and pains of pregnancy as well as the painful contractions of parturition that accompany normal labor. According to Augustine, as a result of Eve’s disobedience, not only do many women experience the greater agonies of miscarriage, tortures inflicted by doctors, or the shock and loss of giving birth to an infant stillborn or moribund, many women also give birth to a child that is blind, deaf, deformed, without the use of limbs, insane, or afflicted with a chronic or fatal disease. Similarly, when Adam sinned, all nature was changed for the worse. God originally placed the man in Eden in order to till the soil and cultivate it without any labor, but as a result of Adam’s disobedience, every man has to experience pain, frustration, and hardship in his labor.1 John Chrysostrom reinforced this perspective by stating that every time that a woman gives birth to a child, the pain is the personal reminder of the magnitude of Eve’s sin of disobedience, never to be forgotten. The only thing that will balance this pain is the satisfaction of bearing a child.2

Martin Luther tried to look on the bright side of this punishment by insisting that in spite of Eve’s disobedience, women get to keep the blessing of a sexual relationship, procreation, and motherhood. However, as far as the entire process of conception and birth is concerned, the joy of procreation is threatened by headaches, dizziness, nausea, loathing of food and drink, vomiting, stomach disorder, and cravings. In addition to the physical pain of giving birth, the distress that women felt about whether or not they would survive the process of childbirth also was a woman’s punishment for Eve’s disobedience. Similarly, Luther acknowledged that before Adam sinned, no part of the earth was barren or inferior. However, as a result of sin, the earth became barren, was defaced with weeds, thorns, and thistles, and made life hard for the farmer. In fact, with the increase of sin, God’s punishment included diseases, frost, lightning, storms, floods, hail, and even earthquakes.3

This prescriptive interpretation of these experiences of the woman and the man in Genesis 3 is not limited to theologians from centuries ago. Modern scholars also reflect this theology no matter whether they believe that Eve and Adam are real historical figures or believe that they represent all women and men throughout human history. A few examples of this modern-day interpretation of the pain of women and the labor of men as described in Genesis 3 will suffice in demonstrating that this understanding about the consequences of human sin is still alive in our modern society.

According to Charles Aalder, the physical pain for women in giving birth is the punishment for Eve’s disobedience.4 David Cline states that God severely punished Eve by promising to make the one thing that she had been created to do difficult for her. As a childbearing creature, Eve would have to suffer pain in childbirth as often as she conceives and carries the baby to full term.5 Susan Foh claims that experiencing pain in giving birth describes the result of the fall and the consequences of sin that have subverted the created order forever.6 According to Mary Hayter, childbearing itself is not a punishment for sin, but the consequence of this transgression is the increase of pain in bringing forth the fruits of the body.7 William Phipps concludes that the consequence of Eve’s misuse of moral freedom is the pain that she must endure in childbirth.8 Adrien Bledstein points out that to ...

Table of contents

• The Mystery of Eve and Adam
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Lens of Genesis 3:14–19
• Chapter 2: The Lens of Isaiah 65:17–25
• Chapter 3: The Lens of Conquest and Deportation
• Chapter 4: The Lens of the Historians
• Chapter 5: The Lens of the Prophets
• Chapter 6: The Lens of Deportation and Return
• Chapter 7: The Lens of Jeremiah
• Chapter 8: The Lens of the Book of Jeremiah
• Chapter 9: The Lenses of History, Politics, and Metaphor
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography