GENESIS 2 Part 1

This past week, during this process of doing the Spiritual Exercises I read the second creation story in Genesis. Can I just say I love this story? On the surface, it’s just this tale of how God made humans and then humans disobeyed God’s one command and we are all doomed to live in this world that is not a paradise. But it is so much more profound and so much more well written than that. Yes, it is about those things, but it’s also about some of the deeper questions in life: Why is life so hard? Why does growing food take so much work? Why do women have such pain in childbirth? Why do people and animals and plants die? Why can’t we live forever? Who is God? What matters to God? What is our relationship to God? What is our relationship to each other? Not to mention the eternal question of why snakes don’t have legs.

Today, I want to treat you to some of the things that I’ve gleaned from reading this story. The story begins as the Lord God makes the human from the dust of the earth. One of my seminary professors states that we are actually made from the good soil of the earth. We are not dust, we are good, healthy soil; never forget that. Where was I? Oh, yes. God creates the man from earth, and he blows into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. That translation is from the Jewish Publication Society. We bear in our bodies the breath of Life, God‘s breath. Every breath we take is given to us as a gift of God. How great is that? Not only are we made from good, healthy soil but we also bear God’s breath – God’s Spirit in us. And we’re just three and a half verses into the story.

So, God planted a garden (Eden) for the man’s home and food. She (because God is not only male) puts the man in the garden, which is planted with fruit trees and everything that’s good to eat. There’s a river in this beautiful garden to water the trees and other plants. God took the man and planted him in the garden to till it and keep it. He gave the man one commandment. “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it, for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (Gen. 2:16-17, JPS) Now, God put this tree right in the middle of the garden where the man could see it every day, multiple times a day. It looks like a set up to me. How long could you go without taking the fruit and eating it?

I have to say too, this is some excellent foreshadowing. The minute we read this, everyone knows they’re going to eat the fruit. But we’ve forgotten about that by the time we read about the tree again several paragraphs later. Anyway, this scenario brings to mind several questions, the first of which is what does it say about God that They (because God is also non-binary) put this tree smack dab in the middle of the garden and then tell the man, “Don’t eat that.” It’s like telling a toddler not to touch something. Immediately that toddler is going to test the limits. Even my spouse asked, “What about the bark? Can I eat the bark?” when we were discussing the text. Maybe God is flying blind, fumbling in the dark. God’s still learning about their creation. Maybe God is abusive; putting the tree right there and then threatening death if one eats it. It seems harsh to say that about God, but it’s a thought.

Personally, I think God knew what would happen eventually and intended them to eat the fruit. There’s some clues for this in the story that I’ll get into later, but for now, I leave you to ponder the many questions we could ask about and interpretations of God’s intentions and character in just these few verses, and I haven’t gotten to the fun parts yet!

B