{"id":9062,"date":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/blog\/evil-in-the-old-testament-genesis-3-the-fall\/"},"modified":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:00:00","slug":"evil-in-the-old-testament-genesis-3-the-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/blog\/evil-in-the-old-testament-genesis-3-the-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil in the Old Testament – Genesis 3 The Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nNow the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, \u201cDid God actually say, \u2018You shall not eat of any tree in the garden\u2019?\u201d And the woman said to the serpent, \u201cWe may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, \u2018You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.\u2019\u201d But the serpent said to the woman, \u201cYou will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.\u201d 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.<\/p>\n

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d And he said, \u201cI heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.\u201d He said, \u201cWho told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?\u201d The man said, \u201cThe woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.\u201d Then the LORD God said to the woman, \u201cWhat is this that you have done?\u201d The woman said, \u201cThe serpent deceived me, and I ate.\u201d
The LORD God said to the serpent,
\u201cBecause you have done this,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 cursed are you above all livestock
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and dust you shall eat
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and you shall bruise his heel.\u201d
To the woman he said,
\u201cI will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and he shall rule over you.\u201d
And to Adam he said,
\u201cBecause you have listened to the voice of your wife
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018You shall not eat of it,\u2019
cursed is the ground because of you;
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and to dust you shall return.\u201d
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Then the LORD God said, \u201cBehold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever\u2014\u201d therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the Cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

This is the foundation of the image of evil in western culture. It all seems very clear, but when we look at the text there is a mystery in it. The serpent is the true seducing being in this image and it is absolutely unclear who this being actually is. That it is a serpent must have an imaginative notion. It seems to have a kind of wisdom that is opposite to the will of God, and it wants the human being to participate in this wisdom that will open the eyes and give an independent\u00a0 knowledge of good and evil. The human being in the Garden of Eden was not aware of good and evil. The seduction to find the wisdom that is allied to the knowledge of good and evil thus opens the physical eyes of the human being and this means that he becomes aware of the principle of good and evil in God’s creation. Unclear, though, is where evil originates: it is simply there.<\/h2>\n

When we realise then, what in the 21st century after Christ this wisdom has become in humanity, we can at least sense how far we have wandered from the garden of Eden. <\/p>\n

\"Evil
L’arbre de ci\u00e8ncia, 1505.Evil in the Old Testament – Genesis 3 The Fall by Mieke Mosmuller<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.He said to the woman, \u201cDid God actually say, \u2018You shall not eat of any tree in the garden\u2019?\u201d And the woman said to the serpent, \u201cWe may eat of the fruit of the trees in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miekemosmuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}