November 27, 2008

Genesis 3.20->

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, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil! And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever!"- -Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till 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 which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

1 comment:

forrest said...

We're getting beyond fig leaves (Thank God, ow!) but it evidently required divine intervention for us to think of that. But did this require the slaughter of the previous occupants of these skins? By Adam, or God directly?

"Like one of us." How far may we take this "like"?

Did we really acquire the power of a god/spirit/angel? Or does this refer to a counterfeit power, a power that apes God's activity but with such inferior quality that what we do with it, so far as we aren't attuned to God's purposes, must go awry? (And what is sufficiently "attuned" in this sense? Good intentions- -although that inspired statement that they pave the way to Hell has been unaccountably left out of every Bible where I've ever looked for it- -don't seem to be sufficient!)

I read- -and think it true- -that it is possible for us to let God do for/with us. Erich Schiffman's yoga book speaks of yoga as a means of learning to let God do that. This does not mean, by the way, becoming a sort of will-less zombie, but rather learning to expect, and heed subtle promptings that would otherwise get lost in the constant activity of "What I'm doing."

As others have noted, this passage also suggests that physical immortality is not the impossibility it seems to us. But in the usual state of people's mind/heart/spirits it would evidently not have been good for us.