His arm shall be on the Chaldeans (Isaiah 47)

Isaiah chapter 47 has a lot of symbolic language, but it's not clear (to me at least) what the level of symbolism is. There's a lot of talk in the beginning addressed to the "virgin daughter of Babylon," which could mean Babylon as a whole, or perhaps the women of the conquered empire of Babylon, or maybe even the queen or a princess of Babylon. The SAB marks verses two and three for "Sex" because it talks about her nakedness, but once again (especially if it's referring to the nation) this could be simply symbolic of the shame of being conquered, although if it's referring to actual women, it could be literal.

Verse one mentions Chaldeans, which is worth a moment of reflection. (This name hasn't come up prominently in anything I've covered except tangentially in the fact that Abraham may have been a Chaldean, as he came from Ur, see Genesis chapter eleven.) The thing is, "Chaldeans" can refer to four different groups of people, which all have some overlap. 1) People who live in the lower Tigris and Euphrates region, 2) various subjects of the Babylonian Empire, 3) people trained in the art of divination (this comes up mostly in Daniel), and 4) a specific ethnic group from the region in (1). These are used pretty interchangeably. Anyway, it's not clear which sense of the word is being used here, as there's stuff in the chapter alluding to all of them, but I thought it was worth discussing.

Verses 13 and 14 are marked for injustice, intolerance, and cruelty, and they come at the end of a larger discussion of Babylon's arrogance and reliance on sorcerers of various sorts. I suppose you could say the SAB has a point here, but the point Isaiah is trying to make is that the Babylonians themselves were cruel, and didn't rely on God, and at least the former is something skeptics should understand. I think the language here about "the fire shall burn them" is likely not meant to be literal, but simply is using fire as a metaphor for the level of destruction that would come upon Babylon. See this post for general reflection on the topic of people being burned to death in the Bible.

And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied (Isaiah 20)

It's time for Isaiah chapter 20 and the crazy antics of God's appointed prophets! This time, God has Isaiah walk around barefoot and naked for three years as a sign and a wonder (as in people "wonder" why he's naked, I assume?) to show how Assyria will lead away Egypt and Ethiopia (probably Cush) naked and barefoot in the future. The SAB marks most of this chapter with "Absurd" and "Sex" (mere nudity seems like a stretch to me, but I guess it's fair), which, yeah, it's pretty wacky, but I bet it delivers a message effectively.

What does the Bible say about nudism? There's actually a lot more nudity in the Bible than this, but I realized the title was "nudism", which implies being naked on purpose which I suppose all these examples are with the exception of Adam and Eve, although it feels like it belongs here because they're not getting dressed any time soon. I think it needs to be said that not necessarily all of these are talking about someone being completely naked; I think it's likely that Jonathan, David, "a certain young man" (probably John Mark), Jesus, and Peter, were probably in their underwear, and there's really nothing in Exodus 33:23 that suggests God is naked, if that's even meaningful for what's going on there. Adam and Eve really are a special case nonetheless, because the idea is that clothing doesn't even exist yet in Genesis chapter two, and they don't care because they don't know the difference. I have actually heard at least one sermon in which it was suggested that this is saying something about the intimacy of marriage, actually, which may be a stretch, but I know for myself when there's nobody around except my wife, I have no problem with nudity. I think Saul, although naked, was not voluntarily naked, but it's a strange passage indeed. Micah indeed talks about being naked, but I don't see anything in context that really explains why; verse 11 talks about "having thy shame naked" but what this phrase is supposed to mean is beyond me. So in the end, it's really just a couple of prophets that are practicing nudism, one (Isaiah) giving a reason why that's clear, and one (Micah) giving a more opaque explanation.

The LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD (2Sam 6)

In chapter 6, David decides that it's time to send for the ark and bring it to Jerusalem. This prompts a question of timing of this event, about which I have already given an opinion.

Now, the manner in which this happens is important. As the Philistines did when they had the ark and wanted to get rid of it, the Israelites get a new cart, load it up, and bring it along. This is a problem. When the ark is to be moved, the proper method of transport is supposed to be having it carried on foot by Levites. The Philistines, between the fact of their being (relatively) ignorant pagans and perhaps the more important fact of them not having Levites were able to get away with loading the thing on a cart. For the Israelites, handling the ark of God in such a cavalier manner led to God's wrath striking down Uzzah.

Where exactly was it that Uzzah was struck down? I don't see this as a problem the way the SAB does. While we are given two names for the location of this event, the fact that this account and the one in 1Chronicles 13 were written far apart in time may mean that the place was known differently at the later date. Childon was probably a descendant of Nachon, and both of them at various times owned a threshing floor at the place called Perezuzzah. (Edited to add that the name "Perezuzzah" was clearly a name given to the place because Uzzah was struck down there, so the name came after the incident.)

So eventually, they seem to get it figured out, and they transport the ark on foot, making sacrifices to God along the way. David comes along with the procession, dancing as it goes. Now, I'll admit that what's going on here is not completely clear, but I don't agree with the SAB's reading, neither that there might have been something wrong with David dancing, nor that David was somehow nude. Note that it does not say that David was naked, but rather that he was clothed in an ephod, which was a priestly garment. I think Michal was simply, for some reason, feeling that David was making a fool of himself by the way he was acting, which she felt was improper for a king. David's reply is that he doesn't care what people think, he just loves God.

Now the final note of this chapter says that Michal "had no child unto the day of her death." The SAB makes a surprising evaluation of this fact, calling it a contradiction (which I don't think it is, more in a moment) but not marking it with "Injustice" or "Women", which I probably would have. The Bible seems to be suggesting that Michal was made infertile as a punishment for arguing with her husband, which seems a bit extreme to me, but maybe there's something to this story I'm missing. (It might be that David simply never had sex with her again.) As for the contradiction, I assume that the children that Michal is reported to have had were all born before this incident.

And if a man shall lie with... (Exod. 22:19 et al, sexual immorality)

I thought I had covered beastiality in my post on animal rights. I guess not. It's hard to keep track of what I was intending to do sometimes, I guess, but I'll assume I was leaving it for this post, where I will try to go over the broad topic of sexual sins in the Mosaic Law. For those wanting to keep track, I'm going to assume that the SAB has covered the topic properly and draw from its notes, which implies the subjects I'll be covering here will be from Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Deuteronomy 22 and Deuteronomy 27, although a brief mention is made here in Exodus 22 of one of many issues. I'm aware that those are not the only passages in the Law that relate to things of a sexual nature, but tangential things like menstruation and whatnot I will leave for another time. (I give an open invitation to keep me honest on this matter, it will actually be helpful for me because sometimes I miss a topic and don't realize it.)

Sexual sin is a difficult topic to address, because for most people, it's much more of a matter of opinion than things like murder or stealing. I'm pretty sure that everyone has an imaginary line they've drawn in their head that they feel to cross that line would be doing wrong. Some people think masturbation is a sin (although the Bible addresses the matter only indirectly) while others do not. Some people think homosexuality is a sin (which the Bible does address, although not in great depth) while others do not. Most people think sexual relations with someone below a certain age is wrong, although most people differ on what age that is, and it may be flexible in their minds depending on the age and gender of the older partner (for instance, a lot of people see a big difference between a 50-year-old man having sex with a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year old woman having sex with a 17-year-old boy, although both may have the same technical legal status). I don't know that I can do much better than to simply give the facts as listed in the Bible and address the surrounding issues as best I can.

So, who should a man not have sex with? (I've always noticed that there is a possible issue with sexism in that God gives all of these rules to men, but it's quite likely He means them for both genders, simply not addressing the converse.) Leviticus 18 gives a bit of list of people whose "nakedness...shalt thou not uncover" (a euphemism), starting with "any that is near of kin". This is a bit vague, perhaps, but the chapter continues and gives specifics. Your father or mother (v. 7), your stepmother (v. 8), your sister even if she's only a half-sister (v. 9), your granddaughter (v. 10-11), your aunt or uncle (v. 12-14), your daughter-in-law (v. 15), your sister-in-law (v. 16), or any of the above relations in regard to your wife (v. 17-18). In addition to relatives, men are warned not to have sex with a menstruating woman (v. 19), another man's wife, (v. 20) another man (v. 22) or an animal (v. 23).

Now, in response to these issues, the SAB says a few specific things. I don't see that it says that it outright disagrees with these, but neither is it in full accord, of course. In the matter of incest, I'm going to assume that the SAB is in agreement, generally. While in some places it is not considered wrong to marry one's cousin (and it's also legal in many places, including here in California) I think most people would agree that the relations listed above are just a bit too close to be comfortable, not for genetic reasons, but emotional ones. The SAB does think that this list has an element of absurdity to it. While it doesn't make it perfectly clear what is absurd about the list, the note next to the first group may be intended to be a clarifier. Perhaps it's funny to talk of "uncovering the nakedness" of someone. First of all, as I said and I think is easy to pick up from larger context, this is probably a sexual euphemism. However, if it's not a sexual euphemism, I'm not sure what's absurd about it. Should you go around tearing the clothes off of your relatives? Of course not! Perhaps the ridiculousness was the thought it had to be said at all? Also, the SAB repeatedly labels this passage with the "Language" icon, which as I said elsewhere, I don't really understand. I'm not seeing foul language in this passage myself, just frank discussion of the issue at hand.

The SAB also points to the issue of incest and apparent contradictions on the matter. I have addressed this before, but I think it's useful to address it again here. When God handed down the Law to the Israelites, it was the first time He said anything about incest. The fact that incest had occurred previous to this point doesn't make it right or wrong, it just happened. Both Abraham and Jacob had marriage relationships that would have been forbidden under this Law, but they weren't under this law, so at least they were not violating a command from God. I may be wrong, but I believe Moses' parents were the last incestuous couple mentioned in the Bible that were not punished for their relationship.

Well, one of the real issues when it comes to sexual sin in the Bible is that we later find out that these are capital crimes. Well, most of them are; the punishment varies. Some involve being stoned to death, some burning, a few involve being cast out of society, and a couple seem to invoke supernatural curses of childlessness. Why kill people for doing these things? Well, I did touch on the topic of capital punishment earlier, but I probably should address these sexual sins in specific. As I said in that post, there is an issue of the nature of an ancient society with no effective centralized government or infrastructure; it's hard to punish crimes with anything much between light monetary fines and execution. Israel had no prisons, especially in their days of wandering in the desert. My post on witches talked a fair bit about why people were killed for religious transgressions, and while it was not satisfying to many skeptics I'm sure, I'm satisfied with what I wrote there. Can I address this the same?

Oddly enough, religious and sexual transgressions seem to be the two main categories of reasons for execution. God thinks highly of our intimacy with Him and with each other. The fact is, there is actually a certain amount of overlap, too. In Leviticus 20, There is some talk about the pagan god Molech. There was a practice in those days among pagans of a particular stripe to have illicit sexual encounters at a festival for Asherah. If they happened to get pregnant during this festival, the baby that was born would be given to the god Molech. Molech's idols were, if I remember this correctly, made of metal, and had outstretched arms. A fire would be set under Molech until he glowed with the heat, and then the live babies would be put into his arms to be burned. Thus it was a pagan practice of the time that involved sexual sin, idolatry, and murder, essentially the three things that would result in capital punishment in Israel. This is considered by many to be both a symbolic and literal example of what said in James 2:10: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." If you were participate in an Asherah festival, there's a good chance you're going to end up paying tribute to Molech as well. In sexual sin, you sin against yourself, against your partner, against God and in many cases against an as-yet unborn child who, though innocent, may have to suffer for your mistake. Sexual sin is indeed very serious, but sex kept within the confines of marriage is not only something that pleases God, but is something that cuts down one's chances of contracting STDs and creating unwanted pregnancies. While some scoff at the idea of "sexual sin", thinking it only a religious issue, the truth is that the way in which we express ourselves sexually has not just spiritual implications, but moral, physical and legal implications as well.

One last thing should be noted about this matter in stark contrast to many of the other aspects of the Mosaic Law. It's a common tactic among critics of Christianity these days to say, "Oh, you think X is wrong because the Bible says so? Well, why don't you (insert some oddity from the Mosaic Law like how one should supposedly kill one's neighbor for wearing mixed fabrics)?" It's true that the Law is full of items that sound strange to the ears of people living in a modern westernized world, but as I have said in numerous recent posts, the Mosaic Law applies only to Jews, and in some cases, only to Jews living in Israel. So why do Christians point to passages in the Law that denounce sexual immorality? Well, they're not wrong to do so, but don't worry critics, there's still an element or two of hypocrisy I think you can legitimately rail against.

In Acts 15, there's a story of the early Church fathers, and how they debated whether or not the Law applied to a gentile who became a Christian. If you become a Christian, must you therefore also be Jewish? They debated and finally came up with a decision. The essence is in Acts 15:29:

"That ye [non-Jewish Christians] abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well."

Thus, other than the Ten Commandments, the only thing that God expects from non-Jews is that they stay sexually pure and don't eat meat that has been (1) part of a pagan ritual, (2) killed cruelly or (3) not drained of blood. So next time a Christian tries to argue that the Bible condemns certain sexual practice, don't bring up the fact that his shirt is a poly-cotton blend (which in the end really is a non-sequitur), instead ask him if he likes to eat gravy, which is usually made from cooked fat and blood. I'll admit it: I'm guilty.

A nice bloody steak anyone?

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom (Exod 20:18-26)

After the declaration of the Ten Commandments is complete, the people get a bit freaked out. Apparently, they find the overt presence of God in the area to be a bit much for them, and ask Moses to relay messages to them rather than having God speak directly to them. Moses tells them something that is an interesting turn of phrase,

Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

So, don't have fear of God, because He's come here to give you fear. Huh? You can't get out of this one by referring back to the Hebrew, since both words are from the same root. What you do have to appeal to in order to understand this is that "fear" in Biblical terms has different shades of meaning. You can fear something in that you can be terrified of it, or you can fear something in that you can have respect for its power. While it would be nice to have separate words for these different concepts in the Hebrew and in the English, we really don't. (The Amplified Bible inserts the word "reverential" before the second instance.) Oh well.

Then God starts to tell Moses some laws, which is largely the beginning of God dictating the whole of the Mosaic law that will be committed to paper over the course of the rest of this book and the three following, interspersed with commentary about important moments in their journey to the Promised Land. The Mosaic Law is admittedly fairly tedious reading, is often repeated (note the first thing God brings up is concerning idolatry), and isn't arranged in the sort of organized fashion we expect in modern times from legal documents, but it is important to a full understanding of the Bible and the nature of God. It's also full of SAB marginal notes that I'll have to address, so no skipping for me.

I have already commented on sacrifices, which I also considered to be a good answer to the issue of burnt offerings, so all that remains is the note on the "nakedness" of priests serving at the altar. Um, yeah, I guess it is sort of a funny concept, that if they go up high people might be looking up their robes. What's the question?

Wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. (Gen 9:5-29)

Does God approve of capital punishment? That's actually a very good question, and one that many of us wish had a simpler answer. The fact is, God's view of capital punishment in the Bible is a question that would require the study of far more verses than the two quoted here. You'd have to look at passages like the one in which a man is killed for gathering firewood on a Saturday, or where Jesus forgives a woman caught in adultery (but never denies that adultery is a capital crime!), and many others. The short simple answer is, yes, God does approve of capital punishment; the long answer would be an extensive study on what sorts of things God considers worthy of death, and why, and when and why God prefers mercy. I don't believe I'm qualified to give an adequate response of the long sort, but I'd be willing to discuss my views on it in the comments section if anyone really is curious.

Verses 8-17 talk about the covenant that God makes that He will never destroy the world again through a flood, and He offers the rainbow as a sign of that covenant. The main beef that the SAB seems to have with this concept is a scientific one, that being that rainbows are a natural phenomenon. Personally, I don't see why this should be a problem. Just because rainbows may have existed before this covenant was made doesn't mean that God can't use them as a symbolic gesture. Take the early Christians as an example. They were of the habit of using a simple drawing of a fish as a symbol of their faith. Fishes existed before Christianity did, but they decided to use the symbol for their own purposes.

However, my own personal theory that I admittedly have little scientific basis for goes back to the water canopy theory. It seems to me that if the entire earth was covered with a layer of water acting a shield of some sort, then sunlight may not have refracted in precisely the way it does today. Furthermore, regarding this theory, you might remember that I had briefly speculated that it may never have rained before the flood. If it never rained, then there would never have been a rainbow. All of this is in the area of wilder speculation, of course, and the more important aspect of this part of the story is the symbolic aspect. The rainbow, as we now know, is not an actual bow, but is instead a circle that we only see part of from our vantage point standing on the earth. God uses the rainbow as a symbol, knowing that when we look at it, it will look like a bow, but without an arrow on the string. The symbolism is that God has fired this weapon He has, and He intends to now set it down, never to pick it up again.

The rest of the chapter is pretty much all about the drunkenness of Noah and the curse of Canaan. This is obviously a very strange story, and a lot of it that nobody really fully understands. The SAB gives a link to an excellent article on The Straight Dope, a site that I have a great deal of admiration for in many of these matters. (Even when I disagree with their conclusions, I respect the scholarship that went into them and consider them about as unbiased as it gets on the Internet.) It does seem a little odd to me that they link to an article that gives some straightforward answers to many of the questions they raise right before the link.

First of all, being drunk doesn't necessarily mean that you're not righteous, and I think it's perhaps quite understandable that after seeing the entire world destroyed, Noah might feel the need for a good drink, whether out of shock or guilt or depression. Secondly, being naked is also not a sin, especially if it's in the privacy of your own home (or tent as the case may be).

"What did [Ham] do besides look at him?" the SAB asks. First of all, looking at him alone is not entirely inoffensive; I think Noah has a right to some privacy, and Ham's violating that. On top of personally violating his father's privacy, Ham goes and tells his brothers that this is going on, as if it's their business! Granted, on the face of it, there seems to be very little reason to go so far as to put a curse on someone, and even if Noah was justified, it's not too clear why he curses Canaan rather than Ham. The Straight Dope gives the only possibility that even begins to make sense to me, that being that since Ham shamed his father, Noah shamed Ham's son. I don't know, though really, although there are a number of interesting speculations given in the article there. Actually, something that occurs to me now is that since at this time Canaan is the only offspring of Ham mentioned, he may in fact be the only one at this time, and Noah may be using Canaan's name as a generic label for all the descendants of Ham. Not that it fully justifies the curse, but it might make more sense.

Does God approve of slavery? That's a tough question that has been struggled with for a long, long time. You may have heard this sort of response before, but I do think it's the correct one. Yes, God does approve, but it depends on the definition of slavery. In Exodus 21, it's made clear that among the Israelites that slavery is never to be a permanent thing, and furthermore, slavery is essentially a voluntary position. There are some exceptions that get complicated, but the idea is that if a person sank into poverty and could no longer afford food, one could sell oneself to another person (but you couldn't sell someone else), and then they were bound to serve that person for six years, or until their price could be paid back, whichever came first. Maybe it's not ideal, but it's not the same as we think of slavery from the early 1800s, not by a long shot. (For more observations on the nature of Biblical slavery, see this post.)

But the SAB asks the excellent question "Are we punished for the sins of others?" Yes and no. Sometimes, we end up having to take responsibility for the sins of our parents and grandparents just because it's the natural result of what they did. For instance, when a pregnant woman abuses drugs, her child is often born with health problems, and that's not a curse or a punishment, it's just the way things are. Some things are more subtle, like parents dying and leaving you with their debts to settle, parents doing bad things to you that leave you emotionally scarred, and so forth. In general, it's just a fact that people tend to follow in their parents' footsteps, and if you do something that you really ought not do, your children may be cursed for it not because God's angry at you, but because they decided to follow in your footsteps. This may not account for every instance on the page linked, but I think it accounts for a lot of them, and I'll discuss other ones when I get to them. In this case, it may be the fact that Ham's immoral act performed for Canaan to witness it may have led Canaan into a sinful life which in turn led his descendants into sinful ways of their own. So think about the example you set for your children, all you parents out there.

To die is gain (Gen 3:20-24)

The SAB takes issue with the statement that Eve is "the mother of all living", but for an odd reason. Well, at least I think it's odd. The issue is not with the concept that all humans are descended from a common female ancestor (and actually, I think biology may teach that to be the case, someone can correct me if I'm wrong) but that there was supposedly a man named Melchizedek who had no ancestry. I'm going to save discussion of Melchizedek for chapter 14, where he shows up in person. This guy is definitely an oddball in the Bible, and there are more than a few theories concerning his nature.

God makes some fur coats for Adam and Eve, which the SAB labels as an absurdity, but doesn't explain why. This is actually a much more significant event than most people get on a surface reading, and is worth noting. Previously, Adam and Eve had covered themselves with fig leaves, and before that, they ran around naked. This indicates to me that the issue of clothing was a matter of covering up nakedness, and not a matter of protecting against the cold. Yet God feels there is a need to give them furs to cover them. A pattern throughout the Bible is the idea that sin leads to death; but not always the death of the person who sins. In this case, while Adam's death is put off for at least another 800 years, God can't let it rest without the death of some animals. This is actually the beginning of the sacrificial system, and the idea that the only thing that can cover up the sin of the guilty is the blood of the innocent. Don't ask me why, I don't understand it well myself.

After giving them the skins, God expresses concern that Adam and Eve have access to the tree of life. (Comments on God using "us" are back here.) Apparently eating the fruit from the tree of life will make one immortal. I think the SAB has a bit of a clear misreading in its notes here, however*; God isn't afraid that mankind will become like God by eating the tree of life, He's grieved that they have already become like Him by eating the forbidden fruit. Note that the tree of life was not a tree they were banned from eating, but the situation has changed. As I said before, now the world is not a pleasant place to be in, and mankind has become separated from God. In order to fix both these situations, God decides that it will be an act of mercy to let mankind die. In dying, they will have the chance to be separated from their physical sinfulness and eventually brought back into a relationship with God in Heaven. Remember, in Christian theology, death is not a bad thing in and of itself. If you desire to be with God, then you will be. If you desire to have God leave you alone, then that will happen for you.

Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, and a guard is set to make sure that nobody goes back in and gets to the tree of life. It would be very tempting for someone to go and eat from that tree, but it would be wrong to do so, because it would make their life a living Hell.

I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' book The Magician's Nephew, which Lewis clearly intended to be an allegory of a sort for the Genesis story. Near the end of the book, the main character, a boy named Digory discusses with Aslan (symbolic of Jesus) how he was tempted to steal a magic apple to take home to his sick mother. A witch had told him that the apple would have healed her sickness. Aslan responds to Digory:

"Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness."

Like Digory's mother, we're all suffering from an illness known as sin, and to have eaten an apple that made us live forever would not so much cure the illness as treat one of the symptoms. We're all going to die someday, and it's something that everyone ought to know, but even Christians often forget, but dying is not a loss, it's just stepping into the next phase of our existence, and one that for many of us will be a much better one.

*SAB notes have been changed since the writing of this entry; see comments.

And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen 3:7-13)

I think many children go through a process like this at some point in their life: having their eyes opened, as it were. There comes a day when you realize that you have the freedom to act against your parents' will. This happens at different ages and in different ways, but whatever it is, you suddenly realize your own power as a free individual, and it changes the way you see the world around you. Oh my gosh, mommy and daddy don't know everything! Well, in this case, God is the parent, and He does know everything. But the fact that He knows everything and has the ability to control everything doesn't mean that it's something He's going to flaunt. Still, the man and woman had their outlook on God change.

The very first manifestation of this was noticing that they were naked. There's once again something literal and figurative in this. All throughout the Bible, there's a linkage between the themes of clothing and sin. In particular, I've always thought it was interesting to look at the parallel between this chapter and the story of the crucifixion. The man and the women sin against the will of God; Jesus becomes sin according to the will of God. The man and the women are separated from God's presence by guarding cherubim; the curtain of the Jewish temple which is embroidered with cherubim and separates man from God is torn open. God gives mankind clothing by killing an animal; mankind takes Jesus' clothing and kills Him on the cross. It's an interesting symbolic and literal reversal on many levels. In any case, they suddenly realize they've got something shameful to cover up.

The next thing that happens is that God "shows up". I put it in quotes because, as the SAB points out, there's some trouble you run into if you take verse 8 fully literally. Here's God in the garden, walking and talking like just some other guy, it almost seems. But we do know both from scripture and from commonly accepted doctrine that God has no body. A very likely possibility is of this passage being figurative; to some extent, it must be since God is also omnipresent. Then again, having no corporeal substance and being omnipresent at the same time is also a problem. I think it simply has to be accepted that God was literally there in the garden in some form, because even if he has no "body", He's everywhere, which includes the garden. So the sense of omnipresence is a spiritual rather than physical thing necessarily. (I hope this is making some sort of sense, I'm not feeling really well today for some reason.)

Another thing that is also often accepted, though, is that God does, at times, cause Himself to take on a physical human-like form (if not actually human). The man and woman perhaps experienced Him often in this form, visiting them in the garden. This time, when they heard Him coming, they hid. The fact that they hid from an omniscient being doesn't pose a conundrum, nor does the fact that God asks them where they are. My own children sometimes climb into my bed and pull the covers over their head to hide, completely missing the fact that the child-sized lump in the bed discloses their location. If I say, "Where are you?" I'm not admitting ignorance, but feigning it for the purpose of playing along in a little hide-and-seek. God's not playing, but throughout the Bible, God asks people questions He already knows the answer to in order to give them a chance to confess and seek forgiveness. I've heard some pastors muse that if Adam had only popped out and said, "Alright, I was hiding because I was ashamed that I ate the fruit, and now I'm afraid I'm going to die, please forgive me?" that things would have been, well not back to perfect, but better in any case.

God even gives Adam a second chance, hinting at the truth. Adam takes the chance to put the blame not only on his wife, but God Himself: "The woman (yeah, it was the woman, that's right, I was just standing here!) whom thou gavest (wait a minute, wasn't it God's idea that I had to have this trouble-maker with me? Yeah, I think this was His fault; I want my rib back!) to be with me..." The woman even tries to pass the buck as well. In the end, though, God's not buying any of it.

I think the Bible is a strong supporter of the idea that everyone is responsible for their own choices. I think it may sound odd coming in the middle of the story of original sin, and how this one act of eating a piece of fruit ended up changing the world for every human that ever lived, but it fits here. Yes, we are all stained by original sin, and have that sinful nature within us that we inherited from Adam, but at the same time, God will expect us to take responsibility for our own lives and our own destinies. In tomorrow's entry, I'll talk about the curse that came on the world, but I'll also talk a bit more about God's plan to take care of lifting the curse. God does His part, and we do ours. And it's not a meet me halfway deal, it's God coming 100% of the way, and only asking for your response.

That old serpent (Gen 3:1-6)

Although the meaning of the Bible comes through well enough in the English translations, there definitely is some advantage to reading these things in the original Hebrew. God seems to really like poetry and wordplay, and the Old Testament is full of that sort of thing. The word translated here as "subtil" ("cunning", "clever", "crafty" or "shrewd" in other translations) sounds almost identical to the word used in the previous verse for "naked". Aside from sounding interesting, there is likely to be an intention of drawing your mind to the contrast. In chapter two, everything is innocent and out in the open, while here we have a creature who has some sort of secret.

Who is this creature, "the serpent"? I know some people have suggested that we might be talking about a d r a g o n, (pardon the spaces, this post seems to be attracting spam) as the term is used in the book of Revelation and refers back to this event. This holds some appeal, as mythologically, such beasts are often thought of as very dangerous and very clever, and sometimes even talking beasts. I don't think we can quite ignore the way this chapter works out in the end, however, since the serpent is apparently cursed to go upon his belly, which seems a clear reference to snakes as we know them; I'm inclined towards the common understanding of this being partially a tale of why snakes have no legs, since it seems to make sense to read it that way.

Still, a talking snake? What's up with that? One possibility that I've heard is that before the fall, perhaps all creatures were able to freely converse with one another. That has a certain poetic appeal, I think. Another one is that since it seems this snake is possessed by the spirit of Satan, it was through Satan's power that the snake was given the ability of speech. This also has some appeal. I don't see anything in the chapter that seems at all conclusive as to what's going on here though. It's even entirely possible that the snake was communicating non-verbally, if you think about it. If you were standing by a fruit tree and wanted to offer a piece of fruit to another person standing nearby, I think you could easily do so without speaking a word. That might be a bit of a stretch, though.

(This brings up another point about my personal take on the book of Genesis. Since even those who believe that the book of Genesis was divinely inspired believe it was written hundreds of years after the events within it, and actually thousands after these specific events of creation, I don't tend to assume that any dialogue is a direct quote, so to speak. And even the Gospels show that eyewitnesses sometimes don't remember speeches word for word.)

It's interesting that although the serpent is essentially lying from the beginning, when the woman corrects it, she also gets God's command wrong. God never said not to touch the fruit. I've certainly heard it said that this subtle difference may have been part of the problem. Once she touched the fruit and found no ill effects, she may have become confused as to the truth. In any case, the serpent's lie was almost a sort of half-truth, as indeed, they did come to know good and evil. They already knew good, as it was in everything that God had given them, but once they ate the fruit, they knew evil, and it was specifically the evil they themselves had committed in rebelling against God's command.

Whatever the specifics here, however, something that definitely is very interesting is the manner in which she is tempted. She "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise". This is an interesting scriptural pattern that is outlined in 1John 2:16

For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

This suggests that from the beginning throughout history, temptation has always been the same. 1) "If it feels good, do it!" 2) "If it looks good, do it!" and 3) "Look out for #1." This is the same sort of temptation that Jesus got in Luke 4 (and Matthew 4 as well), but He resisted.

So, the big question that every skeptic wants to ask, and rightly so, is why they didn't die at this point? Didn't God say "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"? The answer, which will no doubt not appease most skeptics, is to appeal to figurative speech. The two words here that are key are "day" and "die", and either one or both of them is figurative. I believe both are.

First of all, as I noted before, the term "day" can mean a number of things, not just in the Bible, but in modern usage. Sometimes it means "while the sun is out". Sometimes it means "a 24-hour period". Sometimes it means "an indefinite period of time that has a particular notable characteristic (definitions 6&7 from the above link). It's this latter meaning that is meant here I believe. It was the moment that man rebelled against God and brought sin into the world that the door was also opened for death to enter in. As is said in James 1:15 "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." So God was really saying that once the fruit was eaten, a new era in which people die--including Adam in particular, of course--will begin. Of course, it has lasted up until now, and will continue to last until God changes it somehow.

More subtle is the word "die", however, and this may be more of a Christian viewpoint than a Jewish one, but the manner in which the human race "died" upon eating the fruit was not a physical death, but a spiritual one. We, as a race, died to our innocence; we died to our intimate relationship with God; something profound was lost. Sometimes Christian theologians refer to this as the death of our spirit, which causes us as a race to be all condemned to Hell by default. I have heard other people, Christian or not, refer to the concept that we as living beings in this world are dying a little bit every day. Supposedly that was not the case before the fruit was eaten, because there was no such thing as death.

Of course, the implications of eating the fruit don't stop there. More tomorrow...