#3.1Q - Questioning the idea of Wrath between God and Adam

Spirit of Prayer , Questioning the Wrath

Posted on January 22, 2011by In My Anguish

Previously,  Law questions whether God was being wrathful or vengeful  to Adam & Eve because he broke the “Law”.  It's an interesting thought and perhaps a pun, as Genesis is part of the Jewish Torah (the Book of Law), that does indeed set various laws for His people to follow.  Among them are dietary, marital, societal and criminal laws with according punishments; all which He feels would help them lead good and proper lives.

The first of these laws,  is Genesis 2:1-3 where God blesses the 7th Day,  or  he investing the seventh day with the quality of highest value and  giving to those who observe it great advantage.  In short, God  stamped the Sabbath with the seal of Divine approbation; and so “set it apart,” as distinct from the other six days, for sacred purposes.   Our duet, for whatever reason, seems to have had no problem with this one.

No, it was the second rule, "⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” which interesting was given to Adam right before Eve was created that the dynamic duo seemed to have some trouble accepting though the idea of death wish does enter the mind.  After such an admonition, the question arises, Would you have eaten it?

Frankly, I would have been scared, but Eve tricked by the snake falls for the dupe and does but God in His kindness does not "kill them" outrightly.  Instead he gives them a mortal life so that eventually they will die.

This though is often portrayed, by Hollywood and innumerous others,  portrays God as wrathful towards Adam and Eve.  They also put much more emphasis on Eve giving Adam, apple much more than Rev. Law is here.

In John Huston's  epic, "The Bible..in the Beginning" God is shown very clearly as angry and mean about the whole thing.  Unfortunately this movie is not on Youtube,  but it still can be found on Netflix for those with accounts and there maybe other sites if you search.

Still, the basic idea of most of these movies is that God is mad, God is angry and the lightning comes down from the heavens and chases them out of Paradise. That isn't quite what did happen and while there might have been "lightning" it was in the form of two circling seraphim with lighting bolts to stop them from re-entering.

Reverend  Law takes this and shows very clearly that there is no anger by God  with Adam, and God also  clearly puts the blame on Adam and not Eve; instead there is great disappointment with a mournful God asking his boy, Why would you listen to her and not me?  Why didn't you trust me?

That is a  far cry from the feminist propaganda of God hating Eve and blaming her for the fall.  Here it is more logical -- why would you listen to someone other than me for advice?    We won't be hearing that kind of pointed questioning under we get to Proverbs as for a while there is more concern about the Adam's family's existence in the new world than the questioning of whose lead you are blindly following.

So with Law taking a different tacit here, and saying that while the positing the ideas of of Justice and Severity in the Mosaic sense, since there is now a Saviour (coming centuries afterwards,) that original view is wrong and untrue. But to be honest, isn’t that just revisionist thinking?

 Does the actual texts, not the Midrash (the Jewish exegesis of the Torah) imply that, or is Reverend Law (1686 - 1761) making a very educated leap ahead based on his admiration of German mystic  Jakob Boehme?

                                          Christ driving the Traders from the Temple - El Greco

The thought intrigues me, and I realize so much of Genesis (absolutely one of the best books in the OT) is now wrapped with Hollywood mythology, it is hard to separate the two and remember the actual words, so let's see what it says and whether close reading supports Law's view:

Genesis 2

2:5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain , and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 2:6 Natural Springs though would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 

2:7 So the Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

2:8 [and] The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. 2:9 And He made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.) … 

2:15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. 2:16 Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”…

3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, 3:5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”

3:6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

3:14 The Lord God said to the serpent,“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life.

3:15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; her offspring will attack your head,and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”

3:16 To the woman he said,“I will greatly increase your labour pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”

3:17 To Adam he said, “Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you not to do, ‘You must not eat from it,’ so cursed is the ground thanks to you; and in painful toil you will eat from it all the days of your life.3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,but you will eat the grain of the field.

3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

3:20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 3:21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

3:22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

3:23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.3:24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

We can see that Reverend Law is right:   God curses the snake but not his children.  He  warns them of the new life that is to come, that it will be hard & full of travails,  and to show that he is not bitter or wrathful, God himself fashions the first clothes to protect them against the elements as they make their way into the world beyond Eden.