Genesis 1 repeatedly describes God’s creation as “good”—even “very good.” So where did this evil serpent come from in Genesis 3? And how could Adam and Eve—if created good—choose evil?
Philip Cary joins me on What in the Word? to discuss.
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Ecclesiastes recounts things, not as they should be, but as they actually are (unfortunately so). In Genesis 1, God creates and repeatedly calls it “good” (Gen 1). In contrast, Ecclesiastes details instance after instances of conditions it declares “vanity.” What is the source of these conditions? The curse.
In Romans 8:20 Paul says God subjected this world to “futility” (or “vanity”). Here he uses the same word for “vanity” as does Ecclesiastes (LXX), and I tend to think he does this intentionally. As such, these conditions (e.g., evil, suffering, and the sorrow they bring) are not the way things are suppose to be. Though may be typical—and so they are, universally so! But they are not normal.
So too, death is a product of the curse (Gen 3). In fact, Ecclesiastes 9 describes death as “an evil.” Death serves as another instance of the “vanity” that has thus far characterizes Ecclesiastes’ account of life “under the sun.”
But death is more than just one “vanity” among the others though. Death functions like the “final boss” of these vanities. It’s the ultimate “vanitizer,” as I have said elsewhere. That is, even if the other vanities don’t get you, this one always does—without exception. According to Ecclesiastes, death casts a long shadow over all that proceeds it, rendering it all “futile.” No matter what you accomplish or experience in this life, what difference does it make when, at the end of the day, death brings it all to naught?
Leo Tolstoy (Christian) and Albert Camus (non-Christian absurdist philosopher) capture well this absurdity that death imposes on our lives:
“My question—that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide—was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man … a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: ‘What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?’ It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”
—Tolstoy, A Confession
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.”
—Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
In other words, Ecclesiastes needs Jesus.
That’s precisely why Paul’s discussion of Christ’s resurrection—the very thing that secures our own—mentions “vanity”/”futility” so frequently throughout 1 Corinthians 15 (four times: vv.2, 10, 14, and 58). It’s a controlling theme in his argument, the operating background to the importance of resurrection. “Futility” results if Christ is not raised. If Christ is not raised, we labor in “vain,” our faith is “vain,” our preaching is in “vain,” etc.
However, as Paul goes on to proclaim in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection (our hope) is what undoes the vanity of death. Or in Romans 8, the “futility” (again, the same word as in Ecclesiastes) to which creation was subjected meets its match at Christ’s return when he resurrects his people and restores all things (Rom 8:20). Christ undoes the realities of Ecclesiastes.
Praise God, the wisdom Ecclesiastes provides is provisional. There will come a day when we no longer live “under [its] sun” by in the light provided by the Son (Rev 22:5).
I attended a “celebration of life” (read: post-funeral party) this afternoon with my wife. It was for my wife’s friend. She was only 36 and had a 3-year-old son. Absolutely tragic.
It was a bit of a weird scene. They had a DJ who was playing dance music and dancing in the corner. Lot’s of drinks, food, and chatter. They were going for good vibes as a way of honoring this woman who lived life full of energy. But it was a jarring juxtaposition given the reason that brought us together.
Have you ever noticed that some don’t call them funerals anymore, “but celebration of life” services? Our culture doesn’t like to deal with death. We like to keep it out of sight and out of mind. We find it unsettling. We probably don’t know what to do with it existentially. So even when we do have to deal with it, like at a funeral, we like to recast it as life, “a celebration of life.”
But the juxtaposition made me think: Gosh, this is all so tragic, this woman dying at the mere age of 36, leaving her son behind who will likely barely even remember her. It’s heart-breaking.
But the reason it’s so heart-breaking isn’t because we’re the natural result of some mere evolutionary process that causes us to develop attachments to others due to its evolutionary advantage, with the byproduct that we grieve their loss. No, the reason we experience such deep tragedy in this world is because it’s haunted by what it should be. And the more beautiful and good something is meant to be, the more tragic and distressing its loss and destruction is.
We don’t just live in a world where unfortunate things happen—and that’s just the way it is. No, I think we sense something more sinister at play. Thus, we’re instinctually unwilling to accept this world as is. We internally want to resist it. We internally protest. We feel it as evil. We deeply sense something has gone wrong, that things are not the way they are suppose to be. And not just that, but that something good and beautiful has been disrupted—making it all the severer.
Think about those movies where a curse is invoked. The curse becomes an active force wreaking havoc, ruining the good, a force of harm. Tragic events aren’t just happenstance, the way things are. They are the torturous workings of the curse. The characters are constantly haunted by its reality. It chases them down. It won’t leave them alone. They struggle to escape it’s presence.
C.S. Lewis speaks of Christianity as the “true myth.” By this, he wasn’t saying that Christianity is unhistorical or untrue. No, he was saying, Christianity makes sense of our myth making. Myths provide meaning. And Christianity is that meaning-making story that explains all of our other attempts to make meaning.
So too Lewis said he believes in Christianity like he believes in the sun, because it illuminates and makes sense of everything else. It resonates with reality, our existential longing, our deep desires and sense of this world. Christianity “resonates” with the way things actually are.
One of the ways I think Christianity resonates with reality is this idea of the curse. When Adam and Eve sin, creation came under God’s curse (Gen 3).
The older I get, the more and more messed up I feel this world and this life are. It’s not just happenstance unfortunate events. It’s like a curse from a movie, an active presence wreaking havoc. We feel the tragedy not merely of unfortunate things we wish weren’t the case but of things we know ought to be beautiful and good, like the life of a young 36-year-old woman and her three-year-old boy.
The following was a short exegetical essay for Dr. Richard E. Averbeck’s Pentateuch and Historical Books course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
In Romans 5 Paul argues that when Adam sinned all of humanity sinned in solidarity with him (5:18). As a result, death entered the world through sin (5:12). Clearly, Paul believed that although death was typical, it is not normal, not the way things should be, a result of the fall, the punishment for sin (cf. Rom 6:23). But does Genesis 3:14-19, God’s announcement of “the curse,” jive with Paul’s theology? Specifically, does v.19’s language of returning to the ground or dust teach that death is an element of the curse?
Many scholars contend that death was not an aspect of the curse. For example, critical scholar, Westermann, argues that v.19c, כִּֽי־עָפָ֣ר אַ֔תָּה וְאֶל־עָפָ֖ר תָּשֽׁוּב, is a proverbial saying that was added to the text and has “no connection either with the curse of the narrative” (263-264).[1] More common is the proposal that this “return to the ground” or “dust” language is not intended to address the entrance of death into the created world; and hence death is not an element of the curse. But rather, this language simply adds intensity to man’s toil, which is an aspect of the curse. As Westermann says, these words “have one function, to underline that man’s work will be full of toil right up to his death; his whole existence will be stamped with it” (267). This language of returning to the dust is only understood correctly in relation to man’s toil (266); it is the term of his toil. In fact, quite contrary to a curse, Westermann understands this reference to death as positive, marking the cessation of this toil (267). Wenham notes that 3:19’s parallel language with 2:7 may be seen as evidence that this “returning to dust” is a part of the natural order (83). And finally, Hamilton claims that the absence of the word “death” anywhere in vv.17-19 argues against seeing death as punishment (204).
However, various reasons exist in favor of understanding death as somehow bound up with the curse and the consequences of sin. First, v.19c comes in God’s address of the curse to Adam, which involves the consequences of sin—a change of state, not the mere continuation of the previous order of existence (Wenham, 83). Certainly producing crop from the ground has changed; but if the author’s simply sought to address that change alone, v.19c would be an unnecessary addition. On its own, v.19c teaches the inevitability of death, suggesting that death itself is part of the curse. Second, surely the threat of death in 2:17 would be looming in the reader’s mind at this point and informing his understanding of Adam’s curse. One is forced to ask, if death was natural prior to the fall, what sort of weight would such a threat carry? Third, that God set a cherubim to prohibit man from access to the tree of life (3:22-24) implies that God intended death to be at most an aspect of the curse and at least an implication of banishment from the garden.[2]
In conclusion, whether or not death is a direct curse or an implication of man’s banishment from the garden and consequent inability to access the tree of life, death is a result of the fall. Death is bound up with the fall and is a result of man’s sin. Therefore, Paul’s theology of sin and the Genesis account are coherent.
[1] Even if an addition, v.19c is part of the final form of the text and should be treated as such—connected to the preceding material and larger narrative.
[2] Examining whether man was originally created immortal and death is a direct punishment due to sin or man was created mortal and would experience death as a result of being banished from access to the tree of life (“conditioned immortality” as Erickson argues, 611-613) is beyond the scope of this paper.
The following was a short exegetical essay for Dr. Richard E. Averbeck’s Pentateuch and Historical Books course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Within evangelicalism over the past couple decades, much ink has been spilled over the debate between so-called “complementarians” and egalitarians. Both groups have debated and sought different answers to the question, what is Biblical manhood and womanhood? One crucial area, if not the fundamental place, for sorting out a Biblically accurate response to this question is the opening chapters of scripture, Genesis 1-3. As Ortlund explains,
“Why go all the way back to the first three chapters of the Bible, if our concern is with manhood and womanhood today? Because as Genesis 1-3 go, so goes the whole Biblical debate. One way or the other, all the additional Biblical texts on manhood and womanhood must be interpreted consistently with these” (Ortlund, Kindle Locations 2146-2148).
This paper in particular seeks to examine the phrase כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ (Gen 3:17) and determine its potential significance for a theology of gender.
As introduced by a כִּי conjunction, כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ provides the reason or grounds for Adam’s punishment—Adam listened to his wife. The crucial question for this paper’s concern is whether issues of differing gender roles are being addressed, assumed, or alluded to in this clause. (1) Is this mention of Adam’s “listening” (idiomatic for “obeying”; Wenham, 82) to his wife meant to communicate his failure to “listen” to God? In other words, is כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ a rhetorical way of referring to Adam’s disobedience as spelled out in the following phrase (וַתֹּ֨אכַל֙ מִן־הָעֵ֔ץ)? Or, (2) does כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ reflect a complementary male-female creation design that was subverted in this original sin (i.e., man not only sinned, but was lead into sin by woman)?[1] If the former option—a rhetorical use—is accurate, then this phrase may contribute very little (if anything) to the debate concerning biblical manhood and womanhood. And, as indicated by וַתֹּ֨אכַל֙ מִן־הָעֵ֔ץ, the rhetorical meaning is clearly present. In fact, Wenham (82) and Westermann (264) seem to assume that a rhetorical use is the sole significance of this phrase.[2] However, that “listened to the voice of your wife” is rhetorically equivalent to “and you ate from the tree” does not preclude the reality that creation-established gender roles may also be assumed here.
In fact, several reasons indicate creation-designed gender roles are assumed behind כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒. First, if God was merely addressing Adam’s disobedience (i.e., וַתֹּ֨אכַל֙ מִן־הָעֵ֔ץ), the addition of כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ would be superfluous and unnecessary. As Ortlund states, “Adam sinned at two levels. At one level, he defied the plain and simple command of 2:17. That is obvious. . . . At another level, Adam sinned by ‘listening to his wife.’ He abandoned his headship” (Kindle Locations 2559-2560). Second, the immediate context of 3:16 addresses the relationship between man and woman; therefore, the presence of כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ is likely not coincidental but deliberately addressing the subversion of that relationship in this original sin. Third, although Eve takes of the fruit first, Adam is addressed for the sin. Adam was “with her” (3:6) and is ultimately held responsible for their disobedience (cf. Rom 5:12-21). It is because of Adam (“you,” 3:17), and his eating of the fruit, that the ground is cursed. And fourth, this last point is consistent with the larger context of chapters 1-2, where the woman is created subsequent to man and, therefore, as man’s helpmeet (2:18-25). Correspondingly, man is to serve as the leader of the family. In sum, although כִּֽי־שָׁמַעְתָּ֮ לְק֣וֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ֒ clearly refers to Adam’s act of eating from the tree (וַתֹּ֨אכַל֙ מִן־הָעֵ֔ץ), this phrase also assumes the complementary relationship between man and women—ontologically equal (i.e., both fully created in the image of God) yet different in regards to relational roles (i.e., headship and subordination).
[1] Of course to say that this phrase has reference to the established male-female relationship is not to claim that Adam is rebuked for letting his wife influence him, as if man may never listen to his wife. On the contrary, God chastises Adam for his failure to lead his wife (note: Adam was “with her,” 3:6) and demonstrate the headship to which he was called.
[2] And interestingly, some commentators make absolutely no comment on this phrase whatsoever, e.g., Hamilton.
Kirk E. Miller 