Should God be replaced?
NO!
This Genesis story of Eve's defiance of God's command and the subsequent expulsion of the primeval couple from the Garden of Eden show God's wisdom in creating the female.
Scriptural style is known for its terseness and economy of language, therefore open to interpretation. Eve 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" (Gen. 3: 6). To Eve's mind, the fruit is endowed with all the gifts that life has to offer: it pleases the palate and satisfies hunger ("good for food"), it provides aesthetic pleasure ("pleasant to the eyes"), and it increases one's intellectual abilities ("to make one wise"). In one brief second, Eve has a vision of the total range of the human experience, and by eating from the Tree she expresses a lust for life in all its manifestations.
The act of violating God's order is not described by the biblical author as the surrender to temptation of a silly, empty-headed female, but as the daring attempt of a curious person with an appetite for life, to encompass the whole spectrum of life's possibilities. To make the most of the limitations of existence and taste as much of life as she can, exercising her thirst to exhaust the whole gamut of the human existence. She then generously shares the fruit with Adam, hoping to make him as wise as she has become.
The Genesis narrator is surprisingly silent about Adam's motives for eating the fruit. However, this narrative vacuum is consistent with the characterization of Adam throughout the story as a passive, acted-upon, doltish character. He has no part in choosing his mate, and Eve comes to life when he is asleep [does this ring a bell?]. The polarity created in this story between Adam and Eve is not between good and evil, morality and sinfulness, but rather between a passive, lackluster personality on the one hand, and an intellectually curious, aggressive individual, on the other. Interestingly, when Adam tries to shake off his responsibility for the violation of God's law, he excuses himself by claiming that Eve "gave" him the fruit, starting the age old pattern of blaming the wife. Eve, on the other hand, honestly explains that she was deceived, or seduced, by the serpent. The difference in approaches shows the intellectual maturity between the man and the woman.
Later Adam tells Eve his motives for tasting from the forbidden fruit are purely noble: he would rather die than live without Eve.
Need I say more? |
