The Fall of People and the Nature of Knowledge (Gen. 3-4)

Many of you have asked, "What's with the picture?" The answer is simple: aesthetic effect. The blog looks rather plain with just text. So, in order to keep you reading, some color will liven up the presentation.

Also, still on a sidenote, to get a better idea of what I'm thinking concerning this life group idea that I have rolling, where we read through the Bible and try to build each other up as we go, listen toPiper's sermon, Battling Unbelief Together.

I am still finding it hard to accomplish what I would like in these posts. I want to comment and reflect on what I'm reading. However, what usually happens is that as I read thoughts arise and point to other thoughts and connections that I see in the text. Since these thoughts come "as I read", sequentially, it is hard to extract a few key points to mention as I type, and recapping all of those thoughts would take quite a while. So, I'm still struggling with how to best manage all my diverting brain movements into coherent exposition.

To start, a couple side comments that don't fit in the heading.

• 2:24 says, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother." My question is, for what reason? The previous section records Adam's response to the first sight of Eve (which, just for the record, is not a jubilant exclamation or poetic song in the Hebrew; it simply say, "said"). My guess at this point is that the reason comes from what Adam says, "This is now bone of my bones." Interesting that he says, "now." Perhaps this also applies to married men at their weddings, she becomes bone of their bones and flesh of their flesh, and therefore, because they are one, he must leave his parents and join with her.


• I discussed in a previous post the phrase, "after their kind." There, I simply said that it showed God's consistency in creation; that everything has a pattern. As I kept reading and thinking, an even more striking connection arose that once again literally punched me in the face, figuratively speaking, of course. We see this phrase repeat a couple of times with reference to the animals and to the vegetation. And then the clencher, verse 26, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.'" For animals and trees, God created originals that were later duplicated in their offspring. But for man, there wasn't a first man that set the pattern for the rest. That first man, the original design, was God himself. And this is obviously something that hit Moses pretty hard since it's repeated quite repeatedly (see v. 27; 5:1).

The Fall of Man

The first thing that comes out of the serpent's (devil's?) mouth is a question. He's the first literary critic, as Dr. Daniel Taylor will say. I agree. He did not lie to Eve, he only questioned the credibility of God's instruction. It's a very interesting conversation. I don't buy the notion that Eve added to God's word, as some will adamantly agrue, mostly because we don't know everything that was said. I don't think that was Moses' point in putting those words in Eve's mouth. I might be wrong. Further, the serpent's emphatic assertion that they will not die but become like gods is not totally false. It is true, their eyes were opened and they did know good from evil and they didn't die, at least not immediately. I think too many caricature and simplify the devil to such an extent that he loses any sting or power. What I mean is that we say, "He's a liar." That's very simple and often simplistic. Genesis 3 says that he was "more crafty than any beast". We are taught to avoid lies because the devil is the father of lies, which is true. But his lying is not always as black and white as we like it. Here, most of what he says is true. He did not flatly contradict anything God said, he merely questioned it and sowed just a little bit of doubt in Eve's heart. And that little bit of doubt was enough for her to convince herself that maybe it wasn't that big of a deal; that God was really exaggerating when he said they would die. Really, what could happen, it's just a pomegranate? And she began to crave what most humans will crave, beauty, wisdom, and food. She wanted an esoteric, mystical experience, to be like God. She had to decide whether she or God knew better. And as many of us decide daily, she went with herself. It didn't take much; just enough to not take God seriously, to convince oneself that God didn't want the best for you, that God was withholding something that threatened his sovereignty. What would you have done?

The curse section intrigues me. God listened to their blame shifting and doesn't dismiss it; but takes it at face value. He begins with the serpent, since he was last to be blamed. From the curse, I would argue that the serpent had feet prior to the curse. I also think that most animals talked before the fall, since Eve is not surprised at her encounter with the serpent. The curse of the woman is a bit complex. Not sure if I get all of it, particularly the ending, "Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." What is the nature of the desire and the ruling? I know some of the options, but I'm not sure what best fits. The most interesting to be is Adam's curse. God begins with two reasons, 1) because you have listened to your wife, and 2) because you have eaten of the tree. And it is not Adam that is cursed, but the ground. And here we also see the inception of the circle of life, "You will return to the ground because from it you were taken."

What is Knowledge?

In my version, Genesis 4:1 reads, "Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth." Literally, it should read, "The man knew his wife Eve." Obviously, the translators got the point that knowing here is much more than the comprehension of information. If the result of knowing your wife produces a child, you obviously know her pretty well. This use of the word know to refer to sexual intercourse hints at the full range of meaning for the word know in the Bible. I have known this for a while, and thought very little of it, until I heard John Piper's sermon on Sex and the Supremacy of God where he argued that the way God knows his children and the way we should know God is approaching this sort of knowledge. Obviously, he is not talking about a perverted sexual experience with God, but rather emphasizes that when we really know God, our fellowship with him should be this intimate and personal. This really shed a different to how I read the Bible now, remembering this notion every time I see the word know. As I've said with blessing, that in the Bible it means much more than our conventional definition, so with knowing, the Bible has a much richer conception of this idea than our rationalist minds usually allow. Piper referred to passages where God says of Israel, "Of all the nations I have only known you." He is obviously not talking about knowing that they exist. This is a much deeper knowledge, more personal and intimate. Now, when you read Romans 8:28, things begin to make sense a little more. "For those whom he foreknew, he also chose . . . " Some want to argue that he chose only those that he saw into the future that they would choose him. That is simply ludicrous. But with this notion of knowledge in mind, things to become more clear but also more beautiful. God chose those whom he loved ahead of time, according to his sovereign, free grace, and then chose them. I will also attempt to track this idea as I keep reading.

I wonder if this idea has anything to do with the refernces to "regard" as in 4:4: "The Lord had regard for Abel." It has the idea more of approval or pleasure, but I think it can fit into this notion: "God loved Abel", he approved and was pleased with him. I got this idea first from my reading of Psalm 1:6. There, my version says, "For the Lord knows the way of the righteous." In the footnote, "knows" is also translated as "approves or has regard to." I have a feeling that all of these ideas complement each other. The knowing and loving are very close ideas in the Bible. That to know something, many times, is to love it, to approve it, to pleased with it. Obviously, this is not universal, but an interesting lens through which to read. Try it. See what you find.