telling the story ~ open your eyes
Composition version: yes.
lyrics
enter the serpent
crafty and wise
grasp the forbidden
open your eyes
who's guarding the garden
(why so strong and silent)
who's guarding the bride
(standing idly by)
protecting the woman
(it's a cruel science)
this rib from your side
(would you watch her die)
challenge the goodness
an evil surmise
grasp the forbidden
open your eyes
who's guarding the garden....
grasp the forbidden
open your eyes
(it's a wise man's tale)
oh, it opened our eyes
(but the science failed)
to life in sorrow
and death in tears
no tomorrow
we spend our years
away from home
(it's a wise man's tale)
away....
narrative
just an apple?
Sometimes people make fun of the Bible for suggesting that God banished man simply because of an arbitary and trivial "apple test." But the question is: Have they really understood the story?
The truth is that God created human beings as physical creatures, and He employs physical objects and rituals as an integral part of their lives. This is even true today. Think, for example, of the ritual of marriage - it is simply a formal activity, and (usually) involves physical objects (rings). And yet the outcome of this ceremony is a real union between human beings. The ritual does something.
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil wasn't simply an arbitrary test. God had created human beings perfect - they were healthy and had need of nothing. But that does not mean that He created them finished. It was His intention to take them further. This pattern of God improving man's lot had already been demonstrated, after all: when God made Adam, He formed him from the dust of the ground, and only after that did He move him into the Garden.
God aimed at a relationship of open love and trust. He forbade one tree to Adam and Eve - temporarily. But that tree, like the knowledge of good and evil itself, was not intended to be permanently out of bounds. The newly created man and woman were not yet ready for the mature judgment that the knowledge of good and evil entailed, and therefore, God withheld the tree - and the knowledge - until He knew they would be ready. In the biblical way of speaking, God was aiming at glorifying Adam and Eve. And all they needed to do was trust Him.
enter the serpent
Well, if the arbitrary apple test is a bit of a myth, what about the serpent? The Bible describes the serpent as a beast of the field; yet, it also connects the serpent to Satan - the devil. In a rationalistic culture, this is hard for a lot of people to swallow. But why? There are a good many things that we cannot explain. Such as why evil persists and even multiplies in the face of our best efforts. Like it or not, there is a world that goes beyond our eyesight.
Satan was an angel (another word is messenger). The Bible indicates that at least some angels were originally intended to be teachers for human beings. That was not permanent; the Bible also tells us that at the final judgment, human beings will judge angels. Angels were apparently, therefore, something like instructors who would teach the children of a rich family: eventually, the children grow up and become their employers. The point is not that humans will become employers of angels, but that their position of subservience was not designed for permanence.
Anyway, since Satan was a messenger, he had a right to teach man. Instead of thinking of some prehistoric fall of Satan, we may well see Satan's rebellion occur at the very moment when he tempts Adam and Eve. After all, angels are not eternal; they were created during the same short period when everything else was.
It may be that Satan was envious of human beings. After all, he serves now as their teacher, but it is with the goal that they will be over all things, including himself. At any rate, for whatever reason, Satan decides that this lesson will not be quite as it was supposed to be.
So what does he do? He casts doubt on God's goodness and trustworthiness. He draws attention to the one withheld tree: "What? You mean God doesn't let you eat every tree of the Garden? He holds something back from you?" The idea is to implant doubts in the minds of Adam and Eve.
Ultimately, Satan claims - not altogether incorrectly - that the tree is linked to something Adam and Eve lack. As we have already seen, God was withholding mature judgment from them for the time being, and the tree had something to do with how He intended to bring them forward - later. So Satan suggests that God is actually envious. He knows that eating of the tree will make them wise like Himself, and therefore He refuses to let them come into their rightful potential.
With this underhanded perversion of the truth, Satan succeeds in convincing Eve to doubt God. He is not to be trusted; He does not have her best interests at heart.
the first male chauvinist
But there is much more here than the simple fact that Eve takes the forbidden fruit. The Bible does not attribute the fall to Eve, despite what a simplistic reading of Genesis 3 might lead us to believe. Instead, Adam is always the one who bears the blame.
Why? Numerous reasons. He was created first and had directly heard God's word forbidding him to eat of the tree. But more than that, Adam was the head of all creation, and was charged with guarding the Garden, including his wife. It was his duty to discern the serpent's trick and protect both the Garden and Eve from the danger.
Adam was not deceived by Satan's words, we are told later. But if not, then why does he stand idly by, listen to the serpent lie, and watch his wife eat the forbidden fruit?
Because Eve is his sacrificial lamb. He is willing to play scientist and see what happens. If Eve doesn't die, then he figures it's safe to eat the fruit and reap the benefits. And if Eve dies - well, God will probably make another woman for him, right?
In short, Adam is the first male chauvinist. He lets the woman take the fall. And for that, he is the father of the fall. It's not simply that he eats (after Eve); rather, he is guilty all the way through. For his own selfish reasons, he abandons his calling to care for the Garden and the woman placed under his responsibility.
And in so doing, he consigns himself and everything under his care to sorrow and death.