I don’t worship statues, I thought, when I first encountered the end of John’s letter: Little children, keep yourselves¹ from idols.² It might be easier if I did, not necessarily the keeping part: Prostrating myself before some statue in some temple on a cold stone floor, naked, sounds kinky. I like it. But it would be easier to recognize when I was doing it.

I’ve been home a lot recently, able to attend church and Bible study. The Pastor’s sermon series was on Genesis and the Bible study was an in depth look and discussion. I became increasingly uncomfortable with where my mind was going, especially in the 3^rd chapter of Genesis. I had stopped treating it like the word of God and had begun to treat it like a Delphic Oracle that I could or should outsmart somehow.

I focused on the woman because that was where the text gives the most hope for understanding why this happened. The man’s motivations were more inscrutable or inanely mundane: “This is the food my wife gave me, so I ate it.”³ There are two different words for desire in the Masoretic text leading to the moment the woman took of its fruit and ate.⁴ A note (18) in the NET translated the Hebrew: “that good was the tree for food, and that desirable it was to the eyes, and desirable was the tree to make one wise.”

The rabbis who translated the Septuagint didn’t choose any forms of θέλω or θέλημα for these words. Rather, they chose ἀρεστὸν (a form of ἀρεστός) for תַֽאֲוָה (ta’ăvâ), and ὡραῖόν (a form of ὡραῖος) for וְנֶחְמָ֤ד (ḥāmaḏ). But who cares about the Septuagint? Let’s just go with it. This happened because the woman exercised her free will, even if the man just followed her lead.

Let me get naked and prostrate myself before free will to see if I can recognize that I am naked and prostrate before a man-made idol: The first thing that occurs to me is that free will must be evil, since it caused the woman to disobey God’s command. Well, I don’t like being naked and prostrate before something evil, so the first thing I’ll do is add free will to God’s word.

Now that free will has been given by God, it needs some power and purpose. Otherwise, why would I prostrate myself naked before it? Just kinky fun? No, it was not just that free will prompted the woman to disobey God, she might have obeyed God of her own free will. There’s no evidence for that in the text, but what good is free will if it is incapable of obedience?

So now, I can use my idol to judge God: If the woman’s God-given free will lacked the power, authority, whatever, to make it possible for her to have obeyed God, then God was unfair, vindictive, evil in a word. God is not evil. Therefore by free will human beings may choose righteousness and obedience. The woman might have rewritten the whole story if she had directed her free will toward righteousness and obedience rather than sin and disobedience.

About this time I recognized that I’d been here before.⁵

God promised Solomon a wise and discerning mind superior to that of anyone who has preceded or will succeed you¹—in the dream. But Solomon broke every law God gave the kings of Israel while wide-awake. Surely Solomon’s alleged wisdom was grossly overstated!

Okay, enough of this self-righteous snit. You notice what just happened. I’m all up in arms because the wise and discerning mind God allegedly gave Solomon was neither wise enough nor discerning enough to protect Solomon from falling afoul of the laws God gave the kings of Israel. I reasoned that God-given discernment at a minimum should have made the king wise enough to follow God’s rules for kings, or God-given discernment can’t be discernment given by God. It must have been only a dream.

There is a significant difference between the wise and discerning mind God gave to Solomon and the woman’s free will. The wise and discerning mind is stated explicitly:

On the other hand, the woman’s free will was an inference derived from two Hebrew words that can mean desire. Eventually, I had to come to terms with Solomon’s wealth and his God-given wise and discerning mind.⁶

[Solomon’s wealth] which is at least possible to measure, has been coupled in a promise with a wise and discerning mind¹ which is difficult to measure. Solomon’s wealth is hard to deny (whether I argue with the superlative degree of it or not)…

Is it possible that a wise and discerning mind given by God, would not be wise or discerning enough to prevent Solomon’s disobedience to God’s laws? That’s what the Bible seems to be saying here. And Solomon’s wealth is sort of the kicker to make that point.

God judged his creation very good.

Is it possible that a creation (including the woman, the man and the serpent) judged very good (Tanakh, KJV, NET, English Elpenor) or exceedingly good (NETS) by God would not be good enough to prevent the woman’s, the man’s or the serpent’s disobedience to God’s one commandment? That’s what the Bible seems to be saying here.

We imagine that the woman, the man and the serpent knew God better than we do, that they saw Him as they conversed with Him. The Hebrew word מִפְּנֵי֙ (pānîm) does occur in the text, translated ἀπὸ προσώπου (Septuagint), from the presence (Tanakh, KJV, NETS), from (NET) and from the face (English Elpenor).

A quick survey of the occurrences of מפני (pānîm) in the early chapters of Genesis, which I won’t undertake here, makes it difficult to believe that it was meant to imply that the woman, the man or the serpent literally saw God’s face. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.⁷ So, we imagine that they saw Jesus. Nude? The woman doesn’t strike me as one who would need to eat forbidden fruit to realize she was naked if she had already seen Jesus in shiny white clothes. All the text says is that they heard his words and knew that He responded to their words.

The Lord God’s voice…walking in the garden (Tanakh/KJV/English Elpenor) is a curious turn of phrase. I suppose it could be understood as “the voice of the Lord God, walking in the garden.” But it seems to explain the alternative translations: the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard (NET) and the sound of the Lord God walking about in the orchard (NETS).

The Hebrew words לְר֣וּחַ (rûaḥ) הַיּ֑וֹם (yôm), which I suppose would literally translate, “in” or “toward the spirit of the day,” were translated various ways: toward the cool of the day (Tanakh), in the cool of the day (KJV), at the breezy time of the day (NET), in the evening (NETS) and in the afternoon (English Elpenor). In the Tanakh on chabad.org it was understood as the direction the Lord’s voice walked: to the direction of the sun.⁸ And despite the fact that the rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose no form of πνεῦμα for לְר֣וּחַ (rûaḥ) here, I’m reminded of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus (John 3:5-8 ESV):

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit (πνεύματος), he cannot enter the kingdom of God [Table]. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit (πνεύματος) is spirit (πνεῦμα). Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind (πνεῦμα) blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound (τὴν φωνὴν αὐτοῦ), but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (πνεύματος).”

Jesus’ comfort level with the interplay of spirit and wind calms me and encourages me to think that the woman, the man and the serpent communed with a voice in the wind or a voice in the Spirit. I assume then that the face or presence of the Lord was their perception of proximity to that voice. But the NET translation of לְר֣וּחַ (rûaḥ), at the breezy time, seems to be more of a hedge translation, taking no sides as it were whether God came to them calmly or furiously:

The expression is traditionally rendered “cool of the day,” because the Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruakh) can mean “wind.” U. Cassuto (Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 152-54) concludes after lengthy discussion that the expression refers to afternoon when it became hot and the sun was beginning to decline. J. J. Niehaus (God at Sinai [SOTBT], 155-57) offers a different interpretation of the phrase, relating יוֹם (yom, usually understood as “day”) to an Akkadian cognate umu (“storm”) and translates the phrase “in the wind of the storm.” If Niehaus is correct, then God is not pictured as taking an afternoon stroll through the orchard, but as coming in a powerful windstorm to confront the man and woman with their rebellion. In this case קוֹל יְהוָה (qol y^ehvah, “sound of the Lord”) may refer to God’s thunderous roar, which typically accompanies his appearance in the storm to do battle or render judgment (e.g., see Ps 29).

Though they knew Him in some sense, knowing God means more than hearing his voice and disobeying Him.

The Hebrew word שְׁמֶ֑ךָ (šēm), translated thy name (Tanakh, KJV) and your name (NET), might have been translated your reputation, your fame or your glory. The Greek translation of שְׁמֶ֑ךָ (šēm) τὸ ὄνομά σου—your name (NETS) and thy name (English Elpenor)—might have been translated your reputation, your fame or news of you. The Hebrew word וְיִבְטְח֣וּ (bāṭaḥ), will put their trust (Tanakh, KJV) and trust (NET), was translated ἐλπισάτωσαν in the Septuagint, hope (BLB, Elpenor). But ἐλπισάτωσαν might have been translated have confident assurance, be confident or put trust.

A note on the root word ἐλπίζω in the Koine Greek Lexicon online reads:

Does not mean “to hope” in the sense of “longing for” or “wishing”; but of “confident assurance.”

The serpent trusted (Genesis 3:4, 5) his own partially true knowledge rather than God’s command. The woman trusted (Genesis 3:6) the serpent’s knowledge and her own desires rather than God’s command. The man trusted (Genesis 3:6) his wife rather than God’s command. Though I hadn’t seen it before, Paul may have written the best summation of what transpired in the garden (Romans 1:18-21 NET).

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal⁹ power and divine nature—have been clearly seen because they are understood through what has been made (Genesis 1-2). So people are without excuse. For although they knew (γνόντες, a form of γινώσκω) God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their senseless hearts were darkened [Table].

Paul also wrote (1 Corinthians 8:2, 3 NET):

If¹⁰ someone thinks he knows¹¹ something, he does not yet¹² know¹³ to the degree that he needs to know (γνῶναι, another form of γινώσκω). But if someone loves (ἀγαπᾷ, a form of ἀγαπάω) God, he is known (ἔγνωσται, another form of γινώσκω) by God.

Rather than inventing a category free will along with a lot of convoluted arguments, it seems to make more sense to stick with desire: the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.¹⁴ The Greek word translated the desires was ἐπιθυμεῖ, an indicative form of the verb ἐπιθυμέω in the active voice and present tense. In other words, “the flesh desires against the Spirit.” Accepting the truth of this statement, even in the garden where everything was very good, cuts through a lot of unnecessary intellectual clutter.

So, the flesh desiring against the Spirit of God was the cause of sin, rather than its result, as James wrote (James 1:13-15 ESV):

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,”¹⁵ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire (τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας). Then desire (ἡ ἐπιθυμία) when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 

God cannot be tempted with evil. I take that to heart, for I can imagine an argument that God didn’t need to give free will to human beings in any explicit way, it was simply bequeathed as a part of his image. But if God cannot be tempted by evil, He doesn’t possess free will in any sense that is most meaningful to human beings. Apart from the ability to be tempted with evil, free will loses all its explanatory power, and most of its appeal, for human beings.

It is written in the prophets, Jesus said, ‘And they will all be taught (διδακτοὶ, a form of διδακτός) by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me.¹⁶ And that’s what God continued to do for the woman and the man in their time, and continues to do for any who read his words in the Bible any time. Paradise may be lost, but the Garden of Eden was only a shadow of the good things to come.¹⁷

Tables comparing Psalm 9:10 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and the Greek of Psalm 9:10 (9:11) in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor), and tables comparing 1 John 5:21; Romans 1:20; 1 Corinthians 8:2 and James 1:13 in the NET and KJV follow.