One may escape all these difficulties and preserve the serpent's role as a deceiver by arguing that the couple did not die at once but that theirs was a spiritual rather then a physical death. This is the classic theological interpretation of 'the fall of man,' the 'original sin.' However, as we shall see again and again, the narrative we are reading is not much given to spiritualized or purely symbolic meanings but is extremely fond of deception stories of all kinds. Rather then eliminate the conflict by spiritualizing the threatened death or rationalizing the apparent deceit, we may trace the conflict back to the Lord God, a cause of both weal and woe in the lives of his creatures because good and evil impulses conflict within his character. (p32)
Besides just liking the way this author thinks about humans and their culture and creations, I like this: the conflict is there; we are born into it; we were set into a narrative that has conflict at its core, at least as the human eye sees. What do we do now?
yes and about that fruit and the advice the snake offered. eve knew. she listened to the snake and she tasted. and then she shared the fruit with adam. quite a different story compared to the spin on the original that travels in most circles.
ReplyDeletemike - this thread continues very briefly, with specifics (linguistic, textual references & quotes) in gmail.
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