01/28/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 3 of 16)

0009 Mark Smith concludes the introduction by casting an eye upon the reader. The Christian reader of Genesis 3 wants to plumb the author’s scope_1H and charism_1V in order to apply lessons to “his” own situation, where “his” indicates “his” and “hers”.

0010 “His”?

Even the awkward attribution smells funny. Presumably, men, like rotten fruit, no longer represent the entire species.

So, we have to clean up the language, don’t we?

0011 What does Genesis 3 really say?

Mark Smith intends to inform the reader. He begins with a retrospective.

0012 John Milton (1608-1674), at the start of the Age of Ideas, composes an epic poem, titled, Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost begins in the middle. Yes, a theodrama precedes Adam’s occupation of paradise. And, Satan is not pleased.

The most recent Catechism of the Catholic Church formulates original sin as the connection between Adam’s transgression and our current misery. Figuratively, we are all Adam’s descendants. Or, is it literally?

0013 These introductory retrospections add a puzzling emptiness.

Maybe, the story of Adam and Eve begins in the middle, but what goes before? The defeat of Satan is not about humans. What would it mean if humans, or generally, our hominin ancestors, live before Adam and Eve, on the open plains and in the gnarled forests that the defeat of Satan leaves open for settlement? It is an odd question…

…further cemented by the formulation that we are all descendants of Adam. How can folk living on the far edges of Eurasia be Adam’s descendants, when Adam lives a generation before the formation of Cain’s city? They cannot be literally descended. After all, the first towns start a little over 6000 years ago.

Better words may be “drawn into” and “entangled”.

We are all drawn into Adam’s transgression.

0014 Indeed, we are entangled. It is like the sticky postmodern situation where the word, “he”, once meant both “he” and “she”, then “she” declares that “he” is presumptive, arrogant, and so on, and demands her own pronoun. And now, everyone wants their own pronouns. For me, it is back to “he”, but now in scare quotes, because there is no way to get disentangled.

0015 What sin has all humanity been drawn into?

What sin entangles us?

Oh, it must be original sin.

0016 According to Mark Smith, the foundational stories in Genesis 3 contain deeply unsettling psychological portraits. The psychology is tied to the drama, just like the pronoun business. The drama contains comedy and tragedy and, most horrifying, catastrophe. Yet, all this is not so bad, because good people appear in every generation, like Abel, who gets murdered, and Enoch, who gets swept up in mysterious circumstances, and Noah, who gets to build an ark because God is about the wipe out the civilization.

Other people, who may not be as good as good can be, are somehow in play, even though they are not upstage. They are the ones who call upon the name of the Lord. They remember. Plus, a good God knows all.

0017 So, I say, “There is more to Genesis 3 than meets the eye.”

01/27/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 4 of 16)

0018 The author₂, in prior blogs, is the single actuality composed of two actualities, insight_2V and conditions_2H. One cannot separate the two. They work in tandem. Insight_2V emerges from the author’s charism_1V, a divine gift. Condition_2H situates the author’s scope_1H, the cultural impress of the time, including literature that the author may have been exposed to.

The author₂ is an actuality. This actuality₂ is contextualized by the normal context₃ of revealing₃. This actuality emerges from the possibilities of ‘recording something for someone’₁.

0019 The resulting nested form is:

Revealing₃( author₂ ( potential of ‘recording something for someone’₁)

0020 On one hand, Genesis is not a secret document, so ‘something’ goes to all. On the other hand, for those who heard the oral tradition for millennia, ‘something’ is very personal. The early stories of Genesis are told to attentive children, by their mothers. These mothers know that their tradition is older than they can imagine. This is their charism. They are the ones who tell the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Lamech and the rest, generation through generation.

May I also say that they are the authors, so to speak?

0021 In chapter one, Mark Smith broadly speculates that Genesis 3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31 derive from the same source. Yet, there is, as Jacques Lacan puts it, “a petit objet A”, evidence that serves to inform the observer that there is a missing piece to a puzzle. The four rivers that flow into the Persian Gulf do not flow during Ezekiel’s time. They flow during the Wet Period of the Developed Neolithic of southwest Asia, five thousand years earlier. The four rivers in Genesis 3 are a petit objet A. They are in Genesis 3, yet are missing at the time when the redactor composes the scriptures. So, how does the redactor know about these four rivers?

Oh, there must be an oral tradition.

0022 Ahem. There is another observation that needs to be accounted for. Why does the bulk of the Old Testament, from Abraham through the prophets, not directly mention the stories of Adam and Eve? Why do they mention the seventh day as a day of rest, a theme of the Creation Story? Why is Genesis 3 ignored while the lessons of Genesis 1 are placed center stage?

Does it have anything to do with rotten men? The lessons of Genesis 1 are proclaimed by Moses. Not its companion, Genesis 3 and the like. Genesis 3 is told by the women of Israel to their children. Surely, Moses knows what the daughters of Israel tell their children, with unswerving dedication. Here is the source of the oral tradition that mentions the four rivers flowing into (or is it out of?) Eden.

0023 Here is my conclusion.

The sons of Israel are so busy constructing their world, according to their manly ways, that they do not imagine that these womanly stories about Adam and Eve have any… well… relevance to the issues at hand. When the bards of Israel put these fairy tales as the opening act, then… oh… the situation changes. Suddenly, Adam and Eve are legit.

0024 The bards of Israel?

The concept is implied in Smith’s speculative common source for Ezekiel 28 and Genesis 3. Who is the common source? Well, they are probably not members of the priestly class. Yet, their style is evident even in the days of Jesus. Jesus’ ministry is precisely what one expects for a bard of Israel. Jesus is totally traditional and miraculously entertaining. He recites the scriptures to all who come to listen.

0025 Still don’t imagine the bards of Israel?

The Greeks have the same schtick around the same time. Homer! He compiles the stories of the Greek bards. These stories, told in the Iron Age, detail the Bronze Age. Did I mention that the Bronze Age ends in some sort of catastrophe, hundreds of years prior to Homer?

0026 Still don’t grasp the bards of Israel?

Here, I jokingly shift my gaze to Hollywood, brimming with Jewish talent, sons of Abraham, rebels with Moses, kings like David and self-aggrandizers like Solomon. Where does all their verve come from? The bards of Israel got around.

01/26/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 5 of 16)

0027 The stories of Adam and Eve stand at the start of the Old Testament, why are they not mentioned later in the Old Testament?

They are fairy tales told by the wives of the men who proclaim the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, to name a few. The men know what the women are telling their children. The same stories are told over and over. They are not important. They are women’s stories.

The fall of Judah changes all that. It is similar to the collapse at the end of the Bronze Age. The bards of Israel, like the bards of Greece, are full of tradition, but not exactly reputable. They pick up stories from all around Israel, including the ones told by women to their children for as long as anyone can remember. The redactors quietly rewards their genius by placing the stories of Adam and Eve right after their own, incredibly ancient and beautiful, Creation Story. Writing styles serve as evidence.

The redactor puts the fairy tale stories into a document that does not mention them again. The written scriptures, composed during and after the exile, are correspondingly new, even though the stories are old. The stories of Genesis 3 enter strange territory, a new audience, so to speak, which is not as innocent as the first audience, the children of the daughters of Israel.

0028 Mark Smith notes that the Deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon 2:24 mentions the Fall.

Yes, the early stories of Genesis are so old that other contenders for an official origin story are around, at the time of the recording of the Wisdom of Solomon 2:24. For example, the contemporary Baal cycle expresses a decisive conflict among the gods. The defeated are expelled. The imagery is very similar to the first half of the storyline of Paradise Lost. Isaiah 14 refers to the fate of the day star, the son of the dawn, fallen from heaven. The imagination leaps from fallen celestial beings to the Nephilim (Genesis 6.2) to the serpent talking to Eve (Genesis 3).

The Dead Sea Scrolls also mention Adam, as if they know Genesis 3, but their vision is not anything like the doctrine of original sin. They are retrieving Genesis 3, but the retrospection is not clear.

Why?

The written stories of Genesis 3 are novel, even though the oral tradition of the women of Israel is ancient.

0029 After the Resurrection, the letters of Paul link Adam and Jesus, with such amazing eloquence, that the concept of original sin floats right below the surface.

The surface of what?

Retrieval.

01/25/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 6 of 16)

0030 In chapter two, Mark Smith addresses the question, “What is the original sin in Genesis 3, according to Scripture and Christian theologians?”

What do the authors of Wisdom of Solomon 2:24, as well as Saint Paul, Saint Augustine and John Calvin, retrieve from Genesis 3?

0031 What do I mean by the word, “retrieve”?

The reader is an actuality_2b, virtually situating the author_2a, the intersection of insight_2V and conditions_2H. The reader_2bemerges from (and situates) the potential of interpretation_1b, in the normal context of retrieve_3b.

Ah, the reader_2b retrieves the author_2a’s insights_2V and conditions_2H.

0032 The two-level interscope is introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (available at the smashwords website and other sites that market e-works).

Here is a picture for the reader and the author.

0033 Deuterocanonical texts, such as the Wisdom of Solomon, are not clear about the nature of Adam and Eve’s transgression.

Neither is Saint Paul, who writes a typology. Adam is the type of the one who fell. Jesus is the type of the one who is risen.

0034 Saint Augustine proposes that original sin arises in the realm of potential within Adam and Eve, then enters into actuality after the serpent closes the pitch. Yes, the sales pitch. The potential consists of pride, welling up within Adam and Eve. It is like a boil. First, it wells up below the surface. Then, it ruptures.

Augustine concludes that an infection of pride condemns all of us because we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. Original sin is like a sexually transmitted disease.

Augustine’s diagnosis… er… interpretation covers both insight_2V and conditions_2H. The insight_2V is pride as a motive for sin. The condition_2H is infection and transmission.

0035 John Calvin, after assessing many options, claims that the sin of Adam’s transgression is unfaithfulness. His approach to this conclusion is noteworthy. He retrieves early Christian authors. Then, he retrieves the gospels and letters of Paul. Then he retrieves the Old Testament. What does he unearth? Mark Smith is precise, saying, “The understanding of the conditions of human sin informs Calvin’s understanding of the origins of sin.” Calvin illuminates conditions_2H.

0036 So, Adam’s transgression is like a pustulating infection_2V, where pride seethes beneath the surface then ruptures into rebellion against God’s command. The conditions_2H are unfaithfulness. Then, the infection transmits from one generation to the next, through acts of procreation.

01/24/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 7 of 16)

0037 In chapter three, Mark Smith asks, “What do contemporary scholars say?”

0038 Clearly, without Saint Paul, original sin does not swim below the surface of consciousness, like a fish waiting to catch the eye of Saint Augustine.

0039 Contemporary scholars suggest that Adam and Eve know not what they do. Where have I heard that before? They cannot be culpable for disobeying God’s command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,because they do not know good and evil.

The logic is circular. But, it is hard to refute.

0040 Interpretation_1b, the potential underlying the reader’s acquisition of meaning, presence and message from the author_2a, retrieves an intersection of insight_2V and conditions_2H. That is what the author_2a is! The author_2b is an intersection, arising from the fusion two actualities.

0041 So, who is the author?

During the centuries after the exile, when the Scriptures are compiled, the authors are the ones gathering material for redaction. They have a lot to work with, because the bards of Israel actively draw on sources from throughout the region, weaving them together in cogent and coherent narratives. The bards of Israel bring the stories of Adam and Eve out of their domestic tradition. The bards of Israel dramatically render Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Oh, and you know about Joseph! The bards of Israel remind me of Joseph. The bards of Israel outperform the priestly class. They are not dull and ritual oriented. They wear cloaks of many colors. Their garments are seamless. And, their reputations are colorful and seamy.

0042 Centuries later, Jesus steps into their sandals.

One of the remarkable features of the gospels is how they do not recite the stories in the Scriptures, even though such recitations may have been the bulk of Jesus’ orations. Audiences hear the same stories from Jesus as from any other bard (or “wandering preacher”). Plus, with Jesus, there is more. The kingdom of God is at hand, in the Word made flesh, not the script made permanent. The parables, the analogies and the lessons of Jesus, offered to his admirers, come like fireworks at the end of an event. The event is the telling of the stories of Israel. The stories raise the questions that Jesus addresses. What is the kingdom of God?

0043 The bards do not write. They recite. They are held to strict account by their audiences. That includes women who tell their children the traditional fairy tales. These women are the condition_2H that preserves the early Genesis stories through millennia, starting with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. Not the start of the Ubaid, when the world still seems like paradise. Rather, later, when labor and social specializations generate inequalities so great that nothing seems quite right.

Adam and Eve are fairy-tale figures who, like so many fairy-tale figures, capture an archetypal image of an event that cannot be properly pieced together. Why? Changes occur over generations. No one knows what exactly is going on. But, the fairy-tale figures indicate that ‘something’ is going on and this ‘something’ has to do with their drama.

01/22/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 8 of 16)

0044 What happens when the Ubaid begins?

The following claims are stated plainly in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace. They are dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall. Both e-works are available at smashwords and other electronic-book venues. Search Razie Mah along with the title.

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia first appears on the edges of the newly filled Persian Gulf. The Ubaid is similar to all the Developed Neolithic villages of the day, except for one difference. The Ubaid practices speech-alone talk. All other cultures practice hand-speech talk.

In hand-speech talk, the referent is imaged or indicated by the gesture-word. In speech-alone talk, spoken words are pure symbols, labels that can be attached to the part, as well as to the whole. The semiotic world of the Ubaid is correspondingly out of kilter. Speech-alone talk can fashion words for things that cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand talk.

Consider the word, “wheel”. The wheel does not appear in nature. How can hand-speech talk picture or point to a wheel? Instead, the rotary motion that goes into making pottery gains a spoken name. Then, an artifact is built that validates the name. The Uruk period, following the Ubaid, invents the wheel.

Different producers develop specialized languages, increasing their innovation and productivity. Different social circles find new ways to organize, increasing their capacities for regimentation and coordinated action. The Ubaid becomes rich and powerful. The subsequent Uruk period is more rich and more powerful. The Sumerian Dynastic is labeled, “civilization”.

These sociological trends take place over thousands of years. They are difficult to fathom. No one really can figure out what is happening. But, whatever it is, it does not stop. Soon enough, the present erases the past. Then, the present erases the past, over and over and over. It is like a pustule that festers, then ruptures, festers, then ruptures, over and over. Each iteration is different. Each iteration is more uncanny.

0046 The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the adventures of a king, who lives (according to many intelligent guesses) around 4500 years ago. The Ubaid coalesces around 7800 years ago. Let me imagine that a complete overturning of the established order occurs each time the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn move into a new element, around every 200 years. In the 3300 years between the start of the Ubaid and King Gilgamesh, sixteen complete turnovers occur. How can anyone comprehend the changes?

Yet, the fairy tales of Adam and Eve convey the nature of this social process. There is a definite beginning, in a idyllic garden. A threshold is crossed, the garden is lost. Then, another threshold is crossed. Cain kills Abel. Then, another threshold is crossed. Lamech, with two wives, murders a man with none. Then, the genealogies begin. One name follows another. The lengths of the lives call to mind the slow grinding of the heavenly spheres. One overturning follows another.

0047 Today, we are blessed with novel, otherwise invisible celestial timekeepers. Uranus, 84 year orbit, associates to revolutions. Neptune, 165 year orbit, links to dreamy oceanic spirits of the age. Dwarf Pluto, 248 year orbit, goes with the trees of life and death. The years of discovery oddly reinforce astrological associations. They are 1781, 1846 and 1930, respectively. Think French Revolution (1791), the Communist Manifesto (published 1848) and America’s big stock market crash (1929).

The stars and the planets are telling. Recall, Satan, the one who is defeated in the first half of the grand sweep of Paradise Lost, is a stellar angel, at first. Now, he sells faithlessness, to us, just as he did to Eve.

0048 The conditions that define the authors of Genesis 3 touch base with the reactions of mothers, in the tradition of Seth, within the Ubaid, to ever increasing social complexity. Each story is like the completion of a spiraling development, like royalty (Jupiter) having to meet time (Saturn), like the cycle of peace and revolution (Uranus), like popular movements, rising like islands, then drowning in a sea of their own contradictions (Neptune) and like a long, treacherous trek between the tree of life and the tree of death (Pluto). The cycles spiral because labor and social specializations are always innovating.

The fairy tales of Adam and Eve point to the start of our current Lebenswelt.

01/21/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 9 of 16)

0049 What do contemporary scholars say about the emblematic trees?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil raises the question of human wisdom and discernment.

The tree of life raises the question of human immortality, or lack thereof.

0050 Perhaps, there are other lessons as well.

If the stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales about the one-way increase in social complexity that characterizes the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, made possible by the realization of speech-alone talk, then the women of Seth may be onto something.

Speech-alone talk projects meanings, presences and messages into spoken words. Then, culture constructs artifacts that validate those projections. Surely, the nameless and feminine authors of the Genesis fairy tale do the same with the fabled trees. The trees are artifacts that validate their projections. This is a condition_2H.

0051 Speech-alone talk exists as two arbitrarily related systems of differences.

The key term is “differences”.

So, what is the tree of life different than?

Obviously, the tree of death.

What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil different than?

The tree of the lack of such knowledge? The tree of innocence?

0052 Why are the trees of death and innocence not mentioned?

They are projected as shadows onto the trees that are mentioned.

Eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and you will surely die.

Eat of the fruit of the tree of innocence and you will surely live.

0053 God’s command to Adam is sound advice.

But, it is the other advice that God does not speak, because He knows the truth.

0054 Speech-alone talk fosters unconstrained social complexity. The adoption of speech-alone talk is a one-way street.

Today, no one wants the internet to go off, despite its dangers. Two generations ago, nobody wants the electricity to fail. A hundred years before that, railroads and steamships are necessities. These types of statements go back to the start of the Ubaid, where people learn to trade before the temple. Technical and social innovations produce more wealth and more power. Consequently, speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid to surrounding hand-speech talking cultures. It flies on wings of mimicry. Today, as with the Ubaid, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

0055 So, what is the truth?

There is no return to the innocence and the life of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The portal is closed.

The women of Seth acknowledge this. They see people gaining knowledge all around them, as novel specialties arise, flourish, then are replaced by further innovations. They see new insights gain fashion, order society, then go berserk. They see people leaving small villages and migrating to larger ones, if only for their own protection. The old ways no longer offer security.

0056 The women of Seth somehow grasp the Ubaid in their fairy tales. God is correct. Once the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is consumed, we can become like the gods, because we may devise ways to live forever and to be all controlling. Self-anointed human gods may be aided by the tree of life, pruned into the tree of the innocence of others.

But, more worrisome, the tree of life offers an escape from the dreary technicalities and the nightmarish machinations of speech-alone talk and all that it actualizes. Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden in order to prevent an attempt to escape their divine fate, inspired by a delusion that we can return to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0057 The women of Seth see the madness, through the passing generations. First, the crowds ridicule and kill the shamans of old. Who needs the timeless ways? Then, generations later, the crowds gather like sheep in the hope of a revival of a shaman of old. Then, a pretender guides them, as they move and become one with the animals. Then, a flaming sword, swerving in all directions, drives them to annihilate one another, along with everything that seems to prevent their return to bliss. This is an insight_2V.

There is no return to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. We cannot eat from the tree of innocence, ever again.

01/20/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 10 of 16)

0058 In chapter four, Mark Smith addresses the question, “Is Genesis 3 about human sin?”

After covering what modern scholars say about the text and conditions of Genesis 3, the question turns to production_3Hand writing_3V. Readers seek to interpret both the conditions_2H and the insights_2V of the author. These are tied to the author’s scope_1H and charism_1V.

As far as conditions go, I speculate that the conditions_2H include the increasing social complexity of the Ubaid villages, then the Uruk townships.

The authors are the daughters of Seth, who gradually compose the early stories of Genesis, as well as one for Noah, plus more. The stories are maintained by the women of Seth, then afterwards, the women of Israel. Then, the bards of Israel take them for their own, around the time of (or later than) Ezekiel.

0059 These conditions explain how the stories can be so ancient, yet showing the patina of post-exilic editing.

Plus, these conditions explain why the lessons of the Genesis 1 are declared in the time of Moses, while the lessons of the stories of Genesis 3 are ignored. Adam and Eve belong to the stories of the women, not the men, of Israel.

The bards of Israel account for why the stories of Adam and Eve find their way into the writing of Genesis. Their genius forces the redactor’s pen. But, the written scriptures are new, compared to the age of the oral tradition. Consequently, the stories of Adam and Eve make a dreamy impression in the time of the Second Temple.

The bards, the wandering preachers of Israel, also account for the conditions surrounding John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. No one seems particularly surprised by their appearance. They recite the scriptures just like all bards do. The audiences attend to their words. The kingdom of God is at hand.

0060 These conditions are radically different than those intimated by Mark Smith and colleagues, who examine only the patina and not what might lie beneath. Smith wants to retrieve insights by considering only the surface conditions. His procedure is to begin with the explicit writing of Genesis 3, particularly concerning the choice of words.

0061 He starts with the word, “evil”, first mentioned in regards to the tree at the center of the garden. The scriptural Hebrew, ra’, means poor in quality and disagreeable, as well as wicked and harmful. For example, if a fruit is poisonous, then it is ra’. An inedible fruit would fit the idea where God commands Adam not to eat, if only for health reasons. But, this idea is dispelled as the story plays out.

0062 Then, there is the creation of woman from Adam’s rib. God fashions all sorts of animals, who get names, but none are sufficiently helpful. Adam tends a garden. Adam domesticates animals. They all live in paradise, offering a hint ofthe Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

God, not Adam, insists that it is not good that the human should be alone. He then fashions a woman from Adam’s rib. Adam is overjoyed at the introduction.

Here is the etiology of woman, according to the daughters of Seth, who tell fairy tales to their children, about the beginning.

01/19/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 11 of 16)

0063 What does the woman want?

Trees are all over the garden. But, there are two notable botanical specimens. There is the tree of life, somewhere in the periphery. There is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, placed right in the center. So, I already know what the woman wants. She wants to be center stage.

0064 The tree in the center of the garden has not attracted Adam’s curiosity, so far. He is happy with a tasty garden, attentive domesticates, and the rib-helper. Wow, she is the most.

0065 Yes, the woman has desire. Sure, the trees are good for food and beautiful to behold. In Genesis 2:9, the author uses the word, “nechmad”, meaning desirable.

0066 Then, the woman enters into conversation with the serpent, who also has desires. Its desire is to manipulate her desire. He wants to pitch a sale. Immediately before Eve seals the deal, Eve notices that the fruit is “ta’awah” (desire) to the eyes and “nechmad” (desirable) to make one wise. Then, the serpent closes the pitch with a promise that the purchase will open her eyes. She will be like the gods, knowing good and evil.

0067 Then, Adam joins in and the eyes of both are opened.

They realize that they are exposed.

0068 This word, “teshuqah” (desire), shows up again in Eve’s chastisement, as well as in the Song of Songs. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the same word gains creepier overtones. The clay, within the human person, desires to return to dust. This is an insight_2V.

0069 But, what about the conditions_2H?

Is Genesis 3 about human sin?

Or, is it about giving one’s sons and daughters a little hint about the nature of desire?

There is a difference between desirable and desire. Plus, the serpent can close on both.

01/18/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 12 of 16)

0070 In chapter five, Mark Smith asks, “When does the story of human sin begin in Genesis?”

0071 At this point, conditions further clarify.

The first audiences for the early stories of Genesis are children. The first authors are their mothers, the daughters of Seth. Eve is their great-great-…-great grandmother. The stories convey to each child this lineage, a direct descent to this mother, who is center stage. Eve is more than a foolish woman who talks to serpents. Eve is your mother as well.

0072 What does it mean to be a mother, a woman, cursed under Eve’s indictment?

A Primer on the Family presents the family as a prototype of the corporation, the content level of the organization tier. Eve, the woman, is the producer. Her man is the management. Her children are the service, or, in today’s terms, the human resources. Eve does not change the centrality of the mother. She magnifies it.

She offers a warning.

0073 The story of Eve’s temptation offers many lessons, including ones on the nature of desire. As Smith points out, Genesis 3 portrays a deeply disturbing psychological narrative. Don’t all good fairy tales?

Plus, I add, Eve’s narrative, along with other Genesis stories, captures the weirdness of the constellation of unconstrained social complexity during the Ubaid. Adam and Eve are made in paradise, eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and are expelled. Neither Genesis 2 nor 3 use the word, “sin”. The label, “evil”, is only mentioned in the name of the infamous tree.

Afterwards, Eve bears two children, Cain and Abel. Eve is the producer.

0074 “Sin” is mentioned in Genesis 4, along with the word for desire, “teshuqah”. Desire appears in the temptation of Eve and in her rebuke, where God says, “Your desire will be for your man.” Yes, the woman will desire her man to be her manager. There is no sin in that.

So, where does the word, “sin”, first appear?

When Cain, the gardener, complains about God preferring burnt offerings of meat, God offers a revealing repost, saying (more or less), “If you do what is right, you can bear it. If you do not do right, sin crouches at your door. Its desire (teshuqah) is for you, but you can rule over it.”

The word, “sin”, appears for the first time. It does so in conjunction with a desire that crouches, like a predator, at Cain’s threshold. Cain can rule it. Or, it can rule Cain.

We all know what happens next.

0075 The daughters of Seth do not pull punches. This conjunction of “sin” and “desire” is so provocative that I wonder, what child would not remember it, later, as an adult?

Even more intriguing is how this conjunction exposes a disquieting reality within the Ubaid’s spiral towards unconstrained social complexity. The idea of one brother killing the other is not out of the question. Why? Such killingis an artifact that validates what the murderous brother has been telling himself.

0076 In hand-speech talk, gesture-words picture or point to their referents. So, the words cannot lie about what they refer to.

In speech-alone talk, spoken words do not picture or point to their referents. Instead, we construct artifacts that validate our projection of meaning, presence and message. We speak, and the world comes into creation. Not just any creation. Our creation. Our imagination constructs artifacts that validate our spoken words.

0077 Oh, those damned artifacts.

When fatty portions are added to a fire, the fire jumps to life.

When cabbage is added to a fire, the fire smolders.

0078 One son does not talk to himself. Instead, he praises God.

The other mutters under his breath. He complains about God’s rejection of his artifacts.

0079 The children hear a fairy tale, telling them of dangers in their upcoming lives.

The mothers hear the tragedy of two sons, where one rules over his desires and the other does not.

0080 This is one of the poisonous fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of speech-alone talk. I can create my own world through my own symbolic actions that simultaneously do not honor God and open the door to the one whose desire is for my desire.

Sin crouches at Cain’s door. It desires to speak to him.

Behold the fruits of the tree of death.