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Genesis

About this book

Disobedience and Expulsion from the Garden

Chapter 3

1 Now the serpent was shrewder than any of the wild animals⁠ that the Lord God had made.⁠ He said to the woman,⁠ “Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?”⁠ 2 The woman said to the serpent,⁠ “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard;⁠ 3 but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”⁠ 4 The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die,⁠ 5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God,⁠ knowing good and evil.”⁠ 6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye,⁠ and was desirable for making one wise,⁠ she took some of its fruit and ate it.⁠ She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her,⁠ and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.⁠ 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day,⁠ and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”⁠ 10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”⁠ 11 And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”⁠ 13 So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”⁠ 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and all the living creatures of the field!⁠ On your belly you will crawl⁠ and dust you will eat all the days of your life.⁠ 15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”⁠ 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains;⁠ with pain you will give birth to children.⁠ You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”⁠ 17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,⁠ ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you;⁠ in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.⁠ 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grass of the field.⁠ 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”⁠ 20 The man named his wife Eve,⁠ because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments from skin⁠ for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.⁠ 22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil,⁠ he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”⁠ 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden⁠ to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword⁠ to guard the way to the tree of life.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Adapa and the South Wind, Fragment B, lines 78–91 and Genesis 3:22

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Genesis 3 reflects earlier ancient Near Eastern traditions where human access to divine knowledge and immortality is limited. Like Adapa, humans gain insight through divine contact yet lose access to immortality, connected to the act of eating.

Passages

Adapa and the South Wind, Fragment B, lines 78–91

Ancient Near East, Babylonian
78 “Why has Ea revealed to imperfect humankind 79 the secrets of heaven and earth? 80 He has given him a bold heart. He himself has done this. 81 What can we do for him? Bring him the food of life 82 so he can eat.” They brought him the food of life; 83 he did not eat it. They brought him the water of life; 84 he did not drink it. They brought him a garment; 85 he put it on. They brought him oil; 86 he rubbed it on himself. 87 Anu looked at him and laughed. 88 “Come, Adapa, why did you not eat or drink? 89 Now you will not live! What a loss for humankind!” “Ea, my lord, 90 told me: ‘Do not eat, do not drink.’” 91 “Take him and send him back to earth.”
1400–601 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Adapa and the South Wind

Genesis 3:22

Hebrew Bible
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

References

"... In Adapa, dichotomies are employed in a subtle, sophisticated manner. In the biblical myth of the Garden of Eden, which resembles the Adapa myth in significant respects, Adam and Eve ate from “the tree of knowledge-of-good-and-bad ... The ties between these two stories were recognized already by the very first students of the Adapa text; e.g., Zimmern 1892: 397. See further, among many biblical exegetes, Speiser 1962: 27; Westermann 1984: 240ff. In their very essence, both tales recapitulate the basic human dichotomy between life and death versus the no-less-basic dichotomy between knowledge and ignorance, between awareness and innocence. Thus, the two stories resemble each other in several thematic matters, notably the shared essence of humans and gods with regard to knowledge or wisdom (Genesis 3:5, 22) ..."
Shlomo Izre’el, Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 138–139.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Adapa and the South Wind, Fragment B, lines 78–91 and Genesis 3:22

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