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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 Book of Opening the Mouth 5:5 and Genesis 3:5

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

In the Egyptian Opening of the Mouth ritual, a priest opens the eyes of a king's statue, the step thought to bring it to life as a god. In Genesis 3, the serpent promises that eating the fruit will open the humans' eyes and make them like God.

Passages

Book of Opening the Mouth 5:5

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Opening of the Mouth Ritual
“I have made to balance for you your mouth conformably to your teeth, O statue of king Men-Maat-Ra, the ever-living. I have opened for you your mouth, with the Leg, the Eye of Horus.” “Your mouth has been made firm. I have balanced for you your mouth conformably to your teeth, O statue of the Osiris, king Men-Maat-Ra. I have opened for you your mouth, O statue of the Osiris, king Men-Maat-Ra, the ever-living. I have opened for you the two eyes.”
1290–1279 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Book of Opening the Mouth

Genesis 3:5

Hebrew Bible
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.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

References

“... The animation of the sensory organs is one of the prime objectives of the mīs pî and the wpt-r because only then is the image fully alive and able to function properly. In the mīs pî the organ of primary emphasis was the mouth, but the opening of the eyes was an essential part of the animation process. The Babylon text mentions explicitly that the priest is to open the statue’s eye, while in the Nineveh version the opening of the eye is suggested by the repeated command to set the image’s eyes toward the rising sun. In the wpt-r the opening of the eyes with various tools and balls of natron is mentioned and depicted explicitly in multiple scenes. In some cases the ritual was even identified by its fuller title, “Opening of the Mouth and Eyes.” In the Eden story the opening of the eyes is likewise significant. The serpent claims, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened (wənipqəḥû ʿênêkem), and you will be like gods (wihyiytem kēʾlōhîm), knowing good and evil.” If the author of Genesis 2 was familiar with the pīt pî and perhaps the wpt-r, or, rather, simply the idea that the animation of the sensory organs was thought to enliven a divine statue, then his reference to the opening of the eyes and becoming like ʾĕlōhîm may have been a subtle allusion to this practice. In each case, the opening of the eyes was not only an act of animation but of divinization, or, in Gen 3:5–6, an attempt by Adam and Eve at divinization. ...”
Catherine L. McDowell, The Image of God in the Garden of Eden: The Creation of Humankind in Genesis 2:5–3:24 in Light of the mīs pî pīt pî and wpt-r Rituals of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 15 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 168–169.

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Book of Opening the Mouth 5:5 and Genesis 3:5

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