The Divine Symphony: the Bible's many voices

Chapter Three - Knowing Good and Evil: God and Humanity in J’s Story of Beginnings

37 CHAPTER THREE Knowing Good and Evil: God and Humanity in J’s Story of Beginnings W HILE THE PRIESTLY TORAH, OFTEN ABBREVIATED SIMPLY as P, argues that the name “YHWH” was not known before the revelation to Moses, the J source uses the name “YHWH” in the period before Moses. It seems that the main argument between the two sources is whether there is a possibility of full divine revelation before Israel. J argues that God was fully revealed from the time of Creation, but according to P, the complete revelation did not take place before the time of Moses and the name “YHWH” is not known outside of Israel. In addition to this theological debate, there is also a great difference between the Priestly and non-Priestly conception of evil, its source and its role in the universe. We recall that the Priestly School saw evil as a primordial entity, which was not created by God and predated God’s activity as Creator . Every thing that was created by God was good and perfect . The imperfection of the universe is a result of the continuing impact of the preexistent evil elements. In J’s account of Creation (Gen. 2:4b–24), we have a completely 38 different picture. God’s Creation is imperfect. Whereas in the Priestly account, God looks at his work and sees that it is perfectly good (Gen. 1:31), J tells us that God’s first reaction to his Creation was: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). According to J, evil, and the serpent, which is the symbol of evil, were created by God. After the statement “it is not good for man to be alone,” we would expect that God would then create a mate for man, but instead he formed the beasts and birds and brought them to the man (2:19). Following the insight of the Book of Jubilees,1 we may assume that God wanted man to be aware of his loneliness by exposing him to the possibilities of companionship for him in the animal world. It is only after the absence of a mate is felt not just by God, but also by the man—“but for Adam no fitting helper was found” (2: 20)—that the woman is created. Here again, we see the difference between P and J. While in P both male and female are created at the same time as a part of the divine plan (1: 27), in J, the creation of the woman is a result of the feeling of some absence in Creation that only she could fill. Once the man and his wife are together in the Garden of Eden, they walk about the Garden naked, since they are like young children, unashamed of their nakedness (Gen. 2:25).2 In the following verse, the serpent is introduced to the story: “Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made” (3:1). Serpents (ohajb) and sea monsters (ohbhb,) are sometimes synonymous in the Hebrew Bible.3 The fact that the serpent is presented here as one of the creatures made by God should be compared to the statement in P’s account that the sea monsters were created by God (Gen. 1:21). The cunning serpent seduces the woman to eat the forbidden fruit by telling her: “You are not going to die, but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad” (3:4–5). The serpent describes the knowledge of good and evil as a divine quality. This statement is affirmed later THE DIVINE SYMPHONY 39 by God himself who says: “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad” (3:22). What is it to know good and evil and why should it be conceived as a divine quality? Immediately after eating the forbidden fruit, the man and woman become aware of their nakedness: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they perceived that they were naked” (3:7). This might lead to the thought that “knowing good and evil” implies sexual awareness.4 However, it is difficult to fully identify “knowing good and evil” with sexuality. This term was described in God’s own speech...