1. How could the snake talk?
2. How were Adam and Eve the first humans when the first hominids were millions of years ago? What about evolution?
3. Is this story real?
4. Why does it say “the woman” instead of Chava?
5. He rules over her?? Sexist!
6. Such Harsh Punishments!?
(כ) וַיִּקְרָ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם שֵׁמ֗וֹת לְכׇל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּלְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּלְכֹ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּלְאָדָ֕ם לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ׃ (כא) וַיַּפֵּל֩ ה' אֱלֹקִ֧ים ׀ תַּרְדֵּמָ֛ה עַל־הָאָדָ֖ם וַיִּישָׁ֑ן וַיִּקַּ֗ח אַחַת֙ מִצַּלְעֹתָ֔יו וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר בָּשָׂ֖ר תַּחְתֶּֽנָּה׃ (כב) וַיִּ֩בֶן֩ ה' אֱלֹקִ֧ים ׀ אֶֽת־הַצֵּלָ֛ע אֲשֶׁר־לָקַ֥ח מִן־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְאִשָּׁ֑ה וַיְבִאֶ֖הָ אֶל־הָֽאָדָֽם׃ (כג) וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֮ הָֽאָדָם֒ זֹ֣את הַפַּ֗עַם עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י וּבָשָׂ֖ר מִבְּשָׂרִ֑י לְזֹאת֙ יִקָּרֵ֣א אִשָּׁ֔ה כִּ֥י מֵאִ֖ישׁ לֻֽקְחָה־זֹּֽאת׃
(20) And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but for Adam no helper equal to him was found. (21) So Hashem God cast a deep sleep upon the man; and, while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that spot. (22) And the Hashem God fashioned the rib that He had taken from the man into a woman; and He brought her to the man. (23) Then the man said,
“This one at last
Is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.
This one shall be called Woman,
For from man was she taken.”
(16) And Hashem God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; (17) but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”
(2) The woman replied to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. (3) It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: ‘You shall not eat of it or touch it, or else you die.’”
איזהו סייג שעשה אדם הראשון לדבריו הרי הוא אומר (בראשית ב) ויצו ה׳ אלקים על האדם [לאמר] מכל עץ הגן אכול תאכל ומעץ הדעת טוב ורע לא תאכל ממנו כי ביום אכלך ממנו מות תמות לא רצה אדם הראשון לומר לחוה כדרך שא״ל הקב״ה אלא כך אמר לה ועשה סייג לדבריו יותר ממה שאמר לו הקב״ה ומפרי העץ אשר בתוך הגן אמר אלקים לא תאכלו ממנו ולא תגעו בו פן תמותון שרצה לשמור את עצמו ואת חוה מן העץ אפילו בנגיעה. באותה שעה היה נחש הרשע נטל עצה בלבו אמר הואיל ואיני יכול להכשיל את האדם אלך ואכשיל את חוה. הלך וישב אצלה והרבה שיחה עמה אמר לה אם לנגיעה את אומרת צוה עלינו הקב״ה הריני נוגע בו ואיני מת אף את אם תגעי בו אי את מתה.....מה אמרה חוה בדעתה (אמרה חוה בדעתה) כל הדברים שפקדני רבי מתחלה שקר הם לפי שאין חוה קורא לאדם הראשון מתחלה אלא רבי. מיד נטלה ואכלה ונתנה לאדם ואכל
What is the fence that Adam made around his words? It says (Genesis 2:16–17), “Hashem God commanded [Adam]: From every tree of the garden you may absolutely eat. But from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, do not eat. For on the day you eat from it, you will surely die.” Adam the first person did not want to tell Chava in same the way that the Holy Blessed One had told him. Instead, he said this to her (thus making a fence around his words, saying more than what the Holy Blessed One had said to him): God said not to eat from the tree that is in the midst of the garden, nor to touch it, lest you die. He wanted to keep himself and Chava from even touching the tree.
So then the snake said to himself: Since I cannot make Adam stumble, I will make Chava stumble. He went and sat beside her, and began chatting with her, and said to her: If you say the Holy Blessed One commanded us not to touch it, look, I will touch it and I will not die. And even you, if you touch it, you will not die. What did the wicked snake do then? He went up and touched the tree with his hands and feet, and shook it until its fruits fell to the ground......
What did Eve think to herself? Since everything my master has told me so far has been lies – for in the beginning, Eve called Adam “my master,” so she took [the fruit] and ate it and gave it to Adam, and he ate, as it says (Genesis 3:6), “The woman saw that the tree was good for eating, for it was tempting to the eyes.”
Why did Adam think he could do this?
How did Adam relate to Woman?
How should he have related to Woman?
: אִילָן שֶׁאָכַל מִמֶּנּוּ אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן.... רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: חִטָּה הָיְתָה, שֶׁאֵין הַתִּינוֹק יוֹדֵעַ לִקְרוֹת ״אַבָּא״ וְ״אִמָּא״ עַד שֶׁיִּטְעוֹם טַעַם דָּגָן.
The tree from which Adam, the first man, ate, ......Rabbi Yehuda says: It was wheat, as, even today, the child does not know how to call his father and mother until he tastes the taste of grain.
Agriculture appeared first in Southwest Asia about 2,000 years later, around 10,000–9,000 years ago. The region was the center of domestication for three cereals (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat and barley), four legumes (lentil, pea, bitter vetch and chickpea), and flax.
(16) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; (17) but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”
"There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition, (today just three high-carbohydrate plants — wheat, rice, and corn — provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease."
(17) To Adam He said, “Because you did as your wife said and ate of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’
Cursed be the ground because of you;
By toil shall you eat of it
All the days of your life: (18) Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you.
But your food shall be the grasses of the field; (19) By the sweat of your brow
Shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground—
For from it you were taken.
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”
(16) And to the woman He said,
“I will make most severe
Your pangs in childbearing;
In pain shall you bear children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
"Farming may have encouraged inequality between the sexes, as well. Freed from the need to transport their babies during a nomadic existence, and under pressure to produce more hands to till the fields, farming women tended to have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts — with consequent drains on their health. "
What is this Story an Origin Myth for?
(5) but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know-a good and bad.”
Hierarchy is not merely a social condition; it is also a state of consciousness, a sensibility toward phenomena at every level of personal and social experience. Early preliterate societies ("organic" societies, as I call them) existed in a fairly integrated and unified form based on kinship ties, age groups, and a sexual division of labor. Their high sense of internal unity and their egalitarian outlook extended not only to each other but to their relationship with nature. People in preliterate cultures viewed themselves not as the "lords of creation" (to borrow a phrase used by Christian millenarians) but as part of the natural world. They were neither above nature nor below it but within it......
.....The vision of social and natural diversity was altered from an organic sensibility that sees different phenomena as unity in diversity into a hierarchical mentality that ranked the most miniscule phenomena into mutually antagonistic pyramids erected around notions of "inferior" and "superior." And what began as a sensibility has evolved into concrete social fact.
(14) Then the LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you did this,
More cursed shall you be
Than all cattle
And all the wild beasts:
On your belly shall you crawl
And dirt shall you eat
All the days of your life. (15) I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your offspring and hers;
They shall strike at your head,
And you shall strike at their heel.”
(כ) וַיִּקְרָ֧א הָֽאָדָ֛ם שֵׁ֥ם אִשְׁתּ֖וֹ חַוָּ֑ה כִּ֛י הִ֥וא הָֽיְתָ֖ה אֵ֥ם כׇּל־חָֽי׃
(20) The man named his wife Chava, because she was the mother of all the living.