‘Genesis’ is the first book of the Hebrew and Christian canon, and as it sets the scene for the rest of Scripture, its theological importance cannot be overstated. Every Biblical book that follows is to be read through the theological and historical lens offered in its foundational narrative. The subject of this exegetical tract is the third chapter of ‘Genesis'; with significant focus on verse 3:6. Within this text the Biblical author is telling of the temptation of the Woman by the serpent, which results in the fall of man. The reason this text is so interesting is because it is the hinge on which all Salvation history is placed. It is the result of the actions in this chapter that bring about the necessity of salvation through the sacrifice of Christ. When reading ’Genesis' and getting to chapter 3 the reader will often start to wonder and begin to ask a lot of questions. Why does the serpent go after the woman? Why does Adam stay silent during the temptation of the woman? What would have happened if Adam did not take the fruit from Eve? These questions are almost impossible to completely understand and answer with confidence that they are correct. While reading into Genesis 3:6-12 and then moving forward to Romans 5:12-14 these chapters are hard to interpret and the questions cannot be answered in confidence, rather they can begin to cause some interpretive issues and in some rare cases the different commentators begin to contradict the biblical authors.
While it is important to interpret the divinely inspired words in the Bible, to better understand what God is saying, we have to realize that we will never completely be able to appreciate what point God is trying to get across. Chapter 3 in ‘Genesis’ is arguably the most important chapter in the Bible, where we are shown the reason that we needed Jesus to die on the cross for us. It is recorded in the book of ‘Genesis’ of the Bible. Shortly after being made ‘in the image of God‘ the first humans were tested. The account records an exchange with a ‘serpent’. The core of their choice, and thus the temptation, was that they could ‘be like God’. Up to this point they had implicitly trusted God for everything and taken Him at His word for everything. But now they had the choice to leave that behind, become ‘like God’, trusting themselves and taking their own word for things. That being said, interpreting these passages can cause confusion and can even be seen as interpreted incorrectly based on what we know about the Old and New Testament of the Bible. “The sin of the two has so much in common that it is practically one sin, and Adam, as the head, may be referred to exclusively as the originator of sin and the fall” (Leupold 146). Although the end result is true, Adam is referred to as the originator of sin and the fall, to say that the two sins were practically the same cannot be stressed enough. Eve being tempted by the devil is very different from Adam accepting fruit from his wife. Even though we do not know for sure the devil did not tempt Adam as well, the bible mentions nothing of the idea that Adam may have been tempted by the devil, or the serpent.
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Although interpreters cannot know for sure what is a metaphor and what is not in the bible, we have a good idea behind most of what is being said when Eve takes the fruit of the tree and gives it to her husband. However, Brisco talks about the Fall and mentions the idea that the fall of man was in some ways sexual and the fruit of the tree was just a metaphor for this impure sexuality between Adam and Eve. Again this is almost an impossible interpretation of this chapter of the bible because God told them to be fruitful and multiply. The Old testament's main theme is to be fruitful and to multiply, because it is following the creation Adam and Eve are husband and wife and should be fruitful and multiply. It might be safer to view the covering of their nakedness as an attempt to hide from each the fact that they were different and so that reminded them of God who made them that way.
Armstrong talks about how it was Eve’s first mistake was that she was even carrying on a discussion with the serpent. We are called to talk to the devil, but never to have a discussion with him. We simply and strongly tell him, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 9). My question is regarding this interpretation is does she even know that she is even talking to the devil? The reason I find this issue in the interpretation is just because if a serpent begins to talk to a person, would that not cause Eve to question it more than she did? I can not really blame Eve for talking to the serpent since this may have not even been an unnatural occurrence. “It will be hard to claim with modernists that the new testament writers saw the devil in the serpent, but that on the level of the old testament men never thought of the tempter as any other than only a serpent” (Leupold 141). The bible does not even mention the devil in the serpent until the New Testament and because of this we cannot assume that Eve really sees the serpent as the devil knowing that she should not talk to the devil.
Even Wenham unintentionally has issues with his commentary which may bring confusion to the reader who may not be able to look into these passages any other way. Wenham talks about the ‘snake’ and how his first question seems to just be innocent curiosity. This may seem as an innocent interpretation, but before this first question God clearly talks about the serpent being more crafty than any other beast. It almost seems as though Wenham is trying to defend the serpent saying that he is not lying to Eve.
Romans talks about how God died for our sins while we were still weak because God's love is greater than anything in the world. He then continues and begins to talk about the fall and how this has affected everyone who comes from Adam. Sin came to this world through one man and death through sin and death spreads to all men because all sinned. The wording of this may come as confusing ‘because all sinned’ some may take this differently and get confused about who is responsible for the fall. Some blame equally on the serpent, the woman, and Adam, and some just blame Eve, and some just blame Adam. Continuing on from who to blame for the fall of man Talbert helps also realize that “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” (Talbert 151). Where he goes next is where one can see an issue. Talbert continues by saying “All does not always mean every single individual, ‘all’ and ‘many’ are interchangeable” (151). Although eternal life is not given to everyone, by saying that all and many are interchangeable to me sounds as though he may be saying that many of the people who accept God as their savior will be saved instead of saying that all who accept God as their savior will be saved. By interpreting something as important as this, it is important to really make sure that the reader understands exactly what is trying to be said, and in this case it could cause people to think that there's a chance that they do not get saved even as a believer.
Though the Covenant relationship was initiated by way of a 'voluntary condescension' on God's part, it did stipulate as its condition 'perfect and personal obedience' on Adam's part. By virtue of Adam's sin and disobedience, the way of life and blessedness, which was promised to Adam upon condition of obedience, was closed to him and his posterity. Venema states: “However, in the covenant of grace, God graciously provides a Mediator, Christ as the 'second Adam', who fulfills all the obligations of the law of God on behalf of his people”. The New Testament emphasizes the importance of God coming to die on the Cross so much because of the fact that if we do not come to believe in Christ we will not be saved and have eternal life. Even as Talbert does not necessarily take the wrong approach to interpreting the justification for ‘all’ I feel like it is hard to interchange them in the context that it is used.
In Beale's and Carson's ‘Commentary of the NT’ use of the OT they talk about the fall, but they give other people’s opinions on who should take responsibility for the fall. They first state: “Paul makes no attempt here to trace the origin of evil behind Adam’s fall, as sometimes happens in early Jewish sources” (Beale 629). But then they continue to talk about the opinion of different Jewish sources. In the ‘Apocalypse of Moses’ ( Life of Adam and Eve ) the blame for the fall clearly rests with Eve, who appears weaker and more easily deceived than Adam (e.g., L.A.E. 9:2; 14:2; 21:2, 6; 24:1). Sirach 25:24 attributes the fall entirely to Eve: “From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die” (629). Even as this is not their exact opinion for the responsibility of the fall, the Bible clearly states that Adam is responsible for the fall of man. Just as Talbert discusses, it can be a huge issue in terms of interpreting the bible to even blame Eve for Adam. This being said, Talbert goes on to talk about the result of the fall if Adam had been with Eve the entire time. “It is likely he was not with her when she was tempted; surely if he had been, he would have interposed to prevent the sin; but he came to her when she had eaten, and was prevailed with, by her, to eat likewise” (Talbert). This is almost impossible to even talk yet Talbert says this with confidence. Who are we to say that the result of the discussion with the serpent would be any different if Adam was there talking about the tree of good and evil along with Eve. Would he have told Eve that they should not be eating from that tree? Eve pretty easily convinced Adam to eat the same fruit as her, so most likely, the serpent would not have had a hard time convincing the both of them to take the fruit from the tree to eat it together. The reason that this is so important to not interpret incorrectly is that with the introduction of the Fall of man we then can see that just as one man is responsible for the death of humans (Adam), one man is also the reason for the resurrection of man (Jesus).
The second half of Romans 5 is a summation of what is understood to be the gospel. Man’s need for a redeemer is demonstrated by the universality of sin and death, and thus man is helpless and thus requires salvation. But Christ, who is a type of Adam, has come to reverse the condition brought about by Adam. Sin is triumphed by righteousness, and death is triumphed by life. We have to think about what is going on during the time that Paul is boasting about how Jesus died for us. He is writing to the Romans in which he has never been to Rome, but he says that he would like to go sometime. He emphasizes that jesus died on the cross to save everyone that believes in him, and then goes back to talk about the fall because he wants us to realize that we are still sinners and the first Adam has brought death to the human race, but then the second Adam ‘Jesus’ has died for that sin and is going to resurrect all of those that believe in Him. The point is, Paul focuses on these subjects for a reason, and when we misinterpret these passages, based on what is going on during the time that Paul is writing this, the commentators are only causing problems for the readers and making God’s word harder to understand.
Going through ‘Genesis’ chapter 3 and ‘Romans’ chapter 5 really shows how quickly you can take one thing in the bible and take it in a direction that may make sense for some people, but could cause great confusion for others. Going through different commentaries for these passages, I see that there are very well thought out and very well written interpretations for the different verses in both the Old and the New Testament. Genesis 3:6-12 and Romans 5:12-14 are both talking about the same concept and in some ways interchangeable for different conversations between two people, but this does not mean that the interpretation of each of the verses in these chapters will be perfect and I experienced this first hand. Although many of the ideas that the authors have are perfectly in tune with my thinking of the verse, they still had many interpretations that I had issues with. Overall, we have to consider the theme behind the Old Testament and the New Testament when we are looking into the different interpretations for the bible verses.
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