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Genesis 2-3 – Headship Usurped

In another section we saw how Genesis 1-2 are not contradictory, but rather are complementary. How does Genesis 2 relate to Genesis 3?

To begin let’s ask, “What happens in Genesis 3?” If we answer, “Sin and death enter the world,” we are correct. If we say, “The serpent tempts Eve”, again that is accurate. But both of those focus just on Genesis 3. Too often that is how we approach Genesis 3 (because of chapter divisions), and such an approach is half the story.

Let’s ask the same question somewhat differently: What happens in Genesis 3 compared to Genesis 2? To help focus where this is going, Genesis 3 is to Genesis 2 what Genesis 2 is Genesis 1. They are “fraternal twin stories”: the same but different even opposite. While Genesis 1 and 2 tell the same creation story from opposite perspectives (geocentric versus androcentric); in many ways Genesis 3 parallels chapter 2 in language, people, topics, all the while diverging into opposites, resulting in turning chapter two upside down.

To illustrate how these two chapters are a literary unit, notice these unique aspects:

  • The word garden/gan: 2:8,9,10,15,16; 3:1,2,3,8,10,23,24
    • The only other time this word appears in Genesis is 13:10 which compares the land Lot chose to “the garden of the Lord”.
  • The word Eden/Eden: 2:8,10,15; 3:23,24.
    • The only other time this word appears in Genesis is 4:16 which references Cain living “east of Eden”.
  • The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is only mentioned in these two chapters: 2:9,17; 3:3,4,5,6,11,12,13,17
    • Although in Genesis 3 the reference is not by name: “the tree in the middle of the garden” (3:3); “the tree I command you not to eat from” (3:11).

Obviously just as the two creation narratives complement each other, Genesis 2 and 3 complete each other and must operate as one narrative consisting of two parts. In a way, Genesis two is not so much a creation narrative as it is a narrative about the Garden of Eden. And that is how it fits in with Genesis 3.

  • Chapter 2 – God’s Structure in Eden
  • Chapter 3 – Man’s Disorder in Eden

Let’s discover what is really happening in Genesis 3 when compared to Genesis 2. We’ve already noticed the unique words shared, let’s now focus on common phrases and words:

Notice the parallels:

  • “to work/abad the ground/adamah” (2:5); “to work/abad the ground/adamah” (3:23)
  • “Plants/eseb of the field/sadeh” (2:5); “Plants/eseb of the field/sadeh” (3:18)
  • Adam comes from the ground/adamah (2:7); Adam comes from the ground/adamah (3:23).
  • The repletion of ground/adamah: 2:5,6,7,9,19; 3:17,19,23.

Notice the word plays (puns):

  • Man comes from the ground/adamah (2:7); man is named Adam/adam (3:17).
  • The human couple are naked/arom (2:25); the serpent is cunning/arum (3:1).
  • Adam becomes a living/chay being; Eve is the mother of all the living/chay (3:20).
  • Life begins: “breathed into his nostrils/aph” (2:7); life sustained: “by the sweat of your face/aph” (3:19).
  • Mist waters the surface/panim of the ground in the garden; Adam and Eve hide from the presence/panim of the Lord in the garden (3:8)

Having established these two chapters are one story, let’s start seeing how they are opposites of one another. Notice the overturning:

  • Ground grows/tsamach food (2:5,9); Ground grows/tsamach thorns and thistles (3:18).
  • Adam comes from the dust/aphar (2:7); to Adam returns to the dust/aphar (3:19).
  • Adam comes from the ground/adamah (2:7); to Adam returns in the ground/adamah (3:19).
  • Adam comes from the dust/aphar (2:7); to the serpent will eat dust/aphar (3:14).
  • The garden where man is put is planted in the east/qedem (2:8); when God drives them out of the garden, He stations the cherubim east/qedem (3:24) of the garden.
  • Enter Eden (2:15); exit Eden (3:23).
  • Nakedness is associated with innocence (2:25); nakedness associated with shame (3:10).

David Clines observed:

“In ch.3 the relationship of harmony between each of these pairs [man and soil,

man and animals, man and woman, man and God, all in chap. 2] is disrupted. The communion between God and the man who breathes God’s breath (2:7) has become the legal relationship of accuser and defendant (3:9ff); the relationship of man and woman as “one flesh” (2:24) has soured into mutual recrimination (3:12); the bond of man (adam) with the soil (‘adamah) from which he was built has been supplanted by ‘an alienation…’ (3:17 ff.); the harmonious relationship of man with beast in which man is the acknowledged master (2:19 ff.) has become a perpetual struggle of intransigent foes (3:15)” (David J. A. Clines, 75).

The center of this two-part narrative is when 2 & 3 are taken together contains a play on words, Chapter 2 ends with the human couple naked/arom. Chapter 3 begins with the serpent is crafty/arum. There is a flipping of meaning from innocent to cunning.

These are not the only things flipped or turned upside down. From a story-telling perspective, Genesis 3 is flipping the order and structure of creation, of Adam and Eve themselves:

  • First Adam is on the scene then Eve (2); to Eve is first mentioned then Adam (3).
  • Adam leads the animals by naming them (2:19-20); an animal leads Eve into temptation (3:1).
  • Adam leads Eve by naming her woman (2:23); Eve leads by eating first and then giving to Adam (3:6).
  • Adam speaks with Eve silent (2:18,19,23); Eve speaking with Adam silent (3:2-3,17).

Seeing how teaching, speaking, and authority all get flipped helps us better understand the reference of Paul in 1 Timothy 2. This should also help us interpret “and he will rule over you” (3:16) as not referring to a flipping of roles where both had the same functional equality in roles, but rather God correcting what when wrong: Eve had ruled Adam.

Having already seen how headship is taught in Genesis 1-2, let’s see three ways how Adam’s missing headship is corrected within Genesis 3:

  1. God speaks to Adam first and last even though Adam and Eve were together (3:8). This implies God is holding Adam more responsible (which is how Paul approaches it in Romans). This can be arranged chiastically:

A – God Speaks and Adam Speaks (3:9-12)

B – God Speaks and Eve Speaks (3:13)

C – God Curses the Serpent (doesn’t speak) (3:14-15)

B’ – God Curses the Woman (doesn’t speak) (3:16)

A’ – God Curses the Man (doesn’t speak) (3:17-19)

  1. God corrects Adam for “listening to” Eve (3:17).
  2. Adam assumes headship again as he did in chapter 2 and again names his helper, this time Eve (3:20).

To further solidify that these are the same story (i.e., The Garden of Eden Pericope), and how the second half is a reversal of the first, we can see how the whole is organized chiastically.

There is a hint in the first verse of this narrative (Genesis 3:4-3:24) that we should look for a chiastic structure:

Genesis 2:4 (ASV)

A – HEAVENS AND EARTH: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth

B – CREATED: when they were created,

B’ – MADE: in the day that Jehovah God made

A’ – EARTH AND HEAVEN: earth and heaven.

  • Notice the double reversal: 1) Chiasm; 2) heavens and earth to earth and heaven
  • According to (above), this is a hint of “the Great Reversal” that is coming.

In a brief chiastic structure, David A. Dorsey shows that these two chapters are really one story:

A – CREATION OF MAN: his happy relationship with the earth and his home n the garden, where he has freely growing food and access to the tree of life (2:4-17)

B – CREATION OF WOMAN: – her happy relationship with man (2:18-25)

C – SERPENT: in conversation with woman, tempts her (3:1-5)

D – CENTER : THE SIN AND God’s uncovering of it (3:6-13)

C – PUNISHMENT OF SERPENT: Its spoiled relationship with woman (3:14-15)

B – PUNISHMENT OF WOMAN: her spoiled relationship with man (3:16)*

A – PUNISHMENT OF MAN: his spoiled relationship with the earth and expulsion from his home in the garden; he will now have to toil to secure food and will no longer have access to the tree of life (3:17-24)

(David A. Dorsey, The Literary Structure of the Old Testament, p.50)

*As discussed above, I do not take the position that “he will rule over you” to refer to a change in the relationship of husband and wife.

An extended chiastic structure is seen in a paper entitled, “The Great Reversal” (https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/01-genesis/text/articles-books/stefanovic_gen2_auss.pdf)

  1. CREATED AND SETTLED (2:5-8)
  2. Innocent, carefree life: no toil, no plants, no rain
  3. Streams water the ground
  4. No man to work the ground
  5. Through breath becomes a living forever
  6. God plants a garden in the east
  7. The man settles in the garden
  1. BLESSINGS AND ORDER (2:9-17)
  2. Trees and plants pleasing to eye and good for food planted in the grow out of the ground in the garden (sic.)
  3. Blessings related to a river and its four head-waters
  4. Havilah’s 3-fold blessing: gold, resin, onyx
  5. The man to work in the garden and care for it
  6. On the day man eats he will die

C.WOMAN CREATED (2:18-23)

  1. God’s concern: Man is alone
  2. The man needs a helper
  3. God provides a helper
  4. Man’s lordship over
  5. All animals in harmony with man
  6. Woman taken from the man
  7. Man’s admiration for the woman
  8. Happy intimate relationship

A’. JUDGED AND EXPELLED (3:22-24)

  1. The man knows good and evil
  2. The man’s responsibility increased
  3. There is a man to work the ground
  4. The man is prevented from eating being the tree of life and living of the tree of life and living forever
  5. God places cherubim in the east
  6. The man expelled from the garden

B’. CURSES AND DISORDER (3:14-21)

  1. Thorns and thistles grow out of the
  2. Curses related to four subjects: animals, woman, man, ground
  3. Serpent’s 3-fold curse: being cursed, crawling on belly, eating dust
  4. In sweat the man tills the cursed ground and eats of it
  5. Verdict: Return to the dust

C’. WOMAN TEMPTED (3:1-13)

  1. Man hides from God who still looks for him
  2. Together with helper, man is helpless
  3. The man blames his helper
  4. Man is afraid, naked, hiding
  5. An animal deceives the man
  6. Woman takes fruit and gives to man
  7. Woman’s admiration for fruit
  8. Fear and shame of naked body

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This entry was posted by on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 at 10:05 am and is filed under Bible, Genesis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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