The Truth is in the Whole

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021123.cfm
Genesis 3:9-24
Mark 8:1-10

There’s a story from the Cold War era about how the Russian newspapers reported the results of a sport event. The US team and the USSR team had competed the night before and the news accounts the next morning related the results as follows: “The Soviet team came in second. The Americans could do no better than next to last.”

The account was totally accurate, yet totally false. Why? Well, the US team won the contest, but only the US and the Russians were competing. So “The Soviet team came in second. The Americans could do no better than next to last.”

‘Spin’ is sometimes important when writing or reading a news account. The current political scene in the US gives ample evidence and examples of this.

Most of the time the account of Adam and Eve in Paradise is given an unfortunate spin by those commenting on it. The story goes something like this: Adam and Eve had a great set-up — free room and board, no work, all play, friendly animals! Then they screwed it up by not following the house rules. Adam had the temerity to claim he was just trying to please his wife; Eve played the dumb blond who didn’t know better. God over-reacted by not only punishing them but by kicking them out of their home. Further, He set up a strong barrier against their re-entrance and condemned them to die.

My perception — some would say ‘my spin’ — on the text is a bit different.

There’s little to dispute regarding what precipitated the fateful events that occur in the latter part of the story. Whether you see it as the resulting of eating an apple or see the apple as symbolic, the critical fact remains the same: A & E chose to do what they wanted rather than what God wanted. Not thy will, but mine be done. Who or what was behind their decision is of secondary import.

Now God being God already knew what had happened before seeking out the couple who were hiding out in Paradise. There’s no indication that he was unhappy. Rather, he had been planning on what appears to have been a customary stroll through the garden with Adam. Then, too, we should think carefully about the verses which speak of negative consequences for the man and the woman. Are these punishments in the ordinary sense of that word? 

Or, rather, are they the natural consequences of living our lives in accordance with our will rather than God’s will. Finally, we see that, in spite of what has happened, God himself makes clothes for them from animal skins. He doesn’t just kick them out of the garden, leaving them on their own, but He settles them in a place outside the garden. And finally, he protects them from an eternity of the misery that would follow from self-delusion by separating them from the tree of life.

‘Spin’ is an inevitable aspect of what we observe or read or write. For written material, the spin may come from either the writer or the reader. That’s true for Scripture just as it is for other writings. So it is that we can read this account from Genesis as “The Fall of Man” or as “God’s Abiding Love for Man Even in His Weakness.” I prefer the latter.