The Lost World of Adam and Eve (7 page)

We find that in both the Bible and the ancient Near East there is an inauguration ceremony that formally and ceremonially marks the transition from physical structure to functioning temple, from house to home. In that inauguration ceremony, the functions of the temple are proclaimed, the functionaries are installed and rituals are begun as God comes down to inhabit the place that has been prepared by his instruction. It is thus no surprise that in Genesis 1 we find the proclamation of functions and the installation of functionaries. More importantly, we should note that in the Bible and the ancient world, the number seven figures prominently in the inauguration of sacred space.
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If we therefore ask about the significance of seven days in the account, the biblical and ancient Near Eastern background provides the key. It is not that God decided to build the house in six days and added a Sabbath to make a theological point. We must remember that the audience of this account is Israel, not Adam and Eve. We might imagine a scenario in which Moses communicates to the Israelites in the wilderness (hypothetically, realizing that the book makes no such claims). This shift in our perspective is extremely important. Expanding on that idea, we can imagine not only a setting (Moses communicating to Israelites); we can imagine an event. As a thought experiment, let’s consider the scenario of Moses sitting down with the elders of the people on the eve of the tabernacle dedication at the foot of Sinai.

He is trying to help the Israelites understand the gravity of what is about to happen. They are ready to establish sacred space defined by the indwelling presence of God for the first time since Eden. So he explains to them that God had planned for the cosmos to be sacred space with him dwelling in the midst of his people—he had set up the cosmos and ordered it for that very purpose. He was preparing a place for them (cf. Jn 14:3). Sadly, people chose their own way, and sacred space was lost. Now, after all this time, they were going to reestablish God’s presence in their midst. In the same way, God had built the cosmos to be sacred space and then put people in that sacred space as a place where he could be in relationship with them. So, the inauguration of the tabernacle over the next seven days was going to accomplish the same thing. It is the story of sacred space established, sacred space lost and sacred space about to be regained. In this way of thinking, the account of Genesis 1–2 is an account of the origins of sacred space rather than an account of the origins of the material cosmos, and Genesis 1–3 forms an inclusio with the last chapters of Exodus.

If the period of seven days is related to the inauguration of the cosmos as sacred space, it represents the period of transition from the material cosmos that has been prepared over the ages to being the place where God is going to relate to his people.
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It has changed from space to a place. The seven days are related to the home story, not the house story—the ordering and establishing of functions, not the production of material objects.

Many have believed in the past that the seven days related to the age of the earth because they read the chapter as a house story. The age of the earth pertains to that which is material. If this is a home story, however, it has nothing to do with the age of the physical cosmos. A period of seven days does not pertain to how long it took to build the house; it pertains to the process by which the house became a home. This interpretation finds support both in the biblical text and in the ancient Near Eastern background. If accepted, this would mean that the Bible makes no claims concerning the age of the earth.

This concept of sacred space carries across to Genesis 2. In Genesis 1, we find an account of how God had created sacred space to function on behalf of humans. It does not say where sacred space is centered, only that God has ordered a place for people to call home, even though it is ultimately his place. In Genesis 2, the center of sacred space is identified, explanation is given concerning how humans will function on behalf of sacred space, and we see God interacting with people in this sacred space.
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Reading the chapters as a home story allows the emergence of rich theology that is obscured by reading the text as a house story. We learn that, even though God has provided for us, it is not about us. The cosmos is not ours to do with as we please but God’s place in which we serve as his co-regents. Our subduing and ruling are carried out in full recognition that we are caretakers. Whatever humanity does, it should be directed toward bringing order out of non-order. Our use of the environment should not impose disorder. This is not just a house that we inhabit; it is our divinely gifted home, and we are accountable for our use of it and work in it.

Proposition 5

When God Establishes Functional Order, It Is “Good”

The Hebrew word translated “good” (
ṭ
ôb
) is rendered in dozens of different ways in any given English translation. Many interpretations of the word’s implications in Genesis have been identified over the years, often with a proposed or anticipated theological significance; that being, if the word describes the state of creation prior to the fall, it may offer a glimpse of what a pre-fall world would have been like or what the creation ideal would have been. Interpreters have often concluded that in order for that world to be “good,” there must have been no pain, no suffering, no death and no predation; everything was pristine and perfect. This view sometimes assumes that new creation in Revelation 21 is a return to this state. It attributes to Adam and Eve a state of righteousness and wisdom that is only surpassed in Christ. In this way of thinking, one can infer what “good” means by drawing a contrast with the state of sin after the fall. The conclusion is that anything that is negative in our experience did not exist in that primeval world. As popular as this view is, in reality the word never carries this sense of unadulterated, pristine perfection.
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To reconsider our view, we must engage in lexical and contextual inquiry. In the lexical realm, we explore the ways the word is used throughout the Old Testament. We find many affirmations that the Lord is good (e.g., 1 Chron 16:34; 2 Chron 7:3; Ps 25:8; and many more), but these contexts do not justify the contrasts referred to in the last paragraph. They indicate that he acts in good ways in his attribute of goodness. The word is therefore describing the way he carries out his work in the world and pertains to functions rather than an abstract quality of perfection. God is perfect and good, but, as a thorough examination of its contexts demonstrates, this word does not convey that particular idea when describing anything but God.

We also find numerous passages where good is contrasted to evil (e.g., Job 30:26; Ps 4:6; 52:3), but in these contexts, “good” cannot reflect pristine perfection because we discover that in that regard, people can still be good today (e.g., Eccles 9:2). Often the word is relative (“better than”), and most commonly it is used to refer to situations and objects that people experience or perceive as good for them.

A third major semantic category for the word is to indicate that something is functioning the way it is designed to; that is, it has its role in an ordered system (Ex 18:17, not optimal functioning; 2 Chron 6:27, ordered [translated “right way” here]; Ps 133:1, well-ordered; Prov 24:23, not optimal functioning; Is 41:7, optimally functioning; and many others).

When many possibilities exist for the meaning of a word, it is not appropriate to look at the list of possibilities and just choose the one we like. Instead, we have to try to discern which nuance the context suggests that the communicator had in mind. That leads us from lexical inquiry to contextual investigation. Our best way to understand what a particular label (“good”) affirms is to ask what its negation would look like. So, in the example above about God, we might ask what would it look like for God
not
to be good. Likewise, in the context of Genesis, it would be helpful if we had a way to discover what “not good” would look like. We might think that the fall (and our present experience of the world) gives us a picture of “not good,” but the text never makes that connection. Instead, however, it
does
tell us that something is “not good”—“It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). In this we have a contextually determined direction to follow in the determination of the intended meaning.

From this usage, we would have reason to favor the concept that man’s aloneness means that the functionality of the ordered system is not yet complete. Some have wondered about this statement because Genesis 1:31 had said that everything was good. As I will propose in the chapters to follow, however, Genesis 2 is dealing with functionality at a different level.

Based on the semantic categories that are available (and recall that “perfect, pristine” is not among them) and the contextual indicators (specifically a use of a negation), I would conclude that “good” refers to a condition in which something is functioning optimally as it was designed to do in an ordered system—it is working the way God intended. A modern illustration can help clarify the nuances I am suggesting. When pilots are preparing for a flight’s departure, they have a checklist to go through to make sure everything is ready to function. All the mechanical operations are checked, and they determine that all the essential contents of the plane (food, luggage, passengers) are on board. We can imagine them going through the checklist ticking things off: “good, good, good.” In this way they conclude that the flight is ready to take off—it is all prepared to serve the needs of the passengers on the plane. I would propose that God is doing the same thing in Genesis 1—ascertaining that all systems are go and that everything is in place.

Before we conclude, we must address a few technicalities. Many have noticed that in Genesis 1, day two is not labeled as good. Fewer have noticed that the technicalities of the Masoretic assignment of accents patiently worked out according to their rankings indicate that in day five the great sea creatures (
tannînim
) are not included in the statement that “it was good.” It is not easy to decipher the significance of these exclusions. Given my interpretation of the meaning of “good,” we might consider the idea that the waters above and below remained part of the non-ordered realm and therefore would not be “good” (i.e., functioning as they were designed to do). What God sets up on day two is the control on the non-ordered world—the living space and the solid sky that exert control over the waters above.

As we recall that day five is parallel to day two, we should not be surprised to find the
tannînim
likewise relegated to the continuing realm of non-order. If the
tannînim
are chaos creatures, they are liminal to the ordered world and do not function on behalf of people. So they are not functioning in the ordered system as they were designed to do—they are in the ordered system but not of the ordered system. Returning to the pilot’s checklist, these would be the caterwauling children on the airplane—they are there within the system, but they are not on the checklist.

Those explanations would work very well except for two details in the text. First of all, we would have to account for the fact that, according to Genesis 1:31, all that God made is considered “very good.” On day two, God made the
rāqîa
ʿ
, “vault.” It would have been appropriate to label that as good in day two. The second detail is that the text explicitly says that on day five, God created (
bārā
ʾ
) the
tannînim.
Therefore, since
bārā
ʾ
indicates the defining of a role and function in the ordered system, one might conclude that the
tannînim
must therefore be good. On the other hand, they perhaps don’t need to be good just because they are in the ordered system.
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This issue requires more nuanced investigation.

If this interpretation is correct, it first of all confirms the overall interpretation that I have offered of Genesis 1: that it concerns the setting up of a functional, ordered system—the home story, not the house story. Second, it does not suggest that everything pre-fall is perfect. God has established a modicum of order adequate for our survival and for his plan to unfold. There is still a long way to go before the ultimate order of new creation is achieved. People are supposed to be part of that ordering process as vice-regents. Some non-order remains and will eventually be resolved, but the order that has been established is functional (“good”), and there is not yet disorder (for the distinction between non-order and disorder see chap. 16). This conclusion can be confirmed further by some of the other occurrences of the designation
ṭ
ôb mĕ
ʾ
ōd
(“very good”). For example, the same description is given to the Promised Land (Num 14:7), though it is filled with enemies and wicked inhabitants, not to mention wild animals who are predators.
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Consequently, we cannot deduce on the basis of this word alone that the pre-fall world could not have included pain, suffering, predation or death. We could feasibly find reason to draw such conclusions based on other statements of Scripture (and we will explore those in due time), but the mere use of the word
ṭ
ôb
does not warrant these conclusions. To assume otherwise would not be interpreting the text literally. It would be reading into the text that which is not represented in the word the author used. It would be a case of imposing our own meaning on the word with no regard to what the text was communicating. This “good” condition is not necessarily absent of experiences or situations that we perceive as negative, though sin has not yet made its entrance.

Likewise, we cannot deduce that Adam and Eve were specimens of humanity who were perfect in every way. The writings of both the rabbis and the church fathers are filled with expositions of the supreme wisdom and righteousness of these two humans before the fall. But this condition is neither insinuated in the text nor corroborated by the text, and alternative opinions are also pervasive in the history of interpretation.