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Genesis 3 – A Chiastic Story
One of the most well-known Bible stories is the temptation and fall of man (Genesis 3:1-24). But how familiar are we with the how the story is told? To method there is meaning. Seeing how a text is organized is more than just a time consuming exercise. It helps to explain why something is included, and why it appears where it does in the text. As many people have said, context, context, context. Part of context is organization.
Abbreviated Chiasm
A – SATAN ENTERS EDEN (1a)
B – TREE OF KNOWLEDGE (1a-7a)
C – ADAM AND EVE CLOTHE THEMSELVES (7b)
D – GOD WALKS IN THE WORLD HE GAVE LIFE TO (8)
E – GOD SPEAKS TO ADAM (9-12)
F – GOD SPEAKS TO EVE (13)
G – GOD SPEAKS TO THE SERPENT – MESSIANIC PROPHECY (14-15)
F’ – GOD SPEAKS TO EVE (16)
E’ – GOD SPEAKS TO ADAM (17-19)
D’ – EVE PROVIDES LIFE IN THE WORLD (20)
C’ – GOD CLOTHES ADAM AND EVE (21)
B’ – TREE OF KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE
A’ – ADAM AND EVE EXIT EDEN (23-24)
Comments:
1) A & A’ – While I described A’ in a simple and direct way as “Adam and Eve Exit Eden” to correspond in an opposite way with A, “Satan Enters Eden;” there is a more interesting correspondence. Obviously, just from the story’s details, we are not told the serpent is Satan. The NT tells us the serpent was somehow Satan (Rev.12:9, 12:15, 20:2; 2 Cor.11:3). Whether Satan used the serpent as a puppet to speak, mystically appeared serpent-like, or incarnated himself, we are not told. So who is this tempter who is introduced into the text? Is he more than just a talking animal? Does the text give us a hint? One of the purposes of a chiasm is to explain. In A’ we have an interesting piece of information: God “stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.” As corresponding parts can have opposites, this is one. Satan is the opposite of these cherubim. And yet he is the same too. Most believe that cherubim are types of angels; and that Satan was a created angel (Job 1:6; 2 Pet.2:4). If this is true, the scene begins and ends with God’s angels, one fallen and the others sent to guard because of the fallen.
2) B & B’ – The second part shows the fulfillment of the first. While B says, “Their eyes were opened,” B’ shows Satan told the truth about the effect of this opening: man became like God. The second also part brings together again the two special trees that were first mentioned in 2:9. Access to the tree of knowledge was forbidden. When Adam and Eve broke God’s law, access to the tree of life became forbidden. The forbidden became accessed; and the accessible became forbidden. B and B’ also shows what was gained, and what was lost. Wisdom was gained, becoming like God in some small manner was gained too. What was lost was another quality that belongs to God – immortality.
3) C & C’ – Twice are Adam and Eve “dressed.” The first time is from their works, and it is inadequate. According to the story, God does not immediately provide His solution. He waits. He questions. He curses. He promises. And then finally God shows His grace. There is an unanswered question as to how God made the clothes out of animal skins. One popular theory is that animals were sacrificed. This is possible. There is no covering, no atonement, without death. Does this foreshadow Christ? Does this arrangement contrast the works of man with the work of God? What Adam and Eve did was apparently inadequate. These two parts therefore correspond in that way: Man’s works are inadequate; God’s is adequate. Man tries to cover his sin; God covers their sin.
4) D & D’ – There is only one section that doesn’t appear to correlate as well as the others, D & D’. That doesn’t mean there is no correlation, and here is a suggested possibility. God is the Creator of life who is walking among His creation. Eve takes on the role of God in this sense; she becomes the mother of all the living. This is not an impossible connection because both Adam and Eve are given the role of creators in their own image as God is a Creator in His own image (Gen.5:1-2). This is one of the advantages of seeing the chiastic arrangement. Because the other parts so naturally go together; we can see these two do too.
5) E, F, G, F’, E’ – There is a little chiasm right in the middle of the entire chiasm. This is what suggested to me the possibility of a larger chiastic structure. There could be a slight argument against this, and this is it: E, and F show God questioning Adam and Eve; while G, F’, E’ are all curses. So there is that difference. While that is true, I am suggesting the structure is not about what is in the corresponding parts; but to whom God is speaking: Adam, Eve, Serpent, Eve, Adam.
6) G – One of the tests for a chiasm being correctly organized, and more basically a test to see if the material is chiastically arranged, is the central section. If it is significant, then we have possibly seen the original central point and overall structure. The rest of the Bible is about Jesus and His people battling Satan and his legions; with Jesus and His army ultimately being victorious. So we could ask, is there any more central point to the fall than the promised victory? No. And it is right in the middle – where it should be – of the story.
What we have learned is this story is definitely chiastically arranged, and there is purpose in how it is told.
Rearranging the Chiasm
One of the ways to see the true nature of a chiasm is to rearrange it by putting the corresponding parts together. Notice how some of these flow so naturally that they could have been written back to back in a seamless manner. Others simply show correspondence.
A – SATAN ENTERS EDEN (1a) Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made.
A’ – ADAM AND EVE EXIT EDEN (23-24) So the LORD God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. (24) He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
B – TREE OF KNOWLEDGE (1a-7a) – He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” (2) The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. (3) But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” (4) “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. (5) “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (6) Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked;
B’ – TREE OF KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE (22) The LORD God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”
C – ADAM AND EVE CLOTHE THEMSELVES (7b) so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
C’ – GOD CLOTHES ADAM AND EVE (21) The LORD God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
D – GOD WALKS IN THE WORLD HE GAVE LIFE TO (8) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
D’ – EVE PROVIDES LIFE IN THE WORLD (20) Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.
E – GOD SPEAKS TO ADAM (9-12) So the LORD God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (10) And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” (11) Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ” (12) Then the man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
E’ – GOD SPEAKS TO ADAM (17-19) And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. (18) It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. (19) You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”
F – GOD SPEAKS TO EVE (13) So the LORD God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.”
F’ – GOD SPEAKS TO EVE (16) He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
G – GOD SPEAKS TO THE SERPENT – MESSIANIC PROPHECY (14-15) Then the LORD God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. (15) I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
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