In the following, I shall advance the thesis that the story of Adam and Eve is built upon a common domestic issue. The story illustrates the parental admonition that young people should not engage in sex just because they have reached the age that allows them to do so. I also maintain that the literary genre of the work is an allegory where persons and places are symbolic. The allegory probably stems from Israel’s wisdom tradition which produced the allegory in found in Qoheleth 12:1ff. Also, the sexual content of the story is a topic that the wisdom tradition addressed as shown by the Song of Songs and by the book of Proverbs.
We begin with the plot development in which the couple move from not knowing to knowing they are naked. Not knowing that they were naked is how the narrative describes the innocence of childhood. Young children are not ashamed of nakedness. Accordingly, Yahweh plays the role of a parent, instructing his children in what to avoid.
What about the tree of the knowledge of good and bad? The meaning of the phrase, “good and bad” seems to hold the same meaning as it does with regard to a certain Barzillai:
I am now eighty years old; can I tell the good from the bad? Has your servant any taste for his food and drink? Can I still hear the voices of men and women singers? Why should your servant be a further burden to my lord the king? (2 Sam 19:36)
Barzillai’s problem is that his sense of taste and hearing are dulled due to old age. Understood in this way, the primordial pair and Barzillai are the same. Old age is a kind of second innocence. Knowing good and bad describes sexually active adult life that occurs between youthful innocence and desensitized old age. It also describes God, for to be like God is to know good and bad. The transition from childhood to adulthood is also described as “being wise” as opposed to being naive, a contrast that is often drawn in Proverbs.
The snake, perhaps originally thought to be a lizard with legs, symbolizes Adam’s phallus with an erection, erect as the serpent originally was. Eating of the tree of knowledge represents intercourse. That a fruit should represent this is shown by the erotic image fruit has in the Song of Solomon. After eating the fruit, the couple are found to have acquired carnal knowledge, instantly changed from innocent, virgin children to into sexually active “adults.” Their punishment for “not waiting” is described in terms of teenagers forced to premature parenthood. Adam will have to get a difficult job to support his family and Eve will become pregnant and will have the bear the pains of childbirth and bear the responsibilities of motherhood. Furthermore, they have now become mortal, subject to death. It is this motif that lifts the story to a “cosmic” level. As for the tree of life and its celestial guardian, this appears to be an addition to the story as is the insertion of the description of the four rivers thought to flow from Eden.
We begin with the plot development in which the couple move from not knowing to knowing they are naked. Not knowing that they were naked is how the narrative describes the innocence of childhood. Young children are not ashamed of nakedness. Accordingly, Yahweh plays the role of a parent, instructing his children in what to avoid.
What about the tree of the knowledge of good and bad? The meaning of the phrase, “good and bad” seems to hold the same meaning as it does with regard to a certain Barzillai:
I am now eighty years old; can I tell the good from the bad? Has your servant any taste for his food and drink? Can I still hear the voices of men and women singers? Why should your servant be a further burden to my lord the king? (2 Sam 19:36)
Barzillai’s problem is that his sense of taste and hearing are dulled due to old age. Understood in this way, the primordial pair and Barzillai are the same. Old age is a kind of second innocence. Knowing good and bad describes sexually active adult life that occurs between youthful innocence and desensitized old age. It also describes God, for to be like God is to know good and bad. The transition from childhood to adulthood is also described as “being wise” as opposed to being naive, a contrast that is often drawn in Proverbs.
The snake, perhaps originally thought to be a lizard with legs, symbolizes Adam’s phallus with an erection, erect as the serpent originally was. Eating of the tree of knowledge represents intercourse. That a fruit should represent this is shown by the erotic image fruit has in the Song of Solomon. After eating the fruit, the couple are found to have acquired carnal knowledge, instantly changed from innocent, virgin children to into sexually active “adults.” Their punishment for “not waiting” is described in terms of teenagers forced to premature parenthood. Adam will have to get a difficult job to support his family and Eve will become pregnant and will have the bear the pains of childbirth and bear the responsibilities of motherhood. Furthermore, they have now become mortal, subject to death. It is this motif that lifts the story to a “cosmic” level. As for the tree of life and its celestial guardian, this appears to be an addition to the story as is the insertion of the description of the four rivers thought to flow from Eden.
