May the mumbling commence!
The human story continues. Let’s continue our reading from Genesis
chapter three. Read from Peterson’s The Message:
When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of
the garden, hid from God.
God called out to the Man: “Where are you?”
He said, “I heard you in the garden and I
was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
God said, “Who told you you were naked?
Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”
The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion,
she gave me
fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”
God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”
“The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.” (Genesis 3:8-13)
Now read the same passage from the
NIV translation:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound
of the Lord God as he was walking
in the garden in the cool of the
day, and
they hid from the Lord God among
the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where
are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the
garden, and I was afraid because I was
naked; so I hid."
And he said, "Who told you that you
were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat
from?"
The man said, "The woman you put here
with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
Then the Lord
God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." (Genesis 3:8-13)
Much is the same. But interest comes in the differences. And there are a few of them.
While Peterson has God strolling “in
the evening breeze”, the NIV translation has God walking “in the cool of the
day”. I don’t know about you, but when I
think of the coolest part of the day it’s typically early in the morning. And there’s something about the temptation of
Eve and Adam that feels right if it happened at night… the time of darkness and
evil. I would rather the Peterson
translation read “in the early morning breeze”.
And Peterson underscores the
thought that the Man and the Woman were hiding from God. That’s true to the text – both the Hebrew words
and the Spirit of the text. I like the addition,
because we often try to hide from God.
And we’re just about as successful as the Man and Woman were.
I also like Peterson’s addition of
the Woman as companion of the Man. It
also is true to the text literally and spiritually.
The last difference that I noted
was the verb used in what the serpent did to the Woman. The NIV has the verb deceived, while Peterson
chose the verb seduced. I think both are
accurate. However, in this case, I
particularly like Peterson’s choice. It helps
to underscore the actual immediate consequence of eating the forbidden fruit.
Did Adam and Eve suddenly gain
important and total wisdom? No. They realized that they were naked. Naked.
Eve and Adam were seduced.
Something – knowledge – came between them and God. Knowledge was the first idol… and it’s still
one of the strongest idols today. The
verb seduce also foreshadows the connection throughout the Hebrew Bible between idolatry and adultery.
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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