Genesis Chapters 2 and 3 - JSB and Brueggemann

Per the Jewish Study Bible (JSB), Judaism does not see "the fall"  in Genesis chapters  2 and 3.  The JSB claims that getting ejected from the garden and then having to work hard and put on clothes reflects real adult life. The Garden of Eden is like a child's place, where Adam and Eve don't even know they are naked.  I don't agree with this assessment of the rule violation of Adam and Eve. The world changes after this disruption in the garden.  The sin has a cosmic effect. The sin of Adam and Eve drives them away from this great place. I'm going with the the Catechism of the Catholic Church and St. Paul when it comes to original sin and the meaning of  Genesis 2 and 3.  

The garden is God's place. "They heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden." Gen. 2:8.   He sets the boundaries. He is the gardener. Adam and Eve live with him.  Here you see the personal relationship which God offers.  Skipping ahead to Christian application, this relationship provides the  joy of the spiritual life.  There is only one rule in the garden. And they can't even handle that.  Human nature craves autonomy. The serpent stokes that fire. Who is this serpent? The text does not say. And we can't  know from this chapter alone, but other Bible study indicates that the serpent is a spiritual being, here embodied.  One of the themes of this chapter is to avoid the tree of knowledge. Is this a teaching of anti-intellectualism? No. Read Gen. 1:28 (master the earth) and  Proverbs 3:18 (seek wisdom).  But believers can't get anxious about what they do not know. We too live in God's world. Will we respect his boundaries? 

Brueggemann says in chapters 2 and 3 we have the horizontal (conflict between people) and the vertical (conflict with God) which goes hand-in-hand, just as we see with Cain and Abel and in the teaching of Jesus (love God, love your neighbor).  The relationship between  Adam and Eve breaks down. This is love of neighbor - not happening. Adam blames Eve in 3:12. And we see the vertical, where Adam blames God in 3:12:   He says, "The woman you put at my side...."  Adam does not love God. He does not love his  neighbor. See Matt 22:36. Eve comes off much better, where she says in Gen. 3:13, "The serpent duped me."  And that is exactly what happened. She is  just accurately reciting what happened.  And yet fake Christians over the centuries mistreated women citing Genesis 3 as authority for a theory  claiming that from the beginning  women could not be trusted. 

Chapter 3 presents a law court scene. God the gardener becomes the questioner. And there is a judgment and a sentencing.  They were supposed to die.  Gen.  2:15. That was the law. They had been warned. But God had mercy. He even made clothes for their naked bodies. Gen. 3: 21: He "made the garments...and clothed them." Here we see the love of God, and the forgiving grace of God.  They lived. They had children.  I like what the JSB says quoting a talmudic rabbi, that the Torah begins with God clothing the naked, and it ends with him burying the dead (Deut 34:6 where God personally buries Moses). The Lord here provides the example of how we are to live- doing acts of unmerited kindness. 

For Christians Genesis 2 and 3 begins God's  "salvation history." Man has fallen away from his creator, but God is going to restore him. We see a glimpse of the restoration in chapter 3 with his mercies to these his first people. The Bible is the story of God. He is the central character. His people forsake him, over and over, starting here, but he will not give up on them. He finally wins victory over sin and death with the resurrection of Jesus. 

Source:   Walter Brueggemann,  Genesis:  Interpretation: a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (2010).