The Life of Man in the Time of Genesis

At the beginning of things, after creating the Earth and all the animals thereon, God created Adam in His own image. While sculpting a creature from dust and breathing life into it is not what one generally imagines when thinking of "giving birth," to say that God is the father of Adam is still relatively accurate. This analysis seems even more clear after further examination of Genesis.

Immediately after the "birth" of Adam, God sets about creating the Garden of Eden with a level of devotion usually reserved for new parents decorating a nursery. He fills Eden with all the trees that are "pleasant to the sight, and good for food," and then He sets Adam in the garden, essentially, to play in it. (KJV, Gen.2.9)

God then worries that his child might be lonely and sets about searching for a playmate-"help meet"(Gen.2.18)- for him. He brings forth all of the animals of land and air as toys before Adam, to name, understand and "have dominion over."(Gen.1.28) But these creatures are not spiritual kin to Adam, they are not of the image of God, so no "help meet" is found. So God creates of Adam a playmate for Adam and presents her to him. She too Adam names and understands after his way, and so the play-room is complete.

But when God was planting the trees of the Garden he added two that were very strange: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As every man who was once a boy knows, childhood is not all about nurseries and free lunch; childhood is also a time of rules-some of them arbitrary-a time of cookies but also of spankings. The childhood of Adam is no different. His father too lays down a firm law of conduct for him: to eat from any tree that grew except the one right smack dab in the middle of everything, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(Gen.2.17) This is the one rule that Adam and Eve must obey, and simple though it is, it is also, from their perspective, arbitrary and unexplained. God cautions them that to eat of the tree means certain death-but what do children know of death?

And so, as happens to many rules which are not understood by the people expected to follow them, God's rule was inevitably broken. One day a serpent speaks (singular event, that) to Eve about the forbidden tree, and for the first time, man is presented with a real choice. The serpent tells Eve that eating the fruit of this tree will not cause them to "surely die" as God had insisted, but quite the opposite: they "shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."(Gen.3.4-5) This is the first exposure to a point-of-view contrary to the Father's that man has even encountered. Faced with this new idea, Eve looks again at the forbidden fruit, eats of it and gives some to Adam.

The children hide from their Father, knowledgeable now that they have done wrong. But they cannot hide their misdeeds from God when their very effort at concealment only proves their guilt.(Gen.2.10-11) It is said that no crime goes unpunished, and it may be true-what is certain, however is the first punishment for the first crime as told by Genesis was a heavy punishment indeed. Adam and Eve are expelled from the easiness of Eden and forced eastward to labor with sweat and pain for the food that they eat and the children that they bear.(Gen.3.16-17) It is unclear what God's motivations for punishing them thus are, however. It may be that leaving Eden is simply a necessary consequence of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge - that one cannot live in the Garden knowing good and evil. Or it may be that the exile is designed simply to chastise Adam and Eve for their transgression. The truth of the matter is never explicitly stated, the only clue is in a statement made by God:

Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.(Gen.3.22)

Which passage would seem to imply that God exiles man from the Garden to jealously guard his own supremacy-but the text is hazy on this point.

Whatever the reason, Adam and Eve are cast out from the Garden and soon after, have children of their own. Cain is the first born son of man, a he becomes a farmer. Abel is born a little later and becomes a shepherd. Both brothers make an offering of their wares to the Lord, and Cain slays Abel in jealousy because God "respects" Abel's offering of sheep more than Cain's own offering of the "fruit of the earth."(Gen.4.3-5) God goes to Cain then and asks him where his brother is, leaving him an opportunity to confess his sin before being called out. But Cain dodges both the question and the opportunity, and God curses him to a life of fruitless labor and endless wandering. (Gen.4.11-12) Adam's son then pleads with God saying, "My punishment is more than I can bear," for he is certain that the first man he comes across will kill him outright for his misdeeds. (Gen.4.13-14) But the Lord takes pity on the world's first fratricide, and places a mark on him so that all who see him will know not to harm him lest they receive an even greater harm.

The tale of Cain is interesting in that it shows that even after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, God still took an active, paternal role in the lives of men. He punishes Cain for murdering his brother, yes, but he also shows him mercy. It may seem difficult to understand how even a father could be merciful to a son who kills his brother, but what must be kept in mind is that Cain is a special case. He cannot be judged too harshly: Abel is, after all, the first person ever to die at all. It would stand to reason then that, prior to this event, death was not particularly well understood. Cain's crime seems a gross overreaction to a minor jealousy-at least to the modern mind-but while it is evident that, at least after the fact, he knows that he has done wrong, it is quite likely that he had no basis on which to appreciate the full gravity of his act.

The first four books of Genesis paint a vivid picture of the lives of the first human beings; however, they are painted not as adults but as children. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are mere babes, reaching willful adolescence only as they reach for the forbidden fruits of the tree of knowledge. Once expelled from Eden, they and their progeny are force to work for their living, but their father does not abandon them. Still he sets them rules. Still he punishes, rewards them. Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel each live out their respective lives under the omni-present eyes of an over-protective father they call "God."