Bible Study Moment: Genesis 3

For what I have to say about Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, I’m going to tell a story from high school.

I took German, and the first day of German 2 the teacher told us to speak only in German and the class told this story with each student adding a sentence or so to the story. It got around to Smitty at the point in the story where the people had eaten the forbidden fruit and now God was reacting. Smitty had God say, “That is a no-no.” in German of course.

And that kind of thinking about God, that God is looking for us to do wrong so he can punish us seems to be a common understanding of God. But that is not God’s first reaction. In verse 9 God calls out “Where are you?”
God’s priority is to be in relationship with us, and when we damage that relationship, God does whatever it takes to restore that relationship.

One other item, the Hebrew word for man is adam, and like in English it has many meanings, some gender specific, others referring to humans regardless of gender, sometimes singular, other times plural, and translators use context to help them decide the meaning. So even though I’m not qualified to translate the original Hebrew, thinking God is addressing all the people present when calls out “Where are you” may be accurate.

Mark Phillips