21st Century Bible Hebrew -- summary of the Gan Eden episode

Now wait a minute.

 

Adam and Chavvah have been kicked out of the garden, still mortal, but still alive. What’s up with that?

 

Well, this is where due process comes in.

 

In Jewish law, the witnesses to a transgression cannot be relatives of each other.  Adam and Chavvah are married. They can’t testify against each other.

 

They are also their own relatives. They can’t testify against themselves. Jewish law NEVER takes evidence from the defendant. Jewish trials are about whether the witnesses know what they are talking about, not about what the defendant actually did.

 

Well, what about the serpent?

 

When a transgression against Jewish law carries the death penalty, people can only testify in the case if they have tried to stop the transgression from happening. That’s community policing. If you don’t get involved, you can’t get your 15 seconds of fame by testifying.

 

So the serpent promoted the crime instead of trying to stop it, and he is not a valid witness.

 

Well, but Gd knows everything!

 

Gd is the judge. Judges cannot step down from the bench and give testimony.

 

Now here’s the kicker. These are the only characters involved. Oral narratives rarely have a lot of characters in any given episode and if a cast of thousands is needed, they are usually turned in to a group. This is the case with Yosef talking and all his brothers listening; Mosheh and Aharon talking and all the Israelites listening.  You’ll see in the next episode that more people might have been alive at the time, but this episode ignores them. There’s a good reason for that, but it’s redundant because they are Adam and Chavvah’s kids, and the issue of relatives has already been dealt with.

 

This episode also illustrates an ancient legal concept that still applies today: qal va-chomer/chomer va-qal, what western cultures call a fortiori. If Gd issued a commanment about one tree, and the people ate from it anyway, all the more so they are likely to eat from the tree about which He issued no commandment. Gd evacuates and closes off the Gan to prevent this. Nicolas Whybray wrote that he thought the second tree was redundant – but he didn’t know much about how oral narratives or legal systems work so it was almost a given that he would miss the clues.

 

Torah originated as oral narratives teaching a culture how to operate in culture-related ways.. Axel Olrik and Ronald Abrahams both knew of the Fjoort culture reciting their oral tradition in connection with legal proceedings. Neither one realized that the Fjoort were rehearsing their version of the Federal Rules of Procedure.  Which is what we have here in this narrative.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- analyzing oblique modality

Genesis 3:22-24

 

כב וַיֹּאמֶר ׀ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה ׀ פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם:

כג וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם:

כד וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים:

 

Translation:     The Lord Gd said behold the man has become like one with us knowing good and evil; but now lest he send out his hand so that he takes from the tree of life such that he eats and lives forever...

The Lord Gd sent him from the garden of Eden, for the purpose of working the earth from which he had been taken.

He completely broke with the man: He set eastward of the garden of Eden the keruvim and the flash of the sword that keeps revolving for the purpose of guarding the path of the tree of life.

This lesson has good examples of what the oblique modality is all about.

 

I’m going to point out something that ruins the work of analysts who don’t know Biblical Hebrew. a trop that helps me parse this out. Notice above elohim, yado, and ha-kruvim there is a revia. It divides that word or section from the rest of the verse. So in verse 22, it sets off the opening from what Gd actually said.

 

Then up to the point of yado, we have first, what we already know about the effect of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a proposition, that people might also eat from the tree of life.

 

There is an oblique modality after that, v’laqach gam me-ets ha-chaim v’akhal va-chai l’olam. This is what Gd believes will result if they are allowed continued access to the tree of life.

 

You will never have an oblique modality without a prior clause citing known facts. When you find vav plus perfect aspect plus subject as the only clause of a verse, you need to look at the previous text for the known information which is the basis for agreeing that the oblique modality is also going to come about.

 

The first part of verse 22 doesn’t provide that information. It only remarks that people are now “as one with Gd” knowing good and evil. The connection to a tree is several verses back, no later than verse 17.

 

There are three components to understanding any language. One is the words, of course, but only in the cultural context: I discussed that with melakhah.

 

The grammar is second, because it encodes nuances not contained in the words. This is the issue of evidentiary and certainty epistemics, the use of v’hayah, and the oblique modality.

 

But none of it works when taken out of context and that’s what we have here with this oblique modality. The immediately context of the verse is not enough to tell us why Gd thinks the people will eat from the other tree. And the entire narrative takes its information from the culture that transmitted it, as I will show.

 

And then I will do one final post about the overall  context of the narrative, which I’ve been hinting at almost from the start of this blog.

 

There’s a rabbinical saying, “Turn it over and over, you’ll never get to the end of it.” I thought I had gotten to the end of it after 20 years. Then I “met” Mr Olrik, Dr. Cook, and Rabbi Bechhofer, and I had to start all over.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:22-24, immortality

Genesis 3:22-24

 

כב וַיֹּאמֶר ׀ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע וְעַתָּה ׀ פֶּן־יִשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וְלָקַח גַּם מֵעֵץ הַחַיִּים וְאָכַל וָחַי לְעֹלָם:
כג וַיְשַׁלְּחֵהוּ יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהִים מִגַּן־עֵדֶן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר לֻקַּח מִשָּׁם:

כד וַיְגָרֶשׁ אֶת־הָאָדָם וַיַּשְׁכֵּן מִקֶּדֶם לְגַן־עֵדֶן אֶת־הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים:

    

Translation: **** Gd said behold the man has become like one with us knowing good and evil; but now lest he send out his hand so that he takes from the tree of life such that he eats and lives forever...
**** Gd sent him from the garden of Eden, for the purpose of working the earth from which he had been taken.
He completely broke with the man: He set eastward of the garden of Eden the keruvim and the flash of the sword that keeps revolving for the purpose of guarding the path of the tree of life.
 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

עַתָּה	Now, at this time
יִשְׁלַח	He put out
יָדוֹ	His hand
גַּם	also
לְעֹלָם	forever
יְגָרֶשׁ	Push out, divorce
יַּשְׁכֵּן	establish
לַהַט	flash
חֶרֶב	sword
מִּתְהַפֶּכֶת	revolves
דֶּרֶךְ	Road, path

The word hineh and its relative hen in this verse, are emphatics. They require a substantive to follow them. Why emphasize “the man”? Not at the expense of the woman, but the man as opposed to the angels, who don’t know what good and evil are. But people are not omniscient, and Gd now has a dilemma.

 

He made a prohibition on one of the two special trees, and it was disobeyed. He said nothing about the other tree. If He does, there’s a chance it will be disobeyed.

If he lets people become immortal, and they reproduce according to His orders after this, are the children going to be immortal? If not, then how are they going to know that their first ancestors were created by Gd? How do they know that their first ancestors, who are like Gd in three things, are not gods in and of themselves? And how can parents bear for their children not to be immortal? So having eaten of the tree of life themselves, why would they not feed its fruit to their children?

By the way, what this narrative does not explore is the issue of whether the children will be born knowing the difference between good and evil. I come down on the side that they will. The end result will be a population of immortals who know the difference between good and evil – but can they be trusted to always do good? Well, their parents have already disobeyed a direct commandment and so no, the descendants can’t be trusted to always choose to do good.

The only thing Gd can do in this situation is make immortality impossible for humans.

So while there are interpretations that say people would have been immortal without eating from the tree of life, I disagree.

I've been telling you about trop and I know you're wondering what those vertical bars are. On each side of such a bar, there is a word marked with a trop that connects it to the next word. But when one of them is supposed to be the end of a phrase, Torah puts in those bars in writing and during recitation the reader will read the first word, stop, and then start the next phrase.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:19-21, aspectless "on demand" verbs

Genesis 3:19-21

 

יט בְּזֵעַ֤ת אַפֶּ֨יךָ֙ תֹּ֣אכַל לֶ֔חֶם עַ֤ד שֽׁוּבְךָ֙ אֶל־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה כִּ֥י מִמֶּ֖נָּה לֻקָּ֑חְתָּ כִּֽי־עָפָ֣ר אַ֔תָּה וְאֶל־עָפָ֖ר תָּשֽׁוּב:

כ וַיִּקְרָ֧א הָֽאָדָ֛ם שֵׁ֥ם אִשְׁתּ֖וֹ חַוָּ֑ה כִּ֛י הִ֥וא הָֽיְתָ֖ה אֵ֥ם כָּל־חָֽי:

כא וַיַּ֩עַשׂ֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים לְאָדָ֧ם וּלְאִשְׁתּ֛וֹ כָּתְנ֥וֹת ע֖וֹר וַיַּלְבִּשֵֽׁם:

 

Translation:     In the sweat of your face you shall eat food, until your returning to the earth, because from it you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return.

The man named his wife Chavvah, because she was the mother of all life.

**** Gd must have made for Adam and his wife cloaks of skin and dressed them.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

זֵעַת	Sweat (construct state)
לֶחֶם	Bread, food
שׁוּבְךָ	Your returning
אֵם	mother
כָּתְנוֹת	cloaks
עוֹר	skin
יַּלְבִּשֵׁם	Dressed them

 

Notice the aspectless structure shuvkha. The timing doesn’t matter; any time a person dies, he decays into dirt. Aspectless verbs are used for actions that happen upon demand; in law, it becomes commandments that go into effect when needed, not at scheduled times, but when circumstances demand it.

 

Notice the qual agentless structure ki memenah luqachta. This throws the emphasis onto the fact that man was shaped from the ground, and that feeds back into the et with the segol in Genesis 2:7. It also feeds into the phrase ki-afar; man’s essence is dust.

 

Notice that the only situation in which the first verse can be about baked bread, is if you assume that this episode has to do with agriculture. If you don’t understand that hunter-gatherers sweat while hunting and gathering, try it some time as a lifestyle. If you don't realize that people were gathering wild grain with sickles made for the purpose before 20,000 BCE, while agriculture began about 10,000 BCE, you need to catch up on your archaeology.
 

Adam and Chavvah still have not died.